Pet pieves

Well, no matter how good things are, there will always be little irritations.

10 October 2011
When browsing the Windows network, after copying a file to a folder I need to go back and then go into the folder again before the file I copied becomes visible. At least I can browse networks! 


I can't right click on a shared folder and say Send To > Desktop, like I can in Windows or right click and select Send To > Mail Recipient. 


This post will probably be updated from time to time.

Importing gmail contacts into claws mail

from the help files:

How can I convert my old mailbox / address book from (some mail client).

If you can export your old mailbox to MH or mbox format it can be imported directly into Claws Mail. If the mailbox is in MH format you can use /File/Add Mailbox/MH... If the mailbox is in mbox format, it can be imported with /File/Import mbox file/...

The Claws Mail address book supports direct import from Mutt, Pine, and LDIF and vCard formats, which are standard formats exported by most email clients.

In addition, several scripts are provided on the Claws Mail website to convert various mailbox and address book formats.

If your old addressbook only supports CSV export, and it is not supported by the csv2addressbook.plscript on the website, you can convert it to vCard format using this online tool. Another online toolcan convert from vCard to LDIF format.

In addition, several scripts are provided on the Claws Mail website to convert various mailbox and addressbook formats.

If your old addressbook only supports CSV export, and it is not supported by the csv2addressbook.plscript on the website, you can convert it to vCard format using this online tool. Another online toolcan convert from vCard to LDIF format.

Eject flash drives and USB HDD easier

Ejecter in action

One of my small irritations it safely removing my flash drive.

The long way round goes Start > System Tools > Disk Utility
Click on the drive, then click on Unmount, then click on Safely remove.

Get ejector:
sudo apt-get install ejecter

You need to run it (it might autorun after I reboot or something) I need to check how to run programs at startup again...

Now, I am going to research this further - but Ejecter only unmounts the drive. It does not power it down as well. I am not sure if both are absolutely necessary, but I have lost data before by just unplugging a flash drive - so I will investigate.

Day Two with Peppermint Two

So far so good with Peppermint Two. I have installed and configured Conky as well as Gnumeric (it runs faster on the small CPU).

What's different about Conky?
Setting up Conky was very different as the hidden config file is not in your home folder, it is located in:
etc/conky/conky.conf

It took me a while to find it (I'm still a linux newb), but having catfish (a search program) installed helped a lot.

What I like about Peppermint Two:

• The default theme is nice, however there are only 2 wallpapers installed.
• It uses half the amount of RAM in idle mode that Ice did.
• Galculator (Ice did not have a GUI calculator installed by default)
• Character Map (I had to install a font viewer with Ice)
• Leafpad has been replaced with Gedit
• PCManFM 0.9.9 (you can now copy & paste files with spaces in the file names without getting an error message)
• Dropbox, on Peppermint Ice I was unable to configure Dropbox. Click on the menu item and a window appears and tells you to download it from the website. Click on OK, the program downloads and seems to work well. I am very glad that it works now :) 
• Avi files and mp3 files play well, although I do not like the default mp3 player. I installed Audacious instead (it's a personal preference).

Changing default apps:

right click on the file you want to play, left click on properties. Adjust the settings listed at open with and click ok. Then double click on the file and enjoy.

Till next time.

Peppermint Linux: Take 2

Peppermint Ice is no more. One and Ice have been combined into Peppermint Two, (which has been out for a while) which I downloaded last night and installed on my Eeepc 704G before going to work today.

I now have a 1 megabit ADSL connection at home, so the 455 MB ISO was not difficult to download. Using UnetBootin and an old Transcend 2 GB flash drive I made an install disk.

Differences between ICE and Two:
I am really not sure yet, I have not used ICE for a while and it will take a while for me to compile this list, but this is on my To Do list!

First impressions:
Two installed quickly, after a bit of initial trouble where it could not decide what size the / partition and swap partition should be. At 1,5 GB for the swap partition there was insufficient disk space to install Peppermint Two. I changed the sizes and installation went quickly and smoothly.

Installed programs:
I have installed GNUmeric (a program that I have come to like as it is small, fast and so fat does everything I need it to).

I now want to relearn how to use Conky, get some new desktop wallpapers, and generally test drive what Peppermint Two can do.

It is my favourite Linux distribution as it is small (so it fits well on the 4GB hard drive of my eeepc) and is fast.