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.

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!

How to make pidgin display Instant Messenger protocol ID

I heard some people complained that pidgin does not show the messenger protocol for the buddies associated with your account. Actually this feature was indeed incorporated in Pidgin, only it is not enabled by default.

To enable the it, you only need to go to Buddies->Show, and select Protocol Icons option. Pidgin should display messenger protocol icon on your buddies list.

Here’s a screenshot which explains the step

pidgin1.jpg

pidgin2.jpg

From the screenshot you can easily spot which buddies are from jabber protocol and Yahoo Messenger protocol. I hope this particular tip would be useful to you!

How to Randomize login screen in Ubuntu (GDM)

There’s nothing wrong with the default brownish “Human” Ubuntu login screen, but sometimes your brain might get bored with the same login screen overtime. So in this post I’ll be showing you how to randomize the GDM login screen through these simple steps :

From Desktop, go to System->Administration->Login Window

gdm.jpg

Choose “Random from Selected” from the selector in the Login Window dialog. And check all the GDM themes that you wish to be cycled each start up.

gdm-prefs.jpg

That’s it! close the dialog and logout from your GNOME session, it should display random login screens each time when you switch on your computer.

Need more themes?
You can always find and install more cool themes from Gnome Looks !

FFMpeg based FLV to 3gp batch converter scripts

A friend from #fakap asks me to create a dead simple FLV to 3gp batch converter for him to port youtube clips to mobile phone.

As a result I complied, and created flvto3gp bash script for the job.

Usage
Using it is simple, just run this script inside a directory full of FLV (or any video files supported by ffmpeg) and execute it using this command :

sh flvto3gp.sh *

The script will convert all video files to 3gp file format one by one. The script requires
ffmpeg in order to run.

Ubuntu users might have to refer to this post before using this utility : Enable mp3 and amr support in ffmpeg ( Ubuntu )

[tags]ubuntu,flv,linux,ffmpeg,open source[/tags]