Anne Kowalski

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Creative Notebook Pro Webcam Works in Ubuntu

I can finally do MSN Live webcam chats in Ubuntu.  Last time I tried using my Creative Live! Cam Notebook Pro with Linux (about seven months ago) it was a total disaster.  I couldn’t get it to work at all...it was one of the reasons I stopped using Ubuntu for a while.

All it required this time was plugging it in - the green LED light lit and it was ready to go.  I like using it in Ubuntu because I don’t have to go through the process of starting the Creative driver program like in Windows XP.  Just plug it in and use it.

Notes:

• I’m using Kopete 0.12.4 as my chat client.  I don’t believe Pidgin (formerly GAIM) offers webcam support, and no matter what I did aMSN still gave me an error message about my firewall/router settings.


• I’ve only tested so far with the other user using the MSN Live client.


• Kopete is seems a bit sluggish when doing video chats.  This doesn’t seem to be a problem when testing the webcam in XawTV, or configuring it within Kopete.  Just when using it within a conversation.

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Siteframe: the CMS for Document Sharing

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day that wanted a way of sharing his project documents and files online.  He was thinking about using Drupal, which is a great CMS (especially for someone that, like him, knows PHP), but probably not the easiest way to accomplish this task.  I suggested he try the content management system Siteframe instead.

Why I like it

Siteframe is one of the better CMS out there if you want to share documents and files.  It is very easy to create folders and groups, and assign permissions.  This is a great tool for students working on group projects, yet can’t always meet in person.  One group member can set up the site, then create a folder for the project and group for the members.  Permissions can then be set to allow group members to upload more files, comment on existing ones, etc.  It is a lot more organized than always sending emails.

When adding new documents, which can be a file, image, or article, there’s options available to allow comments, ratings, copying, and body descriptions.  I imagine that some people could use Siteframe as a photo sharing site, but I prefer Gallery2 for this task.

Potential Downfalls

The major downside to Siteframe for professional purposes is that while the project is being actively maintained, the user community still seems rather small. There is always the danger with smaller projects such as this one that they will fade away. For an organization that wants to go the open source route, I would stick with Drupal or Joomla.  These projects have a large enough user base that they will likely be around for a long time, not to mention that they have tons of documention. There are consultants for hire, should you need professional support or custom programming, as well as a few books available for both Drupal and Joomla.

Documentation for Siteframe seems to do the job but is rather lean, which is a common occurrence among open source projects.  I can’t blame the developers - it is more fun for them to code than to write documentation.  The Q&A section is rather small, but most of the questions were answered.

Siteframe is led by one developer, Glen Campbell, with contributions from other developers and webmasters.  Individual projects are fun to use for personal purposes, but for project life reasons I am hesitant to use them for commercial purposes.

Other Notes

I have version 3.x installed.  This version is being actively maintained, but the latest version of Siteframe is 5.x (Beaumont).

In order to install the Beaumont version, your web server must meet the minimum software specifications:

• Apache 2.0 (1.3 in theory works, but is untested)


• MySQL 4.1


• PHP 5


• Smarty

Unfortunately my web host does not yet have PHP5, so I could not test out the Beaumont version. According to the Siteframe website, it looks like there may be problems in the future should I decide to upgrade to Beaumont:

There is a facility in 5.x to assist with migrating data from a 3.x website; however, because of the substantial differences, especially in how templates are handled. it is not really possible to simply upgrade a site from version 3 to version 5.

Siteframe uses the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license, which according to the Digital Divide Network means it can be edited and used for commercial work as long as the author is credited and the same license is passed along.

Conclusions

This is an excellent CMS for the individual or small, non-commercial group that wants to share documents, files, and photos.

Ubuntu monitor resolution

I’m very happy with my Ubuntu install, but one thing that was bugging me was my monitor’s resolution.  It is a 17” CRT which was set at 1024x768 by default.  This was an okay resolution, but I noticed that Evolution required a lot of scrolling, and everything was just too big.  Unfortunately that was the max resolution available in the control panel, so I went into etc/X11/xorg.conf and added a few more resolutions using the text editor Nano.  True, Nano isn’t the most sophisticated editor out there.  But for small, simple tasks like this it works just fine.

For some reason I can’t find an option to adjust the screen resolution in the KDE control panel like in GNOME.  I’ll have to look into this some more later.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Installing Ubuntu Feisty Fawn

Since I’ve gotten my desktop computer running again, I decided to give Linux another shot and install the latest version of Ubuntu.  I had it installed on my laptop several months ago, but decided to get rid of it because the ATI graphics support was so flaky on that machine (a 2005 Compaq R4010US).  Scrolling was very slow, I couldn’t play DVDs...just all sorts of problems I didn’t want to deal with.  Linux on laptops is still kind of shaky.

Fortunately the experience was much better on my desktop.  I have an older Compaq Presario 6420NX with a 1.8Ghz Athlon processor that I recently upgraded to 1.5GB memory.  I had already sectioned off about 20 gigs for linux using Qtparted a while back, so I was all set to go with the install.

After I grabbed the latest release from Ubuntu and burned the image to a CD, I rebooted my computer, popped in the Live CD, and after tinkering with it for a few minutes chose to install.  (This option is somewhere on the Gnome taskbar.) Installation was very, very simple.  The only part where I had to think was making sure I installed it on the correct partition.  Other than that it was just a matter of answering a few questions about time zone, keyboard, etc and setting up a user account.

Once I logged into my account, the only problem I had was getting my Netgear WG111T USB wireless adapter working.  I immediantly thought of using ndiswrapper.  I had used with with my laptop with excellent results.  However, this time I couldn’t seem to get ndiswrapper working.  I have my desktop in an area in a room away from my wireless adapter, and didn’t have an Ethernet cable that long to download the recommended files.  To make a long story short, I was never very happy with that adapter, which seemed to be prone to overheating if used for extended periods of time.  I ended up getting rid of it on eBay and bought a D-Link WDA-1320 wifi desktop adapter from Amazon.

There was no problem getting Ubuntu to work with the D-Link WDA-1320. It immediately recognized it, but gave a warning message about it using proprietary drivers.  I wasn’t too concerned about the error message since it did work, but later on I plan on looking into it more to see if this means anything.  In the GNOME desktop (the default desktop for Ubuntu) I didn’t have any trouble getting my wireless settings to work.  When it boots up, I type in a password and it connects to my network.

In the KDE desktop, I chose to use KWiFiManager to connect, and had a little trouble getting it to work. Going into Settings>>Configuration Editor and punching in a few settings managed to get it to recognize and connect to my network, but it took opening up a terminal and typing in sudo dhclient ath0 before I could surf the net.  When I booted into KDE the next time, it immediately connected with no problem.  Maybe KWiFiManager needs a system reboot before the settings get applied?

Overall I’m really pleased with this install.  I’ve been tinkering with Linux on and off since 2001, when I first installed Mandrake 8.0.  Every time I try it out again, more things “just work” out of the box and it gets easier to use.  This is by far the least buggy install I’ve ever done, and I think it is actually easier to use than Windows XP.  Plus KDE just looks nicer .

Friday, June 22, 2007

Contrast and Meaning

I thought I'd share the link to one of my favorite A List Apart articles, Contrast and Meaning. It is one of the best articles I've ever read about the visual aspects of web design because it explains how and the designer went from plain text copy to stylized layout.

As usual, the trick is to style the content rather than the background. Always write or collect the content and read it before doing anything for the design.