konqueror with webkit instead of khtml

in KDE (4.5) system settings, go to the file association configuration tool, highlight the text/html extension.

in the right side, in the integration tab, be sure that webkit is before kthml and it will be the default engine for konqueror (if conqueror comes first than firefox in the general tab)

Skype 2.1.0.81 audio problem in voice calls

get a previous working release at http://download.skype.com/linux/skype-2.1.0.47-suse.i586.rpm

see http://morphy76.blogspot.com/2010/06/skype-21081-in-kubuntu-1004.html

Managing e-books

I've recently bought Kindle from Amazon and i'm very satisfied (despite the lack of Italian e-books).

It uses a proprietary format (AZW) which is a customization of the open standard MOBI (supported). It supports PDFs too but they suck enough and it doesn't support the e-pub format, then a convertion tool is required!

To convert all of my PDFs like Better builds with Maven i've found a great tool called calibre.

It can organize the virtual library, convert documents (keeping track of formats) and share (natively) with Kindle using both the wireless global network and the USB way.

A great tool.

Skype 2.1.0.81 in Kubuntu 10.04

This skype release doesn't work: input audio is messed up... looking around i've found that the only fix is to downgrade skype to 2.1.0.47

The downgrade fixes the problem

deb packages can be found here:

http://download.skype.com/linux/skype-ubuntu-intrepid_2.1.0.47-1_amd64.deb
http://download.skype.com/linux/skype-debian_2.1.0.47-1_i386.deb

Kubuntu on Dell Studio

everytime i switch to windows 7 i get the MBR corrupted and need to reinstall GRUB, very boring even if i'm not so used to switch to windows 7.

i tried to ask Dell support but it seems they don't know which software install on their machine, trying to use my double-boot configuration as a shield to avoid questions like "is there any software that write the MBR regardless the MBR configuration?"

anyway removing Dell software like live backup the issue disappears... i've removed every Dell software, so i'm not sure which one was the real bad guy...

Google Chrome, linux 64 and sun java plugin

as root
  mkdir /opt/google/chrome/plugins
if missing

then
  cd /opt/google/chrome/plugins
  ln -s ${JRE_HOME}/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so

and finally (as user)
  google-chrome --enable-plugins %U

check using about:plugins url

ah ehm... windows 7 and kubuntu on dell studio

need to understand why openSuse 11.2 doesn't install on dell studio 17

dell installation uses 3 primary partitions :(
dell software
recovery
windows 7 installation

resizing the windows 7 partition with th o.s. disk resize tool, kubuntu 10.04 can be easyly installed in an extended partition (1 or 2 Gb swap, 10Gb ext4 mounting /, 10Gb xfs mounting /opt and the rest as crypted xfs mounting /home)

grub on /dev/sda

everything works fine while selecting the kubuntu entry on startup, not the same for windows

it starts, it stops, it de-configures grub O_O and no system can be started anymore...
the error is something like

"unable to find module to load" or something similar

funny :)

i need to understand if this behavior is caused by dell software (like livebackup) or windows 7 startup/shutdown process or the installed McAfee antivirus (1 year with Dell, next i'll come back to avg free)... i'll open a ticket to dell about this issue...

anyway the fix is easy and well known

start with a live distro
mount the / partition
do the grub-install with the option --root-directory and the target the device (/dev/sda)
restart and grub is back

sqlplus coluns

SQL> set linesize 200

and

/ to re-exec latest query

xerces version exception

stack identified by
java.lang.AbstractMethodError: org.apache.xerces.dom.DeferredAttrImpl.getTextContent()Ljava/lang/String;
fixed by -Djavax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory=com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.DocumentBuilderFactoryImpl system property

useful system tool

dmidecode

dmidecode is a tool for dumping a computer's DMI (some say SMBIOS) table contents in a human-readable format. This table contains a description of the system's hardware
components, as well as other useful pieces of information such as serial numbers and BIOS revision. Thanks to this table, you can retrieve this information without hav-
ing to probe for the actual hardware. While this is a good point in terms of report speed and safeness, this also makes the presented information possibly unreliable.

The DMI table doesn't only describe what the system is currently made of, it also can report the possible evolutions (such as the fastest supported CPU or the maximal
amount of memory supported).

2ManDVD

it's required to create a symbolic link in <workspace>/DVD/MEDIAS to every media used by the project before start generating (i.e. every imported VOB file)

avoid spaces in <workspace> and full project path name

and everything works fine

don't forget to have xine, mkisofs and cdrecord