Die Office-Bibliothek und der Eee

Schlechte Nachrichten für alle, die auf dem Eee-PC (mit der mitgelieferten Linux Version) die aktuelle Office-Bibliothek Version 5 nutzen wollen. Wegen fehlender Abhängigkeiten scheint dies nicht ohne weiteres möglich zu sein. Probiert habe ich es sowohl mit der rpm- wie mit der deb-Datei und dem Hinzufügen etlicher zusätzlicher Quellen in der sources.list. Vermutlich würde es ab einem bestimmten Punkt klappen, wenn man immer mehr fremde Quellen übernimmt. Dies ist aber nicht empfehlenswert, weil dann auch die Qualität des Systems abnehmen könnte. Bislang ist mir kein Howto bekannt, wie sich die Office-Bibliothek 5 unter dem Linux des Eee-PCs installieren ließe.

Hier zwei Alternativen
1. Frühere Versionen der Office-Bibliothek funktionieren. Allerdings werden sie nicht länger zum Download angeboten. Man ist also auf die Version angewiesen, die man durch die gekaufte CD (oder den gekauften Download) besitzt. Diese Alternative hilft zudem nicht, wenn man einen Titel nutzen will, der bereits mit Version 5 geliefert wurde bzw. wenn ein e-Wörterbuch von Langenscheidt nutzen will, bei dem die Office-Bibliothek nicht mit beilag. Zudem sollte man bedenken, dass die Office-Bibliothek vor der Version 5 sehr unausgereift war. U.a. verschwendet die Version 4 wertvolle Bildschirmfläche durch die zu tief angeordnete Menüleiste (ein Extremfall schlampiger Programmierung).

2. Wenn man auf dem Eee-PC allerdings eine aktuelle Linux-Version installiert, sollte auch die Installation der Office-Bibliothek klappen. In meinem Fall habe ich Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon genommen (vgl. hier). Danach habe ich nicht die deb- sondern rpm-Datei installiert, weil mit der deb-Datei die Schrift in der Office-Bibliothek pixelig dargestellt wird. Folgende Schritte sind zur Installation erforderlich (sofern ich alles noch richtig im Kopf habe):

• sudo apt-get install alien libgtk1.2
• cd /Pfad/zur/officebib-5.0.1-1-suse.rpm
• sudo alien officebib-5.0.1-1-suse.rpm
• sudo dpkg -i officebib-5.0.1-1-suse.deb

Fertig.

Zur Bildschirmauflösung
Leider ist die Office-Bibliothek nicht besonders für die Auflösung von 800x600 geeignet, weil sie durch die Tab-Leiste und das rechte Kontext-Fenster unnötig Platz verschenkt. Ich habe auch weder in den offiziellen Einstellungen noch in der ini-Datei eine funktionierende Möglichkeit gefunden dies zu ändern. Dennoch - man sieht genug, um den Eee prima als mobiles Wörterbuch einsetzen zu können.

Here is a script for automatically removing the last seconds of several mp3-files

Here is a script to automatically trim the last seconds of several mp3 files in Linux for the following scenario:

1. In each file close to the end is a 1-2 sec break of silence and then about 7-12 secs of speaking. The silence and the speaking at the end should be removed.
2. The tags of the original file should be kept.
3. The shortened files shouldn't overwrite the existing ones but be saved to a new directory.
   

If the tags weren't necessary and the end of each file would have the exact same length a fine solution would be available here. Actually this was my starting point for the following solution.

For splitting the mp3-files at the desired point mp3splt seems to be the best tool in the Linux world. Unfortunately has two shortcomings:

1. No batch mode.
2. The current version 2.1 has problems with keeping the tags of the original file. The second shortcoming is gone with version 2.2_rc1 which is available as installation file for several distros.

Before starting the following shell-script you have to change to the directory where your mp3-files are stored. The modified files will be saved to a sub-folder called Shortened.

OK, here is the script

#!/bin/bash

# Step 1: Split all mp3 files
for X in *.mp3
do
mp3splt -s -p nt=2,rm,min=1 "$X" -o "$X"_@n -d ./Shortened
done

# Step 2: Remove the unneeded ends of the original mp3 files
rm ./Shortened/*_2.mp3

One still unsolved problem is that mp3splt doesn't support a recent ID3 standard. This can result in shortened tag information. Theoretically another problem could happen with a mp3 file which has a longer break of silence in the middle than at the end. In this case you could try to modify the parameters for mp3splt (man mp3splt). However, I tried my script with several pieces of japanese zen-flute music with breaks in the middle and all were trimmed fine.

UPDATE
I have used the script now for several hundred files and it worked with all of them. However, there is one album I once downloaded from Magnatune.com which for whatever reason resists to get circumcised. I played with several of mp3splts parameters - but no success. Hmm, I might decide to buy it... Otherwise I still could use Audacity...

Firefox 3 Beta1 and zooming - Part 2

Yesterday I wrote about the full-page-zooming feature of Firefox 3 Beta 1. While this is a great new feature text-only-zooming should still be possible for reasons I explained yesterday.

Today I found a way to use text-only-zooming with Firefox 3 Beta 1. It is even possible to combine page-zooming and text-zooming and let Firefox remember both settings combined.

In order to use text-only-zooming you have to install the Firefox extension NoSquint which let you zoom text-only and can save your text-zooming settings. It is also possible to zoom text on all webpages to a fixed zooming level. This works independently from the page-zooming settings and you can use both at once.

One problem with installing NoSquint is that it is not available for Firefox 3 yet. Fortunately you can install the version for Forefox 2 the way I described here.

Since this extension is not build for Firefox 3 there are some smaller problems. You can not use ctrl++ or ctrl+- for text zooming. Also the sidebar is not available. The only way for zooming is to use the settings menu.

Firefox 3 Beta1 and zooming

Here is another piece of experience with Beta 1 of Firefox 3:

One new feature is full page zooming. This new feature combines three aspects:

1. Not only text gets zoomed but design elements and pictures too.
2. Firefox remembers the zooming level for each page.
3. The traditional text-only zooming is no longer possible.
   

While I appreciate aspects 1 and 2 I think that the lake of text-only zooming is problematic. Picture zooming can result in ugly looking pictures. Especially at websites where picture quality matters but the text is too small for comfortable reading text-only zooming is needed.

What I would love to see is the option to choose between text-only and full-page zooming. In both possibilities the settings should be automatically saved. It also would be great if both options could be combined. For example I would like to use page-zooming up to the level where picture quality is still ok. Then I would like to zoom the text up to the point where the page design is still intact.

Another problem is that Firefox significantly slows down while zoomed pages are open (tested with Linux. This might vary depending on your operation system). I guess/hope this problem will be solved in the final version.

Firefox 3 Beta1 and extensions

I have just installed and tested Firefox 3 Beta1. Everything seems to work ok. However, I have only used it for about 30 minutes yet.

Here are some experiences regarding extensions:

1. Adblock Plus: Works out of the box. Great!
2. Greasemonkey: Not working. See below.
3. Mostly Crystal (Theme): You can find a version for Firefox 3 Beta 1 here.
   
4. Dictionaries (Polish, German and probably many more): Not working. See below.
5. Google Toolbar: Not working. Method below doesn't help. However, i don't really need it since Firefox's own search bar is good enough.

Here is what you can do to use extensions not ready for Firefox 3:

1. Download and unpack the xpi-file (actually it is a zip-file).
2. Open install.rdf.
3. Chance in the following line '2' to '3':
   

   <em:maxversion>2.00</em:maxversion>

4. Repack everything.

For me this works well with Greasemonkey and the German and Polish dictionary file. But don't expect it do work with every extension. This might also unstabilize your Firefox.

UPDATE 21.11.2007
Since smooth scrolling still doesn't seem to work out of the box I tried to install SmoothWheel. This extension is already ready for Firefox 3 but is still not installable by default. The reason seems to be that Firefox 3 only accepts updates from secured web pages (https://...). To solve this problem another hack to install.rdf is necessary (as described below). Simply remove the URL in the following line:

<updateURL>http://smoothwheel.mozdev.org/update.rdf</em:updateURL>

That's all.