"Open Terminal Here" Option in Nautilus

To be able to open a terminal in the current Nautilus directory, install nautilus-open-terminal:

$ sudo aptitude install nautilus-open-terminal

Now you can browse to a directory in Nautilus, right-click on a blank area of the window, and click on "Open Terminal Here", and a Terminal will come up.

Adding Java Support to Firefox

To enable Java applets in Firefox, you must first install Java (see this post). Then locate the Firefox java plugin file:

locate libjavaplugin_oji.so

You will get something like this:

/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.00/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.00/jre/plugin/i386/ns7-gcc29/libjavaplugin_oji.so

We need the first file (the one in the ns7 directory, NOT the one in ns7-gcc29).
Type

cd

to go to your home directory, then

ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.00/jre/plugin/i386/ns7/libjavaplugin_oji.so .mozilla/plugins/

to link the plugin file to Firefox.

Links of Interest
Sun's Linux manual download/installation page

MP3 burning in K3B

To get K3B to be able to burn mp3's to Audio CD's, do the following:

$ sudo aptitude install libmad0 libk3b2-mp3

Rar archives

To add .rar capabilities to File-Roller, install unrar

$ sudo aptitude install rar

Updating Azureus

When I have problems with Azureus I update it with the latest version and it usually gets fixed. The only thing you have to do is replace the Azureus.jar file like this:
Download the newest Azureus.jar (currently, it's here)

Once you have saved it in a folder called, say, "Downloads", you do this in a Terminal:

Backup your old Azureus.jar:

sudo cp /usr/share/java/Azureus2.jar /usr/share/java/Azureus2.jar.bak

Then remove the old version:

sudo rm /usr/share/java/Azureus2.jar

Then copy the newest version to where it should be:

sudo cp Downloads/Azureus2.5.0.4.jar /usr/share/java/Azureus2.jar

Installing and setting up Sun Java

To install Sun Java, you need to install the sun-java6-bin and sun-java6-jre packages. Additionally, if you intend to program your own Java applications, you need to install sun-java6-jdk. Multiverse has to be enabled.

sudo aptitude install sun-java6-bin sun-java6-jre sun-java6-jdk

Next, to make Sun Java the default Java interpreter (rather than GCJ):

sudo update-alternatives --config java

and choose the correct option for Sun Java, ie. /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/bin/java.

Links of Interest
Ubuntu's Wiki page concerning Java

Disable Touchpad while typing

Here is a nice how-to that shows how to disable your Synaptics touchpad while typing, so that you don't lose focus of the field you are editing.

Installing checkgmail

CheckGmail is a Gnome Panel Applet that checks your gmail account.
To install it, first install all the dependencies:

sudo aptitude install libcompress-zlib-perl libcrypt-blowfish-perl libcrypt-simple-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl libemail-mime-encodings-perl libfreezethaw-perl libgtk2-trayicon-perl libmd5-perl libxml-libxml-common-perl libxml-libxml-perl libxml-namespacesupport-perl libxml-simple-perl

Then, download the tarball package version of CheckGmail from here. Extract (say to /home/username/Programs/checkgmail) and then add it to your start up programs (System -> Preferences -> Sessions). To run CheckGmail for the first time, run the checkgmail script from the startup directory.

Bonus!
To get cool On-Screen Display notifications of new emails, install gnome-osd:

sudo aptitude install gnome-osd

Then, right click on the CheckGmail icon, click Preferences and in the "Command to excecute on new mail" field enter the following:

gnome-osd-client -f "<message id='gmail'><span foreground='black' background='lightgray'>%m new email(s)</span></message>"

To get your CapsLock/NumLock/ScrollLock light(s) blinking when you get new email install blinkd:

sudo aptitude install blinkd

and then add this to the field above:

;blink -s -r %m

The field should now look like this:

gnome-osd-client -f "<message id='gmail'><span foreground='black' background='lightgray'>%m new email(s)</span></message>";blink -s -r %m

and add this to the "Command to excecute for no mail" field:

blink -s -r 0

This will make the ScrollLock light blink n times, where n is the number of new email messages, and will make it stop blinking when you have read all your mail.

Links of insterest
CheckGmail homepage

Correct resolution for Intel 915 Graphics Card

To get the right resolution for your monitor working with an Intel graphics card, you have to install 915resolution.

sudo aptitude install 915resolution

Restart, and the resolution should be normal.

Links of interest
915resolution homepage
auto915Resolution - Ubuntu Resolution fix for Intel chipset 8x-945