So what did I do instead? I got violent, because violence solves everything!  I banged my iPod against my shifter in my car three times and tired it again just to see if it worked, and by golly it turned on, no more sad face and my music was playing!**  I about shat my pants I was so excited!  Now granted, it froze up every once in a while and gave the sad iPod face again, but no worries, do the simple solution again and it works!  Now after about three years, it doesn’t freeze up anymore.  It may not work the first time, but keep trying and it will eventually.

After some investigation on to why this works, it turns out that in the older iPods there is a small connector cable that becomes loose from the hard drive through normal wear and tear.  You’re simply just knocking that cable back into place so the hard drive can be read properly.  I have had this same iPod for 5 years now, and it works wonderfully, and have not needed to buy a new one.  Nothing flashy with it either, it is the generation 4 iPod, right before it switched over to color and became more complicated.  Now, would I LIKE a new iPod? Sure, but I would only really want one if I didn’t purchase it, and it was atleast 20 gigs like the one I have now is.

So before you go out and spend a whole lot of cash on a new iPod because you think you’ve lost yours forever, try this and see if it works!  Any questions, comments, feel free to ask!

**Automaticable, Apple, and the poster are in no way liable or responsible for any and all damages caused to your iPod, Car, or self, or anything else when trying any and all “violent” techniques in hopes to remedy the sad iPod face from the MP3 player.  Reader and User try these techniques AT THEIR OWN RISK.

• On the Go: Syncing your Data
• Bring New Life to Your ipod: Go Old School

Installing and setting up the subversion GUI is as simple as three commands.

1. Install the nautilus-script-collection-svn package:
   

   sudo aptitude install nautilus-script-collection-svn

2. Enable the plugin (this is required to access the plugin from nautilus):
   

   nautilus-script-manager enable Subversion

3. Restart Nautilus:
   

   killall nautilus

Afterwards, Nautilus will have a new entry in the context menu when you right click.  You can now access most basic subversion commands without touching a terminal.

The interface isn’t quite as pretty as some Windows clients, such as TortoiseSVN.  However, it is still a nice alternative for users who prefer a GUI and only need basic functionality.  There doesn’t seem to be any support for merges, and other commands will use the default parameters.

• How To: Host a Subversion Repository in Ubuntu Hardy
• How-to: Use Your Ubuntu Computer as a Music Alarm Clock

Tasque is dubbed as “a simple task management app (TODO list) for the Linux Desktop.”  It is a simple program with the ability to integrate with a variety of other task-management services, including RememberTheMilk.  It’s a clean, unobtrusive interface, and it’s exactly what I needed to stay productive.

Tasque is a relatively new program, but has grown substantially since it’s incarnation.  It has been integrated into the latest GNOME desktop, and will be available for Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, due out in October.  Luckily, there is also a repository which you can add to receive the latest Tasque program in Ubuntu Hardy:

• From the taskbar, navigate to System > Administration > Software Sources
  

• Enter your administrator password when prompted, and in the new window, click on the “Third Party Software” tab
• Click on the “Add…” button, and enter the following line:

  deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/tasque-packagers/ubuntu hardy main

  

• Click on “Add Source”, and then “Close”.  The available software will be updated automatically.

Now that we have the repository set up, we can actually install Tasque.  In a terminal, enter the following command:

sudo aptitude install tasque

After it’s installed, you can run it by navigating to Applications > Office > Tasque.

The first time Tasque is launched, you will need to choose the plugin to use.  Select “Remember the Milk”, and then press “Click Here to Connect”.

A browser launch, and you will need to log in to Remember the Milk and allow Tasque to access your account data.  When you’re finished, return to Tasque and select “Click Here After Authenticating Tasque”.

At this point, your Remember The Milk tasks should be loaded into the Tasque interface, where you can edit existing tasks or add new ones.

You can also assign or change the due date on any of your tasks.

And when you’re finished, you can mark a task as completed.

• Introducing: Pwdhash Sharp 0.8.4
• Keeping Organized with Remember The Milk

I set up a subversion repository for a new project the other day, and the process was relatively painless. I’m using a standard Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 desktop setup, with OpenDNS and DD-WRT for port-forwarding, and without an Apache web server. Keep reading to host your own subversion repository server.

The entire process for setting up a subversion server and repository is relatively simple on Linux, and should take you no more than one hour. I’ve broken this tutorial into a few different segments, so you can concentrate on only the parts you are interested in.

1. Initial Setup
2. Adding the First Repository
3. Configuring Your Repository
4. Access from the Host Computer
5. Access from a LAN Computer
6. Access from Outside the LAN
7. Final Steps

sudo aptitude install subversion

• Easy Subversion GUI for Nautilus and Ubuntu
• How-to: Mount a Network drive in Ubuntu

By default, Ubuntu Hardy Heron uses PulseAudio for audio mixing, which disables surround sound by default. I just bought new 5.1-channel speakers, but I was only heard sound coming from the front two. Disappointed, I went searching for the answer in the forums. If you want surround sound on your Linux setup, keep reading below..

Like I said above, Ubuntu now uses PulseAudio by default, so it dictates the kind of output you’ll be getting from your sound card. Luckily, PulseAudio makes it very easy to enable surround via a simple configuration file. I followed instructions here for editing via the command-line, but using a GUI should be just as easy.

• Press Alt-F2 to open a “Run” dialog, and type “gksudo nautilus“. This will give us a file-browser with administrator privileges.
  

  Warning: With this file browser we have access to do almost anything to our system. Follow these instructions carefully, or things could get bad!

• In the file browser, click on the “File System” icon on the right. Then navigate into the “etc” folder, and then “pulse”. This is the folder where our configuration file lives.
  
• Make a backup of “daemon.conf”. Do this by selecting the file, copy it, and then paste it in the same directory. Right click the new copy and rename it “daemon.conf.bak”. This is just in case things go wrong– it’ll be easy to revert back to the original settings.
  
• Now we’re going on edit the settings file. Double-click on “daemon.conf” to open it in a text editor. Remember that we have administrator privileges, so be very careful of the changes you make!
• Find the following line in the file, it should be towards the bottom:
  

  ; default-sample-channels = 2

  First, remove the “;” character to “uncomment” the line. Then change the value from 2 to either 6, for 5.1 surround sound, or 8 for 7.1 surround. For example:

  default-sample-channels = 6

  
• Save the file and exit the text editor and file browser. This is important so we don’t accidentally make more changes with administrator access.

That’s it for the hard part. For the changes to take effect, you will need to restart your computer. Afterwards, there is a simple command that you can use to test your surround sound. Press Alt-F2 to start the “Run” dialog, and enter the command:
speaker-test -Dplug:surround51 -c6 -l1 -twav
or to test 7.1 surround:
speaker-test -Dplug:surround71 -c8 -l1 -twav

This will play a sound from each speaker telling what channel it is set to. You should hear audio out of each one. If you don’t then you may have some of the channels disabled. Check them with the volume manager:

• Right click on the volume meter in the panel and press “Open Volume Control”.
  
• Make sure the “ALSA” mixer is selected. Go to File, Change Device, and select the one that contains “Alsa Mixer”.
• By default, many of the channels are hidden. Select Edit, Preferences. Make sure you have at least the following selected: Master, Front, Surround, Center, and LFE (and Side if using 7.1 sound)
  
• Now, make sure none of the channels are muted under the “Playback” tab. If they are, un-mute them.
  

  Then use the test command above to try again.

At this point you should have surround sound working via the test command. However, some applications may also need to be setup to use surround sound. Rhythmbox should play music using surround by default. However, Totem Movie Player needs to be configured for it. To do so:

• Open Totem Movie Player from the Applications menu under Sound and Video, Movie Player.
  
• Select Edit, Preferences, and click on the “Audio” tab
• Set the “Audio output type” to your surround-sound preference. For example. 5.1-channel.
  

Other applications or webpages that use Flash may not use surround sound correctly. You can test if an application is using surround sound using the PulseAudio volume meter. To do so, press Alt-F2 to open the “Run..” dialog, and enter the command “pavumeter“. You should see sound in each channel.

I’ve been very happy with my surround sound so far. What experiences have you had? Did these instructions work for you? Are there any other applications you’ve found that don’t work with surround sound? Post in the comments.

• How To: Host a Subversion Repository in Ubuntu Hardy
• How-to: Use Your Ubuntu Computer as a Music Alarm Clock

1. The first thing you will need is to create a playlist. I used Rhythmbox, since that’s where I store all of my music anyway. Create a playlist with songs you’d like to wake up to. When you’ve got enough, save it in .m3u format, somewhere where you’ll find it later. I put mine in my home directory.
2. Next, we’ll need to make sure we have all the tools for the job. We’ll be using cron to schedule our tasks, amixer to set our volume, and mplayer to finally play our music. To make sure you have each of these installed, issue the following command:
   

   sudo aptitude install cron alsa-utils mplayer

3. Next, we need to actually add the scheduled task. First I’m simply going to give you the commands, and I’ll explain what’s going on afterwards. In a terminal, enter the command:
   

   crontab -e

   Note: this will open your default text editor, which if you haven’t set it, will probably default to vim.

4. Go to the end of the page by pressing Shift+G. Then start a new line pressing “o”. Once you’re there, type in or paste the following line:
   

   30 7 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/amixer set PCM 35\% && /usr/bin/X11/xterm -display :0 -bg black -fg white -e /usr/bin/mplayer -shuffle -playlist ~/.alarm-playlist

5. Press “ESC” to stop typing. Then enter the command “:wq” (no quotes) to save and quit. If everything went well, you should see the line:
   

   crontab: installing new crontab

Cool, you’re done! Now, let me explain what all that was, so you can go back and customize it on your own. Remember, any time you want to learn more about a command, you can use the “man” command. For example,

man crontab

to learn about crontab.

So first of all, we used “aptitude” to install a few packages from the Ubuntu repositories. This is probably familiar to you, or you may be using “apt-get”. They are basically the same, but “aptitude” has a few advantages– you should switch to using it if you haven’t already.

Then, we used “crontab -e”. Cron is the name of the task scheduler in Linux, and this command opens up our own personal “scheduled task list”. You can always use “crontab -e” to edit your tasks, or “crontab -l” just to view them.

Now, on to that crazy line I had you type in:

30 7 * * 1-5 /usr/bin/amixer set PCM 35\% && /usr/bin/X11/xterm -display :0 -bg black -fg white -e /usr/bin/mplayer -shuffle -playlist ~/.alarm-playlist

Each entry in your personal crontab has the following format:

minute hour day-of-month month day-of-week command

So, in our case, our “minute” is 30, “hour” is 7, day-of-month is * (any), “month” is * (any), “day-of-week” is 1-5, and “command” is… the rest of that. This basically means that we’ve scheduled our command to execute at 7:30 am on Monday through Friday. Changing these options should be self explanatory. Now, let’s pick apart our “command” one part at a time.

/usr/bin/amixer set PCM 35\%

First thing to note, is that it’s a good idea to use full paths for any command you execute from cron. To find out the full path to a command, use

which {command}

In this case, we’re using amixer, which is a utility for changing the volume on your computer. I set mine to 35% to wake up to, but you can use anything. Also note here that we can’t use simply “35%”, because cron uses ‘%’ as a special character. Therefore, we preceed it with ‘\’.

Next thing to notice is “&&”. This essentially strings two commands together– it won’t start the next command until our first one has finished. So, onto our next command:

/usr/bin/X11/xterm -display :0 -bg black -fg white -e …

This is actually another compound command. xterm is another terminal that we are going to launch our music alarm in, so we can easily shut if off in the morning. We set all sorts of parameters to make the terminal look nice, but the important one is following the “-e”: that’s the command we will run in the new terminal:

/usr/bin/mplayer -shuffle -playlist ~/.alarm-playlist

Ahhh, finally, this is where we finally play our music. mplayer is a command-line music player with a very basic interface, and easy controls. You can run this line in a normal terminal now to make sure it works. We use the parameters “shuffle” to randomize our playlist, and then “-playlist …” to tell it what to play. Make sure you change “~/.alarm-playlist” to your own location.

And we’re done! At this point you should have a fully-functioning music alarm clock. Now go back and tweak it out with preferences that work for you.

Bonus: Move the alarm clock command to a shell script, and keep increasing your volume every minute or so.

• How-to: Enable Surround Sound on Ubuntu Hardy
• Bring New Life to Your ipod: Go Old School

1. Use a Laptop
Of course, probably the simplest solution is to use a laptop as your primary workspace. Then, whenever you’re on the go, you can simply bring it with you. No setup, no hassle– everything is there for you when you need it.

2. Sync with an external device
Similarly, you can take what’s important with you on a separate piece of hardware. This could range from syncing your email and music on a smartphone or iPod, to carrying important data and programs on an external hard drive or flash drive. If you go the USB drive route, you might consider PortableApps Suite– a system for loading many common programs from a flash drive, as well as organizing your documents.

3. Use online syncing services
Another approach is to upload your data to web services, so you have everything you need as long as there’s an internet connection. This could mean sticking to using purely webapps, such as Google Documents, and storing your documents there. Or, you could simply backup your documents on one of the many online backup services. There is a useful post here detailing the best online backup solutions.

4. Remote Access to files
The solution I prefer is to setup remote access to your computer. Then there is no need to sync documents or upload them online– you’ll have access to everything you had on your main computer. It’s probably also the most complicated, as you’ll need to open some ports on your router as part of the setup. I won’t go into the specifics, but there are many different options for remote access. For Windows, Remote Desktop is probably the easiest, and will give you access to your entire desktop. For any platform, VNC accomplishes the same thing, and supports multiple connections to the same desktop. Also, particularly useful in Linux, you can setup an SSH server. This gives you access to your computer through a terminal, but is very fast for small tasks, and you can even run programs from your home computer remotely.

So, as you can see, there are a variety of options, and perhaps even a combination of a few is the best choice. Each has its own setup requirements, so plan on spending some time getting things running. But once you do, it becomes a great resource next time you need to remember a phone number in an email, or find a webpage you bookmarked but can’t remember.

• Bring New Life to Your ipod: Go Old School
• BillShrink: Find a Better Cell Phone Plan Based on Current Usage

• Comcast Blocking DD-WRT?
• A New Year, A New OS