Teknovis

I just discovered two great new ways of using the mouse wheel in Firefox besides scrolling!

• Clicking the mouse wheel while the cursor is over a link opens the link in a new tab! That is great, because I normally right click on links, and then select Open Link in New Tab.
• Clicking the mouse wheel while the cursor is over a tab will close that tab! This is very useful for me, because I changed the location of the close tab button as described in Browser.tabs.closeButtons.

For more Firefox mouse tips see Mouse tips!

Tags: Firefox

I installed OpenOffice (yes – I know it is officially called OpenOffice.org) on my main computer today. My main reason for wanting to try it is that it offers the potential of providing greater interoperability between my current Windows installation and my future Ubuntu installation. I also prefer the philosophy behind the OpenDocument format compared to the Office Open XML format.

The installation process was very straight-forward. However, there were two minor issues that annoyed me:

• The default dictionary in my installation was English (Eire). Unfortunately, this did not seem to suggest any corrections for my incorrectly spelt words :( Luckily English (UK) works perfectly :)
• A quick-launch module is loaded when the system is starting up by default. I hate these quick-launch applications that run permanently! Luckily, it can easily be disabled!

I will update my blog again after I have used it for a while!

Tags: OpenOffice, Ubuntu

I discovered some really great new ways to use new tabs and windows in Firefox this week!

I normally like to use a separate window for each web site or topic that I am viewing, and multiple tabs within each window. For example I might use one window for my web mail containing a tab for each web mail account, another window for my favourite news web site containing a tab for each story that I want to read, and another window for something that I am researching containing a tab for each relevant article.

However, sometimes I open tabs in the wrong window and I need to move them to another window. There are two ways of doing this depending on what is required:

• To copy an existing tab to a new window simply drag the tab to the New Window icon in the toolbar
• To copy an existing tab to an existing window drag the tab to the window’s Taskbar Button (without releasing the mouse), wait for the existing window to gain focus, and then drag the tab to the New Tab icon in the toolbar (or to the address bar to replace an existing tab)

I also came across a Firefox add-on called Tab To Window that allows users to move existing tabs to new windows. I think that the advantage of using the add-on is that the tab history is also transferred to the new window.

Tags: Firefox

I had to install Windows 2000 on some computers over the weekend. The last time that I installed this operating system was several years ago! My main concern was figuring out what service packs and hot fixes needed to be installed. This is what I installed:

1. Windows 2000 (from original CD)
2. Service Pack 4 (W2KSP4_EN.EXE – 129MB)
3. Rollup 1 for Windows 2000 SP4 (KB891861) (Windows2000-KB891861-v2-x86-ENU.EXE – 31MB)
4. Conficker Protection MS08-067 (KB958644) (Windows2000-KB958644-x86-ENU.EXE – 1MB)

These computers are operating on an isolated network that does not have Internet access. However, other laptops are regularly attached to the network.

Tags: Conficker, Windows 2000

I noticed during a Skype chat today that I was able to know if the other participant was typing a response to me or not! I never knew that Skype included this functionality. Indeed, I actually thought that it could not include a typing indicator due to copyright and/or patent reasons. For example, see VOTE HERE for “typing status” indicator.

I understand from Skype 3.1 Beta for Windows – SkypeFind and typing indicators that the typing indicator has been available for some time, and this article also contains a nice animated image showing the typing indicator in action!

I am unsure of how well the typing indicator is implemented in the various versions of Skype. I was using Skype on Windows when I noticed it, and the other chat participant was using Skype on Linux.

Tags: Skype

I read two interesting Linux articles this morning. The first article provides a very general introduction and overview of Linux. It is The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Linux, and it contains four parts:

• Part 1: Finding the Right Distribution
• Part 2: Partition and Installation
• Part 3: Choosing Your Window Manager and Desktop Environment
• Part 4: Introduction to the Terminal

The second article discusses several different Linux distributions in detail. I will still use Ubuntu, but if I had to choose another I would choose Fedora. Regardless, the article is interesting to read. It is There’s Way More to Linux than Ubuntu: 8 Distros Compared.

Tags: Fedora, Ubuntu

I remember that when I first read that Firefox was going to introduce a spell check option I thought that it was a bad idea because it was just unnecessary bloat. Now I use the spell check feature all the time, and I think that it was one of the best enhancements ever!

I have installed several dictionaries from Dictionaries & Language Packs, and I normally use English (British) as my default language.

However, recently I have noticed that the spell check is not always catching all of my mistakes :( Sometimes, if I change language to another, and then revert back to English (British) it correctly identifies the misspelt words. However, this does not always work :(

I do not know why this is happening, but it has caused me to edit a number of my posts to correct the spellings :o It is really annoying!

Since I am writing about the spell check in Firefox I will also highlight a really useful tip! Firefox does not by default spell check text in text fields (single line text boxes). However, this can easily be changed as described in either Quick Tip: Spell Check Firefox Text Input Fields or How to Enable Spell Check in Text Fields in Firefox.

Tags: Firefox

I recently wrote that I intend to start using either Ubuntu or Kubuntu as my desktop operating system in Ubuntu or Kubuntu. Since then I have downloaded the 9.04 version of both operating systems. I installed both of them simultaneously on my main computer as guest operating systems using VMware. I also installed each of them as the main operating system on a spare computer that I have. Both operating systems install very easily with very little user interaction, and they both correctly identified all of my hardware. That impressed me, because I often hear horror stories about Linux and hardware!

After using both operating systems for the last few days I have come to the conclusion that they are both excellent. However, I need to choose only one of them! So ultimately I am going to choose… (drum roll) … Ubuntu!

My reasons for choosing Ubuntu are mainly:

• It seems to have much more official support.
• It seems to have a greater user-base, and therefore there is more information about it online.
• I felt that the applications that came with Ubuntu were more complete. I generally prefer applications that have very limited, but specific, functionality.

The greatest appeal of Kubuntu was the lovely KDE interface. I thought that the default GNOME interface was very bland, but luckily it is very configurable. I will blog about the changes that I made to it.

I found solutions to all of my initial problems online. The Internet really is great for these things! However, there are some deployment type issues that I do not know how best to deal with them.

• On my Windows installations I like to create three logical drives: The C drive is used for the operating system; the D drive is used for the applications; and the E drive is used for the data. Ideally the C drive is on its own dedicated physical disk for performance reasons, and all other logical drives can be on a single physical disk. The use of these logical drives makes upgrading very easy. I do not yet know the best way of configuring an Ubuntu installation with multiple physical and logical hard disks.
• On my Windows installations I store all my data in a single logical drive. Therefore, there are two locations that are associated with my user account: my settings and my data. My current understanding is that my user settings and my user data are all stored in the same location in an Ubuntu installation. This seems a bit messy to me!
• I currently use the roaming profiles features of Windows so that I can log into any computer on my network and I will have my most recent settings. I do not know how to implement this on an Ubuntu installation.

My current intention is to keep using Ubuntu as a guest operating system until I feel confident enough to wipe my hard disk and use it as my host operating system! I will keep blogging about my progress here!

Tags: GNOME, KDE, Kubuntu, Ubuntu, VMware, Windows 2000, Windows XP

The latest versions of Ubuntu and Kubuntu will be released tomorrow. These will be version 9.04, and they are known as Jaunty Jackalope.

I have never used Linux as my main desktop operating system before, but I have had limited experience of using it on servers. My main reason for wanting to try it is that I am getting tired of all the bugs, security weaknesses, and limited functionality of Windows. My reasons for choosing Ubuntu or Kubuntu are that they both come ready for use, and I know that they are configured securely! So I think that now is a great time to try them!

My initial plan is to install both operating systems on my computer using VMware. I will then start using them as my main operating systems until I can decide which I prefer. At that stage I might format my hard disk, and reinstall ;) The main applications that I will need are:

• Thunderbird
• Firefox
• Word Processor (OpenOffice)
• Spreadsheets (OpenOffice)
• Presentations (OpenOffice)
• PDF Viewer (No preference)
• Skype
• Java (JRE and JDK)
• Eclipse
• Text editor (No preference)
• ZIP compressor/decompresser (No preference)

My understanding is that the main difference between Ubuntu and Kubuntu is the window managers that they use (GNOME versus KDE). However, reading the documentation they both seem to come with different application sets. This is confusing me slightly. I am also not clear why they both need to reinvent the browser!

Hopefully, all will become clear over the following weeks ;) I will keep writing about my progress here!

Tags: Eclipse, Firefox, GNOME, Java, KDE, Kubuntu, OpenOffice, Skype, Thunderbird, Ubuntu, VMware

I have never used Linux as my desktop operating system, but I am currently in the process of changing that. I hope to write about it here.

So I thought that I would start with some humour! I recently came across this really good, but nerdy, joke: “Why GNU/Linux Viruses are fairly uncommon” from Charlie Harvey.

Enjoy!