Requirements

Java is the only software requirement to actually open Ted.  According to Ted’s website, you need at least Java 5.  If you don’t already have Java installed, you can install it from the Ubuntu Software Center, by searching for java6.  You need the ‘Sun Java 6 Runtime’, not just the plugin.

You can also run the following command:

sudo aptitude install sun-java6-bin

Getting Started

It just so happens Ted released a new version yesterday, so make sure you download the most recent release.  You will notice there is a a different download depending on which operating system you want to run Ted in.  Obviously, you are going to want to choose the Linux download, which is in the form of a .zip archive.

Once the download is finished, we need to extract the contents of the zip archive.  You can do this several ways, depending on if you are a click and point kind of person, of if you prefer the command line.

For those of you who like the mouse, right click on the downloaded zip archive and choose ‘Extract Here’.  Be sure to rename the extracted folder to ‘ted’ (without the quotes).  The name of the folder will matter later on.

You can also use the command line by navigating to the directory where the zip archive is located and running the following commands:

mkdir ted
unzip tedv09715.zip -d ted

*Note: the second command will change slightly with each version of Ted.

If you want to move the ted folder to another location, now would be the time to do it.  The location does not matter, but changing it after this point will cause problems.

Creating an Application Launcher

Right click on the Applications menu, and choose ‘Edit Menus’

Choose the Internet menu from the list on the left.  Then click the ‘New Item’ button on the right.

Now, add the Ted entry. Be sure to change the location of the ted.jar file to where you put it earlier.

Finally, we will add the Ted icon to the launcher.  Click the spring looking icon button in the upper left corner.  This should open a window allowing you to browse for icons.  Click the Browse button and then navigate to the ‘ted’ folder. You will only be able to see the folders within the ted folder; however, this is okay. Simply click the Open button and you should see a file named ‘winicon.ico’.

Select the icon and then click ‘OK’.

(Optional)

Now for those of you who like doing everything on the command line, don’t fret, I haven’t forgotten about you.  Start by creating a text file named ‘ted’ that contains the following:

#!/bin/bash
java -jar /home/eric/ted/ted.jar

Obviously, change the location of the ted.jar file to match your system.  Next, we need to make this file executable.  To do so, run chmod +x ted from the command line.  Last, we need to move it to a folder included in your search path.  For example:
sudo mv ted /usr/bin/

Notice root privileges are needed here since you are copying the file to a system folder.  Enter your password when prompted.  You should now be able to run ‘ted’ from the command line to launch the application.

Upgrading safely

Since Ted includes the version number in its folder names, you have to be careful to not break the application launcher.  Either follow the Getting Started section above, or simply copy and paste the contents of the new release of Ted into your current ‘ted’ folder.

Troubleshooting

If your application launcher quits working, it is probably because the path to the ted.jar file has changed.  Just double check that it is still in the same location, and update either the launcher or the location if it is different.

In some of the older versions, Ted was set to use a tray icon by default; however, this would cause problems with Java.  This problems seems to have been fixed in newer versions of Ted, but I thought it was still worth mentioning.  If you get an error similar to the following:
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: no tray in java.library.path
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1709)
at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Runtime.java:823)
at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(System.java:1028)
at org.jdesktop.jdic.tray.internal.impl.GnomeSystemTrayService.(Unknown Source)
at org.jdesktop.jdic.tray.internal.impl.ServiceManagerStub.getService(Unknown Source)
at org.jdesktop.jdic.tray.internal.ServiceManager.getService(Unknown Source)
at org.jdesktop.jdic.tray.SystemTray.(Unknown Source)
at ted.TedTrayIcon.(TedTrayIcon.java:28)
at ted.TedMainDialog.initGUI(TedMainDialog.java:312)
at ted.TedMainDialog.(TedMainDialog.java:121)
at ted.TedMain.main(TedMain.java:37)

try changing the command to run Ted from java -jar /home/eric/ted/ted.jar to java -jar /home/eric/ted/ted.jar noTray This can be substituted for the normal command in any of the examples given above.

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Firefox is now the number 2 web browser currently in use. While Firefox only holds 25% of the market share, it is gaining more and more every day. As Firefox is my favorite browser, I wanted to share a few of my favorite shortcuts. Even if you use a different browser, give some of these a try and see if they work for you.

All of these shortcuts are a combination of keystrokes, so when you read ‘Ctrl + C’, simply press the ‘Ctrl’ key and the ‘C’ key.

My Favorite Keyboard Shortcuts

• Ctrl + L Go to the address bar.
• Ctrl + K Go to the search bar.
• Alt + left arrow Navigate back one page.
• Alt + right arrow Navigate forward one page.
• Ctrl + R Reload the page.
• Esc Stop the page from loading.
• Ctrl + + Zoom in.
• Ctrl + – Zoom out.
• Ctrl + T Opens a new Tab.
• Ctrl + W Closes current Tab.
• Ctrl + Tab Move to the next Tab.
• Ctrl + Shift + Tab Move back to previous Tab.
• Alt + 1 through 8 Move to the 1st through 8th Tabs.
• Alt + 9 Move to the last Tab that is open.

My Favorite Mouse Shortcuts

• Middle click on link Open that link in a new Tab.
• Middle click on a Tab Close that Tab.
• Ctrl + Scroll up Zoom in.
• Ctrl + Scroll down Zoom out.
• Shift + Scroll up Navigate forward. The number of times you scroll equals the number of pages you scroll through.
• Shift + Scroll down Navigate backward. The number of times you scroll equals the number of pages you scroll through.

This is not the whole list of Firefox shortcuts by any means (the complete list is here). There are many many more, however, these are the shortcuts I tend to use every day. Also keep in mind that there are other shortcuts that do the same thing, for example, backspace will navigate you back one page and shift + backspace will navigate you forward one page. I know this, yet I still always use Alt + left arrow and Alt + right arrow.

3 Extra shortcuts

When typing in a web address, the following shortcuts will auto-complete the address for you. For example, type wlmtips into the address bar and then press

• Ctrl + Enter This will auto-complete .com address. So wlmtips will become wlmtips.com
• Shift + Enter This will auto-complete .net address. So wlmtips will become wlmtips.net
• Ctrl + Shift + Enter This will auto-complete .org address. So wlmtips will become wlmtips.org

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I can’t afford the DVR my cable company offers. Plain and simple. Even if I could afford it, I wouldn’t be willing to pay for it. It just costs too much money.  As a busy student and TV addict, I would often have to choose between watching that new episode of my favorite TV show or studying and doing homework. Of course you can always watch the rerun, which usually shows during that next weekend, but I want to watch my shows when I want to watch them. Ted solves this problem for me. Ted is an automatic TV show downloader. Enter in your favorite TV shows and when that new episode airs, Ted starts searching the internet for a torrent of it. Ted will automatically download the torrent file and even pass it on to your bittorrent client. Here’s a quick overview of some of the features of Ted.

To use Ted, you need will to:

1.) Download Ted here for Windows, Linux, and Mac versions. (This link downloads version 0.971, go to http://www.ted.nu/ to see if there are newer versions)

2.) Have a bittorent client installed. If you don’t already have one, here are a few options:

Transmission

Deluge

Azureus/Vuze

uTorrent

I use both Transmission and Deluge. They are both great programs. I have never used Azureus or uTorrent, but I have heard good things about them. This is by no means a complete list of bittorent clients. You can use whatever client you prefer.

**If you want to automatically download TV shows, follow this guide to Ted and set your bittorrent client to always download to a specific directory.

Now, once you’ve downloaded and installed Ted, open up Ted and you should see:

The first thing to do is to edit the preferences. In Teds main window go to Extra (top left) then ‘Preferences’. Here you will see:

Here you can specify how often you search for episodes. I keep it at 60 minutes myself. Keep a note of the download directory, this is where Ted saves the .torrent files that will be loaded into your bittorrent client. If you have the ‘Open in default bittorrent client checked’ it should load the torrents automatically, but if it doesn’t, you can set most bittorrent clients to automatically import files in a specific directory. Just find that setting in your bittorrent client and set it for the same directory Ted downloads to.

The ‘Look and Feel’ tab at the top will show:

Here you can set whether Ted runs on startup or not, shows alerts, and allows logging. I definitely recommend you keep logging turned on because the logs may come in handy some time.

The ‘Advanced’ tab shows:

You can stop Ted from downloading certain file types; this is where you would want to put that information. Of course you can remove these standard ‘do not download’ file types, but I don’t like dealing with .zip or .rar so I keep them in there.

Click Save and return to Teds main window.

Now you need to add a show. Click ‘Add a show’.

The Add a show screen lists quite a few shows. Click one and on the right a tv.com summary will show up. Here you can choose to download starting with the next newest episode, the last episode that aired, or a custom episode. Once you’ve selected a show, click ‘Add’ in the bottom right. Don’t worry if your show isn’t on the list, just click ‘Add a custom show’ at the bottom and enter your show’s info.

Your show should now be in Teds main window (as you can see I’ve added the show Top Gear):

Now you will want to edit some of the preferences. Just select your show in the above window, right click and then click edit.

The General edit window will appear:

This is where you can edit the title of the show and which season and episode to look for next. If you were to select Season 1 episode 1 in the case of Top Gear, ted will try and find Season 1 episode 1, then try and find Season 1 episode 2 and so on. If an episode is not found by Ted, however, it will not move to the next episode until that episode is found. So if it can’t find episode 2, it will not continue to episode 3 until it has found episode 2 (unless you go to this screen and manually tell it to search for episode 3).

To add feeds, click the ‘Feeds’ at the top. You will see a window like this:

As you can see Ted has already populated 2 feeds for Top Gear. Unfortunately, mininova no longer offers TV shows, so you can remove that feed. Just click it and then click the minus sign at the bottom.

To add a feed, click the plus sign at the bottom:

You can choose from any of these and have it automatically add the feed for your particular show. I recommend putting in as many feeds as you can. There is no limit, and Ted will just download from the first one it can. Click ‘user defined’ to add a feed from a torrent site not shown in this list.

Now click Filters:

Here you can edit the minimum  and maximum size of the video file. Any show that’s runs for 30 mins will usually be around the 300mb size, so choose a minimum of 150mb and a maximum of 500mb. Any show that runs for an hour, could be around 300-800 mb, so choose the minimum to be around 250mb and the maximum to be around 1000mb. If you specifically want HD content, click ‘Download in HD quality’ at the bottom and significantly increase my recommended minimum and maximum sizes.

I would recommend you use the following snippet of code in the Keywords block to stop Ted from downloading unrelated or private torrents:

(!(www | lol | com | net | org | cx | cc | leech | torrent | nova | bay | bit))

If you click Schedule at the top, you will see:

Don’t forget to click ‘Save’.

Once you have a few shows listed in Ted, on  Teds main window, click edit and then click ‘Edit all shows…’

Here you can edit values for all of your shows at once.

You should now be setup to automatically download your favorite TV shows.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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The Chrome OS is a very basic Operating System that seems to be designed for use on a netbook. Now you can try out the OS on your current computer.

What you will need:

1. VirtualBox – available for download here for Windows, Linux, and Mac (VirtualBox is usually included in the repositories of most Linux distros)

2. The Chrome OS image – available for download here from gdgt -You will have to sign up on their site to get access to the file

***There is a Chrome OS image available for download as a torrent floating around somewhere. Just make sure it is a .vmdk file.

Now that you have VirtualBox and the .vmdk Chrome OS file

Open up VirtualBox and click New.

You should see the following screen:

Simply click Next.

You should now see the VM Name and OS Type screen:

You can name it anything you want; I simply named it Chrome OS. The OS type should be Other and the version Other. Click Next.

You should now see the Memory Screen:

You can set as much RAM as you would like. I kept it simple and just gave it 256 MB. I recommend that you don’t give any VM any more that half of the total RAM you have in your computer.

You should now see the Virtual Hard Disk Screen:

Click ‘use existing hard disk’ and then click the folder on the right.

The Virtual Media Manager window should pop up:

Simply click ‘Add’ and find the .vmdk file you downloaded from gdgt. Once you have clicked ‘Add’ it should show up in the Virtual Media Manager window. You will need to select it and then click ‘Select’ at the bottom.

You will go back to the Virtual Hard Disk screen. Just click next.

You should now see the Summary Screen:

Click ‘Finish’.

Now you should be back to the VirtualBox main screen and Chrome OS should be on the left side.

You will need to click ‘Chrome OS’ on the left (to highlight it) and then click ‘Start’.

Welcome to the Chrome OS

You will need to use your Gmail login info to login. Type in your Gmail username then TAB and type in your password.

Once logged in, you will see your email. The tabs across the top are as follows:

The Google Accounts screen:

The Gmail screen:

The Google Calendar Screen:

The Web:

So all in all, Chrome OS is a very simple and very ‘light’ operating system. This OS will be great for a netbook and will provide a great option for those looking for a very cheap computer/OS package. Take a look at the OS yourself and let me know what you think in the comments.

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I wanted to create a short list of sites to visit for new Linux users. I have been using Ubuntu for a few years now and I still visit some of these sites (especially when new versions come out and I have to fix some bugs).

1. http://www.linux.org/lessons/beginner/toc.html is a very detailed site to help with many of the problems people have when they are new to Linux. The twenty lessons offer info from partitioning to the ‘grep command’ to even X-Window Configuration.

2. http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html shows a great comparison chart of Windows programs and the Linux equivalent. Simply look for the program you would usually use in Windows and see the available Linux programs that does the same (or similar) thing(s).

3. http://ubuntuforums.org/ – this is the main forum site for Ubuntu users. If you use another distro then their particular forum site will be useful to you. Simply google your distro and the word forums. The Ubuntu forums have helped solve many of my little problems. Forums also give you the opportunity to ask for help with your particular problem (provided you can’t find that problem anywhere else in the forums).

4. http://tuxradar.com/content/linux-tips-every-geek-should-know – this site simply lists a bunch of tips ‘every geek should know’. Take a read through and you will learn something new, even if you’re an experienced Linux user. If you’re new to Linux, I would recommend you stick to the ‘Easy’ difficulty tips on this site.

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I found myself needing to do this, twice, in the last month.

The Synaptic Package Manager allows you to do this quite easily:

First, open Synaptic Package Manager (it’s under System->Administration)

Make sure that ALL is highlighted on the left side.

Now click File (top left) and go down to Save Markings As.

Save this document somewhere you will have easy access to it. Don’t save it on your Desktop and then do a fresh install. All those files will be deleted (unless you also save your home directory).

To have your other computer install all these programs make sure to place the file you just created somewhere that the new computer (or new installation) can get access to it.

Now open Synaptic Package Manager and go to File-> Read Markings

Navigate to the file you created and click OK.

You will have to click Apply to start downloading all those programs.

Your programs will now start downloading. Remember that this will work whether you are reinstalling a computer or whether you want multiple computers to have the same programs.

Make sure that the same repositories are enabled for both computers. If you are installing on an upgraded system, and thus new repositories, most of your programs will install. If they required you to add other repositories on the old computer, these programs will simply not download.

If the Package Manager complains about ‘Broken Packages’, click on the ‘Broken’ tab on the left (in the list with All) and then click ‘fix broken packages’.

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There is a simple solution and you actually have a couple different options.

Option 1: (my favorite, also the easiest)
The easiest way to quit a program that stopped responding is by using the force quit button.  In Ubuntu this button can be added to any panel by right clicking on the panel and choosing ‘Add to Panel.’ Then scroll down and select ‘Force Quit.’

Then, when there is a program you need to stop, just click on the force quit button (which is now on your panel) and your mouse cursor will change into a set of cross hairs. At this point, click on the program window that you would like to stop.  If you decide you don’t want to quit any programs after already clicking the force quit button, just press Esc to cancel.

Option 2:
The second way to stop an unresponsive program is to use the System Monitor. This can be found under System->Administration->System Monitor. I like to add the System Monitor to my top panel so I can keep tabs on what my computer is doing.This can be done by using the same process as above.

Once the System Monitor is running, click on the ‘Processes’ tab.

Then, similar to Windows, click on the process you want to stop and then click the ‘End Process’ button in the bottom right corner. One nice feature of the System Monitor is you can sort processes by name, status, CPU usage, and memory usage.

Option 3:
This option is for more advanced users, and those who wish to use the terminal.  If you already know the name of the process you wish to terminate, all you need to do is type the following command:

killall process-name

Here, “process-name” is the name of the process you wish to terminate.

If you don’t know the name of the process, you could type in a command such as ‘top’ to see which programs are using the most resources.

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It wasn’t long ago that Linux users used a thing called beryl and compiz fusion hadn’t been heard of. Maybe you remember these days, maybe you don’t.

For those of you who did use beryl, I bet you miss that red jewel icon in your task bar that allowed you to do such easy tasks as change window managers and even access beryl’s options with just a right click. Well, now you can have these same options for compiz fusion with the Compiz Fusion Icon.

I find it a lot easier to get access to compiz’s settings manager when all I have to do is right click on a little icon instead of going through the menu bars. This is what the icon and options look like:

If you want to download it, it can sometimes be found in the repos, under the name ‘fusion-icon’ but if not, here’s a link to a .deb package.

Once downloaded and installed, you will find it in Applications -> System Tools

If you want to make the icon appear in the panel on startup, be sure to add it to your ‘Sessions.’ If you aren’t sure how to do this, I mentioned it in a recent post on Ubuntu Tweak.

For more information on the Compiz Fusion Icon, take a look at the Compiz Fusion wiki.

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Ubuntu Tweak allows you to change hidden system and desktop settings.  Ubuntu Tweak is ONLY available for the GNOME Desktop Environment (not Kubuntu, or Xubuntu, etc).  However, the author states that Ubuntu Tweak will run on other distributions. If you have any experience with this please post in the comments!

To download Ubuntu Tweak, visit their download page.  There you can either download the source files, the .deb package (easiest method) or download the package via the command line.  The download page provides more information on the different ways to download Ubuntu Tweak.

Once you download Ubuntu Tweak, you can run the application by clicking Applications->System Tools->Ubuntu Tweak or by typing ‘ubuntu-tweak‘ in the terminal.

When the program starts you should see the following Welcome screen:

The main screen gives you a little information about Ubuntu Tweak.  As you can see, along the left side are several subpages.

The first one we will look at is the ‘Computer’ page.  If you click on ‘Computer’ you should see System and User information like this:

This is very useful for troubleshooting if you need to know which kernel version you have.  This page also displays some information about your computer such as the processor type and amount of memory.

The next subpage is ‘Applications.’ When I tested this I was unable to get software to install or uninstall.  However, this page does give you a nice little description of each application.  So, if you see an application you want to try but can’t get it to install, take a look at my previous post on How to Install/Uninstall Software in Ubuntu. If you had luck installing or uninstalling software from this page, please post in the comments.

Next is the ‘Startup’ page.  Here you can edit settings such as whether or not to show the logout prompt, whether or not to show a splash screen, and what applications run on startup.  Here is a look at the settings for the startup applications:

Each program that has a checkmark next to it will run on startup.  You can stop it from running by unchecking the mark.  You could also remove it by clicking on the application name and then clicking the remove button.

However, if you wish to add an application, click the add button and then enter the name and terminal command.  This is useful for such programs as window managers.  These same settings can be accessed by clicking System->Preferences->Sessions.

The next setting is one that I usually have to lookup since it either requires a terminal command or using the Configuration Editor.  However, Ubuntu Tweak makes adding icons to your desktop a breeze.

To do so, click the ‘Desktop’ tab on the left and you will see the following screen:

Next is the ‘Personal’ tab.  This allows you to change such settings as where your default folders are located, document templates, scripts, and keyboard shortcuts.

Here is a picture of the default user folder settings:

If you change these settings to where your data is stored it will save you time when importing music, pictures, video etc.  So now, when you go to save a document it will go to where your documents are, instead of simply to your home folder.

Lastly, the ‘System’ tab has some very cool settings for both GNOME and Nautilus.  However, the settings I would like to talk about are the Power Manager settings.

Some of these settings are hidden by default in Ubuntu. The only way I know to edit these settings is by using Ubuntu Tweak.  Here you can enable hibernation, suspend (aka standby), and CPU scaling:

The CPU frequency control is a great setting especially for laptops since you probably don’t want your system running at full speed when on battery power.  If you want to prolong your battery life in Ubuntu try reading these posts on battery saving: CPU Scaling and Save Battery Life with PowerTOP

Of course these are not the only settings you can change. I went over the settings I felt were most important.

If you have a setting I didn’t cover, please post in the comments!

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The first place to look for themes would be gnome-look.org. Click icon on the left. Or just click here. Search around for something that you like.

I like to keep my system looking dark since it doesn’t hurt my eyes too much. With my background being a night picture of London, it was only fitting for me to choose an icon theme that was mainly black. My favorite set is called black-white 2 gloss.

Once you’ve found your icon set, you will need to download it. I usually download everything to my desktop just so that I can find it easily, but that is up to you.

Your file should be a .tar file so you will need to extract it first. This can be done by right clicking the folder and selecting Extract Here. A new folder will have been created, this folder will be used in the next step.

To install the theme you will need to go to System -> Preferences -> Appearance

You should see something like this:

To install your new theme, highlight custom by clicking the custom box (top left) then click install (bottom right). This will open up a directory so just navigate to where ever you downloaded your file.

You will need to choose the file that was created when you extracted the original downloaded file. Once you’ve selected it, it will install and you should have new icons.

Don’t like it? Download some new ones and try each one out. If you can’t find anything you like and want to change it back to the original Ubuntu look, go to the appearance box (in the screenshot above) and scroll down and click ‘human’, then click close.

Did you change your theme? What icon set did you choose?

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