I’m not sure why, but today my Xubuntu desktop panels vanished. Being still relatively new to Xubuntu, I was not sure what command would bring them back.
Then I found that all I needed to do was run xfce4-panel command.
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Lastfm
Xubuntu panels vanish
This was posted in Software on March 25th, 2010
Dell Servive tag in Ubuntu 9.10
This was posted in Software on February 28th, 2010
I just changed my Dell Inspirion 6000 OS from Ubuntu to Zubuntu (it’s supposed to be a bit faster). It’s an old Dell I bought a few years ago, but still runs well; and runs better with Linux.
I wanted to check what my Dell service tag was, but off course the Service Tag on the bottom of the laptop has faded! Well – I didn’t want the hassle (even if it is relatively quick to reboot) of rebooting to BIOS to check what it was.
I found the following command in Ubuntu will retrieve your Service Tag.
sudo dmidecode -s system-serial-number
Great!
Word ‘07 shows final with mark-up
At work we use Office 2007 and the one thing that really bugged me was that a word document would open up showing the markup text and symbols. You can change this setting by going to the ‘Review’ tab on the Ribbon and selecting how you want the document to display under ‘Tracking’
If you just want to see the Final version of a Word 2007 document without the mark-up then do the following:
Office Button > Word Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings >
Privacy Options > Document specific settings
Deselect ‘Make hidden mark-up visible when opening or saving’.
When you next open up a word document you shouldn’t see all the markup.
Edit – seems this didn’t work after all! Darn Microsoft Word 2007… Anyone have any ideas?
Setup XAMPP on Ubuntu 9.04 / 9.10
This was posted in Software on September 7th, 2009
This article was written for Ubuntu 9.04. Since then I have installed Ubuntu 9.10, it the same process works on there.
Setting up a web development environment on your Ubuntu 9.04 needn’t be difficult. All you need to do is download the latest version of XAMPP webserver and install it onto Ubuntu with some simple commands via the terminal. I’ll presume you are making the leap from M$ Windows to Ubuntu (9.04) and make this as simple as possible, so you can get going fast.
First download the latest version of XAMPP from Sourceforge (My version is 1.7.2). Direct link to XAMPP project: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xampp/.
Installation
I saved the XAMPP archive to my Home folder, and opened Terminal by either going to ‘Applications’ > ‘Accessories’ > ‘Terminal’, or pressing Alt – F2 and type gnome-terminal.
Once in the Terminal (making sure that you have saved the downloaded package to the correct folder), type the following command:
sudo tar xvfz xampp-linux-1.7.2.tar.gz -C /opt
Start / Stop XAMPP Server
To start XAMPP Server type:
sudo /opt/lampp/lampp start
To stop XAMPP Server type:
sudo /opt/lampp/lampp stop
Other XAMPP commands
To see what other commands are available use:
sudo /opt/lampp/lampp
Testing your XAMPP installation
Simply start your web browser and navigate to http://localhost/. Your should see the default XAMPP home page. On the left will be a link, ’status’, to test if all the services have started properly.
sudo tar xvfz xampp-linux-1.5.3a.tar.gz -C /opt
SSMS Tools Pack
This was posted in Software on June 17th, 2009
I use SQL Management Studio 2005 to manage my SQL databases. It’s better than its predecessor; however is still missing some extra functionality.
I often have to generate SQL scripts to update databases. Sometimes this requires creating Insert Scripts with many rows of data that can be time consuming to manually type out.
Now enter the SSMS Tools Pack. This is a nifty little add-on for SQL Management Studio 2005, 2008, and their Express Editions.
This add-on saves me a lot of time and is something a could have used more than a few times in the past. It also has lots of other time saving features, such as generating CRUD procedures.
Check out its features and download it from www.ssmstoolspack.com.
Getting Things Done
“Getting Things Done” or “GTD”, according to Wikipedia, is a action management methodology thought up by David Allen. The core principles are:
- Collect. Gathering and storing “information”.
- Process. Review collected information, i.e. in an email inbox.
- Organise. Assign labels to the “information”, i.e. follow-up, hold.
- Review. Check tasks and reminders daily to keep on track.
- Do. Organisation should not take much time; mostly you should be working on tasks.
My Favourite Applications
This was posted in Software on May 24th, 2009
There’s plenty of software out there that you can use for free. I try and keep what I install on my machines fairly limited. Here are my Top 5 (in no particular order) favourite open source / free software that I use from day to day.
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Windows XP to Ubuntu
This was posted in Software on May 24th, 2009
Sometimes you just get fed up with Microsoft Windows. You may feel this way because it isn’t behaving the way you want, or you simply don’t want to pay through the nose for an Operating System.
One day I decided that I didn’t really need Windows XP on my Dell Laptop, and installed Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron – just to see what it was like and whether it would be compatible enough.
Joomla & MoWeS rocks!
This was posted in Software on May 23rd, 2009
You may be thinking about having your own website, but don not know whether to write your own site, or to invest time in setting up some third party software like Joomla or Wordpress. I have had many different sites in the past, from static html content to dynamic data driven site, but in the end had decided that Joomla was the best package for me. Maybe after reading this you’ll give Joomla a go (and I’ll point you in the right direction in order to try Joomla out, without any need for web hosting or installing anything onto you pc).
