Useful command to edit .conkyrc

Friends this is a simple command I use whenever I edit my conkyrc file:

$while true; do conky -q -i 10; sleep 3; done

Starting conky this way kills it and restarts it after every 3+10*n seconds, where n is the update interval mentioned in your conkyrc file. So, you can open ~/.conkyrc file in your editor run the above command. You would see the changes on the conky right on your desktop as it is restarted again and again. (please dont forget to keep saving the file as you edit it to make this thing work).

By the way, I have edited a conkyrc file i found on a webiste and finetuned it !! My conky is simply amazing now :) I'd post the file in my next post (and a snapshot of my desktop).

Switching to ( or changing ) static IP address on Ubuntu Intrepid

Today, somehow the network of my college got reconfigured or something, and all subnets got changed hostel wise. Hence, the network wasn't being accessed by the old IP addresses. Now, in the earlier versions of Ubuntu (before Intrepid) it was relatively easy to change the static IP addresses from the Network Manager in the panel, but Intrepid onwards, this intreface has been changed and I had been wondering for a while how to do it. Now, today, since it was an absolutely desperate situation, I finally figured a way out.

Solution:

• Open the file /etc/network/interfaces in your favourite editor:

$ sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

You would find something like this:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet static
address 10.4.1.41
netmask 255.0.0.0
auto eth0

• If you don't find the last 4 lines in this file, then your network configuration is set to dynamic IP. So, add these four lines to the end of this file. And, if your see these lines, it means your have previously set your IP address to static. Now, to change your static adderss, change the address given below the line 'iface eth0 static' (here, 10.4.1.41)to whatever address u want.

• Finally, restart the networking service by the command:

  $sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

• Verify the change by the command:

$ip addr

You would see the new IP address in the eth0 section!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, I stumbled upon this solution when I was checking out the man pages of 'ip' and related commands and then I tried the command for restarting the network. When it didn't work, I opened the file /etc/init.d/networking and found that that the script uses the files in the /etc/network directory. There I found the file named 'interfaces' and upon opening it, I knew this was what I was searching for!

Problems in installing Netbeans IDE 6.5 on Ubuntu Intrepid [solved]

I had some problems installing the Netbeans IDE 6.5 on Ubuntu Intrepid. After running the file netbeans-6.5-python-linux.sh in the terminal, there was an error:

net beans lexical error or unexpected token, expected valid token

If you are facing similar problems, refer to earlier post :
JAVA Swing and AWT applications freezing in Ubuntu
The solution to this problem is the same as mentioned in the above post. Though I had been using Netbeans 6.1, the configuration had changed somehow! Anyways, after following the instructions, the problem should get solved.

Happy Netbean-ing ..

note

I've changed the URL (from linuxlark.blogspot.com to technolark.blogspot.com) and the name of this blog. Please bear with the trouble

Thunderbird wrap text problem [sloved]

Well, I saw many people having problem with Thunderbird not wrapping text at the default set 72 chars. Huh, I figured out the solution. The edit/options >preferences > composition > general tab has an entry box saying
"wrap plain text messages at __ characters"

the default set is 72 characters. Now what happens is that most of the mails that we send are HTML or 'unknown' by default. And the entry box says "plain text" not HTML. So, go to the most frequently mailed addresses in your addressbook in thunderbird and select 'plain' text message as the default in the contact details for each. :) it was not a problem, it was just obvious !!