The Green Way to Fax (paper-less)

If you are like me and work with PDFs a lot, often times you get PDFs that you may need to PRINT and sign, then fax - because they can't accept e-mails etc.

PRINTing and Faxing wastes Paper on both sides. 

There are many FOSS tools in Linux that allow you to edit PDFs, insert Text and images.

1. Use PDF Editor to open a PDF document, and open it for editing 
2. You can insert text and/or images (like a scanned ink signature)
3. Once done, simply save it as a PDF, or JPG image.
4. Now you have an electronic document filled out and 'physically signed' to be faxed away

PDF Editor provides a very good interface to open a PDF and edit it in multiple ways, repackage and save it as a PDF.

Go to Ubuntu Software Center and search for 'PDFEditor'

Related articles:

• http://koan.studentenweb.org/software/jpeg2pdf.html
• Edit PDF Documents In Linux With PDF Mod
• 2 Ways To Annotate Your PDF Files Online

Initialize Interpid Ibex

Well well - I decided to remove Vista from the Vostro, downgraded to XP and dual-booted with Ubuntu 8.10

Installation was smooth as ever and grub worked perfectly. Dell ships with these broadcom network adapters that need b43 drivers - thankfully these are provided with the new dist.

There is a bunch of software that I typically need/want/desire - here are the steps to get it

I don't mind free closed-source software, so edit /etc/apt/sources.list & enable what's disabled.

Enable medibuntu:

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/intrepid.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

Now go for the mass install - remember Google & Sun want you to agree with their license terms - so keep an eye out for those when the time comes tab to Ok and hit enter.

sudo apt-get install python python-central python-gtk2 python-compizconfig compizconfig-settings-manager amarok flashplugin-nonfree amule audacity azureus banshee bluefish dvdrip filezilla msttcorefonts gnucash gstreamer* gtkpod-aac sun-java6-bin sun-java6-javadb sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin k3b kino mplayer mozilla-mplayer quanta kompozer scribus xchat-gnome bittornado bittornado-gui sound-juicer helix-player mozilla-helix-player googleearth acroread mozilla-acroread non-free-codecs ubuntu-restricted-extras libdvdcss2 opera xine-ui xine-plugin xmms2 xmms2tray xmms2-plugin-airplay xmms2-plugin-alsa xmms2-plugin-ao xmms2-plugin-asf xmms2-plugin-asx xmms2-plugin-avcodec xmms2-plugin-cdda xmms2-plugin-cue xmms2-plugin-curl xmms2-plugin-daap xmms2-plugin-faad xmms2-plugin-flac xmms2-plugin-gme xmms2-plugin-gvfs xmms2-plugin-ices xmms2-plugin-icymetaint xmms2-plugin-id3v2 xmms2-plugin-jack xmms2-plugin-karaoke xmms2-plugin-lastfm xmms2-plugin-m3u xmms2-plugin-mad xmms2-plugin-mms xmms2-plugin-modplug xmms2-plugin-mp4 xmms2-plugin-musepack xmms2-plugin-normalize xmms2-plugin-ofa xmms2-plugin-oss xmms2-plugin-pls xmms2-plugin-pulse xmms2-plugin-rss xmms2-plugin-sid xmms2-plugin-smb xmms2-plugin-speex xmms2-plugin-vocoder xmms2-plugin-vorbis xmms2-plugin-wma xmms2-plugin-xml xmms2-plugin-xspf vlc vlc-data vlc-dbg vlc-nox vlc-plugin-arts vlc-plugin-esd vlc-plugin-ggi vlc-plugin-jack vlc-plugin-pulse vlc-plugin-sdl vlc-plugin-svgalib thunderbird skype

Note: When you run Google Earth ensure that you have not Desktop Effects enabled.

This should provide nearly all the functionality that's needed for a baseline O/S installation.

Recover Dual Boot XP, Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)

Issue: I needed to reinstall Windows XP on a dual-boot machine. No new partitions were needed, there were 2 O/S partitions - one with XP and the other with Ubuntu. After reinstalling Windows - the machine would simply boot into Windows XP (no dual-boot menu)

Solution: Boot from Ubuntu LiveCD - choose to demo. Then open terminal.


rohit@rs-dimension:~$ sudo -i
[sudo] password for rohit:
root@rs-dimension:~# grub

[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For
the first word, TAB lists possible command
completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename. ]

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
(hd0,4)

grub> root (hd0,4)

grub> setup (hd0)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"... 16 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p (hd0,4)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/menu.lst"... succeeded
Done.



This setup grub in hd0 on my system - bringing back the boot menu. Simple