PPA-Purge: The best friend for people who lives on Bleeding Edge
If you, like me, love to live on Bleeding Edge, probably you have a lot of PPAs added to your Ubuntu's Software Sources. What's the big problem? Unstable stuff can will crash sometimes.
What to do when you want to return a package (or some packages) from the PPA's version to the Ubuntu's official version (wich is considered to be more stable)? A solution could be removing the PPA entry from the sources.list and manually forcing each package to the version you want. Now think..What if a PPA upgraded something like 50 packages on your system? Will you manually downgrade each one? Will you remember all packages that it upgraded? Now comes the best part...you don't have to do that! Just call your best friend, PPA-Purge!
PPA-Purge will remove any PPA you added from your system and downgrade every package it upgraded with only one command.
How to install:
It's on Marverick's official repository and has been backported to Lucid Lynx. To install, just click here or run the following command:
- sudo apt-get install ppa-purge
How to use:
Just run "sudo ppa-purge [the ppa you want to remove]".
Here are some usage examples. These examples bellow are the output of the command "ppa-purge --help"
- sudo ppa-purge xorg-edgers
- will remove https://launchpad.net/~xorg-edgers/+archive/ppa
- sudo ppa-purge -p xorg-testing sarvatt
- will remove https://launchpad.net/~sarvatt/+archive/xorg-testing
- sudo ppa-purge ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates
- will remove https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/x-updates
Hope you enjoy it as much as I do! It sometimes can be a life-saver 
Ps. The latest version of Ubuntu Tweak has integration with ppa-purge making it even easier to use!
How Hotmail prevented me from getting online on my ICQ account
I know that you are thinking "Hotmail and ICQ? What's the connection between them?"..and, well, let me tell what happened!
I was configuring my IM accounts on Empathy, the default IM client on Ubuntu, when I saw that it supports the ICQ protocol. It has been at least 8 years that I stopped using my ICQ and I decided to login in my account to see what was going on there. Even not using it for a long time, I still remember my ICQ number. The problem came when I tried to remember my password. I was 12 years old when I created it =/
But, ok, it isn't the end of the world. That situation is easy to solve! I just had to use the password recovery system on ICQ page. The only problem: They sent the information of how-to reset my password to the e-mail that was registered in my account. And yes, 8 years ago I was a hotmail user. Do not crucify me! I was a child, didn't know what I was doing =(
Like my ICQ password, I have no idea of what the hell was my hotmail password. The solution, again, was to use the password recovery system on hotmail's page. It asked for my e-mail and a captcha. So, I went with: foo_bar@hotmail.com (I'm not going to show the real alias because it was REALLY stupid! I was 12 =P. Just using "foo_bar" to show the example). What I got after this? That will make you laugh:
"Password reset instructions were sent to: foo_bar@hotmail.com.
If you don't see the e-mail message in your inbox, look for it in your junk mail folder or check your e-mail again later."
FAIL!!!!!
If you can't understand the fail, take a look at the e-mail I was trying to recover the password and the e-mail they sent the password reset instructions....got it? ;D
So, that's how Microsoft and Hotmail developers f***ed with the only way I had to login on my old ICQ account. I'll try other ways and hope to get online soon! If someday I success, the user #176444719 will be online again!!!
FISL11 was Awesome!
The International Free Software Forum (In portuguese "Forum Internacional do Software Livre" - FISL) was great!
It was my first time in a Free Software event and it was really exiting. I met a lot of great people there and saw that the FOSS community is greater and more awesome than I thought. Photos can be founded on my Picasa: Thiago Bellini Picasa Album - FISL. Also, André Noel took a lot of great photos there, which can be founded on his Picasa: Andre Noel Picasa Album - FISL
The next FISL will be FISL12 and will probably happen on July of 2011. But 2010 isn't over yet! Latinoware is coming in November and looks like it will be as awesome as FISL was!
To finish this post, I want to give a special "Thank You" for the guys from the Ubuntu-BR-SP team. It was a pleasure for me to be part of the caravan and I really learned a lot from everyone! You guys are really Great!!! Hope we can keep in touch and improve more our friendship.
BIOS Update on a Dell computer on Linux
So, you have a Dell Notebook/PC and want to update it's BIOS on Linux, but, all you can find is ".exe" files?
Have a look at this page: Dell Bios Update
The process is simple! Just 3 commands and a file to download (the BIOS in question).
Ps-1. If you are updating a Notebook, make sure it's plugged on a Power Supply, or the BIOS updater will complain =P
Ps-2. Updating the BIOS is something DANGEROUS and may brick you computer! Make sure you know what you are doing before starting.
Workarround for the “Can’t Click on Flash” Bug on Ubuntu 64bits
Since we don't have a native 64bits flash player, using flash on a 64bits Ubuntu installation requires a wrapper. Installing flash by the package flashplugin-installer does that automatically for 64bits users.
But, at least for Firefox (Chrome/Chromium are supposed to be fixed) there's a bug that prevents users clicking on Flash content (ex. Youtube videos). Let's hope that bug gets a fix quickly!
In the mean time, you can use a workaround to get things working normally again! Here is what you do: (these steps were written originally in the description of Launchpad Bug #410407 )
- Press "Alt + F2" and run the command:
gksudo gedit /usr/lib/nspluginwrapper/i386/linux/npviewer- After the LAST text line, insert that:
export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1
Now, restart your Firefox (or the browser you are working in) and see if the issue is gone!
For helping this bug gets fixed, hit the Affects Me button on the bug page to get the developers attention!
Keep your dotfiles in sync with Ubuntu One
Do you have any customized dotfiles (like .vimrc, .bashhrc, .emacs) that you would like to sync between your computers, or simple keep it backed-up for minimizing the risk of loosing then? If you are using Ubuntu One it's easy to do so!
Here is the way I like to do that (If you find there's an easy way, comment it! Suggestions are welcome!)
- In your personal folder, there's a folder called "Ubuntu One". If you can't see that folder, probably you didn't setup an Ubuntu One account yet.
- Create a folder inside it to keep the files. I suggest using "dotfiles".
- Put your "dotfiles" inside that folder. I perfer to put them without the "." prefix, so I can always see them!
- Now, replace the original file with a Symbolic Link to the file inside the Ubuntu One folder. Don't forget to prefix the symlink name with "."
- You're OK now! Ubuntu One should now sync your files and the applications that uses that files will use the symlink ones, that redirects it to the Ubuntu One's folder.
- Don't forget to repeat Step #4 in other computers that syncs with your Ubuntu One's account.
So, what's the great advantage of that? Suppose you have 2 computers, one at home and one at work. You have a high-customized ".vimrc". At work, you make a lot of changes to it. Now, how to get that changes to your home ".vimrc"? You don't have to! Ubuntu One will do everything behind the scenes for you! (Note that you can do the same with your ".vim" folder, so you can keep your vim plugins in sync too).
Mass File Renamer – A Nautilus-Script to Mass Rename Files
A time ago, I was trying to mass rename some files with a pattern, like "pattern_01.ext", "pattern_02.ext" and I couldn't find a way to do that. So, I created a Nautilus Script to do that for me! It's written in python and the source can be founded in my GitHub account. I gave it the name Mass File Renamer. It's licensed in GPLv3 and you can easily fork it on github page!
So, that's the way it works: First download the latest version on Mass File Renamer Download page. Run the "INSTALL.sh" script inside the project folder. Select the files you want to Mass Rename. Right click in any file (since it's all selected) and select "Scripts" -> "Mass File Renamer". Give it a pattern and click "Ok". You should now see your files renamed!
Before
After
So, what do you think?
Update:
I created a page with a little description and some useful links for the script. It's here: Mass File Renamer. Take a look there!
Also, if you have issues, try reading the Mass File Renamer Wiki page, maybe you can find yourself there! If you are sure you found a bug, fill them in Mass File Renamer Issues page.
Something to note: The script will skip Folders, Mount Points and Links. This is not an issue, it's to avoid issues ;D
I’m going to FISL next week!
So, next week I'll be in "Porto Alegre", a Brazilian city in the state of "Rio Grande do Sul" participating of the 11th FISL ("Forum Internacional do Software Livre" in portuguese, translated to english as "International Free Software Forum"). I'm going there Ubuntu-SP Caravan! Ubuntu-SP is a LoCo Team of Ubuntu Users in the state of "São Paulo" in Brazil.
FISL is the greatest Free Software event in Latin America and on of the greatest Free Software events of the world.
There will be a lot of interesting stuff and I really can't wait to get there! It'll be my first time in it!
Anyone interested in the schedule, you can find it here: FISL Schedule . There is so many good lectures that I really don't know how I'll choose between then. It would be so good if there was a way to watch them all 
Also, the people of Ubuntu-BR is planning to make the 5th Ubuntu-BR Encounter there! Hope to see you all 
My Desktop
As one of my first posts, I decided to share with you a screenshot of my desktop, since it's the place I'm most of the time =P
I'm running Ubuntu (version 10.04 - Lucid Lynx) Linux Distro, on a Dell Inspiron 1545. It came pre-installed with Microsoft Windows Vista, but, it never really saw the light of the day!
The OS X-dock-alike that you see in the bottom is the Docky project. If you are interested, you can find information about it's development in here: https://launchpad.net/docky
So, what do you think?
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