I recalled PacMan – one of the most popular classic arcade video games. I used to play PacMan at a video game parlour each day (literally), on my way from school to home. My friends used to consider me an expert at it

I started googling for PacMan for Linux. While searching, I got to know that this game is available as a Google Gadget. That’s it. I decided to install Google Gadgets on my Fedora 9 laptop. Thought it would be fun as well as learning and I will install more than just a game.

Google Gadgets on Fedora 9 Desktop

Installation:

• Login as root
• Configure a new YUM repository for Google Gadgets. Create a file named google-gadgets.repo in the directory /etc/yum.repos.d with the following contents: [google-gadgets]
  name=Google Gadgets
  baseurl=http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/suzhe/Fedora_9/
  enabled=1
  gpgcheck=0

• There is a google-gadgets RPM for an older release in the Fedora Update Repository which conflicts with the google-gadgets-common RPM from the above setup repository. Hence temporarily disable the update repository by editing the file fedora-updates-newkey.repo. Change Enabled=0 from 1 for [updates-newkey]. After the next step you can re-enable it by setting 0 to 1.
• Install Google Gadgets for Fedora as:yum install google-gadgets-gtk. Since I use GNOME on my Fedora 9 desktop I chose to install google-gadgets-gtk. KDE users may opt for “yum install google-gadgets-qt” (untested by me).
• Turn on Desktop Effects (System>Preferences>Look and Feel>Desktop Effects) to see the Gadget sidebar translucent as the Vista sidebar.

Run It
There are two ways to run the Google Gadgets sidebar (which shows your gadgets): manually or automatically, when you log into GNOME. To run it manually, issue the following command in a terminal/console window:

ggl-gtk -bg

Second, to run it automatically when you log into GNOME, click on System>Preferences>Personal>Sessions. Click on the tab “Startup Programs”. Click on the Add button. For Name: type in Google Gadgets and for Command: type in:  ggl-gtk -bg. Next time, when you log into GNOME, the sidebar will appear automatically.

Note that if you click on the show desktop icon (bottom left) on GNOME, the Google Gadget’s sidebar would dissappear. To see it again, click on the Google Gadgets icon on the GNOME panel.

To install Google Gadgets for other Linux distributions browse to http://code.google.com/p/google-gadgets-for-linux/

Add the PacMan gadget
To add a gadget like the PacMan game, right click on the Google Gadget’s sidebar and click on “Add Gadgets”. This will popup a window with the gadgets’ category on the left and the gadgets on the right pane. To add PacMan, select “Fun and Games” and then move the mouse over the “Games” gadget. Then click on the Add button. This will add the Games gadget to the sidebar which lists other games like Tetris, Donkey Kong, Sonic, amongst PacMan. Click on a game to start playing it.

All said and done, I happened to install Google Gadgets on my Fedora 9 desktop for PacMan and it is worth it. Played across three stages while downloading a 25 MB file in office . As of this writing I only have 3 gadgets added to the sidebar – Wikipedia search, Games and Analog Clock.

Will update this post when I add something more or as interesting as PacMan to my gadgets sidebar. PacMan rocks

iPod Shuffle (Silver)

My first Apple software product was Quicktime (when I desperately wanted to play .mov files) followed by iTunes  which was for testing the Podcast feed on a Website which I was involved in.

iPod Shuffle is not a new/latest device. Hence would refrain from writing a review. In a nutshell, I found it nifty and compact – in fact, it is the nirvana of compactness. The sound quality is amazing even at higher volume. The volume in turn was high enough, at its maximum.

I don’t regret it not having a display. I’m the sorts who can do away with looking at songs if I can hear them It clips on my belt tightly and I don’t fear it falling off (unlike my PDA).

Shuffle with Linux

Next, came the tricky part. How do I sync it with my laptop running Linux? I had some answers before I bought it. But obviously they were not tried and tested by me. What worked for me nicely was gtkpod. Installation was simple on my Fedora 9 desktop – “yum install gtkpod”.

I plugged in the Shuffle via the small(est) USB docking station. Fedora detected it and created a mountpoint and an icon for it on the desktop. But copying MP3 files straight to the mount point (or the device) did not play them.

Hence I fired gtkpod from Applications>Sound & Video>GtkPod. Gtkpod, very cryptically, started asking about my iPod model. Well, I know it is an iPod Shuffle but had no clue about its generation!. It gave me the option to select from first, second and third generation, along with the capacity (storage) and the color. After referring  to this Wikipedia article, I decided that, mine was definitely not the first generation which was a USB dongle shaped device.

Googling convinced me that the difference between the second and the third generation was some color options. I, finally, opted for Shuffle (3rd. Gen) > 1 GB Shuffle (Silver) (xB225).

The device started showing on the left pane of gtkpod. I selected the device and clicked on the menu File>Add Folder. Selected the directory which had my MP3s and then clicked on Save Changes (on the top). Right clicked on the device and selected Eject device. Warning Warning:  This, though expected, did not unmount the iPod Shuffle. Also the Orange light on the Shuffle kept blinking in the same way as it have been, ever since I plugged it to the USB. The Shuffle’s manual clearly says not to disconnect the device when the Orange light is blinking.

Hence, I right clicked on the desktop icon (mount point) and selected Eject. The blinking Orange light turned Green to tell me that now I can unplug the Shuffle and start listening to the MP3s.

I repeat again, the sound quality is amazing!

That’s where libtrash comes to help. Download it from http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~marriaga/software/libtrash/. I used to use it long time back when, once, I deleted some important files from my laptop and none of those wonderful undelete utilities worked. Today I again deleted a file by accident. Though this time I had a backup, I got reminded of this wonderful utility. It still seems to be updated and maintained, somewhat – it was last updated in Jan 08.

Installed it on my laptop running Fedora 9 following the instructions in the readme file (found after extracting the tar.gz archive). And it worked (again)!