Another long hiatis

It has been a long-long time between my blog posts.  Guess I am not cut out to be a writer I guess.  Anyway, I will make yet another attempt to impart some words of wisdom in the field of computers and computer programming.   Thanks...

Creating a lock screen icon on GNOME desktop

I did some Googling the other day to find out how I can add a shortcut on my GNOME desktop that would lock the screen.  This turned out to be a bit of a challenge but being the persistent person I am, I was able to find a solution.

Here is the command I associated with a short-cut on my GNOME desktop to lock the screen. 

gnome-screensaver-command --lock

This works on Fedora 14 as well as Ubuntu 11.04.  I expect this command to also work on any workstation running a GNOME desktop.

It has been too long...

I see I am not doing a very good job posting stuff on my blog. I am going to work on making posts on a regular basis. I change my "Picture of the moment" in honor of our loyal dog Jake who had to be put down 2 summers ago. I miss my friend.

Shoutcast for Amarok 2.2.0

The holidays have given me some free time to search the internet for Linux Ubuntu issues I have on my many computers. The lack of Shoutcast plugin in Amarok 2.2.0 which comes with the Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic) repository is an issue I just learned about today. I did a quick Google search and found the following URL with a temporary solution.

http://www.kde-apps.org/content/show.php/?content=116823

There are not any directions for installing the script so I played around and discovered that the Tools menu has a Script Manager item which supports loading the tar file from the above web site. You have to then make sure that the Shoutcast checkbox is checked after the tar file has been successfully loaded.

Adding RPMForge Repository to CentOS

Even though I am a big fan of Ubuntu for the desktop, I prefer a Red Hat distribution for runnig my servers. I do not want to pay for them so I tried Fedora to run on the two (now three) servers at home. I finally decided upon CentOS 5.1 and have successfully upgraded one of my three servers to CentOS 5.3. My newest aquisition is a Proliant ML370 G2 (1 Pentium III 1.4Ghz CPU, 1.2GB memory and 6x37.4GB SCSI hard drives) and it is running CentOS 5.3 installed from DVD. I use the extras that comes with CentOS at install time but I like packages on the RPMForge repository.

Adding the RPMForge repository requires adding a rpmforge.repo file and installing the GPG key for the repository so packages won't fail rpm/yum install.

Here is where the rpmforge.repo goes:

/etc/yum.repo.d/rpmforge.repo:

Here is the contents of the aforementioned file:

# Name: RPMforge RPM Repository for Red Hat Enterprise 5 - dag
# URL: http://rpmforge.net/
[rpmforge]
name = Red Hat Enterprise $releasever - RPMforge.net - dag
#baseurl = http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/$basearch/dag
mirrorlist = http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/mirrors-rpmforge
#mirrorlist = file:///etc/yum.repos.d/mirrors-rpmforge
enabled = 1
protect = 0
gpgkey = file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-rpmforge-dag
gpgcheck = 1


I found instructions on the DAG FAQ at the following URL:

http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/FAQ.php#B

The command I used was for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5:

rpm -Uhv http://apt.sw.be/redhat/el5/en/i386/rpmforge/RPMS/rpmforge-release-0.3.6-1.el5.rf.i386.rpm

How I adjusted the brightness of an MOV file

This past Valentines Day (2009), my wife and I hosted our monthly Couples-Club meeting at our house. The men hired a barbershop quartet to come and deliver roses, a card and sing them a couple of songs. I was able to record a video of the event on my 5MP Kodak digital camera. The problem was the video was too dark and some of the people could not be seen. Adjusting the brightness of the video turned out more work than I imagined.

I first thought to use Kino on my laptop but I remembered that application liked to convert everything to some DVI format and resave it into a much larger file. I never took the time to learn how to filter the brightness so I gave up on Kino with not too much effort. I did some searching in the Synaptic Package manager that comes with Ubuntu and found Avidemux.

I thought using Avidemux would do the trick nicely. I was able to figure out the Audio/Video format (copy does nothing to the source, it just makes a copy) and had to play with the output audio because it kept crashing on the audio codedec when I went to save the video. I was able to convert using different video codedecs but all the audio codedecs that did not crash, would create output files that had the audio truncated after about 19 seconds into the 4+ minute video. This even happened when I did a straight copy of the Video and Audio source. This lead me to believe there must be something wrong with Avidemux. I Googled high and low and did not find any solution to this problem so I decided to see if mencoder had an option that would increase the brightness.

After doing some Googles with mencoder and brightness, I came across the following web site that gave me the answer. Here is the command I used to increase the brightness and reduce the size so I could play it on my Nokia N810 Internet tablet:

mencoder 100_1470.MOV -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:mbd=1:vbitrate=300 -vf scale=320:240,eq2=1.0:0.8:0.1:0.7 -ffourcc DIVX -ofps 15 -o test2.avi

The eq2-1.0:0.8:0.1:0.7 was how the brightness was increased by 10% (third fractional parameter).

Skype runs now on Acert Aspire 9410

I downloaded Skype the other day at the urging of my daughter (she has a Microsoft Vista Dell Laptop that has a built-in video camera). I had tried using it a couple of years ago on Windows but did not have a reason for using it at the time, all the kids were still home. Now we have two girls in college and one in the US Marines so now I have a good reason to look at it again.

I chose to download it from the Skype web site even though I learned today, I believe I could have just as well installed it from the Medibuntu (I installed it from there on my work ThinkPad T61P). When I used it for the first time with my daughter (she is attending college at Iowa State University, go Cyclones!), video worked fine between the two machines but my daughter was not able to hear anything I said. To say the least, the conversation was a bit one-sided. I told my daughter I would work on getting it fixed so we could have a better experience with Skype the next time. me

I started debugging by looking at the Gnome volume applet and sure enough, the microphone was not listed on the mixer. When I enabled the microphone, it was of course muted. Now I thought this would work but when I tried the Skype Test Call contact, I could hear nothing. I tried a number of other settings in Skype for the audio but they did not work (I am running Ubuntu 8.10 and PulseAudio is what all my audio works with on Skype and other applications). I then tried enabling the Mic Boost in the Gnome volume applet and set it at its highest level. When I tried the Skype Test Call again, I could barely hear my voice so it looked like I was making progress.

I always remember reading about people using the console mode alsamixer control to fix lots of audio problems. I always think it should not work because I am configured to use PulseAudio server and not the Alsa audio server. When I brought up alsamixer, it only showed me one playback device at 100% and one capture device at 0%. I increased the capture device to 78% and when I ran a Skype Test Call, I could hear myself very well. I can't wait to call my daughter, I'm sure she will be pleased to hear my voice!

Solved no sound on Acer laptop (9410) w/ Ubuntu 8.10

I noticed the other day that sound from Amarok was not working on my Acer Aspire 9410. I tried running alsamixer without any parameters and only saw a single device. After googling a bit, I ran across the following command:

alsamixer -D hw:0

When I ran this command, I was able to see more devices and sound began working. I am not sure if this is needed every time I start my laptop. I will post back the next time I boot.

I also added the following line to /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base:

options snd-hda-intel model=auto

I am a Linux convert

I have been working as a professional programmer in the computer field for nearly 25 years now. I have been exposed by a number of operating systems from DOS, all flavors of Windows, OS/2, S/36, OS/400, MVS, AIX and now Linux. Being a professional programmer, I feel it is necessary to be a power user of the operating system I program. The latest of these is of course Linux. My first experience was back in 2002 when RedHat and Suse were some of the more popular choices. It took me another year of applying fixes to Windows 2000 and Windows XP before I finally got tired of installing fixes, running program after program to keep my computer secure from hackers.

I have tried a variety of Linux distributions in my day but I my favorite is Fedora Core. I run RedHat Enterprise Linux on a ThinkPad T40 at work because this is the client supported. I run Fedora Core 5 on a Thinkpad T60 for work also because I write code for the IBM/Sony/Toshiba Cell processor. At home, I have two PCs running Fedora Core 6 and a Thinkpad T30 running it also. Needless to say, I know how to install, configure and maintain RedHat distros pretty well.

I plan to post information I learn about Fedora Core install, configuration and applications I use. My next post will be focused on what I call Essential Linux Applications.

First post

My immediate family calls me a computer geek. I recently grew a beard between Christmas and New Years and the kids (4 teens) found a video of ComputerMan and claimed that it was me because he had a beard and glasses like me (I actually wear contacts). Since January 2, 2006 I no longer sport a beard (made me look way too old) and therefore can no longer be confused with ComputerMan.

I plan to use this blog to share some of my favorite computer tips, favorite websites, applications and an occasional personal soapbox. Please let me know if you find my ramblings useful or a waste of space. Thanks...