Color blindness, sometimes called daltonism, is mostly a color vision deficiency. Colorblind people can’t tell the difference between some chromatic colors and as far as I know there are no tools on Linux OSes that can help them distinguish the hues. I use Ubuntu, and the colorblind applet is part of the gnome-mag package, but for some reason (and I have no idea why) the developers didn’t include it in the distro. So, basically, we’re gonna recompile the gnome-mag package, with the colorblind panel applet.
The following tutorial was tested on Ubuntu 8.04.1 with GNOME 2.22.3. Anyway, we are interested in the gnome-mag package version, so you should check yours right now! How? Open Synaptic (System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager) and search for gnome-mag. You will see the version number on the ‘Installed Version’ column.
I have version 0.15.0, as you can see from the above screenshot. If you have the same or another one, grab the respective version from the following link.
OK, so let’s get down to business and recompile the gnome-mag package with colorblind support. First of all, it is essential to install some development tools, if you don’t have them (most people don’t). Open a terminal (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and paste the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install build-essential libxv-dev libxfixes-dev libxdamage-dev libxcomposite-dev libxrender-dev liborbit2-dev python-object-dev libatspi-dev libcolorblind-dev libgnome-mag-dev python-gtk2-dev python-gnome2-dev libgnome-desktop-dev gettext autoconf automake libtool gnome-common
Don’t close the terminal window yet!
Suppose the gnome-mag archive was saved on your desktop. Extract it, enter the folder and type on the terminal the following commands, one by one:
cd Desktop/gnome-mag-0.15.0
./configure –prefix=/usr
make
sudo make install
Note: Don’t forget to change the version number from the first command according to your installed package!
When the installation is over, log out! When you’re back, right click on the panel and left click on ‘Add to Panel’…
The Add to Panel window will open and you should see the Colorblind applet…
Double click on it to add it to the GNOME panel!
That’s it folks! Right click on the Colorblind applet to access the preferences, from where you can choose a default filter and change the access keys (defaults are Shift + Ctrl + c to activate the filters and Shift + Ctrl + n to change them).
Now, test the colorblind filters here and here or search Google Images for colorblind!
Note: It appears that the filters don’t work with Compiz Fusion, so you should disable it first (right click on the desktop -> Change Desktop Background -> Visual Effects -> None).
Share and Enjoy:
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Written by Jason on August 6th, 2008 with no comments.
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This tutorial describes how to install Ubuntu by copying the contents of the installation CD to an USB memory stick (aka flash drive) and making the stick bootable. This is handy for machines like ultra portable notebooks that do not have a CD drive but can boot from USB media.
In short here’s what you do:
Prepare the USB flash drive
Boot the computer from your USB flash drive.
Install Ubuntu as you would from a normal boot CD
Prerequisites
A running Ubuntu 8.04 or any ubuntu version installation
A USB device (stick, pen-drive, USB hard disk) that has already been formatted with FAT32 and has enough free space to hold your Ubuntu installation image
A Ubuntu CD image downloaded from the Ubuntu servers or mirrors (*.iso file) or from here
Step 1
On the root directory of your USB device, create a folder “install”
Copy the installer kernel and the initramdisk into this folder (Download source below.You need the files “vmlinux” and “initrd.gz”).
Download source for the installer kernel and initramdisk
For AMD64 Download from here
For i386 Download from here
You need to download the files “vmlinux” and “initrd.gz”.
Step 2
Note: You need to have the installer that fits the architecture of your Ubuntu version you want to install. In other words, you need a amd64 installer if you want to install an amd64 Ubuntu .iso image and the i386 installer for an i386 iso.
Step 3
From the installation iso image you downloaded, copy the folder “isolinux” to the root directory of your USB device (right-click on the .iso file, choose “extract here”). Rename “isolinux” into “syslinux”. Go inside the directroy “syslinux”. There, rename the file “isolinux.cfg” into “syslinux.cfg”.
Step 4
Make the stick bootable: Use fdisk to set the boot flag,
Install syslinux using the following command
sudo aptitude install syslinux
Now use syslinux to install a boot sector on your USB device
sudo syslinux /dev/sdbX
where sdbX is the device name and number of your USB device, check with “sudo mount”. A file called “ldlinux.sys” will be created in the root direcotry of the USB device.
Step 5
Copy the Ubuntu CD image in the root directory of your USB device (Contents of USB you can see as follows).If you are using i386 you need to copy the complete .iso image in to the root directory of your USB device.
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The built in Mail program for Ubuntu is Evolution Mail. It has a familiar interface to MS Outlook and OSX Mail.
In this tutorial I walkthrough setting up Evolution mail witha POP account, in this example I use my gmail account information. This can be applied in similar fashion for your own ISP mail server information accordingly.
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Is your Windows Vista registered under the wrong name, misspelled or has been transfered to you? Follow these steps to change the registered owner name to what it should be.
Watch my video tutorial for details:
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To turn a windows feature ON /OFF follow my video tutorial below for step by step instructions:
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Control remotely over a network connection your Windows Vista or XP computer or the other way around. Get access to your Vista applications or data stored on a remote computer from your XP PC connected on your local network for example. Below is a quick video tutorial I created explaining how.
The steps are easy to follow, however if you prefer written instructions
1. On the Vista computer you want to connect to for example, click Start, right-click
Computer, and then click
Properties.
2. Make note of the Computer name if you do not know the IP address, then, under tasks, click Remote settings.
3. If all your computers are running Vista, click Allow connections only from computers running Remote Desktop with Network Level Authentication. If you have Windows XP that you want to use to connect to this computer, click Allow connections from computers running any version of Remote Desktop.
4. Click Select Users.
5. In the Select Users dialog, click the
Add button. Type the name of the user you want to grant access to, and then click
OK. Repeat this step to add more users.
6. Click OK twice.
Windows Vista will automatically open the necessary exception in Windows Firewall. Now, you are ready to use Remote Desktop to connect to the computer from another computer.
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