Mike's Planet

Open Source Stats Programs?

Mike — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:22:40 +0000

My wife is looking for an Open Source Statistics program for Linux that does multinomial logistic regression and can import from spss, stata, or other popular statistic programs. Please e-mail me (mike.basinger(at)gmail.com) if you know of any programs that could work.

Using Dark Themes in Ubuntu (Gnome 2.2x)

Mike — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:26:54 +0000

Using dark themes in Gnome has always has some issues. Due to issues in Gnome and GTK apps, some application have problems like dark fonts on dark background, text areas grayed out, and multiple issues with OpenOffice. Here is a quick guide to solve many of the problems I encountered using dark themes in Gnome.

1. Firefox Fixes
Firefox has issues display certain CSS field properly with dark themes. This is a big problem in Firefox 2, but can still happen in Firefox 3. Install this userContent.css to /home/username/.mozilla/firefox/RandomProfile_name/chrome and restart Firefox.

2a. Dark System Themes (Ubuntu Studio)
The easiest solution for a dark theme in Ubuntu is to install the UbuntuStudio-theme package.
sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-theme
or if you want the full metapackage with icons, GDM theme, etc..
sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-look
The Ubuntu Studio theme is a beautiful theme created by the Ubuntu Studio team, which fixes many of the problem with dark themes in Gnome.

2b. Other Dark Themes
Since Linux is all about choice, we want to use other dark themes for Gnome and workaround issues these themes have. First, we still want to install the ubuntustudio-theme package.
sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-theme
Then we will use UbuntuStudio theme on certain applications that have problems with dark themes (OpenOffice, Banshee, Thunderbird,etc…).

To get an application to use another theme you want to add the following to the command the launches a program “env GTK2_RC_FILES=/usr/share/themes/UbuntuStudio/gtk-2.0/gtkrc“. Right click on the gnome menu applet and choose Edit Menus. Goto the application you want using a different theme (in this example OpenOffice Writer), right click the application and select Properties. Change the Command from
ooffice -writer %U
to
env GTK2_RC_FILES=/usr/share/themes/UbuntuStudio/gtk-2.0/gtkrc ooffice -writer %U
OpenOffice Writer should now use UbuntuStudio theme instead of the system theme you have set.

If you have any comment or suggestion for this guide, please comment on this thread on the Ubuntu Forums.

Theme Details:
Theme: Moomex Ultimatum 0.4
Font: UnDotum Bold
Icons: Jungle Black
Wallpaper: Radiant from http://interfacelift.com

600,000 Register Users

Mike — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:36:36 +0000

The Ubuntu Forums has passed another milestone, 600,000 register users. Thanks to the Ubuntu forums staff and the rest of the Ubuntu community for making the forums kick ass.

Revisiting the past

Mike — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 22:11:58 +0000

When I first went to college, I had dreams of getting into broadcasting. While I have a face for radio :), it was something that did not work out. This week the guys at the Fresh Ubuntu podcast (http://www.freshubuntu.com) had me on for an interview. We chatted about the forums, membership and other topics. It was truly a guilty pleasure being on the show and I had a great time. You can listen to the show here.

Speaking of revisiting the past, the new version of Dungeons and Dragons was released today. While I have not played in years, it does bring back great memories of high school and college. I also like that D&D tries to embrace the spirit of Open Source with the Open Gaming License. While I would prefer a Creative Commons type license, I do appreciate the effort.

Forums Council Meeting: 31 May 2008 @ 12:30 UTC

Mike — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:28:59 +0000

The Ubuntu Forums Council will meeting on 31 May 2008 @ 12:30 UTC in #ubuntu-meeting on Freenode. We have a fairly large agenda this month, including a discussion of social group functions in the forums. Please stop by the meeting and join in the discussion.

Dinner with the Cavemen.

Mike — Fri, 23 May 2008 10:10:51 +0000

Last night at UDS we had dinner with the cavemen. I would suggest a visit to Restaurant Pravek if you ever visit Prague.

Community Council Meeting Delayed

Mike — Tue, 20 May 2008 07:27:51 +0000

Due to happenings at UDS we are moving todays Community Council meeting back 1 hour to 12:00 UTC.

UDS-Intrepid: Quote of the day

Mike — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:51:07 +0000

Jono had a slide during his presentation during the Ubuntu Developer Summit this morning which I want on a T-Shirt.

Make
(*)(Ku)(U)(Xu)(Go)(Myth)buntu(Studio)
Happen

or the proper regexp way (thanks Jeff:))

Make
([XK]u|U|Go|Myth)buntu( Studio|)
Happen!

Intrepid Ibex Development Forum

Mike — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:42:35 +0000

The Intrepid Ibex Development forum has been open on the Ubuntu Forums for discussion of the development of Ubuntu 8.10. Enjoy and let me know if you have any suggestions for thr forums.

New Forum Record

Mike — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 18:25:06 +0000

The Hardy release blew away the old record of the most people online at one time on the Ubuntu Forums. 24,125 is 10,000 more people than we had last week, before the release of Ubuntu 8.04. My hat off to the Forums staff, Canonical server team, and Ubuntu-Geek with his great PHP/database-fu.

If you have any free time to help out with the on rush of new users, please feel free to stop by the forums and help.