Well, I can't really say that it's the first conky twitter client. Any twitter client from cli should be able to work. But I can say that this is something that I am very proud of it because I MADE IT!!!

In order to get this on your sexy conky configuration, you are going to have to jump through some hoops. So bear with me.

First up is to install python-twitter.

sudo apt-get install python-twitter

Now that wasn't so bad was it?

Now we are going to have to edit your conky configuration.

put "text_buffer_size 10000" (no quotes) into your ~.conkyrc file. This allows conky to display more text than normally. Make sure that it goes before TEXT.

now download the script, or copy and paste for your enjoyment.

''''This piece o' junk hack of python and twitter was created by Travis Moore (@travist120). Some 17 year old kid who decided that he was severely bored one day and decided to create this instead of doing his Essay and french homework. ''''''Oh, and the licence. I have to make sure that those who copy will give back.''''''    This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or    (at your option) any later version.    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the    GNU General Public License for more details.    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License    along with this program.  If not, see .'''import osimport stringimport twitter#set your user name and password here.username=''password=''api = twitter.Api(username, password)status = api.GetFriendsTimeline()#how many tweets you want displayed at a timetwitterSize = 5;i = 0for s in status:        i = i+1        print s.user.name, "(@"+s.user.screen_name+")"        print s.text        print        if i == twitterSize:                break

Make sure that if you copy and paste it, you name it cwitter.py.

Now to make it show up in conky.

${execi 60 python ~cwitter.py | fold -w45}

stick that under your TEXT and you are done. I have set the time (60 seconds) as default because it's nice and safe on Twitter's servers. Feel free to change that.

-w45 might also need to be changed. This is the word wrap settings, so you are going to have to manually figure that one out by trial and error.

    As for the wireless, that thing is a nightmare. Shortly after getting my new computer, I went out to Best Buy and found my self a good wireless PCI card. Because my current card was a little dated (

No beans.

    I spent a lot of monies on that card so to see it not work in my favorite operating system was a little devastating. I spent hours on Google, trying to figure out how to get it to work with ndiswrapper. I tried everything in the book: from rmmod, to installing via WINE. This thing would not work one bit.
    For a while, I gave up. I would unplug the beater when I used Vista for my gaming fix, or for Flash 10 that wasn't slow, or for updating my iPhone. But when I used Ubuntu (which was a majority of the time) I plugged in the beater. It was that way for a while.

    Fast forward a few months and I started to get interested in servers. Really interested. I had an old machine lying around with nothing on it.

Through lots of time and careful consideration I instantly downloaded and installed Ubuntu Server Edition AND WHOO IT WORKED!!!! Well...the installation worked. I had to figure out how to port forward from my router to my machine (~5mins), how to get a domain to point to my IP address(~10mins), how to turn wireless on from command line(~30mins), and finally, how to set a static IP from command line (~3hours). Wouldn't you know it, it worked like a charm! I now had a machine capable of hosting a small website, and a personal server I can SSH into and sync my files with. It was AWESOME!

    Though now I was stuck. In order for me to enjoy this to the fullest extent, I had to be on Ubuntu. And in order for me to be on Ubuntu on my main machine, I needed that beater card that's on top of the server. I was in a conundrum. So for a while, I took down the server, because I deemed my Internet browsing needs far more important than that of the stupid server.

    I was content. I experimented with OpenSuse 11 (not the greatest thing in the world, it won't do anything on my main machine, and it was a hassle on my laptop), I reinstalled Ubuntu 8.10, and I almost had a heart attack when Vista decided to be a jackass.

    After a bit I was getting kind of bored. Not really bored of Ubuntu, just kind of bored of doing nothing except school work. After reading an article or two on the new notify-osd in Jaunty, I decided to try it out. I've never used the USB installer method before, so I downloaded Ubuntu Alpha 5 and let the configuration utility work it out for me. I restarted, hit F12, and chose to boot from the USB device. I'm welcomed by a beautiful desktop.I go up to network manager, I click "Connect" and I click one of the two "Travis" wireless networks. I op---

I did a double take.

Wait what?
Two "Travis"'s?

There it was. Two Travis's. One listed under "Linksys Wireless." and one listed under...
"RaLink Wireless N"
...
YEAAAAAH!

I mounted my Ubuntu partition, backed up my files, and deleted that partition shortly after. Hell YES! I installed Alpha 5 without a hitch. I restarted, fixed my Nvidia (the other purpose to my blog post was so that I could remember how to do it) and then updated my system.

Whoops.

Things were out of whack for a while. Add/Remove was missing, and Gwibber still won't install to this day. But I don't really care, I'm using Jaunty. With working wireless. With ext4(I made sure that I formatted it to ext4 when I installed).

I updated this morning. Everything was fixed. Except I still can't install some packages.

But at least I have Tasque.

Anywho, I'm going to highlight some of the new features. That I care about at least.

• OpenOffice.org 3.0
• Ext4
• Computer Janitor? (Apparently, this is a feature that I haven't actually seen written about, but it is installed default onto the system. I'm assuming it helps you clear up large files.)
• SUPPORT FOR MY WIRELESS N!
• Notify-osd. This is still in the works. When I get emails, it brings up a GTK windows as well as the see through window. And the item that represents it on the task bar is kind of broken (when there is nothing to show)
• Tasque now in the repos
• Gwibber now in the repos (but won't install for me)

• Minimize evolution to the task bar. I mean COME ON!! THAT SHOULDN'T BE SO FREAKING HARD!
• pidgin-facebookchat. I think that should be included with the current pidgin release. It is very stable and stuff.
• MP3 support. I know this is something that is fought about all the time. But there is a legal plugin you can install. Fluendo has one, for free, and I don't see why it can't be included (I think it's legal, but I'm not sure)
• Break the gnome-clock applet away from evolution dependencies. I don't like evolution right now because they haven't DONE anything new since I first installed Ubuntu (ubuntu 6.04)
• A tour. I saw this in one of the blueprints during the development of 8.10. I think that while the installation is going on, it wouldn't hurt show a powerpoint of what you could do and highlight some of those features.

Okay on to the main show.

    I've always had some interest in OpenSuSe. It has the prettiest desktop of them all. In my personal opinion, OpenSuSe is geared towards office usage and productivity lovers. Well I'm not in an office, but I do love productivity! I head on over to http://www.opensuse.org and I click 'Get it'. I grab the DVD version of the software for my 32bit PC and burn it to disc. I check the disc, shove it in my laptop and check it again. No errors. I then start the installation process. I've never used a full KDE4 environment before because every time I try to it usually NEVER installs for me. Crossing my fingers I wait for the install to get finished.

    "This package could not be installed."

    I know when I am being bullshitted, and this is one of those times. I click 'ignore' thinking that this particular package would be the only one that wouldn't install correctly. I was wrong. Shortly thereafter another error pops up... and another... and another...Deja Vu.... When was the last time I had to deal with ignoring errors that continuously popped up? Oh yeah, Windows ME. Now, I'm not saying that OpenSuSe is anywhere close to the mess that was Windows ME; I just think that if you are going to ship something and have a boxed version of your software, your shit better be together. I went through all the pop ups anyway, because I noticed something odd. All of the packages that were being denied were labeled as 'i586' and I've known from reading that the architecture I am using is 'i386'. I assumed that it was just failing to install included packages for this 'i586' and that 'i386' packages were installing correctly. I was wrong. At the end of the installation, it informed that that my entire install failed and to retry.

    So me being the genius creative thinker that I am, I concluded that if I was connected to the Internet, maybe OpenSuSe would be smart enough to try and download the packages that weren't installing from the repositories. Wireless wasn't working (I didn't expect it to, wireless is a finicky thing) so I drag my ass downstairs and jack into an ethernet port. I click 'Add On Media' and choose my Internet connection. I go through the installation process again...

    "This package could not be installed."

    What the crap?! You guys are actually selling this defunct piece of shit?! I really want to use KDE4 because honestly I cannot keep myself away from eye candy. Me being the creative thinker mad genius that I am, I change the source to "http" on boot up. On my iPhone I check the repositories that I am supposed to point the installation to. I try using http://download.opensuse.org as the tutorial had told me to, but I get a "Host could  not be resolved" error. Fed up, I try many other sources, each of them telling me "TITS OR GTFO" (not really, but that's the feeling I get).

    I gave up. No KDE4 beauty for me. What was the other desktop environment install available? Oh yeah, my trusted GNOME. I go through the installation with GNOME instead... I get a pop up.

    "Installation Finished. Rebooting in 10 seconds..."

    What? It actually installed without a SINGLE ERROR?! What is this SORCERY?! The lesson learned here is that KDE4 will never work for me under any circumstances.

Part 2 -- Actually in OpenSuSe.

    After the one of the most frustrating installations of my life, I get started on my new desktop. First thing that I notice is that my beautiful laptop's screen is 1024x768. That might not be a bother to a lot of people, but my screen is optimized for 1920x1200. I've learned from past experiences that Linux distributions generally don't include video card drivers with them due to legality. I've been around the block, so I search "Nvidia drivers opensuse 11.1" with my best friend, Google. I was sent to http://en.opensuse.org/NVIDIA  which has conveniently placed something that I've seen only once before. A "One Click Install" button. The last time I saw something like this was on Linux Mint.
"Okay, this should be easy!" I thought.
    Wrong.
    Wrong times infinity.

    I try to install it with YUM and I get another error (See a trend here?).

    "Package Failed to install: Nvidia.com could not be resolved."

    UUUUAGAAGHAHGOIAHAIOWIHAWGIWLKAEGHWEKGEWGLKASEFKLJ~!!!!!#!@#!@#!!!

    FUCK IT!! IGNORE AUTOREFRESH!!!

    "Package Installed"

    ...

    Defeated, I reset my computer.

    And was greeted with a really beautiful desktop.

I think that it may be worth it.

OpenSuSe comes with all of the programs that I have to download each time I install Ubuntu.

A sigh of relief, I attempt to install my favorite Twitter client, Gwibber.

"This package could not be installed"

...Ignore auto refresh?

"Package installed."

...I understand now OpenSuSe. You have the sickest form of sarcasm ever.

All in all, I am happy with OpenSuSe....once it installs.
There are some things that need fixing though. Coming from an Ubuntu background, I was really surprised when I learned that I couldn't switch my desktop session from GNOME to KDE4 (I installed all the packages for that purpose)

My biggest complaint is the package errors. Those are annoying as hell.
Oh and the install process, fix that. Now.

I am an avid Linux and Open Source Software follower. I also have not personally used windows 7, but I know plenty about it. I am also 17 years old and still in high school.

That said and done, I will now be talking about my opinions on Windows Vista  7.

So here's the scoop. Microsoft, after a carefully laid out plan and 5 years, released one of their worst operating systems since Windows Me. It really just sucked. I'm not trying to be funny or clever by bashing on it. I'll give you some examples as why it was so bad.

Vista Capable
   -Your desktop is Vista Capable I see....
    This was one of the serious blunders of their marketing programs. It was a neat thought, but it was one of the killers when Vista released. For those who don't know, Microsoft would slap a sticker on any computer that they deemed "Vista Capable". Then, due to many changes to the kernel (how the operating system determines interfaces and the such), a vast amount of those computers knighted as "Vista Capable" were no longer "Vista Capable" but "Vista Incapable". Microsoft made an early stab at the hopes of what is known as  "hype". Example.

    "Fred! I just got this bombin' new desktop today! It's even "Vista Capable"!
    "OH MY GOD THAT'S LIEK TEH BEAST COMPUTAR EVAR!!!!!"

Multiple Versions
    -Which one should I buy, Vista Home Basic? Vista Home Premium? Vista Home Basic Premium Plus?
    There were so many versions of Vista that it was ridiculous. I mean, it might seem like a clever idea if it was all the same price! You are buying a $100+ operating system that you want to make your computer "work". And by "work" I mean not sit there like a brick. You want the computers "magicks" to connect to your email, write a paper, edit a photo, whatever you do daily that only a computer can do to make your life easier. Each version of Vista was a difference of $100. And each one was THE EXACT SAME THING! With 3rd part applications, they all equaled to the same version of Vista!

Device Drivers
    -The reason why Geek Squad exists.
    I've had the worst experience with drivers ever! My first copy of Windows Vista came from my Dell XPS Laptop that I got for my birthday. Not only was I excited about having a computer with dual core (my other only had Pentium 4), I was excited to experiment with a new OS. At first, with the OEM installation, I was fine.

Then things got ugly.

       I bought Halo 2 for PC, and I spent a lot of my time playing it. Then one night, whilst playing on a stalemate of capture the flag on Coagulation, I got a disconnection error. "Ah, no problem" I said. I exited out of it, went down to network connections....
There was a little itty bitty icon. Just a little one. A triangle with an exclamation point in it.
"Awww... cute!"
I disconnected then reconnected and went back to Halo again. Needless to say, I got disconnected again shortly after.

Slow
    -As a snail some say...
    When first unveiled, Vista seemed like it would do well in a market where computers are getting cheaper and faster exponentially. It was an operating system that had been redesigned from the ground up to take full advantage of the new hardware capabilities that were emerging on the desktop market. Simply said, it was going to be "da bomb". When it finally did release many were.... disappointed. I know when I first started up my new laptop with Windows Vista, I was thrilled because it was going to be faster. And to me, a person who came from an old Pentium 4 desktop, it was! But now that I have had more experience of installing Windows XP onto the thing and Ubuntu as well, I've learned that Windows Vista...treats my hardware like it's an infant. A 512MB Nvidia card is nothing to laugh at, but Vista seems to think it's a comedic act. "Your graphics card can't handle games like these" was one of the first prompts that I encountered when installing Halo 2.

Now on to the main event.

    Windows 7 will more than likely be another failure. The formula is definitely set up right! Out of the four things that I have listed for Windows Vista's failure, 3 of them are going to be in Windows 7. How? Because Windows 7 will use the exact same kernel as Windows Vista. How can a new OS be faster if it's using the same kernel?

Multiple Versions
    -Didn't they learn from this?
    Here is is again, Windows 7 will have multiple versions. And do you know what the worst part about it is? Windows Starter Edition--the edition that will be used on the increasingly popular netbooks--will only allow you run 3 applications at any given time. Please excuse this outburst.

WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY THINKING!!!!!

    SERIOUSLY!!! ARE WE IN 1990 AGAIN? I don't know about you, but I have at least 10 or more applications running at any given time; Instant Messengers, Music Players, Firefox, Email, Open Office. I mean, I could understand a 3 application limit on cellphones, but on a laptop? That's just retarded!!!

Device Drivers
    -Still hasn't changed much.
    You know something? Microsoft has always been a pain in the ass to Hardware Manufacturers. "If you want a device to work with our OS, you have to do everything yourself." And that's what they still are going to do. Because Windows 7 will be using the same kernel as Vista, the Manufacturers will be given a slight break. Their Vista drivers would theoretically already work with 7 after a bit of tweaking.

Slow
    -Windows 7 is a pig with makeup.
    Many people who are currently using the beta of Windows 7 insist that it is faster. And that may be. But not when you start buying laptops and computers preloaded with Windows 7. OEM's always try to bring the price down of their computers by including 'crapware'. This 'crapware' is pre-installed and ready to start crappin' the first time you boot the thing. Windows 7 may seem faster, but in reality it is only because it's a fresh installation. However, I do admit that the Microsoft Team has made adjustments to help speed up interaction between the processor. It has also optimized the usage of RAM and graphics cards.

User Interface
    -Changes are a comin'...
    I once used Office 2007. Once. Everything was topsy-turvy, and I couldn't figure out how to do half of the things that I used to in previous versions of Office. Why? The Ribbon. Instead of getting some work done on my Essay, I spent half of the time trying to figure out how to double space it. This is from somebody who 'gets' things and how they work with a few short clicks. The Ribbon is a medieval torture device sent from the past to give it's users brain hemorrhages and break our keyboards. Younger folk should be able to get over this fairly easy. What about the old folk. The people who have been around so long they remember when "640K ought to be enough for anybody". The new interface will be a difficult transition for them, and more than likely they will be sticking to the soon-to-be-unsupported Windows XP. Another thing that the ribbon does is make 3rd party applications stand out. It is likely they will not be allowed to use the Ribbon interface for their programs, and even if they could it would be a pain to recode the entire application just so it could fit in.

    I'm not hopeful for Windows 7. Microsoft clearly hasn't learned from it's mistakes; not only do they still have the same crap as before, but they've added some new crap to the mix. Windows 7 could spell the end of Microsoft (I know that is a stretch), or more likely spell the end of it's dominance. If some changes aren't made before the final release sometime later this year, it will heftily effect it's hold on the market.

I do have an open message to Microsoft.

START LISTENING

You can fix everything if you would just START LISTENING to your users instead of insisting that your way is the right way and the only way.

That is all.

 Let me explain it this way. Sometimes when I can't sleep at night I browse the Internet with safari. I sleep on my side because my back whacks out when I sleep on it. But the beauty of it is that it doesn't flip UPSIDE DOWN!!!

 It makes reading and life so much easier when you don't do something as STUPID as that!

Back in October, I got a new desktop for my birthday. It is a Dell 630i with SLI Nvidia cards.

A 64bit quad core beast.

One of the first things that I tried to do was install Ubuntu Linux on it. That was total failure. I got it installed, but as soon as I updated my graphics card, it completely died on me. So I gas up for a while and just left Windows Vista intact.

A few months later I was sick of bullshit.

I had a score of 4.8 only because of my RAM. Everything else was maxed out. Not only that but I was getting random BSOD's.

For a while I had to use a USB wifi card that windows managed to make it seem like it sucked ass. When I was using Windows XP, I would play a game and it would run fine. Now that I was on Vista, that card would ALWAYS disconnect me after 5 minutes into the game and then the computer would freeze. So I gave up on gaming for a bit until the BSOD's finally drove me nuts.

I went over to Best Buy and bought a new wireless card, but since that thing was expensive as hell, I didn't get games.
After a while of just using my computer for browsing the web watching YouTube and hulu, I finally gave Ubuntu a thought once more.

I thought "Well.... let's try Kubuntu! Maybe things will be different!!";

I downloaded Kubuntu 64bit.

As soon as my computer ingested that it went off like a car alarm! So I groaned, kicked, and cursed and put Ubuntu in instead.

About 10 minutes later, I was up and running, though not at the right resolution. I put that off, installed all of the new updates, rebooted annnnndddd........

It still wasn't fixed. No matter, I know better methods. Quickly, I opened up the terminal, typed in "sudo apt-get install envyng-core envyng-gtk envyng-qt"

What the hell? Doesn't work with gtk? Who was the idiot that ruined a perfectly good and working program?!?!? I then traversed over to Nvidia's website and downloaded the drivers myself.
I hit [CTRL]-[ALT]-[F1]
I began to install the drivers.
It told me I needed to stop GDM.
I did.

It broke again!!!! I was back to square one!! But then I had an idea. What if I could get wireless working?

No beans. Desperately I Googled every search term that I could think of that related to my problem.

Only one page had hope to me. Somebody else with SLI cards was having the same problem. He eventually gave up and took a card out, but somebody posted their method anyway. He gave a link to a .txt file that had his x.org configuration in it. Tentatively I tapped on it.... (I was on my iPod Touch at the time)

"Safari cannot open this file"

AGGGGGHJJHHHHHHHH!!!!! iPod's Safari cannot open something as simple as a text file?!?!
I ran into my brothers room, brutally shoved him off of his computer.
"Runescape?" I shouted. "NO! I NEED MAI XSERVER FIX'D!!!!!!"
I typed in the page and got the text file. Wrote down two things

Option         "SLI" "SFR"
BusID          "01:00:0"

Ran back in my room. Sprayed "sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf" into the terminal and put those options in. I saved. Typed in "startx".....

I think  this twitter message can express how I felt.

But for those of you who have been having problems with Dual SLI Nvidia cards, here is the post that saved my ass.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1000350

I will now get back to my Ubuntu awesome'd computer.

What is alarming though, is the sheer amount of drugs that are avaliable here. Now, I've never drank or done drugs in my life, but I hear of people who hook up over the weekend to "smoke a joint" so many times and from so many different people.

Though weed might not hurt you, do you think that turning into something else or changing your perception on reality will make everything better? Do you think you can't have fun without the stuff?

A good person (and my personal hero) once told me that he doesn't do drugs because he wants to be as smart as possible, and he wants every advantage he can get. It makes me wonder what will happen to all of the people who are addicted to their drugs, who shell out money for a small ounce of marijuana. That money could go to things that would last a lot longer than the brief time that you are high for.

My theory is that kids initially do it because it is cool, then they do It because they think that it is the only way to have fun.

Hell, I can have just as much fun without those influences. Probably even more because when I am actually done with my fun, I can actually remember what I did.

Groan..

Stupid capatalist. But you do have to give them so credit. They were the ones who brought this stuff around anyway.