Review of the Last.fm Open-Source Client for Linux !!

28 06 2009

Last.fm is an open-source application licensed under the GPL, allowing you to listen to Last.fm radio stations and submit the songs in the same time. For those of you unfamiliar with Last.fm, it’s a great social music community, allowing you to submit songs you currently listen to, statistics, forums for bands or music styles (or even more: Amarok has a group, most major distributions also, and you can start your own group about anything, match people and discuss), together with information for each artist, open for anyone to edit, just like the Wikipedia style.

The application is also included in Debian’s repositories (and probably most other distributions), and it can be downloaded alternately from the Tools page on Last.fm. What I liked is that they also offer an online Debian repository for it here, although I recommend using the official package in Debian’s repositories. But if you want the latest version, the repositories they provide are fine.

Main interface after logging in


The client is built using the Qt 4.3.4 libraries since April 2, 2008, so the integration with KDE 4.x should be just fine. You will also need a Last.fm account in order to use it.

Features
The left tab contains most of the important links for the Last.fm radio, like recently played, loved or banned songs, tags, friends, neighbours or history. You can love, ban or skip songs (but unfortunately I couldn’t find any ‘pause’ button). You can also start your own radio station and add favourite songs there.

Listening to radio


It integrates with the system tray, and it’s available in several languages, like English, French or Italian.

It also offers several configuration options, like the audio engine or the icon in the system tray.

Configuration


As a conclusion, the Last.fm client can prove very useful for persons who like to listen to internet radio a lot, unless you prefer to do it in your own audio player of choice. Overall, another nice free application for our delight, and these projects should really be encouraged and supported.





How_To: Manipulate Audio Files Using CLI Tools in Debian Or (ubuntu)

28 06 2009

Note: This how-to may also work in Ubuntu and other Debian-based distributions.

This is a tutorial about using CLI (Command Line Interface) tools in Ubuntu and Debian to manipulate, encode and decode various audio formats, like FLAC or OGG Vorbis. It describes the packages needed to install, and some basic commands for converting audio files and working with CUE and FLAC files.The commands in this tutorial were tested in Kubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon and Debian Lenny, with all the updates to date.

Command line tools such as oggenc or flac can be used for example to convert FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) files or WAV (WaveForm Audio Format) in OGG Vorbis files. Vorbis is a free audio codec offering lossy compression, and is known to have a smaller size and better quality (at least for lower bitrates) than the widely used MP3.

All the tools used in this tutorial are available through four packages, and to install them issue the following command as root (Ubuntu users must precede it with sudo, since the root account is disabled by default in Ubuntu):

apt-get install flac vorbis-tools cuetools shntool

These packages contain several programs and utilities for manipulating audio files. To convert a FLAC file into WAV do a:

flac -d file.flac

If there are several FLAC files in the same directory, use the command:

flac -d *.flac

And all the files with the .flac extension will be converted. Of course, one can include many more options, like the name of the output file. Do a man flac or a flac –help command to see detailed help and a list of options. To convert either WAV or FLAC files into OGG, execute one of the following commands:

oggenc -b 192 *.wav
oggenc -b 192 *.flac

The -b option refers to the bitrate of the resulting OGG file, in this case the average bitrate being 192 kbps. Or you can choose to use the quality option:

oggenc -q 6 *.flac

The quality is represented on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the highest. More details on the official website. Some albums may come as a single FLAC file and a CUE file which stores the information needed to split the former. In this case the programs cuebreakpoints and shnsplit come in handy:

cuebreakpoints album_name.cue | shnsplit album_name.flac

And the same goes with the WAV:

cuebreakpoints album_name.cue | shnsplit album_name.wav

It will result in several .flac or .wav files, split according to the lengths specified in the CUE file. You can also edit the CUE file with a text editor and change the split lengths, for concatenating two melodies or more in a single one.

Once you obtained the desired OGG Vorbis files, you may want to edit or remove their tags. To clear all the tags in an OGG Vorbis file, use the vorbiscomment tool. For example:

touch file
vorbiscomment -w song.ogg -c file

The first command will create an empty file (if it doesn’t already exist). The second one will edit the tags in song.ogg with the info found in file, which is none. Here is a script to remove all the tags from all Vorbis files with OGG extensions in a directory:

#!/bin/bash

echo “OGG Tag Remover”
echo “Creating empty file…”
touch file

echo “Removing all tags in OGG files…”
for i in *.ogg; do
echo “Executing command ‘vorbiscomment -w \”$i\” -c file’…”
nice -n 15 vorbiscomment -w “$i” -c file
done

echo “Removing empty file…”
rm file

echo “Done! All tags removed.”

Copy this into a file of your choice, say vorbis_rm.bash, make it executable and then run it:

chmod 755 vorbis_rm.bash
./vorbis_rm.bash

All the tags in OGG files will be removed. This is useful when you have large albums and you want to clear some wrong edited tags in one command and start clear.

Some audio players like Amarok offer an easy tag editing system. However, to make your work even faster, you can use various Bash scripts which edit as much as is needed to just leave only fields like TITLE unfilled. Next is an example of a script which automatically fills the TRACKNUMBER field for each OGG file in a directory:

#!/bin/bash

echo “OGG TRACKNUMBER Edit”

n=1
for i in *.ogg; do
echo “Executing command ‘vorbiscomment -a \”$i\” -t \”TRACKNUMBER=$n\”‘”…
nice -n 15 vorbiscomment -a “$i” -t “TRACKNUMBER=$n”
n=$((n + 1))
done

echo “Done. TRACKNUMBER tags completed.”

After running this script in a directory with OGG files, all of them will have the TRACKNUMBER field completed.





Open Source Stickers :)

23 05 2009

inside this website

http://openstickers.com/





Introducing LSI

22 03 2009

TuxSoftware.com is a software installation site for Ubuntu, Debian, and derived distributions such as LinuxMint, gOS or DreamLinux. On the site you will find hundreds of the most popular Linux applications available for installation directly from your web browser – with links, reviews, screen shots, and additional information for each. They goal is to provide one place where you can find, research, and install the free software you need as quickly and as easily as possible.

Here is some screenshots of the Linux Software Installer:

Installation:
The installation method is pretty simple, you need to go to this website and download the LSI.

You can easily search the software that you want by just go to this site

And these are some features and capabilities that LSI can do:
1. Only great quality, well documented apps that users won’t have an issue using.

2. The site or delivery method must be quick and easy for the novice to figure out.

3. Users must be able to educate them self, ie. shots, links, reviews, tutorials, etc.

4. It must be compatible with Ubuntu, Debian, and any popular derived distro.

5. The site must be friendly, yet professional looking and well maintained .





free billing software for internet cafe

22 03 2009

Introduction
Do you have any internet cafe? And having a trouble to make a billing for your customer? Well, I just got the answers, I found a online billing that can help you to process the billing and record the customer and it will automatically make the bill for your customer for every computer that you put in the room. This software is made from the baliwae company located in Bali island. The software name is BiOS Baliwae, acronym from Billing Open Source is free open source billing for internet caffe. Especially that run gnu/linux as server and client operating system. BiOS Baliwae was developed at Indonesia. Currently the program and manual instalation is only available in Indonesian language. I hope there will be an english language version. You can use any desktop manager to use this software and the most important this software is FREE.

This application is running based on web, it’s operated by using the web server like apache or lighttpd. And this is the features of BiOS Baliwae:

  • Using the Open source license, GNU/GPL version 3
  • Has been tried in Linux Internet cafe for 2 years and it works well.
  • BiOS can runs inside any Operating System-cross platform, client or server(linux, windows, freebsd, etc)
  • BiOS has a simple interface and really ease to use both for client or operator.
  • Really easy installation without any compilation for client
  • BiOS is really light to use, responsive, and only need space less that 550 Kb for local bandwidth
  • Can accessed with any Linux GUI(XWIN: gnome, kde, icewm, enlightenment, jvm, and other)
  • Unlimited client
  • AJAX
  • If the computer billing connected to the internet, the owner can access the cpanel billing from anywhere. So, they can check their internet cafe condition.

Screenshots:

Installation

You need to download this software from http://bios.googlecode.com/files/BiOS-v1.4B.tar.bz2
And then install it inside the localhost(127.0.0.1) .
You also can try this software online in http://drlinux.baliwae.com/billing/ .





How to use Facebook IM in Pidgin

5 03 2009
Facebook IM Plugin for Pidgin

Facebook IM Plugin for Pidgin

I stumbled upon this just now and I thought it would be good to share for anyone who is interested.

There now is a plugin for pidgin (who knows, maybe it will become official one day, myspaceIM did) that allows you to login and chat with people who are currently signed into facebook. You can also see their profile picture and their status as well.

To install and use this plugin, if your using Ubuntu, simply head over to this page:

http://www.getdeb.net/release/3146

and download and install the deb.

If your using windows, download the .exe here:

http://pidgin-facebookchat.googlecode.com/files/pidgin-facebookchat-1.35.exe

and install.

Once you have installed the plugin, simply just add a new facebook account, and for your login, put your email and your password. There are some settings in the ‘advanced’ tab that you can configure when your setting up your facebook account in pidgin, such as having your pidgin status be your facebook status, whether you want new facebook notifications to show up as emails in pidign, etc etc. Configure them to your liking, and chat away!





Gmail Craze: 40 + Tools and Hacks for Gmail

5 03 2009

FIREFOX EXTENSIONS

Gspace – multi-platform firefox addon that turns your gmail account into powerful online storage tool

Gmail Search Extension – search your gmail account directly from the firefox search bar

GcalQuickTab – toggle between gmail and google calendar with keyboard shortcuts

GTDInbox – turns your account into flexible and feature-loaded ToDo-management service (GTD = Getting Things Done)

GMail Manager – manage multiple GMail accounts right from your browser

DragDropUpload – this handy extension lets you quickly attach one or more files to your emails by dragging them over the “Attach a file” link

[update] CustomizeGoogle – removes ads, switches you from http to https, hides the spam counter, quick contacts box, invite box and forces fixed font

[update] Better Gmail – integrates bunch of cool features, i.e. attachment icons, attachment Reminder, mail preview, filter assistant, label colors, macros, and saved searches

[update] GmailSkinz – powerful firefox addon with lots of cool features: (Note: some users reported having problems with this addon)

  • change the colour of your inbox(from green to dark green),
  • view weather, google calendar and news headlines along side your emails,
  • integrate any Google IG module to sidebar menu(Awesome),
  • insert images from your Picasa web album in to emails,
  • insert smileys,
  • change the attachment paperclip to an icon indicating the type of attachment,
  • make the navigation (Inbox, Starred, Sent Mail, etc) horizontal,
  • hide various page elements (invite panel, page footer and your email address from the top right of inbox).
  • complete integration with Gmail: addon settings can be changed directly from the Gmail settings page.

Google Toolbar with Gmail search – Official Google toolbar featuring one-click Gmail search

E-Mail Notifier Toolbar | Gmail Notifier – as titles say ‘…notifier

_

GREASEMONKEY SCRIPTS (What is Greaseamonkey?)

Gmail Super Clean – clean and distraction-free gmail. Looks great, check it out here

Gmail Spam-count Hide – hides spam count link

GMail Attachment Icons – adds attachment icons to emails, letting you see what kind of attachment an email has (HTML,JPG, PDF….) [update: 'Attachment icons' isn't a standard greasemonkey script, it's an addon for a similar Firefox extension known as Stylish. However, installing it on greasemonkey should be fine as well]

Google Reader Integration – integrates Google Reader into Gmail. Highly Recommended (demo)

GmailTo – forces all ‘mailto’ links to open in GMail

Saved Searches – lets you create ’saved searches’(aka smart folders) and display them in the separate box in the navigation menu. Clicking on a search executes the saved query. Demo

Conversation Preview – handy addon that lets you quickly preview message contents right from the main inbox window. See demo below

Google Calendar Integration – integrates Google Calendar agenda into Gmail. Demo

Label Colors – lets you color menu labels to make them stand out better. Demo

Gmail Macros – adds extra keyboard shortcuts to Gmail (i.e. “t” for move to trash, “r” for mark as read, “p” for mark as read and add to archive…etc). Read more

[update] SSLGoogle – force google mail, docs and cal pages and their intra-links to a secure connection(HTTPS)

[update] Gmail Encrypt – encrypts outgoing emails

[update] Gmail Date Search – adds a Search by Date button to Gmail’s search form

[update] Gmail Signature Float – moves your mail signature to the top of the message rather than the bottom

Following image displays all above mentioned scripts in action(click to enlarge and open it in a new windows)
gmail greasemonkey scripts

_

Desktop APPS and Web TOOLS:

GmailDrive (Windows) – adds a new virtual drive(’Gmail Drive’) to My Computer folder and uses gmail as its storage medium. Drag’n drop files Gmail Drive and it will store them on your gmail account as if on additional hard drive. More on GmailDrive

[update] gDisk (Mac) – similar to above mentioned GmailDrive but for Mac users

Gmail ToDo – handy desktop application that stores entered todo’s in a todo label on gmail

Desktop Notifiers: GMail Notifier(official release from Google), GTray (Win XP), GCount (Mac), Gmail+Growl 2.0 (GmailNotifier addon that lets you further customize ‘new mail’ alerts)

GMail for Mobile – access gmail from your mobile

GmailFS – mountable Linux filesystem which uses Gmail as its storage medium

Google Talk – Google’s IM service which is fully integrable with GMail

You’ve Got Gmail – Gmail plugin for Trillian IM client

Update: more notifiers: KCheckGmail(Linux), Notifier2(Win)
_

TIPS and HACKS

Unbl0ck – use this tool to access gmail from places where it’s blocked (work, school…)

Gmail icon generator – creates an image of your email address to minimize spam exposure

Gmail To Thunderbird – how to access your Gmail using Mozilla Thunderbird

Shortcut List – handy, printable list of keyboard shortcuts for the Gmail

Hotmail Contacts Import – explains how to import contacts from Hotmail to Gmail

Gmail trick that explains how to find that ’someone’ who gives away your email address to spammers

Attach any file type – bunch of tricks showing you how to attach and send blocked file types, i.e. ‘*.exe’

JimsTips – huge collection of basic gmail tips





مدير الحزم smart للـ slackware

3 02 2009

سلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته ..

اليوم سوف اتطرق الى شرح الأداة التي افضلها smart ففي سلاكوير عانيت من بطء slapt-get وافضل smart عليه ..

اولا ثبت smart ..

http://repository.slacky.eu/slackwar…noarch-1cf.tgz

كود:
 installpkg smart-1.1-noarch-1cf.tgz
………………

وللتثبيت البرامج بواسطة smart

كود:
 smart install pkg
وللحذف ..
كود:
 smart remove pkg

………






الفلم الرائع OS Revolution مترجم برابط مباشر

1 01 2009

السلام عليكم
اقدم لكم اليووم الفلم الرائع OS Revolution ثورة انظمة التشغيل والفلم يحكي قصه بدايه لينوكس وكيف كان الوضع زمان
وماذا جرة عند انطﻻق نوااه لينوس
صراحه فلم رااائع ومفيد للي يبي يثقف عن المصادر الحرة
الفلم وثائقي موب افلام اكشن
الراابط
انتظر قلبلا وسيتم بدء التحميل تلقائيا

من هنا

صيغه الفلم ogg
مدة الفلم 1:25:9
حجم الفلم بالميغا 160

لمستخدمي الوتدوز يجب توفر برنامج vlc ليقوم بعرض الفلم





SliTaz اصغر توزيعة لينكس بواجهة رسومية 25 ميجا

1 01 2009

اصغر توزيعة لينكس بواجهة رسومية اسمها SliTaz و حجمها 25MB فقط!

التوزيعة تحتوي على عدد كبير من البرامج يصعب تخيل وضعها جميعا
في توزيعة صغيرة بهذا الحجم … مثلاّ:

- المتصفح Firefox
- برنامج ايميل Ghost In The Mail
- برنامج تورينت Transmission
- برنامج gFTP
- بيئة للمبرمجين Geany
- سيرفر مواقع web server اسمه lighttpd !
و غيرها…

ايضاً التوزيعة تحتوي على مدير حزم اسمه “tazpkg” و هو يشبه
مدير الحزم APT في ديبيان و بناتها

التوزيعة مبنية على اخر اصدار من نواة لينكس (2.6.24) و X.Org 7.2

و تحتوي على

hardware auto-detection

لتحميل من هنا