Sound in Jaunty

When I upgraded to Juanty, my sound did not work on my laptop.  I found a couple of posts that helped me get it back up and running.

Ubuntu Forums: HOWTO: PulseAudio Fixes & System-Wide Equalizer Support

I think I found this post from this one:

Ubuntu Forums: No sound after upgrade from 8.10 to 9.04

I have had trouble with the pulseaudio service not running, and so I did a little research to find the command to restart it.  I haven’t tried these so be warned.

This article suggests:

pulseaudio -k; sleep 4; pulseaudio -vv

This article points out that you can use “pulseaudio –check” to see if an instance is running.  Also, they mention that if the -k doesn’t work, you can use “killall pulseaudio”.

Finally, since I use Skype, I have been contemplating going back to alsa.  I am not ready for that, but I am keeping this in my back pocket:

Mariuz’s Blog: Pulse + skype delay issues in jaunty

Great Link: Handling ^M

When working in a mixed environment, you are bound to run into those ^M characters at the end of your lines at some point.  Here is a great link describing how to fix it.  They talk about vi, but gVim works the same way.

Oracle Applications – Business & Technology: Removing ”^M” from SQL*Loader datafile

Adding Eclipse Project to Git

I did an earlier post where I did this, but I felt like it was sloppy.  Also, I did not add files to be ignored.  So, here is how to add an existing Eclipse project to Git:

Step 1:  In a terminal, change directories to your Eclipse workspace and project (assuming it is called my-project)

cd ~/workspace/my-project

Step 2: intialize the repository

git init

Step 3: add any files you want to ignore — consider any test data that might contain real production data and also consider connection information

vi .git/info/exclude

Assuming you have an Apache Derby database called db, you would exclude all of the database and the log with the following two lines:

db
derby.log

If you want to exclude Eclipse specific files, you may choose to add the following two lines:

.classpath
.project

Step 4: Add your files to your new Git repository

git add .

Step 5: Commit your files to the repository

git commit -m "My-Project inital code"

Step 6: Tag your code with a version

git tag v1.0

Update: You may want to tag this way so other developers see your tag (thanks Dominic):

git tag -a -m "GIT v1.0" v1.0

Now, your git repository is created and contains the code from your Eclipse project.

Resources

• Everyday Git with 20 Commands or So
• gitignore
• Update: git tag

Ubuntu 9.04

I finally upgraded to Ubuntu 9.04  last weekend.  My wireless card quit working.  I tried several things like reinstalling the broadcom driver and all, but it wouldn’t work in Ubuntu 8.10.  I thought “”what would it hurt”, I will probably have to reinstall anyway.

The upgrade went with no problems, but it still didn’t fix my wireless problem.  I finally determined that my problem was with the network-manager and not my driver because I could see it with ifconfig.  So, I completely removed the network-manager, rebooted, and reinstalled.  Still no luck.  So, I was sitting on the couch programming with no Internet, and it just started working again!

I have noticed a few things working better!  First, when I do my dual screens, I noticed that it now places my Applications bar on the laptop screen.  Before, it didn’t seem to matter how I switched to dual screens, it would place my Applications bar on the other monitor.

Resources

Thread used for info on reinstalling network-manager

Great Links: Free Software List

I ran across this interesting link listing free software.  I think most of it is Windows-based software though.

Here it is:

The World’s Most Popular Freeware – Updated

Adding a Project to Git and Google Code

This started because I wanted to share a program I had been working on through Google Code.

First, I created the git repository by:

skp@pecan:~/app/workspaces/pscompare$ cd ProjectSarah/
skp@pecan:~/app/workspaces/pscompare/ProjectSarah$ ls
bin  derby.log  export.xml  lib  src  timedb
skp@pecan:~/app/workspaces/pscompare/ProjectSarah$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /home/skp/app/workspaces/pscompare/ProjectSarah/.git/
skp@pecan:~/app/workspaces/pscompare/ProjectSarah$ git add .
skp@pecan:~/app/workspaces/pscompare/ProjectSarah$

Then, I did a commit:

skp@pecan:~/app/workspaces/pscompare/ProjectSarah$ git commit -m “First Release”Created initial commit 87fa855: First Release
196 files changed, 3456 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
create mode 100644 .classpath
create mode 100644 .project
create mode 100644 bin/com/skp/ProjectSarah/ChangeClientButton.class
create mode 100644 bin/com/skp/ProjectSarah/ClientListener.class
create mode 100644 bin/com/skp/ProjectSarah/CreateTimeViewExcel.class
create mode 100644 bin/com/skp/ProjectSarah/CreateTimesheetsButton.class
create mode 100644 bin/com/skp/ProjectSarah/DateField.class

…

Now, I created a new directory and started following these directions.  One of the problems I had was logging in.  I had to use the “My Profile” link on the upper right hand corner of Google Code.  That showed what my username was, and then, the password was on the Settings tab.

mkdir ~/app/git-workspace
cd ~/app/git-workspace
git svn clone –username <username> https://project-sarah.googlecode.com/svn/trunk
cd trunk
git fetch ~/app/workspaces/pscompare/ProjectSarah/
git branch tmp $(cut -b-40 .git/FETCH_HEAD)
git tag -a -m “Last fetch” last tmp
INIT_COMMIT=$(git log tmp –pretty=format:%H | tail -1)
git checkout $INIT_COMMIT .
git commit -C $INIT_COMMIT
git rebase master tmp
git branch -M tmp master
git svn dcommit

Now, I was able to browse the source of my program online!

Resources

• Develop with Git on a Google Code Project
• Export a Git Project to Google Code
• Distributed Version Control for Hosted Project Users
• Git Plugin for Eclipse
• Everyday Git with 20 Commands or So
• git-init(1)
• Git Magic

git branch tmp $(cut -b-40 .git/FETCH_HEAD)

CupCake is Here!

As I was driving home, my phone finally asked if I wanted to install an update.  I had been reading about Android 1.5, and I was ready for that update!  My understanding is that this is the update that was called Cupcake.

I noticed an immediate difference as the phone was starting up.  The logo screen was different as it booted.  I feel like I have a new phone because everything looks different!  Many people say looks don’t have any value, but it did something for me.  I haven’t had time to play with it much, but I did notice the Camcorder application and I had a chance to see the virtual keyboard pop up.

Gnome Keyring Password Issue

I just upgraded my desktop to Xubuntu 9.04, and my Gnome Keyring password quite working.  This meant that I could not connect to wireless with the network manager.

So, I deleted the file $HOME/.gnome2/keyring/default.keyring.  I had to reenter the passwords, but this was no problem because it is a Desktop that is only on one network.

Hope it helps someone else.

Resources

• Ubuntu Forums: how to reset the gnome keyring manager password

Open Office Updated

An update came across for me for Open Office.  It updated from 3.0

Here is what the about dialog was:

And, here is what it is now:

I found a link to the features: OpenOffice.org 3.1 New Features

GCALDaemon

I just switched over from Thunderbird to Evolution because of an issue with our IPSwitch mail at work.  One thing that I had to search for was how to integrate my Google Calendar account with Evolution.

I found a tool called GCALDaemon.  It runs as a service in the background and keeps Evolution calendars synced with Google Calendars.

The installation was pretty easy although I didn’t find a package in the repositories.  The How To gives the instructions for installing.  But, I didn’t find any tutorials for adding it as a service that automatically starts with the machine or with login.

Another How To describes the steps for configuring it for Evolution.  It also helped to looked at the How To for Rainlender.

GCALDaemon looked like it had some other cool features like: Integration with GMail Notifier, Integration with SendMail, and Remote Controlling Your Computer with MailTerm.

Resources:

Ubuntu Forums: Syncing Evolution to Google Calendar, and devices — How?