Category: Open Source

Java and gtk error

October 14, 2008 / / 1 Comment

Problem: ugly program (no theme applied)
If you get an error like:

/usr/share/themes/Unity/gtk-2.0/gtkrc:41: error: lexical error or unexpected token, expected valid token

when you launch a java program under a GTK enviroment (GNOME) and the program looks really ugly or even it doesn’t start at all you may want to try the following..

Solution: Upgrade to the last 1.6 jdk.

To updgrade to the latest sdk in ubuntu follow this info:

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre

and select as the blessed ones:

sudo update-java-alternatives -s java-6-sun

check it:

java -version

If everything is ok launch you program 🙂

P.S.: Check that the program that you’re launching is not using a proper jre (so 1.5) otherwise all your effort will be useless.

Rhythmbox and firefox on hardy

October 5, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Just for the record, if rhythmbox hang when you try to see a video on youtube with firefox, or you cannot listen to the music anymore if firefox is running something where flash is involvedd the answer to all this troupe is called: libflashsupport

sudo apt-get install libflashsupport

At least it worked on my system.

Enjoy 🙂

E allora Chrome ma non per linux

September 3, 2008 / / 1 Comment
chrome logo

chrome logo

Se non vivete sotto ad un sasso oramai sapete che google ha rilasciato chrome. Per linux ancora non c’è la release e questo non mi permette di provarlo.

Le considerazioni di TechCrunch sul vero scopo del browser mi sembrano chiare e lucide e ritengo che sia un ottima idea dare un occhio a questo bell’articolo di wired.

Io penso che qualcuno riesca a trovare il modo di renderlo funzionale su linux per stasera tardi (orario del Pacifico.)

Per ora s’attende fiduciosi con firefox che, con i suoi onesti 20 tabs sempre aperti, continua a fare il suo sporco lavoro.

Se gears prende piede (nota che è embedded in chrome) sarebbe paragonabile al salto che c’è stato quando si è passati da browser testuali come lynx a qualcosa come mosaic.

Da notare che è opensource. C’è da dire che usano Webkit per reinderizzare le pagine, quindi erano in qualche modo forzati.

TiddlyWiki mandatory plugins

August 6, 2008 / / 2 Comments

So if you are using tiddlywiki you know everything, if you don’t you maybe want to take a look to it.

What is tiddlywiki good for?

For me is good as an advanced lab book. Yes an electronic labbook. All my biology friends have a really good fashion old school labbook, but I’m not too much into paper and I keep forgetting things.

More over is really a pain to search on the paper… I have different thoughts and ideas that are completely disconnected and only at the end they make sense (sometimes…)

So here the User Case:

  • Able to write any piece of text/idea quickly in a not complicated way
  • Able to tag it in a flexible way and give it an automatic datestamp
  • Able to have this tool always available.

If you recognize this, you want to give a try.

Now I want to suggest you two plugins (I started to write this post because the second one was really hard to find again, so I will put the right link here. I don’t think google is going to care too much about this blog, but anyway it could help a bit)

First of the latex plugin (if you don’t know what is LaTeX … well I’m sorry..)

The second one is the listTaggedTiddlers

Give it a go.. It’s really cool.

The constant itchy: proper LaTeX GNOME editor

July 30, 2008 / / 2 Comments

I have a constant itchy that I cannot get rid off: I want a smart and cool LaTeX editor for GNOME.

I would like to have something light and with a bunch of functions that could make my life easier.

Right now I use winefish which is doing a great job.

Strengths of this software:

  1. Integration with LaTeX tool and possibility to run them with shortcuts keys
  2. Wizard to introduce figures. Really useful
  3. Shortcuts to introduce LaTeX sections, LaTeX style and other stuff. I really love it
  4. Group project management. When you write with LaTeX seriuos stuff you have chapters… and I want to hit one button and get my document compiled. (E.g.: Three docs open: master.tex, chp1.tex, chp2.tex. I hit F2 and the program call pdflatex with master.tex as argument depsite which is my open document (i.e. chp2.tex.) This is one of the feature that I like most.

One big problem:

  1. Spellchecking is broken (LaTeX filter doesn’t really work)

It seems the way to go is enchant.

Now, winefish is written in C and it’s not really my cup of tea…

What I saw is that there is this pyenchant and the interesting bit is here

It seems there is going to be a support for the LaTeX filter soon (hopefully). This means that if there is an editor that is able to implement the pyenchant API we (if you read ’till here is also your problem…) have resolved our problem about an editor with a correct spell checking in LaTeX mode.

So looking around I stumbled to this scribes.
logo scribes

It seems to be under big development (infinite development?) but it seems the version 0.4 will implement the pyenchant.

Now I see two possible solutions here:

  1. Fix winefish. This means:
  • Port somehow the enchant library to winefish. It’s in C. No, it doesn’t sound easy. Winefish is a fork of an old version of winefish. Now the development has stopped ‘casue the main developer didn’t have anymore the time.
  1. Fix scribes: This means:
  • Test the development version. Check the spellcheck works. Contact the guy who is working on pyenchant and speed up the filtering process for LaTeX filter.
  • Implement the snippet feature to insert custom text in the document (doable.. there is this possibility)
  • Implement at least a wizard for the figures.
  • Check out the project management

So you’re thinking that I should go for scribes. I don’t htink so, the autosave function will kill me and there is no undo function.

So maybe you said that I should look to GEDIT again and think about the LaTeX plugin… ‘Cause GEDIT will use or is going to use enchant. I’ve tried. I didn’t like it. I use GEDIT to open every txt file whatever is the content. So it should be light and quick. I said light and quick. The plugin is getting my GEDIT really slow. MKore over the spellchecker it’s not working.. So what we are talking about?

I would like to fix my first love winefish.

Or maybe stick to reality. Use winefish and run

aspell -t -c file_to_check.tex

or even use Texmaker

The spellchecker works really well, but I’m missing my powerfull shortkeys that I have in winefish.

Or maybe I should write another bloody editor in the right way (TM). (I won’t to reinvent the wheel for the n+1 time. It’s stupid and it’s not the way to do it.)

Suggestions?

The clock that should deserve more attention

June 23, 2008 / / 0 Comments

When latest GNOME went out with the marvelous clock-applet there was not too much hype about that. I think it was wrong. Check out the screen shoot 🙂
gnome clock applet

Isn’t that cool?

If you wondering what is the other stuff … well one is the failed tentative to run nest through ipython , the other is eclipse with a quick and dirty java program…

Portare OpenOffice alla ragione ovvero dove sono le immagini

May 6, 2008 / / 5 Comments

Qualcuno avrà sperimentato sicuramente la frustrazione di salvare una presentazione fatta con openoffice in odf, mandarla per mail o metterla su un sito e scoprire che “le immagini non si vedono”.

Siccome è un problema che mi affliggeva da oramai un paio di settimane ed esportare il tutto in pdf non era il caso a causa delle animazioni oggi mi ci sono messo di buzzo buono e ho trovato la soluzione.

Non è che sia un problema enorme, ma tuttavia nessuno s’era preso la briga di scriverlo ed allora eccoci quà.

Se stai ancora leggendo, significa che realmente vuoi mettere queste immagini allora screenshot:

schermata openoffice

Quella cerchiata in rosso è la casella da spuntare. Di default è selezionata.
Deselezionandola le immagini vengono salvate dentro il file e potete mandare la vostra fantastica presentazione per mail o metterla dove preferite.
HIH

And it works. Out of the box

March 19, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Oggi, dopo varie telefonate/mails alla DELL mi arriva il famoso remote control dell’XPS

Allora metto la pila e sono già pronto a compilare il kernel 7-8 volte, giusto per non farsi mancare niente, leggermi tutto il forum di ubuntu, mezzo quello di debian e scaricare qualche pacchetto da qualche oscuro sito…

Prima però metto una presentazione e clicco il pulsante avanti.

E… si. La slide cambia. Si passa dalla 1 alla due. La cosa continua tranquilla. Poi arrivo ad una slide con le animazioni.. Le animazioni vengono eseguite correttamente e la slide non viene saltata.

Funziona!!! It works!!

A questo punto, ci viene l’idea malsana di provarlo con Rhythmbox. Lancio rhythmbox e… ops it did again!

Funziona!! Posso cambiare la canzone, mettere in pausa/play/stop, alzare,abbassare il volume ed azzerarlo.

Funziona tutto.

Sono impressionato. I vecchi gloriosi giorni sono finiti. Linux funziona. Semplicemente è un dato di fatto, con prove scientifiche a supporto.