Temporarily Back to XP :-(

Unfortunately Ubuntu became too unreliable. I had run with Ubuntu as my main PC OS for nearly a month and I was getting on just fine.

I had started to notice Evolution was loosing some emails and also showing me that it had sent mail, but the recipients were getting nothing. I double checked to make sure it wasn't my email server or any issue with spam filters blocking my mail. In the end the only time I could reproduce the error was when I sent email from Ubuntu/Evolution.

The next Issue I had was a number of secure websites I needed to access would not render properly in either Firefox or Opera. I even had a bizarre issue where one website would not display at all when accessed using Ubuntu but would display perfectly on XP on my laptop.

This caused me no end of productivity issues and in the end I had to revert to XP.

I haven't given up. Im currently installing Ubuntu on my laptop for me to experiment with, to try and get everything working without it disrupting my work.

T.B.C

Evolution - Letting me down

I have temporarily had to abandon Evolution and log into my exhcange email
account via Opera.

It appears over the past week, emails I have been sending and are showing as sent are not getting to the recipient when sent via Evolution.

I am currently seeking a solution or alternative client!!

Dissapointed ..

DYMO LabelWriter 400

Today I needed to use my DYMO LabelWriter 400 label printer for the first time since installing Ubuntu. I had forgotten about this device and wondered if I could use it at all.

On XP I had a program with the Label Writer that managed the label printing, unfortunately on checking their website, they don't have anything for linux.

My first task was the driver. On plugging in the printer Ubuntu detected the label writer and prompted me for a driver. I selected the only DYMO driver in the list.

My next task was to set OpenOffice Writer to the correct paper size.
On mesuring the labels I found that the labels supplied by DYMO with the printer are 3.5cm wide by 8.8cm long.

To change the page settings in OO Writer you need to go to FORMAT then PAGE then the PAGE tab. After much fiddling and wasting around 10 labels I finally found the settings that work best:-

Still Going Strong

After just over a week with Ubuntu as my main operating system I haven't had any problems other than Firefox crashing when using Flash.

Im slowly getting used to doing my accounts in OpenOffice instead of Excel, which takes a little getting used to.

I have some demanding jobs ahead of me with work and hopefully my Ubuntu wont let me down.

Printer Installation - Samsung SCX4100

Having so much fun with the install I completely forgot about my printer.
The printer I have is a Mono Laser MFP (Samsung SCX-4100)

The Ubuntu install actually found the printer and installed a driver for it but it wouldn't print. I figured this was due to some incompatible generic driver.

I went to the Samsung website and thankfully they had a Linux driver for my printer. My next task was working out how to install it.

I found this post on the Ubuntu Forum that did the trick :)

My first ever Linux FREEZE

When my Evolution-Exchange sync finished, the first thing I tried to do was send an email. On clicking reply the whole screen froze and became unresponsive.
Evolution seemed to go into 100%CPU usage. "Force Quit" resulted in Evolutions next startup in safe mode but clicking reply again resulted in the same freeze.

Searching the web I found many people having the same problem, apparently its something to do with the way Evolution/Ubuntu/Exchange deal with the Global Address List. Going into preferences in Evolution and switching off Auto-Complete fixed the problem. But I now dont have auto complete for my email addresses which is mildly annoying but im sure "I hope" the developers will fix this issue soon.

Day 2

After everything went to plan with the install I hit a bit of a wall with my Outlook conversion to Evolution. Initially my attempt to get Evolution to Sync with the exchange server failed and no matter what I did, I couldn't get them to talk to each other.

My backup plan was to use a program called Outport, this required me to setup a spare laptop install a trial version of Office 2007 (again) import my .pst file then use outport to export all the emails, contacts, calendar etc.. to a folder that would be compatible with Evolution. This whole process took 14 hours !!

As the percentage bar was hitting 99% complete I had a thought that could impact my whole attempt at converting to Linux - "what if the outport solution works and I try Linux for a week and decide I need Windows back?"
How would I then get my emails, calendar etc.. back into Office 2007!!

This thought worried me a little and I decided when the outport process finished I would have one last go at getting Evolution to sync with Exchange.

OUTPORT = 100% Complete

I did the exact same process as yesterday setting up Evolution and the bloody thing worked straight away. This pleased me no end because now I know I can try Linux for at least 2 months (I have a free 2 month trial with Exchange) without worrying about loosing any data. Mixed in with my pleaseure was a slight annoyance in that I just spent 14 hours messing about with XP again.

One thing I did notice when setting up the laptop with XP to enable me to run Outport was that after using Ubuntu for only a few hours it makes XP visually look rough. I think Im hooked on the look and layout of Ubuntu already.

This morning I just wanted an excuse to sit in front of my computer and use Ubuntu, like the feeling you get when you buy a new car and you havent got anywhere to go but you look for excuses to drive.

Having got Ubuntu up and running I have found that Linux "can" read NTFS and Openoffice comes with an Export to PDF feature, which all pleases me no end :)

Everything seems to run much quicker than when I had XP installed.