Using Tr.im and Twitter

I've recently discovered tr.im a great URL shortening service. What makes this service of particular interest is the ability to create an account and monitor how many people use of follow your tr.im'ed URL.

Creating an account is optional and you can still use the service without one but the ability to track if and how many people actually follow the link is a great addition.

If signing up for yet another account puts you off, don't worry, you can use your twitter username to log in and create an account. This gives you the additional ability to tweet your tr.im'ed URL straight to twitter.

They also provide a nice little bookmark which trims the URL of your current page and offers you the opportunity to tweet it directly - a great time saver.

Check out http://tr.im/

Updating Eee PC 901 to Eeebuntu

Having seen the recent posts on liliputing regarding the new Eeebuntu I thought I would give it a try.

Having decided to give the 'Netbook Remix' another try I downloaded the NBR version found here.

Using unetbootin I created a bootable USB key using the downloaded ISO. Booting the EeePC using this disk is simply a case of pressing escape as the PC boots up. This presents you with a boot menu where you can select the boot device.

Once booted you will get an idea of what to expect once you install Eeebuntu, I'm not sure I'm completely sold on the theme but I'll give it a chance before I pass comment!

From the top drop down menu, which looks a bit like a one of those rings you see on ships that you throw to people who fall overboard, you can select places then desktop (you can't get directly to the desktop because of the Netbook Remix interface).

From here you simply follow the installation instructions as normal and reboot to get a fully functional EeePC 901 with Eeebuntu.

I also move my /home partition to the 2nd SSD (full instructions can be found here) and optimize FF for small displays following the info here.

Ubuntu 8.10 Wireless on Eee Box B202

I have just run the Update Manager on my Ubuntu 8.10 install on my Eee Box and found that Network Manager 0.7.0 now fully supports the Eee Box wireless card with the Generic Kernel (2.6.27-9-generic). Great news, no more custom loading the Eee-Kernel just to get wireless. Worth knowing if you are using the custom kernel (2.6.27-8-eeepc).

Customise Ubuntu 8.10 for the Eeepc

Having upgraded my install of Ubuntu to 8.10 (Standard 8.10) on my Eee PC I have needed to make a few tweeks to get it working to my liking. Although, it appears you no longer need to install the Array kernel to get wireless working from the get go.

The first adjustment was to install Compiz Manager (sudo apt-get install gnome-compiz-manager) and remove boarders in fullscreen. To do this fire up the compiz manager and select windows decoration. The setting needs to be changed to !=fullscreen. This will result in all your fullscreen apps no longer having windows decorations, saving valuable space.

I also installed the following Firefox addons to hide menu and navigation bar:
Hide Navigation Bar - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8769
Hide Menu - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4762

Additionally I install my standard FF addons:
Foxmarks for bookmark - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2410
Greasmonkey - https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/748
Better Gmail - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6076
Better Greader - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6424


I also installed a couple additions to make the GUI a better fit for the smaller screen:
Human Compact & Human Compact (Small Icons) Themes -
http://martin.ankerl.com/2008/11/04/human-compact-themes-for-ubuntu-810/

Finally I followed the Ubuntu website instructions on reducing fonts and removing icons from the menus, again to make the main GUI a better fit for the smaller screen -
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EeePC/Using

I am now patiently awaiting the update for Eeebuuntu or Ubuntu-Eee to 8.10, in the meantime this setup is working well for me.

GCalCli setup

Having installed GcalCli, A nifty program which gives you access to your Google calendar from the command line, I was continually frustrated by the cryptic error message I was receiving, every time I tried to run it.

When using gcalcli with a Google Apps account with multiple calendars,
gcalcli dies with the following traceback:
mwalling@destiny:~$ gcalcli list
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "/usr/local/bin/gcalcli", line 1114, in ?
    DoooooItHippieMonster()
 File "/usr/local/bin/gcalcli", line 1025, in DoooooItHippieMonster
   borderColor=borderColor)
 File "/usr/local/bin/gcalcli", line 312, in __init__
   self.allCals.entry.sort(lambda x, y:
 File "/usr/local/bin/gcalcli", line 312, in 
   self.allCals.entry.sort(lambda x, y:
KeyError: 'root'

However, I finally found the solution here. Following this advice I commented out line 312 (to 314) and am now able to view my Google Apps calendar from the command line!

FYI - you can add any command line arguments you use into a .gcalcli configuration file, you can see mine here.