equivocal ramblings

On Pain

Kevin Francis — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:26:39 +0000

I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. — Dr. Maya Angelou

Merging Kopete Contacts

Kevin Francis — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:14:49 +0000

For Google and my forgetful self:

To merge two contacts in Kopete into one, right click on the contact you wish to be added to the other, go to the protocol menu (usually last) and choose *Change Meta Contact*. Now search and pick the one you want to add it to.

I’ve had to redo my contact list a few times, and I’d been doing it to most braindead of ways: Removing contacts and readding them under the right meta-contact… Still this isn’t the most obvious of workflows.

Software Net Installers

Kevin Francis — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:26:29 +0000

Dear Windows Live,

Windows Live Messenger took 1 hour and 30 minutes to install thanks your installer deciding my offline package (downloaded just this afternoon) was too old. Apparently there was a minute version mismatch with the latest one in your repository.

Installing software on Windows in general is an already slow process, but you seem to think that it’d be awesome to slow me down further. Please bear in mind that not everyone has a T3 connection.

Please fix. Kthnxbai.

Sincerely, Kevin.

openSUSE 11

Kevin Francis — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:23:57 +0000

The installation process for openSUSE 11 is quite impressive. LVM, package selection, desktop selection etc. were all top-notch without any hiccups (unlike my past experiences with Fedora). Post-installation set up was quite smooth as well, except for the part where I wanted a static IP — took 15 minutes to figure the GUI for that out. Seems more geared towards network administrators than end users.

I can’t say I expected the green to be pleasant, but I can’t complain — looks very nice. Overall, solid stuff.

Audio Playback Suckage and Vista Service Pack 1

Kevin Francis — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 02:49:45 +0000

Vista Service Pack 1. I put music on, walk away and come back a while later. My screensaver is active. I click the mouse once to deactivate it, and what happens? Audio playback skips.

Vista Service Pack 1 Audio: Fail.

P.S.: I can’t help but notice that everything I write about Vista tends to the negative. About the only positive thing I can say is that It’s quite pretty.

How to Synchronise a Sony Ericsson K610i with Evolution

Kevin Francis — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:26:04 +0000

Before I forget how to find this article again, I’ll just blog it. By the way this works fine for a K850i too — Synchronising a K610i with Evolution.

Passed the Undang-Undang (Highway Code) Test

Kevin Francis — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:25:48 +0000

I’ve been saying for years that I was going to get my drivers license. Well, I took the first step today and passed the highway code test (46/50, 1 point lost to colour-blindness section…) and what should happen the night before? Petrol prices increase from RM1.92 straight to RM2.70. In August we’ll see that increase again to market rates — about RM 3.50-4.

Oh well, at least I won’t be able to think back about the good old days of cheap petrol…

Silence is Not Bliss

Kevin Francis — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:37:22 +0000

After many years, finally GNOME, KDE, and legacy applications can co-exist without attempting to kill each other everytime one of them needs to make use of sound for whatever reason.

I feel good.

Thank you Ubuntu, thank you pulseaudio.

PulseAudio and Flash 9 in Ubuntu Hardy Heron

Kevin Francis — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:36:53 +0000

Heron comes with all sorts of newfangled stuff including PulseAudio support. This is very nice, but there’s something that not everyone seems to be aware of — PulseAudio and Flash 9 don’t work together by default. You’ll have to install libflashsupport to get audio working in Flash:

sudo apt-get install libflashsupport

Best part of all this? Flash audio mixes in perfectly with any other audio without the usual hickups :)

The Hardy Heron

Kevin Francis — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:04:25 +0000

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu’s new release — Hardy Heron (8.04) and I am impressed. From start till end it seems so much more polished than anything else I’ve tried (including Windows Vista).

From the new File Operations dialogue to the weather applet/clock/calendar integration it all just fits together so well. One thing in particular which I really like is this:

All this while it’s required the use of apt-spy or trial and error testing of repository speeds (Australia’s awesome on Streamyx^WSlowmyx) it’s nice to have automated tests against 200 mirrors. I can actually use the GUI tools rather than falling back to the CLI all the time…

Of course I’m sure there are niggling issues, especially for the laptop users among us. Thankfully I don’t have to deal with that pain yet :P