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Public radio listeners know it’s that time of year again, time to interrupt your favorite public radio programs for the spring pledge drive. But today I saw a tweet from one of the folks at APM’s Marketplace with a link to a YouTube video that’s sure to bring a smile to the face of any regular public radio listener.

Greg Studley (yes, that’s his real name) has put together a take off on Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start The Fire that replaces the names of celebrities in the original song with the names of people you hear across public radio networks (definitely NPR and APM, and I think even PRI although I don’t catch any PRX names). He even drops in Donnie Baseball, although I’m not aware of anything he does with public radio.  [My bad. I'm always confusing Don with Dave on NPR.] (If you go to the YouTube page for the video you can see all the names he drops.)

After hearing it many times I have to admit it’s kind of lame and the singing isn’t the best, although it still beats some of the vocals I had to record as a studio engineer back in New Orleans. What do you guys think of it? The only other problems I have with it is that after repeated plays of the video (I really want an MP3 of it one of these days) I had to go see Billy Joel’s original as well as the cover by Guns N’ Moses. Although it’s pretty ironic that I found the video yesterday, the day that WBUR, my local NPR station, officially started their spring fundraiser. Please consider supporting them as they try to completely do away with their summer pledge drive for the second year in a row. If you do you can get chances to win some pretty nice swag.

Snagging web videos has gotten even easier

One thing I do on a daily basis is snag videos I find online to carry with me on my digital media player (DMP). Usually it’s just weather reports from my local CBS affiliate or highlights from Dodger games but every now and then I find a video that I just have to put on my DMP. It may be a videosong from Pomplamoose or a Tiny Desk Concert from NPR, or it may just be a cool or humorous video I’ve come across in my browsing. I used to use a very nice extension for GNOME’s Epiphany browser but when I switched to using Chromium there were a couple of add-ons I could use to snag YouTube videos. Then of course YouTube got wise to us and changed the layout of their website to break the downloaders. The Minitube devs were able to get a fix implemented to let us enjoy videos outside of our web browsers, and we can get a URI from Minitube to use to download the video, but that gets kind of convoluted.

About a month ago I found out about a program called ClipGrab, that lets people running Linux, Windows or the MacOS save and convert online videos so easily it’s almost indecent. I found about it through OMG! Ubuntu’s Facebook feed.

I didn’t blog about it sooner because I wanted to hold off on blogging it until I had a chance to use it more before I wrote what might be an incomplete review. It’s not a perfect solution because I can’t use it to snag my local weather reports or MLB highlights, nor can I use it to snag Facebook vids or clips for NBC shows, like one I’d love to be able to snag.

To install it you can download installers for OpenSUSE, Windows Vista and XP, and the MacOS from the ClipGrab download page, plus they have source code for the three platforms. The ClipGrab team has also set up a PPA for Ubuntu users, which is how I installed it on Mint. (And yes, it works beautifully under KDE, as my screencaps show.) The instructions for adding it to your software sources is in the OMG! Ubuntu! article.

Once you have ClipGrab installed simply launch it. If you’ve already copied the URI for the page a video you want to download can be found you can simply paste it into the text box below the blue bar but if you launch ClipGrab before copying the URI the software make it even easier for you. Let’s say you want to snag the video about a fan of the progrock band Yes who tries to turn one person onto the band only to find his entire campus is becoming Yes fans. Copy the URI from the address bar and you’ll get a notification pop-up from the ClipGrab icon in your system tray.

Simply click on that icon and ClipGrab will load that URI into it’s location field and get the name of the video and what levels of quality it’s available in. Select the format you want to save it as and the quality level you want and click Grab this clip! A file picker window will open to let you specify where you want it saved and what name you want it saved as. You don’t have to specify the extension as ClipGrab will add that automatically. If you add it yourself you will end up with two extensions, such as All Good People.mp4.mp4. Whoops!

ClipGrab version 3.0.7.2 supports videos on YouTube, Clipfish, Collegehumor, Dailymotion, and five other sites (the complete list is on the About ClipGrab page), but it may be able to snag a video from other sites as well. Simply give the URI to ClipGrab and see if it can recognize how to get the video. It can also download HD videos from sites that support high definition videos, so you may be able to use it on more sites than you realize.

For saving the videos ClipGrab supports not only MPEG4 and WMV video formats, but it can also save Ogg Theora videos, Ogg Vorbis audio files and MP3 files.

Thanks to the good folks over at OMG! Ubuntu! for letting me know about this very cool application.

[HOWTO] QuickTip: Enable proprietary video drivers on a new KDE install

One of the things I’ve had to hunt for since my fresh install of Kubuntu is how to enable the proprietary drivers for my Nvidia graphics card. I don’t know if I installed something new to have it turn up, but if you have a fresh install of a KDE-based Linux distro and want to enable advanced driver you can either pull up Kicker (Alt-F2) and look for Hardware Drivers or you can go into the Kickoff menu and check for Applications > System > Hardware Drivers. Either way should let you launch the dialog to select any proprietary drivers available for hardware you have installed on your system.

Enable the drivers, reboot your system and you should have compositing enabled, which you can verify with System Settings > Desktop > Desktop Effects > General.

Of course I can’t guarantee that app will be available on other KDE-based Linux distros but that’s where I found it on Kubuntu 10.04 “Lucid Lynx”.

Now I’ll just need to figure out why Google Gadgets (Qt) have a visible border, even though I have compositing available.

Laissez le bon ton roulette! Mardi Gras Day 2010 is this Tuesday!

Updated 16 February 9:54am: WWL-TV is streaming their live coverage this year on MyMardiGrasExperience.com beginning at 10 am ET/9 am CT and continuing until 3 pm ET/2 pm CT.

That’s right, Tuesday is Mardi Gras Day in the New Orleans area. The parades have been rolling since early January, although the major parade schedule has been in progress for just over a week. Of course there were some delayed parades after last weekend’s Super Bowl and all of last Thursday’s parades got postponed by the bad weather the area got.

If you can’t get to the Crescent City for the parades you can still enjoy them online. As I mentioned two years ago WWL-TV usually streams their Mardi Gras coverage online so you can watch it during the day, but this year they’ve helped launch a new site called MyMardiGrasExperience.com which has streaming video for each and every parade, as well as a special camera on one of the floats during the Rex parade. I’m not sure if WWL is streaming their coverage this year, but I hope they do. Mardi Gras Day won’t be the same without the Moose down in the Vieux Carré.

NOLA.com, home page for the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, also has their Mardi Gras website, complete with several webcams. You can catch any parade rolling down St. Charles Avenue on their Parade Cam, although my favorite, the BourboCam, was never brought back online after it was offline when I wrote my Mardi Gras post back in 2008. It’s a shame, really, because it was a great way to people watch. They do have their Jackson Square Cam outside of St. Louis Cathedral, but it isn’t the same. You’ll also see a French Quarter Cam but it’s a bird’s-eye view of da Quarta, not a street level view.

I Google’d BourboCam and was glad to see that the camera, located at the Cat’s Meow on the corner of Bourbon Street and St. Peter Streets, got a new home. You’ll want to head over to EarthCam’s Bourbon Street Beat cams and select Cam 1. BIG thanks to Laurie Ransonette Anderson answering the not-so-musical question “What happened to the Bourbocam?” on her blog. I’m just sorry I didn’t see it sooner, especially since she wrote it back in late January 2008. Now I just have to see if I can find a way to enjoy that cam without loading it up in Chromium.

Updated 16 February 2:10pm: I just checked the NOLA.com home page and saw that they’re bringing back the Bourbocam at 4pm CT (5pm ET) today and going until midnight (New Orleans time). Hopefully they’ll bring it back for us more often, but if not you can see the Cat’s Meow cam 24/7.

A few of our favorite Chrismukkuh things

Yesterday my brother posted some great Chrismukkuh videos that he’s found, and of course there are other holiday videos that are worth making sure you know about.

We’ll probably be adding more vids as we find them or remember them (yes, you should post some more vids here too, Peng) so I’m going to make this post sticky until Twelfth Night.

Peng has a great idea.  The videos do shove the other posts down pretty far. Rather than have to decide which videos to keep on the main page and which to make you have to go to the entire post to see I’m just going to add a break here. As the guys at SciFi Wire say, the videos are after the jump.

Merry Chrismukkuh from Nanci and Peng!

In less than two weeks the jolly fat man will be loading up his sled and visiting all the good cats and kittehs. A good friend of mine showed me a video that we simply must share with y’all to help celebrate the season. Make sure you also visit the page Nanci started with even more fun holiday videos.

BBC America will be sharing a trio of Doctor Who specials this season. They’ll start with The Waters of Mars on Saturday, 19 December, and continue it with The End of Time, Part One on Saturday, 26 December. You won’t have to wait long to see the conclusion of not just the story but also David Tennant’s time as our favorite Gallifreyan one week later on 2 January. If you love The Doctor you should make a point of visiting the BBC’s Doctor Who Adventure Calendar every day. You can’t see the vids if you’re not in the UK but you can enjoy the stories, wallpapers and other goodies they post. There is a way to enjoy the vids on our side of the Pond thanks to the YouTube channels for Planet Who News and the Doctor Who Time Vortex.

The Doctor isn’t quite your cuppa? How about the latest video from those crazy cats and kittehs at JibJab?

Perhaps your idea of celebrating the season is just some holiday tunage. You may remember back in October my writing about an incredible concert DVD. (The DVD is still at the top of my wish list in case anyone wants to send it as a thank you for being helped through my articles here.) I found a pair of video clips from the disk that may be just what you’re looking for, but the person that posted it to YouTube has disabled embedding so you’ll have to head over to YouTube to see it for yourself.

No matter what holiday you celebrate (or don’t celebrate) Nanci and I want to wish everyone a happy and safe Chrismukkuh. We really appreciate everyone coming to our blog.

Updated 23 December: I learned this am that the maternal one is in fact buying me the DVD I’ve been drooling over since late October. It won’t be here in time for Chrismukkuh Day but I’ll definitely be enjoying it soon enough. If you’re still thinking of sending a gift my wish list still has some items on it that I would be more than happy to receive.

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.

Get more info on the decision to dump the Gimp from lucid

Sunday’s link post included a link to Stefano Forenza’s post about the Gimp being removed from plans for Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Linx. I was checking out a video posted by Alan Pope that was on Planet Ubuntu last week and now I have a better understanding of why they made the choice.

Alan posted some videos from the Ubuntu/Lucid Developer Summit, and he also posted a separate video about application selection in the default install. After watching the video I feel a lot better about Gimp being pulled. It also makes me want to check out Eye of Gnome again, and they even mentioned my favorite image viewer, gThumb.

The video also has a discussion about the rather Jabba-sized list of games that are in the default install, and it looks like not only will we be able to cherry-pick what we want but also be able to ditch games we don’t want. As late as Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala has a base package of games and if you want to ditch one you have to lose them all. They also looked at including gbrainy, a game that I’ve mentioned in the past.

If you’re interested in not only what decisions are being made for the next version of Ubuntu you should check out all of the videos on the Ubuntu Developers’ YouTube channel. It will take some time to watch them all, but it’s definitely worth checking out.

[UPDATED] Enjoy YouTube without your web browser

One of the RSS feeds I subscribe to is for the Ubuntu Geek site. They publish some great tutorials and news, and I keep learning new things from them. (They’ve been in our sidebar links for some time.) Friday they had an article about a great way to watch YouTube videos that I flagged to look at more when I had the time. Yesterday I got time to check it out and found what could be one of my new MustHave apps.

Minitube is a killer app for enjoying YouTube vids that not only doesn’t have anything to do with your web browser, but it also doesn’t require Adobe Flash. Instead you simply enter a keyword and Minitube creates a video stream for you. Of course you don’t have to watch the whole stream, you can cherry pick the video or videos that you want to watch and just sit back and enjoy the videos. There isn’t a way to save any of the vids you find to enjoy on your Digital media player (like my beloved E100), but you can open a video in your web browser.

One of the best features of Minitube is that it isn’t a GNU/Linux-only app. You can also run it on the MacOS, but there hasn’t been success building it for Windows yet.

The Minitube website has great installation instructions, complete with links to a PPA, and you can even get a Debian-style package from GetDeb. Just remember that a package on GetDeb may not be completely compatible with other Debian-based distributions. But you can also snag the source code, as well as a universal for OSX.

Thanks to the good folks over at Ubuntu Geek for turning me on to this amazing app. If you end up loving Minitube as much as I do please feel free to use his donate buttons. It’s definitely worth contributing some of your disposable income to.

Updated 26 November: Thanks to comments from Eric and Pat I have seen that Ubuntu Geek isn’t quite as good a resource as I thought. I’ve removed the links to their article about Minitube and removed them from our sidebar links. Thanks for the advice, Eric & Pat. I owe you two a brew.

Enjoy Electric Sheep in full screen

I hate boring screensavers, and while I used to use the Skyrocket screensaver it from the GLX port of Really Slick Screensavers (so non-GNU/Linux users can enjoy the cool graphics as well) didn’t always play well on my system. When I upgraded my video card a while back I was able to rub it much more easily, but I was getting tired of it by then.

As I was looking for a new screensaver I came across the ElectricSheep screensaver. It’s in the Ubuntu universe repo but there’s a newer version available in Khashayar Naderehvandi’s PPA (karmic only). Once you have it installed you can select it from your list of available screensavers as your computer joins with others around the world to create some really beautiful electronic art. (And no, it’s not spyware and their server is regularly checked for spam and virii.) Here’s a sample of ElectricSheep that they posted to YouTube.

The only problem I had was that I couldn’t get the screensaver to make use of my entire screen. I tried the advice on their FAQ but it didn’t work for me. Today I tried another search to see if I can find a solution and I managed to find one one on their Linux Client Instructions page. Way down the page I found some instructions using the electricsheep-preferences app. Simply call it from the terminal (or with Alt-F2) and look where it says Video Driver. Mine said x11 so I tried changing it to gl. Once I made the change I closed the preferences window and launched the standalone Electric Sheep app by simply running electricsheep and voilà! I had a screen with nothing but the ElectricSheep animation, with no border, so I got out of that and opened my screensaver settings (System > Preferences > Screensaver). I selected the ElectricSheep screensaver and clicked the Preview button and confirmed that it used the entire screen as a screensaver as well.

Your mileage may vary, of course, and if neither x11 or gl work you may want to try using the xv video driver.