DVD Fab HD Decrypter

DVD ripping of protected DVD's (i.e. most DVD's in the USA) becomes simple with DVD Fab HDD Decrypter.  To paraphrase the DVDFab site:

DVDFab HD Decrypter is a simple version of DVDFab DVD Copy and DVDFab Blu-ray Copy which can remove all the DVD protections, part of Blu-ray protections, and copy the DVD/Blu-ray to your hard drive.

Thanks to the folks at DVDFab for making HD Decrypter free to use.
Download either the DVDFab*.exe Stable or Beta.
http://www.dvdfab.com/download.htm

Install with wine

wine /path/to/DVDFab8029Beta.exe

You may be prompted to install Gecko for Wine

The DVD Fab installer will start on completion of the Gecko package.

Accept the agreement and click Next

You may choose not to install a Start Menu folder

Don't install the VSO Burning engine.  You may also opt not to install a Quick Launch icon.

Finish and lauch DVDFab

By default, all options will be installed.   Press delete on each of the Trial User options.

When HD Decrypter is the only option visible, mark the "Do not show again" box and click Start DVDFab

You should now be able to launch DVD Fab from your desktop icon.  If it fails to launch try:wine ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/DVDFab\ 8/DVDFab.exe*Tips* If DVDFab doesn't see your DVD drive:winecfg> Drives>AutodetectInsert a DVD and make sure it is mounted prior to launching DVD Fab.  Sometimes DVDFab doesn't see the disc if launched prior to mounting.  DVDFab website DVDFab forum  - Yes Linux and Wine questions are OK!

Rotate images from Nautilus context menu

I realize that the nautilus-image-converter plugin provides this same bit of functionality but the way the plugin implemets the rotation didn't really suit my needs. Specifically, there were too many clicks involved for a simple rotation. Instead we'll just use jpegtran to do the rotation.  

Note* jpegtran by default, will only copy some of the Exif data, so we'll pass the -copy all parameter to jpegtran.

Launch the Nautilus Actions Congfig Tool from your Control Panel or comamnd line:

nautilus-actions-config-tool

Action Tab>
Create a New Action
Context label: Rotate Left
Tooltip: Rotate Left
Select your favorite icon

Command tab>
Path: jpegtran
Parameters: -rotate 270 -copy all -outfile %f %f
Working directory: %d

Mimetypes Tab>
Mimetype filter: image/*

Action Tab>
Create a New Action
Context label: Rotate Right
Tooltip: Rotate Right
Select your favorite icon

Command Tab>
Path: jpegtran
Parameters: -rotate 90 -copy all -outfile %f %f
Working directory: %d

Mimetypes>
Mimetype filter: image/*

Now you should have a Rotate Right and Rotate left in your right click context menu.

Gnome, Compiz, Metacity & AWN

I have only recently started using the Gnome desktop and found that I dont' really care for the Gnome panel at all. It's far too much like the Windows taskbar. Instead I prefer Avant Window Navigator which is available in Debian repos. I also prefer Compiz over Metacity for window management. Sure it's easy to install Compiz with apt-get but the documentation I've seen for running Compiz inside of Gnome involves launching compiz like so compiz --replace. Replace..?? Hmm....This means that you're letting Metacity start and then killing it and starting Compiz. Why start Metacity at all? Just to slow down the login? Have a look here:
/usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/
That's where metacity is getting started from. Let's halt that and make Compiz start instead.

su
mv /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/metacity.desktop /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/metacity.desktop.orig

Now Metacity is nowhere to be found. Realize that this will affect ALL users!

What about the Gnome panel? Right click on the Gnome panel and select Delete this panel.
What's that you say? The 'Delete this panel' is greyed out!? Fear not, gconf-editor to the rescue:

Menu>System Tools>Configuration Editor (or from CLI gconf-editor)

With gconf-editor browse to:
/desktop/gnome/session/required_components/panel
Change this value from gnome-panel to avant-window-navigator
You won't see any Gnome panels and AWN launches on login.

Now you just need to start compiz.
cd ~/.config/autostart
ln -s /usr/share/applications/compiz.desktop

Changing this value to compiz did not work for some reason:

/desktop/gnome/session/required_components/windowmanager