First you have to install these dependencies

libgtkspell-dev
libglib2.0-dev
libgtk2.0-dev
libcurl4-openssl-dev
libpulse-dev
libasound2-dev
libnotify-dev
libmcrypt-dev
libgpgme11-dev
libjasper-dev  *
imagemagick *
libgtkhtml2-dev
libtool

The ones with * might be optional. There might be more and you can get some hints when something goes wrong during the install process.

Next up download the source files for gyachi. Extract and cd into the directory. As root run these commands

./autogen.sh
./configure –disable-rpath –enable-maintainer-mode –prefix /usr –disable-wine

(You may remove the –disable-wine if you are not on an amd64 platform.).

make

If there was still no compile error-

make install

Enjoy gyachi compiled from source!

Until then, we should be able to recognize what is indeed a genuine email from hoax emails. As a first rule, whatever seems unreal maybe just that- not real. To confirm whether an email indeed came from a valid source, one may look at its full email headers to take a hint. (Now if the email source was correct, perhaps your email account was used without your permission but that is altogether another thing.)

Depending on what you are using- a web based email like Yahoo! or Gmail or if you are using an email client like Thunderbird, Evolution or Outlook- there are different ways to look at the full email headers. I shall not discuss it in here but you may consult relevant documentations.

This is an email header from a legitimate Yahoo! account to another Yahoo! account.

X-Apparently-To: truerecipient@yahoo.com via 68.142.200.36; Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:34:02 -0800
Return-Path: <truesender@yahoo.com>
X-YMailISG: ml4Zxf0WLDs0nf3MwNIsm7PZshlNwq1Wb_deqAZMvHjf6RYqjAQXhCc_Lz73l.AsX2HzLbWQ4WYINVgWmzK1CC7y0Y2lCOrhVAjYh3qOtpQpzqN17tHADAcQ.WAlYeNmHXA7CGBc9l0czG532d2pjOzPc0QVLQTrIyGiWsbspMiFZIUGdVfTAoVoK06SlkhxubkMKtOnS.FVMMYzM_yJ7P_MPrvkObMLQaYTSVXR.IjTpai4dw9mSe5UDvTi90seGH6vDlCvGOBCWbdIq3qNiZMZ2hXQTgVvENLnmaQQVQbvo5HMCXf5kuHz843zY23sgmvF1ZeKL8sFmt4MuIMVmn2f2zHXaY0mdHnyTo50XOHXbnp9p86VPg8T1iMkcQxEcD1p6kwfpfbLlyaPrrU9nZXfoFa2tVGg6RJ_sLbrhOSLgmWYMtA4
X-Originating-IP: [98.136.44.35]
Authentication-Results: mta1075.mail.sp2.yahoo.com from=yahoo.com; domainkeys=fail (bad sig); from=yahoo.com; dkim=permerror (bad sig)
Received: from 127.0.0.1 (HELO n62.bullet.mail.sp1.yahoo.com) (98.136.44.35) by mta1075.mail.sp2.yahoo.com with SMTP; Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:34:02 -0800
Received: from [69.147.84.145] by n62.bullet.mail.sp1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 11 Nov 2009 19:34:02 -0000
Received: from [69.147.84.95] by t8.bullet.mail.sp1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 11 Nov 2009 19:34:02 -0000
Received: from [127.0.0.1] by omp205.mail.sp1.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 11 Nov 2009 19:34:02 -0000
X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3
X-Yahoo-Newman-Id: 170087.71609.bm@omp205.mail.sp1.yahoo.com
Received: (qmail 11655 invoked by uid 60001); 11 Nov 2009 19:34:02 -0000
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=yahoo.com; s=s1024; t=1257968042; bh=9O+w8kxRRco8XSVHKAtZAtaa95tj7rC1P0Ezh7AMBRg=; h=Message-ID:X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:Date:From:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=bY9U+g/3i1nucTnk6npre9zjYd3/+X+pIsiYw1zhICvbeRUo66tVMegD2jvQERXv4YDWQCvz905dKU48A0ORBYKwlg2tqSNgSNzB69ARyScCvQvDqr4RNI1z8ndyZHzeTODI94ytDzyUGVVz21cW7kZWaLi5sWupcJJHb919AZ4=
DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=Message-ID:X-YMail-OSG:Received:X-Mailer:Date:From:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Content-Type; b=ZANLaoVFNJX8hJf/GCwrO578JoSeJGRIFr//vrhBBwO58vpUKMg1660syExDkK0w/qtb9HTJnj1qByE3dSyvv8DpWif8pg66HwnBnhpQtPK0nG2Axe1Jkns2hFlQCr+W5I6Z8IFW3EnC8fIF/WySIF5BMICTn+rVrNUlX0M8Tys=;
Message-ID: <101811.11242.qm@web44711.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
X-YMail-OSG: q1fLjrEVM1mVKkzcPB85tBZ8naOeiSI_r_e.8VCu6atyG5ys_6Ru3aR7ejWJxoTv4okXKqAi0LPksSUqfkPT2BXb4JhVU12ZdQFwAOFLFUYS2r4w_A6jJEjZyVQwh640kAIMSeLq2cNBTUILEJ7d_CcbZq11OC7fpIUkfvr2z9gSG35KxXSmLRzZMnOj0JuInkFEEaHkyazAoXMukIKffiXVtvAdEGmer9VnkcpTHxFwemgjMz5N4GRdVRaWfREMQoQ03S1wF48spNbVvefdwXYsAc9kbiJR0NVMw4NmqJry1umTtG7nTglqazroXg–
Received: from [77.31.44.73] by web44711.mail.sp1.yahoo.com via HTTP; Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:34:02 PST
X-Mailer: YahooMailClassic/8.1.6 YahooMailWebService/0.7.361.4
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:34:02 -0800 (PST)
From: True Sender <truesender@yahoo.com>
Subject: subject
To: True Recipient <truerecipient@yahoo.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=”0-637299057-1257968042=:11242″
Content-Length: 1675

This is the email header from one claiming to be from Yahoo! which was received by another email server. Notice the existence of an unwanted domain.

Return-Path: <mail@netzona.cz>
X-Original-To: poorrecipient@corporateemail.com
Delivered-To: poorrecipient@corporateemail.com
Received: from mxfirewall1.corporateemail.com (unknown [210.185.187.5])
by a.corporateemail.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1887F9A7AC
for <poorrecipient@corporateemail.com>; Mon,  9 Nov 2009 04:03:13 +0800 (PHT)
Received: from mxfirewall1.corporateemail.com (localhost [127.0.0.1])
by mxfirewall1.corporateemail.com (Proxmox) with ESMTP id 8324734C784
for <poorrecipient@corporateemail.com>; Mon,  9 Nov 2009 04:18:20 +0800 (PHT)
Received: from netzona.cz (alfa.netzona.cz [89.187.131.211])
by mxfirewall1.corporateemail.com (Proxmox) with ESMTP id EE61C34C5E4
for <poorrecipient@corporateemail.com>; Mon,  9 Nov 2009 04:18:17 +0800 (PHT)
Received: from /spool/local
by netzona.cz with [XMail 1.24 LMAIL Server]
for <poorrecipient@corporateemail.com> from <mail@netzona.cz>;
Sun, 8 Nov 2009 21:18:11 +0100
To: poorrecipient@corporateemail.com, poorrecipient@corporateemail.com,
poorrecipient@corporateemail.com
Subject: DEROGATORY SUBJECT!!!!
From: I am not as I am <fakesender@yahoo.com>
MIME-version: 1.0
X-Priority: 1 (Highest)
Importance: High
X-Mailer: yahoomail.com
Reply-To: I am not as I am <fakesender@yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”iso-8859-2″
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 21:18:10 +0100
Message-Id: <20091108201818.EE61C34C5E4@mxfirewall1.corporateemail.com>

I shall also post the email headers of a sender disguising as a Yahoo! account and was sent to another Yahoo! account soon.

I have seen a case of a spoofed Yahoo! email account sent to another Yahoo! email account. The email subject is almost always something that would elicit the recipients curiosity thereby opening the said email and any atttachment it has. Little do the recipient know that the attachment contains a harmful software that may damage his/her computer.

What I do not understand is- why can’t Yahoo! flag emails like this as spam or suspicious? Is it hard to trace emails claiming to be from Yahoo! but which did not come from them?

Whatever the motive of the sender is- be it to make a prank, to fool someone etc., if we know how to tell a good email from something that is fishy, then basically this cheap trick of faking an email would be useless for us. Whoever is doing it only achieves one thing- that is, he makes a fool of himself and wastes his own time. Time which instead would have been spent on more productive things.

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.

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.

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.

Most laptops do not have bluetooth built in- a bluetooth module is actually quite cheap- the reason laptop manufacturers do not include it may be hard think about. HDMI is the multimedia port of the future. If you are thinking blu-ray entertainment, HDMI is a must then. One can live without bluetooth or HDMI features but it is always good to have and maybe tomorrow you will have a use for it

The Gateway uc7811i is my current performance per price champion for laptops (the Nokia 5800 being my champion for cellphones but that is another topic). A laptop like this should be in the 50k pesos price tag at the least. You can go look for laptops in the mall at that price range and seldom would you find one as feature packed as the uc7811i. Suprisingly, its price is just a few thousand pesos higher than a netbook at (30k to 35k). Afterall, Gateway was known for budget laptops even before it was acquired by giant Acer.

Its screen size of 13.3 fits between a regular notebook (14.1) and a netbook. Its not as slim as the Neo Edge or the current Acer Timelines but it is not heavy either. It has a slot loading optical disk much like the Macbooks.

Its overall style is desirable. Its top cover is brown, glossy, shiny, elegant and attractive though something you would consider a finger print magnet much like the Acer Aspire One. It is easy to clean though. The frame containing the LCD is black, shiny and plastic. Still like what the AAO have, is very scratch prone. Not a big deal either. The wrist pad rest area around the circular touch pad is black and has a sort of vinyl / metallic finish that would never fade. Together with the excellent keyboard, and the plain touchpad (that is lacking any scroll feature which would have been a bonus) is quite all black and feels good to the touch. Very good design taste Gateway!

There is a multimedia touch sensitive LED at the top of the keyboard wherein you can adjust the volume or play, pause, skip or repeat a music or video clip. Those red colors on top of shiny black looks cool as well. But that LED panel is something Gateway can do away with. I do not think I would be able to use it much if at all. But it looks highly sophisticated.

Kubuntu

Excited, I downloaded through torrent a 64 bit version of Kubuntu to test out this lean machine.

For a side story, I started out my Linux journey way back in college around 2002. KDE was clearly superior to GNOME back then because they have a development headstart of at least a year. So KDE was my preferred desktop until around three years ago when Ubuntu became really popular. Add the fact that the 4.0 branch of KDE was buggy when it was released (early 2008?), so I finally decided to make the switch. But now I am itching to try out KDE again with most bugs from the early 4.0 fixed and the whole interface is now a lot more slicker and better.

I was surprised that everything works out of the box when I installed Kubuntu in my uc7811i. I really cannot believe that Linux can be this easy now thanks to the Ubuntu community and both the GNOME and KDE groups (and also to Linus Torvalds, GNU and the other big distros Redhat / Fedora, Suse / Novell, Mandriva formerly Mandrake my first distro, Gentoo, Slackware, Debian, Knoppix et al). My apologies to those I unknowingly left out.

Cam works out of the box and can be used in Skype. Wifi too. The video is flawless though I am not sure if there is anything else that I need to install for my ATI card. Sound works though you have to adjust alsamixer first. The external mic works well. Unfortunately, the internal mic that is connected to the headset seems to have low volume with Skype (same in Vista when I tried it before) I may have to let Acer Repair look into it. I am sure it will be fixed and not a major annoyance. (Update: mic seems fine.)

I used the 64bit installer of Kubuntu but my kernel does not reveal a 64 bit- that too I have to read about but is my fault. (Update I am expecting an x86_64 kernel but most apps are 64 bit so this seems ok even though I get a generic kernel).

Through apt-get, I have installed Skype (instructions here), flash (here), pidgin, xchat, brasero, vlc, tomboy, transmission, tsclient, xtightvncviewer, firefox, gimp, kwrite, subversion – mostly GNOME apps that I am very used to.

Now my system is something I can use for play as well as work. Perfect!

Overall, I really really like this machine. Its power and fashion is top notch and rivals any other laptop twice its amount. Truly value for my hard earned money.

Now, is there anything not to love with the Gateway uc7811i? (Oh! I am paying for an operating system that I will not be using!)

My Kubuntu desktop

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.