Year: 2007

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How to install midori lightweight browser on Ubuntu

Here’s a quick how to install Midori browser. It is a lightweight browser which uses Webkit rendering enginer, the same engine that powers Mac OS X Safari browser.

Midori is a good candidate for an alternative browser if you’ve gotten tired of Mozilla Firefox memory leaking and its not so lightweight feature nowadays.

midori_about.png

1) Edit /etc/apt/sources.lst to include these line
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/stemp/ubuntu gutsy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/stemp/ubuntu gutsy main

2) Update repository by executing,

sudo apt-get update

3) Install midori

sudo apt-get install midori

Note that midori is still under heavy development and quite buggy in this testing release. So expect application freeze or crashes during use.

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Google Maps Now Available in hometown – Alor Setar!

I just discovered today that Google (street) maps is now available for my hometown – Alor Star! Upon checking further I discovered that the street level maps is also available for various other places in the northern part of Malaysia too, including remote areas in Perlias and Kedah, w00t.

Here’s sample of the street map taken from Google Maps
alor-setar.jpg

alor-setar google map

Sungai Petani to Kulim

Check this feature in Google Maps now!

Now I can relate more stuff from my Dopod P800W to Google Maps and vice versa

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I’m going to get a new Desktop PC

Dang seems my 6 years old PC (my Ubuntu PC) is starting to show its age, so I decided to set some budget aside to get a new computer for my workstation. I’m going to use it primarily as my development computer to develop .NET, C and java applications for mobile and embedded device. My current computer, Pentium 4 1.7GHz occasionally slows down to a crawl and plays dead on me with the amount of pressure I put on it (compiling, debugging, profilling).

I’ve a budget of around RM2.3k for a complete system without monitor. I’m looking for an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, with at least 2GB of RAM and 320GB storage. I seldom play graphic intensive game so I don’t mind much about graphic cards. What concern me most is the computer performance when I’m compiling/debugging apps.

I don’t have an exact date when I’m going to get a new PC, but seeing the amount of annoyance I’ve to face with an aging workstation, I will probably get it by the start of next year. Hopefully I could write and improves more applications once I get a new workstation.

Btw, keen readers might notice that I write less frequently nowadays, rest assured this pattern will not continue for long because currently I’m being swamped out by a lot of work that I’ve to do. I’ll be back writing at full pace after this month, and yes according to statistic — November is kinda a slow month for me.

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Enabling automatic update in Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

Some people asked me about why automatic update hasn’t kicked in their Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon. After investigating, I found out that this problem only affects a small portion of Ubuntu users that perform fresh Ubuntu installation on their computer.

It seems that in Gutsy, the installer choose to enable CDROM package installation by the default and this might has an effect to automatic update. To remedy this problem, you need to go to System->Software Sources and uncheck the “CDrom with Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon” option and check all the other options.

cdrom-apt.jpg

Your will be able to receive automatic update after that!

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gnome-osd: Handy On-Screen Display for XChat and Evolution

I just want to share with you about gnome-osd, a GNOME desktop add-on that I find handy when working on my computer’s desktop.

This add-on provide informational on-screen display when triggered by certain events such as new email, somebody mentions your nick over the irc and when the music player changes the song.

Personally, I use gnome-osd with Xchat IRC client, when I’m in a mood for online chatting with friends.

To use gnome-osd, you need to install ‘gnome-osd’ package and configure it by accessing System->OSD Notifications. You can enable certain triggers by checking the appropriate box on the dialog box as shown here :

osd2.png

Here’s an example of gnome-osd in action:

gnome-osd-papit3.jpg

From the screenshot, you can see that I’ve tweak the settings a little bit to display the messages on the lower right corner of my screen. The OSD is triggered whenever anybody mentions my nick on the IRC.