XnConvert, an image batch converter developed by XnSoft, has released the new version 1.65 that finally fixed the issues relating to the 64-bit Linux.
XnConvert is a powerful and free cross-platform batch image processor, allowing you to combine over 80 actions. Compatible with 500 formats including RAW, WebP, OpenEXR, and many others. It uses the batch processing module of XnViewMP.
The latest XnConvert 1.6.5 was released a few days ago with many bugs fixed. For 64-bit Linux users, the non-installed version (pre-compiled binary) no longer needs lib32z1, lib32ncurses5, lib32bz2-1.0, and libqtwebkit4: i386 libraries.
Download & Install XnConvert:
For Ubuntu and derivatives, download and install (double-click to open with Software Center) the .deb package from the links below:
This short tutorial is going to show you how to disable / remove the login drumbeat sound in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
The easiest way to get rid of this annoying sound is mute the volume via the top-right indicator icon when you’re at the login screen. It won’t affect the system volume after you logged in.
If don’t want to log out right away, you can toggle the login sound via a graphical tool called Ubuntu Tweak.
Download the Ubuntu Tweak (.deb package) from the link below and double-click to open it with Ubuntu Software Center and finally install it.
Once installed, open Ubuntu Tweak and go to Tweaks -> Login Settings. You’ll see the switch to turn on/off ‘Play login sound’. (click the Unlock button before doing any changes)
Quicklist, right-click context menu of application shortcuts in left panel of Ubuntu Unity, allows to quick access common tasks for those applications.
This tutorial will show you how to edit the quicklist in Ubuntu 14.04 with Ubuntu Tweak, a popular Ubuntu configuration tool.
There will be two simple examples: add your folder to Files’ (Home icon) context menu, add a bookmark to the righ-click menu of Google Chrome icon.
1. Install Ubuntu Tweak
Download the Deb package from the link below and click the package to open it with Ubuntu Software Center and finally click the install button to install Ubuntu Tweak in your system.
BitTorrent Sync, a p2p file syncing service, now has been updated to version 1.4 with new simplified UI and other new features.
BitTorrent Sync is a simple tool that applies p2p protocol for direct live folder sync with maximum security, network speed and storage capacity. It has native versions for Mac, Windows and Linux, as well as native NAS integration.
New in the latest 1.4:
New simplified UI
UI was fully revised and now looks similar on all platforms. Also, UI was simplified significantly to make Sync use faster, convenient, and easy to use.
HTTPS links support
HTTPS links are generated by Sync and shared with a remote peer to exchange Keys securely, using X.509 certificates
Proxy server support added
Direct connection between peers is possible as long as one of the two peers is not behind a proxy
Finder / Explorer integration added
Right-clicking on the folder in Explorer / Finder exposes “Share with BitTorrent Sync” item, which ads the folder to Sync and automatically generates a Key (Secret).
Moved folder support
Sync tracks if synced folders move and automatically adjusts paths to keep the folder synced.
Sync performance optimization
Improves data transfer speed, CPU consumption, peer discovery.
Numerous bug fixes reported by users in 1.3
Install BitTorrent Sync in Ubuntu:
The official packages are available for download at the link below, check your OS type (32-bit or 64-bit), download the appropriate package under the Linux section, and finally run the executable from the extracted folder.
Finally, you can access the web client in your Web Browser by visiting “http://localhost:8888/gui/”
BitTorrent Sync Desktop App with Indicator Applet:
If you want an easy way to deploy BitTorrent Sync on Ubuntu, there’s a desktop GUI with Unity indicator created by community. At the moment of writing this tutorial, it is at version 1.3.1. The latest 1.4 should be available soon.
THE SOFTWARE AND THE PACKAGES BELOW ARE UNOFFICIAL AND NOT THE WORK OF BITTORRENT® INC.
To install this unofficial ready to use server and desktop packages, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal, when it opens paste the commands below and run one by one:
GIMP team just announced the release 2.8.14 the day after the previous release 2.8.12 with the broken library versioning fixed.
Yesterday’s 2.8.12 release had broken library versioning, so we had to roll out GIMP 2.8.14 today. The only change is the fixed libtool versioning. Please do not distribute any binaries of yesterday’s broken 2.8.12 release, and get GIMP 2.8.14 using the torrent: http://download.gimp.org/pub/gimp/v2.8/gimp-2.8.14.tar.bz2.torrent
Want an option in your desktop’s context menu (right-click menu) that hides or un-hides all your desktop shortcuts in Ubuntu Unity or Gnome?
Ramvignesh, the guy sent me two simple scripts with this great idea. If you are interested, below will show you how to do it step by step.
1. How to Create Desktop Shortcuts in Ubuntu 14.04
Due to bug, you can’t drag and drop an application shortcut icon from Unity Dash result to desktop in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
But it’s still easy to create a desktop shortcut, all you need to do is:
Open your file browser, navigate to Computer (from left sidebar)-> user -> share -> applications.
Right click on a shortcut icon and select ‘Copy’
Right-click on blank area of your desktop and select ‘Paste’
Finally you’re able to click the desktop shortcut to launch the application without worrying about user permission issue.
2. Create the scripts to show/hide desktop shortcuts
Thanks to Ramvignesh for the simple scripts.
Create a new folder called bin in user’s Home folder.
Go into bin folder and create 2 empty documents: show-desktop-shortcuts, hide-desktop-shortcuts
Edit 2 documents one by one and paste below contents into them. IMPORTANT: Replace handbook in red with your user name.
for show-desktop-shortcuts file:
#!/bin/bash
#
cd /home/handbook/Desktop
for f in .* ; do
new=`echo "$f" | cut -c 2-`
mv "$f" "$new"
done
for hide-desktop-shortcuts file:
#!/bin/bash
#
cd /home/handbook/Desktop
for f in * ; do
mv "$f" ".${f#.}"
done
Finally make the 2 scripts executable by going to their context menu (right-click menu) -> Properties -> Permissions tab -> check the box where it says 'Allow executing file as program'.
3. Add The 2 Scripts As Options Into Desktop's Context Menu
Click the button below to bring up Ubuntu Software Center and install nautilus-actions, a graphical tool for configuring Nautilus' context menu.
Now open nautilus-actions from Launcher and do:
Create 2 new actions in Items list, name them to Show Desktop Shortcuts & Hide Desktop Shortcuts
Under Action tab of both items, check the box says "Display item in location context menu"
Type a name in Context label
Under Command tab of both items, type in (browser) path to the two scripts in Path box.
(Optional) Go the menu Edit -> Preferences, in first tab un-check the two boxes under Nautilus menu layout.
Finally, your desktop's context menu will look like below after reboot.
The popular GIMP image editor has been updated to version 2.8.12 with a lot of bug fixes. Here is how to install or upgrade it in Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 12.04 and their derivatives.
GIMP, GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a raster graphics editor[5] used for image retouching and editing, free-form drawing, resizing, cropping, photo-montages, converting between different image formats, and more specialized tasks.
Changes in GIMP 2.8.12:
Core:
OSX: Fix migration code for old GIMP directories
Fix brush sizes when used from plug-ins
Windows: Allow to Explorer-open files with UTF-8 characters in the filename
Make XCF loading more robust against broken files
GUI:
Make sure the widget direction matches the GUI language
Remove the option to disable the warning when closing a modified image
Fix canvas overlay widgets (like the text options) for tablets
Make DND work between images in one dockable
Libgimp:
Make gimp_image_get_name() return the string used for the image title
Plug-ins:
Make script-fu-server more secure by listening to 127.0.0.1 by default and add a warning about changing that IP. This breaks the procedure’s API, but for security reasons.
Bring back proper script-fu translations
General:
Massively clean up and fix the OSX build and bundle
Add Jenkins tutorial
Documentation updates
Bug fixes
Translation updates
Install / Upgrade GIMP in Ubuntu:
GIMP packages are available in PPA for all current support Ubuntu releases, Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04, and Uubntu 12.04.
As the PPA description says, you can always install or upgrade to the latest GIMP in Ubuntu by running below commands one by one in terminal (press Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal):
Gnome sound converter application has been updated to version 2.1.4 with 3 important bug fixes. Ubuntu 14.04 user can upgrade it from Getdeb repository.
SoundConverter is the leading audio file converter for the GNOME Desktop. It reads anything GStreamer can read (Ogg Vorbis, AAC, MP3, FLAC, WAV, AVI, MPEG, MOV, M4A, AC3, DTS, ALAC, MPC, Shorten, APE, SID, MOD, XM, S3M, etc…), and writes to Opus, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, AAC, and MP3 files, or use any GNOME Audio Profile.
The latest 2.1.4 was released with below important fixes:
1. Fixed the error when converting a video to an audio file: Python (v2.7) requires to install plugins to play media files of the following type: H.264
2. Fixed the issue that converts things with same filename at the same time doesn’t work. When trying to convert all the music of one artist at the same time. The problem arose when the first track on an EP was also the first track on an album.
3. Fixed SoundConverter can’t export to a folder on an MTP device.
Install or Upgrade to SoundConverter 2.1.4:
Getdeb repository has built the package based on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. Go to the link below and download the “soundconverter_2.1.4-1~getdeb1_all.deb” package.
Download SoundConverter DEB
Then double-click on the package to open it with Ubuntu Software Center and click the install button to install the Sound Converter.
Liferea, a free RSS feed reader and news aggregator, gets a new release. PPA has been updated with the latest packages, available for Ubuntu 14.10 Utopic, Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 12.04.
Liferea, stands for Linux Feed Reader, is a native app for Linux desktop. Its GUI is similar to a desktop mail/newsclient, with an embedded graphical browser. It’s able to play audio & video feeds with plugins.
The latest version 1.10.11 was released a few hours ago with bug fixes and translation updates:
Fixed: Doesn’t automatically update feed name and favicon for new feed (reported by asl97)
Fixed: Missing dist files for documentation (patch by Mikel Olasagasti)
Fixed Javascript links not opening in new browser tabs
Updated French translation (Guillaume Bernard)
Updated Hebrew translation (Genghis Khan)
How to Install Liferea in Ubuntu:
Liferea is available in Ubuntu Software Center by default, but it’s always old. I have create a Ubuntu PPA and keep uploading the latest packages for all current support Ubuntu releases.
Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, paste the commands below and run one by one:
This simple tutorial is going to show you how to play your PSP games in Ubuntu desktop with ppsspp Sony PSP emulator.
Install PPSSPP psp emulator:
PPSSPP can run your PSP games on your PC in full HD resolution. It can even upscale textures that would otherwise be too blurry as they were made for the small screen of the original PSP.
All trademarks are property of their respective owners. The emulator is for educational and development purposes only and it may not be used to play games you do not legally own.
PPSSPP is available in its official PPA for Ubuntu 14.10, Ubuntu 14.04 and their derivatives. To install it, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the commands below one by one:
