How to add applications to the Launch Menu

Day 37

Having to first open the console in order to run a program seems a bit redundant. Besides, I don't trust myself to remember what needs to be typed in to call up each program. With a bit of exploring, I found it easy to add applications to their respective sub menus in the Launch menu.

Let's use my new favorite game, BomberClone for example. I wanted to put it with the other games (specifically categorized in the “arcade” section. Here's how to do it:

1. Click on the Launch menu.
2. Mouse over “applications” and right click.
3. Choose “edit menu” from the list.
4. Navigate to the sub menu you wish to add your application to. In this case it was Applications --> Games --> Arcade.
5. Click the “new item” icon at the top of the screen and enter the name of the application as you want it to be displayed in the menu.
6. To the right of the menu editor, there are several fields where you can add information about the application. The only essential field is the command field. Type the console command for the application in that field. In my case, it was the word “bomberclone.”
7. If you want to add an icon, click on the box to the right of the application name. You can either choose from the set of system icons, or browse for your own. I got lucky – there was a bomb icon already in the laptop somewhere.
   

The process was much easier than I expected. There's probably a way to do it through the command line as well, but I have no desire to figure it out.

Punk Rock Elmo on the Eee

Day 27

Listen to Punk Rock Elmo, recorded on the Asus Eee
Linux isn't known for its audio prowess, but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty of packages hidden in the repositories for those who dare try to push the limits. The most popular of course is Audacity which is typically used for podcasts and light audio editing. I wanted to put it to the test and see if it and the Asus Eee could handle recording a multi-track, musical composition.

My daughter will be a year-and-a-half by Christmas, and her life currently revolves around Sesame Street's Elmo. That furry monster is on constantly in the house and I can't help but find myself wandering around whistling the theme song. This will be my sample song. I grew up on punk rock (and it's still my guilty pleasure), so I thought I would combine the two and see what happened.

I consider myself a mediocre musician on most instruments, and although I can play the drums, I didn't have a real drumset handy, so I hunted down a copy of Hydrogen. This is a drum machine similar to the commercial product known as Fruity Loops. I installed it from a .deb package I downloaded from the Hydrogen Sourceforge site. It installed fine, but there was no program icon in the launch menu so it had to be started from the command line (simply by typing the word hydrogen). The screen sized forced me to scroll horizontally through the drum tracks, but other than being a minor irritation, this did not affect the program in any way. After I had sequenced the drums, I exported it as a .wav and moved on to Audacity.


I played with Audacity in the past, and found that the sound card on the Eee does a decent job recording one track, but once that exists, it pretty much sounds like mud for any additional tracks. I was planning on importing the drum track and then recording two guitars and a bass - four tracks total. To do this, I would have to get a bit creative.

Rather than importing the drum track into Audacity, I instead loaded it into the default Music Manager that comes with the Eee. I plugged my mic into the 1/8" jack and aimed it at my guitar amp. I was able to record through Audacity while listening to the drum track playing through the Music Manager. This way Audacity could stay at its one track recording maximum, but I still had something to follow along with.

It was a tedious process, but it worked. I repeated it with the other tracks. After each track, I did some quick track cleaning (amplified and removed noise), and then saved it as an mp3.

When all the recording was done, I imported the four tracks into Audacity and synced them up. After a bit of tweeking, it was good to go. The quality isn't fantastic, but it's a solid little recording.

Does this prove that Audacity is to the Eee what Garage Band is to the Mac? Not really. But it'll get the job done if you're will to work around the issues. And the next time you see Elmo, I hope you picture him kicking ass in a mosh pit with the rest of his muppet pals.

Why you should avoid .doc in OpenOffice Writer

Day 13

I have OpenOffice installed on my other computers and have never had a problem with it. Differences between it and Microsoft Office are minor and there are a few options that Word is missing. For example, the pdf export option saves all kinds of headaches when it comes to using fonts not installed on other computers.

But tonight I ran into some weird formatting issues that I've never encountered before. I use a lot of frames/text boxes and I especially like the formatting options that Writer has for these. The problem I was running into was that things were randomly repositioning or disappearing completely whenever I'd close out of the file. It was actually quite irritating especially when it involved having to resize or move multiple frames. At first I thought it had something to do with the anchor option (which, for the record, I never quite understood), but then I figured it out. In an attempt to make the Eee more versatile, Asus defaults all OpenOffice Writer files to be saved as .doc files. This does weird things to formatting options that aren't available on Microsoft Word. It was a simple fix - save everything as .odt files.

Avoid proprietary file extensions.

Microsoft Publisher and Linux

Day 10

I ran into my first brick wall using the Eee PC. My team at school recently decided to hold a small awards ceremony to mark the end of the first 10 weeks. We chose students for high achievement and effort, and one of the teachers created award certificates using Microsoft Publisher. During our team meeting, she wanted to show us her design, so she popped her flash drive into my Eee. Nothing recognized the .pub file.

The woes of Publisher is a familiar one for Linux users. I went through this same predicament last year while using Ubuntu. Users looking to do desktop publishing will find solace in Scribus, however it did me no good in regard to our student award files - Scribus is unable to open .pub files.

How big of a problem is this for potential Asus customers? No very. After all, how often does the average user even open Publisher? For those that use it often, go with Scribus. It's quite similar. Just don't plan on pulling up old projects done with Microsoft Publisher.

Pros and Cons

Day 8

Well, I made it though my first week with the Asus Eee PC. When I first half-jokingly proposed the idea of going cold turkey on all my other computers, I figured it would be much more difficult. While it hasn't been all kittens and tulips, I must say my overall experience with the Eee has been enjoyable.

Since today marks the completion of approximately 1/14^th of the experiment, I thought it might be fitting to give my initial pros and cons of the Eee PC. If they change enough maybe I'll do an updated list every week.

Pros

Size

The idea of a tiny laptop was what drew me to the Eee in the first place, but I wasn't sure if the novelty would wear off. How would I handle a screen roughly the size of one on an ATM, and a chicklet-sized keyboard? Surprisingly it was quite easy to adapt, although I found myself typing with my pinky far more than I ever did before. Overall, I'm still impressed by the ultra-portability of the Eee. Besides, nothing looks cooler than walking down the hall carrying a laptop with one hand like a paperback book.

Battery

I've been getting about four hours of life before getting to 10% and plugging the Eee in. That's almost double what I usually get on my HP. I've yet to have it completely die on me.

Linux

I got into a Linux kick last fall, so I have about a year's experience on the operating system. I'm most comfortable with Ubuntu, and I have a desktop with Google's G Os, but I've played around with all the popular flavors. Maybe this is why I didn't feel too lost when I first started up the default Xandros system. I'm listing Linux as pro for all the usual reasons – open source, fast, and flawless. In the first week, I've only had one error message (with Firefox), and I think it was an Internet connectivity issue, and not with the operating system.

Cons

Linux

If I had bought the Eee before last fall, I might

be singing a different tune – and this is why I'm also adding Linux to my cons list. Using Synaptic and the console are second nature for me now, but newbies may run into some serious trouble. In terms of customization, the Eee only has extremes. Easy mode is too restrictive, and advanced mode is truly for the advanced user.

Wireless

I'm having one hell of a time connecting to wireless signals. To be fair, I have only had the opportunity to do so with my home router, so I need to do some testing to rule out the possibility that it's a problem outside of the Eee. On average though, it takes about six minutes to connect. I've googled this problem, and it seems to be a consistent woe on Eee forums and wikis. The machine detects the signal, but then hangs forever before connecting.

The dreaded pending screen...

Applications

Again, I'm comfortable using open source applications such as Pidgin, Thunderbird, and the OpenOffice suite, but I'm trying to write this from the perspective of a novice user. Xandros in advanced mode looks and feels much like Windows, so users may do some chin scratching when the try to click on a familiar-looking icon. Plus, even with Synaptic, downloading new applications can be iffy. There are no repositories, so that's an extra step to the usual search-and-install Synaptic bliss.

Making Space

Day 6
I need a copy of the 1983 movie The Outsiders to show to my students. I'm almost positive there's a copy of it in the building somewhere, but just in case, I'd like to download a backup copy in the event that my colleagues fall through on delivering the goods. But how do I download on a computer that only has about 1GB of available space?

First, I started with what I know - Ubuntu Hardy comes with torrent downloading software Transmission. I've already added a few repositories to Synaptic, so I take my chances and search for Transmission. Luck is on my side and it shows up. I mark it for installation and apply changes. All appears well, but the Transmission icon fails to show itself in any of the menus, and it does not load using sudo transmission in the console. If it did install correctly, I'll never know.

Next step - I google torrents for the Eee and find that ktorrent is the most popular. I follow a simple tutorial and it downloads no problem. Looks and acts similar to Transmission, so I'm feeling good. Now to deal with the space restrictions.

I go to "Configure Ktorrent" in the settings menu and change the downloading path to an external 8GB flash drive. Easy fix.

After a quick search on Pirate Bay, I'm all set.


Installing Ktorrent only took a few minutes and changing the download path is an easy hack to combat the Eee's space restrictions.