Ubuntu: Adding Stock Prices to the Panel

Applets are just small programs that deliver information to the user. Applets may be added to the panel by right clicking on the panel and choosing to add a selected applet. The applets themselves may be configured by right clicking on the applet in order to make necessary changes, like adjusting the time. Here is an example of the Invest applet to track your stocks. Right click the panel select Invest and then right click the applet to add your stocks.

The applet can track any number of stock you would like to enter. If you enter your stock ticker, the price you paid, and the number you purchased, it will track those stocks from the Yahoo website and give the information on how they are doing.

If you double click the applet you can select charts that will go with your stocks.

Applets are a great way to add features to the Desktop that enhance the working environment.

Linux Desktop Environment

The Desktop is an environment. When the Desktop appears as the computer session begins hundreds of programs and settings work together to provide the working environment for each user. In other words, when you turn on a computer the working area that is viewable is the Desktop. All graphical operating systems have an environment which they create, Windows, Mac or Linux. Understanding the purpose and design of the Desktop is an important aspect of employing the Desktop to work for you and with you.

Modifying the Gnome Panel

Desktop Components
The Linux system can either run with the graphical user interface which is the interface that allows users to see images and text. Or the Linux system can run only in text mode which allows you to do everything faster and more efficiently but requires extensive knowledge of Linux commands and programs. Each option can compliment the other. In fact, many users find it more productive to use both interfaces.

The GUI, graphical user interface, gives you a background which you can change, icons which are links to programs, and visual aids which are available for word processing, image manipulation, spreadsheets, etc. The GUI uses images to help the user make decisions as to how to use the operating system through the use of icons. This process is intuitive, meaning for the most part if a user sees a series of options in button form they instantly realize that these represents options to programs. This intuitive process makes it much easier in terms of training as most computer aware users can easily pick this up rapidly.

The text mode has no hints through the use of icons, or arrows, etc. The user must know the commands necessary to accomplish each task. For a new Linux user the aspect of understanding even a fraction of the 10,000 Linux commands with variations is overwhelming. However, every Linux user must be able to use 10-20 commands so the command line still is important in Linux.

The graphical interface of Ubuntu 8.04 opens to the Desktop. This is where everything will start for the user. Desktop icons provide shortcuts to programs that are commonly used and the bar across the bottom of the desktop includes minimized programs, a place to change to another workspace, minimize all programs and a trash can. On the top of the Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron desktop you will see another grey panel that includes a full Gnome main menu to the left broken up into three sections Applications, Places, and System. The main menu contains access to most of the applications computer locations and system commands that are needed with Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. Also on top are icons that link to Firefox 3.0, Evolution, and help. To the right of the top panel is a clock and numerous shortcut icons including a red power icon which allows the user to log out, lock screen, switch user, hibernate, restart or shutdown. Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron includes Gnome 2.22 which offers a sleek environment to operate in along with many new features.

Note that much effort goes into creating icons which are intuitive, for example the Evolution mail program link is represented by an envelope. The terms “Applications”, “Places” and “System” are self descriptive terms which help a user understand immediately the basic concept behind each of the terms.

Another important concept in terms of the Desktop environment is that it is a flexible environment. Each aspect of the Desktop is able to be manipulated and configured in a way that is most effective for the user.

Working Directory

The Working Directory is the location of the directory that you are currently in. For example if you log into the system, it is designed so that you will begin in your home directory. For example, if your username was tom then your home directory by default would be /home/tom. When tom logs into the system it places him in the /home/tom directory, which is the current working directory. So if tom issues the command ls, then it will list the contents of /home/tom. If tom moves to the /usr directory by using the command cd /usr (which means change directories to /usr) then the current working directory is /usr Current working directory is the current directory that a command will interact with. Now, that does not mean that you have to be located in a directory to issue a command in the shell. Regardless of your current working directory you can use a command that interacts with any directory by using a path. For example, if you were located in the /home/tom directory you could list the contents of the /usr/share directory by using the path of that directory so the command would look like this:
ls /usr/share

One command that will verify your working directory is the command pwd, which stands for print working directory.

Moving Around in Directories
The cd command is the basic way to move around in the directory system. Cd followed by the directory location will move the users current working directory. For example,
cd /home

This command moves a user to the /home directory where all user directories are located. If the user fred wanted to move to their /home directory they would use:
cd /home/fred

There is a shortcut to moving to your home directory. The ~ is equivalent to the home directory. As a result fred can move to his home directory with this command:
cd ~

This makes it easier than typing the full path.

Transmission 1.22 BitTorrent Client Is Here

Every version of Transmission has been created with a few important things in mind. Transmission has been created from scratch to be lightweight, yet powerful BitTorrent client. Its simple, intuitive interface is designed to integrate easily with whatever computing environment you decide to use. I’m aware of five different operating systems that Transmission can run on at the time of this writing. Transmission allows for network configuration, the banning of peers who send corrupted data, protocol encryption, and a built in Peer Exchange. The efficiency of Transmission is obvious after using it to ration my precious bandwidth. I can now queue torrents for maximum performance and increase individual torrent speed during my ISP peak hours. I also appreciate the support for Growl notifications and dock badging that keep me updated on what’s going on with my downloads while I’m off doing something else on my computer.

One feature that has been added to the Fedora 9 and Ubuntu 8.04 Linux distributions is the Transmission bit torrent application as the default bit torrent program. Version 1.22 of Transmission was just release on 06/14/08 and if you don’t have transmission 1.22 yet, download it here. Fedora 9 comes with Transmision 1.11 but version 1.22 has many improvement and bug fixes that are evident after using the new version of Transmission on my Fedora 9 desktop. First of all performance seemed better and transmission now builds correctly on Sun Studio. Also minor man page fixes have been included in this release. Transmission version 1.22 includes Latvian, Malayalam, Serbian, and Telugu translations and updates to Czech, Spanish, Romanian, Russian, Dutch, Polish, Italian, Portuguese, Catalan, Danish, German, Swedish, Traditional Chinese, Finnish, and (simplified) Chinese translations. So now more of the world can enjoy the advantages that Transmission can offer.

Accessing the Transmission bit torrent program is easy on the Fedora 9 Sulphur desktop. Simply click on Applications in the Gnome 2.22 main menu, then select Internet — Transmission BitTorrent Client.

Skype or Ekiga on Ubuntu 8.04

Skype or Ekiga
Which is better? Well I tested both and here are my impressions of using each. The first thing you need to do is try it yourself as that will be an important aspect. Here are links to 2 easy tutorials to get you going.

Compare Skype and Ekiga
Skype Tutorial
Ekiga Tutorial

Ekiga
The biggest thing I like about Ekiga was that it was the default and I assumed as a result that it would be the easiest to get going. Well…it wasn’t. The software install with about 12 steps instead of the 3 steps with Skype. That was one thing I didn’t like as it provided more opportunity for error and then trying to find the error was even more complex. However, the biggest problem I had was trying to get my hardware to be consistent. Yep, I would turn it off and find it did not work when I wanted to use it again. I kept getting error messages about my sound system had a conflict. I experimented a lot trying to find the issue, for me it was setting my sound to ALSA not PulseAudio, the standard on Ubuntu 8.04. So my frustration with Ekiga as that while it was the default, it was problematic and while PulseAudio was the default it did not work. I thought this was the LTS version, I must have missed something.

Skype
My biggest complaint about Skype was that the website seemed to indicate that there was not current version for Ubuntu 8.04. That always makes me nervous as I like to keep version matching not having to go back to the Ubuntu 7.10 version. It almost looks on the Skype site that it is not kept up well, again an indication that there business model is not working as well as they liked. However, despite these issues Skype was dead easy to set up and get going. And I had no problems with my hardware acting up.

You can get both to work with a little work. I did notice that a typical problem is a low volume microphone so get the best you can to help in that area.