Shoot Bill Gates!

I bumped into a little package today called xpenguins. It generates a bunch of cartoons that could be anything from penguins to Bill Gates. Install it with

sudo apt-get install xpenguins

Then run this to generate 256 Bill Gates that will crawl across your screen with little computers.

xpenguins -t Bill -n 256 -s

Click on them or drag a window over them to kill them, and notice the blood. To make it go away, close the terminal window. To make less Bill Gates, change 256 to another number.

Flickr Wallpaper

Follow these instructions to install webilder, an app that downloads photos from flickr (no account necessary) and can set them as your wallpaper and rotate them at set intervals. Just download the .deb file from getdeb:

install: http://www.getdeb.net/app.php?name=webilder
right click on panel, select add to panel. add 'webuilder desktop applet'

How to: now playing away message

Its possible to have your now playing in rhythmbox be part of your away message or buddy profile in linux. These instructions were written and tested in ubuntu linux, but probably work in other distros as well.

1) Install 'pidgin-dev' package via your package manager of choice. Run the following in a termina:

sudo apt-get install pidgin-dev

2) download and extract the latest release of the pidgin-rhythmbox plugin from here
3) open a terminal and use the cd command to browse the extracted folder. Then, in the terminal, run:

./configure
make
sudo make install

4) Restart pidgin and enable the plugin via tools > plugins (in pidgin). While your in there, mess with the settings as you want them.
5) add %rb to your away message, profile, or available status
6) pause and start again the song youre listening to in rhythmbox. This refreshes the %rb code