IBExpert Personal on Wine - Ubuntu Linux

I was able to run IBExpert within Wine merging this two guides

IBexpert WINE Howto and the using_ibexpert_with_linux_and_wine.pdf provided by my colleague (thanks to Carlao).

0- Install wine from ubuntu repositories (I'm using Ubuntu 8.04)

$ sudo apt-get install wine

1- don't run ibexpert before doing next steps, if you did it, probably you need to delete .wine directory,

2- If you not already done, Install dcom98 as http://wiki.winehq.org/NativeDcom
(may be native dcom should be fixed to work with ibexpert).

3- replace riched20.dll and msls31.dll (copy from a win98 or winxp distribution)

4- in winecfg add native dll overrides for ibexpert: ole32, oleaut32, riched20

5- Downloaded gds32.dll and copy to wine's system32 directory.

6- Run

$ wine regedit

This opens the “Windows Register Editor”. Search for the contents in the
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International key, and change the value
of “sShortDate” from “d/M/yyyy” to “dd/MM/yyyy” (without the quotation marks).

7- Finally run IBexpert installation
$ wine setup_personal.exe

8- Run IBexpert through desktop link or
$ env WINEPREFIX="/home/USER/.wine" wine "C:\Program Files\HK-Software\IBExpert\ibexpert.exe"

replacing USER with your unix username.

How to add Spanish Dictionary to an English Ubuntu installation

You have to install the package openoffice.org, and the myspell-es with the command

sudo apt-get install openoffice.org myspell-es

in addition to common installation of open-office.org-writer and open-office.org-calc, etc.
It's a metapackage that installs all components of openoffice.org, besides standard ones, and that's what make spanish dictionary available.
If that doen't work, you might want to try the wizzard inside Open Office's menu:

File/Wizzards/Install new dictionary

Synchronize Evolution and Nokia 6300

This is not a HOWTO, It's more a success story extended. :)
I use Ubuntu 8.04 on a HP Pavilion tx1000z. I didn't have to install blue tooth programs, since they were already there, but if you want a detailed explanation look for this link (original article is in spanish)

Synchronize Nokia E65 with Evolution

I have this packages from ubuntu repositories:

libopensync-plugin-evolution2
libopensync-plugin-file
libopensync-plugin-gnokii
libopensync-plugin-google-calendar
libopensync0
libpisync1
libsyncml-utils
libsyncml0
msynctool
multisync
opensync-plugin-syncml

Also, this ones for gnokii

gnokii gnokii-cli gnokii-common xgnokii

I followed de steps from the guide linked above and I got my synchronization working!
Here my msynctool configuracion (I had to change < for ( on the post, because blogger eats up the tags :( )

USER@host:~$ msynctool --showgroup nokia-evo2
Groupname: nokia-evo2 Member 2: evo2-sync

Configuration :
(config)
(address_path)default(/address_path)
(calendar_path)file:///home/USER/.evolution/calendar/local/system(/calendar_path)
(tasks_path)default(/tasks_path)
(/config)

Member 1: gnokii-sync
Configuration : (config)
(connection)bluetooth(/connection)
(port)00:1A:DC:00:34:10(/port)
(model)6310(/model)
(/config)


The 6310 is a workaround I read somewhere, works perfectly fine even though my phone is a 6300.
I don't use GUI, plain and simple command line :)

$ msynctool --sync nokia-evo2

Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 LTS on HP Pavilion tx1000z

A fresh install does almost all the work. The only thing that I had to look for a work around was wireless adapter driver. Following this steps, I got it working with WPA encryption.

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-475963.html

For perfect external video outputs (SVCD and VGA), I installed NVidia's driver version 173.14.09, from this site:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/linux_display_amd64_173.14.09.html

The only things that I have not tried, because I don't need them in a regular basis, are: modem, fingerprint reader and touchscreen.
Everything else works like a charm, including bluetooth, I can synchronize my Nokia 6300 with evolution's calendar! I will post a mini howto on the sync later. This feature really changed my life. :)

Gtalk ideas

I've been thinking about some ideas for Gtalk, instant messenger from Google.
In case somebody have the time to implement it on Pidgin or some other not official client here I present the ideas:
Groups of contacts are not a new feature, but rating those groups or maybe even individually each contact, yes it is. Sometimes you don't want to speak with people for several reasons: commercials, personals, academics, etc.
What if you don't want to be seen depending on what context are you working? If you can make categories for your contacts, then you can define wich categories can see you depending on what "status" or context you are. For instance, on weekends and holidays, you don't want to see most of your customers, or co-workers, then automatically on Friday at 5:30 PM, you are unavailable for them. For the same reason you on office time, or on some situations don't want to be disturb by your students o by your family or by friends, because you use the instant messenger also for work, and instead of having multiple accounts, you want the same account to perform differently according to what role you are.