Snagging videos in Firefox more easily

Last year I finally got tired of the Firefox bloatware and made the switch to the GNOME project’s Epiphany web browser, although I kept the Fox around for those rare times that I simply couldn’t do in Epiphany, or at least couldn’t do that easily. One of the tasks that I kept Firefox for was downloading videos. While Epiphany does have a very nice extension for downloading videos it simply isn’t as robust as the Video DownloadHelper extension for the Fox. Not only does the Firefox extension let you prefer high quality YouTube videos and even pick which high quality vid you want to use if there are more than one available, it is also smart enough to use the video name from YouTube.

Disclaimer: This tutorial is solely intended to help you enjoy Flash videos when your system runs slowly enough to make you want to view it in a desktop video player like Totem. It is written purely for your own personal entertainment and not to help you download videos for the purpose of sharing them with others. Remember, if you find a video that you just have to share with someone you should send them the URI. That way the hosting web site gets to see how popular their video is.

My problem is that while I can enjoy videos in Epiphany the Flash plugin ends up making the video stutter, which can be a royal pain in the arse. This is especially annoying when I’m trying to enjoy highlight videos from Dodgers games so I tend to save those to my hard drive and simply fire them up in Totem. Unfortunately Epiphany’s extension doesn’t know how to snag videos from mlb.com, or the videos from my local CBS affiliate (I tend to snag video weather reports for my E100 so I can watch them when I’m away from my comp) so getting vids from either site sends me to Firefox. For some reason the Video DownloadHelper knows how to grab vids from both of those sites so until I can help port that info to the Epiphany extension I’ll have to turn to the Fox to help me watch them.

The problem comes when you try to download a video from these sites because there’s no descriptive name affiliated with the video’s filename, so even if you have that option selected for YouTube videos when you try to download the video you get what is shown on the right. (All images on this post will open in a new tab/window so you won’t keep having to use the Back button to get back to this post.) If you only want to snag a single vid it’s no problem but if you want to get at least a pair of vids you end up having to rename the vids yourself.

Today I found a way to get the name set for sites that don’t have a setting for knowing where the video name is located. The very first thing you will need to do, once you have the extension installed, is to enable the option in the preferences. If you have an icon visible simply right click the icon and select Preferences. Now go to Capture > Smart Naming and check the box for Enable Smart Naming.

Close out the Preferences window and select the name of the video as it’s shown on the webpage. Right click the selected text and select Smart naming > Define media title location. You’ll see a dialog pop up where you simply need to confirm that the text listed as the Value for this page is the same as the title you want to assign to the video. This is perfect for those times when you inadvertently select the entire text, and you need to add a letter or so to the beginning or end to the Value. Once you have it matching the text on the web page simply click on OK.

Now when you use the icon to select which video you want to save you get a much more informative filename.

The best part is that every time you visit the page the extension now knows where to look to get the video name, and if you look at multiple videos before deciding to grab one it’s a piece of cake to tell exactly which video you want.

Unfortunately this won’t work on all sites, as I found when I tried to get the latest weather forecast. The bottom line is that if you can’t select the text it won’t work since the function relies on having HTML code to look at rather than text with a Flash application as my local CBS affil uses.

HOWTO: Grab your favorite YouTube vids in Epiphany

It’s bound to happen every now and then. Your surfing through the videos on YouTube, marking some of them as Favorites and putting some on playlists to share with others. But every one in a while (or more often), you find a vid that you absolutely love and wish you could snag for your hard drive so you can always have it handy for when you want to watch it again.

Firefox users have the VideoDownload Helper extension to save and even convert your favorite vids. But perhaps you’re like me and prefer to use GNOME’s Epiphany web browser. Except although Epiphany is based on Mozilla’ s Geko rendering engine,  you can’t simply install Firefox extensions into Epiphany. Luckily there are quite a few extensions for Epiphany (as well as third-party extensions, as well as unofficial extensions) and one of them is Adam Schmalhofer’s Video Downloader extension.

While it isn’t as flexible as the Firefox extension, Adam’s extension brings a much needed ability to Epiphany. The first thing you will need to do is make sure you have Clive installed (install via apturl), as Clive does the heavy lifting of downloading and converting the video for you. Once Clive is installed snag the files for the Video Downloader from Adam’s brzr repository (yes, you can simply grab the files from the page I linked to). The main files you need are video-downloader.ephy-extension and video-downloader.py, but you can grab the other files if you want. I strongly suggest grabbing the README file (or README.it if you speak Italian).

Once you have the files downloaded, move (or copy) the files to ~/.gnome2/epiphany/extensions and launch Epiphany. You can move the files into that folder while Epiphany is running, but I recommend at least closing and relaunching Epiphany when installing any extensions. Now, before we enable the extension there is one thing that absolutely has to be done. Get into your Preferences window by running Edit > Preferences from within Epiphany. Even if you want Epiphany to ask you where to save your downloads each time, this extension requires that you have a location specified. Click the box for Automatically download and open files and select the location where you want Video Downloader to save the videos for you. If you want to be prompted where to save your other downloads then simply clear the checkbox once you make your selection. I decided to use the same folder that the Firefox extension uses, simply to keep things simpler. Unfortunately Video Downloader is unable to ask you where to save each video you download with it, so you have to set this preference via the Preferences dialog, but hopefully it will come in a later version of the extension.

Once you have the files in the proper folder (~/.gnome2/epiphany/extensions), you have Clive installed, and you have selected where the downloaded videos should go, it’s time to enable the extension itself. Simply go to Tools > Extensions and check the box for the Video Downloader extension. Once it’s checked you’re ready to start downloading.

Go to the page for your favorite YouTube video, and once the page is finished loading you will see a film icon in your status bar. (My screenshot shows the icon from the Mac4Lin theme. You can see the default icon on the extension’s page.) Simply click on the icon and the video(s) on the page will be downloaded as MP4 video files to the location you specified.

One very nice feature I found about from Adam this morning is available if you do a middle-click on the icon. In Firefox and Epiphany middle-clicking a link will open it in a new tab, and if middle-clicking the icon will attempt to load the video file into a new tab. What I discovered today, however, is that when I middle-clicked the icon I got an offer to either open the video or simply save it for me. As you can see from the screenshot, RealPlayer 11 is installed on my system and registered as the default MP4 player, and I’m asked if I want to open the file in RealPlayer 11 or save the file. Selecting Save As… will give you the file picker window so you can save the video file wherever you want it, and you will also have an opportunity to rename the file however you want.

For a list of all of the sites that Adam’s Video Downloader extension will work on, simply check out the README file.

I want to send a yooouge THANK YOU! to Adam Schmalhofer for all his help as he helped me resolve some issues I was having. That dude totally rocks, and I owe him several brews.

Peng’s links for Friday, 13 Mar

[Corrected the first link. Thanks to Nick and Keba for pointing it out. -Peng]

I bet you guys thought I wasn’t going to post any links this week. I’ve actually been snagging a bunch of links into a gDocfile so I can share them without clogging up my feed reader with unread posts. Unfortunately there are a bunch of them, so rather than give you the link with my thoughts on each I’m just going to copy and paste the links for you. Feel free to follow any and all links that tickle your curiosity.

• The Fridge: Ubuntu 9.04 Countdown Banners Wanted
• Neil Williams: Goodbye network-manager, hello wicd (I want to check this out some more since we changed out WiFi settings a week ago and I can’t figure out where the hell to update my settings)
• Dirk Demke: Ubuntu Certificate of Authenticity
• Dustin Krikland: Jaunty Encrypted Home Directories
• Stefano Forenza: Microsoft tax on Linux’s horizon?
• Omshivprakash HL: Playing WMA files on Ubuntu
• Sense Hofstede: Oggon your music player with Banshee
• Macenzie Morgan: Link to a shell escaping tutorial
• Ronnie Tucker: Full Circle Magazine Issue 22
• Jono Bacon: LoCo Directory Moves Forward
• Colin Watson: Bug triage rants
• Stemp Xan: WebKitGTK+ 1.1.1
• Stefano Forenza: [HOWTO] Candid theme in 2 minutes
• Omshivprakash HL: Jaunty-Elegant Notifications
• Oxford Archaeology: Evolution is better than revolution (not necessarily referring to the GNOME email client, but still a good read)
• Jeffrey Detras: Ubuntu Evolution (same thing thing applies here as well, and these are two completely different articles)
• Benjanmin Otte: browsing in GNOME
• Gerry Ilagan: Linux Foundation is new owner of Linux.com
• Daniel T. Chen: Triaging bugs in Ubuntu, or How Not To Tee Off The Most Important Person: Yourself
• Dustin Kirkland: Mounting your Encrypted Home from a Jaunty LiveCD
• Christer Edwards: How To Find What Package provided a File
• Colin Watson: Bug triage, redux
• Richard Hughes: Application installing
• David Baucum: Anothther reason I don’t run Windows
• Richard Hughes: Application installing (II)
• Daniel Burrows: Help make aptitude faster!
• Ken Van Dine: Pidgin sucks less for IRC
• Martin F. Krafft: Case Logic cases ruin your CDs
• Johannes Schmid: Filtering in gnome-system-log
• Christoph Langner: Is Ext4 ready for the desktop?
• Stefano Forenza: What’s this Ubuntu thing all about?
• Lionel Dricot: Getting Things Gnome! 0.1 – “Just 5 minutes more”
• Sense Hofstede: Thank a Dev Day
• Matt Zimmerman: Ubuntu is based on Debian unstable
• Greg Grossmeier: Jaunty Release Party – Aprin 25th
• Christer Edwards: New GDM Login Theme in Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty”
• Jeffrey Detras: Completing the MacOSX look – Global menu
• Steven Harms: Make your bash shell cool again
• Joege Castro: Desktop Deployments and Stuff
• Daniel Holbach: Packaging Training
• Christian Schaller: Theora in Empathy
• Michael Lustfield: Ubuntu Drupal 6.2.0 Released
• Matthew Revell: Shutter
• Matthew Helmke: Ubuntu Education
• Og Maciel: So you want to sell open source
• Philip Whitnall: Totem manual
• Tom Dryer: Free Disk Space by Reducing Reserved Blocks
• Bodhi.Zazen: How to Moonlight
• Keniv Kubasik: Making Silverlight Applications Available Offline
• Bastien Nocrea: Our new volume feature
• David Welton: Linux “Just Working”
• Matthew Helmke: French police save millions by adopting Ubuntu
• Scott Wegner: Testing Ubuntu Jaunty and Ext4 WITHOUT Trashing Your Data
• Stefano Forenza: LifeHacker’s best distro contest
• Stefano Forenza: Vote for game support in Linux at Ubisoft forums
• Nagappan Alagappan:  Announce: Linux Desktop Testing Project 1.5.1 released
• Risto H. Kruppa: Pay for your Open Source software!

Whew! That should give you some things to read over the weekend. I know some of the articles are from late last month, but that’s how long I’ve been grabbing these links and I wanted to make sure you guys had seen them.

Have a great weekend, and don’t forget to let your favorite open source devs know you appreciate all their hard work. And speaking of hard work, I have an idea for a promotional vid or two, and if all goes well I may have some footage for you guys to check out sometime in the next month or so. See y’all next week!

[UPDATED] Install Vala without compiling source code

Last week I wrote a post on installing GlobalMenu (nee MacMenu) and I said you had to install Vala, which had to be installed from source code. This morning I saw ayoli’s comment and it sent me hunting through Launchpad for a PPA that held Vala 0.5.1. After finding several PPA’s with older versions I found the one that had the current version.

Before we install Vala from Bruce Cowan’s PPA we need to uninstall our current build of Vala. You’ll need to restart your computer during the change so either bookmark this post or print it out so you can refer to it after you restart. Since GlobalMenu depends on it let’s shut down the GlobalMenu first. Go into your home directory and open ~/.gnomerc again in your favorite text editor and comment out all of the lines that you had uncommented to run GlobalMenu. Save the changes and close your text editor, then open a Terminal (or your favorite command line app). Change to the folder where you installed Vala and let’s run the uninstall command.

cd vala-0.5.1
sudo make uninstall

Enter your root password when asked and you will see a rather long list of remove file operations. One that’s done you’ll need to reboot to apply the changes, but before you do right click on your Global Menu Panel Applet and remove it, then add either the Main Menu or the Menu Bar to your panel. This will give you the main application menus to use after you restart your computer. Now close any application you’re running (including your web browser) and restart your system to apply the changes we made. I’ll see you when you get back.

/me fires up Sonata and plays a little Fragile while he waits for you to get back

Welcome back. Let’s get Bruce’s PPA added to your sources.list file.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bruce89/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/bruce89/ubuntu intrepid main

Updated 2 June: Vadi’s comment reminded me that there’s a better PPA for Vala, namely the one for the Vala Team. Use these sources in your sources.list for the latest builds of Vala:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/vala-team/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/vala-team/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Update your package list (sudo apt-get update) and install Vala by running

sudo apt-get install valac

I know that look weird but you want Vala, a “C# like language for the GObject system” (from Bruce’s PPA page), if you want to run the current version of GlobalMenu. I’m running GlobalMenu as I type this so I can confirm that valac is the package that you need from Bruce’s PPA.

Go back to ~/.gnomerc and edit the file to the setting you used the last time you ran GlobalMenu. You can either replace your Global Menu Panel Applet now or when you get back, but it’s time for yet another reboot.

/me enjoys a little Mood for a Day while you reboot again

If you didn’t put the Global Menu Panel Applet you should put that back on your panel now. The GlobalMenu should be working, showing that the valac package was the right one to install. I’ll be adding these updated instructions to the documentation for Mac4Lin 1.0 so Mac4Lin users will have the compiled instructions in a single handy file.

Thanks to aoli for giving me the idea of finding a PPA that has Vala, and thanks to Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, Chris Squire and Bill Bruford (collectively known in 1971 as Yes) for making such a sweet album to listen to as I blog.

Updated 20 November 2009: Commenting on this post is closed due to its age and use by somment spammers.

[UPDATED] Get the GlobalMenu without all of the hassle

[We have a change in the URI for the GlobalMenu Team PPA. See below. And I've (finally) updated the package name. -Peng]

One of the things users of Mac4Lin (as well as others) love is the GlobalMenu, which used to be known as the MacMenu. The one pain in the rump is trying to get the damned thing installed, because it invariably involves compiling it from source and the very large possibility for spending a bit of time in dependency hell.

But not anymore. I found a link to a part of the Google Code site for the GlobalMenu code. They have packages for several distros as well, and while they have packages for Ubuntu Gutsy they have installation instructions that include using a PPA for Ubuntu Intrepid. But rather send you over there and risk your getting a side trip through Dependency Hell I’ll give you some nice easy steps to follow for users on Ubuntu Intrepid. There’s a new URI for the GlobalMenu Team PPA. I’ve updated the data to put into your sources.list below.

Dependencies are a bugger

NOTE: Vala, a dependency for GlobalMenu, is available in a Launchpad PPA. If you want to skip the section on compiling Vala read this post and then jump down to the heading “Not so fast…“ I was following this tutorial to try to get GlobalMenu working before I found the PPA so I already had Vala installed. There are some dependencies that you need to have met before installing Vala so fire up your favorite command line app and run this:

sudo apt-get install build-essential flex bison gnome-common libglib2.0-dev gtk-doc-tools autoconf2.13 automake1.9 libgtk2.0-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libwnck-dev libpanel-applet2-dev

Before you close your terminal let’s get Vala installed so let’s follow ayoli’s instructions for installing it. (The dependencies you just met are also from ayoli’s site.)

cd ~/
wget -c http://download.gnome.org/sources/vala/0.5/vala-0.5.1.tar.bz2
tar xjvf vala-0.5.1.tar.bz2
cd vala-0.5.1/
./configure
make
sudo make install # (for some reason, checkinstall doesn't work here)
sudo ldconfig

Not so fast…

You need to make sure the libgnomenu GTK module is loaded, but there’s an easy way to do it. Create a file in your root folder called ~/.gnomerc, and open it in your preferred text editor and paste the following into the file.

# Uncomment to load the GTK module

# export GTK_MODULES=globalmenu-gnome

# Uncomment to tell the GTK module to open a Gtk

# TreeView for all menus in the application you start.

# export GNOMENU_FUN=1

# Uncomment to disable global menu.

# export GNOMENU_DISABLED=1

# Uncomment to print a lot of debugging messages

# export GNOMENU_VERBOSE=1

# Uncomment to save the debugging messages to the given file.

# export GNOMENU_LOG_FILE=/tmp/gnomenu.log

# uncomment to disable the plugin for specific programs.

# export GTK_MENUBAR_NO_MAC="fast-user-switch-applet"

You’ll need to uncomment the particular lines you want to use. To use the GlobalMenu you’ll need to disable uncomment the line to export the GTK module, but the rest are up to you.Updated 13 February 2009 8:05am: You no longer have to uncomment the first line for GlobalMenu to work. Now you can comment/uncomment that and all other lines via the new settings window, which is just a right click away.

I tried using the option to use the GTK TreeView but it opened a new window and I had absolutely no clue what it did so I disabled it. I do, however, save the debugging messages, and I had them saved to a file in my /home folder just so I can find it more easily.

Now to install GlobalMenu

You need to add a pair of entries to your apt sources.lst file. Updated URI for the GlobalMenu Team’s PPA, posted 3 December 7:30 am, pointed out by Ali Servet Dönmez.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/globalmenu-team/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/globalmenu-team/ubuntu intrepid main

Save the file and close it, and you’re just about ready to install GlobalMenu. I forgot to post it because I do it automatically, but first you need to run

sudo apt-get update

and then you can run

sudo apt-get install gnome2-globalmenu
sudo apt-get install gnome-globalmenu

Updated 13 February 2009 8:05 am: The package name has been updated to reflect the current name of the package. Sorry about that, and thanks to nicad for reminding me that I hadn’t changed it yet.

Now restart your system log out* and and when you log back in there will be one detail left to take care of. If you have a panel menu on your upper panel remove it and right click on your panel, select Add to panel… and add the GlobelMenu Panel Applet. Now you’ll find the menu for whatever window you’re using showing on your panel. There is a list of compatible applications, but it’s easier to say what won’t work with it. Any applications that don’t use GTK will keep their menus inside their windows. Namely that means any KDE app you use (such as Amarok), OpenOffice.org and Mozilla’s Firefox and Thunderbird. Any applications you run with sudo permissions (like Synaptic) won’t use GlobalMenu either, but that’s a safety precaution.

Here are a couple of screenshots of my system after I installed GlobalMenu.

My desktop with some details in the AWN Terminal

My desktop with Firefox 3 and Nautilus running. You can hide your menu in Firefox with the Hide Menubar add-on, but I have to warn you not to disable it without first using View > Toolbars > Mainmenu Toolbar. Otherwise you’ll find that your menus are hidden when you’ve restarted Firefox with no way to bring them back.

If you use Mac4Lin…

The normal themes for Mac4Lin are missing some components that make a difference for using GlobalMenu. You should either install the MacMenu version of the Mac4Lin GTK themes, or if you’re using Mac4Lin ver.1.0 RC1 simply use System > Preferences > Appearances > Customize to select the Mac4Lin_MacMenuv1.0RC control set, then save the modified theme. Now you’ll be able to enjoy even more OSX-like goodness.

*-Thanks to BobCFC for letting me know in his comment that you only need to log out, not reboot, to get it working. I thought it was just logging out but I did a reboot to clear up other things and I didn’t want to risk telling you the wrong thing.

Peng’s links for Tuesday, 18 November

Sorry about not posting the last few days. I meant to post yesterday but I was chasing down a few things for Mac4Lin. Anirudh (infra_red_guy) has gotten a very recent development copy of the PDF documentation (possibly more recent than the version I posed here) for Mac4Lin 1.0 available for downloading. You can grab it from the download page for the version 1.0 RC. I’ve got a few more edits to make even now, but as we get things closer to release I’ll try to make sure that we get an updated version available on the Mac4Lin SourceForge site.

• TualatriX: Bugfixed release: Ubuntu Tweak. It turns out that when TualatriX released version of Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.2 last week there was a bug that kept Ubuntu Tweak 0.4.2 from running without Compiz installed. He tracked down the bug and pushed out a quick bugfix.
• Mtuxland/Ubuntu Forums: Howto: Get Google Gadgets easily! Google has released an version 0.10.3 of Google Gadgets. Mtuxland has packages built for GTK and for QT, or you can get the updated file from GetDeb like I did. You can see what got updated in the changelog.
• Tom Dryer: A Guide to System Backup and Restore in Ubuntu. If you don’t have a regular backup routine for your computer don’t feel bad, a lot of us don’t, like me. I do backups when I’m about to do a major install/upgrade and I know it’s just a matter of time until that bites me in the arse. The guest article by Vivek Kumar will help you see how easy it is to schedule regular backups of your important files. Now I just need to make sure I have space and/or media to store the backups.

I really hate how much advertising I’m seeing about Chrismukkuh already (even my own reference to it while talking about Mac4Lin 1.0 last week), but there’s something I have to mention. Amazon.com is now taking orders for the One Laptop Per Child Buy One Get One program. For a mere $399 not only do your get an OLPC laptop computer sent to a child in a devloping country but you also get one for to give to a child that you know. Not only is that a double win it’s also damned good karma. Big thanks to Mike Rushton of the  Ubuntu Massachusetts LoCo Team for the reminder and the link.

Installing .packages that aren’t .DEBs or .RPMs

While checking my updates from GnomeFiles.org I came across an app called GNU Solfege. Since my biggest issues while studying at the conservatory were centered on my problems getting a firm hold on solfege (ear training) I decided I should install it and work on training my ears again. Version 3.12 of GNU Solfege has come out but when I checked the Ubuntu repos I saw that they have version 3.10 so I looked for a new version. Unfortunately I saw they have installers for Windows and OSX, along with RPM packages for Mandrake, none of which I could use. They also have something called an autopackage installer, with an extension of .package. I’d heard something about Autopackage a while back so I looked around for what I needed to install GNU Solfege from the autopackage package.

It turns out I don’t need to install anything to be able to use it, and the Autopackage website has a very well written tutorial on installing .package files, compete with screenshots to let you see what you need to do. Basically you need to

• Download the .package file, then open Nautilus to where you saved the file.
• Right click on the file and select Properties
• Go to the Permissions tab and make sure the owner has execute privileges
• Close the Properties and double click the file to run it
• If you get a dialog asking what you want to do click on Run

That’s it! Every time after the first run you won’t even need to do all those steps, just double click on the file and run it. If you’d rather install it from the command line just change to the location you saved the file and run one simple command

bash [package_name]package

That’s it. The Autopackage site recommends uninstalling the current version first if you’re upgrading a program like this, and you can find it under Applications > System Tools > Manage 3rd party software (it may be at the bottom of your System Tools software). But you can also run package remove [program_name] from the command line to uninstall them. What I did see when I ran the Solfege installer today to double check the process before I started writing this post from the command line was

Removing currently installed version of 'GNU Solfege 3.12.0'.

Dang that was easy! When the installer finished I found a new entry on my Applications > Education menu.

If you’re worried about the possible security issues with .package files you don’t need to worry. Before it confirms that you want to install the package it asks for your admin (root) password so you don’t have the security issues that come with apps like Ultimatix. There are a number of apps available in .package format, but there is one thing you’ll need to keep in mind before you install any of them: You’re on your own for finding updates on packages you install from .package files, so using .package files might want to be a last resort for installing things, coming higher on the possible install method listing above only installing from source code.

Peng’s links for Saturday, 25 October

I know I owe you a follow-up on upgrading to Intrepid but I’m checking a few more things and making some screenshots to share with everyone.

• Ruben Romero: Announcement: SpreadUbuntu alpha0.1. If you like Ubuntu and SpreadFirefox you’ll love SpreadUbuntu! I can’t wait until it’s out of testing.
• Ubuntu Release blog: Ubuntu 8.10 release candidate available. The Intrepid RC did come out on Thursday. They do have a link to some release notes that do have some important information, you may find some additional information Ubuntu wiki, although it’s not as pretty as the link they provide.
• Dustin Kirkland: Announcing ‘musica’ for Ubuntu Intrepid. If you are looking for a way to browse and stream your MP3’s over HTTP musica may be for you. And yes, he has a screenshot and there’s a package in his PPA for Hardy. For Intrepid users it’s simply an apt-get away. In fact I need to check it out for the possibility of sharing my tunage with the roomies a little more easily. ETA: Dang. It doesn’t support Ogg Vorbis files. Yet.
• Jordi Hernàndez: Gloobus-Preview 0.11. Another new version with even more new features.
• Christer Edwards: Upgrading Using the Alternate CD (8.04 -> 8.10). If you’re looking to make the upgrade to Intrepid Christer has a tutorial to help you get it done.
• DesktopLinux.com: You, too, can learn Ubuntu-fu. A brand new book has come out to help users of every experience level, including a “crash course” in doing system administration work in Ubuntu.
• Christer Edwards: Ubuntu Tutorials Search Plugin. One of the very best features of Firefox is the Search bar that you can add any number of the Mycroft Open Search site searching tools. Now the Ubuntu Tutorials site has a site search plugin for both Firefox and IE7. Adding this search tool to your browser should be the very next task on your todo list.

I’ll try to get that Ubuntu Intrepid article posted for you tomorrow morning. Unfortunately one of my roomies has finally come home from his hospitalization (about a week early, actually) and it’s ended up putting a few things on my “gotta do” list several days before I expected to have to get to them. Have a great evening!

[UPDATED] HowTo: Run WINE programs with GNOME Do

Since I got a new color PDA recently I’ve been throwing a lot more pictures on it. The new PDA, like my old black & white one, is a Sony Clié and comes with Sony’s PictureGear Lite app for putting pictures and movies on my PDA, and since I finally have a color PDA I’m more interested in putting pictures on it to share with friends that I run into. But to move pictures (and movies) onto my PDA requires running PictureGear, a Windows program that runs on Linux under WINE, and I couldn’t find a good way to run WINE apps via GNOME Do. Until I was dealing with my Do/Synaptic issue that I posted about earlier this morning.

I already had a Nautilus window opened to my /usr/share/applications directory with admin rights (via sudo nautilus), so I opened a regular Nautilus window to /home/peng/.local/share/applications/wine/Programs and went into the directory that held the launcher for PictureGear Lite. I dragged the launcher for PictureGear to the sudo nautilus window with /usr/share/applications open, while holding down the Ctrl key to do a drag and copy, and placed a copy of the PictureGear launcher into /usr/share/applications.

The new launcher didn’t have an icon, but I simply went into the launcher’s Properties window clicked the icon button and selected the appropriate icon from /home/peng/.local/share/icons, which is the directory that WINE stores icons for Windows programs that have been installed. Once I had the correct icon selected I simply closed the Properties window.

After I fix the icon for my new launcher I closed GNOME Do and reopened it, to force Do to grab the new launcher, and then started typing PictureGear. Lo and behold, I was able to launch PictureGear Lite from within GNOME Do!

I’ll need to go back into the launcher’s properties screen to add a description, but I’m able to start a Windows app that I use almost daily without having to reach for the menus.

Updated 24 May 2009: If you want to do this procedure for applications that were installed with CrossOver Linux rather than WINE the path you want to find the launchers to copy from will be ~/home/.cxoffice/[bottle_name]/desktopdata/cxmenu/xdg-applications. From there simply drill down through the folder hierarchy and drag the appropriate .desktop file. When I did that I didn’t need to manually set the icon, which is a step that you may not have to perform.

Peng’s links for Tuesday, 9 September

“What? Peng’s got more links?”

You betcha. I meant to post yesterday but ended up doing yet another imitation of a decapitated barnyard fowl, so here goes.

• Sayak Banerjee: The all new Ubuntu Brainstorm. Ubuntu Brainstorm has gotten even better, so let’s keep those ideas coming.
• Tom Dryer: VirtualBox 2.0 Released. Tombuntu not only tells you how to get it, he also tells you what to do if you get a rather common error message.
• Archux: Using Linux for Web Design. Web design is one area where Windows and Mac users have some nicer (commercial) tools, but this article points out some great open source tools that you can use to design great web pages in GNU/Linux.
• DesktopLinux: Levono ditches Linux. Levono used to be one of the computer manufacturers that didn’t try to force the Microsoft tax on their customers, but those days are gone. It makes Dell’s Linux boxes that much more appealing.
• Jono Bacon: Videolicious. Daniel Holbach has a new video tutorial for us, and now we can learn how to upgrade an Ubuntu source package. And you can even snag an Ogg Theora file to watch when you’re not connected to the Wide Wide World of Web.
• Matthew Paul Thomas: Usability evaluation: Empathy and Pidgin. Ubuntu devs were looking at replacing the Pidgin IM program with Empathy, and after looking at Empathy I’m glad they decided against it. Matthew did a very careful comparison of the two and decided Empathy isn’t ready for prime time yet. Big thanks to Martin Albisetti for bringing his blog to my attention. It really should be in a Planet.
• Daniel Holbach: Ubuntu in Popular Culture. The movie “Berlin am Meer” may well be the first time you can identify Ubuntu in a movie. I think he should edit the Ubuntu entry on Wikipedia to note this appearance.

That’s it for today. (I promise, although Nanci has something she needs to post.) Have a good evening, y’all. I’ll see you on Hump Day.