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Showing posts with the label Ubuntu

Ubuntu AMR Codec

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What a PITA. I have a cool smart phone that takes video, and can't get audio to work in Ubuntu , since Intrepid and Jaunty don't appear to come with AMR codecs compiled in ffmpeg , or gstreamer. Now, you can try to compile your codecs from source, and I've certainly done this sort of thing before; I can build my own kernel (In the days BEFORE xconfig), run Slackware/Gentoo, etc. This just didn't work for me. BUT, there is an easy solution. YOUTUBE.COM Image via CrunchBase That's right. Upload your video to YouTube , wait for it to process, and download the resulting MP4 from the My Videos area of the control panel. Presto, you've got your audio converted to something usable in short order.

Switch your mail reader to Thunderbird....NOW!

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Please don't wait. I'm usually not one to step on a soap-box to promote a product (steps down...) but this is a good one, one which many already know about and use. I used to be a heavy Evolution user. Dunno why I initially made this decision, only that it came installed on my Ubuntu Jaunty install as the default email client with the Gnome UI . I started having some issues with it recently, where the retrieval of my POP3 or sending mail caused it to hang. I read a few bug reports and posts related to clearing out temporary ~/.evolution files, but this really never worked very well, as the issues always reappeared. The last straw was not being able to expunge the Trash bin , and after a little bit of playing, decided I needed to migrate my mail to something else. I figured since I already used Firefox , I might just as well take the Thunderbird plunge. Boy, was I glad I did! It was a snap using these directions, " How To Migrate From Evolution To Thunderbird In Ubunt...

Automating Repetitive Twitter Tasks Using Linux

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First, I realize this is going to generate some issues for some, since Twitter 's use is primarily for micro-blogging , keeping connected with others, but some have been using it for other various reasons. Image via CrunchBase I think the producing backlinks (which really doesn't work as far as Google is concerned...but I digress) and driving website traffic are two good examples, and these are what I've been investigating with a couple of accounts at Twitter. One of those accounts is @zippydpinhead . I picked on him because I used to read Zippy the Pinhead comic strips in HighTimes magazine in my early 20's and thought it was...*dude*...*funny*...*cough**cough*... I primarily use Ubuntu for my workstation these days, but have used Linux for years on the desktop and in small enterprise. My experiments were first to see if automation worked. Fortunately we have curl and a multitude of posts on the subject floating about the internet. My zippy character posts several...

Canon iR C2880 Debian UFR and Postscript drivers

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I've always disliked the fact that I couldn't print to our Canon iR C2880 in color. It's not got the postscript option, which had I known how difficult it would have been for non- Windows PC's to use it, I would have investigated that option. They advertise the fact that the folks at Codehost, Inc. make a product called BrightQ that will print to these machines, but I never got it working well on my SuSE distribution . Image via Wikipedia I just recently updated my desktop from SuSE Linux Desktop Enterprise 10.1 to Ubuntu 9, and I've not been more pleased, but STILL couldn't print in color to our Canon...until now. I found a thread about this subject here where a kind soul named Andy informed the board that Canon Australia released Linux UFR and Postscript drivers in Deb, RPM, and source  (link updated 7/29/2013)! According to the documentation, the following Canon printers are supported: LBP3360 LBP3370 LBP3460 LBP5360 Image via Wikipedia ...