tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71509205514108995062023-11-16T07:14:42.647-05:00Little CosmosOpen Source, Project Management, Social justice and other rants...situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7150920551410899506.post-11673780134093251602016-01-19T20:19:00.002-05:002019-03-06T15:48:41.486-05:00Make-a-friend with a New Syrian Family Program - Call for volunteers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As you already know, there is a large number Syrian newcomers to the Ottawa area that are being settled. <br />
<br />
To help them get acquainted with the Canadian way of life, we are looking for volunteers to spare ~5 hrs/week to help them. We ask that fluent Arabic and English speakers only apply please.<br />
<br />
Tasks include: <br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Helping them do basic things like navigate the ATM machine, where to buy groceries and how to purchase things. How to pay by Debit Card. </li>
<li>Take them to the English assessment centre to get the adults and the kids evaluated. and help register them in school </li>
<li>Drive them around town and show them the area they live in and what amenities are available </li>
<li>Introduce them to community centres </li>
<li>Give them your phone number so they can call you in case they have questions. </li>
</ul>
We have 17 families that need friends and we expect that number to rise. If you are interested, please fill the form below<br />
<br />
<b><strike>Volunteer Signup Form</strike></b></div>
situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7150920551410899506.post-72727854068847836562013-02-20T22:19:00.002-05:002013-02-20T22:19:15.037-05:00Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring) on ThinkPad X1 Carbon Experience<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have been using ThinkPads for the past seven plus years. I love the design, reliability and excellent Linux compatibility not to mention the best typing experience money can buy.<br />
<br />
After three years of 10+ hours/day and countless trips, my ThinkPad X201 finally started to act up. Wireless reception degraded quite a bit, track light is gone and the palm rests are broken and had to be taped to the chassis. It was time to get a new machine as I have some important business trips to attend to and being caught with a dead laptop is a show stopper.<br />
<br />
Naturally, my target was another ThinkPad. However, I wasn't sure which model was best. I know I couldn't wait so I had to make my choice soon. My criteria was simple. I needed something light < 3.5 lbs. with a large screen. My peepers are not what they used to be :-). After some research, I discovered the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon. Of course Linux compatibility was a concern so I scoured the net looking for people who used it with Ubuntu. Luckily, there weren't any red flags so I plunked my hard earned money on a new laptop.<br />
<br />
Upon receiving it, I immediately backed up my MS Windows 8 recovery partition to a USB key and installed Ubuntu 13.04 (still under development) and started using it on a daily basis. Almost everything worked except the screen brightness, which is already logged <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-settings-daemon/+bug/1121951">here</a>. BT, WIFI, USB, Display Port, Camera, Mic, Audio, Suspend and Resume, etc. all worked out of the box.<br />
<br />
Battery life was excellent. I managed to get solid ~5 hours worth of office-type work, which is very respectable for a large LCD (14") laptop. I guess you can say I am a happy camper. On the HW side, the machine is very well designed, stiff, and very professional looking and feeling, but suffered some blemishes that are direct result of Lenovo's manufacturing.<br />
<br />
When I buy a top of the line ThinkPad, I expect a certain level of perfection. Unfortunately, Lenovo couldn't measure up. First, the "X1 Carbon" silk screening on the bottom right corner of the LCD is slanted by a few degrees. It is enough to immediately spot. The Power button is not sitting horizontally. It too is slanted, which is also very visible. Finally, the top left corner of the LCD front bezel has some sort of plastic or tape sticking from it (~1 mm), which you can clearly see when the LCD is off. These deficiencies don't affect the machine's functionality. However, they don't inspire confidence and leave you wondering what else is wrong under the keyboard cover. I hope Lenovo corrects these issues ASAP since they are easy to remedy.<br />
<br />
Other than that, I love the machine and I look forward to another three years of service.</div>
situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7150920551410899506.post-33005107638521489162012-11-22T18:22:00.001-05:002012-11-22T18:22:17.904-05:00Fix auto-loading packages in Emacs 24<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This post is to help you get your installed packages working automatically when Emacs 24 starts. If you don't know much about packages in Emacs 24, Google for it.<br />
<br />
I installed several packages and themes but found they don't work upon starting Emacs 24. If I load them manually, they function with out issue. To fix it, I added<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(package-initialize) </span><br />
<br />
to the very top of my <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">.emacs</span> file and right after my elpa load path.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(add-to-list 'load-path "~/.emacs.d/elpa") ;; add elpa load paths</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">(package-initialize) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
With these in place, I managed to make all my installed themes and packages available to me right when Emacs starts. No more "can't find this file" errors.<br />
</div>
situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7150920551410899506.post-3389532821892628502012-05-06T18:42:00.001-04:002012-05-06T18:42:48.534-04:00Emacs keybidings in Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise)<p>I am an Emacs lover. Here I admit it :-). One of the things I loved about my previous days with Mac OS X, was the Emacs keybindings (shortcuts) when editing text. CTRL-A, CTRL-K, CTRL-E are some I can't live without when editing e-mails and text docs.</p>
<p>If you want to enabled Emacs keybindings (shortcuts) in Ubuntu 12.04 (Unity or GNOME3) just open a Terminal and paste the following line:<p>
<code>gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface gtk-key-theme "Emacs"</code>
<p>Enjoy!</p>situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7150920551410899506.post-71731280879904222392012-03-02T15:31:00.000-05:002012-03-02T15:31:23.771-05:00Admin BIP (IRC Proxy) remotely<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
At <a href="http://www.linaro.org/">work</a>, I use <a href="https://projects.duckcorp.org/projects/bip">BIP</a> as a proxy server to keep me on IRC so I can see what I missed and respond to any pings while I was sleeping. As the admin for our instance of BIP, I hated having to restart it every time I added a new user.
Little did I know, you can administer BIP remotely if you are are setup as the admin. Here is how to set it up and use it. </div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-family: inherit;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Designate your account as admin:</span></div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Open bip.conf found in /etc (I use Ubuntu)</li>
<li>Add <span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">admin = true;</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: inherit;">Restart BIP</span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">More information are in the bip.conf man page.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: large;">Admin BIP from your favourite IRC client</span> </span><br />
<br />
Go to your favourite IRC client that is connected to BIP and type<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
/quote BIP HELP</div>
<br />
Voila. You are prsented with a list of commands you can pass bip. My favourite is <span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">RELOAD</span>.<br />
<br /></div>situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7150920551410899506.post-61229729926482683942012-02-29T18:59:00.000-05:002012-02-29T19:00:22.335-05:00Ubuntu Precise is the good stuffI have been running Ubuntu Precise and so far so good. It works very well on my ThinkPad X201 including Dual screen support. Unity is solid as a rock and the docking station works like a charm. There are a few rough edges like power management efficiency changing on a daily basis but I expect that to stabilize once the release date approaches. If you haven't tried Precise, then you are in for a treat.situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7150920551410899506.post-62333467658357757492009-11-02T22:34:00.001-05:002009-11-02T22:35:39.682-05:00Syria through the eyes of its own peopleSaw this list of pictures of Syria on the BBC website. Here they <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8321220.stm">are</a>.situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7150920551410899506.post-32642932103900141402009-04-12T11:39:00.005-04:002009-04-12T11:44:37.138-04:00HA.... gotta love it.<p>One of my all time favourite places for a mental break during the work day is <a href="http://failblog.org/">FailBlog.org</a>. It is funny and good for a 2 minute break. Being Canadian, I couldn't help but post <a href="http://failblog.wordpress.com/files/2009/02/fail-owned-canadian-language-fail1.jpg"/>this</a>.situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7150920551410899506.post-84771676656090496632009-01-31T17:58:00.007-05:002009-01-31T18:17:02.319-05:00ThinkPad T400 Xorg tweak on Ubuntu Intrepid 8.10Getting Ubuntu 8.10 working on my ThinkPad T400 (with Intel 4500HD) is a dream. One area that I found to be quite annoying is the extra "Unknown" screen that shows up when I launch the "Gnome Monitor Resolution Settings" utility. Usually I get my laptop screen and another "Unknown" screen. This is fine with one exception.<br /><br />I have an advanced mini docking station with a DVI powering my LG 24" LCD. Usually, I like to use the Gnome Monitor Resolution Settings utility to turn off the laptop screen and keep the LG 24" on instead. The problem is when I want to take my laptop out of the docking station, I need to turn off the LG screen and turn on the laptop screen. When I do that, X crashes and I lose all my open windows. This sucks because I have lots of those windows open with files and such and it is a a pain to do that. After some researching, I figured out that if I tell Xorg to turn off this "Unknown" screen, turning things on and off does't cause a crash.<br /><br />To do that, I added the following to my Xorg.conf (found in /etc/X11/):<br /><br /><pre><br />Section "Monitor"<br /> Identifier "HDMI-1"<br /> Option "Ignore" "True"<br />EndSection<br /></pre><br /><br />and Added: <pre>Option "monitor-HDMI-1" "HDMI-1"</pre> to the device section of my file.<br /><br />Now when I run the Gnome Monitor Resolution Settings Utility, I get:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAWF5z-yCCaVDX0hD3F0p7ZYfWT5Dj3QKp2oA_FDhay7eXDzsJVe50oQRwQOZt093opFJw56pUT4YAge8YAoHqnvdRzYJTjeqsG1Rg_UAsRsYOk8QnQ2ETjicJSkPquh3hK8_cYoCvTqHf/s1600-h/Screenshot-Monitor+Resolution+Settings.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 388px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAWF5z-yCCaVDX0hD3F0p7ZYfWT5Dj3QKp2oA_FDhay7eXDzsJVe50oQRwQOZt093opFJw56pUT4YAge8YAoHqnvdRzYJTjeqsG1Rg_UAsRsYOk8QnQ2ETjicJSkPquh3hK8_cYoCvTqHf/s400/Screenshot-Monitor+Resolution+Settings.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297599420356577154" border="0" /></a>situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7150920551410899506.post-22308772210110060802009-01-03T20:10:00.003-05:002009-01-03T20:18:48.895-05:00Scan with Brother MFC7820 with Ubuntu IntrepidI have lots of receipts and docs that I wish to scan and my Brother MFC 7820 didn't work due to permissions problems. Here is how I got it working.<br /><br /><ol><br /> <li>Install the libsane-extras package since it isn't installed by default</li><br /> <li>Download and install the Brother scanner driver. Brother providers .deb packages, although they are not great. Get it <a href="http://solutions.brother.com/linux/sol/printer/linux/sane_install-net.html">here</a></li><br /> <li>Edit "/etc/udev/rules.d/50-libsane-extras.rules" and add the following file to it:(2 lines)</br><br /> <font face="Courier New">#Brother|MFC-640CW</font></br><br /> <font face="Courier New">SYSFS{idVendor}=="04f9", SYSFS{idProduct}=="0181", MODE="664", GROUP="scanner"</font><br /> </li><br /> <li>logout and log back in and you should be good to go</li><br /></ol><br /><br /><p>If you don't have the same exact model, you can replace the idVendor and idProduct by using the command "<font face="Courier New">sane-find-scanner</font>" and it will list your scanner with all the ids in there. Copy the numbers but ignore the "0x".</p>situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7150920551410899506.post-25923382675976695802008-12-14T12:03:00.007-05:002008-12-14T12:10:33.079-05:00Gnome Panel Applets Affinity<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">It has been a while since I posted anything. I got a new job that took all my time. Now that I am up to speed, I plan on adding more ideas as I have switched to Ubuntu 100%.<br /><br />I have a laptop I usually hook up to a large screen. Upon hooking up to the large screen, the GNOME Applets jump around the GNOME Panel (shown below).<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDbXG88Is0NJeK6Yb-kbl1Gj63L0mn9P6u1KCu-IQ8ky1NukPPulZvLI2BLPxO2CtDiaACGvdrOkGDtjRSTxkgxZsqZxZqSir9q8j0OGUsa-0sq4iPEkeb8ueyT7piv1vjsw_MFcEP7voJ/s400/desktop_screenshot.png"><br /><br /><br />It would be nice if the panels simply butted against each other in the same order I put them in. Imagine that the GNOME Panel is just a surface and the Applets are small magnets that slide across it. If the sound applet is close to the Notification applet, it will simply butt against it just like a magnet. If it was close to the window list applet, it would butt against it instead.</div>situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7150920551410899506.post-29642128395135870382008-09-13T22:29:00.001-04:002008-09-13T22:37:00.468-04:00Popup menu auto-locator<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Here is another one I noticed today. If you happen to click on a pop up menu that goes beyond the usual 3 - 5 items, you will surely not like having to scan through the entire list until you find what you are looking for. Here is one I had to deal with today:<br/><br/><img src='http://lh5.ggpht.com/situmam/SMx3HrX-k6I/AAAAAAAAAGY/CpM9o90W_Fw/%5BUNSET%5D.png' alt=''/><br/><small>This is from empathy</small><br/><br/>I was looking for freenode and luckily the list was sorted alphabetically. Ideally, it would be nice if I can type the first letter from the entry I am looking for to select it so if I press "f", the first alphabetical entry that has "f" should show up. If I press "fr" then the first alphabetical item that starts with "fr" would be displayed, etc. The same applies for numbers if they are listed.<br/><br/><br/><br/></div>situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7150920551410899506.post-89119909218334235742008-09-12T21:49:00.001-04:002008-09-12T21:49:47.971-04:00Resizers<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>Having used a Mac and linux for the past 15+ years, I can't but help notice the big difference between how the usability for Mac OS X has matured compared to Linux.<br/><br/>I have decided to document my thoughts and ideas into this blog so I can revisit them or share them with whom ever wants to listen :-).<br/><br/>Before I start, you need to know why I am doing this. I am a very strong believer in FLOSS and what is stands for but more importantly what it can accomplish. Currently, Linux is a very viable desktop / laptop OS for the almost-masses. Technically it seems to be getting better and better. Almost-gone are the days you need to hunt for your ethernet card to work. Unfortunately, one area Linux lacks is usability.<br/><br/>To inaugurate my new GNOME category, I am starting with a simple usability item that all GNOME applications should have. I am talking about a window sizer.<br/><br/><p>Here is a screen shot so you know what I am talking about:</p><br/><img src='http://lh6.ggpht.com/situmam/SMsaKTz5hcI/AAAAAAAAAF4/cas1D0MsBcI/%5BUNSET%5D.png' style='max-width: 800px; float: none;'/><br/><br/><small>BTW, this is from FireFox 3.</small><br/><br/><p>I can't tell you how many times, I had to hunt for the corner of the application to resize the window. I do realize not all applications have a status bar, but that can be easily circumvented by either adding one or putting the sizer on the very bottom of the window. Either way, it will make resizing windows much easier.</p></div>situmam1http://www.blogger.com/profile/01590919360924341740noreply@blogger.com0