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Build a Budget High End Ubuntu Rather than a Vista Computer

When we review budget computers, a phrase we commonly throw around is “just the basics.” We use it to denote a PC that can handle e-mail and instant messaging, Web surfing, average office tasks (such as word processing, spreadsheets, and finance management), light photo editing, and simple print-design projects. True, these are things computers have been tackling for a long time, but the operating systems and software used to do them have become more complex, rendering a dusty, old, beige machine obsolete in a heartbeat. Even just poking around the Internet demands more processing power than it did a few years ago.

If you’re still using a particularly long-in-the-tooth PC, it’s likely because you don’t have the money to spend on a new machine. We can appreciate that, so we pulled together a desktop that can ably handle today’s average demands, built with easy-to-assemble, off-the-shelf components for a total cost of less than $250.

We did all of our shopping through Newegg.com. Not only did it have the best prices, thanks to a large stock of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) components (see “A Word About OEM Products”), but it also has excellent policies regarding refunds and replacements, which we know from personal experience.

The only thing we didn’t factor into cost was an operating system. The user we had in mind for this PC would be indifferent to which OS was used, because there would be no overwhelming need for hardware or software compatibility. In this case, we used the free Ubuntu Desktop Edition. Ubuntu is a Linux-based OS developed and supported by a very active community. It’s built on the premise that software should be customizable and available free of charge. (It’s also being used in the Linux-based systems Dell is now selling). Ubuntu is constantly being improved, with new releases rolled out every six months; the standard installation takes less than 30 minutes. Included is a full suite of software for productivity (OpenOffice), Web browsing (Firefox), enjoying your media, editing photos, and much more—and it’s completely free, with plenty of other compatible applications available for download after installation. Our machine will also run Microsoft Windows XP and Vista Home Basic. It will also handle Microsoft Office 2007, Adobe Photoshop Elements, and, with a video card upgrade and extra memory, Windows Vista Home Premium, and games like Battlefield 2142.. If you need this OS, we recommend XP Home Edition SP2, which is available in an OEM version from Newegg.com for $89.99. This system should be able to handle Windows Vista Home Basic with no problems. With only 1GB of memory and integrated graphics, however, this computer won’t provide an ideal environment for running Vista Home Premium

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Upload files to Snapfish

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I am recently switching over to Ubuntu as a full-time Desktop OS. One of the hardest parts of this though is having it pass the ever critical wife test. So far, wife testing is going well, as she is comfortable using firefox, openoffice and pidgin. But we hit a bump in the road recently when she needed to upload a bunch of pictures to Snapfish. She used to use a Snapfish utility in Windows to do bulk uploads. This option was not available for Linux users, and she certainly was not going to use the standard browser interface to upload a single picture at a time.

The answer? Nautilus Scripts!

Now I can’t claim the idea for my own. The following two posts helped me tremendously in getting this working.

http://heliolith.com/archives/2006/0…fish-on-linux/

http://ceitl.zanestate.edu/blog/arch…from-nautilus/

Both had bits and pieces of functionality I wanted. All I had to do was blend them together.

1) Create a Google Mail account if you don’t already have one.

2) Add this Google Mail account to your Snapfish preferences to accept pictures from e-mail.

3) Install mutt and zenity if they are not already installed:
Code:
sudo apt-get install mutt zenity

4) Download the putmail.py python script;

http://sourceforge.net/project/showf…roup_id=122444

5) Extract and install the script:
Code:
tar -xvf putmail.py-1.4.tar.bz2
sudo ./putmail.py-1.4/install.sh

6) Create a mutt configuration file for your profile:
Code:
gedit ~/.muttrc

7) Enter the following data into the file and save it:
set sendmail=”/usr/local/bin/putmail.py”

Create a putmail directory in your home directory:
Code:
mkdir ~/.putmail

9) Create a putmail configuration file:
Code:
gedit ~/.putmail/putmailrc

10) Put your Google Mail information in it:
[config]
server = smtp.gmail.com
email = youruserid@gmail.com
username = youruserid@gmail.com
password = yourpassword
port = 587
tls = true

11) Download the following script:

http://ceitl.zanestate.edu/blog/wp-c…/05/2gmail.txt

12) Copy it to the Nautilus Scripts directory and rename it.
Code:
cp ./2gmail.txt ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/SendToSnapfish

13) Open the script file:
Code:
gedit ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/SendToSnapfish

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