How to run Internet Explorer 6.0 on Ubuntu Lucid Lynx

Well, I am not a big fan of Windows and related Windows applications.. As you can guess, sometimes we need to run some OS dependent applications on different systems..

Wine is a quite popular "free" software to run Windows applications on other operating systems.. I can say that it works like a charm on Ubuntu..

Today, I needed to run Internet Explorer on my Ubuntu.. Of course, first thing to do is googling about it.. But as it is a common topic, I found many many entries about that topic.. Installed too many things, then deleted them.. And all this process took me a long time..

At the end, I realized that the solution was really easy.. He he.. And this is why I am writing these lines for you guys.. Here is how to do:

$ sudo apt-get install wine

And you have to install all the dependencies for that package.. Note that a package called "winetricks" is also installed.. and this is our "key" package! :)

After that installation, you are ready to install Internet Explorer 6..

$ winetricks ie6

Then you will be prompted by an installation window.. Just follow the instructions, it takes 10 minutes to have an Internet Explorer running on your linux distribution.. :)

Then create an application launcher for your browser. Note that command will look something like:

wine "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE"

He he.. Then enjoy with your new browser.. Of course not always.. but when you need it!.. Arghh!..

Ubuntu 10.10 on a Tablet PC: HP 2730p

If you have one of these cool Tablet PC's, you probably have a Windows operating system installed on it.. Don't you think that it is time to switch to a Linux distribution?.. And that was exactly what I had been thinking for a quite time.. I got bored of all Windows applications and its neverending problems.. Additionally, I'm the kind of person who is not able to use Windows Vista =) Sooo big time!..

First of all, there is always some risks to take.. because it is difficult to be sure, if everything will function properly or not.. Well, I thought of the worst case which is using that Tablet PC as a normal laptop PC without tablet functionalities =) Ok, this is still a big risk, but anyway I decided once and went for it..

Am a fan of Ubuntu, so I wanted to install Ubuntu 10.10(latest version for now) on HP2730p.. Everything went well, Ubuntu installation was completed in 15-20 minutes.. I didn't have any driver problems, so I was in the worst case now =)

After googling around, I found some nice softwares for Tablet PCs:

• Cellwriter: It's a grid-entry natural handwriting input panel.. And I can say that it works like a charm.. After spending 5-10 minutes for the training part, it recognizes quickly your handwriting..
• Xournal It's an application for notetaking, sketching, keeping a journal using a stylus. It's also a very nice application that you can use for taking notes.

I also configured Gimp and InkScape by enabling tablet input devices such as stylus, eraser and cursor; which is described in Ubuntu Community page.

Everything was fine, but I realized that I had some problems related to screen rotation.. because as an example, while reading an e-book, it is better to rotate the screen.. Googled about it, many solutions many scripts.. tried many of them.. some worked but not completely.. then, I combined some solutions and finally had that feature working..

I suppose that you have "wacom-tools" package installed, if not please install it first.. Then, type on a terminal:

$ xinput --list

You'll have an output similar to that one:

⎡ Virtual core pointer id=2 [master pointer (3)]

⎜ ↳ Virtual core XTEST pointer id=4 [slave pointer (2)]

⎜ ↳ HID 04b3:3107 id=10 [slave pointer (2)]

⎜ ↳ PS/2 Generic Mouse id=12 [slave pointer (2)]

⎜ ↳ SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad id=13 [slave pointer (2)]

⎜ ↳ Serial Wacom Tablet stylus id=15 [slave pointer (2)]

⎜ ↳ Serial Wacom Tablet eraser id=14 [slave pointer (2)]

⎣ Virtual core keyboard id=3 [master keyboard (2)]

↳ Virtual core XTEST keyboard id=5 [slave keyboard (3)]

↳ Power Button id=6 [slave keyboard (3)]

↳ Video Bus id=7 [slave keyboard (3)]

↳ Sleep Button id=8 [slave keyboard (3)]

↳ CKA7240 id=9 [slave keyboard (3)]

↳ AT Translated Set 2 keyboard id=11 [slave keyboard (3)]

↳ HP WMI hotkeys id=16 [slave keyboard (3)]

Important entries are represented as bold text.. Now, we will use this information to rotate the screen and related tablet input devices.. I modified these two scripts written by "Justin Linuturk Phelps", to have screen rotation functionality for my case..

1. laptopmode.sh

#!/bin/bash




xrandr -o normal && xsetwacom set "Serial Wacom Tablet stylus" Rotate none && xsetwacom set "Serial Wacom Tablet eraser" Rotate none

exit 0

This mode is your normal mode that you can use without tablet pc functionalities..

2. tabletpcmode.sh

#!/bin/bash




xrandr -o right && xsetwacom set "Serial Wacom Tablet stylus" Rotate CW && xsetwacom set "Serial Wacom Tablet eraser" Rotate CW

exit 0

This mode is your tablet mode that you can use with a screen rotation..

Replace bold texts, with the outputs that you get when listing inputs..

After saving these two files as scripts(with .sh extension), move them to /usr/local/bin folder and then, type in a terminal:

/usr/local/bin$ sudo chmod +x laptopmode.sh

/usr/local/bin$ sudo chmod +x tabletpcmode.sh

Now, these scripts are executable by the user.. It is easier to create application launchers, instead of running scripts from a terminal..

1. Right click on your Ubuntu panel, and choose "Add to Panel"..

2. Double click on "Custom Application Launcher", as a name type: "Laptop Mode" and as the command type: "laptopmode.sh". You can also change the icon of your custom application.

3. Click ok.

Do the same thing for "Tablet Mode" application launcher..

Finally, you have two icons on your panel that you can use to switch from Laptop Mode to Tablet Mode and vice-versa.. Hope this helps.. Thankfully, I made a good choice and it works perfectly.. Thanks to everyone who submitted useful information on web...

How to install Ntop 4.0.1 on Debian

After a few months, I decided to write about something :)

I'm still in India.. And while I was working here, we had some problems related to our internet connection.. We think that someone is sniffing!.. So, we wanted to monitor network activity, and see what really happens.. While googling about it, I saw a tool called "ntop".. That was good, because you can use a web interface to monitor things instead of using a linux terminal..

We are currently using a debian system, so first thing we tried was to install it with:

$ sudo apt-get install ntop

Once it was installed(it took some time because of dependencies), I realized that the version was an old one(3.3..). So of course, I wanted to install the new version 4.0.1.. Our debian system was an old version.. Maybe this is why we suffered very much, I'm not sure..

First, I tried to install it by using the tarball archive provided by the site.. I have to say that ntop's installation script is not very user friendly.. You never know what you need as dependencies before running the command "./autogen.sh".. Each time that we tried to run the script, we needed more and more dependencies.. because I'm very stubborn, I didnt give up!.. and tried to install all dependencies.. even the version of python was a problem :)

ntop installation script will give an error because it cannot find RRD tool installed.., you need to have RRD tool installed.. And then, run the script again with rrd home parameter which is:

$ ./autogen.sh --with-rrd-home:/opt/rrdtool-1.4.x

this part is important.. by default, ntop tries to find RRD tool in /usr/local/rrdtool folder.. but if you try to install RRD tool using a tarball, after the configure, make, make install process, RRD tool is installed under /opt directory.. so do not try to give the /usr/local/rrdtool as a parameter :)

and other dependencies, that we came up with were libraries like "pixman, cairo, pangocairo, fontconfig, freefont and so on".. and these are only "few" ones.. And another missing dependency was "GeoIP".. that you need to install it from here.. Well, we were working on a virtual machine.. I untar the file.. Tried to configure.. but was never able to "make" it.. and the weird thing is that "the host machine" was turned off!.. yes.. we tried 2-3 times, and every time, because of the "make" command, the host machine was turned off.. so I was obliged to give up at this point..

After spending too many hours, I really wanted to run this new version.. So I wanted to try again :) This time, when I checked the ntop site, I realized the Ubuntu documentation on the homepage. So Ubuntu is based on a debian system, so I thought that this documentation can also be useful for us..

$ sudo apt-get install libpcap-dev libgdbm-dev libevent-dev librrd-dev python-dev libgeoip-dev

with this command, I installed all the missing dependencies in our system.. And instead of using a tar archive, I checked out ntop code from svn..

$ svn co https://svn.ntop.org/svn/ntop/trunk/ntop
$ cd ntop
$ ./autogen.sh

and it worked!.. yeah.. then:

$ make

Of course, I had some errors.. "./.libs/libntop.so: undefined reference to `pcap_parse'".. So that was errors related to compile process.. I reinstalled the libpcap0.9.7 library.. and then retried..

$ make

I've got new errors.. "error while loading shared libraries: libntopreport-4.0.1.so".. I checked my /usr/lib directory that was not there but under my /usr/local/lib.. then, I copied related libraries to /usr/lib dir..

$ cp /usr/local/lib/libntopreport* /usr/lib
$ make

Finally, that was compiled..

$ make install

and installed..

$ ntop -a

type an admin password.. and repeat the password..

$ ntop

now, ntop service is started.. you can use ntop 4.0.1 by using your browser: http://localhost:3000

Social Media's Power: Google Buzz

While I was reading my tweets, I realized that so many people were talking about Google Buzz. I had no idea before so I read some blog posts mentioned within these tweets. Than, I started to read Live Blogging from Google: Launch of Google Buzz. This blog is updated almost every five minutes and I can be aware of every little detail about Google Buzz. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting for Google Buzz to be activated on my Google account =)

I was curious to know the answer of a question: "What was the impact of Google Buzz on Social Media from the past until now". So I decided to analyze it on uberVu. This site is very useful if you want to search some keywords in social media such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, sites etc. If you look at the results, you can see that the majority of conversations is on Twitter. Let's look at the distribution of tweets in last five days:

Date # of Tweets
Feb 5, 2010: 85
Feb 6, 2010: 26
Feb 7, 2010: 94
Feb 8, 2010: 119
Feb 9, 2010: 21 211 (it is still continuing!!!!)

You can find more details here.
It is amazing to watch users' reaction on specific topics. Thanks to real time search!..

Cancer awareness via Social Networks

I don't know what you think about but I saw the power of social networks one more time in all around the world!.. If one tells you "be aware of cancer", it is not something very interesting.. But one day, every woman changed her status message on Facebook with the color of bra and everyone really wanted to understand what's going on, it is quite interesting!, at least for me =) Now, we all know that it is about "cancer awareness".

I googled for it, I found so many blog entries, so many tweets on Twitter, comments etc. Observing the domino effect on different Social Networking Sites is really amazing.. And this is what we call "Social Networking Madness", we are aware of everything! From now on, everyone is a Big Brother who is watching everyone else..

Be careful before sharing!

Watch this video: http://bit.ly/4ogtjw