Great Links: Image Search

This post caught my eye the other day.  Apparently, Google is allowing you to search for images by license.  This is great if you are looking for images for things like Power Point presentations and such.

Google Operating System: Usage Rights Options in Google Image Search

Interesting: Java Application Store

I saw this post the other day.  Sun is coming out with a Java store to deliver applications.  These stores are getting to be a trend!  I have a “Market” for my Android phone.  iPhone has the same type of thing.  Linux has the repositories of packages, which though you can’t purchase programs, you can easily install programs in much the same way.

Right now, it looks like the store is just in beta.  I am curious to see how this works and how it catches on.

Resources

• Radio Free Tooting: Sun belatedly launches Java App Store
• OReilly: Sun Launches an App Store + Ellison on Sun’s Future
• Java Store Home Page

Google Maps on Android

I saw this post about Google Maps on Android, and I thought I would share my comments.  I had the opportunity to use my Google Maps for navigation on a trip a couple of weekends ago to Chicago.  During the middle of that trip, I decided to upgrade my Google Maps through the Market.  Here are some things I noticed.

• Before the upgrade, I could choose a destination from my history for getting directions.  That was handy because we kept going to the same places in various combinations.  After the upgrade, history was not an option.  I did find that if I could remember some of the address, it would autocomplete from my history and that worked good enough.
• I like the new feature where I can click on a location on the map and get directions from or to that spot.
• One feature I would like is the ability to add way points or adjust the route.  If we wanted to force a route or drive past a point, we would have to get directions in two separate steps.
• I had the opportunity to use some else’s iPhone also.  One thing I missed on the iPhone was the menu button.  When I look for settings or options on my gPhone, I typically press the menu button and find it there.  On the iPhone, it has to be somewhere on the screen because the phone had no menu button.  It just surprised me that I kept looking for a menu button.  I never did figure out how to turn the GPS on and off, but I did figure out how to get my current location and get directions.

Resources

Engadget: Google updates Maps through the Android Market

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