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My previous posting is no longer valid.  Gnome has removed the tab for the sounds menu where you can use the gui to disable the system beep.  Here’s how you can disable this from the CLI.

sudo rmmod pcspkr

Done deal.  If you want your system beep back, well first off…curse you if I sit next to you.  Type in the following to enable it:

sudo modprobe pcspkr

got this from:  lifehacker (per usual)

I love lifehacker.com.  I always find usefull posts like this one below.

http://lifehacker.com/5057484/remove-u3-to-speed-up-your-flash-drive

This is very useful for us Linux users.  It’s so annoying to plug a u3 drive into a linux o/s.  Anyhow download the utility and clean up your U3 enabled usb thumb drive here:  http://www.u3.com/uninstall/default.aspx

There is so much great software available for ubuntu. This weekend I ran into subsonic, an excellent music streaming website you can host from your own PC. This can be used over LAN or WAN (be careful with security).

I followed the following url’s excellent instructions, but I’ll include them for future usage.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=920178

URL: http://subsonic.sourceforge.net

Step1: Dependencies

sudo apt-get install tomcat5.5

cd; wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/subsonic/subsonic-3.4.zip

Step2: Modify Init For Tomcat & Start

sudo nano /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5

Change TOMCAT_SECURITY=yes to TOMCAT_SECURITY=no

sudo /etc/init.d/tomcat5.5 start

Step3: Unzip/Install Subsonic

unzip subsonic-3.4.zip

mv subsonic.war /var/lib/tomcat5.5/webapps/

mkdir /var/subsonic

chown tomcat55:nogroup /var/subsonic

Step4: Test

firefox http://127.0.0.1:8180/subsonic

Browsing around lifehacker.com I ran across an article on how to create a bootable linux usb thumbdrive. This is by far the easiest method that I’ve run across.

• Download the utility.
• Open the utility and download one of the supported linux iso’s.
• Plug your usb thumb drive into your computer (utility is linux or windows, so you can do this from either)
• Point the utility at the iso you downloaded and the correct usb thumb drive.
• execute, wait and reboot off of your newly created bootable thumb drive.

article with better detail on process:
http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2008/08/27/create-a-bootable-usb-drive-or-memory-card/

direct link to the utility download page:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Download and install “Sound Converter” (http://soundconverter.berlios.de/).  I just installed the latest from source and it’s working great!.  Download, Extract the compressed the file.

cd to the directory of the uncompressed files

sudo ./configure

sudo make

sudo make install

If you have default ubuntu configuration you also need to run this command for mp3 encoding action:

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse

Browse to Applications-> Sound & Video -> Sound Converter

Change your preferences, add a folder of flac files and convert to compressed!

Found this via the old google search which landed me upon the how to geek’s friendly advice:

In Gnome select “System->Prefrences->Sound->System Beep Tab

You’ll see the checkbox.  The link to the site I found this is below.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/ubuntu/disable-the-system-beep-on-ubuntu-edgy/

The Ubuntu website has a good tutorial on chmod.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FilePermissions