Ever encountered a time that you received an email supposedly coming from a contact but which your contact did not send to you? Or maybe a friend getting emails from you that you did not make?
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Archive for November, 2009
Spoofed Emails
Friday, November 13th, 2009Pidgin is still my choice for IM client in Ubuntu for the time being
Monday, November 9th, 2009workswithu.com has written a great blog entry reconsidering the choice of making empathy the default IM client for GNOME in place of pidgin. Ubuntu Karmic Koala has been released recently and loyal followers of pidgin for the first time did not find their favorite IM client in the default install of their favorite Linux distribution.
The blog entry (as well as the comments in there) states the advantages and disadvantages of both- empathy being more integrated with GNOME but does not send out new email notification and pidgin- storing its password in plain text etc. The author then proceeds to ask whether it really matters as it would be easy to install the other left out software anyway.
I say, GNOME or Ubuntu should for once come with two IM clients- pidgin and empathy- while there is still a missing feature left out in empathy that is in pidgin. I know that this might be against their old philosophy of shipping with just one app that does a certain thing well- but they should somehow consider what their user wants.
As for me, new email notification specially in ym is a deal breaker (like the case with some comment posters in the blog entry also) but I would be testing empathy in the next release if they already have this. I think it is a simple feature to be added if only they will listen to their users. I am aware of pidgin’s plain text password issue but I am fine with not storing my password and therefore being asked for it everytime I start GNOME. So yes pidgin is still it for me.
Your flash drive not auto mounting in Ubuntu, Kubuntu (maybe Xubuntu too) 9.10 32 or 64 bit?
Saturday, November 7th, 2009Your flash drive not auto mounting in Ubuntu, Kubuntu (maybe Xubuntu too) 9.10 32 or 64 bit like it used to in 9.04?
Try to install udev from proposed for now. Fire up your software sources and you need to enable “Pre-release updates”, close the app and from a console / terminal you have to type in
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install udev
You may untick “Pre release updates” afterwards.
Reboot your machine (or restart udev) and everything should be auto mounting again.
I hope Ubuntu picks this up fast and make it into its regular update.
UPDATE: As of 23 November 2009, udev-147~-6.1 is already in the updates. So all you have to do is update udev and you should be good to go!
UPDATE: I have reverted back to previous udev version udev-147~-6 because of pulseadio memory leak. Now if you will need to insert a flash drive, a restart of udev might be a temporary fix until Ubuntu fixes this showstopper bug.
What is there not to love with the Gateway uc7811i (and Kubuntu)?
Thursday, November 5th, 2009What is there not to love with the Gateway uc7811i?
Gateway uc7811
Quick specs-
Core2 Duo T6400 2GHz
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470
13.3 inch
usual goodies – cam, wifi (draft N), vga port etc
not so usual goodies – bluetooth, HDMI
Vista Home Premium
320gb Harddrive, 2gb ram
It packs a lot of power with its (64 bit compatible) processor. But when buying a laptop, one should not only look at the processor, more importantly, one should consider a decent graphics card (especially if one play games occasionally). And with the ATI 3470, the uc7811i surely have a top of the line video card in at least a couple of years to come.
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New laptops should also have the option with no software bundled
Thursday, November 5th, 2009On the topic of bundled softwares which are added costs to a new laptop or PC- I think that laptop manufacturers should always give the option that there is no bundled software in their products. I used an alternative operating system – (Ubuntu, Kubuntu) so I really have no need for a Windows OS. In these times of trials, any savings would always be big. Calling the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)…
Some useful (open source) software for a new computer
Thursday, November 5th, 2009Whenever I go to the mall to check out some new laptops, I almost always hear potential buyers if the laptop would be bundled with a particular software (most of the time Microsoft Office or an antivirus). I say, check the hardware specs instead of the software bundled- because the said bundled software usually are only additional costs which may otherwise be spent for better hardware. For example, instead of paying for the operating system (OS) or Office Suite- you could just have instead upgraded its processor.
So for those buying laptops or PCs and looking for bundled softwares here are some alternatives on top of my head
1. Operating System – go with Ubuntu or Kubuntu instead. Vista is at least 5000 pesos more- money which could have been spent to upgrade a celeron cpu to a core 2 duo.
2. Office Suite – instead of Microsoft Office (10000+ pesos for 2007 Basic)- you can download the compatible Open Office.
3. Anti virus – clamwin.
4. Video player – vlc.
5. Browser – Firefox.
6. Email client – instead of Outlook go with Thunderbird.
There is an open source alternative for almost every other software that you will ever need.
