read-only document after openoffice.org crash

After a crash of OpenOffice.org, the document I was working on would only be opened read-only. After an ls -a, I found out there was a hidden file in the same folder as the document, named .~lock.<document name>#. After deleting this file, the document opened normally again

blogging

Read an article on Linux.com about drivel (what an attractive name), and decided to see the SOTA on blogging outside the browser…

• Drivel hasn’t been updated since 06.08.2006, that’s almost 3 years now
• Gnome-blog hasn’t been updated since 12.01.2005, more than 4 years ago
• BloGTK is at v1.1 since 18.01.2005
• KBlogger seems to have a new version per year, with 1.0alpha3 released on 25.02.2009, but no stable release since.
• Charm (or ljCharm) is active, but it’s console-based

So, unless I missed something, I found no valid alternatives to blogging from a browser window…

yelp

When you click help (or press F1) in evince, the command that the system runs is:

yelp /usr/share/gnome/help/evince/C/evince.xml

thunderbird: saved searches

To filter the type of messages you view, create a saved search (File-New-Saved Search). For example, you can create a “custom view” (like a virtual folder) with only the starred messages of your inbox in it.

Reference: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Saved_Search

google maps in firefox searchbar

Judd Antin has created a Google Maps search plugin for Firefox. Just download those two files (.src and .png) and put them in your firefox profile (under ~/.mozilla/firefox in Linux) into the “searchplugins” folder…

Mac4Lin

I had some fun today changing the looks of my Jaunty Jackalope into a Leopard:

• Mac4Lin GTK theme
• ACE Safari Firefox theme
• Leopard Mail Thunderbird theme

Note1: to install Mac4Lin, decompress and run the script…

Note2: Mac4Lin changes the position of the titlebar buttons to match that of MacOS, but I found it hard to get used to. The command to correct this is:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string "menu:minimize,maximize,close"

Note3: Mac4Lin also changes the Gnome menu icon, from the Ubuntu (”circle”) icon to the Gnome (”foot”) icon. To change it back, do the following:

1. Run gconf-editor, go to /apps/panel/objects/
2. Find the object where object_type == menu-object (in my case, it was object_0)
3. Check “use_custom_icon”, and then set “custom_icon” to /usr/share/icons/Human/scalable/places/distributor-logo.svg
4. Restart the panel with killall gnome-panel

Credit for Note3: http://binarypirate.blogspot.com/2007/08/change-gnome-menu-icon.html

txt2pdf

a2ps <test.txt> -o – | ps2pdf – <test.pdf>

switch spell plugin for pidgin

This is another feature I’ve been looking for for ages: switch spell checking dictionaries in Pidgin. I now discovered bug #246905, which led me to mbudde’s ppa.

AAO w/ slow Intel SSD

You can see this in the BIOS screen: if it’s Samsung, it’s fast, if it’s Intel, it’s slow…

Some have replaced it with a 266x or 300x CF, but you need to take it apart…

checkgmail sound

command to execute on new email:

/usr/bin/mplayer /usr/share/sounds/ubuntu/stereo/dialog-question.wav