emesene fail to load friend list in ubuntu

I was always trying to find a stable distribution of MSN in ubuntu. The major problem with pidgin is that it can not receive or send any offline message, it is really really annoying to me. So I tried aMsn back in Ubuntu 7.10 time, it fuctions well but it is not stable. I have no idea if they have any further improvement on the latest version, but it was not a good impression. After upgrading to Hardy Heron, I decided to try something new: emesene.
You can get this by downloading directly from sources. Mine is:

deb http://tw.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://tw.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://tw.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://tw.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://tw.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hardy-proposed main restricted universe multiverse

As you may notice, I am not even sure which one is the source server, but surely it is from tw.archive.ubuntu.com.

Anyway, after installation, I found I am facing a problem that the friend list was never loaded. That means I can log on my MSN, but my friends list never show up. To solve this problem:

sudo sed -i.bak 's/09607671-1C32-421F-A6A6-CBFAA51AB5F4/CFE80F9D-180F-4399-82AB-413F33A1FA11/g' /usr/share/emesene/emesenelib/XmlTemplates.py

I am not sure what this code does, but it really can solve this problem. I hope this may help. GL!

Lightweight and highly configurable desktop widget: conky

Just simply cool:

Downloading referring to http://conky.sourceforge.net/

Configuring referring to http://ebupof.deviantart.com/art/My-Conky-Config-1-5-79251193

See:

Dualview settings on Thinkpad T61p for Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron

Well, this is only used as a more specific instructions on how to deal with the multimonitor issues in Ubuntu.

The brief idea can be referenced to: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NvidiaMultiMonitors

The problem with the post is that it assumes you will obtain the nvidia-settings once you installed the nvidia restricted drivers on your laptop, but unfortunately, that is not gonna happen.

After you enabled the restricted drivers, you may also do the following:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-settings

This will allow you to have access to the settings. Then, in your terminal, input:

sudo nvidia-settings

You may want to access the settings with root, because any changes in here will be applied to /etc/X11/xorg.conf. It won't let you change the settings without the root permission.

That is pretty much what you need to know. GL!

Configure Ubuntu GRUB to select the default booting OS

I was frequently annoyed by the fact that the grub start ubuntu by default all the time. As I am still a new-bee in the ubuntu world, I still have to go to windows to do most of my jobs. Thus, I decided to do something to modify the default OS for GRUB. Here is how it is done:

The GRUB menu is controlled by the file called menu.lst.

/boot/grub/menu.lst

Well, run the following command will let you edit this file with root:

sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

You may find an entry like this in the head part of the original file:

# WARNING: If you are using dmraid do not use 'savedefault' or your
# array will desync and will not let you boot your system.
default 0

## timeout sec

Now, check the foot part of this file, you may find a bunch of entires according to the options of your GRUB menu. Mine is like this:

## ## End Default Options ##

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-19-generic
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=UUID=7f4a3b67-946b-4b1f-88e3-441281d41b04 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-19-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=UUID=7f4a3b67-946b-4b1f-88e3-441281d41b04 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-19-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=7f4a3b67-946b-4b1f-88e3-441281d41b04 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic (recovery mode)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=7f4a3b67-946b-4b1f-88e3-441281d41b04 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic

title Ubuntu 8.04.1, memtest86+
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Other operating systems:
root


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title Windows Vista SP1
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

Now, as we have 6 entries in our menu list, and the comment shows that the default value starts at 0, you may assume that we should assign the default value to 5, then we can achieve our goal. However, I have made the same mistake as you did. Ridiculously, there is another entry called "Other operating systems:" in the menu list. (Well, now you may point out that it is already showed in the menu.lst file, but the problem is who the hell will assume that as an entry to the menu option?)

Well, anyway, now what you have to do is to assign 6 to the default and everything will be fine. I hope this might be helpful.