Skip to content

Category Archives: Useful Links

Links to resources & pages that I have found useful

Running Ventrilo under Wine in Ubuntu Linux

Wine will install and run the ventrilo VOIP client very well. To get this working, follow these steps:
apt-get install wine wine-dev msttcorefonts
download ventrilo-3.0.5-Windows-i386.exe
run “wincfg” to prepare things
run “wine ventrilo-3.0.5-Windows-i386.exe”
(go through the install, using all the defaults)
Now, everything works with one quirk.
Push to talk works only when the ventrilo window “has focus”
This is [...]

Aiptek HyperPen T-6000U tablet with Ubuntu 9.04

Getting the Aiptek T-6000U tablet working with Ubuntu 9.04 was relatively easy, following the directions here.
Summary:
Install the xserver-xorg-input-aiptek package.
Add a file called 10-aiptek.fdi to the /etc/hal/fdi/policy directory containing:
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<deviceinfo version=”0.2″>
<device>
<match key=”info.product” contains=”Aiptek”>

<merge key=”input.x11_driver” type=”string”>aiptek</merge>
<merge key=”input.x11_options.SendCoreEvents” type=”string”>true [...]

Moving NTFS paritions using Ubuntu (Vista, XP)

This guide gives a good step by step procedure for moving a windows partition from one drive to another:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7742172
If you get an “autochk.exe not found” error message just after windows XP boots, it probably means that you have the partition type set incorrectly. Using fdisk under linux just use the “T” option to change the [...]

Encrypted home partition for Ubuntu 9.04

Following the directions on Lars’ blog, I set up an encrypted home directory on Ubuntu 9.04 using LUKS.
The following commands were all executed with root permissions. Add “sudo” to the front of the commands if you are not running with root permissions.

Setting Netflix / Silverlight bandwidth usage

The netflix watch on demand video player uses Microsoft Silverlight. Silverlight has an “adaptive playback” mode which attempts to choose one of multiple bandwidths for your video (and switch on the fly if your internet connection has more ore less bandwidth over time).
To see what it is currently using, press the Control, Alt, Shift and [...]

Global search and replace in multiple files

Searching and replacing a bit of text in a lot of files is a very common problem. Lots of tools exist to get it done. On unix systems, awk is one favorite, and I found this webpage with a simple search and replace example.
Unfortunately, I wanted to search for \prob and replace it with %\prob. [...]

Passat Clutch Problem – Bleeding the Clutch on a Manual

Friday morning I got into the family car (1998 VW Passat with manual transmission) and, depressing the clutch, started the engine. The car rocked backwards (I normally leave the gearshift in reverse when parked, plus the parking break was on), the engine died, and the clutch petal stayed on the floor (not good!). The clutch [...]

Free wireless at the Gamboa rainforest resort at the panama canal (Panama)

I was given the following 3 day access code for the wireless internet at the Gamboa Rain forest resort (at the panama canal):
username: 3day136
password: 6856670
However, the internet was turned on for everybody when I was there, so I didn't need to use it.  If you find yourself at the Gamboa resort, feel free to use [...]

Compressive Sampling: Beating the Nyquist Limit for certain signals

Compressive Sampling is a new field of sensing theory that sidesteps the traditional Nyquist sampling limit. The Nyquist limit is an information theory result that says to perfectly capture a signal which is bandwidth limited at a certain frequency, X, you must take 2 times X samples per second.  So for example, if you want [...]

Phillips Webcam with Linux

I bought 30 Phillips SPC  900 NC webcams because they claim to support up to 90fps and I have had good luck using linux with the PWC drivers in the past.  Plugged into a generic Ubuntu 7.10 install, I found that 640×480 resolution was automatic, with 15fps. 320×240 worked at 30fps. (I tried 160×120 resolution, [...]