Be a Rebel

• Picasa Previews:
  Imagine you have been sent an invitation to view a Picasa Album, but you just want to have a preview of Snaps in the web album before deciding if you actaully want to view the whole album. This plugin helps you just doing that. Enable “Picasa previews in email by Dan, Stanley Mark and Umesh”.
  

  Enable Picasa Preview
  And you will be able to see the Picasa Snaps previews just in your mail whenever you receive any invitation from anyone to view their picasa album.
  

  Picasa Preview in Gmail
• Google Docs Preview:
  This plugin let’s you view Google Docs directly in your mail. Enable the plugin “Google Docs previews in mail”.
  

  Enable google docs preview
  After this whenver you receive any Google Doc, you will see a “Show Preview” option next to that Doc icon like below:
  

  ‘Show Preview’ in Gmail
  After clicking this “Show Preview” you will be able to directly view thw document…
  

  Google Doc preview in mail
• Quick Links:
  Sometimes you get mails which you may need in future, or just want to access anytime. One thing which can help is Google Label, but creating a Label just for a single mail is not a great idea. What you can do is enable “Quick Links by Dan P” like this…
  

  Enable Quick Links
  And when you have “that” mail open click on “Add Quick Link” from “Quick Links” widget. A box will pop up confirming to add the quick link. Choose the name for your quick link there and click “OK”.
  

  Creating Quick Links
  Now you can access the quick link from the Quick Link widget on left side.
  

  Quick Links Widget
• Superstars:
  How many times have you missed the variation in kind of “Stars” in Gmail. You can just start an item or not star it. Did you miss the functionality of having a graded start system, where you can set Red Star for an important mail, Green Star for a less important mail… Your search ends with this labs feature – Superstars. Go to Gmail Labs, and enable “Superstars by Kai H and Julie W”.
  

  Enable Superstars
  Then go to “Settings” and choose the Stars you want to use by dragging them from “Not in use” to “In use”.
  

  Setting up Superstars
  You can remove the Stars you do not want by dragging them from “In use” to “Not in use”. Now go to any mail and click on the Star there and keep clicking till you the appropriate star… 🙂
• Pictures in Chat:
  This is what I always wanted in chat… This let’s you see the photo/avtaar of the person who you are chatting with. Just enable “Pictures in chat by Dave C” and you are done.
  

  Phots in Gtalk
• Signature Tweaks:
  Tell me aren’t you annoyed when Gmail places your signatures at the bootom of mails when you reply or forward a mail, normally we all want our Signatures to be placed just below the text we write or above the text of reply/forward. This labs feature let’s you just do that. Enable
  

  Enable Signature Tweak
  “Signature tweaks” by Keith C and Dave C. Now when you reply or forward a mail your signature will appear as:
  

  Signature Tweak
  Is this what you always wanted… 🙂
• Old Snakey:
  I remember getting hooked to Snake on my Nokia 3315. With time that old Snakey got lost somewhere in the maze of technology, but I re-found that old snakey hidden in Gmail labs.. Enable “Old Snakey” by Dave C.
  

  Enable Old Snakey
  Now relax, lay back and enjoy your favourite game, but do not forget to enable Keyboard shotcuts for Gmail before that, as you will need to hit “&” on your keyboard to play this game.
• Right Side Chat:
  I do not like all the widgets stacked up on the left side in Gmail, especially the Gtalk widget. I always wanted Gtalk widget to be on the right side in Gmail, and “Right-side chat” by Emily C just let’s be do that. Enable it from labs page.
  

  Right Side Chat
• Mark as Read button:
  You, like me sometimes want to mark some mail “Read” as quickly as possible. So, go and enable “Mark as Read Button” by Mark K from labs
  

  Enable Mark as Read Button
  Now, you will see a button like this in your gmail.
  

  Mark as Read Button
• Default Text Styling:
  Do you get irritated by always being forced to format the mail to set your font and colors before sending it. Now all you have to do is enable “Default Text Styling” by Jonathan K from labs.
  

  Enable Default Text
  Now go to “Settings” tab and set you default font and color. From Now on you do not need to format your mails everytime before sending them.
• Authentication icon for verified senders:
  This is just one more additional feature which helps you in not getting fleeced by someone on the big bad world of Internet. Enable “Authentication icon for verified senders” by E R…
  

  Enable Authentication
  And you will be able to see this kind of key icon from certain senders which spammers try to fake.
  

  Authentication Key
  And you will be able to see this kind of key icon from certain senders which spammers try to fake.
  

  Authentication Key
  This only works for PayPal and eBay as of now.
• Send & Archive:
  This feature let’s you archive a mail which you are sending. Enable “Send & Archive” by Pal T.
  

  Enable Send and Archive
• Undo Send:
  Oh… How could I hit the send button before finsihing it!!! Felt like that sometime? Now enable “Undo Send” feature by Yuzo F and you will never send intended or unfinished messages to anyone.
  

  Enable Undo Send Mail
  You will get two options with this feature:
  • Able to cancel sending mail.
    

    Cancel Sending of Mail
  • Even if the mail is sent, you will be able to “Undo” the send, but this feature will be available just for a few moments, before the mail is delivered to the receipent.
    

    Recall the sent mail
• Title Tweaks:
  Do you need to switch to the brwoser again and again to know if you have received some new mail? Imagine if you get to know of any new mails from the minimized browser itself… Enable “Title Tweaks” by Fedor K.
  

  Enable Title Tweak
  The minimed browser from your panel will look like this now:
  

  Title Tweak
  Telling you the number of mails in your Inbox.
• Hide read labels:
  Have you created a large number of “Labels” to manage your mails… And obviously you do not want to all the Lables to take up all the space on left side in Gmail. So enable “Hide read labels” by Damian G & David de K.
  

  Enable Hide Read Labels
  Now, only Labels which have unread mails in them will be displayed and others will be hidden which you can access by clicking the drop down arrow.
• Inserting images:
  Want to insert images directly into your mail instead of sending them as attachments??
  

  Enable imbedding Pictures in Mail
• Extra Emoji:
  Feel Gmail does not have emoticons for your emotions :), enable “Extra Emoji” by Yuzo F and put your emotions in your mails
  

  Enable Xtra Emoji
• Google Docs gadget:
  If you use Google Docs extensively like I do, you may like this feature which displays a Goole Doc widegt in which your recent Google documents will be displayed. Enable “Google Docs gadget” by Claudia C and Ted C.
  

  Enable Google Docs Gadget
  Google Docs gadget will appear on the left side if your Gmail…
  
  Google Docs Gadget

How many of you have really wanted to access your documents from anywhere anytime without carrying pen drives and hard disk drives with you every where. Yes, you have google docs for that. But then some people do not want to be connected to the Internet all the time, and not everyone is comfortable editing their documents on line. So what do we do. That is where OpenOffice Google Docs plug in comes in handy. Download the OpenOffice Google Docs plugin from here. Install it using the OpenOffice extension manager.

After installing restart OpenOffice. The OpenOffice quick starter may also be running, so quit from it and restart the whole OpenOffice application. You may have to install and restart the application more than one time, as it took me 4-5 re-installations and 4-5 restarts to ultimately get the Google Docs plugin toolbar :), which looks like the toolbar in the second image:

Click on the first or second icon which are “Export to Google Docs” and “Import from Google Docs” actions. This will open a window for entering your google account credentials. Fill in your login details and then click on the Get List button. Here is the image:

OK.. we know than we do not to worry about any hardware drivers in Linux as Linux Kernel takes care of all that. But what if we want to install a different driver. What if Kernel does not install the right driver. Recently I had to face this problem. The network card installed on my system is RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (ReaLtek Product) and the default driver Kernel installed was r8169 while the correct driver is r8168.

So here we go about the thing now…

(The below changes have been done in openSUSE11.1, Kernel 2.6.27)

collectNWData.sh V0.6.1.15 (Rev: 1.165, Build: 2009/09/02 18:39:22)
--- Which type of your network connection should be tested?
--- (1) Wired connection
--- What's the type of networktopology?
--- (1) DSL modem <---> LinuxClient
--- On which host is the script executed?
--- (1) LinuxClient
!!! CND0120E: Network card eth0 has no IP address
!!! CND0300E: No dhcp server found on interface eth0
!!! CND0230W: IPV6 enabled
!!! CND0310W: Classic network configuration with ifup was detected. Configuration with knetworkmanager is much easier
--- Go to http://www.linux-tips-and-tricks.de/CND#English to get more detailed instructions about the error/warning messages and how to fix the problems
--- If you still don't have success then post the contents of file collectNWData.txt in the net (see http://www.linux-tips-and-tricks.de/CND_UPL#English for links) and then the nopaste link on your favorite Linux forum.
==================================================================================================================
==================================================================================================================
…
…
34: PCI 900.0: 0200 Ethernet controller
Model: "Realtek RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller"
Vendor: pci 0x10ec "Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd."
Device: pci 0x8168 "RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller"
SubVendor: pci 0x103c "Hewlett-Packard Company"
SubDevice: pci 0x3061 
Driver: "r8169"
Driver Modules: "r8169"
Device File: eth0
Link detected: no
Driver Status: r8169 is active
Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe r8169"

 #000000; padding: 0.15cm; margin-left: 0.5cm; margin-right: 0.5cm; font-weight: normal; text-align: left;"> #stop the network
$ rcnetwork stop

#remove r8169 driver
$ rmmod r8169

 #000000; padding: 0.15cm; margin-left: 0.5cm; margin-right: 0.5cm; text-align: left;">$  cd
$ tar xjf r8168-8.014.00.tar.bz2
$ cd 8168-8.014.00

 #000000; padding: 0.15cm; margin-left: 0.5cm; margin-right: 0.5cm; text-align: left;">$ make clean
$ make modules
$ make install

 #000000; padding: 0.15cm; margin-left: 0.5cm; margin-right: 0.5cm; text-align: left;">$ echo "blacklist r8169n" >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist
$ mv /lib/modules/uname -r/kernel/drivers/net/r8169.ko /lib/modules/uname -r
/kernel/drivers/net/r8169.ko.old

 #000000; padding: 0.15cm; margin-left: 0.5cm; margin-right: 0.5cm; text-align: left;">$ depmod
$ insmod src/r8168.ko
$ ifconfig -a

 #000000; padding: 0.15cm; margin-left: 0.5cm; margin-right: 0.5cm; text-align: left;"> # The Ethernet card
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

 #000000; padding: 0.15cm; margin-left: 0.5cm; margin-right: 0.5cm; text-align: left;"> # The Ethernet card
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

 #000000; padding: 0.15cm; margin-left: 0.5cm; margin-right: 0.5cm; text-align: left;">$ ifdown eth0
$ ifup eth0
$ rcnetwork start

Recently I bought a Reliance USB stick (So that I can use my Laptop as a truly portable machine). Right now I am using openSUSE 11.1 which uses Linux Kernel 2.6.27, which is I say is obsolete in this world of rapid technical changes (Even though Linux Kernel 2.6.27 is somewhat just a year old).

So when I plugged in my newly acquired USB modem into my laptop… my system could not detect it as a modem, but just as a USB storage device. So what to do!

Here are the steps I took to make my system recognize it as a USB modem.

First plug in the USB device in the system and after 5-10 seconds get the output of “lsusb” from the konsole (or any command line tool you use). Here is my output:

On the USB device box it was written that the device was a Huawei one. So the first line from the output is what I need. The part I have bolded is what we need. It is vendor id and device id of the USB device. The product id is “0x140b” and vendor id is “0x12d1”.

Execute the below commands to make system stops recognizing the modem as USB storage device. Before giving out the “eject” command make sure that the device you are ejecting is USB modem. You can use “dmesg” to get this information.

$ eject /dev/sr1

$ modprobe -r usb-storage usbserial

$ modeprobe usbserial vendor=0x12d1 product=0x140b

Now as the device is successfully ejected and we can proceed further.

You will get three devices now:
/dev/ttyUSB0
/devttyUSB1
/dev/ttyUSB2
/dev/ttyUSB0 is the modem, use only this device. /dev/ttyUSB1 is the control channel, /dev/ttyUSB2 is doing GSM checks.
Make changes in /etc/wvdial.conf. Here are my chanages:

Run wvdial and you are connected to the world wide web 🙂

In place of wvdial you can also use kinternet. Just use settings –> configure with Yast –> add modem, and in the modem name put /dev/ttyUSB0

This may seem a lot of work to do, but we can automate this whole process which I will be putting down in my next blog 🙂

This problem has been solved in Linux Kernel 2.6.29 and greater (I am not sure about Kernel 2.6.28).

Have a nice time…