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Hell is fueled by nightmares...

Posts tagged with "linux"

Balsamiq Mockups - gui prototyping on steroids

Monday, 9. February 2009, 23:31:22

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Are You a software developer, interface designer or maybe You are paying someone to deliver an app?
If You answered 'Yes' to the above question then read on. I will tell You about an application that will remove the most boring, bug prone and difficult process of regular interface design for software.

In every application development cycle there is a moment when several different parties have to settle on a user interface. The problem is much harder then it seems and a simple chat on the phone or even in person might not be enough to get it 'just right'. The sides have to agree on functionality, usage and layout of widgets, field validation, implementation of business processes and much more...

Before You proceed take a moment to see the application I am going to talk about further in the post.
The screencast on the product page is probably the best starting point.

And some examples of GUI mockups created with it.

The following 2 screenshots are the result of my 1h play with the tool. Mocking up the Opera Mail client. Click to see a larger version.





Now, back to where we left off:

Most companies and independent software developers (and open-source software developers) have their own ways to approach this issue. Let's take a look at some of them:
  • Paper & Pen / white-board
    Many use paper and pen to sketch out the application - by far this was the most effective method I knew.
    The problems with it are:
    - many iterations of the design lead to lots of wasted paper
    - harder to archive
    - hard to keep track of iterations
    - hard to share with people working at a distance (important for big companies and open-source developers)
    - in a commercial setup - mostly unaccepted results to show the clients.
  • RAD tools/WYSIWYG GUI designers
    Some use the same applications that are used to create the final product.
    - to much layout work with complex UI for just a mockup.
    - in a commercial setup - the end user will compare the mockup to the final product and complain if they differ. And they will mostly differ because during implementation issues are discovered that force the change of some previous decisions.
    - seeing a mockup looking realistic (like the final product) might set off some customers to think that You are almost done.
  • Specialized software
    I have no experience in the field of specialized software for this purpose but the ones I found were overkill for a mockup.


A new player in town - Balsamiq Mockup.


Balsamiq Mockups
"so freaking good"

  • Create software mockups in minutes
  • Collaborate with your team
  • Focus on creating your product



Balsamiq Mockup is all about productivity. The idea is simple and implemented perfectly - design a user interface with 'hand drawn' components, tweak an rearrange them until You/Your team and Your customers are satisfied.

The interface of the tool is intuitive and straight-forward. I didn't need any documentation to get going - most features worked as expected and more complicated ones came with tool-tip help. In fact, the application is so easy to use that You can hand it out to Your client to provide initial mockups of things they want and allow them to modify Your proposed solutions for further review.

I tried the desktop version, which is available for free but with some limitations (no export, save, import and creating more than one mockup at a time). The software is written in Adobe Air so it runs everywhere where Adobe deployed it's product (Windows/Linux/Mac?). The installation was quick and painless. Once the app was running I decided to create a mockup of the Opera browser. I took it a little further and selected a specific part of the browser that contains a more complicated UI - the Mail client displaying the 'Sent' directory an open message and the sidebar open plus several open browser tabs.

It took me about an hour to finish my mockup. It was incredible fun.

The widget library is comprehensive it didn't lack any of the items I needed to implement the GUI I choose for this test. And even if it did miss some - it's nice to know that You can create Your own. The widgets can be grouped, rearranged, colorized and tweaked with many parameters available for the predefined ones. There are also many nice features built in like the ability to search and import images from flickr with the image widget. There is also a full screen mode that turns Your mouse cursor into a big blue pointer - great touch for presentations with the client.

The look of the final mockup doesn't leave any doubt of what it is - a mockup. And this is good because it doesn't create false specification for the product when it's implemented. There is nothing worse then a tester insisting that the widget isn't placed exactly like the one from the example in the specification...

You can design any user interface You want with this tool. Be it a desktop application, an iphone app, web page - anything. You are only restrained by Your own imagination.

In contrast with the pen and paper approach, You can export Your mockups and put them under version control. There are also many ways to run the app - even from the browser so there are probably many paths of collaboration built-in but I didn't search for them.

As for pricing there is a one time fee of $79 per developer and there are also good discounts if You want to buy more licenses at once. For most developers and companies this is in my opinion a no-brainer. It's worth every dollar they charge.

Be warned - If You try it then You will not want to go back...

No comments

Ever wondered why people return MSI Wind Linux netbooks?

Friday, 30. January 2009, 23:38:33

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In a blog post Editorial: Thoughts on the MSI Wind Linux return rates… the author asks:


Thirdly.. how is the netbook being marketed? Do consumers realize they are getting a netbook system with Linux? If so, is it perhaps the flavor of Linux being distributed with the netbook that’s the problem? What exactly are the problems people are witnessing? Are there not enough bundled applications for the netbook to make it useful out of the box? Are return rates different for different aged groups? Do older consumers return the netbook more often than younger consumers?



Since my fiance owns a MSI Wind netbook with Novell Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop I'll try to answer some of them.

First of all some background.

I am not an uninformed user, and so is she. We carefully evaluated pros and cons before buying this netbook and finally decided to go for it. We heard that people had problems with the setup but we are tech savvy users and should be able to handle most if not all encountered problems.

So, here is a short summary of the problems we found with MSI Wind + SLED SP1/SP2. You may want to have the photo album containing the screenshots open in another browser window to see screenshots of the issues described here.

First there are problems that should be taken care of by MSI and problems that Novell should address.
I'll start with the ones caused by MSI.

1. Quality Assurance at MSI?
It seems that no one ever tried to run this system on this netbook. To back up this conclusion with some facts. Would it be possible to miss these problems:
  • A Novell SLED cdrom was provided, but the netbook doesn't include a cdrom drive.
  • Many applications display too big modal and non resizable windows that can't be moved outside the screen border. This makes it hard to configure and use some applications.
    pidgin - instant messanger preferences dialog
    evolution - wizard to wide window
    evolution - wizard after selecting IMAP, forward/back buttons outside of screen - no way to continue.
    evolution - no way to skip the wizard
    FreeCiv - launcher screen, the exit button is slightly out of screen space
  • The system came with the HDD partitioned as:
    /dev/sda1 (/) 20G
    /dev/sda4 (/media/data) 80G
    Now the funny part. The /media/data drive by default doesn't allow write access to users. There is no hint how to change this setting. I seriously doubt that a regular user would fireup the terminal, sudo su to superuser and chown the group for the drive to users. And living without 80G of space from 120G total (from which a part is taken for the automatic restore functionality) is in it's own a very good reason to return the netbook.
  • MSI Wind doesn't have a numeric keypad so You can't move diagonal in FreeCiv.

2. Upgrade to SP2 breaks the camera (no drivers?)

Novell or upstream
1. Novell Customer Registration
  • There is no information that registration is required to get updates and how to register. This is only explained in Yast or on the firefox start page. The start page is located on the network so if Your run firefox beign offline You will see no information.
  • MSI Wind provided a 30 day evaluation period SLED installation. It can be extended by 60 days which we recently did. Information about buying or the current state of our licensing is hard to locate. This is another reason why typical users could back off.
  • If You restore the system and try to register again with Yast, chances are that the update repository might not be added back. This can also happen when Your evaluation period expires and You extend it. In my case extending the evaluation didn't restore the update repository.

    2. Network problems
    • network tools hangs and goes gray if there are network problems and You try to ping. Isn't this ridiculus?
    • The NetworkManager applet takes long to connet, and often asks for the network key even though it retrieves it from the gnome key-ring.
    • SMB file sharing doesn't work out of the box. It also displays an error message that is to verbose for a typical user and gives no hints how to solve the issue. Here is the error msg: "'net usershare' returned error 255: net usershare: usershares are currently disabled"
    • Warning about too long name for the shared resource is displayed constantly even after changing the name. Also true for other errors displayed in this dialog.

      3. Usability and Quality
      • Totem and RealPlayer have problems with some media formats. Software repository from the customer center doesn't contain any codecs to solve the issue. There is no *easy* way to make it work. Another reason most people would return the netbook.
      • Games start in a centered window, the borders (chrome) of the window are not surrounding the game window. The cursor focus is taken by the window. Again, is it possible that anyone tried to run this OS on Wind at MSI?
      • Battle of Westnoth is unplayable. Parts of the desktop overlay on parts of the game. Also the game doesn't fill the whole screen. No comment.
      • The system doesn't contain any hints how to report errors in a convinient manner. As You see, there are many to report.
      • Beagle is not started by default. And starting it by hand doesn't get remembered between reboots. So each time You do a search in the Computer menu You have to tell beagle to start and wait a while longer for the results.
      • User switching doesn't work. I can select the other user account but after confirming the screen goes dark for a moment and brings me back to my own desktop. This is a really important feature and it should work. At least nested logins work.
      • Wrong encoding for polish characters in directory->sharing tab.
      • PrintScreen doesn't launch the screenshot applet
      • Context menu for applications in application browser is not translated.

      4. Tomboy
      I didn't find a way to change the spellchecking language. Had to disable it if I wanted to write in english.
      I also encountered some other bugs:

      Bug 1:
      Enable wiki markup.
      In a note enter text "MSIRrelatedProblems".
      Create a note MSIRrelatedProblems.
      Open it and type something in.
      Rename the opened note to MSIRelatedProblems.
      Go back to the previous note and rename the link to MSIRelatedProblems.
      The link will be gray even though the note exists.
      Click it. Another note will appear and a dialog box with the warning that a note with the name 'MSIRelatedProblems' already exists.

      Bug 2:
      Indent a path like /dev/sda1 on a newline with tab. The tab used to indent will become a clickable part of the hyperlink.

      Bug 3:
      Highlight one bullet list item along with the bullet.
      Ctrl-Copy/Cut and paste it into another note. Pressing the control key often reverts highlight from the bullet.
      The bullet is lost because of that.

      5. Planner
      Here are the bugs related to the Planner application.
      Bug 1:
      Open a new Planner project.
      Create some work resources (2 rows in my example)
      Fill them in.
      Save to disk.
      Close Planner.
      Double-click the file created by planner.

      The system throws a warning that it can't open the name.planner file. Because its filetype indicates that it is a planner file but the content is XML. It instructs the user how to open the file anyways. But this is a valid file created by planner...

      Bug 2:
      Add some tasks to the Planner.
      Try to save the file again.
      "Error could not write XML"
      No indication what caused the problem.

      All in all. We really like this netbook and we are able to handle those problems.
      My fiance wouldn't exchange this netbook for anything else.

      This rant was supposed to shed some light on the possible reasons why people could consider returning the netbook. I think that recently we too often focus on 'lack of kwnoledge' to justify the fact that OEM installed Linux still lags behind what a medicore Linux enthusiast could achieved on his own. This needs to change if You want to see a wider adoption of the OS.

      No comments

      Ruby Movie Get 1.50 Released! (Last.fm support added!)

      Thursday, 12. June 2008, 20:32:45

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      It's been 5 months since the last release of Movie Get. Defc0n and I are both busy working in real-life but we are proud to present the 1.50 release of Movie Get. The project site is here and You can download Movie Get on Your machine from here.

      Here is the changelog for this version:

      Fixed support for:
      • dailymotion.com ( issue #62 );
      • gazeta.pl ( issue #62 );
      • glumbert.com ( issue #62 );
      • itvp.pl ( issue #62 );
      • sevenload.com ( issue #62 );
      • veoh.com ( issue #62 );
      • patrz.pl ( issue #53 , issue #56 , issue #57 );
      • smog.pl ( issue #54 );

      Removed support for (these sites are no longer avaible on the network):
      • stage6.com ( issue #61 );
      • loadup.ru ( issue #63 );
      • czechtv ( issue #63 );

      Added support for:
      • last.fm (mp3 and video) ( issue #59 );

      Ruby is no longer required on MS Windows (the installer contains all the required files), thanks to rubyscript2exe. This saves a typical Windows user ~22MB of download.

      We are mostly proud of last.fm support. You can download both mp3 and video content with mget from last.fm. But in order to download content You have to register a free account on last.fm and add at least 14 tracks to Your playlist. After that You can give mget url's like http://www.lastfm.pl/music/The+Offspring/_/The+Kids+Aren't+Alright and in return mget will give You back a direct link to full length mp3 files. It may take some time before mget returns the link. If it fails with a cryptic error then Your network probably timedout. Just try again and it should work :wink:

      A little example to get You started :wink:
      C:\Users\mulander>mget -sdC "http://www.lastfm.pl/music/The+Offspring/_/The+Kids
+Aren't+Alright"
[?] To use the LastFM module, you need at least 14 tracks on Your playlist!
LastFM decided that in order to view this movie you must identify
LastFM username: YourAccount
LastFM password: YourPassword
http://play.last.fm/user/1b4b32a32ee6e08a08bbc7a6c3e999e5.mp3
--22:28:40--  http://play.last.fm/user/1b4b32a32ee6e08a08bbc7a6c3e999e5.mp3
           => `./LastFM000000.mp3'
Resolving play.last.fm... 87.117.229.109
Connecting to play.last.fm|87.117.229.109|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302
Location: http://s10.last.fm/user/9650693/1b4b32a32ee6e08a08bbc7a6c3e999e5/116/0
004618070/a760648797f04e38f6477388d584973a/1213302521/10.0.0.25/164001545.mp3 [f
ollowing]
--22:28:40--  http://s10.last.fm/user/9650693/1b4b32a32ee6e08a08bbc7a6c3e999e5/1
16/0004618070/a760648797f04e38f6477388d584973a/1213302521/10.0.0.25/164001545.mp
3
           => `./LastFM000000.mp3'
Resolving s10.last.fm... 87.117.229.97
Connecting to s10.last.fm|87.117.229.97|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 2á918á608 (2.8M) [audio/mpeg]

100%[====================================>] 2á918á608     16.44K/s    ETA 00:00

22:31:30 (16.78 KB/s) - `./LastFM000000.mp3' saved [2918608/2918608]

      1 comment

      NetBeans Starter Kit DVD

      Monday, 9. June 2008, 15:07:59

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      You can order a NetBeans Starter Kit DVD directly from the netbeans.org (here) website, the DVD will be sent to You for free (all shipment costs covered by Sun).
      The idea is similar to Ubuntu and OpenSolaris shipping option. My copy of the DVD arrived today while I was at work.
      This is a very nice option for people with limited or slow bandwidth. It's also nice if You don't like to Google for reading materials.


      The Starter Kit DVD contains software distribution files for Windows, Linux, Solaris x86, Solaris SPARC, Mac OS X and the following list of items
      • NetBeans IDE 6.1
        (All packs included)
      • JDK 6 Update 5
      • GlassFish V2 UR2
      • Apache Tomcat 6.0.16
      • NetBeans IDE 6.1 Documentation
      • Java Platform API Specification
      • Selected Java Tutorial Trails
      • "Java Programming with Passion!"
        by Sang Shin

      3 comments

      A new approach to Linux advocacy

      Wednesday, 25. July 2007, 18:47:59

      ,

      In the beginning I took every opportunity to introduce a new user to Linux. Soon the number of users started to outgrow my support capabilities, and I had to think about a new approach before I bite more than I can chew. I always believed that simples solutions are mostly the best ones, so here is what I came up with.

      I decided to focus on few non tech savvy friends. They all don't need their PC's to do their work. They use it for entertainment, browsing the web, using e-mail, gaming. No photoshop, no deadlines to satisfy etc. I set up a few ground rules to follow.
      • Before the installation sit down with your friend and try to learn as much about his computing habbits as you can. Ask what software he uses, how many people have access to the same machine etc.
      • Choose one distribution or maximum two but they have to be very similar - in my case Linux Mint and Ubuntu
      • The first installation should always be dual boot. If the user decides he no longer needs Windows, you can always remove it later - it's important that the user still has a way to do things the old ways if something goes wrong or there isn't enough time to find a workaround.
      • Do the first installation yourself, with your friend watching the process, answer every question he asks and describe the whole thing. Don't be boring, don't make it to technical.
      • Have a list of as many application alternatives as you can find. Focus on thoose you have the most expirience with.
      • Teach the user how to solve common problems on their own, but make sure he always can get in touch with you to obtain help.
      • If you get a support call/msg - be calm, get as much information as you can obtain. Never assume that things got to the point of no return and don't let your users think like that.
      • After installing the system, let the user explore it. Help only when you are asked for it. Don't flood the user with suggestion for improvments. Let him feel at home and get used to the new system. This is the time whe he should install the software that he needs to get his tasks done. Give him the information he needs to install the software (name, where to find it, how to install it and how to find alternatives on his own) but let him install them himself.


      I tried this approach already, and I'm quite happy with the results. I have much more time for each user, because I focused only on thoose few. Allowing the user to explore the system on his own, leads to situations when they contact me to anounce what cool software they found or what a fantastic new thing they learned. People guided by hand from the beginning through out the whole process get stressed a lot easier, they start to think that you do it because it is hard to grasp the system, if you give them a free hand they feel better because they know that you believe they can handle the system on their own. Most importantly they know that they can always contact you in case of an emergency. As for now I recieve much less support calls then before. Users that aren't afraid of the system tend to seek answers on their own, and call you only when they have real problems. It worked in case of my little experiment. After some time, you will notice how they get emotionaly attached to the system and this is the moment when this method really pays of.

      Both of the users I choose for this experiment became very happy with their systems. Both of them are non tech savvy as stated in the beginning and that is great in this particular situation I will explain why a little bit later. The point for now is that you have a couple of happy Linux users that want to share their happiness with the rest of the world. Now is the point that you should step in and guide them. They are now ready to take your place but are in a much better situation then when you started. Earlier I claimed that it is good that they are not technical users. Imagine this situation, you visit a friend and ask him to try out Linux. He might have heard about it or not, he knows that you are expirienced in computers but he isn't. The most common approach of such user will be avoidance. He might assume that this system is to hard for him on the sole fact that you are using it. Now, look on this scenario from the perspective of our new users. They visit their friends, their friends visit them. Most of their friends are also not into details of computing, they just want to use it. Their friends see them using Linux. They talk about Linux. All of a sudden this penguin doesn't look so dangerous. Your new user suggests that he will help his friend install the system. You are only there for backup. If he asks you to help with the installation do it, but be there as a helper not the tech guy that does all the black magic for them. He has to install the system, just help him if you see some things going the wrong way - otherwise don't interrupt. You are there to make him feel more confident - not to take away what he wanted to do in the first place. In time he will feel confident enough that he will do the installs without you. Another important things is that he is the support for the people he switches. Not you. If his friends call him with a problem he can't solve - then he can always ask you, but never take away his support responsibilities. In time he will switch more users, just make sure that you tell him about the bigger picture. Talk with him and make sure he doesn't take on more than he can handle. If all goes well his users will replicate the whole process switching even more users etc.

      Some of you might wonder at this point if all of this works. In my case it did. This "distributed" advocacy did wonders in my case. I started with two users. After a while one of them convinced his brother and the second one his cousin. They both asked me to be present at their first installation, so I was there. Then one of them had their wife switch and that was it for this user, he doesn't have as much time to support more but he still promotes Linux. He even did a presentation for wote on each sork in open office with a nlide that it was created using open software on Ubuntu Linux. The second user didn't stop with his cousin, soon his sister's PC also had Ubuntu Linux installed, and a friend from his school. They both have no problems in supporting their users and I only had a few calls for help. I was not present on the next installations, they handled it themselves. I had some calls during one of the installations but I didn't need to show up to fix things. Now the second phase kicks in, as I was told that the brother of the first user had some friends install Linux but I have no more details yet. All in all things look good. I have less users to support and they mostly handle everything themselves.

      1 comment

      Mget 1.15 released

      Saturday, 6. January 2007, 15:49:14

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      16:37 < Brain> Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
      16:37 <@Pinky> I think so, Brain, but if they called them sad meals kids wouldn't buy them
      16:38 < Brain> the fact that your mind is not clouded by medication only fills me with pity.
      16:38 <@Brain> We will release a new version of mget to take over the world!
      16:38 <@Pinky> Gee Brain let's do it!
      16:38 -!- Brain changed the topic of #united_crew to: Ruby Movie Get v1.15: http://movie-get.org
      16:38 <@Pinky> What are we going to do tomorrow night, Brain?
      16:38 <@Brain> The same thing we do every night, Pinky.
      16:38 <@Pinky> What's that?
      16:38 <@Brain> ...I have no idea.
      16:38 <@Pinky> Poit.
      16:38 <@Brain> Narf.

      No comments

      Movie Get 1.10 Released

      Saturday, 23. December 2006, 00:29:32

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      As in the topic, here's a short list of what's new since version 1.01:


      mget (1.10)

      + Added support for:
      - movies.yahoo.com (requires mplayer);
      - itvp.pl (requires mplayer) (issue #3);
      + Fixed some minor bugs;
      + Behaviour changes:
      - log files are now stored in one place;
      - files are downloaded to sub-directories
      only when the list of movies is supplied
      from a file ( by the --input command ).

      -- mulander, defc0n, 22.12.2006


      See the whole ChangeLog if you didn't track the development process :wink:

      Mainly the application should be less messy then the previous releases (they left logs(files) everywhere just waiting for someone to trip over them P:).
      Also the previous versions always created a directory for the current movie site that it's downloading from, and it dumped the file there. This was annoying especially if you just wanted to download one file (you still get the directory structure download but only with the --input flag).
      And last but not least. Two new movie sites. I'm sure that I don't have to introduce anyone to movies.yahoo.com :wink: but you may be wondering about the second one. Well I didn't use it much myself, but we got a feature request from an Movie Get user so we did our best and here it is :wink:

      Visit the project homepage to get Movie Get

      I would love to get your feedback on the script.
      How do you like it? Is it useful? What would you change otherwise?

      2 comments

      What happened lately?

      Wednesday, 20. December 2006, 07:49:30

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      During the time when I wasn't blogging several things happened.

      First of all. I started a local Linux User Group. There is more interest in it then I thought in the beginning. But mostly our activity is online based without meetings in real life. It's not that we don't have a place to meet. Even more, we have a place, and it's great but the group is just to young to organize a good meeting :wink:

      Another thing to note are new Linux installations.I'll list them all and then go into more detail with each one of them.

      • Robert
        Before I start with his new PC. I must say about a nice thing that happened in the meantime. I installed Beryl + Xgl on his old PC. You may say that it isn't much. But note that this process was completely done via ssh, while my friend was drinking a hot cup of tea. :wink:

        Robert used Ubuntu 6.0.6 Dapper Drake for four months now. Recently he bought a new computer and asked me over to help with the installation. As all of you know I never refuse help with Linux so I rushed over to him and our work started. It was a clean dual boot installation, that went without problems. I installed Linux Mint (more on that later). The only issue we had was with his sound card. Ubuntu started with sound, then after a while the sound was gone. After short googling the problem was solved by loading the correct alsa drivers for his integrated sound card. He is now yet another happy user. I also installed Beryl so he has something cool to play with :wink:


      • Filip
        Now, this will be a long story so brace yourself.
        Let's start from the top. I didn't convinced Filip to switch to Linux. He saw Ubuntu on his brothers PC (yes, I convinced his brother P:) and wanted to give it a go. He tried Red Hat, Mandrake and Slackware several years ago but he didn't stay with them. This time he was more then enthusiastic.

        At first Filip bought an old notebook (PI 133, 2GB, ~76RAM) and he wanted to run all Linux on it. He wanted a useful desktop PC not a server so it was a hard task to achieve. First he tried Ubuntu on his own, but unfortunately 2GB of space is not enough for Ubuntu. I decided to start our tryouts with DSL (Damn Small Linux). It worked like it should, and the desktop was acceptable to him. But unfortunately his ethernet card is only detected by 2.6 kernels and DSL runs on 2.4. We didn't want to play around with replacing the kernel in DSL as the distro is modified greatly for size so it would took a lot of time to modify it the way that wouldn't break things. I started to google. And while I was googling he tried Puppy Linux on his own, but he wasn't happy with it's responsiveness and interface. So he dumped it and waited for something else. I came up with DSL-N (Damn Small Linux Not is Not Damn Small Linux) it uses 2.6 kernel so there were no problems with the ethernet card. Unfortunately DSL-N is very young, so not all things worked the way they should, and it used a slightly different set of applications than DSL. DSL-N uses DSL packaging system, so we installed some applications from DSL but almost none of them worked the way they should. In example when we started XMMS the CPU usage jumped to 99% and that was the case when we actually didn't play anything in XMMS, just started it! XMMS worked correctly on DSL so it wasn't the hardware. Needless to say DSL-N didn't last long on that PC. So I went back home disappointed and started a research for a distro that could fit that PC.

        After some time, Filip called me again. But this time with some news. He told me that he bought a new PC and asked me over to get Ubuntu dual booted with Windows on it. The same day we were sitting in front of his new hardware. I must say that I was afraid of this machine as it was a set bought at a super market. And soon my worse predictions became real. I wasn't surprised when Windows installation crashed and refused to continue, but when the same happened to Ubuntu I started to fear this box. I tried another CD, the same error. Yet another one, also errors occurred during the process but the installation was complete. But all didn't work like it should. All applications kept crashing, weird errors poped up in the least expecting moment. Something wasn't right. We checked the CDs that were used to install Ubuntu and they were all physically damaged by the drive. It looked like the drive jumped to recording mode from time to time, damaging the CDs in weird ways. I even don't know how to describe this you will have to just trust me that this wasn't right. There were other problems noted by my friend, but I don't want to go into details as this post is already pretty long. All in all we returned this PC and got his money back.

        A week later he got a new PC, this time the hardware was from a decent retailer. We started with Windows and encountered the first problem. The PC had a 160GB drive and Windows without SP1 detects only up to 135GB. We didn't know that at that specific time as my knowledge of Windows inst impressive. We decided to give it a go and created a 30GB partition for Windows and installed it. Then the time has come for Linux Mint. We popped the CD in, and started the installation process. Linux Mint detected the missing 30GB (or so) of data so we partitioned the drive using that space. I stayed at his place for the night. And kept working on the Linux installation till 6.30am in the morning. Note that the installation didn't took so long. In fact the system was up and running after 30 minutes. Beryl was installed shortly after :wink:. But I used the time to install software that he may like, and configure it. I even installed some games, one of them was Nexuiz and that took really long to download on his box. After a job well done (in my opinion of course) I happily went home for a deserved sleep.

        A day later Filip called again, he told me that Linux Mint works great but Windows doesn't boot at all. Obviously Windows didn't like that we used the space that it even didn't detect :worried:. So my friend tried to reinstall Windows on his own and during the process he wiped clean the whole hard drive! I wasn't mad at him but it was a pity because all was already set up for him. I visited him again, and we reinstalled Windows, installed updates so it detected the whole drive, then we installed Linux Mint again. And now both Windows and Linux Mint work like they should. Of course I didn't spend some much time like in the previous installation but I did install Beryl. I just couldn't leave him without a cool toy :wink:

        Filip now is very happy with his new PC, and I am happy that it works like it should. He does complain that he has a hard time with sound on Windows but also he says that Linux Mint works flawlessly like it should.


      • n0mac
        I recently convinced n0mac to tryout Linux. So he is a new addition to our happy Linux user base. I visited him last Saturday and we started with the installation. First of all we had to steal some space from MS Windows. And his disks were so loaded with data that we managed to find only 4.5GB of free space. After this we booted to the live CD and started the installation process. Some problems unfortunately occurred. First gparted didn't manage to resize the ntfs partition on which windows was installed. I think that was mostly because that this partition was defragmented more than 2 years ago. So we moved some data around and resized a fat32 partition. At first gparted spit out an error. Gparted *did* resize the partition although it claimed that it didn't :smile: so after noticing the fact that all is OK the installation went smooth. The next thing that stopped us for a day was that my friend forgotten his password to Neostrada (Neostrada is an ADSL service provided by TPSA in Poland. Due to its high availability, it's one of the most popular Internet services in Poland.). He called me on the next day. And I visited him again to finish the installation. Making the modem work was less work then I imagined. I'll post how it was done in the not so far future. Having an internet connection we installed some additional software like an instant messenger and he is now set to go. And of course I also installed Beryl. He made some beautiful pictures of it with his new camera. I'll post them as soon as he sends them to me.


      You may ask why did I choose Linux Mint over Ubuntu 6.10? The answer is simple - to save time.
      Linux Mint is Ubuntu 6.10 it even uses the same repositories. The main difference is that Linux Mint has all the necessary codecs to most audio/video formats, flash and java out of the box. Also it comes with amaroK already installed and since I always install amaroK to new users then it's another time saving feature for me. And the most important thing. It looks better for new users, when they see things working out of the box. Even if I'm there to install the codecs,flash,java etc. the whole process may look unfriendly to someone with no previous Linux experience.

      To all those patient enough to reach this line. I'm sorry for the length of this post but I had a lot of things to cover. And yet it isn't all that happened. It's hard for me to post regularly not because the lack of time, it's just something I have to get used to.

      I wonder how many Linux installations for new users did you perform recently? And most of all what distribution did you choose and why? And my last question - what feedback are you receiving from the new users? Is it positive or negative?

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      Viewing Japanese/Chinese/Korean pages in Opera on Gentoo

      Tuesday, 7. November 2006, 01:05:35

      , ,

      I couldn't figure out how to do it. But a friend came to the rescue (thanks Karql) with this link. The only thing that I did was emerging media-fonts/kochi-substitute and restarting Opera. After the restart the fonts were instantly displayed correctly without any additional configuration. This is a big ++ for Opera. I'll probably leave installing Chinese and Korean fonts for later, as each one of them is about 40M to download. If You need more precise info on how to do it in Gentoo - check the link at the beginning of this post.

      3 comments

      Movie Get got some attention

      Thursday, 19. October 2006, 15:20:58

      , , ,

      Recently some people told me that the script is being used by more people then I actually thought. So with my friend defc0n we decided to move our repository to google hosting and set up a simple page for the project. Also a friend prepared an installer for MS Windows, and some other people are working on packages for various linux distributions. Maybe this all is far to much for such a simple script. But it doesn't hurt anyone and if at least one person finds it useful, then it's worth it.

      If you want to keep track of things that change in mget development, then go right to our project page.

      1 comment

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      • SlashBeast

        SlashBeast mainly writes about his linux expirience, and IT related news he's my friend and I can recommend this blog if you know polish.

      • BlackEvo

        My friends blog where he posts tips for new Ubuntu users. Quite helpfull. Written in polish.

      • conel

        My friends blog where he discusses IT related topics. Written in polish.

      • w3b

        w3b posts in english, mostly about IT realted topics and sometimes his own projects.