Peng’s links for Thursday, 17 December

Sorry about not posting a links post last week (or two). I’m going to include some of the links I found because they’re still beneficial even a week (or two) after they were published.

• Stephan Peijnik: How to copy partitions under GNU/Linux the easy way. I may not be the only one hoping to find a new hard drive under the Chrismukkuh tree next week, and you may need a way to transfer your data off a dying drive, or even just a smaller one, to a new one. Stephan has a very easy way to accomplish the task. And he has the added benefit of spelling his name the right way. Just ask my son Stephen.
• Launchpad News: Getting the most from bug mail. Filing bugs is an important part of being a member of he open source community, but sometimes the follow up emails may not seem to be giving you much value for your time. The Launchpad team has some information that may help you make the most of your bug reporting work while taking up less time out of your busy days.
• Chromium Blog: Extensions beta launched, with over 300 extensions! I know this post is just over a week ago, but if you don’t know that there is an official home for extensions for Google’s Chrome browser and its open source sibling Chromium then you should definitely check out this post. It’s not as easy to surf as Mozilla’s addon site but they have a lot of very helpful extensions to help you use Chrome or Chromium as your new default web browser. To make things even better, Google Chrome for Linux is now available for beta testing.
• Panji Nushantara: How To Use Google Public DNS or OpenDNS in Ubuntu 9.10. If you find that your ISP’s Domain Name System lookups are slower than you find on other systems you can try a pair of public DNS services. Panji makes it easy with step-by-step instructions and screenshots.
• Rick Spencer: And Do it Begins. We can no longer say that there are no malware threats to Ubuntu users. Luckily the news isn’t nearly as bad as you may think from that last sentence. Kees Cook follows up on Rick’s article with a very simple bit of advice: “As quickly pointed out by Rick, don’t install random software that isn’t in the official distribution archive unless you really know what you’re doing (and copy/pasting commands from a website doesn’t count). You’re just asking to be made part of a botnet.” You’re damned Skippy, Kees.
• Juanje Ojeda: Is GNOME 3.0 for users or developers? GNOME Shell is being mentioned as one of the cooler things in the upcoming 3.0 release of the GNOME desktop environment but Juanje looks at the important question of who are the new features designed for?
• Andrew Cowie: Get your icons back. Have you lost the icons on your dialog buttons? Some people prefer a plain text look to their buttons but some don’t. Andrew has information on on why it changed and how to get them back if you prefer seeing them.
• The Fridge: LoCo Directory. The official Ubuntu Local Community (LoCo) Directory is now online! If you’re a part of a LoCo make sure your information is accurate, and if you’re able please help get it translated so even more people can make use of it.
• Launchpad news: Showing the number of affected users. Launchpad has long allowed you to say if a particular bug affects you, but you can now see how many of your fellow users have been bitten by the same bug. That is one nice feature they’ve added.
• Martin Owens: Anime Boston: First Goal Reached. Back on the third I included a link to Danny Piccirillo’s article about efforts to get Ubuntu represented at Anime Boston. Martin has some very good news for us about the plans.
• Robert Ancell: The demise of the function key. If you’re like me you often use function keys to do things without having to wade through menu after menu to do something. Unfortunately many keyboards are re-purposing those very keys, if they include them at all. That’s not just bad news for users, it’s bad for developers as well.
• Tom Dryer: Setting up Ubuntu 9.10. Tom has finally gotten Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala on his system and he shares some tricks he used to get it to run better. He’s also got screenshots of a damned nice theme that he uses.

I hope you’re all getting things ready for Chrismukkuh. Rather than add to the holiday post I wrote last Saturday Nanci and I have been adding some vids to her stickied holiday video post. If you’re still looking for some great holiday wallpaper you should check out the offerings over at blirk.net. You can also check out the posts in the Delicious December 2009 Screenshot Thread over on the Ubuntu Forums. And speaking of Chrismukkuh posts, I have one more link to share with you all before I hit Publish:

• Collin Pruitt: Christmas Online. Collin has some sites to help you make the most of your holiday. And if you’re more of an anti-Chrismukkuh person you should definitely check out the official YouTube channel for Foamy the Squirrel and all the folks over at iLL WiLL PrEss.

Peng’s links for Thursday, 3 December

I know I promised to try to do a links post each week but last week I was only able to post a few specific articles so since I actually have a little time this afternoon (I will not ask how that happened) and thought I’d post some of the links I’ve found in the last couple of weeks.

• Melissa Draper: How people get involved. A great little piece on getting involved in the Linux and open source community.
• Bodi.Zazen: Firewall Ubuntu Desktops. Windows users have gotten use to the idea that they should always use a firewall on their system (at least I hope they have). While it isn’t quite as vital on a GNU/Linux system due to the better inherent security some users still want to use a firewall, but it can be a bit of a pain in the posterior. Bodi has a nice, easy to follow article on using a firewall on Ubuntu.
• Danny Piccirillo: Can Ubuntu reach over 16,000 anime lovers in April? Danny and the Ubuntu Massachusetts LoCo Team have been busy getting ready to make sure people at next April’s Anime Boston know not only about Ubuntu but also about the Ubunchu! manga. If you haven’t been enjoying Ubunchu! yet the third episode has just come out so it’s a great time to get caught up. You can also check out Martin Owens’ interview on BBC Radio for info on Ubuntu, Ubunchu mange and Anime Boston.
• Roderick B. Greening: Copy playlist files to your Media player in Amarok. How is it that Amarok 2 doesn’t have a way to create a playlist and move it to your favorite digital media player? Actually that’s not true anymore, because Roderick has found a way to do it via Amarok scripting. I do believe Amarok may have just gotten even better, but I haven’t been able to get it running on my Ubuntu box since I moved to 9.10. I may have to look to see if the issue preventing me from using Amarok 2 has been resolved yet.
• Panji Nushantara: Guide to Karmic Koala (PDF). Panji has yet another great post for us as he tells us about a free PDF book with “almost everything you should know about Ubuntu, from partitioning to tweaking Ubuntu.” He’s right, it is a must have, and you don’t even need to shell out hard-earned money to get a dead tree edition of this great resource.
• Julian Andres Klode: Ubuntu Software Center coming to Debian. While it’s not universally loved, enough people love the graphical Software Center that it has been added to Debian unstable. I have to admit that while I usually use Synaptic for adding new apps I do use the USC now and then. I use it often enough, in fact,that I set up an alias for it in Gnome Do so I can launch it even more easily.
• Christopher Blizzard: why open video? Some people wonder what the big deal is about open video and why it’s important. Christopher has found a video that answers these questions quite nicely.
• Artem Nosulchik: 13 Linux lethal commands. There are commands that you should never, ever run in GNU/Linux. Artiomix has compiled a list of what they are and why you should avoid them like the plague. This article deserves to be added to your bookmarks so you can include them in your permanent reference collection.

Before I close out this post I have one more thing to share with you. A number of users of GNOME’s Evolution email client have been bitten by Launchpad Bug 27014: Summary and folder mismatch, even after a sync. You know you’re affected by it if you switch folders and get an error saying something like

Error while Storing folder ‘Inbox’.

Summary and folder mismatch, even after a sync

Zoran Mijanovic posted a possible fix for the problem.

Just delete file “folders.db” from ~/.evolution/mail/local and start “evolution”. In the first time the evolution needs more time to rebuild folders.db. After that, everything works fine.

If you have this problem you should try his solution to see if it resolves the issue for you.