Xubuntu 11.10 - VLC Default Media Player - Thunar

After an install of Xubuntu 11.10 all commercial/encrypted dvds would fail to play. Parole would open and then throw a message saying "could not read dvd. this may be because the dvd is encrypted and a dvd decryption library is not installed".

Even if parole did work I would prefer to have vlc handle my dvd playback. The steps to fix the missing libdvdcss and set VLC as the default DVD player were as follows:

1.) Open up a terminal

2.) Run the below command (Taken from http://medibuntu.org/repository.php) to install the Mediabuntu repository

sudo -E wget --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list && sudo apt-get --quiet update && sudo apt-get --yes --quiet --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get --quiet update

3.) Then run

sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2 vlc ubuntu-restricted-extras

4.) VLC should now be installed with dvdcss capabilities.

5.) Now open Thunar (File Manager)

6.) In thunar choose Edit --> Preferences --> Advanced Tab

7.) Click Configure (Below Volume Management) --> Multimedia Tab

8.) Below "Video CDs/DVDs" tick the box "Play video Cds and DVDs when inserted"

9.) In the command box enter the following. I did mess around with trying to use the mounted path /media/DVD_VIDEO but it was not reliable as the path sometimes changes based on the dvd content.

vlc dvd:///dev/sr0

10.) Click close.

11.) Close Thunar preferences.

12.) Insert a DVD and VLC should automatically launch and play the DVD.

Worked for me.

Setup Joomla 1.7 and Scribefire Next 4 - Joomla Remote Editing

I've been using scribefire for ages and have always liked it. After moving to Joomla 1.7 I thought it would be as easy as setup was for Joomla 1.5. I was mistaken, not because it was particularly complecated but mainly due to me not being able to find any instructions.

So here is my version of setting up Joomla 1.7 and Scribefire Next 4.

1.) Download XMLRPC for Joomla! from www.joomler.net (At the time of writing it was version 1.7.1 available from here)

2.) Install XMLRPC for Joomla using the Joomla Extension Manager Installer.

3.) Goto Extensions --> Extension Manager --> Manage

4.) Ensure that the following are enabled: System - RSD (Site), XMLRPC(Site), XMLRPC - Joomla(Site), XMRPC (Administrator) I know that this should be XMLRPC (Administrator) but it seems to be spelt incorrectly.

5.) I'm assuming that you have Scribefire Next installed. If not you can get it from Scribefire Next. Install it by clicking "Add to Firefox"

6.) Open Scribefire Next. If this is the first time you have opened ScribeFire Click the X on the window that says "Welcome to Scribefire".

7.) Click Add a New Blog

8.) Under URL enter your URL eg http://www.example.com This assumes that you installed Joomla in the root of your domain.

9.) Click Next. In my case I got the following error. While trying to determine your blog's settings, ScribeFire tripped over this code: RSD_ERROR. Just ignore this error and move on to choosing the Blog Type.

10.) Under Blog Type choose MoveableType.

11.) Under API URL enter your URL again followed by /component/xmlrpc/. eg http://www.example.com/component/xmlrpc/                    (Again this assumes that you have installed Joomla in the root of your domain)

12.) Under Blog ID I just put in anything I felt like. I presume this is just a simple identifier for the Blog within Scribefire.

13.) Under Login Credentials enter your Joomla Username and Password.

14.) Click Finish. Scribefire should connect to your Joomla install and everything should be ready to roll.

As a sidenote my Joomla is set to use Search Engine Friendly URLs and URL rewriting (via htaccess). This may be of no interest but it might mess with your API URL if you have some strange url redirects. It may of course have no impact at all.