Menard Takes His Sponsor Elsewhere, DEI Left to Look For New Sponsors

The slow, inevitable trickle continues.

Paul Menard has up and taken his sponsor, Menards and headed over the Yates Racing beginning in the 2009 season.

With Menards going with Paul, the Army expected to head to Tony Stewart's team, that leaves DEI with Bass Pro Shops with Martin Truex Jr.. The once mighty DEI garage, who could pad their sponsors coffers with appearances of their ex-driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., is now finding themselves scrambling to find themselves more sponsors.

As it is, Almirola has no sponsor yet for the No. 8 car either.

Not looking so good, not giving Jr 51%, huh?

Well, let's see what happens and how many cars they really will be fielding in 2009!

To be fair to DEI, I'm not sure if this would not have happened anyway. Other shops are struggling with sponsorship issues too in this silly-season of economic down turns.

source

Chase Points After Kansas

Jimmie Johnson has solidified his place in the lead of the standings with his performance at Kansas Speedway.

It puts him 10 points in front of his wall smacking competitor, Carl Edwards.
20 points behind Carl (30 behind Jimmie) is fellow Roush Racing driver, Greg Biffle.
Then 121 points behind Jimmie is Jeff Burton.

The oddity, or surprise to everyone is the position that Kyle Busch finds himself, 311 points behind Jimmie Johnson, after so many mechanical woes.

Next week can make or break his attempt at the Cup. Talladega can be a crap shoot and it's the wild card in the chase, much like Kyle's bad luck.

For the complete standings, check out NASCAR. (Or my widget off the right and down a bit.)

Jimmie Johnson Barely Wins the Camping World RV 400

by Bruce E. Simmons :

Woes before It even Starts At Kansas
Jeff Gordon starts the race very sick and a back up driver sits in the wings, waiting.
Jeff Burton stays on pit road when everyone else pulls off due to a bad tach that the crew fixes. Burton heads to the back of the pack. That's from 37th to 42nd.

Race Start:
Jimmie Johnson leads the pack to the green flag. Clint Bowyer in the No. 07 Chevy gets black flagged for passing on the start before the start / finish line.

Lap 17: Matt Kenseth in the No. 17 Ford takes the lead from Jimmy Johnson while Bowyer is still on the lead lap, barely in front of the leader.

Lap 27: It's reported that Kyle Busch's engine is failing. Seems too early, but when Juan Pablo Montoya and Sam Hornish passed him, I started to believe it.
Lap 42: Martin Truex Jr. takes the lead from Kenseth.
Lap 44 top 10: 1, 17, 83, 48, 19, 5, 24, 8, 84 21

Lap 50 starts green flag pit stops.
Brian Vickers parks it almost sideways as he comes across the nose of the 99 car and slows the 20 car trying to exit their pits. Valuable time lost.
Waltrip stayed out and led a lap before pitting. The beleagured No. 18 does the same.
21 and 77 cars too fast on pit road.

Lap 71 sees Jimmie Johnson take his lead back from Truex Jr..

lap 75: Caution for debris off the No. 12 Dodge of Ryan Newman repainting the outside wall. Kyle Busch is saying that his car is coming back to him as if whatever the problem was got "burned away".
Loose tire on pit road. No one hits it, but Dave Blaney slams into the No. 31 car, and bounces into the No 99 car.

Lap 80 restart: 5, 1, 24, 48, 19.
Lap 94 caution for Kyle Petty spinning ... all by himself. Scott Riggs drive shaft came apart.
The No. 18 car is back on the lead lap.

Lap 99 restart and the top 10 leading them to the green flag:
5, 8, 31, 19, 48, 16, 24, 1, 88 & 9.
Mears (5) did not pit. 8 & 31, two tires only.
Lap 117 caution for Joey Logano adding his car colors to the wall in his HOF No. 96 car.
20 car to the back of the pack for speeding.

Lap 122 restart: 1, 28, 07, 16, 31
Lap 123 caution - Kenseth wants to see who's behind him and spins it through the corner of turns 1 & 2.

Lap 126 restart: 1, 48, 07, 16 & 24
Lap 130 caution for Tony Stewart mowing the infield with his No. 20 Home Depot lawn mower. Tony, there are cheaper ways to mow the grass. He bounced off the No 83 car of Vickers. (the 20 and 83 have been having pit issues today.)

lap 134 restart: 1, 48, 16, 07, 24
Lap 150 top 10: 48, 1, 16, 99, 24, 88, 31, 29, 07, 6, 5, 26, 19, 11, 17 (So I can't count!)
92 laps to go, green flag pit stops start. stop, start... commence..
75 to go: 99, 48, 16, 1 & 24. Stewart makes costly stop to repair his splitter.
Caution with 49 to go as Travis Kvapil adds his distinctive paint scheme to the wall.

Restart with 45 to go: 48, 99, 24, 31 & 16
Caution, 42 to go: The NO. 6 car bumps the No. 55 car and he dances down the front stretch in a slide.

Restart 38 to go: 48, 99, 24, 31, 16
Truex has issues and pits. Broken shifter.
I think we just heard the radio communication of the No. 1 car and I heard "It's F*d up...". Not sure... volume wasn't quite loud enough with a truck going by outside.

22 to go: It's 48 and 99 out front, followed by the sick boy in the No. 24 car.
12 to go: Waltrip LF tire evacuates from the car, but all the debris is on the inside line of the track... mostly. NASCAR keeps it green.
10 to go: 48, 99, 24, 16, 17

with 2 to go: The No. 99 Ford reels in the No. 48 Chevy to within 2 car lengths.

In the last lap headed into turn 3, Carl Edwards passes Jimmie Johnson as if he's standing still, but hits the turn too fast and slides up into the wall, leaving the Office Depot colors on the wall and Jimmie goes back inside him and takes the win by a few car lengths!!

Now that was fun to watch!

The top 10 finishers:
Jimmie Johnson,
Carl Edwards,
Greg Biffle,
Jeff Gordon,
M Kenseth,
K. Harvick,
J. Burton,
D. Ragan,
A.J. Allmendinger,
E. Sadler.

Carl Edwards says
"... in the video game, you can hit the wall and still win!! It didn't work out quite like the video game."
Before you smack down on it, I know which "game" he's talking about and all the physics in this "game" which is called more a simulation than a game is dead on.

With that said, LOL... I kind of expected more from Carl than employing simulation tactics!

Interview of Kyle Busch:
Reporter: "What are you feeling right now?
Shrub-bub: "I think it's pretty self explanatory out there." Wah!!

Actually, despite picking on him, I don't blame him for the short draw of the luck he's got going, I understand his take... today.

For the complete results, see Cup Series Results

Is Kansas Kyle Petty's Last Race?

Huh? I had heard a rumorish type statement that the NASCAR Cup event at Kansas could be Kyle Petty's last race.

Patty Petty (The wife. Why is it the wife that sometimes the one that spills the beans?) said in an interview on Friday, the 26th of September that Kyle wants to be in a good race car ... and that "this is probably his last race in that car", while she also added that Petty Enterprises is looking for a younger driver and that Kyle is looking for another ride, but there's not a lot out there since everyone is looking for younger drivers.

On Saturday the 27th, Robby Loomis said back when Kyle started doing TV a few years back, Petty Enterprises started looking to the future for his replacement. Chad McCumbee will be running five more races this year, Terry Labonte will be driving at Talladega and Kyle is scheulded to run at Phoenix. He also added they're looking to have Kyle drive a few races next year and he's not out at Petty Enterprises, all barring how McCumbee does.

So this is not Kyle's last race, but if all goes according to plan with Petty Enterprises and their new owners, then Kyle has two races left. If McCumbee doesn't pan out in the Cup series, it seems that Kyle is plan B for the shop. That must not feel that great.


Source for info: Claire B Lang, Dialed In, XM Radio blog. Thanks for the insight Claire!!

Paul Newman Passes Away

RIP Paul Newman.
Our condolences to his family & friends.

Thanks Paul.

For the
movies,
the racing and the
generosity.

For more, see ScreenRant.com

Kansas: Montoya HAD The Pole, But...

After expressing his  satisfaction with the improvement his team has shown in recent weeks in getting his No. 42 Dodge to the front of the pack for the pole position for Sunday's raced in Kansas, Juan Pablo Montoya's car was disqualified and moved to the back of the pack after post-qualifying inspection.

Montoya was sent to the back of the pack for his rear shock absorbers having too high of a gas pressure set above the 75 lbs psi limit.  DoH!

With that being said, the 2nd place gang buster was put up in the pole position and has the advantage of clean air for the start of the race... that makes Jimmie Johnson a happy man!

The front 10 for the Camping World RV 400, as it stands now, barring any more inspection woes are:

1.     Jimmie Johnson
2.     Mark Martin
3.     Matt Kenseth
4.     Elliott Sadler
5.     Martin Truex Jr.
6.     Paul Menard
7.     Bill Elliott
8.     Kasey Kahne
9.     Brian Vickers
10.   Casey Mears
Rest of the Lineup


source

Will The Truck Series Stay Afloat With Camping Gear???

According to ESPN, NASCAR is in negotiations with Camping World to become the title sponsor for the Truck Series, as Craftsman Tools will be on the way out at the end of this year.

If they do take over as the title sponsor, Kevin Harvick was reported to say that they will still be his sponsor on his truck in 2009.  (Better look for a new one for 2010 just in case Kevin!)

source

Now, let's hope that NASCAR doesn't screw this one up.

What I mean by that is when Busch backed out and let their contract expire over in the Busch (Now called the Nationwide) series when NASCAR tried to squeeze more $$ from them for the sponsorship.  After some wheeling, dealing and redealing, Nationwide finally got the bid, but it was at around the same price level that Busch was paying for before their contract fizzled.  It seemed that NASCAR may have wanted too much for most company's taste.  Or in my eyes, they could have kept Busch in the picture if they hadn't of squeezed.  (I'm going purely off of memory here, so anyone else feels like backing me up or correcting me, please step in.)

Allmendinger, Is He Tight in Turn 2?

I think it's a shame that A.J. Allmendinger has to be at the butt end of Red Bull's iffy NASCAR Cup effort and is instead, opting for Scott Speed to replace him. Of course, it's conjecture that Scott Speed is replacing A.J., but since they've pulled A.J. from testing and Red Bull is all over the untested Speed, I'm thinking they needed to give it another year easy, but yet no, they toss out this open wheeler, Allmendinger.

Rumors are swirling about the now available A.J.. I like him, he's pretty funny to listen to, if you've ever caught any of his Sirius Satellite NASCAR Ch. 128 interviews. But where's he headed?

Do you think AJ Allmendinger (Dinger to his buddies) will replace Sorenson at Ganassi or does Ganassi have anyone else in mind? I didn't want to ponder this with myself, so as always, I asked Charlie Turner of On Pit Row to toss in his 2 cents too!



Bruce: I'm hoping A.J. gets a good chance to prove himself. I'd hate to see him go somewhere mediocre just because he wants to stay in NASCAR. That just doesn't work. Look at HOF Racing. They dumped Yeley, but in all likely-hood, it's the garage, not the driver. Considering Logano ended up 3 laps down in Loudon in one of their cars. Am I dodging my own question? Yes. If Ganassi is Allmendingers best opportunity, maybe he can do something with it. If not, I'm very on the fence as to where else, if anyone, he could end up at. Charlie?


Charlie Turner: Allmendinger has done enough in the Red Bull no. 84 to show that he deserves more of an opportunity in the Cup series than he's had. He would be a quality replacement for Ganassi in the no. 41. The plus side of moving to Ganassi for A J is that Chip and his teams have experience with converting - and attempting to convert - ex-road racers to Cup cars. The success has been mixed. But it looks to me like Ganassi is a black hole for stock car talent though. I think he'll end up there. But my expectations are low.

Bruce: I couldn't have said it better. Oh, wait, I didn't.

Charlie asked me my thoughts on the qustion: Is Kyle Busch choking? Check it out over on his site at On Pit Row.

(Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

Weather For Kansas

For once, we aren't going to be put off by any rain, at least according to Weather.com.

They're predicting highs in the 80's, no precipitation! Finally. Let's get a decent race weekend in this time around and see how the Cup Contenders fare this weekend!

NASCAR TV Schedule for Sept 27-28 2008

Sprint Cup - Kansas - 1 p.m. ET Sun. | ABC
Nationwide Series - Kansas - 3 p.m. ET Sat. | ESPN2

See ya'all at the "track".

Keselowski Gets A 2-Shot Cup Tryout

Brad Keselowski is going have a chance to take a shot at 2 Cup event before the year is out, with Hendrick Motorsports giving him that shot.

He'll be given the wheel of the No. 25 car at Lowe's next month and at Texas in November.

In case you're wondering about the math NOT adding up to 4, it's new math!!

Actually NASCAR rules do permit a team to enter a fifth car in events if:
A: It's a rookie,
B: It's within the limit of 7 races allowed for that rookie.

Right now Brad has 2 wins, 10 top-fives and 16 top-10s in the Nationwide series in a team that is owned by JR Motorsports and Rick Hendrick.

Go Brad... Let's see how you tackle those uber-powerful Cup cars.

source

Tree to Firewood

So we took some large pieces of a live oak tree trunk and made them into firewood this evening with some help of friends and a log splitter. It almost made me feel like one of the Ax Men on the History Channel. Below are pictures of the progression, from tree to firewood.

A living Live Oak tree ...

the tree that was cut down at the Bradley Lodge ...
a few of the logs we needed to cut ...
splitting one of the massive logs ...

a sample cut log ...

lots and lots of cut firewood, getting ready for the 2009-2010 winter ...

Tip of the Day: Start an ioQuake 3 Server

ioQuake3 is a project which took the Quake 3 source code (which was licensed under the GPL in 2005) and started to fix bugs and add new features and improvements. You can download it and install it from here.

To start a server, execute the following command:

/usr/local/games/ioquake3/ioq3ded.i386 +set fs_game baseq3 +set net_IP <IP> +set dedicated 2 +set com_hunkmegs 128 +exec server.cfg &

Make sure the path to ioq3ded.i386 is the correct one, depending on where you installed it and replace <IP> with your IP address.

Drug Testing Mandated In NASCAR

After much discussion over the last year, and possibly revved up by Ron Hornaday's latest admission of his experience, NASCAR has announced plans to institute a drug testing policy starting in 2009.

For some reason, despite some outspoken drivers asking for drug testing (Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick), it took until 2009 for NASCAR to recognize that it's just not that safe for drivers to be hyped up or doped out while navigating lefts and rights ...  (OK, mostly lefts) at 200 mph.

NASCAR has had a 20-year relationship with AEGIS Sciences Corporation, and AEGIS will be conducting the preseason and random in-season drug tests.

All drivers will be tested prior to the 2009 season with team owners required to verify that all their licensed crew members have been tested by an accredited lab.  The momentum of drug testing will start at the Daytona Speedweeks where all drivers will be tested who attend.  From there, it's a randomness of needle love drug tests that will start.

The random test will be administered to 12 to 14 people a weekend, most weekends, and on average, 2 drivers per series will be tagged for testing, then the rest of the test subjects will come from over-the-wall crewmen and officials.

It will be a learning experience though.  Right now, NASCAR does not have a list of banned substances, but will be evolving it with time, as people start to fail their tests from cough and cold medicines and mouth washes, and what not.  OK, I'm being silly with the mouth wash thing.

It will be interesting to see when the false positives hit, who's affected, who's not.

In the meeting that was held last weekend with all the drivers and team owners it was brought up that the IRL does a full physical on it's drivers and I think that would be a great idea to further elevate the safety factor of the competition field.  To be honest, though it hasn't happened in recent, or ever memory, it would suck for a pack of cars to be taken out because of a heart condition or an after affect of a concussion.  Licensed pilots are required to take annual physicals, why not NASCAR drivers?  (Of course, since half the drivers are pilots, I guess this takes care of some of them.)

At least this way, no one can pull another Aaron Fike and be high on heroin during a race weekend.

source

13 Terminal Emulators for Linux

Konsole: This is a powerful and full-featured terminal included by default in KDE. It features desktop transparency, background images, profiles, tabs, notifications and plenty schemes to choose from.


GNOME-Terminal: The GNOME terminal, it has support for tabs and desktop transparency, with a clean and simple interface.

Yakuake: A wonderful terminal application for KDE which has the big advantage to stay hidden unless called with F12. It has a style similar with the Quake 3 console or other FPS games. It can use Konsole's settings, including transparency effects and notifications.


Tilda: Tilda is yet another terminal which has a style similar to Quake consoles. I could say it's the GNOME counterpart to Yakuake. When you first start it, you'll be presented with a window to configure it and choose the global shortcut for showing/hiding it.

ROXTerm: ROXTerm is a GTK terminal application with an interface similar to the one of GNOME-Terminal, supporting backgrounds, desktop transparency effects, profiles, colour schemes and many more.


xterm: xterm is the tradition terminal emulator for the X Window System, with a minimal interface. It can be configured using its configuration file.

Eterm: Eterm is a terminal with a futuristic design similar with Enlightenment styles. You will have to run it as Eterm, with capitalised E.


xvt: This is a basic terminal which uses a very small amount of memory, similar to xterm in many ways.

rxvt: It stands for our extended virtual terminal, and it's intended to be a smaller replacement to xterm.

mrxvt: Mrxvt supports tabs and background images while not being memory hungry and not depending on KDE or GNOME libraries.

rxvt-unicode: It features transparency effects, it has scrollbars and support for Unicode characters.

aterm: The AfterStep xvt terminal, aterm is based on xvt and needs less memory than xterm.

wterm: Another lightweight and simplistic terminal emulator which includes scrollbars, background images and transparency.

Dover: Camping RV 400, as it goes

Jeff Gordon pulls away and leads the start lap, with Denny Hamlin falling in behind him and on lap 2, Kurt Busch gets planted in the wall from David Gilliland washing up the corner and into the No 2 Dodge.

On lap 12, Carpentier spins the No. 10 car and Carl Edwards taps him a bit. The team doesn't think there's any damage of note and we can't see anything of note, though in the replay, Edwards Office Depot hood looks like it flexed up more than I would like, but I'm not in the car.

Greg Biffle, Tony Stewart are pitting during this 2nd caution.

Lap 30: 24, 26, 17, 8, 11, 44, 18 & 88 cars are up front.

McMurray's Ford is lit up and took the lead on lap 31 and is plowing ahead with a pretty strong steed, no matter what line, low or high that he's in.

Lap 64 sees Joe Nemechek lose a right front tire and end up repainting the outside wall and many drivers are reported being grumbly about their cars.

After the pit stops, 17 24 8 11 26. The 11 car busted for speeding. Doh!

The lap 70 restart: 17, 24, 8, 26, 99, 44, 48, 07, 31 & 16 lead them across the start line.

28 CARS ON THE LEAD LAP

Lap 114: 17, 26, 8, 99, 24, 44, 16, 48, 07 & 18.

Lap 143 sees the RR tire blowing out on the No. 88 car. Dale Earnhardt Jr. stays off the wall. Some serious piston ring smoke is coming out of the No. 18 Toyota of Kyle Busch.

It seems lady luck as clocked out on Kyle.

Lap 149 restart shows 17, 99, 8, 24 & 16 leading the pack.

Sigh, Lap 157 yellow for the NO. 84 car up into the wall.

Lap 161 restart: 17, 99, 8, 24 & 16 cars lead them to the green.

Lap 163 caution: The No 7 and 26 cars get together and slap the outside wall. It looks like while Robby Gordon had been racing the lead lap cars, he got caught up holding off Jamie and went loose, taking Jamie into the outside wall.

Sam Hornish in the 77 car is in the wall, lap 171.

Wow, this is starting to feel like Indianapolis, but during the caution, Kyle Busch is pushed to the garage. The big question: Does he dash off and avoid camera face time? Or is there a reporter out there daring enough to get in his face and incur his wrathful vengeance against lady luck? The lime-green and black clad driver walks straight to the hauler past the ESPN reporter, despite her effort to catch is ear.

Did I mention this is only the 2nd time this year I've worn my No. 18 hat during a race day? Can you guess when was the first time I wore it?

Lap 179 green flag restart: 17, 99, 8, 16, 07, 29, 48, 31, 1 and the 12 cars lead the pack to the green. 12 car?? Did I just say that? Yep... not a typo. Go Ryan!

Lap 186: Sam Hornish in the No. 77 spins again. Now it's a heavy sigh!

Yes, there was a restart, but I'm waiting for lap 200 for a mid race lineup recap!

Lap 200:
48, 12 22 24 42 84 44 11 38 99 43 17 16 8 & 29.
(Can you tell some folk stayed out during the last caution, gambling that there will be another quick yellow?)

Kyle talks to the reporters... Something broke in the engine. Any hopes to win the Cup "It doesn't matter" he says. Wow, every sponsors dream spokesman. Kyle says that getting out there to only gather laps and get in every else's way is a waste. Interstate Batteries are filling out the chapter 11 papers now.

With 177 to go, oil being reported on windows.

So far, no yellow and Jimmie JOhnson is looking to pit soon.

Ryan Newman pits. With 160 to go, Johnson pits. Now, they go from hoping for yellow to hoping for no yellow.

156 to go: Hamlin off the pace with a flat tire. No caution. He got it to the pits.

Oh no, Hamlin in the garage. Rear end issues. It's possible this is what drivers were worried about earlier on the fluids on their windows.

After everyone has cycled through the green flag pit stops, a yellow has come out for debris with 109 laps to go. The pit gambles paid of for some of those guys.

The cream has risen to the top folks.

Restart: 48, 99, 16, 17, 8, 22, 24, 29, 44 & 07 cars lead the pack to the last 100 laps of the race.

64 laps to go: 99, 8, 16, 17 & 48 cars are at the front of the pack.

50 to go: Montoya hits the wall... RF tire.

Restart with 45 to go: 99, 8, 16, 17 & 48 cars lead the pack to the green.

24 to go: 99, 16, 17, 8 & 48 cars up front. 99, 16 and 17 swapping spots as they battle nose to tail. 99 took two tires on the last stop. Oops.

10 to go: 17, 16 & 99... with 16 taking the lead with 9 to go.

5 to go: 16, 17, 99, 8, 48

Greg Biffle goes on to win at Dover, his 2nd win in a row.

The top 15 across the line:

16 Greg Biffle,
17 Matt Kenseth,
99 Carl Edwards,
8 Mark Martin,
48 Jimmie Johnson,
29 Kevin Harvick,
24 Jeff Gordon,
07 Clint Bowyer,
31 Jeff Burton,
55 Mike Waltrip (Not a typo),
20 Tony Stewart,
22 Dave Blaney,
12 Ryan Newman,
43 Bobby Labonte,
5 Casey Mears

Tip of the Day: Create Aliases

Aliases are user-defined commands which allow a person to execute several commands by only typing one. For example, to update and upgrade your Ubuntu system you would usually issue this:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Or:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

The second command, sudo apt-get upgrade, is executed only if the first one was successful. In order to make this even shorter, you can create an alias and use it instead of the entire command you want executed. One of the ways to do it is add your aliases in the ~/.bashrc file, where ~ is your home directory. Just edit it with a text editor and add something like this at the end:

alias upgrade='sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade'

Save the file, then open a terminal and try it by typing upgrade. Notice that if you did this in a terminal you'll have to logout first (use exit or CTRL+D) and open it again, so the .bashrc file is read again. Alternatively, you can only type:

source ~/.bashrc

Several other examples of aliases:

alias lsh='ls -lh'
alias killfx='kill -9 $(pidof firefox)'
alias gotocd='cd /media/cdrom0'

The first one will list the files in a directory using the long method and displaying sizes in human readable units. The second one will kill Firefox (useful when it stops responding and you have many windows opened). And the third one will change the current working directory to /media/cdrom0.

Updated: Sep 21, 2008

How-To: Install Wine 1.1.5 in Ubuntu 8.04 from the WineHQ APT Repository

A few days ago I wrote a tutorial showing how to compile Wine 1.1.4 from source in Ubuntu 8.04 and how to install it. In the meantime, version 1.1.5 was released on September 19, and since the compile from source and install procedure has not changed, I will explain here how to install the last Wine release using the official WineHQ APT repository. What follows are a few easy to do steps for getting the last Wine release up and running on your Ubuntu Hardy system.

Notice that this tutorial should work too with later Wine releases and Ubuntu 8.10.

1. Add the WineHQ key to your trusted APT keys
Open a terminal like GNOME-Terminal or Konsole and execute the following command:

wget -q http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/387EE263.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

The first command will get the key and its output will be passed to the second one, sudo apt-key add -, which will add it to your trusted APT keys.

2. Add the WineHQ APT repository to your sources.list file
Edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file with root privileges using a text editor like nano or Gedit (e.g. sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list or gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list) and add the following two lines:

deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt hardy main
deb-src http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt hardy main

Make sure to save the file (CTRL+O, Enter, followed by CTRL+X in Nano) and proceed to the next step.

An alternative way to do this is to execute this command:

sudo wget http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list

Eventually, you can also edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list.d/winehq.list and uncomment the last line if you want sources repositories to be enabled too.

3. Update the packages list and install Wine
To update the packages list use:

sudo apt-get update

Then install Wine using:

sudo apt-get install wine

This should be all. To configure Wine, run as normal user:

winecfg

Related articles
How-To: Compile and Install Wine 1.1.4 in Ubuntu 8.04

Updated: Mar 31, 2008

Thriving Musician Summit

I had a fantastic opportunity to act as a "Break Out" team lead at Bayside and Christian Musician Summit's "Thriving Musician Summit" Friday and Saturday that was presented by World Vision. It was amazing to see all of the Bayside volunteers and staff work together to pull off a great conference, not to mention getting all of the class rooms, worship center, lobby and courtyard changed from a conference setup with rented chairs and tables, massive exhibits and A/V equipment to a fully functioning church in 30 minutes. The Musician summit had some amazing speakers and artists at it, everyone from my friends, to Mia Fieldes and Ben Fielding from Hillsong United and Hillsong in Australia to Phil Wickham (who I got to drive back to his hotel) to Paul Baloche to Jeff Scott and Norm Stockton to Tom Brooks (who I also drove) and Brandon Yip. Then there was Lincoln Brewster's "CD Pre-Release Concert" for "Today is the Day" at Bayside Friday night. Although I did not sit on the floor, I did watch from a room above the Worship Center, so that was pretty fun, and I saw a few friends from First Covenant that I had not seen in a long time.

"Today is the Day" video - filmed at Bayside's "Come Together 2007" at Arco Arena in Sacramento.

Tip of the Day: Use apt-file in Ubuntu 8.04

apt-file is a command line tool which allows you to see all the files which a package will install, and their location. For example, the output of apt-file show vorbis-tools on a Ubuntu 8.04 box will be:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ apt-file show vorbis-tools
vorbis-tools: /usr/bin/ogg123
vorbis-tools: /usr/bin/oggdec
vorbis-tools: /usr/bin/oggenc
vorbis-tools: /usr/bin/ogginfo
vorbis-tools: /usr/bin/vcut
vorbis-tools: /usr/bin/vorbiscomment
vorbis-tools: /usr/bin/vorbistagedit
vorbis-tools: /usr/lib/mime/packages/vorbis-tools
vorbis-tools: /usr/share/doc/vorbis-tools/README.Debian
vorbis-tools: /usr/share/doc/vorbis-tools/changelog.Debian.gz
vorbis-tools: /usr/share/doc/vorbis-tools/copyright
vorbis-tools: /usr/share/doc/vorbis-tools/examples/ogg123rc-example
vorbis-tools: /usr/share/man/man1/ogg123.1.gz
vorbis-tools: /usr/share/man/man1/oggdec.1.gz
vorbis-tools: /usr/share/man/man1/oggenc.1.gz
vorbis-tools: /usr/share/man/man1/ogginfo.1.gz
vorbis-tools: /usr/share/man/man1/vcut.1.gz
vorbis-tools: /usr/share/man/man1/vorbiscomment.1.gz
vorbis-tools: /usr/share/man/man1/vorbistagedit.1.gz

As you can see, it shows all the files (including binaries) which are installed by the package vorbis-tools.

To install apt-file, just use:

sudo apt-get install apt-file

The next step is to update its cache:

sudo apt-file update

Search for a specific file in the packages
Sometimes you remember the name of a tool but forget what package contains it. For example, to see in which package the shnsplit tool is included, you can execute:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ apt-file search shnsplit
shntool: /usr/bin/shnsplit
shntool: /usr/share/man/man1/shnsplit.1.gz

As you can see, shntool is the package we are looking for.

Updated: Sep 20, 2008

Compiling C/C++ Code in Ubuntu and Available IDEs

One of the many questions users who switch from Windows to Linux have is how to compile C/C++ sources and what IDEs (Integrated Development Environment) Linux has to offer. Most of them study C or C++ at school or home and are usually used from Windows with an IDE like Dev-C++ or Code::Blocks.

In this article I'll give a few explanations on how to compile software for studying purposes on Linux (and particularly Ubuntu), what are the most common ways, what I consider to be the most effective method and which are the most popular applications to use for programming in those languages.

I'll divert a little to say that Dev-C++, although a wonderful IDE on Windows, is no longer maintained, and even though a port used to be around for Linux, it was abandoned too (as far as I know). Instead, for those who would like a replacement which works and behaves the same way, I can warmly recommend Code::Blocks, which has an actively maintained port and it's easy to compile and install. According to the details I could find on #ubuntu @ Freenode, Code::Blocks will also be included in the Intrepid Ibex (the next Ubuntu release) repositories, in universe.

Back to our topic. I think the simplest way to start with C/C++ in Ubuntu is to use first an editor like Nano and create a source file, then compile it using gcc (GNU Compiler Collection) in command line. But first, to install the GNU compiler and several other utilities for compiling sources, use:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

build-essential is a meta package - a package which only depends on other packages, so installing it will automatically install several tools like gcc, g++ and make.

Next, create your source file using a text editor of choice (I used Nano for this example):

nano main.c

Enter the content, e.g.:

#include <stdio.h>

int main ()
{
printf ("Hello, world!\n");
return 0;
}


Notice that I also included a newline after the close bracket, otherwise the compiler will issue a warning. Save it with CTRL+O, then exit Nano using CTRL+X. To compile your source, simply use:

gcc main.c -o myapp

The output, myapp, will automatically be executable, so to run it use:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ./myapp
Hello, world!

This is the simplest way of creating and compiling C or C++ code.

Regarding more complex, powerful IDEs, you can try Vim, Emacs (which can be run both in CLI mode using emacs --no-window and in GUI mode) or even the user-friendly Nano. Nano can be configured by editing (or creating if it does not exist yet) the ~/.nanorc file, where ~ is your home directory. The global configuration file is located in /etc/nanorc. Also, you can read this tutorial on how to enable syntax highlighting in Nano.

Among the good editors which use a graphical interface are Kate, Gedit, Geany, KDevelop, Anjuta, Code::Blocks or Eclipse. These are not all though, but I recommend trying those first and see which one fits. I'll briefly review some of them below, so you can have a general idea about each of them.

Kate
Its name means KDE Advanced Text Editor, but Kate is definitely not only a text editor. It supports highlighting in many languages, indentation, spell-checker, block selection mode, and it's highly configurable. Kate comes by default in Kubuntu or can be installed using sudo apt-get install kate.
Homepage

sudo apt-get install kate

Gedit
This is the default text editor in GNOME. It can be used as a simple IDE too. It comes installed by default in Ubuntu.
Homepage

sudo apt-get install gedit

Geany
Yet another editor written in GTK. It's pretty light and includes the most common features an IDE should have, so it's a good alternative to Gedit.
Homepage

sudo apt-get install geany

KDevelop
This is the KDE advanced IDE, offering the tools and advanced features of a full IDE. I recommend starting with a text editor rather than using this one for studying purposes. However, if you especially want to develop KDE applications, KDevelop is the way to go.
Homepage

sudo apt-get install kdevelop

Code::Blocks
This is the powerful port of Code::Blocks for Windows, using the wxWidgets interface. In my opinion it's very fit for studying C/C++ on Linux. Although not included in Hardy Heron, Code::Blocks will be included in the Intrepid Ibex repositories.
Homepage

Update: Ubuntu 9.04 comes with Code::Blocks included in the repositories, so you can install it using the usual sudo apt-get install codeblocks command. Ubuntu 8.10 and 8.04 users can follow the instructions below:

Notice: It is also a good idea to install xterm (a terminal application just like GNOME Terminal or Konsole), since Code::Blocks uses it to show the output of your programs.

sudo apt-get install xterm

1. Install the dependencies and compiler tools

sudo apt-get install build-essential
sudo apt-get install libwxgtk2.8-dev wx-common libgtk2.0-dev zip

2. Download the source code
Get the source from the official website, here, next uncompress it using:

tar -xjf codeblocks-8.02-src.tar.bz2

3. Compile it
Change the working directory to codeblocks-8.02-src and issue as usual:

./configure
make
sudo make install

Finally, run ldconfig as root:

sudo ldconfig

This should do it. You can run Code::Blocks by typing codeblocks in a terminal or pressing ALT+F2 and writing codeblocks in the run dialogue that appears.


Anjuta
Written in GTK, Anjuta is a powerful development environment for C and C++, which also allows you to create GNOME applications.
Homepage

sudo apt-get install anjuta

Addition: NetBeans
NetBeans is an advanced IDE written in Java from Sun Microsystems, and can be used for developing C/C++ code too.
Homepage

sudo apt-get install netbeans-ide


Addition: Eclipse CDT
The package eclipse-cdt provides the Eclipse IDE with C/C++ development plugins. I found it slower than the others IDEs mentioned here, especially the interface.
Homepage

sudo apt-get install eclipse-cdt

Addition: CodeLite
CodeLite is an open-source IDE similar with Code::Blocks. To install it, download the latest Ubuntu build (DEB package) from the official website, make sure the current working directory is the one where you saved it, and type the following command (replacing the filename with the latest name):
Homepage

sudo dpkg -i codelite_1.0.2785-ubuntu0_i386.deb

Emacs and Vim
Both Emacs and Vim became legends on Linux and they both have fans who continuously argue on which one's better. I personally prefer Emacs over Vim, but I recommend you to try both and see which one fits you better. Emacs is not only an IDE, it's also an e-mail client, eventually IRC client, file browser and more. Regarding speed, Emacs is way slower than Vim, and as IDEs, both include great features. Both Emacs and Vim use their own concepts and keyboard shortcuts, so as a beginner you'll (probably) find them a little hard to learn, but this doesn't mean you don't have to use them. Put some effort into learning at least one of them and you'll see in time how helpful this learning process is. Another note: most systems (including web servers which you'll usually ssh to in order to manage your web page - if you have one) include Vim by default, but not Nano or Emacs.
Emacs homepage
Vim homepage

sudo apt-get install emacs
sudo apt-get install vim

Update: As I already mentioned earlier in this article, Dev-C++ is not available on Linux, however if you really, really want to work in it instead of a native IDE, you can successfully run it through Wine. To install Wine either type sudo apt-get install wine (which will install 1.0) or to install the latest release use one of the following tutorials (they all work for Ubuntu 8.10, 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope and the latest Wine release): tutorial 1, tutorial 2, tutorial 3. After setting up Wine download Dev-C++ from here, and run wine devcpp-4.9.9.2_setup.exe to install it. Refer to this page to see what additional libraries you will need for running binaries compiled with Dev-C++. The executables will be located by default inside the ~/.wine/drive_c/Dev-Cpp/Packages directory, where ~ is your home directory.


Have some other questions regarding compiling or using IDEs on Linux? Or maybe a correction or suggestion regarding this tutorial? Please feel free to discuss in the comments below.

Updated: April 3, 2009

Are 12 Cup Chasers Too Tight in Turn 2?

This is a short supposition on my part, based somewhat on fact-less observations over the past year of how NASCAR is handling the Chase for the Cup. (That's tech speak for I'm going to rant off the handle and I'm dragging Charlie Turner of On Pit Row into the fray with me.)

When the Chase started in 2004, we had it set to the top 10 drivers from a 43 man field who would move on to the battle with each other within their own points structure. IE: Giving them a massive bonus over the rest of the field so no one else could catch them. This eliminated just about anyone else from competing for the championship, even if all 10 drivers crashed out the remainder of the races. And that first year, it was pretty exciting to see Kurt Busch win the championship by 8 points, even after fortuitously losing a wheel at the head of pit road.

We then had a 35 point spread behind Tony Stewart with Edwards and Biffle tied for 2nd in points in 2005.

2006, Johnson had a bigger point spread (56) in front of Kenseth, Hamlin, Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr.. In 2007, Johnson extended that win margin to 77 points over Jeff Gordon, but then had a massive 357 point advantage over 3rd place finisher, Clint Bowyer. (So much for tight point races)

Then when Tony Stewart failed to make the 10 man field in '06, we now have the top 12 drivers competing for the championship? Hmm.

Additionally, despite the fact that this is probably one of the easiest programming stints in the world of web programming, when I went to NASCAR's website to look this information up, no matter what year you look at, they're treating the standings across the years as if there was a always a 12 man field chasing the cup. I'm sure it's not their intent, but it sure could be confusing to the new fan.

So now that I'm done ranting all over the board, my real question is:

If they insist on limiting the year end competition to top performing drivers, are 12 drivers too many?

Bruce says yes. Heck. I thought 10 were too many, but strangely, when Tony Stewart did not make the chase and ended up 11th, the next year included 12 drivers. The timing seemed ... interesting indeed.

With 10 drivers, that incorporated over 23% of a 43 driver field. With 12 drivers, we now see almost 28% of the 43 driver field in the chase.

At this point, I think they should just start eliminating drivers at the Daytona 500! Who ever comes in 43rd is automatically eliminated from the chase, and weed down, one race at a time. OK, I know, not realistic, but it sure would be interesting right from the get go!! And then we can play wild cards in the points standings with 11 races to go!.

Go crazy Charlie! I gave lots of different directions to go with this one!!!

Charlie Turner: I have no problem with twelve being the number. Before it was twelve, it was ten plus any driver within 400 points of the regular season points leader. Nobody ever came close. I think that this, combined with not only Stewart, but Jeff Gordon and Junior, not making the "playoffs" forced NASCAR's hand into increasing the number on drivers "in". I actually think that twelve is about right. There wasn't a driver that didn't make it this year that you could say "hurt" the sport by not making it. The real excitement of the whole deal is the Race to the Chase. Another way to qualify, on some wild-card basis wouldn't be bad either. Thirteen would be an interesting number. Fan vote? Ugliest girlfriend vote? How about the top finishing single car team is in regardless of where they actually finish in the standings?

~~~

With that said, Charlie pondered: If the rumors turn out to be true, and Gillette-Evernham Motorsports buys Bill Davis Racing and becomes a Toyota team, is it a good thing for NASCAR and the sport?

See what we have to say over On Pit Row.

Ray at the Shore

Ray Johnston, one of Bayside's pastors spoke at the Shore tonight to what was probably a record crowd of 500+. Just a year ago when I started going to ministry was large with 150-200, now it is one of the fastest growing college and 20 something ministries in California. But in all reality, the numbers themselves mean nothing, it is about the lives that are and have been changed because of the ministry of Bayside, the Shore and countless other churches and ministries throughout the world. Tonight Ray spoke about "Miracles in Someone Else's Life," explaining how God uses weak and imperfect people, like us, to do his work.

Truck Penalties Handed Out For the NH Skirmish

While at Loudon, a Hockey game broke out at the end of the Truck Series race!  It was fun to see some lively emotional reactions from NASCAR personnel. 

But of course, for every action, there is definitely a NASCAR sanctioning body reaction and penalties and fines have been handed out for the melee.

I have to tell ya, I have never seen penalties highlighted in a chart.  Heck, you might as well start using a flow chart at this rate.

It can start at the green flag, point to the checkered flag, then watch it branch out like a mutated family tree while the fight breaks out.

The fines, suspensions and probations are many...  so just sayin', it's almost funny, but for some, a fairly serious endeavor where they now have to play nice the rest of the season.

Check out the mess at NASCAR.

NASCAR TV: 9-20 to 21-08

TV Times for the upcoming weekend:


The Nationwide Series is at Dover: 3 p.m. ET Sat. on ESPN2
The Truck Series is at Las Vegas. 9 p.m. ET Sat. on SPEED
The Cup Series is at Dover 1 p.m. ET Sun. on ABC

See you at the "track".

Penske Looking To The Future - Again?

Penske Racing signed up Justin Allgaier for a few Nationwide Series events in 2008 and '09.

Allgaier hails from the ARCA Re/Max series and beyond that, he also has five national quarter midget championships and over 100 feature wins under his belt.

So now I wonder out-loud:  Is this the newest back up driver to stand in the wings for when the No. 12 car doesn't perform up to expectations ... again?  Just wondering.

source

Tip of the Day: Change the Font Size of Firefox UI (User Interface)

Sometimes the default font for the Firefox interface is either too small or too large, so in order to adjust it you will only need to edit the file userChrome-example.css located in the ~/.mozilla/firefox/RANDOM_CHARACTERS.default/chrome/ directory, where ~ is your home directory.

For example, the full path where this file is located can look like:

/home/username/.mozilla/firefox/bla7abcd.default/userChrome-example.css

Open it with a text edit and add the following after the last comment:

* {font-size: 7pt !important;}

You can experiment and see what size is the one that suits your needs, for example 9pt or 12pt instead of 7pt. Next, save the file with the name userChrome.css in the same directory. You will have to restart Firefox in order for changes to take effect.

Updated: Oct 18, 2008

Where did your city rank?

So normally I don't really care about research studies about cities, but I thought this one was interesting. The Milken Institute/Greenstreet Real Estate Partners Best Performing Cities Index ranks U.S. metropolitan areas by how well they are creating and sustaining jobs and economic growth. The components include job, wage and salary and technology growth. In 2007 Sacramento ranked number 25, but with recent economic downturns and home foreclosures throughout the Sacramento region its 2008 ranking plummeted to number 58. Bakersfield was the top California city at number 12, although I'm not planning on moving there anytime soon.

To see where your city ranked, check out the report.

California Museum

I had the opportunity to actually go in the lobby of the California Museum (I drive past it every day on my way to work) today. I normally just see the backs of the decorated Mickey statues, but this time I saw what they really looked like. It looks like it would be a great museum to actually pay and go into, so maybe one of these days I will go in. I think the only problem with living in a city is that you never do the "tourist" things, even if they are good. I also got to see California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Body By Jake' "Jake Steinfeld" at a press conference where Arnold gave Jake a limited edition "Terminator" watch, so that was fun too.

Tip of the Day: Convert Various Video Formats to Theora Video

In this tips and tricks article I'll briefly introduce you to ffmpeg2theora, a powerful command line tool which allows you to convert many video formats to the free video codec Theora. ffmpeg2theora can encode to Theora any format that can be read by ffmpeg, like MPEG, MPEG4 or DivX.

To install ffmpeg2theora in Ubuntu, type:

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg2theora

With your user's password. Here's a basic example for using it:

ffmpeg2theora -q 6 -A 192 video_file.avi

Which will recode video_file.avi into video_file.ogg, using the video quality of 6 (-q 6) and the average audio bitrate of 192 kbps (-A 192). You can also use ffmpeg2theora to encode DVD .VOB files, like this:

ffmpeg2theora VTS_01_1.VOB -o video_01.ogg

Or, for example:

ffmpeg2theora -A 192 --artist "Pink Floyd" --title "Live at Pompeii [1972]" VTS_01_1.VOB -o Pink.Floyd.Live.at.Pompeii.1972.Part.1.ogg

Which will convert VTS_01_1.VOB into Ogg Theora, using 192 kbps for audio and will also add the artist and title tags as video metadata.

Updated: Sep 17, 2008

IRC Clients for Linux Part 2: List of 5 CLI Clients

A while ago I reviewed 6 GUI clients for IRC, so today I'll continue with the second part with this review of 5 CLI (Command Line Interface) clients.

BitchX
This was once the most popular IRC client for Linux, but now it is not maintained anymore and distributions like Debian and Ubuntu don't include it in their repositories. The official IRC channel of BitchX is located on EFNet, on #bitchx.
Homepage

Irssi
Also known as 'the client of the future', Irssi is one of the most popular, well-documented, powerful and configurable IRC client for command line at the current time. It supports Perl scripting and the official website provides hundreds of scripts for any possible task, from now listening and weather scripts to system information scripts. Irssi is one of my favourite applications for CLI, and it really deserves it. Although it can be a little tough to learn it, the FAQ and abundant documentation on the homepage cover every aspect regarding Irssi, from how to use it up to how to create Perl scripts for it. Irssi includes an effective way to switch between networks and channels using the keyboard, and some of the shorcuts are Emacs-like. They can also be changed.
Homepage

Irssi 0.8.2 running in Konsole

Epic4
This is yet another well-known client, although its interface is not as user-friendly as the one Irssi has. But Epic4 allows you to customise it the way you like via scripts instead of coming with a friendly way of handling how messages are displayed, or how a /WHOIS or /NAMES output is printed. According to the official website, Epic was forked from ircII-2.8.2 in the fall 1994. It uses its own scripting language, called ircII, which borrows many concepts from Perl, Tcl, Ruby and PHP. You can find more help on scripting on the official homepage, here. The last stable version of Epic4 is 2.8, and you can get it from here.
Homepage

Epic4 2.6 running in Kubuntu 8.04

WeeChat
WeeChat is a user-friendly IRC client which is describes on the homepage as a 'fast, light and extensible IRC client'. It supports Perl, Python and Lua scripts, and provides many other features, like connections to multi-servers, DCC, proxy and SSL support. Together with Irssi, I think WeeChat should be the client of choice for beginners to IRC who want to use a CLI client instead of a GUI one like XChat or Konversation. It's user-friendly and provides a scripting interface, so you can customise it the way you like and turn it into a powerful client which matches your taste. According to the official website, Qt and GTK interfaces are planned for WeeChat.
Homepage


TinyIRC
This is a minimal IRC client, providing a very basic interface and only basic features. I can't recommend it for using IRC on a daily basis, but it is worth a try if you only want to connect to a network fast and just start chatting without the need of features, colours, or scripting languages. It has no TAB completion feature and doesn't seem to support more than one network connection at a time.
Homepage

Conclusion
As a conclusion, I strongly recommend Irssi, followed by WeeChat and Epic4. The first two are powerful enough, flexible, documented and have scripting support, while the latter is a little harder to use (at least in the beginning) and it has its own scripting language. Despite this, Epic4 has the advantage of giving you total control over how you want its interface to look like, and it also provides many scripts on the official website for customising it. BitchX is too old now and it's no longer updated, while TinyIRC offers only the minimum features needed to connect and interract with an IRC server.

Related articles
IRC Clients Part 1: List of 6 GUI Clients

Updated: Sep 17, 2008

Tip of the Day: Clear the KTorrent Search History

Ubuntu 8.04 comes with KTorrent 2.2.5, which includes by default several plugins among which is the Search plugin, for finding torrents on various sites. In order to clear the search history, you will only have to delete the file ~/.kde/share/apps/ktorrent/search_history, where ~ is your home directory. For example, either type in a terminal application:

rm ~/.kde/share/apps/ktorrent/search_history

Or use a file manager like Konqueror, make sure to have viewing hidden files enabled and delete it this way. You'll have to restart KTorrent for changes to be visible.


Updated: Sep 16, 2008

Firefox 3 - The Beast Among Web Browsers

Firefox became in a relatively short period of time the most popular web browser on Linux. It is also the most powerful competitor to Internet Explorer on Windows, proving itself faster, more stable, more flexible and secure. Some would say Firefox is one of the most important proofs that open-source software can and is actually better than closed, proprietary software. Firefox is heavily advertised by the Mozilla corporation, many Linux fans put a link to the official Firefox website on their blog or personal homepages, initiatives like SpreadFirefox.com or the Firefox Download Day, they all contribute to making Firefox so popular.

Firefox 3.0.1 running on Kubuntu 8.04 Live CD

Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine (also called a rendering engine) for displaying web pages and its user interface too, by rendering XUL, an XML user interface language providing widget definitions. Gecko 1.9 is used in the last stable Firefox release. An unofficial port of Firefox using Qt instead of XUL is in the works too, and I'm very curious how development will evolve.

Compared to browsers which use different engines, like Konqueror 3.5.9 or Opera 9.52, Firefox performs better than the first when submitting or filling up certain forms, but it seems slower loading web pages than Opera. Konqueror 3.5.9 (which uses KHTML) fails miserably for example allowing you to send mails using certain forms or even writing a Blogspot post, while Firefox has no problems regarding this matter. On the other hand, despite the fact that it was praised and announced to have a lot of speed improvements, Firefox still eats more CPU and memory resources than either Konqueror or Opera, making it the slowest of them three. Although it has slow loading times and a slow interface, once loaded and in action, Firefox will prove the best tool for finishing any web-related task, also having the big advantage over Opera for being open-source.

The interface hasn't changed much compared to previous versions, like the 2.x series. It's clean, simple and intuitive, providing only the necessary toolbar buttons and most useful options via the Preferences window. A good improvement version 3 has is the address bar, which now offers clever ways of accessing the desired location, depending on how many times you accessed it and how relevant the content is compared to what you type.

It has a bookmark toolbar for fast access to your most used addresses, and provides the classic Back, Forward, Reload, Stop and Home buttons. To the right of the address bar is located the Search Engines feature, which can be accessed using CTRL+K and allows you to search by default on Google, or select another search engine, like Amazon.com or Wikipedia. Many other engines can also be installed, but I think user-defined keyword shortcuts are more useful and handy. It's a matter of preferences after all.

The Preferences window allows configuration of the most usual settings, like the default address to start with, download location, tabs configuration, appearance or security (including privacy settings, cookies, and passwords). The interface fonts can be changed using the userChrome.css file inside the Firefox directory (e.g. ~/.mozilla/firefox/RANDOM.default/chrome/userChrome.css).

Preferences - you can change the most usual settings here

The about:config dialogue allows you to truly configure Firefox in any way possible, and you can find here all the necessary entries for tweaking Firefox the way you like it. For example, if you want to disable the finished downloads notification, all you have to do is search for the browser.download.manager.showAlertOnComplete variable and set its value to false by double clicking on it. A very comprehensive guide for each entry can be found here.

The about:config entries - tweak anything related to Firefox from here

One of the great features Firefox comes with is the ability to install various add-ons and themes, and the official website contains hundreds of them, like the StumbleUpon add-on, the DownloadHelper add-on for downloading all media content from within a web page (useful especially for YouTube videos), or the Adblock Plus extension which blocks ads on pages including them. Some of the nicest themes already ported to Firefox 3 are Noia eXtreme and Phoenity Modern.

Managing bookmarks

Regarding interface speed, response and loading times, I think Firefox still remains one of the slowest browsers compared to Konqueror, Opera or Epiphany. I didn't yet have the occasion to compare it to Chrome, but since currently it's only natively available for Windows, running it through Wine shouldn't be fair.

About Firefox 3

In the end, Firefox 3 looks to be the most powerful and useful browser available for the Linux platform. Opera is a very good competitor regarding features and usability, but unfortunately it's still closed-source. All the themes, all the powerful entries in about:config, the add-ons, the bookmarks easy to manage, all these features make out of Firefox the best and the most popular web application for the Linux OS.

Related articles
5 Useful Tips to Customise Firefox 3

Updated: Sep 16, 2008