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Resetting the Gnome panels to default in Ubuntu 9.10

If you've customised the Gnome panels in Ubuntu 9.10 and then changed your mind it can be quite difficult to get the original layout back. This guide explains how to reset the Gnome panles in Ubuntu 9.10 to their default layout.

Start by going to Applications->Accessories->Terminal (if you have deleted the menu you can get to the terminal by pressing Alt+F2 and typing "gnome-terminal").

This command will unset the configuration values for the Gnome panels. You will lose any changes you made to the panels.

gconftool --recursive-unset /apps/panel

Next you will want to delete the configuration keys:

rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel

Finally, to close and restart the panels run this command:

pkill gnome-panel

The panels should now re-appear with the default Ubuntu configuration.

Fixing the Speakerphone on the 2.07.401.1 HTC Touch Pro 2 ROM

The recent 2.07.401.1 ROM upgrade for the HTC Touch Pro 2 added a wide range of new features, such as HTC Sense 2.5. Unfortunately it also added a number of bugs. One of these is that the when the speakerphone is active the other callers may not be able to hear you - the microphone is effectively muted.

There is an easy workaround for this problem. On your Touch Pro 2 go to the home screen. Slide to the "Settings" tab. Tap the "Menu" softkey and choose "All Settings". Tap "Personal" then "Phone". Open the "Advanced" tab and change "Reduce noise in phone calls" to "Never".

Using the Windows driver for the RTL8187SE on Ubuntu 9.10

The Realtek RTL8187SE is a mini PCI-e 802.11b/g wireless LAN card and is found in many netbooks and some laptops, for example, some versions of the MSI Wind U100. Recent versions of Ubuntu have a native driver for this card, but it can be unreliable. An alternative is to install the Windows version of the driver using ndiswrapper.

This guide explains how to install the Windows XP version of the RTL8187SE driver using the graphical frontend for ndiswrapper on Ubuntu 9.10.

Start by installing the graphical version of ndiswrapper with your favourite package manager. In the Ubuntu Software Centre you can find it under "Windows Wireless Drivers" and in other package managers you can find it under "ndisgtk". It can be installed either from the on-line repository's or from the Ubuntu 9.10 CD.

Next you will need to download the Windows XP driver for the card. You can find this by going to the Realtek website. Save the ZIP file to a convenient location (e.g. the desktop), right click on it and choose "Extract Here". A folder should be extracted with a name which is something like "RTL8187SE_WindowsDriver_XP_.....".

Now, go to System->Administration and then "Windows Wireless Drivers". After entering your password you should see the following window.

Choose "Install New Driver".

Click on the browse button. Navigate to the folder you extracted from the ZIP file earlier. Inside it you should find another folder called "RTL8187SE". Inside that folder you should see another folder called "WinXP". Finally, inside that folder should be three files - chose the one called "net8187se.inf".

Press "Install" to go back to the main window. This step may take a few seconds to complete.

Click "Close" and then restart your computer. After restarting you should be able to use the network manager to scan for, and connect to, wireless networks.

Scanlines in Inkscape

Scanlines are a very popular effect for modern websites and are based on the lines that are often visible when an image is viewed on a television screen. This is a simple guide for creating diagonal scanlines in Inkscape 0.47.

Start by opening the Inkscape document you want to add scanlines to. Turn on the grid overlay from the view menu or by pressing the hash key. Next zoom in until you can see each pixel – a zoom level of about 3000% usually works well. Find an empty area in the document measuring 6x6 pixels.

Using the rectangle tool create the following temporary pattern. Select the image and convert it to a pattern by going to "Object->Pattern->Objects to Pattern" or by pressing "Alt+I". You can now delete the temporary pattern.

Zoom back out and turn the grid overlay back off. You can now use the scanline pattern as a fill for any suitable shape. Select the shape, open the "Fill and Stroke" panel ("Ctrl+Shift+F") and choose Pattern as the Fill option. Select the scanline pattern from the drop down list.

You can tweak the opacity setting or the colour of the pattern to obtain a range of effects. This is just one example of how your scanlines may look.

Installing fonts on Ubuntu 9.10

Ubuntu comes with a large selection of fonts pre-installed, with many more available from the package repositories. If you want to use a font that isn't in the repositories then, provided it's a TrueType font, you can install it manually.

First, check that your fonts are TrueType. This information should be available when you download the font. TrueType fonts normally have the ".ttf" file extension and will usually show a thumbnail preview on Ubuntu.

To install the font start by opening a file browser and ensuring that it is set to display hidden files, Next, navigate to your home directory. Check if you already have a directory called ".fonts". If you don't then you will need to create one.

You can now copy the fonts you want to install into the ".fonts" directory. In most cases they will automatically show up in your applications. If they don't then you can try regenerating the font cache or rebooting your system.