Ubuntu Crashes Hard: Acer 5570Z Laptop/Intel Graphics Media Adapter

When I updated to Ubuntu 10.04, I started getting hard crashes - no response from computer at all. Once even seemed to kill the install (although probably just the "grub" boot loader).

Intel GMA adapter support seems to be known to be problematic.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/i915Driver


I turned off fancy graphics. Seems to fix it for me.
-Right Click
-Change Desktop Background
-Visual Effects
-Select None.


Note 1. Ctrl-Al-Backspace to restart X is disabled. You should re-enabled it.

Enabling Ctrl-Alt-Backspace for Ubuntu 10.04

* Select “System”->”Preferences”->”Keyboard”

* Select the “Layouts” tab and click on the “Layout Options” button.

* Select “Key sequence to kill the X server” and enable “Control + Alt + Backspace”.

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/enable-ctrl-alt-backspace-in-ubuntukubuntu-10-04lucid-lynx.html

Installing Dragon Naturally Speaking in Wine / Ubuntu 10

Installing Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 on Ubuntu 10

I finally got Dragon Naturally Speaking installed on Ubuntu 10.04. Previous searches for help had been fruitless but I found this solution in a forum that worked for me. Since it's often hard to go through a forum and see what works and doesn't, I am posting the solution here, mostly for myself.

(If you want use these instructions for installing winetricks with wine, you don't need step 1&2. I had already installed Wine when I discovered that link.)

Step 1: Install Wine from Ubuntu Software Center (if not already installed)

Go to Applications, Select Ubuntu Software Center, and type wine in the search box. Click and install. Takes about 3 minutes or so.

Step 2: Winehq Winetricks

This is a nice little script that helps automate the process of installing some necessary windows files. (includes an ie6 and ie7 installer too).
Get the file from http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks, do file/save as. Right click on the file after you have downloaded it, and select allow execution. The right click and run in terminal.

Step 3: Install files from Winetricks:

You need gdiplus, fontfix
(I also did ie6. One forum post said it was necessary, but not the one this came from)

Step 4: Install Dragon

Insert the Dragon CD into the CD tray. If it doesn't work from autorun, view the CD and right click on "setup" and choose to run in wine.

In my case it ran smoothly for quite a while, and got hung up on the registration area. If it does hang up for more then 10 minutes, you can try to force quit it, or log off.

To start Dragon:

Applications/Wine/Browse C:Drive/Program Files/Nuance/NaturallySpeaking10/Program
Right click natspeak.exe and open with Wine Windows Program Launcher.

I use a Lifechat usb headset, and had to adjust the settings in Ubuntu's sound control panel.

You may wish to create a launcher for this - instructions are found here http://jaypeeonline.net/tips-tricks/create-wine-application-shortcuts-ubuntu/




Links:
Ubuntu Forum Answer this is based on: http://swiss.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=907446
http://www.winehq.org/download/deb
http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks
http://www.nuance.com/talk/
http://jaypeeonline.net/tips-tricks/create-wine-application-shortcuts-ubuntu/

Umbraco: One of my New Favorite Free Things

I was playing with different ways to host a content management system with .Net, and one CMS had what I need.

Umbraco offers a 5 click install, and cool features like:
-You can edit the style sheets and master pages within the program
-If you delete a page, it goes into a "trash" bin - I figured this out when I accidentally deleted a page the first day.
-Revision history - you can roll back the changes on a web page.
-Easy to use.

I converted two sites to Umbraco: http://grcomputerworks.com and http://captionwire.com.

It's very slick, and the license for the free version isn't as restrictive as many other "open source" projects are.

Playing Mp4, WMV, and other formats in Ubuntu

Go to this page and follow these steps to play and record most common multimedia formats, including MP3, DVD, Flash, Quicktime, WMA and WMV, including both standalone files and content embedded in web pages.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

Ubuntu does not supplies these by default, because they are proprietary formats, rather than Open Source. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FreeFormats

Installing Adobe Air/Tweetdeck on Ubuntu

It wasn't easily obvious, nor did it come back to my memory until I was reminded by this website,
http://www.shivaranjan.com/2009/04/12/linux-how-to-install-adobe-air-in-linux-ubuntu/
but after downloading a .bin file, you change the file to executable, and use ./programname in a terminal window to run it as an executable.(./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin)

It also appears that when I go to Tweetdeck, it would install Adobe Air anyway?

Nice to have Tweetdeck again.

Lexmark Printing on Ubuntu 9.10

Lexmark offers deb packages of linux drivers

Go to Lexmark/downloads (http://support.lexmark.com/index?page=home&locale=EN&userlocale=EN_US&segment=DOWNLOAD)

Enter your printer model number, linux (S300, Ubuntu)

Extract it, run it from the terminal as sudo
(sudo sh lexmark_inkjet_09_driver_1.0_1.i386.deb.sh)

Ubuntu 9.10 & Cups Printing - Fixed

On my fresh install of Ubuntu 9.10, the printer management was not working.
When I opened system->printers, it was not connected. When I pressed connect, it gave an httpconnectionencryption message.

Some help bug files mentioned printer sharing, and editing the config file.

I found that my config files were blank.

I reinstalled through Software Center, but it turns out, that's only the gui.

I reinstalled Cups through the System -> Synaptic Package Manager, and now it is working.