I decided to convert my road bike from a racing curly bar to a flat bar. I normally ride mountain bikes, so I’ve grown accustomed to riding with a flat bar. I also feel like I have better control over braking with a flat bar, and prefer the more upright riding style.

My road bike was originally equipped with a 10 speed Ultegra rear derailleur and an Ultegra triple front derailleur (52/39/30t).

To do the conversion, I had to purchase the following:
- Flat handlebar
- Flatbar shifters
- Brake Levers
- Grips
- I had to purchase a derailleur that was compatible with the flatbar shifters. I couldn’t find the triple version of this derailleur anywhere (FD-R773), so I had to order it from a company in England.

Here are the parts I purchased to do the conversion:

Ritchey Pro Rizer OS Bar — $31.49
Shimano 2010 STI 10-Speed Rapidfire FlatBar Bicycle Shifter Set – SL-R770 — $139.97
Shimano Front Derailleur for Flat Bar Shifters – FD-R773, triple 10-speed 28.6 and 31.8 mm 52T — $60.75
Forté Team Brake Levers — $11.69
Ergon GP1 SE Grips — $19.79
Brake/Shifter cables and housings — $30.00

Total: $293.69

Notes:
I cut an inch off of each side of the handlebars using a plumbing tubing cutter.

The Forte brake levers work perfectly with the Ultegra brakes that my bike is equipped with.

If you haven’t tried these Ergon handlebar grips, I highly recommend them. They are incredibly comfortable.

Robert Donovan’s posts that he put up regarding his conversion were very helpful to me:
http://www.robertsdonovan.com/?p=98
http://www.robertsdonovan.com/?p=500

Here are some photos of the finished product.

Before (stock photo):

After:

This video shows how I repaired the clock in my 2005 Toyota Corolla. These instructions should work for a 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, or 2008 Corolla. There is a common problem with the clock in the Toyota Corolla that causes it to stop working intermittently and then eventually not work at all. The problem is caused by the solder on some of the joints on the circuit board. The fix is to touch up those joints with a soldering iron. This video contains instructions for removing the clock, fixing the solder joints, and reinstalling the clock.

Here is the syntax to ignore a user in the Xchat IRC application:
/ignore nick!*@* all

Replace ‘nick’ with the nick of the user you want to ignore.

****EDIT****
These instructions are no longer needed for me. I don’t need to install Gsynaptics to disable my touchpad. I can now simply click System > Preferences > Mouse, click the “Touchpad” tab and uncheck “Enable Touchpad. The touchpad stays disabled, even through reboots. I’m leaving the original post here in case this doesn’t work on your system.

**** Original Post ****
In order to disable your Synaptics touchpad on previous releases of Ubuntu, you would set “SHMConfig” to “true” in xorg.conf and then install the program gsynaptics to disable/enable the touchpad.

The xorg.conf file is different in Intrepid Ibex, there is no section for the touchpad anymore. Now to enable SHMConfig you have to do it via HAL:

Edit this file:
/usr/share/hal/fdi/policy/20thirdparty/11-x11-synaptics.fdi

Find the section that starts with:
<match key="info.product" contains="Synaptics TouchPad">

And add this line to that section before :
<merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">On</merge>

The file should end up looking something like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<deviceinfo version="0.2">
  <device>
    <match key="info.capabilities" contains="input.touchpad">
      <match key="info.product" contains="Synaptics TouchPad">
        <merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
	<!-- Arbitrary options can be passed to the driver using
	     the input.x11_options property since xorg-server-1.5. -->
	<!-- EXAMPLE:
	<merge key="input.x11_options.LeftEdge" type="string">120</merge>
	-->
	<merge key="input.x11_options.SHMConfig" type="string">On</merge>
      </match>
      <match key="info.product" contains="AlpsPS/2 ALPS">
        <merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
      </match>
      <match key="info.product" contains="appletouch">
        <merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
      </match>
      <match key="info.product" contains="bcm5974">
        <merge key="input.x11_driver" type="string">synaptics</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.LeftEdge" type="string">0</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.RightEdge" type="string">1280</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.TopEdge" type="string">0</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.BottomEdge" type="string">800</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.ClickFinger1" type="string">1</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.ClickFinger2" type="string">3</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.ClickFinger3" type="string">2</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.HorizEdgeScroll" type="string">0</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.VertEdgeScroll" type="string">0</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.VertTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.HorizTwoFingerScroll" type="string">1</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.HorizScrollDelta" type="string">0</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.VertScrollDelta" type="string">40</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.PressureMotionMinZ" type="string">10</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.FingerLow" type="string">16</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.FingerHigh" type="string">80</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.FingerPress" type="string">256</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.PalmDetect" type="string">0</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.PalmMinWidth" type="string">10</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.PalmMinZ" type="string">200</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.MinSpeed" type="string">0.8</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.MaxSpeed" type="string">1.2</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.AccelFactor" type="string">0.10</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.MaxTapMove" type="string">25</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.MaxTapTime" type="string">223</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.MaxDoubleTapTime" type="string">200</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton1" type="string">0</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton2" type="string">0</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.TapButton3" type="string">0</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.RTCornerButton" type="string">0</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.RBCornerButton" type="string">0</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.LTCornerButton" type="string">0</merge>
        <merge key="input.x11_options.LBCornerButton" type="string">0</merge>
      </match>
    </match>
  </device>
</deviceinfo>

Reboot, and you should now be able to disable the touchpad with gsynaptics.
Note, System > Preferences > Mouse also has a section for touchpad, so disable it there as well.

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