Category: Info

How to remove contacts from Google Wave?

It’s fairly simple, but you have to click a little but further.
I know there should be a remove-button inside the tool-tip when clicking on the contact’s avatar, but it’s not.

  1. Click the “Manage Contacts” link on the bottom of you contact-frame.

    2. wave_contacts

  2. Select the people you want to remove inside contactmanager
    wave_remove_contacts
  3. Then hit the remove button in the upper-right corner to remove them.

Note that only the contacts that have an @gmail.com adress will show up in the contact manager. People that only have an @googlewave.com address won’t show up.
But there’s no need to sweat. This has already been noted by the Google Wave team on this support page.

How to use the Google Wave Search box

The Google Wave interface is quite easy to get started, but some things may still be more complex than it first seemed.
One of these things is the search function.

At first the search function is only capable of searching for Blips that contain certain words and that are in some folder.
But after reading this Wave Support page you’ll see that there are much more ways to use the little search box.
Read trough the list of possible commands, and you’ll find a quite strong search box.

Also note that it’s possible to add multiple search commands in the box.
So or example, if you’re searching for all public posts that contain the word Ubuntu you can simply enter the search string:

with:public ubuntu

If you want to search the public waves for all the ones about WordPress and contain the word style, you just query for:

with:public title:wordpress style

The most important thing you can do after you triggered a query  is save it.

Saved searches help you find and filter waves, faster. Here’s how to save a search:

  1. In the Navigation panel, click (+) next to SEARCHES.
  2. Enter the appropriate details in the box that appears.
    * If you’d like to apply filters to waves matching your search criteria, use the Filter Actions in the box. Archive causes waves to skip the inbox, and selecting Mark as read will unbold all matching waves.
  3. Click Submit.

If you perform a search and decide you’d like to save the terms of that search, click Save search at the bottom of the search panel. The same box mentioned above will appear so you can further customize the search.

You can access your saved searches by expanding SEARCHES in your Navigation panel (click (+) next to SEARCHES). Like other options in the Navigation panel, you can edit, rename, reorder, and/or change the color of your saved searches using the More actions arrow next to the title of each of your searches.

Google Wave

Microsoft’s Bing.com is running on Linux servers

Ok, Windows Server 2003 was great, and Windows Server 2008 is even greater, as told by Microsoft @ the It-pro days in Ghent (Belgium) 2 years ago.
So, we’re going flat on the assumption that they’re using their own ‘great’ server technology for their own good.
After all, according to their website, Windows Server is cheaper, safer and better than any other technology around.

But wait, what’s this?

Bing_hosted_on_linux

As a search page should be quick, secure and efficient I agree you should use Linux, but I never saw this one coming!
Other searches for microsoft results in different linux hosted services beneath the microsoft.com domain.

wb.dlservice.microsoft.com
search.microsoft.com
vista.gallery.microsoft.com
social.microsoft.com
fullproduct.download.microsoft.com
silverlight.dlservice.microsoft.com (This one is even hosted on Ubuntu)

I know the saying: “Keep your friends close, but your enemy’s closer” (not sure who came up with this slogan), but this is way too funny!

The battle for a google wave invite has started

google_waveIn about 3 to 6 hours, Google Will start sending out 100.000 free Google Wave invites to people already using the sandbox and the ones who offered to help report bugs.
They already announced this on their blog on 20 july.

You might recognise this way of selling their product from the Gmail launch.
By using the invite-system they create some kind of temporary ‘exclusive’ product, and it works!
Back in the time when Gmail was launched, people sold their accounts for huge amounts of money, or traded the invites for a cell-phone.

I wonder if they’ll have the same result with their Wave-invite scheme.
As things are going now, it seems like it’ll be a success.
On Reddit, each topic on Google Wave is resulting in a mass request for invites.
Ofc, Twitter has the Google Wave plague too…
They’re even getting trough to eBay (at the time of writing, at $202 with FREE SHIPPING).
But I guess these guys are pure scams, as there are no invites send yet!)

I just can’t wait to get my hands on to this service, but I won’t pay for it.
In a few months we all get a bunch of free invites to give away…. Don’t forget they’ll try to conquer the internet with this.
To get to this, they’ll have to provite enough invites for the whole world!

So for those not getting the invite, be patiënt…. (I’m more talking to myself right here 😉

[Update] Websites’s put up for sharing invites or people selling invites are pure scams (if they’re still running their service)!
The Google Wave team has confirmed that they’re not allowing anyone to share invites.
You can read so on the twitter status of one of the mayor developers: twaphanie

How to change the DNS servers in Ubuntu

You might want to change the DNS server if your ISP’s servers can sometimes be slow or outdated.

sudo gedit /etc/resolv.conf

and change or add the lines:

nameserver your_DNS1
nameserver your_DNS2

You can add as many lines like these, but two should be enough.
Test the used domain name servers careful!

#dns-nameserver 192.168.0.1
#dns-nameservers 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.2
#dns-search somedomain.org
#dns-domain 192.168.0.1

Edit: Serge’s comment (the first one) made me search a little bit.
After searching google it wasn’t totally clear if the DNS should be configured in resolv.cof or /etc/network/interfaces, so I took the GUI for a spin.
I’ve set up the DNS trough the GUI and checked the changes inside both locations.
The DNS servers I addes, became listed inside the /etc/resolv.conf file.
So after all, I was right.
But as the configuration file starts with the line #Generated by NetworkManager, I was wondering if these settings would get overwritten by the NetworkManager.
So I wiped all configured interfaces from my computer and let the NetworkManager try its evil.
It worked like a charm and just added the line ‘domain morraye.local’ to the file, without erasing my dns settings.
This was tested on Ubuntu 9.04 and Ubuntu 9.10.

You might also want to play with these settings in your resolv.conf file

# dns-domain 208.67.222.222
# dns-nameserver 208.67.222.222
# dns-nameservers 208.67.222.222 208.67.220.220
# dns-search wikipedia.org

Note: When you’re behind a router, you should change the dns server at your router (unless it uses pass-trough DNS lookups)

Forwarding of the so-called ‘funny’ mail isn’t funny anymore!

Screenshot-2Everyone knows them. The so-called ‘funny’ mails.
Most of the time they contain a hoax, a big-ass picture, a power-point presentation or a video clip.
On top of this, they usually also contain a huge list of mail-addresses from people you don’t even know.

By this post, I’d like to point out that not all people like these mails unlike what some people tend to think.
Consider that there are people that get a lot of serious mail. (yes, it can be used in such manner)
You might not be aware of it, but reading all those mails take an huge amount of time.
These people are constantly fighting against unwanted messages as it consumes way too much time.
This is not such a big deal, but it gets harder if their mail-address is being used in a inappropriate way.

By inappropriate I mean that their mail-address, along with a lot of other addresses, is put inside the ‘cc:’ field, making it visible to all people ever receiving that mail.
If you’re not aware of the implications, just imagine that your home address or your cell-number is published instead of your mail address.
Some people use this medium for work related communications or for serious business. The so funny mails become quite annoying in this context.
In the end, they are unwanted messages, also called spam.

I understand that you might want to share the funny stuff with people you know.
But take some actions to prevent spamming people.

Things you can do

  • Use the BCC: field to place the mail-addresses in.
    This will prevent you from distributing people’s address to the world.
    You can do this in Outlook .
  • Think twice when forwarding a mail to your contacts.
    Differentiate people that use the mail-system for social contacts and those that use it for serious business.
    You can do this by making distribution listsin Outlook or Windows Live (alias hotmail), categorizing these people.
    This makes it also faster and easier to send the mails.
  • If someone answers your mail asking you to stop sending this kind of mails, don’t ignore it.
    That person will possibly just block all your mails, resulting in the ignorance of serious mails.

For an overview of the email etiquette you can check out this website for a nice and comprehensive list of things you should know before using any mail-system.

The problem of starting linux

engine_startI was recently reading a discussion on the release of Windows 7.
The article went into detail when it came to the different versions that will be sold. There will be 7.
In the comment-section, I noted quite a lot of people arguing that this is too much to choose from for home users.
Well then, let’s take those people’s vision and apply it to the world of Linux.

Let’s go on a journey with someone eager to start using Linux (without a live cd).

Let’s say this is one of the wonderfull people informing themselves before they actually start doing something.
Then this user would trigger a search query on his favorite search engine for the value Linux.
Linux.org is probably the first link that will be hit, as the first result has a 42% chance of getting selected.

On Linux.org he/she’ll be learning a little on the principles of linux and the GNU licence.
After a bit of reading, she’ll know how wonderful linux is and appreciate the idea of openness.

As our imaginary person has a simple old spare computer that can be used to testdrive linux, he/she is convinced and ready to download her own copy.
But there is the first problem: Which linux distribution?

Continue reading The problem of starting linux

Weird requests on the website

I was looking at the stats for mimor.be and I was a bit surprised to see these easy attempts to compromise data from the website.
There were several 404 errors returned on files with names such as:

  • /packet.mdb
  • /wwwroot.zip
  • /shop.rar
  • /shop.zip
  • /site.rar
  • /web.rar
  • /web.zip
  • /www.zip
  • /www.rar
  • /tomdb.mdb
  • /shop.mdb
  • /shoes.rar
  • /wwwroot.rar
  • /HSH.mdb
  • /site.zip
  • /HYTop.mdb

Continue reading Weird requests on the website

Jaunty Release-Party Ghent 09/05

I’m glad to announce:

On the 9th of may, there will be a Jaunty release party in Ghent! (free entrance)

First Promo Poster

The goal(s):

  • to provide general information on Ubuntu, Linux & FOSS, and show them you don’t need to be a pro to start using it
  • guiding people trough the sea of alternatives for proprietary software such as MS Office, Live Messenger, Photoshop, Publisher, Windows Media Player, Picture managers,…
  • help people getting Ubuntu installed on their laptop if they bring one along
  • show each-other nice tweaks you’ve got up your sleeves or admire the work of others
  • demo’s on how to use Ubuntu in an efficient way
  • introducing people to the Ubuntu-be LoCo-team! Let them know what we do, how they benefit & help.
  • hand out Ubuntu cd’s Continue reading Jaunty Release-Party Ghent 09/05