Embedding Video in MediaWiki

So I'm still working on my MediaWiki project and decided to make a help site just like I did previously. One of the things I wanted to do was be able to embed video inside a page. Unfortunately I can't just throw a copied HTML code from the sites I was using.

I decided to use the MediaWiki extensions project add on.

• To do this you will need the EmbedVideo.php that you can find on the project page.
• Next you will need to add the code to your wiki page in the format of {{#ev:service|id}} or to change the viewable size {{#ev:service|id|width}}

the "service" is the video service website (ie. youtube), the "id" is the number or code that is associated with your video which you can find in the embed code and finally the width is the width in pixels.

The services that come with the Embed Video extension are Dailymotion, FunnyOrDie, Google Video, sevenload, Revver and YouTube. Google Videos is not taking uploads anymore, but is still hosting previously uploaded video's.

Unfortunately my video was too large for any of these services to upload and I was already using Vimeo which is not automatically supported by the Embed Video extension.

• To fix this, I had to edit the EmbedVideo.php file to include the following code in the supported services section at the bottom. Start by placeing a comma after the last ) after youtube

• Then insert this code...

'vimeo' => array(
'url'=>'http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=$1&;server=www.vimeo.com&fullscreen=1&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color="'
)

Just make it match the format of the other services and you should be good to go.

If you have any problems with the embed video extensions or have suggestions for other projects in mediawiki, feel free to e-mail me and perhaps we'll use your suggestion for a further follow up article or a new article.

Wiki while you work

Many moons ago I was involved with a project of creating an internal wiki to host an internal document and solutions guide for the I.S. department I worked for. I wanted to use MediaWiki or MoinMoin but was challenged to create a LAMP, WAMP OR WIMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP / Windows, Apache, MySql, PHP / Windows, IIS, MySQL, PHP) and was unsure how all these were setup. As a result we used instiwiki and got by, but I was never satisfied with our result.

Fast forward more than a year and a half and... I still am unsure how to compile a stack from scratch mostly from lack of time since I'm not working with anything that requires these servers.

For people like me the people at Turnkey Linux have created a host of virtual appliances including the object of my search which was turnkey mediawiki. At turnkey they provide an image that includes a minimal version of Ubuntu's LTS (long term service) operating service and every application required to have your application server operate "out of the box". For me that included the whole LAMP stack, mediawiki and the webmin tool for remote administration.

What I did was copy the ISO file which I could have burnt on a CD, but I decided to install the ISO directly to virtual box. I don't have a dedicated box to create a server with at this time, and with such minimal resource needs I can't see wasting a box for this one application. See my article on reducing fear during the switch for a very short write-up on virtual box.

So far, out of the box, I have been able to look at the wiki home page, and log in as the web admin. I need to get java installed on my browsers so I can continue to look at all the web admin tools, but so far I've invested 30 minutes of time and of course zero dollars. If turnkey mediawiki works for me the way I'm hoping it will, you can expect to see other write-ups on other turnkey virtual appliances.

If any of my readers have used other turnkey Linux products or any other virtual appliances, feel free to drop me a line at computerdoctor.help@gmail.com and get your article included in a possible follow up article.

...and getting the video editor to work is priceless

So after a disappointing run with Kdenlive I next tried Cinelerra. I originally did not go with cinelerra because it wasn't in the package repositories for Ubuntu. I tried to install the package from source code, and to be honest I'm not at the level where I can successfully install from source and track down all the dependencies needed.

I followed a video by mstjohn33 on how to install cinelerra in Ubuntu 9.10 and it worked. Thank you to mstjohn33 for such a clear walk through.
Now before I gallop off into the sunset with praise to the hilt for cinelerra, I have to be honest. Cinelerra is not an entry level video editor for the weekend warrior. You will have to do your homework to make this software work. For example I spent three days searching forums and trying to make sense of the instruction manual to get a simple blur box to work for me.
I also spent almost a week trying to figure out how to render a video to play in Windows Media Player.
I am in no way an expert in cinelerra, but the price is right (hee hee) and I got the job done.

As a side note, to convert a video to WMV for Windows media player, there is no settings inside cinelerra that do this automatically for you. You will need to render it in the least lossy format possible and use the following command line to convert it...

ffmpeg -i "sourcefile.avi" -s 320x240 -b 1000k -vcodec wmv2 -ar 44100 -acodec wmav2 -ab 56k -ac 2 -y targetfile.wmv

You will need to change the sourcefile.avi to what your original video is and the targetfile.wmv to what you want your file to be named.
I also edited the 320x240 to be 800x600 because that was the size my source file was created as.

I wish I could elaborate on the other settings in the command line, but I found the code on another site and copied it and edited what I knew and let it fly and it worked.

If a picture's worth a thousand words, what's a video worth?

Getting back to my love for video creating, I started a task of making a video documentary on using the ebrary reader or Adobe digital editions in Linux (see article back to school and going linux). I almost tried doing a video capture from a virtual Linux machine inside Windows, but then I had the idea to try to create the whole video and edit it using open source software in Linux. I started by using xvidcap to capture screen clips and then instead of going back to AVS to mix the video in Windows, I installed Kdenlive.

Now I will be the first to admit that this program is fairly new, the documentation is about on par with open source projects which is to say almost non-existent, and the program itself crashed multiple times.

On the plus side though this program has a fairly large set of features which are comparable to many entry to mid level video editors. The forums at their website are a great resource like many other open source sites with a following of helpful and friendly users. Also, it goes without saying that the price of $0.00 is very attractive since I've already paid over $50.00 per year to use AVS to create my videos in the past.

I was able to complete my video, albeit without an audio track yet (because I'm not sure if I want an audio track with it yet) and I will be showcasing the video later this week at work.

Thank you to the developers at Kdenlive for your hard work and I hold high hopes for your project and await the day that you are a major competitor in the world of video editing.

Bully Tries To Steal And Gets Caught

When I was a kid I used to love playing at my cousins house. They had all the cool toys and a lot of them. The only problem with playing with someone elses toys is that you have to play by their rules.

But that's not to say that if you only want to play that you have to go play with someone elses toys. You could make your own toys or play with free toys. We used to make some of our favorite toys out of scrap lumber that was left over from some project at the house. My brother and I would make our Army guns out of wood and we played for hours with our "new" toys.

How do you think we'd feel if our cousins would decide that their store bought toys weren't good enough and they came over and took our homemade toys home with them and told everyone that those toys were in fact theirs.

Far fetched right? Well after some research it seems that Microsoft has done just that.
The newly toted WUDT tool that was offered as a way to deploy the windows 7 ISO to a bootable USB drive is actually a stolen open source tool that is protected by GNU and should have been left open source.

Microsoft has been in the proprietary software business for so long that I don't think they are ready or able to learn how to play nicely with the open source community yet.
You would think that After the highly publicized lawsuit between Sun Microsystems and Microsoft in 1997 over the abuse and forced incompatibility of the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine that lessons would have been learned.

Microsoft, listen carefully. The global community will no longer tolerate being bullied because you believe you are bigger and better. Your days of being the only choice have come to a close. It time to trim the fat and find out what your customers need and want instead of forcing your bloated and over advertised software on us. Consider this a friendly suggestion because I could care less what happens to you as a corporation, but I would be sad to see such great potential toppled by it's failure to adapt.

Ubuntu 9.10 Has Bad Karma For Broadcom Wireless

For all the Ubuntu users out there we heralded in the new version of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala this past weekend.

Now before I start on my rant I want to put up a disclaimer on my comments. I absolutely love Ubuntu and will continue to use it, write about it, train on it, and promote it.

Now on to the rant...

After spending months of joy with each version of Ubuntu since Hardy Heron I have never had a successful update either graphically or by the command line. How can a distribution that works almost flawlessly on a fresh install have such a poor updater?

Like I always do, I backed up my personal files and tried the updater and from 9.04 to 9.10 I found the following errors upon booting up Karmic

• touch-pad mouse did not work
• Firefox was extremely slow
• Sound card did not work

At this point I tried fixing each problem separately, but after getting the touch-pad working and then going through a handful of solutions for Firefox I decided it wasn't worth the effort and I'd rather do a fresh install. Of course now we get to the meat of the rant...

After doing a fresh install I find that my broadcom wireless card wasn't detected. This is just plain weird because it was detected on the live cd. My solution was to load the broadcom drivers off of the live cd with the following steps...

1. Open Synaptic Package Manager
2. Load the Live cd in it's drive (or thumb drive if you install with that media)
3. Go to Settings / Repositories / Ubuntu Software
4. Check mark the installable from cd and close
5. Refresh Synaptic
6. Search and install

• fakeroot
• patch
• dkms
• bcmwl
  

7. Reboot computer

Hurray, now it works for me. Hope this helps.

Now I urge the hard workers at Canonical, during their 100 paper cuts initiative, to please focus on improving their graphical updater so it... well... works.

Is Freedom Ever Free?

While talking with co-workers regarding the merits of using Linux and open source software I always get the same foaming at the mouth comments about not being compatible and blah blah blah that I always seem to dispel if they are willing to give a little effort.
But in retrospect I think I've over simplified the difference of being a computer user and a computer operator.

When I grew up I had two paths to take when I was introduced to computers. Like Neo I chose to take the red pill and find the truth of the computer world, how it works, investigating new technology and rejecting commonly thrown about metephors like viruses, bad code, glitches, etc. that was bandied about to explain users that had gotten themselves into a bind with bad input. I could have of course easily chosen the blue pill like so many user sheeple and stared numbly at my screen playing games and clicking buttons to work other peoples inventions, considering my PC's as glorified televisions.

In reality a user will be led by the hand by their GUI and play the games and use the program and cry to their local repairman for help when they get themselves stuck. Why? Because they can't be bothered by learning and troubleshooting their problems for themselves. When things are going good they will never expand their mind with learning.

As I grew up, the "secrets" of the computer world were discovered in thick user manuals, and gleaned from the sage wisdom of older technicians and programmers. Today however wisdom is still gleaned from our peers and wiser "geeks", but the way we listen to them has changed vastly. With the power of the internet connecting so many of us from vast far flung places and probably never coming face to face in our daily travels, we are able to read or watch each others solutions, opinions, and various bits of wonder. This is why I write, in hopes that someone may need a solution that I have created or gleaned from others work.

Every operating system from the original MS DOS versions and Unix command lines, to the new Windows, Macintosh, Linux GUI systems will all need a learning curve to operate proficiently. Don't be fooled into thinking that one is easier than the other by virtue of it's flashy appearance. They all have quirks and problems to overcome, they all break down from time to time with careless use, and they can all get similar jobs done with the correct applications. To be truely free you must free your mind by taking on the yoke of knowledge and learning so you can choose how you want to use your computer. Every OS is only a tools, so swallow your red pill today and find out... How's your tool working for you?

Complete Your Uninstalls In Windows

Have you ever had a program that for whatever reason doesn't seem to be working or was set up wrong? Like many users I usually just uninstall it and re-install it and see if it's any better.
Now days it seems that after the re-install the program comes up with the same settings and user information as before I uninstalled it.
WHY?
This is such a plague to me and my customers that I started searching for answers, and like so many things I found it at work.
While troubleshooting the peachtree accounting software I had a case where after installing on a Microsoft Vista machine the software would not load. We needed to install using the Administrator Rights, but even after uninstalling and re-installing the program didn't work.
One of my co-workers explained that even after uninstalling a program, many times items are left in the registry or in the file system and these settings remain for future installs to point to.
The cure? RevoUninstaller.
Revo Uninstaller helps you to uninstall software and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.
Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to "Windows Add or Remove Programs" applet!
With its advanced and fast algorithm, Revo Uninstaller analyzes an application's data before uninstall and scans after you uninstall an application. After the program's regular uninstaller runs, you can remove additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that are usually left over on your computer. Even if you have a broken installation, Revo Uninstaller scans for an application's data on your hard disk drives and in the Windows registry and shows all found files, folders and registry keys so you can delete them.
With its unique "Hunter mode", Revo Uninstaller offers you some simple, easy to use, but effective and powerful methods for uninstalling software. You can use it to manage your installed and/or running software programs.

The software comes in two packages. The first being the full version installed to your local PC, and the second being a portable version (easily used on a thumb drive or a shared network drive)

This is by far one of the most useful tools for Windows that I've ever found and has become a permanent edition to my tool collection.

Calling all geeks! If any of you play the download games that give you a one hour preview, let me know if after uninstalling with RevoUninstaller and re-installing the game, do you get another perview?

WINE, It’s Not Just For Boozers Anymore

It’s been a while since I posted and I’ve got so much information to put out there for our new Linux users.

By now you’ve probably had a chance to peruse the package repositories and maybe even tried out a few new programs. Now you might ask, “why isn’t such and such program listed” or “I really liked this one program” or “I want to run my favorite game”.

What’s the answer? WINE. No, I don’t mean get sloshed and forget the whole ordeal, but rather the program WINE which stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator. I know, it makes no sense to me either.

WINE is a program that runs windows programs at the application layer without the need of a Microsoft Windows operating system physical or virtual machine.

If you read my last post for Back to School you’ll see two real world examples.

Once you install the WINE program from the repositories installing Windows programs is a breeze. To be more accurate though, it’s a straight forward process and it either works or does not.

1. download program or browse to installation file on CD
2. right click on installation file and choose open with WINE
3. do exactly what you would when in windows
4. after installation right click on the start icon and in it’s properties click on the run as a program option

And that’s all folks. No more whining when you should be WINEing.

Back to School and Going Linux

Now that I work for one of the largest academic publishing companies in the world I am faced daily with questions about PC’s and Mac’s. Remember my philosophy of not bashing Windows or Macintosh systems because a computer is only a tool and you should be using whatever tool that best suits your needs.

Last week I got a call asking how to install e-brary reader so the student could view one of our e-books. What was the problem? You guessed it, Linux. This student somehow got a PC that had Linux installed on it but she really didn’t know much about it. Normally we only give support to PC and Mac users, and when looking at the ebrary or adobe site they give the same standard support as well.

Insert me. The heart of the matter is that our company supplies electronic books of all nature of subjects. Why would a student that wants to study math or psychology or biology be prohibited from viewing a book only because they don’t have a PC or a Mac. It’s not like they need to run proprietary platform specific software that I am getting to despise more every day. They only need to read. We use two different technologies to manage our e-books. The first program is Ebrary reader which enables the books to be viewed online through Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari browsers. The second program is Digital Editions which allows a book to be installed on your computer and a license applied to your pc or Adobe account to prohibit the free distribution of copyrighted materials.

Before I continue my monologue, let me go over how I was able to run both of these programs. My Linux platform of choice is Ubuntu…

viewing your e-book in linux from Computer Doctor on Vimeo.

Ebrary.

Problem: only runs on IE, Firefox, and Safari for Windows and Mac

Solution: get a version of Firefox for Windows to run on Linux

1. Install WINE if not already installed (this is a run environment for windows programs)
2. Download Firefox for windows from www.firefox.com (look for other platform versions and choose windows)
3. Right click on the firefox installer .exe program and choose open with WINE
4. After installation use the install ebrary reader link from the bookstore or from http://www.ebrary.com/discover/get_ebrary_reader.html
5. Now right click on the new firefox icon on your desktop and select properties and check the run as program option

Adobe Digital Editions:

Problem: not supported by platform

Solution: get and run the windows version of digital editions

1. go to http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/403/kb403051.html for the manual installation of digital editions
2. select the link in number 2 of the windows instructions and save to your desktop
3. right click on the adobe installer icon on your desktop and choose open with WINE
4. finish installation with defaults. See the adobe website for details
5. when finished right click on the new digital editions icon on your desktop and select properties and check the run as program option.

The only irritation to installing this way is that in order to get e-books you must be able to save the e-book url icon to your computer first and then drag and drop to your digital editions program. This is no problem for my company since that’s how we supply our books, but for the Adobe free library they have flash player link buttons that don’t supply the url.

Now back to the monologue…

In 2009 Abbey Schubert purchased a Dell computer loaded with Ubuntu. While I salute Dell and other manufacturers for bringing a Linux option to purchasers I feel that there are no easy manuals available to help brand new users get underway with the daily tasks of using their system. I know that if Abbey went to my church or school that I would have been able to help her or any other student use their Linux computer for 95% of their daily tasks barring the few time they might be forced to use software that a few features do not currently work in the WINE environment or have a direct equivalent in open source software.

Remember that just as I never bash operating systems much, I will not bash new users that find themselves in unfamiliar territory and are panicked about the possibility of not being able to get their work done.

Do I need Antivirus like I did in Windows?

This question has been a topic of a lot of concern for many new users to Linux, and the common answer may be a little misleading, so before I give my endorsement for any tools or products I want to answer the heart of the question first.

Does Linux get viruses? No. Or to answer a little more truthfully, not usually, not easily, not to most users.

Why isn't Linux plagued by all the viruses, spyware, malware, root kits, ect. like Windows? The answer in twofold. First because Linux is set in a way as it becomes improbably that an outside program can be granted root access without the user knowing. Second because at this time the vast majority of desktop users have a Microsoft OS running their machine. If you want your virus to spread, you must write it to affect the biggest user base. For a more detailed explanation feel free to read this article.

On the other hand there are reasons you might want to have an antivirus program installed on your Linux distribution.

• to scan a Windows drive in your PC
• to scan a Windows-based network attached server or hard drive
• to scan Windows machines over a network
• to scan files you are going to send to other people
• to scan e-mail you are going to forward to other people
• some Windows viruses can run with Wine
• Linux virus infections are theoretically possible

Before I give an endorsement to any antivirus program, know that I am a new user to antivirus on the Linux side and only give these as recomendations and am open to endorsements of products from people that have had real experiences with combating real viruses in Linux.

The first suggestion I have is going with ClamAV antivirus which you should be able to find in the repositories or at their website. This is an opensource software project.



The second suggestion I have is using AVAST which many of you will recognize from my windows articles about antivirus software. Although this is proprietary software, it is free for home users and you can find more detail at their website as well.

To summarize, I would not lose sleep wondering if your Linux system is being overrun by viruses, but for curiosity sake or for insurance in the future when Linux takes over the PC world I would check out these or other antivirus options.

Friendly Faces

So this weekend I took a quick trip up to rural Michigan not far from Detroit with my girlfriend to meet her family. Of course, much to my girlfriends chagrin, I got to talking about computers with her nephew and niece. I don't normally like to sit around and talk to the High School and College age kids, but while their parents were missionaries in South America they became Linux users.

Although they were used to using Open Suse, the similarities to Ubuntu were wonderfully interesting to learn. I have to be honest with my readers in that I used Knoppix a long time ago as a pre-install environment to fix windows and didn't know it was linux, and I used Mepis for about a year before I started using the Ubuntu line of distros. That's all the linux experience I have because I was an instant fan of Ubuntu. I am also dabbeling in CentOS, Fedora Core, Backtrack, and looking into possible training with Canonical for the Ubuntu server system.

I had a wonderful afternoon of total geekieness and want to give a shout out (if that's what cool people still do now days) to Ian and Ashley and wish you good luck in the coming year of school.