The other day I stumbled upon a really good Linux optimization package of Ubuntu 11 – the nice thing about this is the pre-setup of many media and office tools just to name a few.
If you’re new to Linux or like me, just hate spending hours trying to get things to work after an install, head over to Pinguy OS and check them out. This will make a great fresh install or work off of a live CD.
Often I setup PDA’s / Phones to access Yahoo Mail, especially with a PLUS account.
For those of you with a Yahoo Plus Email account – these work the best (via IMAP4)
Yahoo – PLUS
Incoming Settings
User Name:User@yahoo.com
Password: Password of your yahoo mail
Incoming mail server:Â Â imap.n.mail.yahoo.com
Mailbox Name: Yahoo
Mailbox type: IMAP4
Security(Ports): Off /none
Port: 143
Outgoing Settings
SMTP Server: plus.smtp.mail.yahoo.com
Port: 465
Security type:Â SSL
Require Sign In / Authentication
User Name:User@yahoo.com
Password: Password of your yahoo mail
IMAP4 means it will stay sync’d up as you use Yahoo in other places, SSL on outgoing is required for SPAM prevention.
Happy Yahoo’n
-Jim
PS: find the Google / G-Mail setup steps (client/device specifics here: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=75726 )
Found a nice post on how to transfer Windows to a new drive using Linux here:
http://www.nilbus.com/linux/disk-copy
Your mileage may vary but it is simple as:
1> Using fdisk -u /dev/sdX  (X=new drive), make an exact partition setup on the new drive as the original
The -u command allows to size the new drive exact as the old – this is important for step #3 #4
2> Then copy the old drives MBR data to the new drive using the command:
dd if=/dev/sdb of=/dev/sda bs=446 count=1
Note: /dev/sdb is the original drive    &    /dev/sda is the new drive { VERY IMPORTANT!! }
3> Then copy the contents from the original drive to the new drive
dd if=/dev/sdb1 of=/dev/sda1 bs=4096
Note: /dev/sdb1 is the original drive    &    /dev/sda1 is the new drive { VERY IMPORTANT!! }
Also note that this will take a lot of time (depending on how large your drive is), in a new termial run the “top” command (by itself) to see if the dd is taking up CPU cycles and ensure it is not hung). For example, a 100GB drive will take ~90 min with fast drives and a fast system!
4>Â Then resize the new drive with Gparted or qtparted or parted or via ntfsresize
ntfsrezize -f -v /dev/sda1
5>Â When you first boot your new drive allow the check disk to run and then allow the system to reboot and then reboot one more time for good measure.
6> When get into Windows, Windows will see the new drive load drivers and then ask to reboot once more. When done you’re complete.
This worked great for what I needed. Here I traded out an older 120GB drive (PATA) into a new 320GB SATA drive with little fan fair.
Your mileage may vary; but, follow the instructions and observe the command notes and you’ll be fine.
Enjoy!
~Jim
Recently I decided I need to upgrade to Pidgin 2.5.5 on my Ubuntu install. Oh what fun that was!
Basically after removing my old Pidgin install with the command
sudo apt-get remove pidgin
Then downloading Pidgin from here:Â http://www.pidgin.im/download/
And then unpacking, and running this from the unpacked directory:
sudo ./configure
I found out I didn’t have all the packages needed for install.
So here is what I did. Ran this from the help FAQ
sudo apt-get build-dep pidgin
But this (as noted) found I had no source files found, then I had to do a massive update to compile all the source packages by going to “Software Sources” control panel in System -> Administration which has some boxes checking the unchecked source.
After that update, the ./configure command worked.  Then I did:
make
make check
make install
After all that, Pidgin installed; but, Pidgin didn’t work !! errgh.
Seems Pidgin could not find libpurple.so.0
So after some digging, here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=491673
These commands did the trick:
cd /usr/lib
sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libpurple.so.0 .
(don’t forget the period at the end of the above line)
Once I did that finally I had the latest Pidgin! Took a lot more than it should, hopefully soon ” sudo apt-get install pidgin ” will yield the latest 2.5.5 build for Ubuntu users.
~J