Liz McNaughton

I had a bit of a problem running Google Earth (v 5.0.11729.1014) on my laptop (Compaq nc2400 with Ubuntu 8.?)
I know this laptop can take it – once upon a time it had Vista Business (feel free to groan away Stuart) running on it and Google Earth worked well.

Google earth Opens ok with no errors or anything but it looks like this – and was very stutterey when zooming.

With the help of Google i found out that un-ticking the “Atmosphere” option under the View menu made the zoom a lot smoother but I was still left with a hollow looking image….

Compiz seemed to work OK so i figured the issue was more to do with OpenGL then with graphics drivers. I did have a look around for other drivers for the Intel Mobile 945GM G_card thats in my laptop (found what G_card i had with this BTW). I had a stab at installing them and did not get far…

I was running Ubuntu 8 and V 9.04 was now available so i upgraded and now Google Earth looks like this -

Ok so I’m none the wiser at to what the original issue was but with Jaunty Google Earth is a happier place.

It’s not a perfect world though – when ever i open a menu or switch to another window in the same work space Google Earth does “battle” a bit with it resulting in gray squares and the outlines of continents ect overlying the other program I’m tyring to look at.

How ever if I open Google earth in it’s own workspace/cube side its okish. Opening and closing a menu within Google Earth results in flash of my desktop Image, a flash of gray then back to the Earth Image… I suspect this is the combination of Google Earth and Compiz on a, slightly puney, laptop graphics card. I can live with it as the rest of Google Earth seems to work ok.

Update – Google earth’s basic bits work ok how ever the extra info bits do not display properly. Having had a prod about on Google it looks like Compiz and any OpenGL based program, Google Earth being one, don’t work well together…..

to check what hardware you have installed in Ubuntu go to the terminal and use sudo lshw.

A little while ago i got a Nokia 6600 slide and set it up to connect to my email. The receiving part was very easy but the sending not so…

It would not work authenticating to my Hosts SMTP server but worked OK when sending via my phone SP’s server….

Not the best article but this info could save someone a few mins…..

Someone recently asked me about removing programs under Windows Vista….

In keeping with this blog’s Ethic of “things that may be of use to people” here’s what I said -

Before getting into the “How” lets have a look at what to get rid of.

Some things may be obvious “oh I have not used that in ages” type programs are good to go.

If you Don’t know what something is Google it, then decide – if you still don’t know email your friendly neighborhood techi the name of the program, as displayed, and they will tell you more about it and what happens if you get rid of it.

If you are the nervous type – backup important data like photos and music before you start. In fact I would say back things up regularly anyway. If you ever need to restore anything you will be glad you took the time and having a backup gives a nice, happy, warm, safe feeling to any computer user .

Right down to business – How to uninstall programs from Microsoft Vista.

Step one Go to the start button (bottom left hand corner of the screen as shown), click on it and the start menu will appear as shown, Click on the “Control Panel” option (outlined in blue).
Vista Desktop and Start Menu

The Control Panel has two views – Default and Classic. Follow the Step two instructions that match your view.

Step Two for Default view users
In the “Control Panel” look for the option called “uninstall a program” under “Programs”, outlined in blue in the picture below.
Control Panel – Vista Default View


Step Two for Classic view users
In the “Control Panel” look for the option called “Programs and Features”, outlined in blue in the picture below.
Control Panel – Vista Default View

Step Three – Uninstalling programs
You should now be looking at a list like the one shown below. to uninstall a program click on it’s name in the list and click on the “uninstall” option that will appear at the top. again this is outlined in Blue.
Uninstall list

Clicking the Uninstall option will start the uninstall wizard for the relevant program. Each wizard will have different options so read what the wizard asks and you should be OK. If in doubt – Google or your friendly neighborhood techi should help.

My Joy at this Blog getting it’s first comment was soon dampened as a Spam comment soon followed.

I know you can get Spam filters for email servers, in fact I have configured a filter or two in my time, but I knew relativity little about spam filters for Blogs. Google and I came up with a plan..

The version of Word Press I installed on my server comes with an un-activated, Spam filter called Akismet that has now been kicked into action. In addition to that i installed SI CAPTCHA (also used by a friend that has been Blogging a bit longer then me) that adds a “are you human” picture test to the comments form. Lets see how it goes…….