Installing Appindicator support

Open a browser and go to the Gnome Extensions page.

Click the “Off” button to “On” to install the extension in Gnome Shell.

Once activated, you should see the appindicator icons in your system tray. (If you can’t see it, they are probably in the message tray which is hidden at the bottom).

I have tried it with several appindicators like Skype, Everpad, Psensor and Dropbox, and they all work fine.

According to the developer, the classicmenu-indicator is not working well. The reported problem was that it takes a long time to load and could cause Gnome Shell to freeze forever. Personally, it works fine for me and I have not experienced any issue (yet). However, your mileage may vary. Use it at your own risk!

Configuring the Appindicator support

If you have not installed Gnome Tweak Tool, install it with the command:

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool

Open up Gnome Tweak Tool and go to the “Gnome Shell Extension”. Click the Tool icon beside the extension.

In the Options section, you can configure the default position of the appindicator, whether they will appear in the top panel, message tray or hide completely. You can also change the position for individual appindicator.

Conclusion

Appindicators is one of the best feature in Unity Desktop and I am really glad that you can now use it in Gnome Shell too. Most of the appindicators should work in Gnome Shell. If you come across any appindicator that are not working, do let us know in the comments.

The post How to Enable Appindicator in Gnome Shell appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

In case you are wondering, the system language is the language that show up in the menu bar and everywhere in the system. It is, however, not the same as the input language, which is the language you use for typing. If you are passing your laptop to your Dad/Mum/Granny who are not familiar with the English language, you might want to change the system language to one they are familiar with so they can navigate around easily.

Changing the system language

In Ubuntu, open the System Settings and launch the “Language Support” option.

You will see a list of languages in the “Language for menus and windows” section. This list contains all the languages already installed in your computer. If your preferred language is in the list, you can drag it to the top of the list. This will set it as the default language for menus and windows. Click the “Apply System-wide” button.

If your preferred language is not in the list, click the “Install/Remove Language” button. This will open up a window with the full list of languages. Scroll down the list to find the language you want and put a check beside it. Click “Apply Changes”.

After the installation, you should see your preferred language in the list. Drag it to the top of the list and click “Apply System-wide”. Restart the computer and you should see the new system language in action.

More Language Option

Using the above method will only change the menu and window’s language, but it will not change the input method. For example, if you have changed to Chinese (like I do above), when you type in the keyboard, English characters will still appear instead of Chinese.

To change the input language, simply change the option for the “Keyboard Input” from “Default” to “IBus”. You should see a keyboard icon at the system tray. Click on the icon to switch the input language.

In addition, the numbers, dates and currency format will remain the same even though you have changed the system language. To change the number format to match the region you are at, go to the “Regional Formats” and select the format in the dropdown. Click “Apply System-wide” and restart the computer.

That’s it.

The post How to Change System Language in Ubuntu appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

DiskInternals Linux Reader is a nifty piece of freeware that allows you to access all partitions of alternative filesystems in your computer from Windows. It comes with support for Ext2/3/4, ReiserFS, Reiser4, HFS, HFS+, FAT, exFAT, NTFS, ReFS and UFS2. That means, in addition to accessing Linux partition from Windows, you can also use it to access Mac’s HFS filesystem too. This could be useful if you are running Windows (with bootcamp) on your Mac.

Note: As mentioned in the title, this app only allows you to access and read files from other file systems. It doesn’t allow you to write to them.

Using DiskInternals

All you have to do is download and install the DiskInternals app. After the installation, you can open the application and see that all the partitions are automatically detected and loaded up into the interface. The user interface is just like any other file manager. You can click on any of the partition and view the files and folders within. By default, you are shown a Tiles view of your files, but you can easily change it to Thumbnails, Icons, List, or Details.

Once you have found the file that you are looking for, you can highlight it and a preview pane will appear at the bottom of the window with the content of the file. If the preview is not what you were expecting, you might want to try specifying the Encoding by using the dropdown that is present under the preview section.

Users have the ability to view contents of the file in a HEX preview too. And if you want to import the file to your Windows folders, all you have to do is right-click and select “Save”.

Conclusion

For those who are dual-booting Windows and Linux (or Windows and Mac OSX), this application is almost a god-send. It doesn’t allows you to write to the other filesystem, but that is not a big issue since you can easily access NTFS partition from the other OS. Being able to access Linux ext4 partition from Windows is good enough for me. What do you think? Will this be useful to you?

Download DiskInternals

The post How to Access Linux Ext4 Partition From Windows appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Until now, the Dash is using a lens system to manage your search. Install a lens and you can click on its icon to perform a search for a specific item. For example, installing the Google Drive lens allows you to search for files in your Google Drive account. With the Unity Smart Scopes, it will replace the lens system and allows you to search for anything, online or offline, directly in the Dash. The Unity Smart Scopes was supposed to be shipped together with Ubuntu 13.04, but because of stability issue, it was removed from Ubuntu 13.04. Instead, it will be included in Ubuntu 13.10. If you are one of those who love to try bleeding edge stuff, here is how you can install Unity Smart Scopes in Ubuntu 13.04.

Installation of Unity Smart Scopes

The installation is pretty simple. All you have to do is to add the PPA and upgrade your system. Here are the commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-unity/experimental-certified
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Note: If you run the last command “sudo apt-get dist-upgrade” and it prompts you to remove some packages, DO NOT PROCEED. It will/might break your system. It should only prompt you to install new packages and upgrade your existing packages. It shouldn’t remove anything from your system.

Usage

Once installed, it will restart the current Unity session. This might cause your system to stand still for a while (it did to mine, but your condition might vary). After that, you can press the “Super” (or the “Windows”) key to open the Dash and start typing the term that you want to search. The result should show up almost immediately as you type.

The best thing about the Smart Scope is that you can filter the results to get you want to find. When you do a search, the Smart Scope will make a guess of the things you are searching and return the results. If you are not seeing the things you want, you can click the “Filter Results” link at the top right corner of the Dash. There are two sections you can configure: Categories and Sources. Categories refer to the type of files it will return, such as Application, Music, Code, Graphics, etc. Sources refer to the source where the results are retrieved from, such as Amazon, Firefox bookmarks, Deviant Arts, etc. You can change the Categories and Sources to get it to refine its search.

You can also preview the result by right clicking it. The Preview feature is an existing feature of Dash, and it is applicable to Smart Scopes too.

Conclusion

The Unity Smart Scopes is very useful for finding stuff on your desktop and on the Web. It doesn’t support Google search though (and it will be perfect if it does). Another thing is that the Smart Scopes is only available for the Unity desktop. If you are not a Unity desktop user, you are not able to use this. The question is, will this make you want to switch to Unity desktop?

The post How to Install Unity Smart Scopes in Ubuntu 13.04 appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Windows includes a tool called Windows System Information for checking the hardware and software details. You can check the basic details about your computer with it. To open this tool, go to Run and type in msinfo32.

You can also get quick information by opening Computer properties (Windows Key + Break). The DirectX tool can be used to view information about the graphics and sound cards. However, these tools are still basic in nature and will not be able to give complete hardware and software information of the computer.

The following are useful tools to check the system information and get more detailed information about your hardware and software configuration.

CPU-Z

CPU-Z is the most popular system information tool. The graphical user interface of GPU-Z is divided into the following tabs:

CPU – Gives detailed information about the processor including its cores, socket type, stepping, technology, instruction sets supported, cores information, etc.

Caches – This tab gives complete information on the the caches available on the processor (L1, L2, L3 caches)

Mainboard – This tab gives information about the motherboard including its model, chipset, BIOS and graphic interface.

Memory – You can see detailed information about the RAM in this tab. The information includes type of RAM, size, channel, frequency etc.

SPD – This tab displays information about the memory slots available on the motherboard. You can select the slot from the drop-down menu.

Graphics – This will give you information about the GPU installed in the computer.

You have to be careful when installing CPU-Z as it will ask you to install extra software which should not be installed in any case.

Download CPU-Z

Speccy

Speccy is an advanced system information tool by Pirifirm that gives advanced information about the system. The user interface of Speccy is better than CPU-Z. It also organizes information in groups and tabs, but the information is more readable than CPU-Z, and it displays information in real-time. If you see the summary, you will see the CPU and motherboard temperatures along with other information.

Speccy displays information about the Operating System, CPU, RAM, Motherboard, Graphics Card, Hard Drives, Optical Drives, Audio, Peripherals and Network.

Download Speccy

Sys Toolbox

If you want to quickly see detailed system information on one screen, Sys Toolbox is the utility for you. It can be seen as an identical replacement to Windows System Information tool. The type of information includes Operating System, memory, motherboard (only the serial numbers is displayed), Internet connection, battery status, BIOS information, hard drive information, display, time and CPU summary.

Apart from system information, Sys Toolbox also displays a list of active processes. It can kill the processes that are unwanted by the user. Another interesting feature of Sys Toolbox is that it can retrieve the product key of your Windows installation.

If you are using Windows 7 or Windows 8, you will have to start Sys Toolbox with administrative privileges, otherwise it will give you an error.

Download Sys Toolbox

I hope these free utilities will help you to know more about your computer. How do you check the system information? Are you still using the Windows System Information tool? Let us know in the comments area below.

Just a tip: if you are using Ubuntu, you can use i-Nex for the same purpose of checking system information, and if you are using Mac OSX, you can use Mactracker.

The post Better Ways to Check the System Information in Windows appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Setting Up

Open a terminal and install bsdutils

sudo apt-get install bsdutils

Once installed, you will be able to use two commands script and scriptreplay to record the existing session and play back the recording.

Usage

The usage is pretty simple. To start the recording, you just need to use the command:

script -t -a 2> /path-to/timing-file.txt /path-to/recording-file.txt

Remember to change the file path to a valid file location. For example, if I want to save the recording to my Home folder, this is what I type:

script -t -a 2> /home/damien/timing.txt /home/damien/recording.txt

The “-t” flag instructs the script to output the timing data while the “-a” flag instructs the script to append the output.

Once you entered the command, you should see the line “Script started...“. Everything that you enter in the Terminal (including its output) will now be recorded.

Once you are done with the recording, simply type exit to end the recording. You should see the line “Script done,...” that denotes the end of recording.

To view the recording, you can either open the saved file (recording.txt) in your text editor or use the command scriptreplay

scriptreplay ~/timing.txt ~/recording.txt

That’s it. While it is simple, it can be really useful for debugging, or even troubleshooting your friend’s computer by showing them what you have typed and the expected output they should see in the terminal.

Is this helpful to you? What other uses can you think of?

Image credit: Macro Of Digital Dictaphone by BigStockPhoto

The post How to Record Terminal Session in Ubuntu appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Download and Installation

You can download the ISO image from the Linux Mint site. Depending on your system architecture, you can download either the 32 or 64 bit version. The installation is pretty straightforward. Except for the graphical difference, the installation process is exactly the same as Ubuntu.

Once the installation is completed, reboot the system. The first to greet you after the bootup is the MDM login screen. The advantage of MDM over LightDM (the login manager used by Ubuntu) is that MDM is more customizable and since it is compatible with GDM themes, there are tons of beautiful themes that you can find online.

What’s new in this MDM login screen is that it comes with 3 different types of greeter. You can use the GTK greeter, or GDM greeter. There is also the HTML greeter where you can use HTML5, CSS, Javascript, WebGL to customize the layout and functionality.

The default greeter is the HTML. You can go to the “Login Screen” option in the Cinnamon Control Center to change to GTK or GDM greeter, and to apply new login theme.

If none of the themes in the list catch your attention, you can go to Gnome-look and download the theme you like.

MintSources: A better way to manage your software sources

The new Linux Mint 15 comes with a new MintSources application that replaces the “Software Sources” in Ubuntu. The MintSources adds more features to the Software Sources. You can now change the mirror of your Linux Mint (and Ubuntu base) repository, and also add new PPAs, additional repositories, authentication keys, right in the application. No longer do you need to hit the terminal just to add a new PPA and install new application. You can now do everything right from the MintSources.

The coolest thing that I like about Mint Sources is that it lets you know which mirror loads the fastest so you know which one to choose from the list.

There is also a Maintenance option where you can “Fix MergeList problems” and “Purge residual configuration”. Both options provide a one-click solution to clean up your system.

Desklets

Desklets are widgets that you can place in the desktop. There are 3 desklets installed by default (Clock, Digital Photo frame and Launcher desklets) and you can find more desklets online (as of this post, there are only 4 desklets online. Hopefully, the list will expand). I am not a fan of desktop widgets, but I guess a lot of people will love it, particular one that shows the weather condition.

Screensaver

Linux Mint now comes with its own screensaver, which is simply a clock widget floating around the screen. One feature that was added was the ability to specify your own message when the screensaver is active. A simple, yet useful feature.

Cinnamon Control Center

All the system settings are now accessible from the Cinnamon Control Center. The Gnome Control Center is no longer included. All the features mentioned above can also be accessible from the Cinnamon Control Center.

Conclusion

Functionally, Linux Mint 15 is similar to its previous version. Nothing much has changed that will affect your workflow greatly. However, it is those small details that make Linux Mint 15 shines. A lot of efforts were put in to improve the user experience and make it easier to use. I always think Linux Mint is great for Linux beginners and Linux Mint 15 further strengthens my view.

What do you think? Are you impressed by Linux Mint 15 as well?

Download Linux Mint now!

The post Linux Mint 15 Review appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

The Gnome Encfs Manager is an easy to use manager that allows you to create and mount encrypted directory in Ubuntu. It makes use of the EncFS cryptography to encrypt the folder and comes with support for Gnome Keyring and appindicator. This is very useful if you are looking to encrypt your files in Dropbox.

Installation

Open a terminal and install from the following PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gencfsm
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-encfs-manager

Creating Encrypted Directory in Ubuntu

In the application, click the first icon in the menu bar. This will create a new stash.

Select the location where you want to create the encrypted directory. Note that the default is “~/Encfs/.Crypt“, but you can choose to change to another location. For this tutorial, I will be using the “~/Encrypted” folder.

Notice that the mount location is not the same as the Encrypted directory. The Mount directory is where you can access the decrypted file. It cannot be the same as the encrypted directory.

Lastly, enter the password and click “Create”.

Once the encrypted directory is created, it will show up in the application window.

Now, all you need to do is to save your files and documents into the Mount directory (in this case “~/EncFS/Encrypted”) and it will automatically encrypt the file. This is what you will see in both the encrypted folder and the mounted folder.

To unmount the Encrypted folder, just uncheck the “Mounted” box in the Gnome Encfs Manager window.

Configuring stash

When you configure the stash in gencfsm, you can get the manager to mount the stash on startup and whether to allow other users to access the stash. You can also get it to auto unmount when it is idle for a certain amount of time. The additional option include whether to save the password in keyring and to show this entry in the indicator menu.

Deleting your encrypted directory

To delete an encrypted directory in Ubuntu, you just have to select the entry in the Gnome Encfs Manager window and click the Delete icon. You will have to select if you want to only remove the entry from the manager or completely remove the encrypted folder. Note that if you select the first option, you can add it back later by following the creation method as mentioned above.

if you select the second option, you will have to check the next box “Yes, I am sure and aware that I could lose my data“. That warning alone should be sufficient to inform you the consequences of deleting the encrypted folder.

Last but not least, I would advise you to go to the Preferences section and set Gnome Encfs Manager to automatically start on login. You can also configure it to unmount all stashes on logout.

Conclusion

There are many ways to encrypt your files/folders in Ubuntu, and Gnome Encfs Manager is one of the easiest I have ever seen. There is little configuration required and it just works. If you have a need to encrypt your files, I would strongly recommend Gnome Encfs Manager. Try it out and let us know if it is useful for you.

Image credit: “confidential” Stamp On Folders by BigStockPhoto

The post How to Easily Create An Encrypted Directory in Ubuntu appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Customize LightDM on KDE

If you’re running KDE, it is pretty easy to customize LightDm. Open System Settings, and find “Login Screen (LightDM)”i n the “System Administration” group.

Opening this will display a screen that allows you to:

• Select from among two included themes: Classic (displaying only fields for username and password) and “User Bar” (displaying avatars and usernames in a side-scrollable list with a field for password below).
• Change the background image for the LightDM screen.

Once you’ve made changes, you’ll need to log out of KDE to see them.

As mentioned, there are only two themes installed by default (at least on my Kubuntu system). If you manage to find others around the Internet (they don’t appear in likely places like KDE-Look yet), you’ll need to copy them into folders beneath /usr/share/kde4/apps/lightdm-kde-greeter/themes/ (on an Kbuntu-based system). For other systems, look for where the “LightDM KDE Greeter” keeps its files.

Customize LightDM on Unity

For systems using Unity, there’s no utility available out-of-the-box to customize LightDM, but the handy Ubuntu Tweak will allow you to do this. In Ubuntu Tweak, select the “Login Settings” button (as shown below).

Make sure the “Tweaks” tab is highlighted, and you should see a screen like the one below. First, you’ll need to click the “Unlock” button and input your password, since these are system-level changes.

Ubuntu Tweak will allow you to do many things, including:

• Set whether guest access should be enabled.
• Change the background image
• Change the logo
• Select the GTK theme to be used
• Select the icon theme to be used

Once you make your selections, you’ll need to log out of Unity and log back in to see the changes.

Alternative LightDM Greeters

If the standard LightDM greeters (unity-greeter and lightdm-kde-greeter) aren’t to your liking, you can install alternatives. One option is to install the “other” default greeter, i.e. install the unity-greeter package on your Kubuntu machine, or the lightdm-kde-greeter package on your Ubuntu system. One thing to bear in mind is that each of these will install a fair number of new Unity or KDE dependencies for you, so if space or performance is of utmost importance to you, these are not the lightest options. The following commands will install these greeters for you:

sudo apt-get install lightdm-kde-greeter

sudo apt-get install unity-greeter

The lightdm-gtk-greeter package provides a log-in screen built using the GTK toolkit, and used in the Lubuntu variant. This greeter is essentially a single dialog with options for user account, password, and session type. One feature you’ll lose with this option is the ability to log in to a remote machine with your local computer, but if you don’t use this feature, it’s a very straightforward log-in screen.

The following command will install this option:

sudo apt-get install lightdm-gtk-greeter

A more sophisticated option is the lightdm-webkit-greeter package. This option gives you the ability to create your own theme in HTML, CSS, and Javascript. If you know some web development, you can use this as a basis for your own theme. Copy the files located in /usr/share/lightdm-webkit/themes/webkit, and create a new folder there (such as /usr/share/lightdm-webkit/themes/mytheme), and hack away to your heart’s content. You can also find some themes around the Internet. You can install the WebKit greeter with the following command:

sudo apt-get install lightdm-webkit-greeter

Conclusion

LightDM is still in its early stages in terms of customization, but it represents a nice step forward from existing display managers (such as KDM or GDM) as a cross-desktop utility to get you logged into your Linux desktop. Have you tried any of these ways to customize LightDM? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Customize LightDM with Themes and Backgrounds [Ubuntu] appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

The “Sugar On a Stick” distro is based on Fedora and it is modified to run Sugar Learning Platform right from the start. Instead of the usual Linux desktop, it will boot directly into the Sugar desktop (with a BIG mouse cursor) which is full of graphical elements.

Getting started

To get started, simply download the Sugar on a Stick iso file and burn it into a USB stick. You can then stick the USB stick into your laptop and boot it up. The benefit of using a USB stick is that there is no installation required. It doesn’t affect your existing OS and you don’t have to worry about any partition issue. You just boot it up and you are set to go.

When it boots up, it will first ask for your name to login to the desktop. No password is required. Next, you can choose a color for the icon.

Once you have set it up, it will bring you to the desktop, which is mainly a circle of applications.

It’s all about the interface and the applications

As a OS for the children, I am sure it will have to function differently from the usual OS we are using. Most of the interface in Sugar is graphical, as they are easier to attract the attention of children. With close to 30 applications in the list. You can easily move the big cursor over the icon and click on it to launch the application.

There are a few applications that really catch my attention. The Speak application allows you to converse with the Speak robot. You type in your question, and the robot reply in speech. And the eyes move as you move the cursor. There is also a mode where you can hear what you type.

There is also a browser where the kids can browse the web. I am surprised that there is no parental control option or site blocking option in the browser as I am able to load whatever site I want. For a distro that is meant for children, wouldn’t it be better to have some sort of parental control option to prevent the kids from visiting undesirable website?

Other applications include:

• Dimension – A pattern game to place the cards in the correct boxes/sequence.
• Typing Turtle – A game to practice typing on the keyboard
• Abacus – yes, an abacus application, but there is no tutorial in the application to teach the user how to use an abacus. You can learn as you use, but it is not intuitive enough.
• Pippy – a programming platform that teaches the kids how to code Python.
• and many more.

Conclusion

Personally, I find the interface lacking and it could be more polished with more explanation and tutorials. However, Sugar’s Activities have already been used by nearly 3 million children in more than forty countries, so I am probably not the right person to comment whether this is a good or bad distro. Some of the applications are interactive and could engage your kids for quite a while. The good thing about Sugar on a Stick is that you don’t have meddle with your existing OS to get it running. All you have to do is to boot from the USB stick and you have full distro running in your laptop. It is best to let your kids try it out and see if they like it.

If this is not to your (or your kids) liking, you can also try out Qimo, DoudouLinux or even this software packages for kids.

SugarLabs

The post Sugar: A Linux Distro and Learning Platform For Kids appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

1. CPU-G

CPU-G looks almost exactly like CPU-Z, except that it works only in Linux. You can use it to view CPU info in Linux, as well as Motherboard, Graphic, Memory and general system information.

In Ubuntu (Quantal and below), you can add the PPA and install from its repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cpug-devs/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cpu-g

CPU-G allows you to view the information about your CPU, Motherboard, Graphic card, Memory and System. Most of the information are pretty straightforward (either you understand it or you don’t). You can view the CPU Vendor, Name, Core clock, cache amount, motherboard chipset and etc. For the Memory section, you can see the amount of free RAM that you can still use for other applications.

In the System tab, you can view information about the CPU architecture, your current operating system and kernel version.

2. I-Nex

If you find the information lacking in CPU-G, another application that you can use is I-Nex. It provides more information than CPU-G and display them in an easy-to-read manner.

To install in Ubuntu, add the PPA and install from its repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:i-nex-development-team/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install i-nex

In addition to the usual CPU information, it also displays the temperature of the current CPU. There is also an “Info” button where you can click to read about your CPU online.

In the GPU tab, other than the usual graphic card detail, you can view your current resolution and the available resolutions supported by the graphic card.

Other information that can be found in I-Nex include Sound, Drives, Web, USB Input.

I-Nex also allows you to generate a report of your current hardware configuration. Click the Printer icon at the bottom of the window and it will prompt you to select the stuff you want to include in the report.

Conclusion

To view CPU info in Linux, both CPU-G and I-Nex are capable of doing the job. However, if you prefer to have more information at your fingertips, I-Nex does a better job at showing more and relevant information in a well-organized manner.

The post Two Useful Apps to View CPU Info in Linux (CPU-Z Alternative For Linux) appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Login to your remote system, or open the terminal in your own computer.

Open the /etc/ssh/ssh_config file.

sudo nano /etc/ssh/ssh_config

and add the following line to the end of the file:

ServerAliveInterval 60

What this option does is to send a null packet to the server at every 60 seconds (of inactivity) to keep the SSH connection alive. You can experiment with the value, setting it to either higher or lower, depending on your system configuration. A value of 60 is a good starting point to start the experimentation.

Per user configuration

If you don’t have root access to the system or you just want to configure it for your personal account, you can edit the ~/.ssh/config file instead.

sudo nano ~/.ssh/config

If the file does not exist, this will create a new file.

Add the following line:

Host *
  ServerAliveInterval 60

Press “Ctrl + o” to save and “Ctrl + x” to exit.

Lastly, restart the SSH server.

sudo service ssh restart

That’s it.

The post How to Keep SSH Connections Alive In Linux appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Note: Pencil is supported in Windows, OSX and Linux. In this article, we will be focusing on the Linux version of Pencil.

Installation

Pencil is no longer available in the Ubuntu repositories (as of Raring, at least), but it is an easy install via DEB package from the project’s website. Install by double-clicking on the downloaded package, or with the following terminal command:

sudo dpkg -i evoluspencil_2.0.3_all.deb

The only dependency is Firefox, so if you’re on a system that doesn’t include this by default, you’ll need to install it (or use a GUI package manager, which will handle the dependency for you).

Usage

Whereas with a program like GIMP or Krita, you generally need to create your own graphic pieces. Pencil provides you with a wide array of shapes you can quickly drag onto a page and modify to your liking. The pane on the left lists available shapes, in groups such as “Common Shapes” (basic squares and circles), “Desktop – GTK Widgets” (if you wanted to prototype a Unity or GNOME application), and “Sketchy” (one of my favorite for web mock-ups, which looks like a pencil sketch). Items in these groups can be mixed and matched.

To add one of these to the drawing, simply click-and-drag it onto a page (new pages can be added via the “New Page” button in the upper right).

Once on the page, the size can be changed by dragging one of the corners or borders of the shape, or via the “Location & Size” toolbar fields (useful if you need the drawing, such as a web mock-up, to fit a certain resolution).

Double-clicking most shapes allows text to be added, which can be customized with alignment, font, bold/italics, and point size using the “Text format” toolbar buttons.

Mock-up Basics

I draw wireframes and other diagrams all the time, and the basic process I use is as follows (using the example of a homepage mock-up for a website).

Background

For a webpage, this starts with the browser window – The “Window Frame” item from the Sketchy collection is used here for simplicity’s sake. To place this at 0px x 0px (i.e. the top-left of the screen), the “Location & Size” controls are used. The bottom and left edges are dragged so it fills the entire screen.

A “Box” shape is added all the way across the top to indicate the URL bar … sometimes placing things exactly with the mouse is difficult, but the arrow keys can also be used to move a shape once it’s selected:

Page Elements

A big slider can be added to the page at the top. The “Image” shape is used to indicate the slide, and two “Sketchy Triangles” to act as forward and back controls. Clicking twice on an object turns the edge/corner handles pink, which allows them to be rotated:

Lastly, three regions are added at the bottom to hold news, a video, and a contact form (The “Box” shape is used to outline each region). The news will just be a heading and some text (using the “Label” Sketchy shape with some varying text sizes), the video region is made by dropping a “Sketchy Triangle” inside a “Sketchy Circle” within a “Box” (i.e. a “Play” button), and the last will be a “Label” accompanied by three “Text Fields” and a “Button”:

By using the pre-made shapes, drawing programs allow you to very quickly (the above took about ten minutes) illustrate ideas in a way that others can understand. This Microsoft Visio alternative allows you to create diagrams in an intuitive and portable (Evolus Pencil itself is cross-platform, and drawings can be exported to PDF or PNG) way to share with colleagues.

The post Evolus Pencil: A Great Microsoft Visio Alternative For Linux appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Offline Control

An important aspect of kids’ computer usage is the amount of time they spend in front of the screen. A limitation and control of kids’ computing time is vital to avoid future addictions, and let’s face it, kids need to play with real toys, exercise, and so on.

timekpr is a program developed to track and control the computer usage time of a system’s accounts on a daily basis. It allows this limitation to be set both as a “green” period of the day (setting a period of time in which that specific user may use the system) and/or as an amount of hours per day. Unfortunately, timekpr is not available for ubuntu 11.04+ yet, even though its creators expect to provide a new release by August 2013.

Controlling Internet Usage

Surfing on the web requires lots of care and responsibility even to adults. Kids are curious and have a natural tendency to explore, so it is no wonder that they end up visiting dangerous or less appropriate websites (not only in a content point of view, but also dangerous to the system’s security). In order to prevent these kind of situations, there are several programs available, usually called “parental control” programs.

Gnome Nanny will help with parental control in Linux and is probably the most well-equipped and user-friendly program available. Specially directed to infant control, it helps define separate rules for different users. It has a tabbed interface divided in “PC use time”, “Web browser”, “Mail client” and “Instant messaging”.

The first feature presents the same functionality as timekpr, so if you want a full suite, Nanny is probably better to fulfill your needs. The second feature is probably the most important, giving the possibility to establish which sites are forbidden and which allowed, either by hand or by downloading lists available online. As far as the site informs, the latest (and unstable) Nanny version was released back in 2010, so its development probably ended back then. It is also reported that Nanny works only with three browsers, Epiphany, Firefox and Konqueror, so if you use other browser I recommend that you test Nanny’s effectiveness.

DansGuardian is another program, this one designed for web content filtering, using several methods such as phrase matching and URL filtering. It is also more tailored for running on servers, which is specially useful for schools, libraries and such. The great advantage provided by DansGuardian in comparison to other software is the previously mentioned filtering through phrase matching; sometimes pages with bad content do not have addresses revealing such content. DansGuardian searches pages for “bad” words such as “hate” or “pornography”, providing a much more effective content filtering.

Finally, WebContentControl is a different kind of program, since it is made to, with its GUI, take control and help users configure other programs – specifically, DansGuardian, FireHol, and TinyProxy. Besides controlling these apps, it provides an easier way to start/stop filtering, backs up configuration files, only changes what is really necessary, and provides SSL filtering.

Now, back to you, how do you configure your computer to restrict Internet access for your kids?

Image credit: Baby With Notebook Portable Computer by BigStockPhoto

The post Useful Apps to Aid Parental Control in Linux appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Background

Chrome OS may seem very locked down, but it’s actually running on top of Linux. The Chromebook Pixel is a high-end device intended, in part, to be adopted by developers who want to create software for Google’s cloud-centric operating system or Linux in general. For these tinkerers, a Google employee developed crouton, a tool that enables you to run Ubuntu inside of a virtual instance within Chrome OS. Once installed, you can simultaneously run both Chrome OS and Ubuntu on a Chromebook Pixel without having to dual-boot or otherwise restart to switch between them.

Getting Started

You will first need to enable developer mode. To do this, hold down the ESC and Refresh keys at the same time and then briefly press down the Power button. Your computer will restart and send you to a recovery screen displaying the following text:

Chrome OS is missing or damaged.
Please insert a recovery USB stick or SD card.
(note: the blue USB port will NOT work for recovery)

On this screen, press Ctrl + D followed by Enter to boot into developer mode. Your computer will then proceed to erase all of your local data as it transitions. The process can take over ten minutes, so don’t panic if it takes awhile.

Once the transition is complete, you will be greeted by a warning screen with the following message:

OS verification is OFF
Press SPACE to re-enable

This screen will display every time you boot up your computer in developer mode. It’s a message to warn you that as long as OS verification is disabled, your computer will be less secure than it was before. This is a given. In the end, you will be running Ubuntu alongside Chrome OS, and were your computer to fall into the wrong hands, they could also run software in the background without you knowing. This is a risk most users have lived with since computers first hit the market, so there’s no reason to be alarmed. Press Ctrl + D or wait thirty seconds for the screen to go away.

Installation

First, download Crouton, then open a terminal inside Chrome OS by pressing Ctrl + Alt + T.

Inside the terminal, type “shell” and press Enter to switch to a Linux terminal. From here you have two options. You can install Ubuntu with either Unity or Xfce. If you want to install Ubuntu with the default Unity interface, type in the following command:

sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -t unity

This command will begin the actual installation process. It may take some time as the files are downloaded and installed onto your Pixel.

Once it’s done, enter these commands to enter your new Unity session:

sudo enter-chroot startunity
sudo startunity

You will be then find yourself looking at the familiar Unity interface. After downloading a new default wallpaper, here is how mine looked.

Given the Chromebook Pixel’s high resolution of 2560 x 1700 pixels, everything looks obscenely small. You can tweak this somewhat by increasing font sizes, but for the time being you’ll have to accept that windows and websites won’t scale naturally when you’re not using Chrome OS.

If Unity’s not your thing, you can try running Xfce. It’s a desktop environment that is lighter on resources and more customize-able. Depending on your computing background, this interface might look more familiar. Install Xfce with this command:

sudo sh -e ~/Downloads/crouton -t xfce

Switching back to Chrome OS is instantaneous. Hold down Ctrl + Alt + Back. If you want to return to Ubuntu, hold down Ctrl + Alt + Forward plus Ctrl + Alt + Refresh. If you log out of Ubuntu, you can return to it by again opening up a terminal and retyping either:

sudo startunity

or

sudo startxfce4

If you grow tired of running Ubuntu on your Pixel or want the peace of mind that comes from running your device with verified boot enabled, turning off developer mode is even easier than turning it on. Simply restart your computer. At the warning screen that pops up, press Space followed by Enter. Your computer will wipe itself again. Once it’s done, your computer will be as good as new.

Conclusion

Installing Ubuntu on a Chromebook Pixel is very useful if you still need to use Skype or compile code. Perhaps you’re curious to see if a Chromebook Pixel can handle Steam, which it can. Maybe you just want to experience what 2560 by 1700 is really like. Regardless of your motivation, installing Ubuntu on a Chromebook Pixel is now as easy, if not easier, than installing Ubuntu on any other PC. Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, bought a Chromebook and installed Linux on it. That’s quite the endorsement. If you try it, check back in here in the comments and let us know about your experience.

The post How to Install Ubuntu on a Chromebook Pixel appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Note: While the below script worked on both 12.10 and 13.04 using the “autokey-qt” flavor, there appears to be some issues with the “autokey-gtk” version in the standard repositories.  If you’re using regular (Unity-based) Ubuntu, you should consider installing from the PPA, which contains a newer version of Autokey.

Autokey Scripting Basics

Autokey scripting is done in Python, a popular programming language used in everything from Ubuntu’s Ubiquity installer to Google Maps. While you can do some useful things with only the functions specific to Autokey, you can also use Autokey features in general Python programs to do just about anything you want.

The Autokey Wiki contains some useful topics like Installation and FAQ’s. The API Reference, hidden as a link at the top of the Sample Scripts page, is where the good stuff is. Looking around the page:

1. At the top of the page are all the methods, or functions, of the current module you’re looking at which are explained in more detail below.

2. In the left hand column is the return type, or what you get back if you use that method.

3. In the more detailed listing for each method, you’ll have the method name listed again.

4. Next to the name, in parentheses, are the arguments, or the things you need to provide the method in order for it to do its job.

5. Lastly, there’s an example of usage for the method.

Take some time to look through the API reference – you won’t get far without it. The following is a walk-through of the creation of a script from beginning to end.

Creating an Autokey Script

Autokey scripting is very much like shell scripting, in that you build them one line at a time, using variables and functions (or in this case methods) to get the desired result. In my case, I want to be able to highlight some text and stash it away in a text file for later. The first step is to create a new script in Autokey… you can do this by right-clicking on one of the folders and selecting “New Script,” as shown below.

Give it a name, then the empty text area to the right is all yours – this is where you’ll enter the script. In this case, let’s look at what we want to do step-by-step:

Getting the Currently-Selected Text

Autokey is all about automation, so there should be no reason for us to copy this text, to the clipboard or otherwise. We want to hit the hotkey and go, knowing the text is safely tucked away for later. Fortunately, the API Reference shows there’s a method just for this: the QtClipboard method. The following line of code will grab the currently-selected text for us, as if we’d done an “Edit & Copy” or Ctrl-C ourselves. Instead of the system’s clipboard, we’ll store this in the variable “notecontent”:

notecontent = clipboard.get_selection()

Designating the Full Path to the File

Next, we want to store this somewhere. We’ll need to designate a place for it. Let’s add a line that shows the folder we want to use, assigned to the variable “notepath”:

notecontent = clipboard.get_selection()
notepath = "/home/aaron/clips/"

For the file name, I’d like to include a date and time stamp of when it was captured. A little Googling reveals there’s a function in Python’s “time” module that will give me the current date, in YYYY-MM-DD-HH-mm-ss format on command, which we’ll combine with the prefix “note” and the suffix “.txt” and assign to the variable “notename.” We’ll need to importthe time module so we can use it (as it turns out, we need this anyway, as forums recommend adding the second line to avoid conflicts between the script and the keyboard/mouse). This makes the script look like this:

import time
time.sleep(0.25)
notecontent = clipboard.get_selection()
notepath = "/home/aaron/clips/"
notename = "note" + timestrftime("%Y%m%d%H%M%S") + ".txt"

Creating the File

This is relatively easy to follow:

1. Import the time module
2. Get the current selection, assign to “notecontent”
3. Assign the target directory to “notepath”
4. Assign the text “note,” then the current date/time, followed by “.txt” to the variable “notename.”

All we need to do now is actually create the file. Fortunately, Autokey provides a method for that too, in the System module:

import time
time.sleep(0.25)
notecontent = clipboard.get_selection()
notepath = "/home/aaron/clips/"
notename = "note" + timestrftime("%Y%m%d%H%M%S") + ".txt"
system.create_file(notepath + notename, content = notecontent)

That’s it! Assign a hotkey, copy some text, and see what happens. With the key functions Autokey provides you, and some Google prowess, you can use Autokey for advanced desktop scripting.

1. Selecting the text

2. Hit the hotkey, and a new text file appears

3. And there’s our selected text, shown in the less output of the text file.

What other uses do you use the Autokey for?

The post Using Autokey Scripts to Automate Your Linux Desktop appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

The app linuxmessenger is a Linux clone of the Facebook Messenger for Windows. It allows you to login to your Facebook account and chat with your friends with a Facebook look-alike interface.

Installation

The installation of limuxmessenger is pretty straightforward, even though it doesn’t come with a PPA.

First download the zip file from its github page. Extract it to your Home folder. You should see a folder like “linuxmessenger-master”.

Next, open a terminal and type the following:

sudo apt-get install python-setuptools python3-setuptools python-qt4-phonon python-qt4-phonon python3-pyqt4.phonon

This will install the dependencies required by the application.

To test if the application is working, “cd” to the folder that you extracted and run the “fbmessenger” file.

cd linuxmessenger-master
./fbmessenger

If everything goes well, the main window will open and you can start to login and chat with your friends.

From here on, you can choose to run the installation and install it as a system app, or just execute the fbmessenger file everything you want to start the desktop client.

To install to the system, just run the command from the linuxmessenger folder:

sudo ./setup.py install

There is also a build file for debian and rpm based system, so you can install it on most distro.

This FBMessenger app comes with support for notifications, popup alert, friends request and chat sound and you can choose to turn them off if you want. The functionalities are pretty basic, but are good enough for a true facebook chat experience.

Personally, I am using Empathy to connect all my different accounts at a single place, but if you are mainly a Facebook messenger user, then this FBmessenger app will be a useful tool for you. The thing that it is lacking now is an app indicator or a system tray applet. With that implemented, this will be perfect.

The post Accessing Facebook Messenger From Linux Desktop appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Be it an online or a desktop app, there are plenty of office suites around that you can use as the Microsoft Office alternative. The difference between WPS Office and the rest of the office suites is the striking resemblance it has to Microsoft Office. Yes, it comes with the Ribbon UI, and even the shade and color are similar. In fact, I would call it a Microsoft Office clone rather than an alternative.

One advantages of WPS Office are that it doesn’t come with a hefty price tag (the basic version is free), and it has a Linux version. The disadvantages? It is in Chinese (but don’t worry; we have a fix for that).

If you access WPS Office’s English website, you can only download the Windows and Android versions. For the Linux version, you will have to go to its Chinese website to download the installer file. Currently it is only available in 32 bit, so make sure you have installed the 32-bit libaries (iab3-libs2) in your 64-bit machine. There is also a repackaged version for UbuntuKylin available for download. For those who don’t understand Chinese, you can go to the download page and download the package (rpm, deb or tar.gz) for your machine.

Changing the menu interface to English

After you have downloaded and installed this Microsoft Office clone, open a terminal and type:

cd /opt/kingsoft/wps-office/office6/2052
sudo rm qt.qm wps.qm wpp.qm et.qm

Now, restart WPS-Office. You will notice that all of the menu is now in English.

Features of WPS Office

Dual UI view

The default menu layout is the Ribbon UI, but if you prefer the old classic layout, you can change it with the “File -> Switch UI” button.

Built-in tabbed interface

When you open multiple documents, they are opened in a tabbed interface so that you can switch between them easily.

Is WPS Office a good replacement for Microsoft Office

WPS Office suit comes with Writer, Spreadsheet and Presentations. If you are in need of a note-taking app like OneNote or email client like Outlook, then WPS is not for you.

WPS Office allows for you to open and view the XML-based file format (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx), but it doesn’t support saving to these formats. So if you have a .docx document, you can open, view and edit in WPS Writer, but you have to save it in .doc format. In addition, WPS Office doesn’t support Open Document format (.odf, .odt). If you are fine working only with the .doc, .xls and .ppt format, then WPS will be great for you.

I have not done a deep testing to test the full functionality of WPS Office and whether is it compatible with the advanced features of Microsoft Office, but simple editing seems to be working fine, almost the same way as it was done in MS Office. According to the comparison sheet, this Microsoft Office clone does support features like Equation and Symbol, illustrations, Comment & Track Changes, Mail Merge etc.

As you can see, the usefulness of WPS Office really depends on what you need to do with your Office suite. If you can’t do without the Ribbon UI, can work with the old MS Office format and can stand a few Chinese characters in the app, then WPS office is a great option for you.

The post WPS Office: A Microsoft Office Clone For Linux appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

Ubuntu Kylin is the official Chinese Ubuntu distro and it comes with features targeted at the Chinese market. China would probably be its biggest market, but any Chinese in the World will be able to use it, and love it too.

The History of Kylin

The Kylin OS was formerly developed by academics at the National University of Defense Technology in China. It was based on FreeBSD and was intended for use by the Chinese military and other government organizations. In 2013, the Chinese Government reached an agreement with Canonical for them to release a Chinese version of the popular Ubuntu distro and it will be used as a national OS.

For those who are not aware, the name “Kylin” was named after the mythical beast “Qi Lin”, a hybrid of a dragon head and tiger body which represents good omens, protection, prosperity, success, and longevity.

Testing out UbuntuKylin

UbuntuKylin is available for download at their homepage. The main differences between UbuntuKylin and the usual Ubuntu is that the default languages and user interface are in Chinese. The good thing is, if you are familiar with Ubuntu, you can get by the installatin without any issue, as all the steps are exactly the same.

Once installed, you can also switch the system language to English and use it like you normally do.

The theme used in UbuntuKylin is also different, and I think it is much more beautiful than the standard Ubuntu. (I always like Chinese distro, because they are always more beautiful and elegant. Deepin is one good example).

Here is the login screen:

The desktop:

File window:

For those who are interested in this theme, you can install the ubuntukylin-theme in Ubuntu 13.04.

sudo apt-get install ubuntukylin-theme

What’s new in UbuntuKylin

There are few things that are specially made for the Chinese market:

1. Chinese input

I have previously installed Chinese language input for Ubuntu and it is always a hit or miss. In UbuntuKylin, it is using “Fcitx” as the default Chinese input and I am glad that it worked much better than I expected. You can simply switch the the language input with “Ctrl + Space” and it includes Wubi, Wubi Pinyin, pen, Cangjie, breeze, Bingchan holographic, spelling as well as location coding table.

2. a Chinese lunar calendar

A must have for many Chinese.

3. a Chinese weather indicator

This is useful only if you are located in China as it doesn’t allow you to add location outside of China.

4. a Chinese music search scope

The good thing about this lens is that it provides a good and quick way to search for Chinese music from the Dash. The bad thing is that it doesn’t work outside of China.

Conclusion

For Chinese user, UbuntuKylin is really a useful distro with a strong and stable Ubuntu base and Chinese localization. I am always frustrated with the Chinese input in Ubuntu and the inability to search for Chinese music/video from the dash. Even the music store in Ubuntu doesn’t come with any Chinese music. With UbuntyKylin, these features are in place and they are pretty well done. Even if you are not proficient with the Chinese interface, you can change the system language to English, or whatever language you are comfortable with.

I am already planning to install this on my dad’s laptop (fyi, my dad is a 70 years old traditional Chinese man who just started learning computer recently, and he is currently using Lubuntu. No points for guessing who installed it for him).

UbuntuKylin

The post A Review of UbuntuKylin: The Official Ubuntu Distro For The Chinese appeared first on Make Tech Easier.

The installation is very easy. Open a terminal and run the following command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:leolik/leolik
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade

Instead of installing an additional GUI application just to customize the settings, you can open a text editor and paste the following settings. Save it as “.notify-osd” in your Home folder.

slot-allocation = dynamic
bubble-expire-timeout = 10sec
bubble-vertical-gap = 5px
bubble-horizontal-gap = 5px
bubble-corner-radius = 37,5%
bubble-icon-size = 30px
bubble-gauge-size = 6px
bubble-width = 240px
bubble-background-color = 131313
bubble-background-opacity = 90%
text-margin-size = 10px
text-title-size = 100%
text-title-weight = bold
text-title-color = ffffff
text-title-opacity = 100%
text-body-size = 90%
text-body-weight = normal
text-body-color = eaeaea
text-body-opacity = 100%
text-shadow-opacity = 100%
bubble-prevent-fade = 0
bubble-close-on-click = 1
bubble-as-desktop-bg = 0

The configuration options are self-explanatory. You can change the bubble width, gap, color and opacity and even set it to close on click.

One thing that is not covered in the settings is the position of the notification bubble. For that, you can issue the following command in the terminal:

gsettings set com.canonical.notify-osd gravity [number]

where [number] is any of the following:

1 - top-right corner
2 - middle-right
3 - bottom-right corner
4 - bottom-left corner
5 - middle-left
6 - top-left corner

Once you have done the configuration, restart the notifyosd:

pkill notify-osd

and to test it:

notify-send "custom message"

Here is a video of the customized NotifyOSD in action.

Enjoy!

The post Customize the Notification Bubble in Ubuntu 13.04 (Using Patched NotifyOSD) appeared first on Make Tech Easier.