art, life and software development

You can convert multiple image (jpg/png/gif….) files to a single PDF in LinuxMint/Ubuntu by the imagemagick package. Here is step-by-step guideline:
 1. Install imagemagick from Ubuntu/LinuxMint Software Center or Synaptic Package Manager. You may not need to do this in LinuxMint as (if memory serves me right) it comes with the default installation
 If you prefer the terminal it's
sudo apt-get install imagemagick
 2. Put all your image files in a single directory.
 3. Open a terminal and go to this directory: cd 'directory-location'
4. Enter following command: 
 convert * output.pdf 
Where output.pdf is the desired single PDF file. 

Straight forward and simple. Thanks to Shafuil Azam for the heads-up

edit /etc/bash.bashrc file and include the following at the bottom

JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java
export JAVA_HOME
PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin
export PATH

Thanks to Deja Vu

To use the Xscreen savers on my KDE plasma desk, I went to the Synaptic package manager and installed the xscreensaver. It autoselected its dependencies and I added the xscreensaver-gl-extra. After installing I went to System settings and in the screensavers list all the screen savers from the xscreensavers were there.
Select, use and enjoy.

Every so often an adage becomes part of your experience. The one for the day was "a friend in need is a friend indeed". I was truly a friend in need and I had a friend indeed in a guy who strangely enough I have never met in person but, I can count amongst one of my closest pals. Greg Whitehead (thats his name) and I met while I was developing the myForum2 online office/conferencing system (Flash Media Server application). He is the PHP guru who I collaborated with to build that and a couple of other systems. Well he saved my Linux newbie arse again, a true friend indeed.
All those who read this little treatise on starting, stopping and restarting Red5 in Linux, you owe this bit of information to him. Okay enough of the waffle.

To begin my distro is Linux Mint (Daryna), Greg is an Ubuntu man. I installed Red5 using the GDebi package installer. Then the 1st hurdle appeared, apparently Red5 was installed successfully but, "Where the Deuce was the damned thing?". As a windows user I expect to see Icons or a start-up link somewhere when I install a service, not in this case. The absence of an install Icon was painfully obvious. After some desperate Googling I managed to find out how to get at the demos, so I could test for the presence of Red5 http://localhost:5080/demos/port_tester.swf. Then the major hurdle, how do I stop the Red5 service. A lenghty session of Googling only brought frustration and desperation. After 3 hours I was irritated and fed up.
Enter Greg the Saviour, and here is the way:

First locate the service by typing the following in your Terminal
cd /etc/init.d

Next type
ls

This will show you all your services. If Red5 is there, you're in business.

To stop Red5, type:
sudo ./red5 stop

If you are successfull you will get the following print out
Stopping Red5 flash streaming server: red5.

To start Red5, type:
sudo ./red5 start

Success will yield the following print out
Starting Red5 flash streaming server: red5.

To restart Red5 type:
sudo ./red5 restart

Successfull you get:
Restarting Red5 flash streaming server: red5.

Thats it folks, if you're new to Linux like moi get ready for the next headache. By the by does any one out there know how I can get my web cam to work in Linux Mint? Once more, thanks G :)

Having gone through the travails of setting up LinuxMint. I say travails because despite the ease of install process, it took a prayer to get the damned thing to install. It shut down my computer so many times when it was about 98% complete, forcing me to do it all again. I often wondered if the struggle was really worth the effort. Finally it went through and as shown in the previous post I had the LinuxMint OS. There were of course a few more crashes as I muddled my way through updates and so on. Now the big challenge installing the new Flex Builder Linux Public Alpha. The first thing required was to get Eclipse Europa, this has to be downloaded and installed from the Eclipse site because the version thats built into LinuxMint as a choice of installable software does not support FlexBuilder 3. LinuxMint has a wonderful util called and Archive manager. Download the Eclipse Europa tar.gz and use the archive Manager to put it at the location of your choice on your hard drive, mine was /ayo/eclipse. Once that is done download your Flex Builder Linux Public Alpha .bin file. When the download is done, open the folder you downloaded the .bin, go to the Terminal from that folder and type

chmod +x Flexbuilder_blah_blah.bin

Click 'Enter', then type

./Flexbuilder_blah_blah.bin

Click 'Enter' again.
This will bring up the FlexBuilder installer. Follow the instructions and "Bob's your uncle". This version of FlexBuilder does not offer a Design View. This is unfortunate, nonetheless there you go, FlexBuilder 3 for Linux on LinuxMint Daryna.

I've just about had it with the Windows OS. Breakdowns, slow processing and response times, my smug friends with their Macs, constant patching to improve stability, ugly interfaces, a constant need to purchase Firewalls and Antivirus software, my smug friends with their Macs (Yes, I know I said that before). AAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!! While some of my favourite IDE's and software run on WIndows and all my development life has been on WIndows, I really do not want to put up with this "wahala" anymore. I'm however not quite ready to cough up for a 17" Mac Book Pro, besides one more laptop in my house...erm, no. Besides I'm hoping that I can find an OS that would make me as smug as my SMU (smug mac users) friends. Thankfully Linux has become a more appealing OS with the release of distros like Ubuntu. My choice, LinuxMint is a very well put together OS based on Ubuntu but, a hell of a lot prettier. It really is very pretty. It can be run from a CDRom but, is better served running on the harddrive. I installed LinuxMint Daryna as a dual boot with Windows XP, no real headaches there. All seems relatively well so far. Yes one is seriously suffering from Newbieitis - installing the simplest thing is a 30 minute trawl through reams of googled pages but I hope that this OS can offer me 'Peace of mind', something that only came in short bursts from Windows. LinuxMint is blindingly fast, pretty to look at, has the force of the Linux Open Source community behind it and it costs zero. How cool is that!
Now all I have to do is to figure out how to install 'Moviestar', FlashDevelop,Flex SDK, FlexBuilder 3 and Flash Media Server amongst others, sigh :(