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Archive for the ‘DIY’ Category

Installing Hardwood Flooring on Stairs

January 9th, 2009

Installing Hardwood Flooring on Stairs

hardwood-stairs002

After finally getting my hardwood stairs completed, I felt it was time to post my notes so that others do not have to go through all the greif that I did to get my stairs completed. Posting my completed stair pictures to the Toolmonger flickr pool resulted in many emails requesting help on accomplishing the same thing. Unfortunately, there is no single resource for installing Hardwood stairs on the Internet, so here goes…

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DIY, Home Improvement, projects , , , , , , ,

Switching to Xubuntu

August 13th, 2007

xubuntulogo.png

I origionally switched to Linux over 10 years ago because my modest hardware could not keep up with Windows, and I was rewarded with a reliable, stable, and responive system. Fast forward 8 years and I am now a very satisfied Ubuntu user, however, I have never been a fan of desktop enviroments such as GNOME and KDE. I normaly prefere something very light weight such as WindowMaker.However, I found a way to keep a “mostly default” Ubuntu install with a light weight desktop. I had used Xfce a couple of years ago while experimenting with Redhat 8,9 and Fedora, and I quite enjoyed it.

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articles, DIY, howto, linux, reviews, tech, ubuntu

iPhone disassembly

June 29th, 2007

iphone.jpgI knew it wouldn’t take long for this to happen, the first iPhone disassembly pictures have been released. Since we don’t have the iPhone in Canada yet, we’ll have to live vicariously over the Internet for now.

The Boy Genius Report also has coverage, including user photos, and their official iPhone unboxing photos.

It will be interesting to hear the user reviews once they have had the phone for a while.

apple, DIY, iPhone, tech

LifeHacker Top 10 Ubuntu applications

June 2nd, 2007

LifeHacker has chosen their ten favorite Ubuntu Linux applications that are exclusive to GNU/Linux. The list includes everything including 3D Desktop, mouse gestures, and a couple of applications that will save you a lot of time. A couple of the applications are blatantly obvious, but the list is good starting point for the new Ubuntu user.

What applications are on your top 10 list?

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DIY, linux, tech, ubuntu

Installing Thunderbird 2 in Ubuntu 7.04

May 1st, 2007

thunderbird-logo.pngAfter updating to Ubuntu 7.04 “Fiesty Fawn” I was surprised to find out that it did not come with Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0. Well, this happened because the new version of Mozilla’s popular email program was released a couple of days after Fiesty Fawn, at which point it was simply to late.

If you want to install and use Thunderbird 2.0, here is your quick and dirty guide:

The first thing we need to do is download Thunderbird 2 from Mozilla, save it to somewhere you will remember, the default is your Desktop under Ubuntu. This brief how to will assume that you saved the file to your Desktop.

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articles, DIY, howto, linux, tech, ubuntu

snd-hda-intel and Ubuntu 7.04

April 28th, 2007

satpro_a100.jpgAfter upgrading my Toshiba Satellite Pro A100 laptop to Ubuntu 7.04 “Feisty Fawn” my sound card stopped working. The only mixer options available are related to the built in 56k dial up modem.

My A100 uses an ATI SB450 soundcard, which worked out of the box in 6.06, 6.10, and the early beta stages of 7.04. From what I can see, this problem is related to the release kernel not detecting the sound card model correctly.

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articles, DIY, howto, linux, tech, ubuntu

Automatix2 for Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn)

April 9th, 2007

ubuntu-300.pngAutomatix2 for Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn i386 has been released. Get it while its hot!

Automatix adds an easy to use interface for installing 3rd party packages that are not maintained by Ubuntu, or the Ubuntu community, these typically consist of commercial packes such as Google Earth, Windows Media Codecs etc.

Here is the quick and dirty way to get started with Ubuntu Feisty Fawn (7.04):

  1. sudo apt-get install python (if you do not already have python 2.4 installed)
  2. wget http://www.getautomatix.com/apt/dists/feisty/main/binary-i386/automatix2_1.1-3.5-7.04feisty_i386.deb
  3. sudo dpkg -i automatix2_1.1-3.5-7.04feisty_i386.deb
  4. automatix2

Follow the directions on screen and enjoy. Please note that Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, 7.04 is currently beta.

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articles, DIY, howto, linux, news, tech, ubuntu