Here’s how I setup a desktop shortcut in Lubuntu:

Open Terminal (on Lubuntu, it’s called LXTerminal, but any terminal will do).

Verify that you have lxshortcut installed by entering this into Terminal (enter your root password when prompted):

sudo apt-get install lxshortcut

Now to create the desktop shortcut, enter this in Terminal:

lxshortcut -o ~/Desktop/nautilus.desktop

A GUI window will pop up and you can enter the details as you like. I wanted a desktop shortcut to launch Nautilus file browser only, so I entered where it says Command:

nautilus --browser --no-desktop

NOTE: Those are double dashes in front

Finish customizing the name and icon for your new shortcut and Save. Now you will have a desktop shortcut to use Nautilus within Lubuntu.

Initially, this took many hours and lots of googling for answers. I’ve decided to list the steps below. On the second pc, the entire process only took 45 minutes to setup.

I used a linux distro called CRUNCHBANG (#!) and I chose the lite version – it’s lean and mean linux goodness.

Download the .iso file and burn it to a CD. I use k3b to burn cd’s on my Ubuntu system. It is important to burn the .iso file as “bootable”.

Set you old pc to boot from the CD rom (go into the BIOS and make sure it’s set to boot CD first). Now, boot the system with the CRUNCHBANG CD in the pc. CRUNCHBANG will now be running from the CD. This is a bit confusing as it looks like it’s installed to the hard drive…but it’s not. Yet.

Right-click on the Desktop and choose “Install” and then “Install CRUNCHBANG”.

Follow the on screen prompts to install. For more detailed instructions on the installation, refer to the CRUNCHBANG Installation Guide.

Be sure to use the same workgroup name as the other pc’s on your network and write down what you called this pc. You will need this later to connect to it.

Next, we’ll need to install Samba (for file sharing) so that any Windows computers on our network can see the share as well.

Open Terminator (terminal) either by right-clicking the desktop and using the menu or pressing the “Windows” key and the “T” key. CRUNCHBANG has these “SUPER” key shortcuts that you will soon find very addictive.

Let’s make sure our repositories and such have the latest updates, so type or copy/paste this line:

sudo apt-get update

Now, let’s install Samba. In the Terminator window, type or copy/paste this line at the flashing prompt:

sudo apt-get install samba

Next let’s install Samba configuration editor. Enter or copy/paste this into Terminator:

sudo apt-get install system-config-samba

Use the text editor to edit this file. Be sure to enter the exact workgroup name of your network. Otherwise the other computers on the network won’t “see” this share.

From Terminator enter:

sudo nano /etc/samba/smb.conf

Optional – edit the host name in /etc/hostname

Be aware that when you make changes to smb.conf you then need to restart Samba for the change to take effect. From Terminator, enter:

sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart

In the file manager, create the folder to share and give it RW permissions as Root. If during the course of this tutorial, you can’t read or write to the share, that is most likely due to permissions. I had to open my permissions to “see” the share, and then narrow them down until I got it just right.

I found using the default file manager difficult to “see” the shares, so I installed Nautilus. At terminator type or copy/paste:

sudo apt-get install nautilus

And since Nautilus likes to mess with the desktop, I disabled a few things. Remove all the interference of Nautilus desktop by running these from terminal. Use copy/paste into Terminator to make sure you enter it correctly:

This will disable Nautilus desktop:

gconftool-2 -s -t bool /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop false &

Do not let Nautilus set the background image:

gconftool-2 -s -t bool /desktop/gnome/background/draw_background false &

Make Nautilus use spatial mode, should start-up quicker:

gconftool-2 -s -t bool /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_browser false &

Make Nautilus show the advanced permissions dialog:

gconftool-2 -s -t bool /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_advanced_permissions true &

Next let’s attach that physical folder to Samba, so the rest of the network can see it and read/write to it. At Terminator, enter:

sudo system-config-samba

If you want to set this computer up as a “headless” server (one with no monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc), you can install Vino to be able to remotely connect to it for administration and such. Pretty handy stuff!

To install Vino (for remote connections) on the file sharing computer, in Terminator type or copy/paste:

sudo apt-get install vino

If the computer that will be connecting to it is Linux, run this command at the teminal prompt on that pc:

sudo apt-get install xtightvncviewer

If you will be connecting to it thru Windows, just use “Remote Desktop”.

Ok, let’s configure the server , in a terminal type :

vino-preferences

Set it how you want it and save/close.

Let’s make sure vino starts automatically upon reboot, so back in terminal type or copy/paste:

/usr/lib/vino/vino-server &

Done! Let’s check our work by going to another computer on the network. If it’s a Linux pc use Nautilus (the default file browser) to browse the network to the share or click File -> Connect to Server and enter the name of your computer and the share manually.

click image for a larger version

Gimp’s auto white balance has been pretty reliable to quickly set the correct tones in my grayish photos. See the results here:

click image for a larger version

And there you go – one click white balance correction in Gimp!

Basically, I just opened Terminal in Super User mode (found this in my menu system at Applications | System Tools | Terminal Program – Super User Mode). You will need to enter your root (super user aka su) password before proceeding.

Next, I entered this at the command line:

sudo rm -rf /home/YOUR HOME DIRECTORY HERE/.local/share/Trash/files/*

note: there is a space after the -rf and mind the capital letters as they matter to linux.

**caution: this will really really really delete stuff so be careful**

From the Wordpress archives page mentioned in my last post, I re-downloaded a fresh copy of the zip/tar file and unpackaged it.

My thought was, perhaps my FTP client is corrupting (by not transferring file types in the correct format (ASCII or BINARY). So, I used a different FTP program – called FileZilla. As a side note, highly recommend FileZilla, they have Windows and Linux flavours.

**Save a backup of your existing files before attempting any overwrites** To quickly save a backup, just rename the folder on your server to something like “wp-admin-backup” and then upload the wp-admin folder fresh.

I connected to my FTP site and for ALL the Wordpress folders and files I completely overwrote all the existing files using FileZilla.

As a note, this next step may or may not be necessary – I also looked at the folder permissions and reset them. For example, if the file permission was 755, I used my FTP program to issue the “set to 755″ command again. I wanted to make sure that the folders were current with permission for the default domain FTP user I was logging in with.

Voila! I have the Visual Editor back!

If you still have this issue after a fresh overwrite of files, you can try some other tips from the Wordpress Support Forums 2.8 area.

Ok, now you can – visit the Wordpress release archives and download zip installs of every major and minor release Wordpress has ever put out.

Why am I even bothering to tell you this? The latest upgrade to 2.9 has seriously hosed my Visual Editor like this, making all the buttons white and/or garbled:

So, until I’m ready to tackle it, I’m going to take a jump in the WP way-back machine and revisit an old friend named 2.7.1

First, we need to add the repository where all the cool backports and upgrades are. At the command prompt, type:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

and add this line at the bottom:

deb http://www.backports.org/debian lenny-backports main contrib non-free

To save, use CTRL – X and Y to save.

Now we need to add the public key ring for backports, at the command prompt, type:

wget -O – http://backports.org/debian/archive.key | apt-key add -

Once that is successful, update apt by entering:

apt-get update

Finally, we’re ready to install Open Office 3 on Debian Lenny. Type this at the command line:

apt-get -t lenny-backports install openoffice.org

And it will show dependancies and what files it will need to download and install. If all looks ok, enter Y and the install will commence.

Got my info from a few sources here and here.

To view the Layer’s dialog box, press CTRL-L or from the Dialog menu.

Create a new layer:

Notice that in the dialog box for a new layer you can select different options. I use the “Transparent” option most of the time, so my new layer will overlay the background layer. Also notice the size of the new layer. This is where it gets tricky in GIMP. Leave it at the size of the image right now.

Next, draw a new selection on this new layer and fill it with a color. When you click on a tool in GIMP, the dialog box below the tools area will change to allow for options with that tool. Experiment a bit with that and you’ll find some cool effects.

Once you have created a new shape on the layer:

Click to see a bigger version of this screenshot

Click on the Bucket tool and fill it.

Great! You’ve created a shape that’s on it’s own layer! Now if you move that graphic around it will float independant of the lower and upper layers. Oh, wait a minute – if you move it around you’re moving a layer the size of the entire graphic, not just the shape you made. This can really get you at the end of your design when you go to print or export – you’ll have a layer that is “over the edge” of the background layer. Trust me when I say, this is pure GIMP chaos.

So, just as soon as I’m happy with a shape for that layer I use the Autocrop Layer to resize the layer to just around my shape. Then, when I move the shape around, the layer won’t go over the edges of the main background layer.

Click for a bigger version of this screenshot

Choose, Layer and then Autocrop Layer. Voila! Now, the layer is exactly the size of your shape. What’s awesome about the Autocrop Layer is if you had multiple shapes and lines on a layer it would Autocrop to the edges of all the elements.

Experiment with this and you’ll soon see Autocrop Layer is your best friend when working with complex graphic layers.

1) Click and drag a selection over the area that you want to remain as your image.

2) From the Image Menu, choose Crop To Selection

3)You now have a quickly cropped picture in GIMP!

If your extraction left you with file(s) that have multiple underscores or spaces, right-click the file choose Rename. Edit and remove extra spaces and underscores but leave the extension .ttf . This will make it a lot easier to copy these files from the command line as you’ll see in a moment.

Open up your Terminal as Super User (su). I usually just select Applications | System Tools | Terminal Program – Super User Mode

Enter your su password.

At the command prompt, path out to your Desktop directory by entering:

cd /home/name_of_your_homearea/Desktop

*Note: In Linux, case matters, so Desktop must have the capital D.

*Note: Enter the exact name of your home area after /home/

To copy the ttf files to your fonts area, enter this at the command line:

cp name_of_file_you_downloaded.ttf /usr/share/fonts/truetype/

If you are wanting to copy and entire folder to the fonts area, at the command prompt enter

cp /home/name_of_your_homearea/Desktop/folder_name /usr/share/fonts/truetype -r

*Note: There is a space after cp and after the folder name in the command line

You will have to restart your computer for the changes to go into effect but that’s it!

If you want to check and make sure the files are successfully copied over, open your file explorer and path up (usually it will default open in your home area, so you’ll need to use File | Open Parent a few times to get all the way to the top of the file structure. From the top (double-click Computer and choose Filesystem), path out to usr/share/fonts/truetype and you should see all your fonts including the newly copied ones.

*Note: If you can’t see certain directories, they may be hidden. To view hidden files and folders, select View | Show Hidden from your Explorer window.

Interested in installing the Microsoft fonts to your Linux system in one quick download? Check out this fab tutorial by Mark Sanborn.