Application Docks

UPDATE :

I have had a bash at a couple of them... AWN and Cairo-dock. both slightly buggy, however I feel Cairo-dock has a dangerous mouse side effect to me :(

Cairo Dock

As of cairo-dock 1.6.1.2
Turns out my optical mouse was old, Cairo-dock works great and I love it to pieces.

I found it to mess around with the mouse abit too much automatically, even created folders and opened up windows. Ever since I stopped using it, my mouse problems stop :( So I have reverted back to "Avant Window Navigator" aka awn, till I am really sure what it is. It maybe cause of the compiz-fusion plugin for the dock, I'm not sure yet.

Mac PC and Linux Truths

Dugg it at digg.com, and believed to be initially came from http://ralree.com/images/MacPCLinuxTruth.jpg

To anyone who does not understand the history here. Here it goes very briefly......

Originally MS started their mission to encourage everyone onto a computer. Started with quick and rushly made software and sold them to companies with even basic crap deals that MS didn't care loosing profit for. Amstrad ignored their offer as Sugar believed software was not worth paying for unless you could see it :P

Macs came in, showed the tidier version of an OS, but Macs are more costly.

Linux came in, to recreate what MS and Apple have done commerically to be free. Unfortunately, everything was not easily understandable. Like what does a /etc mean? It means that's the folder where all the main software configs go.

Then after thousands of different distros in attempting to show user friendly Linux, Ubuntu came recently popular in 2008. They struck a deal with Dell to provide support and they install Desktops of selected machines.

Still Linux still has it's woes, as soon something gets upgraded a bug could appear then a few days later, someone fixes it. Thankfully with Ubuntu's fairly impressive update farm keeps things in working almost. I sure get the odd headache once in a while.

Due to Ubuntu popularity, there has been recent confusion that Ubuntu is Linux. That is incorrect. Ubuntu is a popular distribution brand of Linux. Linux is the name Linus Torvalds gave to relate everything required to run Linux kernel

Converting Image Formats

"gThumb Image Viewer" provides browsing and conversion tools. Can easily convert images to either JPEG, PNG, TGA, or TIFF.

How I Solved my Hardy Samba Vista Issues

As of Ubuntu 8.04, Samba Version 3.0.28a and Nautilus Share 0.7.2-0ubu

4 areas of concern, Hardy Issues, smb.conf, sharing and communication with Vista.

Hardy 8.04 Issues as of this post

• I had issues with Samba conf files not getting reset, so I had to grab a copy from a LIVE-CD. involved me having install samba on it that didn't properly work either lol.
• Browsing Vista Networks does not work anymore, however Vista could see Samba shares.
  
• Sharing Folders was trivially hidden
  

smb.conf
By Default VISTA reads via NTVLMv2 only. Read here to make sure you can switch between NTVLMv2 and Samba policies here. Originally my smb.conf used to work and was VERY simple smb.conf it was:

[global]
workgroup = BURDEN
wins support = no
#client NTLMv2 auth = yes

#for vista compatibility
client lanman auth = no
client ntlmv2 auth = yes
domain logons = yes
guest account = nobody

I don't use this smb.conf setup any more. I used a fresh one from a LIVE-CD, which involved me installed Samba on there and then I emailed myself the smb.conf that was installed. The only thing I changed is WORKGROUP. But I still had issues trying to nagivagate through the networks.

Sharing
The "System->Administration->Shared Folders" application has gone, you can now right click any folder and there is "Sharing Options" in the popup menu :).




I used to be able to reinstall samba and a clean smb.conf file with the defaults used to reappear, now it doesn't. If you lost your smb.conf file or corrupted it, you get a recently clean one by installing Samba on a LIVE-CD boot. I then emailed it to me really :P Yes yes I've said this twice, means I've made my point.

Communicating with Vista
Temperary solution to mounting Vista Shares for me was mounting by "Places->Connect to Server". Change the type of share to "Windows Share" and then fill in like soo

You probably get promopted for a passsword or you get a mount point on the desktop, that means it worked :)