Install Emesene 2 Stable (2.11.4) In Ubuntu Via PPA

After a long period of development, Emesene 2 (stable) has finally been released, this being a complete re-write of the initial Emesene in GTK / pygtk.

Starting with version 2, Emesene supports Gtalk and Facebook or any XMPP/Jabber network (along with MSN of course). Other changes in Emesene 2 include: support for adium-like themes, Ubuntu Messaging Menu (and MeMenu integration for Natty) support and lots more.

Also, Emesene 2 uses "papylib" which is also used by Empathy. This brings many advantages like:

Complete p2p support, msnp18, great address book and msn profile handling. Being so widespread allows you, the user, to get the latest 0day fixes from your favourite distro (if you're using GNU/Linux of course) and new features as soon as we plug them into Emesene.

[via Emesene 2 release announcement]

For more info on Emesene 2, check out the release announcement.

Install Emesene 2 (2.11.4) in Ubuntu 11.04 and 10.10 and 10.04

Important: the Ubuntu 10.04 packages have not been tested. Use this PPA at your own risk!

Emesene 2 will probably be available in Ubuntu 11.04 and Debian unstable soon but I'm really not sure when (it will probably be in Natty backports). If you can't wait, you can use our Backports / Unstable PPA. The PPA also provides packages for Ubuntu 10.10 and 10.04 - add it and install Emesene 2 - 2.11.4 (stable) using the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/unstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install emesene
sudo apt-get upgrade #to also upgrade to the latest python-papyon version

Important: if you've previously installed "emesene2" from some other PPA (package name "emesene2" - that's how some PPAs distributed Emesene 2), remove it before installing the package in the Backports WebUpd8 PPA. Our PPA uses the usual "emesene" package name for the package and not "emesene2", just like in Debian unstable and Ubuntu 11.04.

For now I'm using the unstable PPA because I've only tested Emesene 2 for a few minutes and because it uses a newer python-papyon dependency (also available in the PPA) which I'm not sure if it breaks anything. We'll see if this package will be copied to the main WebUpd8 PPA or not.

How to get Facebook to work with Emesene2

For Facebook, you must not login using just your username, but: YOUR_USERNAME@chat.facebook.com, where YOUR_USERNAME is not your Facebook login email but your URL username - see here: http://www.facebook.com/username

Install Emesene 2 Stable (2.11.4) In Ubuntu Via PPA

After a long period of development, Emesene 2 (stable) has finally been released, this being a complete re-write of the initial Emesene in GTK / pygtk.

Starting with version 2, Emesene supports Gtalk and Facebook or any XMPP/Jabber network (along with MSN of course). Other changes in Emesene 2 include: support for adium-like themes, Ubuntu Messaging Menu (and MeMenu integration for Natty) support and lots more.

Also, Emesene 2 uses "papylib" which is also used by Empathy. This brings many advantages like:

Complete p2p support, msnp18, great address book and msn profile handling. Being so widespread allows you, the user, to get the latest 0day fixes from your favourite distro (if you're using GNU/Linux of course) and new features as soon as we plug them into Emesene.

[via Emesene 2 release announcement]

For more info on Emesene 2, check out the release announcement.

Install Emesene 2 (2.11.4) in Ubuntu 11.04 and 10.10 and 10.04

Important: the Ubuntu 10.04 packages have not been tested. Use this PPA at your own risk!

Emesene 2 will probably be available in Ubuntu 11.04 and Debian unstable soon but I'm really not sure when (it will probably be in Natty backports). If you can't wait, you can use our Backports / Unstable PPA. The PPA also provides packages for Ubuntu 10.10 and 10.04 - add it and install Emesene 2 - 2.11.4 (stable) using the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/unstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install emesene
sudo apt-get upgrade #to also upgrade to the latest python-papyon version

Important: if you've previously installed "emesene2" from some other PPA (package name "emesene2" - that's how some PPAs distributed Emesene 2), remove it before installing the package in the Backports WebUpd8 PPA. Our PPA uses the usual "emesene" package name for the package and not "emesene2", just like in Debian unstable and Ubuntu 11.04.

For now I'm using the unstable PPA because I've only tested Emesene 2 for a few minutes and because it uses a newer python-papyon dependency (also available in the PPA) which I'm not sure if it breaks anything. We'll see if this package will be copied to the main WebUpd8 PPA or not.

How to get Facebook to work with Emesene2

For Facebook, you must not login using just your username, but: YOUR_USERNAME@chat.facebook.com, where YOUR_USERNAME is not your Facebook login email but your URL username - see here: http://www.facebook.com/username

Skype 2.2 Beta For Linux Released Skype Access Support, Improved Audio / Video Quality

After more then a year since the last beta, a new Skype beta version has been released today: 2.2 beta.

Skype 2.2 beta brings "Skype Access" support which you can use to connect to "over 500,000 WiFi hotspots worldwide using your Skype Credit", improved audio and video quality.

Other changes in Skype 2.2 beta for Linux:

• you can now receive a second call while a call is ongoing; you can hold and answer it or join the two calls into a conference call.
• bug fixes for PulseAudio, KDE Oxygen style issues and more

Well, it's not really what I was expecting after a year of development (in theory anyway) but unfortunately since Skype is not open source, the community can't help.

Oh yeah, I just had to mention this: while their announcement advertises "over 500,000 WiFi hotspots world-wide", the Skype Access window says "over 100,000":

I don't use Skype so I can't really tell if the audio and video quality improved substantially so if you use Skype, let us know in the comments!



Download Skype 2.2 beta for Linux (available for Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and openSUSE) | Release notes

[via H-Online]

Add Tabs To Skype For Linux Using SkypeTab

SkypeTab is a tool that wraps Skype chat windows into a tabbed interface. Besides integrating the conversations, SkypeTab can also embed the Contact List into its wrapper.

Overall, SkypeTab is a really nice tool - if you don't move the window, because the Skype conversation windows lag a lot behind the tabs wrapper when moving the window and unfortunately the author says this cannot be fixed, at least not at this time. Nevertheless SkypeTab is a nice tool if you usually have a lot of Skype conversation windows opened and want to unclutter you desktop.

To use it, firstly run "SkypeTab" (from the Applications > Internet) and then run Skype.

Important: Skype Tabs only works with Compiz, Openbox and Xfwm.

Download Skype Tabs (includes Ubuntu / Debian .deb files) | For feedback, see the SkypeTab Ubuntuforums post.

Install Pidgin 2.7.7 in Ubuntu (With MSN Certificate Fix And Multiple MSN Logins)

Pidgin 2.7.7 was released, fixing the "Unable to validate certificate" error for omega.contacts.msn.com (so if the Pidgin (MSN) Omega.contacts.msn.com Certificate Errors fix didn't work for you, try the new Pidgin 2.7.7).

Pidgin 2.7.7 also comes with support for MSNP16, including Multiple Points of Presence (MPOP) which allows multiple simultaneous sign-ins for MSN. A complete changelog can be found HERE.

Pidgin 2.7.7 is not yet available in the Ubuntu Pidgin PPA, however you can install it via GetDeb (for Ubuntu 10.04 and 10.10):

1. Download THIS .deb and install it - it will add the GetDeb repository.

2. Run the following command to update your software sources:

sudo apt-get update

3. Upgrade Pidgin:

sudo apt-get upgrade

The above command will also upgrade some other packages which are installed on your computer and for which there are newer versions available on GetDeb. If you don't want those, instead of running "sudo apt-get upgrade", open Synaptic, upgrade Pidgin only and then remove the GetDeb repository (from Software Sources).

Important: If GetDeb is very slow for you (that's the case for me at the time I'm writing this post), you can use the following GetDeb mirror instead of the official GetDeb (edit the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/getdeb.list file and replace the existing line with the one below):

deb http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/getdeb/ubuntu maverick-getdeb apps

(The above repository is for Maverick. If you're using Lucid, replace "maverick" with "lucid").

After upgrading, close Pidgin and open it again, then if the certificate error still occurs, try connecting a few times and it should work.