Ubuntu

How to Enhance Your Linux Desktop with Conky

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I have been using Conky as my desktop monitoring widgets for quite some time now. Before this, I’ve been using few applications like screenlets and gdesklets, but there’s a lot of drawbacks on these applications. Among them were limited customizations, it’s difficult to develop your own widgets, unable to find widgets you’re looking for, and if you do find them, they are too buggy to be used in the first place.

Then, I’ve found Conky. I’ll never turn back.

This is the best system monitor I have ever experienced. It is highly customizable, all you have to do is modify the Conky config file. There’s a lot of widgets/variables to use, such as system monitoring tools (CPU, RAM, SWAP, Hard Drive, etc), batteries capacity, networking, and more. And best of all, it is very, very easy to create your own widgets. If you know any programming language such as Python, Perl, or even a simple Shell Scripts, then you’re off to create your own.

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How To Share Media Between Xbox 360 and Linux

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I’ve got a little project going on in the past few days. I have a reasonable amount of media; movies, mp3’s and family pictures in my Linux desktop, Ubuntu 8.10. Would it be nice if I could stream all the movies and music directly from the Linux machine to my Xbox 360? This is a very easy feat in Windows, where we could simply use the Windows Media Share option in Windows Media Player 11. But, what about Linux?

Xbox-Linux box media sharing could be achieved by using GeeXbox uShare. GeeXboX uShare is a free UPnP A/V & DLNA Media Server for Linux. Installation and configuration explained after the jump below:

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Twitux and gTwitter: Twitter Clients for Ubuntu Linux

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Following my previous post nazham.com on Twitter, I’ve just beginning to get involved with Twitter.
Below are a couple of Twitter clients that I’ve used in Ubuntu:

Twitux
A Twitter client for GNOME.
Twitux is a lightweight client for the twitter messaging service, featuring time-line auto updating, a tray area icon and notification of new messages.

twitux

gTwitter
Client for tracking and posting to twitter.
gTwitter is a client for posting and fetching updates to the twitter service.

gtwitter

Installation is available through Synaptic Package Manager. Just do a search for the application name, twitux or gtwitter.

Installing Google Gadgets on Ubuntu 8.10

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Google Desktop gadgets are interactive mini-applications that can be placed anywhere on the user’s desktop to show new email, weather, photos, personalized news or other desired information. Google offers a gallery of pre-built gadgets for download on the official website.

To install Google Gadgets on Ubuntu 8.10:

1. Download the .deb package.
2. Install the package using the following command:
sudo dpkg -i google-gadgets_0.10.4-0~getdeb1_i386.deb

3. Run the apps using the command ggl-gtk or from the Applications menu.

Autostart:

1. Add a new entry at System -> Preference -> Sessions.
2. The command entry would be ggl-gtk

Enjoy.

Resource: Howto install Google Gadgets in ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)

Delay Print Screen in Ubuntu

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in Ubuntu, when there’s menu active or visible, pushing ‘Print Screen’ won’t have any effect. It applies to taskbar, context menus, right-click and other menus. But I have a workaround on this one:
Simply let Gnome automatically take the screenshot, and delay the action.
In your terminal, type:
gnome-screenshot --delay=5

The number 5 represents the number of seconds before Gnome automatically take the screenshot. After typing the command, go to the window or menu that you would like to take the screenshot of.