PulseAudio and Flash 9 in Ubuntu Hardy Heron

May 06 2008

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 :)

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The Hardy Heron

Apr 28 2008

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:

Software repository speed tester

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

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Year of Change

Apr 05 2008

I was going to write an eloquent entry about how my life has changed in the past year, but after considering the changes I’ve been through, I can’t find the words. One thing is for sure though — change has been good to me.

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What Version of Ruby Am I Using?

May 30 2007

You want to find out what version of Ruby you’re using? I’d like to present my rather simpler version:

seraph@aerie:~$ ruby -v ruby 1.8.5 (2006-08-25) [i486-linux]

Version, release date and platform all at once!

I’m just kidding, but I couldn’t resist poking at a Ruby fan :P

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Towel Day

May 25 2007

From Wikipedia:

Towel Day is celebrated every May 25 as a tribute by fans of the late author Douglas Adams. The commemoration was first held in 2001, two weeks after his death on May 11, and since then has been extended to an annual event. On this day, fans carry a towel with them throughout the day. The towel is a reference to Adams’s popular science fiction comedy series The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. — Towel Day

I didn’t notice that it was Towel Day today, and yet, I’ve (coincidentally) been carrying a large towel around in my backpack all day long :) Unconsciously, I’ve fulfilled my duty to geekdom.

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The Fully Functional Office 2007 Trial

May 18 2007

Much like jhall’s problems with the office 2007 trial, I downloaded the Office Standard edition 2007 Trial. Now, on the website it has this to say:

Trial programs contain the same functionality that you get when you buy the perpetual versions — but only for a limited time.

Well, something is seriously wrong with their activation process because even after activation, and getting an expiry date (sometime in July), I couldn’t do anything but view files, email etc.

How can they get something like this wrong? This is a really bad experience for anyone evaluating Office 2007 for their company (like I am).

Update: Well, it works now. Uninstalling it and reinstalling fixes the problem. Same thing on another machine. This is most odd. I quite like it so far though…

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No Squint

May 18 2007

If you use a high resolution display, like me you might find your eyes starting to water as you read all these trendwhore websites that use tiny tiny body fonts, like Verdana at 10 pixels. I’ve always solved this by Ctrl + Mousewheel up or down, but doing that for each and every site is a tad bit tedious.

Enter No Squint. I’ve fallen in love with it. No Squint allows you to select a default zoom level (I chose 110%, a slight bump up) and also remembers if you changed the zoom level while browsing a website. So now pages with ridiculously large fonts, or ridiculously small fonts are tolerable.

The best part? I’ve not noticed it at work except that my eyes are less tired now.

Thank you Jason Tackaberry. You did a good job on this one — so much so that I had to add a new category to this journal to post this in: Brilliance.

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Outlook IMAP Threading

May 17 2007

Anyone managed to get Outlook to do email threading (like we get in Thunderbird etc.) at all with IMAP?

Despite following several guides online, enabling threading on my IMAP server, reading the help etc. I cannot for the life of me figure out how it works. Sigh

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“…and then just walked away”

Apr 25 2007

Definitely one of the most interesting acts of vandalism I’ve seen in a while…


…and then just walked away
Originally uploaded by Michael Heilemann

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What is It With Malaysia and Kirsten Dunst?

Apr 25 2007

I was looking at the Google Zeitgeist, and Malaysia produced some fairly standard searches, but one of the results stood out indeed. Here’s a screen capture for posterity:

I really had no reason to write about this, but I find it amusing that amidst all those legitimate, serious searches, we find Kirsten Dunst at position #8… Apparently more than a few people have a liking for her, though with Spiderman 3 on the horizon and building up a ton of buzz this isn’t unexpected.

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