benbois’s posterous

Last week, someone sent to me a request for an illustration with La MOOouette (mascot of the French OpenOffice.org project) for a (French) article.
The subject was why it's better to use alternatives solutions instead the pirated copies of MS Office in the companies or associations.

Well, idea has been given to create a pirate MOOouette, it's what I did!

Article url (in French): http://www.aful.org/metamorphose/arretez-diffusion-microsoft-office

It's a bit frustrating to read a PDF file with an iPhone.

Why ?
Not only because the screen is too small (ok.. it could be is) but really because the PDF format doesn't offer the needed functionalities for this type of device (no zoom, fixed page width..).
It' why the formats of eBook exist, of course!

Good but what to do if you have like me some PDF impossible to find in eBook format?
It's not more a problem since I found this very useful online tool called epub2go (http://epub2go.com/).

In 3 clicks, your PDF file will be converted.
 And more, the website offers the possibility to import easily the eBook in your iPhone via your email.

Let's go for the (unneeded) howto:

1- Choose if the PDF file is on your computer or online.
2a- if it's online, click on the bottom button and insert the URL
2b- if the file is on your computer, click on the top button and choose where it is (Browse)
3- After the processing screen, insert your email address and click on "Send to my iPhone"

That's it for the conversion part.

Now to install the eBook on your Iphone:
1- go to Apple Store and install Stanza. It's a free eBook reader.
2- check your email on your iPhone and open the message from ePUB2Go
3- click (tap) on the link inside the message
4- now the ePUB2Go website is automatically open and in the second after a black screen appears with an icon of a book in the middle of the screen.
5- finally, Stanza is open with your new book in the list!

A good read!

Update:
If you want to read your ePub on your desktop, have a look on this list (from fileinfo.com):

Mac OS

Adobe Digital Editions Lexcycle Stanza FBReader calibre

Windows

Adobe Digital Edition Lexcycle Stanza Mobipocket Reader Desktop FBReader dotReader calibre

Linux

FBReader dotReader calibre

Today is the migration day for the netbook of my wife, Alice. After a long time with pleasure and  some annoying things , we've decided to migrate the eeePC 901 from Xandros to Ubuntu Remix.
And to be honest, it hasn't been really painful to achieve this job.

Find here the steps to do the same with your netbook:

1- download the last release from the Ubuntu server:
http://releases.ubuntu.com/9.04/ubuntu-9.04-netbook-remix-i386.img

2- install ImageWriter:
sudo apt-get install usb-imagewriter

3- use ImageWriter to put ubuntu-9.04-netbook-remix-i386.img in the USB key (need a mini. 1Gb usb stick)

4- insert the usb key to the eeePC, start the PC and tape on ESC touch to view the boot menu. Select the USB key in the list.

5- in the boot menu, choose the right language (F2) and the right keyboard map (F3) and Enter
You'll start the live distribution.

6- when the system is ready, click on the Install shorcut.

7- after the firsts easy steps, you arrive to the screen of partitioning. Here, you have some choices to make. I chose to make 3 partitions: 1 partition on the first SSD (root "/"), 2 on the second SSD (10Gb for"/usr" and ~5Gb for "/home") all with the new format Ext4 (better results than Ext3).
You have noticed that I didn't add swap partition, why? First of all, because the netbook has 2Gb of RAM and secondly because after some reads, the writings in the swap seems bad for the life of the SSD (not all people are agree with that but I had to take a decision).

8- after this important step, the installer copies the OS on the netbook.

9- reboot when it's asked (don't forget to remove the usb key).

As you can see, the boot is quite quick, under 40 seconds to go to the desktop with the wifi connexion.

Alice uses her eeePC for 4 main usages:
- to stay in touch with our family (in Spain, France, ),
- in the kitchen as a (luxury) webradio
- to make videos of our children or take a picture during cookery.
- to record her voice for her French lessons.

So, I had to install some softs:
- for the video, wxCam (sudo apt-get install wxcam). It has better perfomances than Cheese in video recording mode.
- for the webradio, Rhythmbox with a customized list of French webradios.
- for the webphone, Skype for linux (works better than on Xandros even the webcam). You must specify the sound device to get sound. Go to Options / Sound Devices and choose in the 3 lists, "HDA Intel (hw:Intel,0)", then Apply.
- finally, nothing to do for the voice, Sound Recorder is already installed on Ubuntu Remix.

To finish the job:
- remove unused stuff like Evolution
- add plugins like Flash (nonfree), Jre (SUN).
You can do this job with the Synaptic Package Manager (in Administration tab).
- remove unused applications started with the system: go to Preferences tab / Startup Applications and unselect "Bluetooth Manager", "Check for new hardware drivers", "Remove Desktop", "Visual Assistance". Of course it depends of your specifi hardware or preferences.
- add shortcuts in the Favourites tab: simply selecting the shortcut (from its tab for example, Internet) and to glide it into the Favourites tab.

Here you can see the result.

Update (2009.06.13):
Wifi WPA authentication is impossible with the current rt2860 driver. To solve this problem, we have to downgrade the driver.

1) Get the driver from http://www.array.org/ubuntu/dists/intrepid/eeepc/binary-i386/rt2860-dkms_1.7.1.1_all.deb

wget http://www.array.org/ubuntu/dists/intrepid/eeepc/binary-i386/rt2860-dkms_1.7.1.1_all.deb

2) Go to terminal, and move the pre-installed driver so it won't get loaded.

cd /lib/modules/2.6.28-11-generic/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860/
sudo mv rt2860sta.ko rt2860sta.bak

3) Install rt2860-dkms_1.7.1.1_all.deb. It will also install dependencies needed to compile the driver.

sudo dpkg -i rt2860-dkms_1.7.1.1_all.deb
sudo apt-get install -f

If it doesn't retrieve the right packages, makesure "build-essential", "linux-header-generic" and "dkms" is installed. Let it run and it should complete without a problem.

4) Restart. The new driver should work automatically.

It's a bit hard to maintain manually a lot of servers but it's really important to keep them updated. It's why I looked for an automatic solution and it has been pretty easy to find a good and simple one.

I propose to you to use an utility called apt-cron.

installing it on our system:
sudo apt-get install apt-cron

creating a new security list:
sudo nano  /etc/apt/sources.list.d/security.sources.list

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security main
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security universe

setuping APT actions:
sudo nano /etc/cron-apt/action.d/5-install

autoclean -q -y
dist-upgrade -q -y -o APT::Get::Show-Upgraded=true -o Dir::Etc::sourcelist=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/security.sources.list -o Dir::Etc::sourceparts=nonexistent -o DPkg::Options::=--force-confdef -o DPkg::Options::=--force-confold

adding a cron task:
sudo crontab -e

5 0    *   *   *  test -x /usr/sbin/cron-apt && /usr/sbin/cron-apt

To test the auto update process:
sudo /usr/sbin/cron-apt

To check the log:
sudo cat /var/log/cron-apt/log

idea / source from http://www.turnkeylinux.org/

As a real geek, I'm working with two screens on my desktop computer. But sometime, I'd like to have another one to keep an eye on Twitter for example!
I found a GEQ solution to my problem!
I discovered recently a software called Synergy. It's quite old (last release April 2006) but it works fine.

What is Synergy?
Synergy offers to share the keyboard, the mouse and the clipboard between multi computers!

How it works?
Simply to install:
- a server on the master computer (with the mouse/keyboard)
- a client on the other computers (without mouse/keyboard).

How to install it?
You have two ways to install Synergy on Linux system:
1- console mode

• install the software on each computer, in Ubuntu with the followed command:
  sudo apt-get install synergy
• configure the server
  sudo nano /etc/synergy.conf

section: screens
  my_laptop:
  my_desktop:
end
section: links
  my_desktop:
    left = my_laptop
  my_laptop:
    right = my_desktop
end

Here, we have the desktop screen on the right of the laptop. You have to insert the hostname (my_laptop and my_desktop here). To know it, put in console "hostname" (or cat $HOSTNAME).

• Now, run the Synergy server on the desktop:
  synergys
  the process is automatically loaded as daemon.
• Finally, on the client side, run by the command:
  synergyc server_ip
• Move you mouse on the left border of your desktop screen and your pointer is going to jump to the laptop screen, magical isn't it!

2- with a GUI client:

• Install a new package called QuickSynergy in all computers:
  sudo apt-get install quicksynergy (on Ubuntu system)
• Run the soft, in gnome:
  Applications Menu > Accessories > QuickSynergy
• In the server (computer with mouse/keyboard), choose the first tab "Share" (pict.1)
• Insert in the left field, the hostname of your client (ex. my_laptop)
• Click on the Start button
• Run the soft (see below)
• In the client, choose the second tab "Use" (pict.2)
• Insert the server IP in the text field.
• Click on the Execute button
• Now, Synergy is ready to use!

   

Click here to download:

Need_a_third_screen_for_a_bett.zip (31 KB)

Well, a good way to see the financial crisis with a smile.. yes it's possible!

Thanks to Johannes Kreidler, German compositor for this original break.

Made with the Microsoft Composition Tool.

website: http://www.kreidler-net.de/

You are invited to see the year 2008 by a pictures tour on the Boston.com website.
And of course, you will refind one of the hero of the year, Iron Man!

Unfortunately, lot of the pictures are linked with terrible events.
I prefer to keep, the better things like Iron Man crossing the Channel.
What do you think?

Little break on my web dev to make some OpenOffice.org Education project visual elements!
Here we have 2 A3 posters to complete with any text you want and 4 differents stickers for laptop or anywhere else.
I'll provide the SVG source to everyone who ask me.

           

Click here to download:

OpenOffice.org_Education_-_let.zip (491 KB)

A great news for all developers of the OpenOffice.org port to native Mac OS-X system,the number of downloads is higher than for Linux system (according with this source: http://www.solidoffice.com/archives/893).

• "221,230 GNU/Linux users
• an impressive 320,622 Mac OS X users
• a staggering 2,449,863 Microsoft Windows users."

Well done guys, I'm happy for you specially for Eric.