SquareCows

If you got spotify installed under wine in Linux it may annoy you that you can’t open spotify url’s from just any application. The howto spotify provides works for firefox but not for chrome or pidgin etc etc.

So here is how to make all your apps (at least in gnome) open spotify url’s.

First of all create the browser2spotify script that’s going to be called when you click on a spotify link, don’t forget to make it executable!

echo ‘#!/bin/sh’ > ~/.browser2spotify
echo ‘exec wine “C:\Program Files\Spotify\spotify.exe” /uri “$@”‘ >> ~/.browser2spotify
chmod 755 ~/.browser2spotify

Now let’s associate spotify URL with the open script by editing gconf. Change USERNAME for your account login name

gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/spotify/command “/home/USERNAME/.browser2spotify”
gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/spotify/needs_terminal false -t bool
gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/spotify/enabled true -t bool

You should now be set and ready to roll.

SVN is now up and running again. ApacheMap and MonoBackup are on google code:

ApacheMap: https://code.google.com/p/apachegeomap/source/checkout

Mono-backup: https://code.google.com/p/m0n0-backup/source/checkout

wp-rdfa and wp-dephorm are hosted by wordpress:

wp-rdfa: http://svn.wp-plugins.org/wp-rdfa/

wp-dephorm: http://svn.wp-plugins.org/wp-dephorm/

Feel free to download alter and suggest changes again.

Here’s a little file to drop into your cowsay to get your very own Square Cow!

If you dont have cowsay installed:

apt-get install cowsay (on any debian/ubuntu system)

Then copy this file you can download to

sudo cp sqcow.cow /usr/share/cowsay/cows/

then simply run:

cowsay -f /usr/share/cowsay/cows/sqcow.cow YOUR-MESSAGE

Your very own SquareCow!

Enjoy!

For those of you currently using Dropbox, an online storage drive for your personal files, and wanting to upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10 you may hit some problems if you try and install the 9.04 deb file. The program may start but never prompt you for a username and password and just crash out. However all is not lost, there is a away round it as Dropbox offer a source download for the non proprietary bits and will download the other required parts itself. Heres how to get it all working again.

1. First lets get some required software packages.

sudo apt-get install wget build-essential libnautilus-extension-dev libnotify-dev python-docutils

2. Now lets get the source.

sudo su -p

cd /usr/src/

wget https://www.getdropbox.com/download?dl=packages/nautilus-dropbox-0.6.1.tar.bz2

3. Unpack

tar xvfj nautilus-dropbox-0.6.1.tar.bz2

4. Compile

cd nautilus-dropbox-0.6.1

./configure

make

make install

5. Your now ready to run Dropbox from Applications > Internet > Dropbox

Hope that helps a few people. Enjoy!

I’ve started work on creating some debian/ubuntu packages of Garlik’s 4store RDF database, currently there is source and soon there will be some RPM’s, so I thought I’d help bring  .deb’s to the party. The guys from Garlik are very helpful and can be contacted in #4store on freenode. According to their site:

4store was designed by Steve Harris and developed at Garlik to underpin their Semantic Web applications. It has been providing the base platform for around 3 years. At times holding and running queries over databases of 15GT, supporting a Web application used by thousands of people.

I’m looking at this product to build the core of system that will help create a scalable, repeatable, easy to use data store system. The idea behind this is to help organisations achieve the goal of opening their data. @johnlsheridan stated that open source is the perfect system for promoting and achieving the goal of open data and open standards, all three go hand in hand. My aim is to remove the “black magic” currently involved in setting up some of these systems and help people free their data easily, which should benefit us all in the long run.

4store has some very interesting features such as the ability of nodes to clustering database nodes for scalability. It also has a SPARQL http server which provides a RESTful API. The fact that all the data can be accessed by a URI means this data is cacheable, which in turn means you can scale this system very easily with proxies and load balancers. The beauty of the system though is that none of these extra features are a requirement, so if your a small organisation with a moderate amount of data you don’t need to break the bank to do it.

Why free your data?

Well data is key for communication and the traditional business model is to guard your data and protect it. However the internet generation is here, and they’re changing the world! As soon as you put your data in a open standard anyone can use it. Using linked data means that someone looking for information about a certain item can find your data easier and more importantly can be interpreted by machines easily which improves search algorithms. If this item searched for is a product it may get you a sale. If the item is data about health it might even save a life. Data is diverse and so is its uses, when you open your data people may find a new way of using it and progress is made. Opening your data allows people create mashups and pull in data from a multitude of sources, giving a accurate and informative view on the requested subject matter. Open source, open data and open standards if embraced by enough people will help everyone move forward. I’ve only skimmed the surface of what these systems can be used for and trying to describe the importance of open data is incredibly difficult because data can be anything! If you want to know more I’d suggest looking at these TED speaches:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html

and an excellent example of open data in use:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html

Recently I’ve been asked to convert a few Windows Machines to Ubuntu after some spectacular failures in the MS operating system. The main problem with converting people to Ubuntu or any flavour of Linux is iTunes! Apple and Linux are both trying to take on Windows in the market and as Windows is the biggest user base for desktop users iTunes is often used as a way to give Windows users their first *Mac Experience*, hoping that more and more people will convert to their platform. This approach seems to be working as Apple grows in the desktop usage charts. Linux on the other hand is a very small market and its users, so far, have shown no interest in switching their distro to OSX. So this is why Apple haven’t spent lots of money and released a Linux version of iTunes. However we still love our music, and one of the best players (IMHO) on the market is still the iPod. Because open source users are a resourceful bunch it wasn’t long before they started work on a integrated media player and portable music device manager. Enter the Banshee!

Installation

On Ubuntu install is very easy, by either using synaptic or the command line:

sudo apt-get install banshee

It really is that simple to get started.

Importing Music

Banshee will either let you import CD’s, current mp3′/ogg’s etc on your hard drive or there is a VERY VERY handy feature. On plugging in your iPod your presented with a screen that may or may not report that banshee can not read your library. This is to do with the fact apple keep changing their library format which tells your about all the details of the song your playing. However all is not lost, by clicking convert my library you’ll instantly be granted access to all your songs and can just drag and drop them into your local library!

Album Art

The version of Banshee I installed on Ubuntu shipped with the album art plugin. Automatically on importing tunes to your library banshee will go and find artwork for your tunes.

Purchasing Music

Banshee doesn’t offer a built in music store like iTunes does so purchasing music has to be done via separate programs. There are several alternatives on offer now and many download the music straight into your Music directory. All you have to do then is tell Banshee to import the music and your ready to go. I would however recommend using a DRM Free music service such as amazon MP3.

Video and Podcasts

Yes you can even subscribe to podcasts via banshee however you’ll need to find the url of the podcast via firefox and paste the details into banshee which doesn’t have a iTunes style store for such things. Banshee will also play a hole plethora of video formats so you could even use it to manage your video library.

Overall view

I’m a big banshee fan however I’d love to see work for more devices being ploughed into the project. Whilst iPods and creative xen’s etc etc etc we are still missing some support for newer iPod’s like the touchs. Hopefully the power of open source will come up with a solution soon. Using banshee beats the pants off running iTunes in wine performance wise and to me this far out ways any losses you may loose in functionality. It you really want to go the whole hog with open source and your music collection check out the rockbox project which is an open source firmware for your portable music player.

I’ve recently been playing with UbuntuOne. For those who don’t know UbuntuOne is a new service from canonical (the creator Ubuntu) which gives you a virtual online drive, this integrates with your desktop and allows you to access your files via a web interface whilst away from your PC. You can think of it as a virtual USB thumb drive. Installing this service on multiple Ubuntu desktops allows you sync files between desktops seamlessly. If you’ve ever used Dropbox, the service will feel very familiar, but there are some differences. At the time of writing this article UbuntuOne is in beta, so I’m expecting some improvements and extra features before the final release.

The free accounts for both UbuntuOne and Dropbox are 2GB in size which should be enough to sync important documents and some photo’s. Both services also offer a pay monthly service to increase your space, Dropbox offers 50GB for $9.99 a month and 100GB for $19.99 a month, these packages make Canonical’s offering of 10GB for $10 a month look a little puny. Currently there is no support for other operating systems from UbuntuOne where as Dropbox offers clients for Windows, Mac and Linux. I personally feel Canonical need’s to address this, it’s a fantastic feature that could allow users a easier transition between OS’s, which could help more people convert to Ubuntu in the long run. One thing UbuntuOne does do very nicely is, ingrate with your desktop, however I would like the option to choose where to store files locally. That feature is especially usefull if your running a netbook with a small SSD card in. Dropbox allowed me to store files on a much larger SD card slotted into my device.

On installing Dropbox you need to suply your login details, however UbuntuOne manages this authentication in a much more web 2.0 fashion. Once installed you are asked on a web page to authorise the machine you are using, this is all intergrated with your launchpad account. This hole process is very smooth and very easy. Both services allow you to access your files by a web gui, so if your away from your PC and need to pull down that important file you have forgotten you can! I’ve attached a screenshot of the UbuntuOne web gui for you to see:

UbuntuOne Beta Web GUI

I’ve seen several improvements in both the web gui and the client software in the past couple of weeks and the developers seem very receptive to feedback with is a real bonus these days and shows Canonical’s continued open source mentality, even though this is a proprietory service. I hope in the next few weeks/months we’ll see leaps and bounds and this service will become everything Dropbox is and maybe more, it already shows great promise with its desktop intergration and as the release candiates near who knows what treats are instore.

Following my post about iPhone + Linux tethering which used wireless to connect the laptop to the iPhone, I started to encounter a few problems with the solution. The main problem I found with this method was setting up the adhoc wireless network. It ALWAYS seemed a fiddle. So I started looking for a way to use the USB cable to connect the iPhone to the laptop and use that for connectivity. The answer was iTunnel! Here is a quick HOWTO for using it. I have sucessfully run this on Ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04.

Requirements.

A Jailbroken iPhone running SSH.

WARNING: DOING THIS BREAKS YOUR iPHONE WARRANTY AND AGREEMENT WITH YOUR CELL/MOBILE PROVIDER: DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

Installation.

Download iTunnel from: http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~jingsu/itunnel/itunnel-0.0.5.tgz to your laptop.

Open a shell and type:

tar xvfz itunnel-0.0.5.tgz

mv itunnel-0.0.5 itunnel

Running the tunnel.

Plugin your iPhone via USB cable:

cd ~/itunnel

./itunnel 3023

The first time you run this it may fail and unmount your iPhone’s camera folder. Running it for a second time you should be shown the following in the shell:

get_iPhone() success
- successfully got device
server waiting for ssh connection

In a second shell now run the following command, which SSH’s to the new tunnel and sets up a SOCKS proxy on port 9000 for you:

ssh -D 9000 -p 3023 127.0.0.1

Leave both shells open, whilst you wish to be connected to the internet.

Configure Firefox.

Open Firefox and in the url bar enter:

about:config

Filter for:

network.proxy.socks_remote_dns

Now set its value to true. This allows the iPhone to resolve the DNS for firefox rather than the laptop, as only the iPhone has true internet connectivity to do DNS requests.

Now still in Firefox go to Edit > Preferences. Choose the Advanced section and the Network tab. Now click the Settings button and Select Manual Proxy Configuration. Enter the following

SOCKS Host: 127.0.0.1 Port: 9000

Your now ready to browse the internet from your laptop without fiddling about creating a adhoc wireless network! To close the tunnel just hit CTRL+C in the the iTunnel shell.