Kesavan Muthuvel's WebLogs | கேசவன் முத்துவேல் வலைப்பதிவுகள்

I often need to look into the weather reports for Chennai as I miss rainy days & expect it, but it wouldn’t.Moreover I feel more burning fire when I walk into the streets by 11am and my eyes are burning on the way to office by approx. 1pm everyday after I lost my StyleIcon sunglass.

Okay.The above scenario made me to track the weather daily, but Ubuntu doesn’t comes with any such widget and so I need to check for the same.

There comes the ‘Conky’ and I happy to work it.After a few tweaks Conky decorates my desktop.

Look at screen shots first, so that you might wish to install.

Here’s the steps to install the Conky & Weather widget:

1. Install Conky
2. Get the HTC style Weather widget from DevianArt
3. Configure your location in $HOME/.Conky/htc_home/accuweather/accuw_script
1. Todo this , first note down the URI for your weather location at www.accuweather.com
2. Replace the URI in address variable in $HOME/.Conky/htc_home/accuweather/accuw_script
4. Open your console & command the Conky to startup
5. Extra-Tip: Add this Conky to Start-Up , so that it every time delights you.

sudo apt-get install conky
wget http://www.deviantart.com/download/290958248/conky_htc_home_spill_by_grynays-d4t88tk.zip
$HOME/.Conky/htc_home/conkyrc

Last week I shop for a decent laptop with that idiot Poomalai and he recommends me to buy ASUS X53U , as it is going to be gift to a Merit student of our High school as a part VOSA alumni activities.

It comes with AMD powered Brazos Processor and satisfies my requirement within the allocated budget.I loves that design and it comes with separate Numeric pad too.

The Perfect Fit for Work and Play

Looks better

There’s only FreeDOS as I don’t want to spend the collected money goes to Microsoft for Pre-installed Windows 7 and/or other.

Later few days, I try to install an OS. First I start with Ubuntu 11.04 from CD and got an error relating to Memory/SATA. I thought it might due to CD and tried with Ubuntu 7.04 . Again similar error. Next Kubuntu. No luck.

Then I purchase a new CD/ROM and burns the ISO with Brasero but to my (un)luck the burning process shows 100% success leaving no contents in the CD.One more waste disc.In that moment I vow my self to stop support to Optical Disc and ODD.

Again time to explore my disc box.

Left all debian family and goes to Sun platform. Starts again with openSolaris. Failure. Sun’s Dev Express Solaris.No luck so far. I thought of these issue due to CD R/W and I’m forced to boot from USB. Unfortunately I don’t have any working USB Flash , but my memory stick has some free 4GB in my LG E400.

Then I use Ubuntu’s ‘Start Up Disk Creator’ to burn the Ubuntu 12.04 ISO into my USB Flash and it wiped out all my contents in it.I know this’ll happen and backup my contents earlier in my Lenovo ideapad Z460/Ubuntu 12.04.

Now I hope everything going to be smooth as I starts installation on USB Flash mode and it seems so. Oops.Same issue.

I lost hope of installing OS and packed it, as there’s no more time.

The next day , in my native my friends tried with Windows 7 and Windows XP but no luck.As time doesn’t permit we starts the function and gift this ASUS and informed the person we need to install OS, so that he can use the Laptop.Meantime I enquired the Customer care and they ask me to bring the Laptop.

After 2 Hours, I submit the Pack to the Customer Care at Madurai[154,North Veli St,Simakkal.There’s two 154 in the same road :)]. There’s no electric power, but earlier charged it for some 4Hrs which helps to look at the issue.

Booting into BIOS , they simply goes to the Advanced Settings tab and Change the SATA Configuration to IDE , so that the HDD gets detected during installation of OS.Everyone there faced this issues and they say this is an Known bug , but occurs only 1/6 piece.

And they installed the Windows7 , what we brought to them.

My question here is :

• Why the ASUS doesn’t mention that change anywhere in the Manual?
• Why the Customer Care people ask me to change when I enquire on this?

But any how, I’m not disappointed at that moment, because an OS got installed.

Okay and here is the snapshot of How to check the same.

SATA as IDE in BIOS

“How to Change the SATA Configuration to IDE in ASUS X53U BIOS prior to install any Operating System”

By time of 6PM , we returned the piece to the merit student and thanked us for that extra effort.

Hope this ASUS X53U helps his higher studies.

Image credits: ASUS , SpywareDrGuide