Portable Multimedia Suite II: To Studio, or Not to Studio

I previously blogged about carrying around a studio in your pocket. For those who'd like to get started with that, you can download the latest version of Ubuntu Studio here. To get it to run off of a pen drive,read my old article here. However, I'm now beginning to wonder whether Ubuntu Studio is appropriate for this task. Am I contradicting myself? Well, allow me to explain.

The Ironic Predicament

Ubuntu Studio comes packaged with a lot of wonderful multimedia tools. That's what makes it such a handy OS. Unfortunately, it comes with so many, that one might consider it bordering bloatware! Basically, it's a collection of all major multimedia software available for the OS, neatly bundled and ready to use, but honestly, no one is going to use every single one software. We all have our own tastes and preferences. Ordinarily, this shouldn't be such a big deal, but we need this solution to be portable, every bit counts! Anything that can be cut, should be cut. Now, we have 2 options:

• Install Ubuntu Studio and remove all software that you're not going to use, then add any additional apps you need (like VLC!)

• Install plain old Ubuntu and simply install the tools that you will use.

Weighing the Options

The latter seems to be an ideal choice, only it's more work than meets the eye. You see, you can't just install your apps and expect them to work; you also have to install whatever packages are needed to support your app. For example, if you need to edit a video, you have to install an editor, and the codec required to make the editor support your video. Ubuntu Studio offers all of that functionality right out of the box. Not to mention, the interface of Ubuntu Studio was designed for artists. It's just so much better! Fortunately, you can install a theme that provides that same interface for Ubuntu.

Unfortunately, the problem with the former is that we are running a live cd version, so uninstalling apps is a problem. Removing software from a cd image seems counterintuitive. I've tried, and, well, it seems to have been removed, but I didn't see a decrease in file size, so I guess it's entry was just deleted......

The Not-So-Elegant Solution

There exists an app called the Ubuntu Customization Kit which claims to let you create a customized version of Ubuntu, and create an installation disk for it. Basically, you can make whatever changes you want, install or uninstall whatever software you want, and make a live cd version of the OS at that state, providing you with your own custom flavor of Ubuntu. Unfortunately, it involves coding, and I don't know the first thing about Unix. Honestly, it would be a lot easier to just get a pen drive with a couple gigs of extra space, but.......well, what's the fun in that?

Cleaning Browser Redirect Virus

How many times has this happened: You're on google, click on some search result, which initiates a chain of web page redirections to various malicious websites? Well, you're not alone. There are a lot of articles explaining how to clear such issues on Windows or a Mac, but come on people! We're one and a half decades into the 21st century! Most people are now surfing on their smartphones and tablets, which means iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry must be taken into account! I'll cover the 1st  two here, but the same concept should work on any device.

STEP 1: Clear Browsing Data

That's right. Start with the basics. Clear ALL browsing data: history, cache, cookies, everything. Pretty standard stuff.

STEP 2: Change Your DNS

OpenDNS is built on four cornerstones: safety/security, speed, intelligence and reliability.

Okay, I don't know why this works, but it just does! When you surf the web, your device connects to the internet through a DNS server. The default server is provided by your service provider, but by all means can be changed if necessary. We are going to switch to OpenDNS.  I'm going to assume you're browsing through wifi. With that said, here's what you do:

iOS:

Go to Settings > Wifi and edit the network you're connected to. Change the DNS to 208.67.222.222. You should be fine now.

Android OS:

Go to Settings > Wifi, long click the network you're connected to and select Modify Network Config. Enable Show Advanced Options. For some reason, Android doesn't let you modify your DNS unless you use a static IP Address.....whatever. Go ahead and switch the IP Setting from DHCP to Static. Scroll down to DNS 1 and change it to 208.67.222.222.

That's All Folks

OpenDNS seems to offer much better security than my service provider. This fix has worked in most cases I've seen. I'd love to hear your results in the comments. Enjoy!

-Niranjan

Portable Multimedia Suite - I: Introduction

Are you an artist? If so, you know the hardships of having to ready your computer by installing a plethora of software before you can use it properly. Well, at least that's your computer, so it's just a one time process. On the flip side, when you're on someone else's computer, and your creativity strikes, what do you do? Obviously, since they don't have the required software, there's really not much that you can do! Have you ever felt this handicap before? Don't you ever wish you could do something about it? If so, you're not alone.

For many years now, it has been my dream to establish a portable multimedia solution. Essentially, something that would let me work on any computer, without having to depend on them installing any software. The obvious solution that came to mind was to do something with a pen drive....but what? Initially, I tried using portable versions of various software, but, if you've tried this, you know exactly how irritating it is. Most of the time, it doesn't even work! Now what?

Along this journey, I have tried out using several different distributions of Linux to find an ideal version to store on a bootable pen drive, for emergency situations (for instance, accessing data from a PC that won't boot). Eventually, I decided to use Puppy Linux for that particular cause (you can read further in my older blog). That's fine for basic tasks, but you can't exactly use it for creating media. So, a few months ago, I ended up installing Ubuntu Studio to get a hang of using it. At the time, my basic goal was to avoid using Microsoft as much as possible :P

After using Ubuntu for the past 6 months, I finally have the urge to see how far I can push this OS; not in terms of software, or portability, but both! I want to create a pen drive containing a bootable version of Ubuntu Studio, that has all the apps you need to create and edit media. This particular distro of Ubuntu comes with many such apps preinstalled, but there are still a lot you need to add manually. For example, it lacks a decent video editing software. I heard Cinelerra was a good one...haven't tried it out though.

Anyways, think about how great it would be to just carry around a pen drive, that lets you use ANY COMPUTER to complete your work! Editing? Photography? Composing? Writing? You name it! And the beauty of it is, if you don't have the right app for something, you can always install it!

The only down side is, you have to learn a whole new set of tools, and more often than not, they won't be as sophisticated as your professional software packages. On the bright side, it's always better than nothing. After all, you don't really need Avid Media Composer for editing you home videos, now do you?

In the long run, I want this to be part of a larger set of tools used to trouble shoot a computer. Clearly, all that'll have to wait. Over the next few weeks, I'll delve in to my experience of creating this Portable Solution. One step at a time!

-Niranjan