To do this, simply open a terminal window and type:

sudo apt-get install ufraw ufraw-batch

Now navigate to the folder where your NEF files are, and type:

ufraw-batch *.NEF --out-type=jpeg --out-folder ~/Pictures/JPEG012012

Now, naturally, you’re going to have to change the “out-folder” path. If you’re happy for the JPEG files to reside in the same folder as the NEFs, then just leave off the out-folder parameter entirely.

That’s it. Get a coffee and put your feet up while the magic happens!

GUI Method

This is as simple as opening a terminal window (ironically) and running:

gnome-desktop-item-edit ~/Desktop/ --create-new

If gnome-desktop-item-edit isn’t installed – as I believe is the case with a vanilla 11.10 installation, then install it by typing:

sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends gnome-panel

When you run the gnome-desktop-item-edit command, you’ll be able to set the path, name and icon for the application.

Create Launcher window

Text Editor Method

The text editor method is useful if you don’t want to install GNOME Panel, or other extra programs. Effectively what we do is manually create the launcher file.

Step one is to fire up your favourite text editor. Here I must confess my love for vi, but you can choose whatever flavour you want. In a blank text file, type or paste the following:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=
Exec=
Name=
Icon=/

On the Terminal line type true after the = sign if the application runs in a terminal window. Type false if it’s a GUI application.

On the Exec line, type the path and command to the application you want to launch – e.g. /home/lechien/minecraft/minecraft.sh

On the Name line, type the name of the application. You can leave the Icon line alone for now.

Save this file to your Desktop folder and name it: APPNAME.desktop

Replace APPNAME with the name of your application, e.g: Minecraft.desktop

Close your text editor and your new launcher should appear on the desktop.

To change the icon, right-click on your launcher and click Properties from the context menu. Click on the current icon in the properties window and you will be prompted to choose a custom icon for your launcher.

And that’s it – two easy(ish) ways to create desktop launchers in Ubuntu.

A screenshot of the problem is below:

I believe the issue has been documented at LaunchPad under bug number 879648, but no resolution has yet been posted.

It occurred to me that the issue could be do to with Compiz compositing, and after playing around with the Window Management settings, the problem seems to be resolved for me. The solution was as follows:

• Run the CompizConfig Settings Manager. If it’s not installed, then drop into a terminal window and type:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

• Click on Window Management
• Uncheck the the Grid

If you use the grid functions, then view this as a workaround. I never used the grid, so it’s no hassle for me to disable it. At least I can now switch workspaces and move the mouse around without having to look at my desktop through opaque orange glasses.

The upgrade to Unity seemed to stop my NumLock from working at the login screen. After I logged in to Ubuntu, NumLock would illuminate, but at the login screen it remained off. It doesn’t take much to confound my less-than-stellar muscle memory, so since I always use the number pad to input the numbers in my password, logging in was frustrating.

Anyway, the good news is – if you have the same strange affliction – it’s not too difficult to fix.

As always, open a terminal window.

Type:

sudo apt-get install numlockx

When this has finished, type:

gksu gedit /etc/gdm/Init/Default

At the end of the file, just before the line that says exit 0, insert the following lines:

if [ -x /usr/bin/numlockx ]; then

exec /usr/bin/numlockx on

fi

Now exit from the terminal, and reboot your computer. NumLock should now be enabled at the login screen.

Anyway, I recently had a problem where Skype would not open on my Ubuntu 11.04 laptop. Well, to be precise, Skype opened and closed immediately. The solution was simple enough.

Firstly, open a terminal window

Type:

cd ~/.Skype
rm shared.xml


When you have done this, restart Skype. You will need to supply your username and password, and maybe check any configuration options, but Skype will be working again!

A couple of my initial gripes with Unity centered around the fact that it seemed to take me a tad longer to get where I wanted to be. For instance, my Documents, Pictures, Downloads and root directory shortcuts had vanished along with the Places menu. This handy little tweak gives you the following menu, when you right click on the Home folder in the Unity launcher:

Home launcher tweak

To get this, simply download the script from this link.

When you have downloaded it (assuming it is in your Downloads folder), open a terminal window and type:

chmod +x ~/Downloads/tweak_home_folder.sh

sudo ~/Downloads/tweak_home_folder.sh

You may have to log out of Unity in order for the changes to take effect, but when you log back in simply right click on your Home folder in the Unity launcher to see the new menu.

Also, I found that task switching had slowed down in Unity. To speed things up again, do the following:

• Go to System Settings
• Run the CompizConfig Settings Manager
• If this is not visible, then drop to a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager


• When you get into the CompizConfig Settings Manager, select the Window Management category
• Then select the Scale applet
• Click on Bindings and I chose the Bottom Right corner of the screen to initiate the window picker.

Now all I have to do is flick my mouse pointer to the bottom right of the screen, and I can quickly task switch.

I also modified the default launcher behaviour through System Settings -> Launcher & Menus, so that the launcher is now only activated when my mouse pointer is in the top left corner of the screen. This saves a lot of frustration when my wildly erratic movements take the mouse pointer too close to the left of the screen.

Hope you enjoy these. I’ll add more tweaks as I find them!

Evolution stores its folder details in a small SQL database file called, strangely enough, folders.db! If this file is corrupted, then you will likely get the messages mentioned above. If it’s removed altogether, though, Evolution will rebuild it based on your current physical folder structure.

To do this, simply issue the following two commands after quitting from Evolution:

rm ~/.evolution/mail/local/folders.db
rm ~/.local/share/evolution/mail/local/folders.db

If you’re a little squeamish about wanton deleting of files, then I sympathise, and suggest that you “mv” the files elsewhere, rather than brutally “rm” them. As long as they’re moved out of Evolution’s folders, then you may do whatever you wish with them.

Restart Evolution and all should be well.

On a side note, I’ve recently upgraded my Maverick installation to 11.04 Natty Narwhal and, as usual, the upgrade was flawless. Kudos and thanks to the entire Ubuntu team! Although I don’t currently have the time to help out as a developer (although I’d love to – or maybe they’ve seen my code!!), I do like to get involved in the Ubuntu forums – particularly after a new release. It’s usually a mad, all-hands-on-deck scenario helping out users with upgrade issues, and this release was no exception. The forums are great and, I think, a really good way of giving something back and getting involved in the Ubuntu community. If you want to check out the forums, they’re here. I’ve always found the help provided to be quick, friendly and, above all, accurate!

There are two parts to this fix. Maybe only the first one will be necessary for you, but if you have an Nvidia or ATI graphics card, then you might have to do the second part as well.

Firstly, open a terminal window and type:

sudo mkdir /etc/adobe

sudo gedit /etc/adobe/mms.cfg

In the editor, type:

OverrideGPUValidation=true

Close and save the file.

Restart your browser and try running any full-screen Flash movie from YouTube, for example. If this works, then all well and good. If not, then try the following:

Edit the launcher for your chosen web browser, and insert the following before the launcher command:

env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so.1

I use Google Chrome (yes…I know!!), so the launcher command was:

/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --enable-plugins %U

Which becomes:

env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libGL.so.1 /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --enable-plugins %U

Again, restart your browser using this launcher, and see if full-screen Flash video works now.

I’m going to avoid the Steve Jobs-like rant with regard to Flash and why it seems to be terminally unstable and insecure, but hopefully this will be one step closer to getting an improved Flash experience on your Ubuntu installation.

Although it was certainly not due to good planning by me, the build and install procedure I posted a few days ago doesn’t actually replace any critical GNOME 2 files, so you can easily switch back if you wish.

It’s remarkably simple, so here is the procedure. Open a terminal window and type:

unlink ~/.local/share/applications/gnome-shell.desktop

This removes the symbolic link to the new GNOME desktop. We can put a link back to the old desktop by typing:

ln -s /usr/share/applications/gnome-shell.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/gnome-shell.desktop

Now all we need to do is change the window manager back:

gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager "compiz" -t string

I’m assuming you were using Compiz for compositing, like me. If you were using Metacity, then change the “compiz” string to “metacity”.

Now log out of GNOME – or even better – restart your computer. When it reboots, your familiar GNOME 2 desktop will be back. The sandbox version of GNOME 3 still exists, though, so try opening a terminal window and typing:

cd ~/gnome-shell/source/gnome-shell/src
./gnome-shell --replace

This will replace your current GNOME shell with the sandbox version, so you can still play with GNOME 3 and get the bugs ironed out. A simple CTRL-C in the terminal window will return you to your old desktop.

Before I start, I should advise you that GNOME 3 is very different to the previous versions. For a start, it uses Mutter, which is based on Metacity, for compositing. If you’re not a big Compiz fan then this won’t mean much to you; however I was a little emotionally distraught to lose my expo function and easy hot-corner desktop switching. Even if you’re not using Compiz then your muscle memory will still get confused in GNOME 3, because it switches the close button back to the right hand side of the window, rather than the left in newer versions of Ubuntu. If you’ve already followed my previous instructions to set these buttons back to the right, then you’ll have spared yourself the agony that I’m currently going through (ok – so I exaggerate, it’s not like I’m walking across a bed of hot coals or anything!!).

GNOME 3 Window switcher

That being said, GNOME 3 looks very sleek and pretty. It also seems faster than GNOME 2, but that could be because the compositing is now being handled in a more integrated manner, rather than with the Compiz overlay. So, if you want to do this, at the moment your only option is to build from source. Don’t panic – it’s really not as scary as it sounds. Here is the procedure I used (with thanks to the Ubuntu forums and GNOME project page – I managed to put my own install together using the details on both of these resources):

Firstly make sure that gcc is installed. I know this sounds obvious, but just make sure anyway! So, if opening a terminal window and running:

gcc --version

returns an error, then type:

sudo apt-get install gcc

Next, we can install the dependencies that are needed. Just copy and paste the following line:

sudo apt-get install curl libtiff4-dev libgstreamer0.10-dev libcroco3-dev xulrunner-dev mesa-utils mesa-common-dev libreadline5-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libwnck-dev librsvg2-dev libgnome-desktop-dev libgnome-menu-dev libffi-dev libgtk2.0-dev libgconf2-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev gtk-doc-tools gnome-common git-core flex bison automake build-essential icon-naming-utils autopoint libvorbis-dev libpam-dev libgcrypt-dev libtasn1-dev libtasn1-3-bin libgnome-keyring-dev libupower-glib-dev libxklavier16 libxklavier-dev xserver-xephyr python-dev libpulse-dev libjasper-dev jhbuild libgtop2-dev libsqlite3-dev libproxy-dev libdb-dev libproxy-dev libcups2-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev gperf

When they are happily installed, you must – and I mean absolutely must – remove the .la files from /usr/lib and /usr/lib64. It seems that these files contain hard-coded paths, which cause issues with the compilation of your new sandbox installation of GNOME 3. So, let’s get rid of them. The easiest way to do this is:

sudo find /usr/lib*/ -name "*.la" -delete

Trust me that this needs to be done. I didn’t know this at first, and spent a fruitless 3 hours trying to get GNOME 3 to compile properly. It didn’t help that I was watching Arsenal fail to beat Liverpool at the same time, but that’s a different rant altogether.

Still with me…or are you smarting over Arsenal too? Right, then we need to download and execute the setup script, but first add the following to the path:

export PATH=$PATH:/home/YOUR USERNAME/bin

Obviously, replace “YOUR USERNAME” with…your username. the bit before the @ sign in your command prompt, if you’re not sure. When you have done this, then type the following:

cd

./gnome-shell-build-setup.sh

This will produce a long screen of text, which will eventually bring you back to the prompt. Assuming no horrible errors are reported, then you can proceed to the next step.

jhbuild build

Now go off and do something productive. Leave this running because, depending on the speed of your Internet connection and computer, you could be waiting up to 3 hours for this to complete. I’d say 2 hours would be a reasonable average. So walk the dog, cook and eat a gourmet meal, re-create the Sistine chapel ceiling in your sitting room. Eventually what we’re hoping for is the last line of the output, which says “Success”. If you don’t get that, then have a look at the common problems here.

In the manner of a Microsoft support person, I’m going to assume that you had no problems at all with this procedure, and now are waiting expectantly to see what to do next. To try out GNOME 3, simply type the following:

cd ~/gnome-shell/source/gnome-shell/src

./gnome-shell --replace

This will give you a happy sandbox to play in. It won’t affect your current GNOME installation, and you can test out GNOME 3 to your heart’s content. To get back to your previous window manager, simply switch back to the terminal and hit CTRL-C.

If you have been utterly blown away by the GNOME 3 experience or – like me – you just decide to doggedly persevere until you get it working exactly as you want, then type the following lines to replace GNOME 2 with GNOME 3:

ln -s ~/gnome-shell/install/share/applications/gnome-shell.desktop ~/.local/share/applications/gnome-shell.desktop

gconftool-2 -s /desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager "gnome-shell" -t string

When you log out and back in again, GNOME 3 will start automatically.

So far, I like the speed and look of GNOME 3, but I need to get an “expo” function working again. It’s (very) early days, but I haven’t even figured out how to shut down the computer yet!! I like the new “System Settings” applet, which is available from the “Activities” menu or the user menu on the right hand side. I also like the way it groups windows and has an automatic “hot corner” at the top left. I’m sure that I’ll come up with some more gripes and fixes in future, so watch this space as I continue to play with GNOME 3!