sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config

Select “Autohinter”, “Always” and “No” when prompted.
sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig

Add the following to ~/.Xdefaults (create the file if it doesn’t exist):

Xft.antialias: true
Xft.hinting:   true
Xft.hintstyle: hintfull
Xft.rgba:      rgb
Xft.dpi: 96

Add this command to your startup commands:
xrdb -merge ~/.Xdefaults

Restart X.

****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.

To see what repository a package was installed via in Ubuntu using apt, use this command:
$ apt-cache policy packagename

Example:

$ apt-cache policy firefox
firefox:
  Installed: 3.0.3+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
  Candidate: 3.0.3+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
  Version table:
 *** 3.0.3+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1 0
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.0.2+build6+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/main Packages
     3.0~b5+nobinonly-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main Packages

These instructions will configure Firefox to use Gmail or your Google Apps hosting account to handle mailto links:

First, type about:config in the address bar, search for gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost, and set the value to true.

Then, log into GMail or your Google Apps mail URL, paste this line of JavaScript into your address bar, and hit enter:
For Gmail:
javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","GMail")

For Google Apps:
javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto","https://mail.google.com/a/example.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","GMail")
Replace “example.com” with your domain.

After you hit enter, Firefox should ask permission to add Gmail as the default mailto handler.

To undo this, click Edit Preferences > Applications. Search for mailto. Choose Application Details from dropdown under Actions. Highlight Gmail and click Remove.

I used these instructions on Firefox 3.0.1 on Ubuntu 8.10. This post was compiled from info found in this article and its comments at lifehacker.com.

I have just finished writing my first Wordpress plugin – a widget to display a status update via Ping.fm:

Ping.fm is a simple service that makes updating your social networks a snap. You can use AIM, GTalk, iGoogle, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, WAP, iPhone/iPod Touch, SMS or E-mail to let Ping.fm relay your message to a multitude of social networking sites. This plugin lets you use Ping.fm to add your status to your Wordpress Blog’s sidebar via Ping.fm’s “Custom URL” integration.

== Installation ==

* Extract archive
* Upload entire ‘pingfm_status’ directory to ‘wordpress/wp-content/plugins’
— do not remove files from directory, upload the directory with all files in it
* At http://ping.fm create a Custom URL to update the following address:

http://url_to_your_wordpress_installation/wp-content/plugins/pingfm_status/pingfm_post.php

* Enable the plugin in your Wordpress admin section
* Add pingfm widget to your sidebar, set the Title

== Notes ==

If you notice that the timezone is incorrect on the timestamps that appear in your updates,
you can change it in ‘/wp-content/plugins/pingfm_status/pingfm_post.php’. I have included
some notes in that file.

Here is a link to the plugin in the Wordpress Plugin Directory.

Here is video of my 6 year old son Collin popping wheelies on his bicycle. I edited the video in Kino and Avidemux.

Video of Murphy, my 9 month old Boxer, chasing a flashlight:

When my kids use the internet, I set up Firefox so that they can only access a list of approved sites. Here’s how I do it (thanks to DrBacchus and skippy for the assist):

Install squid (Squid is a caching proxy for the Web):
$ sudo apt-get install squid

Modify squid.conf:
$ sudo vi /etc/squid/squid.conf

Set “visible_hostname” to the hostname of the machine:
visible_hostname yourmachinename
Replace “yourmachinename” with the name of your machine

Set “http_access” to allow access only to the domains specified in your whitelist (I store my whitelist at /opt/squid/allowed_domains):

acl allowed_dstdomains dstdomain "/opt/squid/allowed_domains"
http_access allow allowed_dstdomains

Set up your whitelist file, here is an example:

$ sudo vi /opt/squid/allowed_domains
.tamatown.com
.tamagotchi.com
.webkinz.com

Restart squid for the changes to take affect:
$ sudo /etc/init.d/squid restart

Then, set your child’s Firefox settings to use your squid instance as their proxy server. In Firefox, Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Network > Connection Settings > Manual Proxy Configuration:

Hostname: yourmachinehostname (or localhost)
Port: 3128 (this is the default port for squid)
Use this proxy server for all protocols.

Drawbacks: You must manually add any address you want your child to be allowed to access into your allowed_domains file (hence “whitelist” instead of “blacklist”). Also, if your child is savvy enough to know how to disable the Firefox proxy settings, then they can bypass this.

I created a shell script to automatically append a domain to my “allowed_domains” file and then restart the squid service:

#!/bin/sh
if [ "$#" != "1" ] ; then
echo "usage is $0 [domain] "
exit
fi
echo $1 | sudo tee -a /opt/squid/allowed_domains
sudo /etc/init.d/squid restart

Replace “/opt/squid/allowed_domains” with the location and name of your allowed domains list

Example usage would be:
./squid_add .wikipedia.org

After installing Ubuntu 8 Hardy Heron at the office, I was having trouble reaching the ‘.local’ DNS entries we have on our internal network. Here’s what I did to resolve the problem:

$ sudo vi /etc/nsswitch.conf

Replace:
hosts: files mdns4_minimal [NOTFOUND=return] dns mdns4

with:
hosts: files dns

86 words

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