johnmccollum.co.uk

As regular readers might know, I’ve been in the process of building my own PC for quite some time now. For my first build, it went well! Building the machine itself was a piece of cake - like putting lego together.

The challenges came though, when I started installing and configuring Ubuntu. For what’s supposed to a user-friendly ‘noob’ distro, I had my fair share of problems getting it up and running.

Here are some of the challenges I faced - and the solutions I found!

Problem #1: Installing Flash

I hit my first problem almost as soon as I started up firefox - no flash. Hey, that shouldn’t be a problem, right? OK, off to Adobe’s download centre. It helpfully recognises my operating system, and offers a choice of packages. I download the relevant one, and…

Nothing. 64 bit Ubuntu isn’t supported. OK, not a disaster - clicking on a blank Flash video offers a choice of Flash solutions to me. I choose “flashplugin-nonfree”, and hit install. I restart my browser…

Nothing. Checking synaptic shows that it’s been properly installed, but nothing happening in Firefox!

OK - next step: Ubuntu Forums. There are many, many users with issues with Flash, but the definitive post seems to be this one, which offers two solutions. I try the first…

Nothing. The second solution states not to use it, but instead to notify the developers of a bug, and wait for a response…yeah right. I try the second, unsupported, user supplied install script, and finally…

Success! Time wasted: 1 hour.

Problem #2: Graphics card drivers

Second problem - I try to enable advanced desktop effects, to be told that “Desktop effects cannot be enabled”. Not a very useful message, but it turns out that generic ‘Vesa’ drivers were being used. OK, since nearly every Google result gives results stating “same day support” for the 4800 series, this one will be easy to sort, right?

Right. :/

First thing - check Envy. This promises to identify the card, download and configure it. Sounds too good to be true? Unfortunately, for me it was - I had no success with my 4850.

The next thing I tried was the Ubuntu Hardy Installation Guide. This page provided two solutions (sound familiar?) One simple solution, one complex one. Guess which solution I tried first? Guess which one didn’t work? Yep, the simple one.

So, it was the 12 step manual solution for me. Frankly, I had no idea what was going on for most of those steps! Let’s just say that my desktop ended up looking like this (bearing in mind that it was completely blank before!):

However, it did at least work. Beautiful desktop effects!

Time wasted: Approx. 1-2 hours.

Problem #3: Guild Wars

Yep, the game of choice for millions of MMO fans no longer works on my new machine, despite working on my five year old PC (also Ubuntu). There’s an 88-page forum thread discussing various methods of getting it up and running under Wine, but to be honest, I didn’t read it all - I skipped to the last page. Just as well I did - it contained the following quote:

“Has anyone ever gotten Guild Wars working on ANY ATI video card?”

No one has responded positively yet.

I suppose I could always try Cedega, but I don’t hold out much hope for that, even. And it’s commercial.

If all of this sounds like I’m on a Linux downer - I’m not! I still love using it day to day, but I had forgotten that the initial configuration could be such a pig.

Oh, and the new machine still kicks ass, incidentally - loving it.

CMS Made Simple is the best content management system you’ve never heard of.

Version 1.4 brings a much needed redesign of the admin area, as well as numerous performance and stability tweaks.

As I mentioned before, no-one wants a static site anymore; I believe CMS Made Simple offers the simplest content management solution today.

Why do I love it?

• Any type of layout achievable with CSS is achievable with CMS Made Simple
• Completely table-less setup. (Assuming that’s what you want)
• Focus on accessibility; more so than most other CMS’
• Fine control over what administrators can and can’t do
• Easiest admin area imaginable

But what I really love about it is the speed at which users pick up the knowledge they need to run their site. Most training sessions for CMS Made Simple run at about 30-45 minutes, and not one person has had to come back for further training.

By contrast, I’ve seen training sessions for other CMS’ run into several hours, with repeat sessions required before they decide to delegate it to someone else anyway!

Having said all that, it isn’t perfect for every site; some of the extensions are of…dubious quality, so if a forum, e-commerce, or front-end login facility is required, I would go with another solution.

Having to edit the template in the browser window is also an annoyance, and I don’t favour the smarty templating system, but for small-medium formerly static sites, it can’t be beaten.

So please, check it out and spread the word!

Just a quick update! If you submit a website with your comment, the link will now be indexed by Google; just reward for taking the time to carefully construct and submit your thoughts.

Please note that any spam will be ruthlessly destroyed.

I’ve never got round to checking out Twitter, to my great shame!

I already have profiles on Facebook, Bebo, and other social networking sites - many of which allow a quick method of updating your status. So why bother with Twitter now?

• Update by mobile (just need to charge my mobile now )
• Easy integration into my blog

Unfortunately, Twitter doesn’t seem to want to check any of my email addresses for friends at the moment, so I am following: no-one. And I am being followed by: no-one.

You can rectify this by coming to see me at http://twitter.com/johnmcc!

Yahoo have a hard time fighting off the image of being bridesmaid to Google’s bride. However, they have a decided knack for turning out really cool developer toys! For example, check out the Yahoo User Interface library, Yahoo Pipes, or their latest baby, Yahoo BOSS.

Short for ‘Build your Own Search Service’, Yahoo have pretty much opened up their entire search service via an API. With an unrestricted number of queries, and complete control over presentation of results, you can really go to town with this one!

Getting started is easy; simply get yourself an API key here. Go on, I’ll wait.

With that done, anyone with basic knowledge of PHP and JQuery can easily build a search application!

Check out my demonstration here.

There are two pages involved in this demonstration. The first page displays the form, and contains the necessary JQuery code to fire off an AJAX request to the second page. The second page takes the posted value, fires off a request to the API, and returns the result.

Without further ado, here’s the JQuery:

    $(document).ready(function(){
      $('#results').hide();

      $('#search').click(function(){
        $('#results').hide();
        searchterm = $('#searchterm').val();
        $.post('getresult.php', {query: searchterm}, function(data){
          $('#results').html(data).show('slow');
        });
      })
    })

Nothing too horrendous here; hide the results division, grab the term to be searched for, fire off an AJAX request, and put the returned data in the results div. Show it slloooooowly.

The code in ‘getresult.php’ isn’t much more complex; you can see it here.

That’s all there is to it! (At least for this very basic example.)

Once again, you can see a demonstration here.

I’m sure there must be loads of ideas for mashups out there; let’s hear some of your thoughts!