A Preview of Qimo 2.0

Recently, the Qimo4Kids website released a description of Qimo 2.0, due in late April. Among the updates are a new mascot, named Illa (pronounced eee- lah), as well as a pinkish, girly theme to go along with the current blue theme.

The Qimo 2.0 packages are planned to be Ubuntu 10.04 compatible, so you can add them to an existing Ubuntu 10.04 install if you don't wish to install Qimo from scratch.

For more Qimo news, feel free to visit the Qimo for Kids website, Facebook page, or Twitter feed.

Ubuntu 9.10's integrated font installer

TrueType Font fans, rejoice! Ubuntu 9.10 has an integrated font installer which is quite easy to use. I'll give you a quick overview of how it works.

First, find someplace on the Internet that is giving away free fonts. In this case, I'm using Halloweenfonts.com:

In this case, fonts are stored inside of zip files. Open the zip file with Archive Manager.


When the TTF file appears, double-click it.


After double-clicking the TTF font, the Ubuntu font installer should come up automatically. Click "Install Font":



The font should now be installed:


Start up a program such as OpenOffice to verify that the font has been properly added:


Now, use your new font! Enjoy!

Help Shawn Powers!

My favorite Linux columnist, Shawn Powers, recently was victim of a house fire. His family survived, though all of his pets perished in the fire. Linux Journal recently created a chipin page to help out his family during this difficult time.

I don't usually post non-tech stuff on this blog, but I wish Shawn the best, and I encourage you to help him out if you have the means to do so.

PySDM- Straightforward Storage Device Manager for Linux

One thing that has annoyed me about Ubuntu is that Ubuntu doesn't automatically mount partitions that were pre-existing before the install. For example, I have a 500 gig hard drive that contains backups and Linux distro ISO files, and I don't format that partition when installing distros on this machine. After reinstalling, the partition still exists, but I have to manually mount the partition in order to use it. Granted, this is an improvement from the olden days of having to rebuild your /etc/fstab by hand after each install, but changing the default behavior of a hard drive partition would still require manually editing the /etc/fstab file.

For those of you that want to automatically mount multiple hard drives in Linux, but aren't big fans of manually editing your /etc/fstab file, there's a program out there called PySDM, or PyGTK Storage Device Manager. It creates an intuitive GUI to allow you to configure your hard drive partitions, and also includes an assistant to help you choose mounting options that are convenient, such as automatically mounting the partition on startup or only mounting the system in read-only mode.

This program is a splendid alternative to manually editing the /etc/fstab file. In Ubuntu 9.10, it can be installed by installing the "pysdm" package, or by searching the Ubuntu Software Center for "pysdm". Once installed, it is available under the System --> Administration --> Storage Device Manager.

Pandora Console update

Well, I've been adding videos to my old Pandora post, but I think it's time for a new post.

I have some more videos, as well as some wallpapers that I've created.

First, some videos.

The D-Pad "Fireball" test in Street Fighter II:

Quake 2 using the analog nubs:

Videos showing Panorama, a new launcher that is being developed for the Pandora.
Test builds are available here:

Pmenu emulation using Panorama:

A Panorama theme called Magma:

Although the 3D Models of the Pandora have been released, it appears to have been in error, and the 3D files have been made private again. Nonetheless, here are some Pandora wallpapers:

The original image came from AndyL on the PandoraPress blog.

The others are mine (Click for full versions):

New Linux Journal Article: Working with Windows XP in Linux using VirtualBox

A lot of the volunteer work that I do involves working with the Windows XP operating system. Recently, I needed to configure a server that was originally running on Win XP and needed to continue to function as an XP machine. I was able to do that in Linux using VirtualBox, and Linux Journal's website published the article here.

I'm preparing to don flame retardant clothing, as there is a high potential for an ensuing flame war on the site ;)