Getting Things Gnome...

Lately, I've felt that my ToDo list is getting a bit too large to handle and that I keep forgetting important things to do and hence even though being skeptical of the utility of such tools, I decided to search for a good ToDo list manager.

Out of the many available tools, i gave Getting Things Gnome a try. (partly because the cool name ;) )

Getting Things Gnome (GTG) is an organizer for the GNOME Desktop Environment. It is a very clean and flexible tool.
You can organize your tasks as sub-tasks or as tags.
"Sub-tasking" is just like using Tomboy and hence very intuitive. If you like using Tomboy, you'll like GTG better, since you can organize the tasks according to priority, and add start and due dates, all with the help of simple syntaxes.
You can find about the task editor syntax here.
Another great feature in GTG is the Work view. This view displays only those tasks which can be performed now i.e. the ones which depend on no other task, which cannot start before a given date or the ones which haven't been given a start date but are simply categorized as todo someday.

Here's a screenshot of the main window:

To install GTG in Jaunty, a developer's PPA is available.
Add these lines to your sources.list

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

Then do,

$sudo apt-get update
$sudo apt-get install gtg

If you want to give other tools a try, there are a few available, such as good 'ol Evolution, Tasque, gtodo and Makagiga. While, Tasque and gtodo are simple tools, Makagiga turned out be an overkill for me :P, so I'm satisfied with GTG! :)

Till next time,
Happy organizing!
Cheers!

Very slow burning speeds with Brasero in Jaunty

It's been a while since I installed Jaunty Jackalope, and was really satisfied with everything except sound issues.
However, another issue came to light when i tried burning a DVD today.
It is a normal data DVD, 4.3 GB worth, which I'm burning with Brasero...
I started at 7.01 pm , its 8.23 pm as I am writing this and Brasero still hasn't finished burning :|

The process starts with a checksum image being generated which takes about 5 mins...
Then the actual burning process starts with burning speeds reported at 0.3x (OMFG!)...
The progress bar goes upto exactly 50% after which the progress bar returns to 0%...
Hereafter, you are left wondering when the process will end with the progress bar not progressing at all.
Then finally the finalizing process starts with another checksum being calculated.
Its been around 30 odd minutes and Brasero is still calculating the final checksum.

DMA!! ... Nope! DMA is enabled for my DVD drive (by default in Jaunty)... so this definitely seems a bug with Brasero...

It has been reported :
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/brasero/+bug/330068

However, there seems to be no progress on this front watsoever. People have also reported that burning speeds are normal with K3b and Gnomebaker. So, I'm definitely switching to one of these...
I'll edit this post, once the burning process is done!

Till then, Cheers!

EDIT:
(101 mins):: Its 8.42pm, the final checksum process has still not finished...

(131 mins):: Its 9.12pm... I'm running out of patience!

(147 mins):: 9.28pm ... I'm out of patience... I hit 'Cancel'... Instantly, I get DVD successfully burnt, Total time : 02:27:18. Uncool... x-(

:: 3.2 GB with K3b in 00:09:29 ... \m/

Sound in ubuntu 9.04

Recently installed ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope on my new HP dv5 1104TU laptop ( :D ) ...
However, i was a bit surprised to find that there was no sound at all!! ...

After a bit of fidgeting & googling ( and wondering why this post on Ubuntu geek didn't help me ), I finally stumbled upon a solution :
It is as simple as,

adding :

options snd-hda-intel model=dell-m4-2 enable_msi=1

to your /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf file

Reboot and you have sound! :-)
Cheers!

Easy auto mounting NTFS partitions in ubuntu

If you have a dual boot system with Linux and Windows, in all probability you would want your NTFS drives to appear in Linux as well.
You can always edit your /etc/fstab to auto-mount your NTFS drives in Linux..
If you go through the file, you will notice that is is fairly simple to understand the structure and do what this post will describe further (you will need ntfs-3g installed before you can do this too).
It is as simple as adding this line :

/dev/sdax /media/disk1 ntfs-3g defaults,locale=[your locale] 0 0

Here,
/dev/sdax - is the partition to be mounted
/media/disk1 - is the mount point. You can access the files in the partition through this directory
'ntfs-3g' - describes the filesystem
defaults - Uses the default options that are rw, suid, dev, exec, auto, nouser, and async. ( A google serach for the other options might help :) )
locale - the default locale of your system. Can be found by executing 'locale' at the terminal.
The last two numbers stand for 'dump' and 'fsck'.
A 0 in the 'dump' column means the partition will not be backed up.
0 in the 'fsck' column tells the fsck to ignore checking the filesystem, else the number in this column would indicate the order in which the filesystems are checked.

You can do this for each of your NTFS partitions...
However, there is always a possibility of non-geeks ( euphemism :P ... no offence :) ) messing up their fstab...

There is however a clever tool available which will mount your NTFS drives for you at startup, without you having to manually mount them ( a double-click isn't that hard, but then again, you wouldn't even need to do that :) )

In ubuntu,
go to Application | Add/Remove...
Search for 'ntfs configuration tool'
and install it...
unmount any ntfs drives that you may have mounted at this point...
Then, go to Applications | Sytems Tools | NTFS Configuration Tools

At this point you should be presented with a screen asking you to assign mountpoints... just key in the name of the directory where you want the drive mounted. The directory need not exist, it will be created later in the /media directory
Then, after you are done here, make sure you have both the options ticked on the next screen and you are done!

Keeping this post small as there is really nothing much to write...
Will try to make a better one tomorrow...till then...
Cheers! :)

Installing New Experimental Plugins for Compiz

A blog post after quite a few days (months)...Ouch!! I'm stiff :P

Three new experimental plugins for compiz-fusion have recently been released...

• Atlantis2: Adds an aquarium to the dekstop with customizable fish.
• Freewins: Lets you rotate and resize windows in 3D.
• Screensaver: Let's you rotate the cube or make the windows fly as a screensaver.

The Atlantis2 Plugin running on my desktop:



Here's a screenshot for screensaver with the "flying windows" animation. Although, somehow the animation isn't clean and there are a few graphic glitches.


And my personal favourite - screensaver with "rotating cube" animation ... very smooth, very clean, I can go idle just to watch this thing rotate away in it's full glory ;)


I will post a screenshot for the Freewins plugin as soon as I figure out how it works :) I'm kinda "bizzy" watching the cube rotate :D.

All three are available through a "git" download

To install these plugins make sure you have the following packages installed:

• compiz-bcop
• compiz-dev
• build-essential
• libtool
• libglu1-mesa-dev
• libxss-dev
• libcairo2-dev
• git-core

In Ubuntu, you can do this using the following command :

sudo apt-get install compiz-bcop compiz-dev build-essential libtool libglu1-mesa-dev libxss-dev libcairo2-dev git-core

Download the plugins from the terminal using the following commands, make a new directory to download these if you want to keep everything neat and clean :)


git clone git://anongit.compiz-fusion.org/users/metastability/atlantis2
git clone git://anongit.compiz-fusion.org/users/warlock/freewins
git clone git://anongit.compiz-fusion.org/users/pafy/screensaver

Each plugin will be downloaded to its individual directory...
go to each directory through the terminal and do

make && make install

Now, you can access the new plugins through System->Preferences->Compiz Config Settings Manager..

Cheers! :)

Mac, Vista Pwned !! Linux Lives On !!

The PWN to OWN contest at the CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver has showed why Linux is more reliable .. read on ...

Famed iPhone hacker Charlie Miller showed the MacBook Air on display who its father really was. Apparently, Mr. Miller visited a website which contained his exploit code (presumably via a crossover cable connected to a nearby MacBook), which then allowed him to seize control of the computer. Thus, the MacBook Air was compromised within 2 minutes flat of the conference commencing !! It was Safari that fell victim to the hack !!
Mac Pwned !!

Shane Macauley of Security Objectives will be receiving a Fujitsu U810 with Vista Ultimate SP1. He managed to compromise the computer after he installed the latest version of Adobe Flash. He received assistance from his friends Derek Callaway and Alexander Sotirov. The zero-day vulnerability in Adobe Flash that Shane exploited has not been made public, but rather reported to Adobe. No other information will be provided until the flaw has been remedied.
Windows Vista with SP1 Pwned !!


The only notebook to remain unhacked at the end of the competition was the Sony VAIO running on Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon.
Linux remains untouched !!

Linux again shows why it is more famed as a more reliable OS than its contemporaries ( read Mac and Windows ) !!

Cheers !!