HauntedShell » Homeless

National Service Secretariat, why?

Kwame — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:15:15 +0000

I finally got round to filling my National Service forms online and I just so happened to notice that their website sucked. A lot. What about it sucked? Well…

First of all, clicking on the enrollment link causes two windows to pop up. One of the windows contains a form that accepts a PIN number and redirects you to your enrollment form, other is a “Highlights Page”.
And oh, you have to click the “New Enrollment” button first to enable the PIN number field.
Once you finally enter your PIN number and submit, you enrollment form opens in yet another pop-up. Now even leaving the sheer ugliness of the resulting form aside, let’s look at a few things, shall we? You mean to tell me you were able to get my name, my programme of study from my school records but you somehow forgot to get my sex, date of birth and nationality while you were at it? I see…
Ok I fill the form, save the details and then click on the “Print Page” link (why it is not a button or named better, I don’t know).
The result is this:
And what is it with the “Highlights” page? Is it supposed to be a help page? If so, does it have to be so bloody confusing?

And that’s just the stuff I noticed off-hand. Why does it have to be so hard to just fill and submit one single form? Come on, we can do a lot better than that.

Replacing HP QuickPlay with XBMC(or any other application)

Kwame — Sat, 09 May 2009 21:12:18 +0000

I love my HP dv6915nr. It’s not the fastest or prettiest notebook around but it does most of what I want it to and does it quite well. However, one of the things that I hate is the bundled HP Quickplay software, which like the name suggests allows you to access your media very quickly. Versions 1.x to 2.3 of QuickPlay were based on Linux or Windows XP and had their own partition. As a result, it started up real fast and was battery friendly (kind of).
Version 3.x,which comes with my notebook, is different creature altogether.

HP QuickPlay

First, it runs as an application under Vista, meaning I have to wait for Vista to load before I can access the QuickPlay. And unfortunately, there appears to be no way to get an older version of Quickplay on my system, due to compatibility problems with newer computers.
So I got to thinking, if I have to wait for Vista to boot before getting access to my media, I might as well use the media center of my choice. Enter the XBox Media Center(XBMC). I won’t really go into XBMC, but it is the sweetest media center I have ever come across and I have tried a lot of them.

XBox Media Center

What I wanted to do was link the QuickPlay button on my notebook and the included remote to start XBMC up instead of QuickPlay. After consulting the great search oracle, I found what I wanted to know. The application that runs when the QuickPlay button is pressed is specified in the registry.(Like most of the other stuff on this site, the rest of this post can mess up your computer so the usual disclaimers apply. Proceed if you’re sure you know what you’re doing. And always remember to backup before doing anything that could cripple your system.)

Anyways, you need to find the following key:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Hewlett_Packard\HP Quick Launch Buttons\
Next, look for the string value called QAction. It should currently point to
C:\Program Files\HP\QuickPlay\QP.exe.
You can change the string to point to whatever other application you want. In my case, that’s C:\Program Files\XBMC\xbmc.exe

That’s all. Now I have my own incredibly customizable media center only a button away. Did I mention how much I love my computer?

Referenced
http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?p=108960#post108960

Taking the plunge: Jaunty

Kwame — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:50:15 +0000

Around 4am this morning, I finally decided to take the plunge and upgrade my Ubuntu installation to Jaunty.(Yes, I know the release date is tomorrow but I just can’t wait anymore). The simplest way to go about that is to hit Alt-F2 and then run:
update-manager -d
That will add the necessary repositories and perform the upgrade. I’m still downloading packages so check back in a few hours for updates.

Update: About a 2/3rds of the way through downloading packages. I hate Ghana Telecom. With a passion.

Update: Finally done! The upgrade process itself went through without a hitch. However, I had a problem with the driver for my Nvidia card not being detected. That was fixed in a jiffy using this guide. So now, I’m rocking the Jaunty release candidate. The only noticeable difference, for me so far, are the notifications. Anyways, let me play with it a little and see what more I can find.

I can’t wait for the final release so I can full upgrade.

Restoring Default Metacity button layout

Kwame — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:59:02 +0000

I wanted to try out the GlassyBleu theme that gets bundled with HP’s version of Ubuntu(MIE) for netbooks. However, after applying the theme, I noticed something was off:
[singlepic=29,320,240,,center]
I had been using the Mac4Lin theme previously and as you have probably noticed, OSX’s window decoration layout is a bit unique. To restore the settings back to normal, we need to fire up Gnome Configuration Editor, gconf-editor:
Alt-F2 > gconf-editor > Enter
Now waltz over to the /apps/metacity/general and look for the button_layout key. You need to make sure it’s value is “menu:minimize,maximize,close”. Right click on it and select Edit Key.
[singlepic=30,320,240,,center]
That’s it. Your settings should be back to normal.
[singlepic=31,320,240,,center]

And now back to our regular progamming…

Kwame — Sun, 25 May 2008 18:28:55 +0000

It’s been a while since I posted anything to HS. School work and other personal issues have been taking up so much of my time recently. Have a backlog of posts sitting on my drive that I will be uploading shortly.

Tratech Project

Kwame — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 04:02:18 +0000

It’s another academic year at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. I’ve decided that this semester, I really have to be a bit more vocal in open-source advocacy. So I have decided to build an student oriented "mini-distro" off Ubuntu. I want the distro (which I’m calling Techbuntu till I can find a better name) to have the following:

A simplified menu and panel structure to ease the transition from Windows
Necessary codecs and multimedia applications already bundled.( VLC, Banshee/Amarok, RealPlayer, Picasa etc…)
Applicaitons CAD, 3d modelling, Mathematical functions and Image editing.
Some really cool artwork.

I’m using reconstructor and the Feisty Fawn Live CD. Will try and rope in a few friends to help out. It will be interesting to see if I can get more people to switch using this tactic.