The Digital Wanderlust

Howto: Enable circular scrolling and more on your laptops synaptics touchpad

noreply@blogger.com (The Wanderer) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 09:00:00 +0000

Do you love the way you scroll on your ipod? Ever wished to enable it in your laptop? Wait no more...follow the below instructions...

First make sure you have the synaptics touch pad driver for XOrg/XFree86 installed.If you are using Ubuntu Hardy it will be installed by default...
Just make sure that xserver-xorg-input-synaptics package is installed.

In arch linux install the synaptics package with

pacman -S synaptics

Then edit your xorg.conf file

sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf

find the input section

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"

Add the following lines in BLUE to that section

Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "on"
Option "VertEdgeScroll" "on"
Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "on"
Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "on"
Option "CornerCoasting" "on"
Option "PalmDetect" "on"
Option "CircularScrolling" "on"
Option "CircScrollTrigger" "3"
EndSection

Done .. logout and login again and enjoy the jail broken iPad :-)

Oh wait..forgot to tell you what those options does.

Circular Scrolling

Option "CircularScrolling" "on"
Option "CircScrollTrigger" "3"

Instead of (or additional to) scrolling horizontally or vertically, you can scroll circularly. Some users find this faster and more precise.The option CircScrollTrigger may be one of the following values, determining on which edge circular scrolling should start:

0 All Edges
1 Top Edge
2 Top Right Corner
3 Right Edge
4 Bottom Right Corner
5 Bottom Edge
6 Bottom Left Corner
7 Left Edge
8 Top Left Corner

Specifying something different from zero may be useful if you want to use circular scrolling in conjunction with horizontal and / or vertical scrolling. If you do so, the type of scrolling is determined by the edge you're starting.
To scroll fast, draw small circles in the center of your touchpad. To scroll slow and more precise, draw large circles

Two Fingers scrolling

Option "VertTwoFingerScroll" "on"
Option "HorizTwoFingerScroll" "on"

Instead of just scrolling on the side of your touchpad you can also scroll using two fingers togheter. You might have seen this on Macbooks which uses this approach as default on Mac OSX.

You will get a two finger enabled touchpad which supports top-bottom and left-right scrolling as well as regular lateral scrolling

The normal stuff + Corner coasting

Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "on"
Option "VertEdgeScroll" "on"
Option "CornerCoasting" "on"

VertEdgeScroll enables vertical scrolling when dragging along the right edge.
HorizEdgeScroll enables horizontal scrolling when dragging along the bottom edge.
CornerCoasting enables edge scrolling to continue while the finger stays in an edge corner.

PalmDetect

Option "PalmDetect" "on"

Turns on palm detection. Ignores if your palm touches the pad while typing

Two finger and Three finger taps
If the touchpad is tapped with two fingers, it will emulate a middle click. If the touchpad is typed with three fingers, a right click will be emulated. Its enabled by default.

Home page of synaptics driver
http://web.telia.com/~u89404340/touchpad/index.html

Supercharge your Blogging with these firefox 3 extensions

noreply@blogger.com (The Wanderer) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:03:00 +0000

1. ScribeFire

ScribeFire is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog. You can drag and drop formatted text from pages you are browsing, take notes, upload images, and post to multiple blogs.

Try it to feel the difference from the online editors. And if you don't like the half-screen mode you can always customize it to open in a new tab or a new window.

It supports almost all blogging services including Blogger,Wordpress,Movable Type and Drupal

Add to Firefox

2. Clipmarks

Like scissors for web pages, Clipmarks lets you capture the specific content on a web page that you want others to see.Once you've clipped something, you can share it anywhere on the web, including Facebook, your blog, by email or on clipmarks.com.
Clipmarks offers direct integration with wordpress, blogger, typepad, live journal and other blogging platforms, enabling you to post anything you clip from a web page directly to your blog

Check out a demo here

Add to Firefox

3. DashBlog

DashBlog lets you quickly collect videos, images, text/quotes, songs and screen-captures from any web page and publish them to your blog.
You can also do a screen capture and then draw, comment, crop and post all with one simple click.

It supports word press, blogger/ blogspot, tumblr and twitter.

Add to Firefox

4. CoLT

CoLT makes it easy to copy either a hyperlink's text or both the link and the link's text (in a format you specify). Two handy context-menu items make this possible, and don't add clutter; the items are only visible when right-clicking a link!

The "Copy Link Text" menu item copies a hyperlink's associated text to the clipboard, while the "Copy Link Text and Location" menu item copies both the hyperlink's text and URL to the clipboard in the format you choose: either as plain text, as an HTML hyperlink, or as a custom format (which you may specify). A very handy tool for blogs

Add to Firefox

5. TwitterBar

TwitterBar allows you to post to Twitter from Firefox's address bar. A small unobtrusive grey icon sits to the right of your address bar; clicking on it will post your tweet, and you can hover your mouse over it to see how many characters you have left. You can also post by typing "--post" at the end of your tweet. Clicking the grey icon when visiting a webpage will send a tweet with the URL of the webpage you are currently viewing.

Add to Firefox

6. Web Developer

Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools. If you are thinking of tweaking you blog design this extension is a must have

A similar if not better extension firebug is not Firefox 3 compatible as of now.

Add to Firefox

7. LinkChecker

Check the validity of links on any webpage .. quite useful after posting to check if you have any broken links

8. Shareaholic

Shareaholic allows you to share, bookmark, and e-mail web pages quickly via a wide array of web 2.0 social websites without cluttering up your browser. Shareaholic currently supports: digg, del.icio.us, facebook, foxiewire, friendfeed, google bookmarks, google reader, healthranker, magnolia, mixx, reddit, simpy, stumbleupon, streakr, truemors, tumblr, twitter, bzzster, etc..
Gives a live status of your post on these websites .The best way to check how your post is doing on these sites.

Add to Firefox

9. SearchStatus

Display the Google PageRank, Alexa rank and Compete ranking anywhere in your browser, along with fast keyword density analyser,
keyword/nofollow highlighting, backward/related links, Alexa info and more

Add to Firefox

10. Extended Copy Menu

It adds a "Copy As Html" and "Copy As Plain Text" to the context (right-click) menu. It is useful if you want to copy the text or underlying html from a web page into documents, posts or other applications. Pretty useful if you don't want to mess up all formatting while copying and pasting into your blog post.

Add to Firefox

11. Adsense Notifier

For the greedy, it displays your Adsense earnings on the statusbar

Add to Firefox

And finally Dummy Lipsum when you run out of ideas to write ;-)

Android : A sneak peek at the future of online gaming...

noreply@blogger.com (The Wanderer) — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:54:00 +0000

The online gaming world hasnt seen much of the so called ¨Real innovation¨ in the last few decades. The progress from old MUDS to modern MMORPG was only in terms of technology. There was not much of a change in the game play or the basic idea. All that is going to change in a few months. City Slickers, one of the Top 50 submissions of the Google Android Developer Challenge 2008 is going bring a breath of fresh air into the world of multi player online gaming.

From the home page of the developers

City Slikkers is a Pervasive Game (alternatively Location Based Game) which takes place in the real-existing city. It is designed to connect a large number of players through-out the world and change the way the surroundings are seen. The central idea behind the concept is to give people the opportunity to symbolically interfere with the everyday urban environment and come into contact with previously unknown people.

By introducing a metaphorical recapture of the city‘s elements (buildings, squares, streets), a virtual reorganization of the urban space leads to a new relationship between the players and their environment. In the sacred space of the game world, the city is under their control thus giving the players a feeling of superiority. As the playing community will always be a minority they hereby form some kind of elitist, secret society which is based on knowledge, but not financial or political power.

The interactions are only accessible through physical movement in the urban space and the use of a mobile device which acts as some kind of third eye. The players are always connected to a server and located using GPS technology. This allows an alternative view on the surrounding world and lets players manipulate objects to see and experience for others in realtime.

The players in action form packs, hordes, and gangs. They contrast with the institutionalized and organized space and give it spontaneity and dynamics. To develop into the leading group, players have to team up so that they are able to combine resources and strength.

The game progress is visualized through a 3-dimensional sculpture in a publicly installed videoinstallation, so that the game also affects these people not involved directly by giving them a hint that the situation is somehow different. Secret societies which, metaphorically of course, are about to take over the private and public urban space.

The game combines elements of strategy, role-playing, sports, social and tactical games, but in contrast to popular MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games), the outcome of the actions as well as the new connections made between people, will affect normal life as the everyday city is no longer the same due to the players‘ experience

The game is going to be played by players carrying android phones which are connected to a central game server and are located by using GPS technology.

Although its still in development phase , the idea is really revolutionary . Just think of the possibilities. The way it is going to change the nature of interaction between players. Think about the possibility of meeting other gamers in real life while playing. Think about legions and gangs and armies you can form. Think about the interaction with the surroundings in a sort of ¨Davinci Code¨istic way. Think about the missions which have to be completed in real life. I just cant wait to get my hands on it.

May be the only drawback is that gamers cant remain couch potatos ;-) .They will be running around the city , feverishly searching for clues and stuff .Or may be its a good thing..aint it :-). And if u are unlucky the sexy chick u met in the game may turn out to be sporting a beard.

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Firefox 3 Gmail web mail handler bug fixed

noreply@blogger.com (The Wanderer) — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:46:00 +0000

For all the Gmail fans who are frustrated by the absence of Gmail in Firefox3 to open their mailto links(or the inclusion of Yahoo mail there ;-) )

A new gmail url is released which accepts the mailto url directly. So Firefox 3 users can now use Gmail as their default mailto: handler .

How to do this.

1. set gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost to true in about:config

2. Run this in address line
javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","http://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","GMail")

Firefox will ask permission to add this as default mailto handler..say yes

3. Next time u click a mailto link it will ask which app to choose...choose Gmail.....you are done

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Dual boot - Boot linux using the Dell Media direct button and windows using power button in 2 easy steps

noreply@blogger.com (The Wanderer) — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:15:00 +0000

Note: Tested with Media Direct 3....cant guarantee for 1 and 2 try at your own risk
Note2. Expected that you already have a working Dual boot setup up and running.

Most of us don't use the Media direct functionality that comes bundled with Dell and would have removed it. The Media direct button which is used for launching it (the button with home symbol on it) can be used to boot into Linux.
Press MD button -> Boot into Linux
Press Power button -> Boot into windows

Before starting backup your MBR using dd command
dd if=/dev/sda of=path/sda.mbr count=1 bs=512
if anything goes wrong you can restore MBR using
dd if=path/sda.mbr of=/dev/sda

Step 1. Install grub to a primary partition.Here im installing it to my last primary partition under which i have my linux extended partitions.(Even if you have it installed to MBR no problem..just install it again to another primary partition....the second step will overwrite your MBR)

grub-install /dev/sda4

reboot to windows

Step 2. Put in the Media direct 3 CD that comes with your dell laptop.Start cmd (in vista u have to run as administrator)

cd H:\DellKit
rmbr.exe DELL 1 4

here 1 is for your Windows partition and 4 is for the partition which u have installed grub to )

Done.Shutdown.

Optional step. Set grub timeout to 0 in boot/grub/menu.lst and it wont show the grub menu.

Next time u press the power button it will boot into XP/Vista(Or XP + vista if u have both :-) ) and if u press Media Direct button it will boot into linux.
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HOWTO - Run Backtrack3 from iso on harddisk in 5 steps

noreply@blogger.com (The Wanderer) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:12:00 +0000

I used to run backtrack3 from CD quite often but it was a hassle to carry the cd around. Moreover i already had a few OSs installed in my laptop..so installation to harddisk was also ruled out as i didnt want to mess up my partitions . So this is what i did to run it directly from the iso on my harddisk

I used grub but this may work on lilo also.This may work for all Slax based distros since it uses the "slax from=" option

1. Get Backtrack3 iso from http://www.remote-exploit.org/backtrack_download.html

2. Mount the iso file
sudo mount -o loop /path/to/iso/bt3b141207.iso ./backtrackiso

3. Copy the vmlinuz and initrd.gz files from backtrackiso/boot to your boot dir as vmlinuz-backtrack & initrd.backtrack.gz

4. Insert this to your /boot/grub/menu.lst

title Backtrack-from-iso
root (hd0,6) This should be the partition with your boot
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-backtrack slax from=/dev/sda10/path/to/iso/bt3b141207.iso root=/dev/ram0 sda10 is where i have my iso file
initrd /boot/initrd.backtrack.gz

5. Save and reboot. If everything goes fine you will boot into BT3