Check Your Hard Drive Smart Status Using A GUI

Checking your hard drives Smart status is preventive damage control.
It lets you see if your hard drive is slowly failing or is healthy.
But in Linux the standard smartmon tools can be a bit of a hassle to set up and interpret the results.

I have my smartmon tools set to do a Smart scan once a day and send the results to a log file.
That means remembering to open the log file and read it. Something I neglect to do on a regular basis. Also setting up the smartmon tools in the command line may be a bit over the top for the new user. Many new users are terrified of the terminal and don't want to be bothered wading through log files.
I needed something that allowed me to check the Smart status on demand and provide the results in 'Real' time with a Graphical User Interface (GUI).

GSmartControl (GSC) fills all those needs plus adds a few other features.
Each time you open GSC it does a check of the hard drives installed in your system.
You can view the capabilities of each hard drive, attributes, error log and self test log.
It also has 2 test modes that allow you to run a diagnostic test on the hard drive to make sure it is good.

GSC can be downloaded from it's home page found here;
GSmartControl Website

http://gsmartcontrol.berlios.de/home/index.php/en/Home

They have packages for all the popular Linux distros and an exe installer for Windows users although they will need to install GTK+ first.

As Linux matures we will find more software that provides the user with a GUI.
Some purists may not be happy with the proliferation of GUI's and tend to snub them as the GUI is not true Linux but the mainstream user wants or even demands a GUI.

Now go and grab this nice utility and know that you can now easily check your hard drive for possible problems.

Enjoy!

New Video Converting And Audio Ripping Tool With GUI

A new tool called WinFF does a great job of converting videos and ripping audio from videos. It is available in .deb packages, exe for Windows, RPM's for Red Hat and source code for other OS's.

Since I updated to Ibex and have the newest VLC, I have encountered a serious problem when converting videos. That problem being that I have no audio.
My previous tutorial on how to convert videos is now confined to VLC version 0.8.6

I'm not really sure whether the audio problem is with VLC or with the ffmpeg codec. There are many posts saying that due to patent conflicts, ffmeg no longer supports ac3 or mp3 audio streams. I can't verify that info at this time.
My feeling is that the problem is a bug in VLC.
WinFF however solves this problem, makes it much easier to convert a video, offers many more formats and rips audio with a few clicks.

The GUI is intuitive. It's only a matter of choosing what video you want to convert, what format you want it in and where to save it.
And the list of presets is extensive. It offers the user a choice that will suit almost every need.

The presets are as follows;
Audio formats include Mp3, m4a, Ac3, Wav and WMA
AVI including MS compatible, Xvid 4:3 and 16:9
Creative Zen in Xvid 4:3 and 16:9
DV in Raw DV 4:3 and 16:9
DVD that includes almost every format in Pal and NTSC
iPod formats in Xvid and H.264
Mobile Phones in the 3g2 and Blackberry formats
Mp4 uses the H.264 format
Other presets include formats in the Palm, PSP, Quicktime, Rockbox, VCD, FLV and WMV

As you can see, this provides you with plenty of options.
And it also rips and converts audio!!
Of course you will need all the extra codecs to access all the features.
Ubuntu users can get those codecs from Medibuntu.
Windows users can check out the packages at Free-Codecs.

Where do I get it from?
I'll give you some links that you can check out and download it from.

The creator's blog can be found here;
BiggMatt
Stop by and post a thanks for this handy tool.

Deb packages can be downloaded from this page;
WinFF .deb Downloads

Click on the arrow next to winff-0.43 to expand it then select the .deb package for either the !386 or the AMD64 depending what platform you are using.


The download page for OS's other then Ubuntu or .deb packages can be found here;
Winff Non-Deb

This is where you will find the exe, rpm and source packages.


I am very impressed with this tool and want to thank BiggMatt for all his hard work in providing the community with a very handy tool.

Enjoy!

TaZMAn

Create Split Archives and Files Using A GUI

I came to Linux after using Windows for years and during that time I became spoiled using a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for almost all the software.
Winrar was one of those programs that I used to create split archives.

But when I started using Linux I found that archiving files into split rar files required me to open the terminal and type in the commands to arrive at the final solution.
But no more! That has changed with the help of a small script that creates a GUI and makes archiving and splitting files an easy process.

I know. I can hear the comments. Use File Roller or use the free 7zip.
Using either of these requires the use of the command line to create split archives.
I can also use the Windows version of 7zip in Wine which will create split files but using Wine is not the objective here. I'm trying to use software that is native to Linux and this script fits the bill.

The actual script download is found in an Ubuntu forum link that can be found here;
Ubuntu Forum
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=556756

This will require you to sign up for free as a member.

But if you don't want to sign up I'm providing the actual tar.gz file links to Rapidshare.
There are 2 versions and both come with updaters.
One is the standard interface and the other contains a modified interface.
Both tar.gz files are about 3k each.

Download links;
Standard GUI
http://rapidshare.com/files/161620313/mkrar_and_updater-PACKAGE_VERSION_2.1.tar.gz

Modified GUI
http://rapidshare.com/files/161620314/mkrar_and_updater-PACKAGE_VERSION_2.1_MODIFIED_INTERFACE.tar.gz

All I did was extract the tar.gz files to a folder. Then I opened the folder and clicked on the mkrar.sh file. It asked me what to do and I chose the Run option.
The GUI opened up and I was easily able to create several split files.

What you can do is integrate this into your menu as a software option or even include it into your right click shell just like you do with the Nautilus Scripts.

Also, you will see a file named mkrarupdater.sh
Running this file will check for any updates to this script.

There doesn't seem to be any bugs with this script but I haven't tried out all the options so if you do find any bugs you can contact the maker.

Enjoy!

TaZMAn