Aside from all of my previous kde4 configs being completely deleted and having to go back and reconfigure plasma, my desktop and a few other things it seems to be running pretty good.
I'm unimpressed with the new knetworkmanager. It doesn't seem to want to enable interfaces, requiring opening konsole and manually enabling them in order to connect to anything wired or wireless. I also noticed that pidgin and firefox have trouble connecting and seem to think they're offline. After five minutes of googling I discovered it was a common problem and networkmanager seems to be the culprit. I uninstalled it and it's kde ui and suddenly everything works fine.
I wrote some small bash scripts for connecting to the Internet a while back and they were still sitting in my bin folder so I made a few modifications and things are working beautifully now. I've been kicking around the idea of writing a bash script to handle my wireless connections because I've been through several gui managers over the last year and been pretty unimpressed with them all. I like the command line better anyway. No crap clogging up my taskbar that way.

So my LG phone records movies in 3g2 format. I've been trying to convert them to mpegs and vice versa using mencoder but kept getting this error:
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [qtaudio] QuickTime Audio Decoder
Win32 LoadLibrary failed to load: QuickTime.qts, /usr/lib/win32/QuickTime.qts, /usr/local/lib/win32/QuickTime.qts
failed loading QuickTime.qts
ADecoder preinit failed :(
ADecoder init failed :(
Cannot find codec for audio format 0x706C6351.
Read DOCS/HTML/en/codecs.html!
==========================================================================


I knew that I needed the w32codec package for mplayer but couldn't seem to find ubuntu packages for it and I just didn't feel like compiling the whole thing. So after much frustrated googling put together the following solution.

Run these commands:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

sudo wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O-¦ sudo apt-key add -

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install w32codecs
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I attempted the conversion on a movie file from my phone and it worked flawlessly, sound and all. :)

I wrote the following script, and named it phoneconvert:

mencoder $1 -oac mp3lame -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4 -o $2

So now when I want to convert a movie from my phone to mpeg format with mp3 audio I just run this command:

phoneconvert inputmovie.3g2 outputmovie.mpg

Working beautifully.

My laptop is a Gateway NX560X that I bought in November of 2006. Naturally it came bundled with WinXP installed but I refused to allow it to be tainted by anything M$ and before even turning it on for the first time I popped in the Kubuntu Edgy live CD and installed Linux. With the exception of the modem, a winmodem which I've never needed to use anyway, it's always run beautifully. The only hitch I've run into was after upgrading from Gutsy to Hardy I could no longer adjust the display brightness using the function keys on the keyboard. A quick search of the Ubuntu.org forums turned up this post - http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=767374. The poster advised to remove /etc/acpi/video_brightnessup.sh and replace it with a new file of the same name containing the following code:
----------------------------------------
#!/bin/bash
CURRENT=$(grep "current:" /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness |awk '{print $2}')
case "$CURRENT" in
100)
echo -n 100 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
87)
echo -n 100 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
75)
echo -n 87 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
62)
echo -n 75 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
50)
echo -n 62 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
37)
echo -n 50 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
25)
echo -n 37 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
12)
echo -n 25 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
*)
echo -n 100 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness ;
;;
esac
----------------------------------------

Then do the same for /etc/acpi/video_brightnessdown.sh and replace it with this code:
----------------------------------------
#!/bin/bash
CURRENT=$(grep "current:" /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness |awk '{print $2}')
case "$CURRENT" in
12)
echo -n 12 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
25)
echo -n 12 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
37)
echo -n 25 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
50)
echo -n 37 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
62)
echo -n 50 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
75)
echo -n 62 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
87)
echo -n 75 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
100)
echo -n 87 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness;
;;
*)
echo -n 50 > /proc/acpi/video/VGA/LCD/brightness ;
;;
esac
----------------------------------------

Then be sure to make both of these files executable and you're back in business. No logout or reboot required, it works immediately.

Thanks AaronMT!

The American Heritage Dictionary definition of elitism:
1.The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.
2. a. The sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a group or class.
b. Control, rule, or domination by such a group or class.
I have to admit that in a way I have a very elitist attitude towards computers. Basically, I think that if you don't have the drive or the intellect to learn to use one responsibly and competently then you shouldn't have one at all.
Let's start with responsibility:
Yes, there is some responsibility that goes along with owning a computer and connecting to the internet. You, as an internet user, have a responsibility to every other internet user to keep your computer free of viruses, worms, trojans and the like. If you get one, you're going to pass it on and chances are that the longer you have it, the more computers you will pass it on to. Buy some anti-virus software. Learn to use it and keep it up to date and then actually use it. Also get a book on protecting yourself online. Learn what to do and more importantly what NOT to do to keep from getting infected. It sounds like a tall order but it's really not. Again, if you're not willing to do these things you have no business owning a computer.
Secondly let's discuss competency:
Now that's not to say that I think every computer user should be able to build a box from the ground up or be able to make sense of a memory dump from a BSOD but I do think that they need to be able to sit down and do whatever it is that they intend to use that computer for without the need of someone holding their hand through the entire process. I've got no problem with walking you through something once or twice but the best thing you can do is go down to the book store and pick up a book pertaining to whatever purpose you have in mind for your computer. If you're not willing to take it upon yourself to learn about your computer I'm most certainly not interested in helping you along with it. During my brief time doing tech support for Qwest *shudder* I helped a great deal of users get their dial-up or DSL set up and then the next question the user had was "Now what?".
These people literally had no clue what it was they intended to use that computer and internet access for. NONE. They just bought a computer because they figured they ought to have one. C'mon folks. I don't wander through the hardware store buying $1400 tools that I have no idea how to use and no particular need driving me to buy it in the first place. Have a clear picture of what it is you want to do and then learn about those things.
Like any savvy computer user wanting to share this technology with others, I used to be readily available to friends and family to call me up and walk them through programs or help solve problems or even drop the box by my house and I'll fix it for you... not any more. I found these people becoming increasingly dependent on me and calling me nearly every day. Pretty soon their friends started calling me "Hey I got your number from so-and-so and was wondering if you could have a look at my computer...". I now rarely help any one with anything computer related. I still get these calls but not as frequently and my response is usually to politely direct them to the shop that sold them their computer, the 800 number on the back of the box that their software came in or failing those two things, Barnes and Noble. If they persist I say "Fine, I'll have a look at it but it's going to cost you $65 an hour with a half hour minimum and chances are that if it's serious, it'll take me three or four ours to get it fixed.". That's slightly less than what my employer charges for computer work so it sounds like a fair price to me.
Now this is where my elitism comes in. I read lots of articles about how Linux, as a desktop OS, is not ready for the average user. This makes it sound like there is something wrong with Linux. Not true. I believe it's the other way around. I believe that the average computer user is not ready for Linux. I think that the more time we spend trying to dumb it down so that "average computer users" can use it, the less time we are spending actually developing the OS itself and producing more applications for it. If the "average computer user" wants to have access to the powerful tools and security afforded by Linux, they need to take the initiative to learn how to use it. They need to rise above "average" because let's face it, average is nothing more than a floor. Average is where you and everyone else starts from. Average is the jumping off point. If you're content to stay average, fine. I've got no problem with that but don't complain that you can't seem to keep your computer free from spam and viruses or that it's constantly crashing and freezing on you. If you want us above-average people to help you, you'd better be willing to pay us for it and not expect us to upset our daily lives to do it.
Do I look down on these "average computer users"? Not at all. The mechanic that I have taken my car to for the last decade is an "average computer user", as is my chiropractor, my optometrist and my good friend whom I payed to help me frame walls in my basement. But do I continually bug these people for free advice on what they do or constantly ask them to make it all easier for me to understand? No I do not. I took auto-shop in high school so I can change my own oil, replace my muffler and even do a break job unassisted. I read up on chiropractics and I do in-fact know what a subluxation is and what causes them. I took it upon myself to learn about different types of contact lenses and I do understand that I should take them off in the evenings and put on my glasses to give my eyes a break. I spent nearly $90 on books about home improvement so that after my friend explained a few basics to me I was able to insulate and sheetrock those walls without calling him for help.
Initiative. That's all it takes and I fail to see why any OSS developer, most of which are not making a profit from what they do, should spend their time dumbing down a program so that someone lacking a little bit of initiative can use it.
Linux is not difficult to use, it is merely different. For those not willing to learn something new, you've got Microsoft. You are their target demographic. That's what they do and they are paid ungodly amounts of money to do it.


That is all.

I recently discovered that we have a few LUGs here in Montana. They have an IRC channel called #ubuntu-montana on freenode. In college, getting on 11 years ago, I was an IRC nut and my nights were split pretty evenly between Quake and mIRC. I had hoped that it would be fairly simple to get back on that bicycle and jump right back into IRC but of course with my memory no such luck.
I have a lot of free time at work. A great deal of it is spent coding on my PC at home via SSH and since the firewall here pretty much doesn't let anything out but port 80, I rely on text based programs pretty heavily to make the most of SSH. So my IRC client of choice is BitchX. The first thing I noticed was that it automatically grabbed my username from the linux box I'm connecting from and tried to use that as my nick on freenode. We can't have that. So the first line in my .bitchxrc file is this:

on connect * { orignick DeadTOm }

Do a /quit and restart BitchX, problem solved. Lucky for me nickserv still operates in much the same fashion it did a decade ago so registering my nick on freenode was painless except for BitchX flood protection kicking in and ignoring nickserv. I could see this becoming an issue with memoserv as well so back to the .bitchxrc file:

on connect "*freenode*" {
msg nickserv identify <my passwd> //save me the identify command while we're at it
addnoflood memoserv
addnoflood nickserv
}

My next concern was anonymity, or as near to it as one can get these days so I started looking into how to change what shows up if someone does a /whois on my nick. I quickly discovered that BitchX has virutally NO documentation so this all took a lot of google, trial and error to figure out.
So a /whois on my nick responds with this:

| DeadTOm (n=<my linux login name>@mtlaners.org) (Organization)
: ircname : <again, the login I use via ssh>
| server : heinlein.freenode.net (Missoula, MT, US)


It's resolving the domain name (mtlaners.org) all on it's own but it's pulling most of the rest from environment variables set on the linux box I'm connnecting from, in particular my login name. Since this is my first initial and last name I'd like to change that. Some googling turned up some environment variables that it looks for and I added these lines to my .bashrc to change those.

export IRCNICK="DeadTOm"
export IRCUSER="deadtom"
export IRCNAME="DeadTOm"


Log out of my SSH session, log back in. Log back in to freenode with BitchX and do a /whois deadtom and I now get this:

| DeadTOm (n=deadtom@mtlaners.org) (Organization)
: ircname : DeadTOm
| server : heinlein.freenode.net (Missoula, MT, US)

At the moment that's all I needed changed and now I'm just trying to refresh my memory on IRC slash commands. It doesn't help that most of the IRC related sites that google turns up for me here are blocked by the firewall. I'm sure I'll manage though.

I've been out of the slashdot scene for about four years now, only checking in periodically but not really paying attention. I've had a lot of spare time on my hands the last few months and I've been reading more lately.
I've been considering writing an online journal (for some reason the term "blog" annoys me to no end) detailing my experiences with Linux for a long time. This seems like a good place to do it.