Fixing XFCE sound in Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04

Not really sure what happened there so I probably need some feedback.
The situation is that I have one of those weird HP laptops with the NVidia video card and realtek sound card. The sound works perfectly with Gnome but when I switched to XFCE, the applet went grey.

The solution is: I followed this guide half way through and I clicked the applet and chose HDA NVidia... PulseAudio mixer. And there is sound!

However, the volume control buttons that worked in Gnome don't work yet.

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HP laptop = nightmare?

Recently, I got hold of a HP laptop and here's the awkward experience.

The laptop is a HP tx1000, or more precisely a downgraded version without the touchscreen and stylus and with the product number, it is identified as tx1215nr.

I got it from a friend because he was absolutely unable to boot it and everything stops with a blank screen before the BIOS logo etc. I usually fixes stuff! I searched on google like crazy and found a post by a Taiwan guy. I followed his instructions by turning the computer on and keep it in the towels for an hour. (That's his standard. Mine didn't get that hot the first time and I had to make it hotter with more blankets and turning it on twice because it turns off automatically when over heated). I can't find the post right now but he explained it helped the mal-soldering of the nvidia video card.

I have only had one boot problem ever since (and I was scared...) but I've noticed a lot of problems with this designs. Two people out of the ones I know have had HP laptops without problems. A few others have had broken hard drives and motherboards. The motherboard or video chip is not HP's fault possibly but I think they do have responsibilities in not thoroughly testing their products out. Of course, the problems usually appear after a year (the same time warranty expires, sad coincidence...). And below I list a few things that I noticed that should be improved (just out of common sense...) (And I believe I'm not the only one having problems with HP designs, Shiny gave very sad reviews on youtube about tx1000 too).

1. I got rid of Vista asap because it is too slow, and the CPU is generating so much heat(cf. 2). There are not alternative drivers to download, so now that I'm dual booting XP and Ubuntu. XP sometimes fails to shutdown and the quick launch buttons become useless.

2. Sort of along the same line as 1, HP gives so little space for configuration and I'm talking about this in comparison to Dell. There's nothing you can do in the HP BIOS whereas in a Dell computer, you can turn off unused devices like a modem and other on-board devices. You can turn off nothing and as mentioned in 1, drivers are not provided. So very little space for configuration and I don't understand the reason. I guess they chose pissing off customer over pissing off business partners.

3. AMD processors give out too much heat. Definitely not suitable for smaller laptops. I don't know if HP got a great contract from AMD or not, I think running Vista on this computer with average work load for a few hours is certainly going to ruin the laptop in about a year. And I don't know why the engineers didn't realize it. The CPU temperature is constantly above 60 or 70, or more. The Dell Inspiron 1300 runs much more smooth and causes much less problems under XP and it has so much less processing power. So with so much more to do so much less, I'd definitely say it's definitely a design flaw.

HP just have so many REDUNDANT things like the touchpad lock. Other computers don't have it but we seldom run into troubles. I'm glad your touchpads are sensitive but we have to fiddle with the button all the time... Just design a soft lock and count characters per 5 seconds typed and if it is above a threshold, then disable the touchpad. I wonder if some other companies already have it.

Well, HP did let us format the hard drive and reinstall other systems easily at least on this laptop (which is even untrue or some others). I don't know what is going on with HP's designs but the HP laptops just seem to have the worst of all others but no highlight of their own.

Note: For those who are using smplayer in Linux or mplayer for windows, if it doesn't show videos, go to preferences->general->video tab and change dx(fast) to gl(fast). Then it'll work.

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Winedt shortcuts

Winedt seems a decent software after I discovered a few great shortcuts. I liked the one where you type alt+g and type Greek letters easily. I was surprised to discover that there isn't a decent list of shortcuts for Winedt after a search on google.



Below, I put mine down and I think there should be more useful ones (Macros?) like a shortcut to type $$ and put the cursor in between and I'll share and post it after I discover how to do that.(Please comment if you know how...). Furthermore, other shortcuts to move the cursor like in Emacs would be useful. I know I'm an Emacs maniac (fan?) but it is just so much easier to move around with your hand focused on the center of the keyboard without having to reach for the up down left right buttons...(Don't know how to set them yet, gotta find the correspondence of keys and the numbers in the settings file...)

WinEdt Shortcut List (Readonly)
===============================

Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 18:31
C:\CTeX\WinEdt\WinEdt.ini
Number of Shortcuts: 197

BkSp Shortcuts|Backspace
BkSp+Alt Alternatives|Undo
BkSp+Ctrl Shortcuts|Delete Word Left
BkSp+Shift Shortcuts|Backspace + Shift
BkSp+Shift+Alt Alternatives|Redo
BkSp+Shift+Ctrl &Search|&Bookmarks|Move Ring &Backward
Del &Edit|&Delete
Del+Ctrl Shortcuts|Delete Word Right
Del+Shift Alternatives|Cut
Del+Shift+Ctrl &Search|&Bookmarks|Move Ring &Forward
Down Shortcuts|Line Down
Down+Alt &Edit|&Change Case|&Toggle Case
Down+Ctrl Shortcuts|Par Down
Down+Ctrl+Alt &Edit|&Change Case|&Lower Case
Down+Shift Shortcuts|Select Line Down
Down+Shift+Ctrl Shortcuts|Select Par Down
Down+Shift+Ctrl+Alt &Edit|&Change Case|Toggle &Character
End Shortcuts|Go To End Of Line
End+Alt Shortcuts|Screen Refresh
End+Ctrl Shortcuts|Go To End Of File
End+Shift Shortcuts|Select To End Of Line
End+Shift+Alt Shortcuts|Clear Right
End+Shift+Ctrl Shortcuts|Select To End Of File
Enter Shortcuts|Enter
Enter+Alt &Macros|&Activate
Enter+Ctrl &Tools|&Complete Word
Enter+Ctrl+Alt &Tools|&Thesaurus
Enter+Shift &Tools|Check &Word
Enter+Shift+Ctrl Shortcuts|Enter (%%)
Esc Shortcuts|OK
Esc+Shift Shortcuts|Cancel
Home Shortcuts|Go To Beginning Of Line
Home+Alt Shortcuts|Screen Center Line
Home+Ctrl Shortcuts|Go To Beginning Of File
Home+Shift Shortcuts|Select To Beginning Of Line
Home+Shift+Alt Shortcuts|Clear Left
Home+Shift+Ctrl Shortcuts|Select To Beginning Of File
Ins Shortcuts|Insert
Ins+Alt Alternatives|Append
Ins+Ctrl Alternatives|Copy
Ins+Ctrl+Alt &Edit|&Format|Format &Paragraph
Ins+Shift Alternatives|Paste
Ins+Shift+Ctrl &Edit|&Format|&Select Paragraph
Ins+Shift+Ctrl+Alt &Edit|&Format|Format &Document
Left Shortcuts|Char Left
Left+Alt &Edit|&Move / Fill|Move &Left
Left+Ctrl Shortcuts|Word Left
Left+Ctrl+Alt &Edit|&Move / Fill|&Remove String
Left+Shift Shortcuts|Select Char Left
Left+Shift+Alt &Edit|&Format|Flush &Left
Left+Shift+Ctrl Shortcuts|Select Word Left
Left+Shift+Ctrl+Alt &Edit|&Move / Fill|R&emove Comment
PgDn Shortcuts|Page Down
PgDn+Alt Shortcuts|Screen Line To Bottom
PgDn+Ctrl Shortcuts|Go To End Of File
PgDn+Shift Shortcuts|Select Page Down
PgDn+Shift+Ctrl Shortcuts|Select To End Of File
PgUp Shortcuts|Page Up
PgUp+Alt Shortcuts|Screen Line To Top
PgUp+Ctrl Shortcuts|Go To Beginning Of File
PgUp+Shift Shortcuts|Select Page Up
PgUp+Shift+Ctrl Shortcuts|Select To Beginning Of File
Right Shortcuts|Char Right
Right+Alt &Edit|&Move / Fill|&Move Right
Right+Ctrl Shortcuts|Word Right
Right+Ctrl+Alt &Edit|&Move / Fill|&Insert String...
Right+Shift Shortcuts|Select Char Right
Right+Shift+Alt &Edit|&Format|Flush &Right
Right+Shift+Ctrl Shortcuts|Select Word Right
Right+Shift+Ctrl+Alt &Edit|&Move / Fill|Insert &Comment
Space+Ctrl &Tools|&Next Bullet
Space+Ctrl+Alt &Tools|&Insert Bullet
Space+Shift+Ctrl &Tools|&Previous Bullet
Tab Shortcuts|Indent
Tab+Ctrl &Window|Next MDI Window
Tab+Shift Shortcuts|Unindent
Tab+Shift+Ctrl &Window|Previous MDI Window
Up Shortcuts|Line Up
Up+Alt &Edit|&Change Case|&Initial Capitals
Up+Ctrl Shortcuts|Par Up
Up+Ctrl+Alt &Edit|&Change Case|&Upper Case
Up+Shift Shortcuts|Select Line Up
Up+Shift+Alt &Edit|&Format|&Center
Up+Shift+Ctrl Shortcuts|Select Par Up
F1 &Help|&Contents and Index
F1+Alt &Help|&Macro Manual
F1+Ctrl &Help|&Keyword Search
F1+Shift+Ctrl &Help|LaTeX &Doc...
F2 &Window|&Cascade
F2+Alt &Window|Arrange &Icons
F2+Ctrl &Window|Tile &Vertically
F2+Ctrl+Alt &Window|Mi&nimize All
F2+Shift &Window|Tile &Horizontally
F2+Shift+Alt &Window|&Restore All
F2+Shift+Ctrl &Window|Ma&ximize All
F3 &Search|Search &Again
F3+Alt &Search|&Next
F3+Ctrl &Search|Ne&xt Difference
F3+Shift &Search|&Previous
F3+Shift+Ctrl &Search|Pre&vious Difference
F4+Alt &File|E&xit
F4+Ctrl &File|&Close
F5 &Tools|Next &Error
F5+Ctrl &Tools|&Spell Check...
F6 Popup Menu: Circumflex
F9+Ctrl &Macros|Execute Macro Script...
F9+Shift+Ctrl &Macros|E&xecute Current Macro
F10 &Tools|Restore Selection
F10+Ctrl &Tools|Global &Return
F10+Shift &Tools|Mark Selection
F10+Shift+Ctrl &Tools|Global &Mark
F11 &Search|&Bookmarks|&Caret <-> Select
F11+Alt &Search|&Bookmarks|&Mark
F11+Ctrl &Search|&Bookmarks|&Go To Mark
F11+Ctrl+Alt &Search|&Bookmarks|&Reset Selection
F11+Shift+Ctrl &Search|&Bookmarks|Se&lect From Mark
F11+Shift+Ctrl+Alt &Search|&Bookmarks|&Set Selection
F12 &Search|&Delimiters|&Match Delimiter Scope
F12+Alt &Search|&Delimiters|&Auto Check
F12+Ctrl &Search|&Delimiters|&Delimiter Check
F12+Ctrl+Alt &Search|&Delimiters|&Quick Check
F12+Shift &Search|&Delimiters|&Slow Check
F12+Shift+Ctrl &Search|&Delimiters|&Match Delimiter
'+Ctrl Popup Menu: Acute
'+Shift+Ctrl Popup Menu: Umlaut
,+Ctrl &Window|&Next Window
,+Shift+Ctrl &Window|&Previous Window
.+Alt &Macros|Play Macro &Once
.+Ctrl &Macros|Repeat &Last Command
.+Shift+Alt &Macros|Play &Macro
0+Ctrl Bookmarks|GOTO 0
0+Shift+Ctrl Bookmarks|Mark 0
1+Ctrl Bookmarks|GOTO 1
1+Shift+Ctrl Bookmarks|Mark 1
2+Ctrl Bookmarks|GOTO 2
2+Shift+Ctrl Bookmarks|Mark 2
3+Ctrl Bookmarks|GOTO 3
3+Shift+Ctrl Bookmarks|Mark 3
4+Ctrl Bookmarks|GOTO 4
4+Shift+Ctrl Bookmarks|Mark 4
5+Ctrl Bookmarks|GOTO 5
5+Shift+Ctrl Bookmarks|Mark 5
6+Ctrl Bookmarks|GOTO 6
6+Shift+Ctrl Bookmarks|Mark 6
7+Ctrl Bookmarks|GOTO 7
7+Shift+Ctrl Bookmarks|Mark 7
8+Ctrl Bookmarks|GOTO 8
8+Shift+Ctrl Bookmarks|Mark 8
9+Ctrl Bookmarks|GOTO 9
9+Shift+Ctrl Bookmarks|Mark 9
=+Alt Popup Menu: Bookmarks
=+Ctrl Bookmarks|Toggle Line Numbers
=+Shift+Ctrl Bookmarks|&Toggle View
A+Ctrl &Edit|&Select All
A+Shift+Ctrl &Accessories|&AMSTeX
B+Shift+Ctrl &Accessories|&BibTeX
C+Alt &Edit|&Append
C+Ctrl &Edit|Cop&y
C+Shift+Ctrl &Accessories|&Compile Selected
D+Shift+Ctrl &Accessories|&DVIPS
E+Ctrl &Search|&Errors...
E+Shift+Ctrl &Search|&Hide Errors
F+Ctrl &Search|&Find...
F+Shift+Ctrl &Document|&Home Folder
G+Alt Popup Menu: Greek
G+Ctrl &Search|&Go To Line...
G+Shift+Ctrl &Accessories|&GSView
H+Ctrl &Document|&Get Folder...
H+Shift+Ctrl &Document|&Set Folder...
I+Ctrl &Search|&Incremental Search...
I+Shift+Ctrl &Accessories|Make &Index
K+Ctrl Shortcuts|Delete Line
K+Shift+Ctrl Shortcuts|Clear Line
L+Ctrl &Document|&LOG File
L+Shift+Ctrl &Accessories|&LaTeX
N+Ctrl &File|&New
N+Shift+Ctrl &Document|&New Document...
O+Ctrl &File|&Open...
O+Shift+Ctrl &Document|STD &Output File
P+Ctrl &File|&Print...
R+Alt Popup Menu: Edt RCS
R+Ctrl &Search|&Replace...
R+Shift+Ctrl &Accessories|&Run...
S+Ctrl &File|&Save
S+Shift+Ctrl &Accessories|DVI &Search
T+Ctrl Shortcuts|Transpose Chars
T+Shift+Ctrl &Accessories|&TeX
V+Ctrl &Edit|&Paste
V+Shift+Ctrl &Accessories|DVI Pre&view
W+Ctrl Shortcuts|Toggle Wrap/NoWrap
W+Shift+Ctrl Shortcuts|Format Paragraph
X+Ctrl &Edit|Cu&t
X+Shift+Ctrl &Accessories|Te&Xify
Z+Ctrl &Edit|&Undo
Z+Shift+Ctrl &Edit|&Redo
`+Ctrl Popup Menu: Grave
`+Shift+Ctrl Popup Menu: Tilde


*** Double Shortcuts:
=====================

R+Alt Popup Menu: Edt RCS
A+Alt &Addition
D+Alt &Deletion
E+Alt &Erase Tagged String
M+Alt &Mark
R+Alt &Remark
T+Alt Remove &Tag

F6 Popup Menu: Circumflex
6+Shift &^
A &a
A+Shift &A
E &e
E+Shift &E
I &i
I+Shift &I
O &o
O+Shift &O
U &u
U+Shift &U

'+Shift+Ctrl Popup Menu: Umlaut
'+Shift &"
A &a
A+Shift &A
E &e
E+Shift &E
I &i
I+Shift &I
O &o
O+Shift &O
S &ss
S+Shift &ss
U &u
U+Shift &U
Y &y
Y+Shift &Y

`+Shift+Ctrl Popup Menu: Tilde
/+Shift &?
1+Shift &!
A &a
A+Shift &A
C &c
C+Shift &C
N &n
N+Shift &N
O &o
O+Shift &O
`+Shift &~

`+Ctrl Popup Menu: Grave
0+Shift &}
0+Shift+Ctrl &]
9+Shift &{
9+Shift+Ctrl &[
A &a
A+Shift &A
E &e
E+Shift &E
I &i
I+Shift &I
O &o
O+Shift &O
U &u
U+Shift &U
\+Shift &|
` &`
`+Shift &~

'+Ctrl Popup Menu: Acute
' &'
A &a
A+Shift &A
E &e
E+Shift &E
I &i
I+Shift &I
O &o
O+Shift &O
U &u
U+Shift &U
Y &y
Y+Shift &Y

G+Alt Popup Menu: Greek
A &alpha
B &beta
C varepsilon (&c)
D &delta
D+Shift &Delta
E &epsilon
F phi (&f)
F+Shift Phi (&F)
G &gamma
G+Shift &Gamma
H t&heta
H+Shift T&heta
I &iota
J varsigma (&j)
K &kappa
L &lambda
L+Shift &Lambda
M &mu
N &nu
O &omega
O+Shift &Omega
P &pi
P+Shift &Pi
Q psi (&q)
Q+Shift Psi (&Q)
R &rho
S &sigma
S+Shift &Sigma
T &tau
U &upsilon
U+Shift &Upsilon
V &varphi
V+Shift &vartheta
W chi (&w)
X &xi
X+Shift &Xi
Y eta (&y)
Z &zeta

=+Alt Popup Menu: Bookmarks
-+Alt Goto &Previous Bookmark
0 (Un)Set #0
0+Alt Goto #&0
1 (Un)Set #1
1+Alt Goto #&1
2 (Un)Set #2
2+Alt Goto #&2
3 (Un)Set #3
3+Alt Goto #&3
4 (Un)Set #4
4+Alt Goto #&4
5 (Un)Set #5
5+Alt Goto #&5
6 (Un)Set #6
6+Alt Goto #&6
7 (Un)Set #7
7+Alt Goto #&7
8 (Un)Set #8
8+Alt Goto #&8
9 (Un)Set #9
9+Alt Goto #&9
=+Alt Goto &Next Bookmark
A+Alt Clear &All Bookmarks
C+Alt &Clear This Bookmark
H+Alt &Help
L+Alt &List Bookmarks
S+Alt &Set Next Bookmark

Edit:

As for the emacs specific actions, I found this article:
Emacs key bindings everywhere which enables you to use the emacs movement shortcuts everywhere after you activate(compile it and put a shortcut in the startup folder). Nice!!! Thanks Dave (the script creater)!

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How to change firefox to whatever language you like

Pretty much useless unless you know firefox so well that you know what the menu items are, then you can impress your friends choosing a weird language. I just know more than one languages :D, so I changed the language-pack from time to time.

Go to http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases

Pick the right release

Go to the \xpi folder

pick the language-pack you want and click on the xpi to install.

then type about:config in the addressbar, find general.useragent.locale and edit it to the corresponding language code.

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what to do if a folder is named with a colon

I used partition magic to merge two of my drives. I didn't know I was going to name the folders, so I named one D: , one E:. Then I have problem opening two drives load of stuff. Fortunately, I found a solution in the end. So what do you do if you have a colon for your folder name.

The solution is simply Linux! I tried several Windows tools. The data recovery tools work to "recover" your data but you might not have that much space to copy them and it wastes a lot of time. The commander type softwares don't work either. The reason is in windows, colon is used as an "alternate data stream" symbol. But in Linux it is not.

So just find a Live Linux distribution like Ubuntu and plug it into your cd-rom. Mount the windows drive and change the folder's name because Linux had no problem handling folders with names with colons. If you know some Linux, you know what to do already. If not, leave a question. (It may take me a long time to reply, so the simplest way is probably search for how to mount a windows drive in Linux, there will be tons of answers.)

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MPlayer channel redirecting

Just keeping it for the record if I ever need it again...

-af channels=1:1:1:0
channel from(1) : to (0) : from(1) : to (0)

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Linux partition size

I found an old saved txt on optimal partition sizes of Linux. We now have (relatively) huge hard drives and Linux supports big hard drives and partitions but I was wondering if the old way would give a performance boost. Anyway, just to keep the record.

/boot 20M (a separate partition because of recommendations of various versions too) (Maybe 128M now?Let me see how big grub is next time. And I think I saw somewhere that this should use ext2.)

Swap twice the memory (red hat recommendation)(Or most of the time, with 1G memory, Linux won't normally use swap at all. So if you have a lot of memory, 1G could be enough)

/var (Saves log and email files. not very useful for home users. 1G?)

/home however much you need...

/usr give it a lot of spaces, 8G, softwares are saved here (or just put it all together with /)

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How to get rid of the startup screen in portableapps softwares

How to get rid of the startup screen in portableapps softwares

Suppose you're getting rid of the splash screen of software X from portable apps:

in the folder, find other then source folder, then there's Xportable.ini
copy it into the top level folder (same as Xportable.exe)
then open it with notepad, change the value of disablesplashscreen to true

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Mouse Scrolling in VMware

Just for the record:

edit: /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Scroll down (it’s not far, perhaps 20 - 30 lines) till you see a block that looks like this:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "vmmouse"
[.. blah blah blah ..]
EndSection

Replace that whole section with this:

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Configured Mouse"
Driver "vmmouse"
Option "CorePointer"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/mice"
Option "Protocol" "ImPS/2"
Option "Buttons" "5"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

from http://peterc.org/2008/64-how-to-enable-vertical-mouse-wheel-scrolling-in-ubuntu-hardy-on-vmware-fusion.html

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Can we put the emacs team to develop an office software?

I'm frustrated with Microsoft Office.

I'm been writing an article and editing it on word. But the efficiency is so low. I miss the emacs days when you get through everything with a few shortcuts. Even something close to vi would work...

I even tried Office 2007. Quite some improvements with the menu layouts etc. But still...I want emacs style editors. The problem is the slow users don't really care about the shortcuts anyway, they just click through the menus but those who want it, I don't think the current design is sufficient.

And even with OpenOffice, which is supposed to be for Linux geeks, they're still as childish as MS office...

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