Installing Java 7

In the past I'd tried installing the Java 7 JDK but the Installer would never successfully complete.

I eventually got it to install by downloading the combined JDK & NetBeans Installer.

I still don't know why this installation problem exists. A quick search on the Internet doesn't provide many answers as most people who are encountering these problems are using Linux rather than Windows.

Wolfram CDF Player

The Wolfram CDF Player includes all the functionality from the Wolfram Mathematica Player plus a lot of new features. It's available for Windows, Mac & Linux. It also includes plugins for popular browsers such as IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera & Safari. Download here.

More information about the Computable Document Format can be found here.

ClipGrab

Are you using Linux & need a video downloader which isn't browser based?

If you do then you should download ClipGrab.

It also converts videos too.

Alps Touchpad in Ubuntu

I've recently brought a netbook computer which I installed Ubuntu Linux on. Everything worked fine except for the fact that the touchpad is incorrectly recognised as an ImPS/2 Generic mouse. This is extremely annoying as the 'tap to click' functionality of the touchpad can't be turned off.

Apparently a lot of people have reported the same bug here on launchpad but there is no solution yet.

Installing KeePass for Ubuntu

Recently I've just installed the new version of Ubuntu on my system. In Windows I use KeePass to remember all the different passwords I use on the Internet. I was wondering whether there was a version of the program for Ubuntu & there was. Just type the following in a terminal window if you want to install it too.

sudo apt-get install keepassx

Important Console Updates

According to the following sites here & here; USB memory storage is coming to the Xbox 360 on April 6th in a console update. In other Xbox related news here; an official Xbox 250GB hard drive is to be sold separately.

It's reported on the PlayStation blog here, that an update is coming out for the PS3 on April 1st which will remove the ability from the original PS3 to install other Operating Systems such as GNU/Linux.

Uninstalling Wubi Completely

Recently I found myself running out of disk space so I decided to remove Ubuntu which I had installed using the Wubi installer. Removing Wubi was as easy as uninstalling any other program.

However when I rebooted my computer instead of Windows XP starting immediately, I discovered that the Operating System selection menu was still there, giving me the choice between Ubuntu & XP even though I'd removed Ubuntu.

Solving this problem was quite simple, all I did was follow the steps in this Microsoft article.

All you basically have to do is remove the unwanted OS from your boot.ini file.

You'll see C:\wubildr.mbr = "ubuntu" in the image below on the bottom line. It's that line which needs to be removed from the file. Once you've done that, save the file & reboot the system.

Also, don't worry I'm not going to stop using GNU/Linux. I'll probably be getting a new computer soon & when I do I think I'll be trying out the new version of OpenSUSE.

Shared Library Dependencies

In Linux displaying such information is quite simple as you can use ldd, however in Windows MinGW doesn't come with ldd.

Two good alternatives in Windows are Dependency Walker & Process Explorer plus the former of the two will let you save the output in a text file.

Opera Unite

New Browser released today from Opera called Opera Unite. Not only does it support Web Browsing & E-Mail but also File Sharing, Image Viewing & it can be used as a Web Server & a Media Player.

It can be downloaded from here for Windows, Mac & Linux & there is a support forum here.

Wubi

Is an Installer which will allow you to install Ubuntu in Windows & it's probably one of the best programs ever written.

I've been using a Windows / Linux dual boot since the beginning of 2006. Setting up such a system can be a pretty tedious process, what with defragging, partitioning & having to use chkdsk. Removing one of the OSes but keeping the other intact is even more hard work & involves using a program called MbrFix.

I'd been using XP & Mandriva Linux but decided to go back to using a Vista & Ubuntu system. But this time I decided to use Wubi to install Ubuntu & it was much easier than the previous installation method. In fact it was as easy as installing any other program in Windows.

Java HelloApp Program

I've recently been using Java again, so I thought I'd present some simple programs you can run in Java. Just type the following into a text editor but be careful because Java is case sensitive. Certain commands are expected to be entered using upper case letters.

public class HelloApp
{
   public static void main(String[] args)
   {
       System.out.println("Hello, World!");
   }
}

Save the file as HelloApp.java & compile it with the following...

javac HelloApp.java

Run it with the following...

java HelloApp

If you want to generate documentation using JavaDoc just type the following...

javadoc -d docs HelloApp.java

Finally, if you'd like to place your class in a Jar file, you must first create a Manifest file. Just place the following text in a file called Manifest.txt & make sure you place a newline at the end.

Main-Class: HelloApp

Then create the Jar file by typing the following...

jar cvfm HelloApp.jar Manifest.txt *.class

Run the Jar file with the following...

java -jar HelloApp.jar

SDL in Mandriva

Interesting in doing some SDL programming in Mandriva Linux? If so type this in a terminal...

# urpmi libSDL-devel libSDL1.2_0 libSDLmm0.1-devel libSDL_gfx-devel  libSDL_image-devel libSDL_mixer-devel libSDL_net-devel libSDL_Pango-devel libSDL_sound-devel libSDL_ttf-devel

You'll probably receive a message saying that you'll need to install about 40 additional dependencies, just agree & type Y to install them.

OpenGL in Mandriva

If you want to do some OpenGL programming in Mandriva Linux you'll need to install the OpenGL development files. Just type the following in a terminal...

# urpmi libmesaglut3-devel libmesaglu1-devel libdrm-devel libmesaglu1-devel libmesagl1-devel libmesaglut3-devel libxmu6-devel libxxf86vm-devel

Mandriva & Rar Files

Need to open a Rar file in Mandriva? Type the following in a terminal.

# urpmi unrar

GUI Programming in Linux & Windows

Another thread here on the Ubuntu Forum containing some useful links such as the Qt website & a free PDF on Qt programming.

Advice on Pointers

Useful thread about Pointers can be found here on the Ubuntu Forum.

Google Earth Mandriva Linux

I've just tried using the new beta version of Google Earth (v5.0) in Mandriva Linux, the results were my XServer crashed & I had to hold down Ctrl, Alt & Del to reboot my system. I decided to uninstall the beta version & install version 4.3 which can be downloaded from here. Version 4.3 seems to work fine & I've had no problems with it, albeit it's a little slow when compared with the windows version. Installation instructions can be found here on the Ubuntu wiki, don't worry there's no real difference between the Mandriva & Ubuntu installations.

Rebuilding the Font Cache

If you've just installed some new fonts in Linux, you'll probably need to rebuild your font cache, in Mandriva you do the following.

# fc-cache -f -v

Blender Tutorial Videos

If you need help using the 3D animation program Blender, look at this video tutorial site.

Linux PDF Merger

If you're looking for a PDF Merger for Linux, just use your Package Manager to install the PDF Toolkit. In Mandriva this can be done using the following...

urpmi pdftk

Usage is quite simple too, just open a terminal & use the following...

pdftk file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf cat output out.pdf

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