Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Surfing the bleeding edge

Recently I figured I can't stand a look of Windows. Once you start to surf the bleeding edge of software, you just don't see downshifting as an option. "The surfing", however, requires some courage... and skills. You _will_ experience setbacks and bugs. Bugs that nobody has experienced before. You won't be able to just run a quick Google or Ubuntuforums search and have your problem resolved in mere seconds. And at that point, your ability - and desire - to take the matter into your own hands and turn all wrongs into rights will automatically make you one of these who define the progress of humankind.
(C)

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Show Deluge transfer rates in Docky - working helper for Deluge versions 1.2+

I run Docky as my Linux dockmanager and Deluge as my Bittorrent client. After Deluge updated itself to version 1.2, transfer rates stopped showing on my Deluge icon badge in Docky. After some research and hacking I have fixed the helper as well as added some functionality to it - Pause All/Resume All context menu items, stability against Deluge daemon restarts and a display cap of 5kbps or higher on Deluge transfer rates, so I'm not bothered with protocol overhead when there are no active downloads.


The updated helper can be downloaded here: http://forum.deluge-torrent.org/download/file.php?id=2987

To install it: go to Docky Settings->Helper->Install and select the downloaded docky_deluge12helper.tar
It might require reopening of Docky Settings window for helper to show up in list. It should be called Deluge v1.2

The helper works with the recent Docky (2.1.0) and Deluge versions 1.2 and higher.

P.S. If bandwidths are still not shown, you might be running Deluge in Classic mode instead of daemon. Close Deluge, install deluge daemon with
sudo apt-get install deluged
and run
deluged - deluge client will recognize it and switch to daemon/client mode. And the helper will be working.

Special thanks to this thread and the author of the original 1.2 helper.


Update: if Docky crashes on install of the helper - this is a known (#587624) bug in older versions of Docky and have been fixed in latest releases. Meanwhile, you can extract the helper manually:

wget -O docky_deluge12helper.tar http://forum.deluge-torrent.org/download/file.php?id=2987
sudo tar -C /usr/share/dockmanager -xvf docky_deluge12helper.tar -C /usr/share/dockmanager

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Best 15 Metal covers of pop songs (with originals and videos)


I love metal covers of pop songs. They often make songs more spicy, often even better than the original. They show the metal bands appreciation of the pop singer. They show world's appreciation of the pop singer and his/her songs.

The premise is simple. It must be a metal band, and it must be a pop (soft rock) song.

Here's a collection of my favorites. Sorted alphabetically.



1. Atreyu - You Give Love A Bad Name (Bon Jovi cover)





Original by Bon Jovi:





Contents:
  1. Atreyu - You Give Love A Bad Name (Bon Jovi cover)
  2. Avantasia - Lay All Your Love On Me (ABBA cover)
  3. Beseech - Gimme Gimme Gimme (ABBA cover)
  4. Children of Bodom - Oops!... I Did It Again (Britney Spears cover)
  5. Cradle of Filth - Temptation (Heaven 17 cover)
  6. Darkseed - I Turn To You (Melanie C cover)
  7. Graveworm - I Need A Hero (Shrek 2 soundtrack cover of Bonnie Tyler)
  8. Graveworm - Losing My Religion (R.E.M cover)
  9. Guano Apes - Big in Japan (Alphaville cover)
  10. Lillasyster - Umbrella (Rihanna cover)
  11. Norther - Smash (Offspring cover)
  12. Norther - The Final Countdown (Europe cover)
  13. Thyrfing - Over The Hills And Far Away (Nightwish cover of Gary Moore)
  14. The Berzerker - All The Things She Said (t.A.T.u. cover)
  15. Yngwie Malmsteen : Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (ABBA cover)
  16. Bonus track


Thursday, July 15, 2010

How to make gnome-shell default Gnome Linux shell

Launch gconf-editor

Go to /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/

Change windowmanager parameter to gnome-shell

Thanks this thread on ubuntuforums.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

How to make Flash under Firefox finally work under 64-bit Ubuntu


I've finally managed to make my Firefox usable again under amd64 Ubuntu by installing the proper version of 64bit Flash player directly from Adobe (current version is 10.)

I don't have stupid problems with stupid npviewer.bin anymore and my notebook finally doesn't lag.

Here's what you should do to install a native 64-bit version of Flash under Ubuntu:

  1. First of all, uninstall the original flash player:

    sudo apt-get remove flashplugin-installer nsplugin-wrapper
  2. Download the 64-bit version of Flash player for Linux from Adobe 64-bit Flash download page

    wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/libflashplayer-10.0.42.34.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz
    tar -xf libflashplayer-10.0.42.34.linux-x86_64.so.tar.gz

  3. Replace the old Flash player with new one:

    cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/


That's it. You now have a non-laggy Firefox.
If you are interested, I've also stumbled upon this ubuntuforums thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1358591. The guys there, however, do too much in my opinion - it looks like rocket science and shooting sparrows using a cannon for me.


P.S. I have found the logo image for this post while googling for 'firefox icon'. Clearly it will become a new firefox logo very soon.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

SEO flavor by country - a definitive list

Camwhore, Troll, Hacker, Permanoob, Emo - Image courtesy of Forumwarz.com


American SEO
Create a website containing words 'searchengine' in its name. Talk about SEO until everybody considers you an expert. Afterwards, demand 5-digit prices for your 'add alt tags to images' advices.
Russian SEO
Create a hundred of doorways leading to fifty illegal mp3/cracks/erotic sites. Stuff them with endless popups leading to a dozen of half-legal erotic/mp3 sites. Redirect some clicks to lead to half a dozen perfectly legal online stores - either for referral bonus, or run the stores on your own.
Turkish SEO
Pick a niche. Subscribe to 30-40 middle-popularity blogs in that niche. Every day republish one of the posts you read in your blog, removing all the credentials. However, forget to check all the links in the post, accidentally linking back to the author and creating a backlink.
Vietnamese SEO
Find a blog template/widget/picture. Modify the copyright text to point to you instead of original author. Redistribute.
Ukrainian SEO
Create a website, claiming that you are a success story and everybody else are losers. Offer others to visit your trainings to learn to become a success story themselves. While doing this, look pathetic, so others in attempt to say 'just look at this idiot' will generate a bunch of links to you.
Indian SEO
Write a howto article, describing a trivial action (How to properly switch off your computer, for example). Repeat for every possible Google query.

Did I miss any? :)

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Funny/Geeky/Weird and Grim pages in Wikipedia



Stumbling through Wikipedia, I've found some pages I like to revisit from time to time. The list of the pages grew bigger, until I decided to share it. What are your favorite pages from Wikipedia? :)


Real-time statistics

Want to figure out what's hot now on Wikipedia? This page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Popular_pages has it :)

Grim statistics

Pages like these give me creeps under my skin. Watch deaths as they occur in real time - htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2010

Users

I find this user page funny: htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jesus_Lover

Bots

Love the design of control panel of this bot (by the way, he's also the most active bot on Wikipedia): htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SmackBot
The big red button is just amazing:)

Wikipedia's "official fun pages"

htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_humor
htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Department_of_Fun

Wikipedia's "official weird pages"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Unusual_articles

Gambling

Wikipedians gamble by making bets on the day something will happen. Like, 666,666th article - htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:666,666th_pool
All wikipedia pools: htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pools
htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Last_topic_pool

Wikipedia also has a feeling of self-importance

htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Awareness_statistics
htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Most_referenced_articles
htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_charts

As well as wikipedians

List of wikipedians by number of edits - htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedians_by_number_of_edits

And even their bots :)

List of wikipedia bots by number of edits - htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_bots_by_number_of_edits

Web-comics

Want to know which webcomics are recognized and cool?
htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_self-sufficient_webcomics


Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

"Just as many hotels have no thirteenth floor (to the great dismay of several late bungee jumpers), Wikipedia will skip the 666,666th article out of systematically biased prejudice. Or threat of lawsuits from extreme religionists. Radiant 12:50, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)"

The fear of number six hundred sixty six is called Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, and also has it's page on Wikipedia: htpp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

Vandalism

Vandalism in Wikipedia happens quite often (hence so many anti-vandal bots exist). However, it's not always performed because of evil intent. Sometimes it is made for lulz :)
Funny Wikipedia Vandalism - htpp://www.imserba.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-94521.html
Funny Wikipedia Vandalism about government: htpp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Government&diff=118335356&oldid=118335061


Extras

While writing the article, I also found some other nice leads which I would also like to share.
Meet Fucking, a village in Austria: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucking,_Austria/
What makes it even more fun, is that this village is only half an hour away from Kissing and Petting :)



You may also like: Best 15 Metal covers to pop songs (with originals and videos)