Automatically find fastest repository server in ubuntu 10.04

by admin Posted on June 20, 2010

Ubuntu linux uses software repositories to provide software packages and security updates to its users. There are a lot of mirrors situated all over the world, to offer better downloading speed for the users. To find the best repository server near you is a simple task, but could make your download speeds much better.

To find the fastest server for your computer you must launch software sources from the system -> administration ->software sources. You will find a window similar to the below one.  Select the “other ” option in the drop-down menu

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There appears a button to select the best server, and when clicked it automatically selects the best server by pinging all the available servers.

Note that repository speeds can vary according to traffic and others factors.

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Script your webbrowser with iMacros

by admin Posted on June 18, 2010

iMacros is an extension for web browsers to add the functionality of record and play, to make repetitive browser tasks easier. iMacros is available for major web browsers like internet explorer, google chrome, mozilla firefox etc and  is so powerful that it can deal with bookmarking, sharing, alerts, widgets, page navigation and lot more. iMacros for firefox can be downloaded from here.  iMacro can be easily controlled using javascript which greatly simplifies your life. For example, tasks like logging to a website and reading the articles after a few clicks, can be easily accomplished with iMacros.It can be done, by recording for one time what you did for reading that article and each time you need to read the article, simply run the macro and the job is done.

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For more reading, i recommend iMacro How-to articles. Here is a video tutorial on how to use iMacro .

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iMacros-for-firefox

iMacro for firefox

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8 Awesome themes for your Ubuntu

by admin Posted on June 13, 2010

Are you tired of your same old Ubuntu theme ?. Changing backgrounds, rescaling windows, applying colours to directories and all those kiddy, time-wasting stuff, you have tried to make it look better. Time to try something new and awesome for your Ubuntu. Here are a few themes I found in the long run. Hope it would make your Gnome much better. To add these themes first add the themes source to the list. Enter the following in the command .sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bisigi

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AirLines:                        sudo aptitude install airlines-theme

Wild Shine:                      sudo aptitude install wild-shine-theme

Download

Ubuntu Sunrise:                  sudo aptitude install  ubuntu-sunrise-theme

Tropical:                        sudo aptitude install tropical-theme

Download

Download

Download


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Network manager for Linux/Ubuntu

by admin Posted on June 7, 2010

Surely if you have used linux, you would have faced the problem of  better networking. Most of the users yell out in forums ” Linux doesn’t detect my wireless card or ethernet card”, “Not able to connect to wireless services, authentication error”, so and so.  What this all means is the lack of a better network manager for your machine. Considering the case of Kde network manager, it fails to detect many devices, let me say frankly, it even failed to detect my wifi card. Foraging for a better network manager landed me in Wicd homepage.

Wicd_network_manager

Wicd is a nice network manager with a simple interface offering better support for almost all wireless and wired cards. Licensed under GNU, it provides the user with high customization, offering features for running various scripts and services. Wicd offers support for various encryption schemes like WEP, WPA, WPA2, or if necessary you could add your own encryption. Built in drivers for wi-fi and ethernet really does a great job in configuring devices and connecting to the internet. Wicd offers much better host discovery with your card and supports custom ip-addresses and DNS servers in addition to DHCP service. Separate profiles for each network whether it be wired or wireless is possible with wicd. Wicd includes a tray-icon representing the current network activity and status independent of the desktop manager used.

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Install JDownloader for Ubuntu

by admin Posted on April 30, 2010


JDownloaderEven though Linux is growing too fast, outshining other operating systems, lack of a nice download manager in Linux is always felt. Jdownloader is finally out which is expected to resolve all your download problems. Jdownloader is advanced enough to download automatically from Rapidshare, Megaupload etc. Even downloading Youtube videos is supported. Java powers Jdownloader, thus extending the range of platforms of operation.

To install with Ubuntu repositories issue the following commands in the terminal .

sudo apt-add-ppa repository: jd-team/jdownloader

However, starting with Ubuntu Jaunty, type the following line, changing the expression of the corresponding code-named version of the system:

sudo bash-c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jd-team/jdownloader/ubuntu NAME-VERSION-UBUNTU (example: Jaunty) main'>> / etc / apt / sources.list"
sudo apt-key adv - keyserver.ubuntu.com keyserver - recv-keys 6A68F637

After these processes have been finished, install Jdownloader.

sudo apt-get update & & sudo apt-get install jdownloader

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Alchemy – An alternative for creating graphics

by admin Posted on April 3, 2010

alchemy2alchemy-research

Other than popular applications like inkscape and gimp, there are many applications which enable you to create graphics. But unfortunately most of them are at their early stages of development. Here is a nice alchemy application which is easier to handle with. If you are beginner it is better to have a quick look at blender basics.

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Installation

As alchemy is still in its infant stage deb or rpm packages are not available yet. You can download the program here.

If you are interested more, durian.blender.org may be of interest to you.  Also feel free to post your comments.

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