Some of the options are perhaps not necessary, but I’m sick of trial and error so they will stay! I post this because I’ve seen similar problems with no solutions in forums. So if you are having random crashes with ubuntu feisty… try that grub line out.

ro quiet splash noapic irqpoll noacpi acpi=off

the irqpoll is for the usb ports……

Chuck this in your .bash_aliases file (if you have enabled it) and you will be able to recursively remove those pesky hidden svn folders from a directory tree with rmsvn:


alias rmsvn="find . -name '*.svn' -exec rm -rf {} \;"


I was complaining to someone the other day about how most text editors fail to deal with large files. I was trying to edit a 8mb sql file and my default editors eclipse and cream (a vim extension) both couldn’t handle it. I then tried emacs and jEdit neither of which I particularly like. jEdit at least opened the file. But the interface is clunky and on my system at least, wont go past 800×600 screen real estate….

In the end I made all the text edits to the sql file using sed which is a handy (and quick) command line tool. But I was still disturbed….

Anyway, I read a blog post somewhere that said scribes was the go. So I installed it and gave it a whirl on my latest sql file which was 38mb.

It took a few seconds to open, but it DID open and the first thing you notice is that (for gnome users at least) it looks like a gnome editor (unlike jEdit which screams “I was made in the 90’s in java“).

The template system is also very cool. It reminds me a little of swanky Mac people and their TextMate. Rather than me trying to describe it go here and look at the example video. Which also shows the bookmark feature which is cool. Check out its other features here. Oh and its open source too…of course.

anyway i came across this guide on digg that looked too easy and bomb-proof that i thought i’d give it another go. it all was as easy as the three steps in the guide and the effects are way better than what i expected. the eye-candy is as good as anything elsewhere (think osx, expose etc) but the thing i like is dapper feels a little bit snappier. i used to get annoyed with the way windows dragged in linux – it always felt stunted and slow, but xgl/compiz makes linux feel as snappy as windows (and thats including fading up or fading in or wobbling to where ever you move it).

i can already see masses of eye-candy kids swarming to linux just for the effects.

This effect occurs when moving between workspaces. It can also be controlled by pressing CRTL-ALT and dragging the mouse. Its very smooth.

This is showing the expose (osx) effect, again very fast and very smooth.

technorati tags: xgl, compiz, ubuntu, dapper

It even has a very cool ‘Drag stuff to blog it’ area.

I’m not keen on the blue icons – but its better than a lot of gnome programs out there

I was about to say – its a shame it doesn’t have built in spellcheck, but then I did a right-click and of course there it is. Nice one. 

To add the screen shot above, Flock logged into Flickr for me, uploaded my photo, then allowed me to drag and drop it into this post. This app is ace. I was using Epiphany as Firefox was dragging down the system when eclipse is open – but I think I might switch on over.