Learning Ubuntu #3 - Firefox, Mplayer, Update Manager, Misc

A few more things today:

1. To upgrade Firefox to 3.5.1, go to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FirefoxNewVersion , and click on the "install the following package: firefox-3.5. Firefox 3.5 will be installed alongside Firefox 3.0" link. After this finishes, you will see on the "Applications > Internet" menu, a new application named "Shiretoko", and that is Firefox 3.5. A couple of things left to do:
1. Go to "System > Preferences > Prefered Application", change the browser setting to custom, and set the command text to "firefox-3.5 -new-tab "%s""
2. Right button the firefox icon on the lauchpad, and delete it. Then, from "Applications > Internet", right-button the Shiretoko icon, and select the "Add this launcher to panel"
3. If you already did some profile changes in 3.0 that you want to save, then have a look at http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Backing+up+your+information?style_mode=inproduct#Backing_up_your_profile and at http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing+profiles?style_mode=inproduct
   
   
2. After a little research, I found that opening a command window, and doing "sudo apt-get install mplayer", and installing the mplayer movie player gave me a tool which would play back .wmv files. But, I notice that the application keeps issuing errors like "error overreading 55 bits". Not sure what to do about that. Strangely enough, I downloaded the same video again, and this time it played just fine, also Firefox now knew that mplayer was the correct application - good stuff - FIDO.
3. The other cool thing was "System > Administration > Update Manger", was really easy to use to download updates to keep the system current - good stuff.
   

To get Flash working, i tried to go to http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/alternates/, and it screwed up - i386 instead of x64 was the problem I think. So, for tomorrow, some key issues:

1. I am finding a lot of web sites really slow - so will boot Windows and check to see if the sites are slow, or if I have an Ubuntu issue.
2. Will try flash again.
3. While I am in Windows, I will look up my Windows IM credentials, and try and get Pidgin working
   
4. Also, in the above system update, I noticed that I got an update to power management - will see if that makes suspend work - I found the machine would suspend OK - but will not resume.
5. One other interesting thing, in this blogger window, every now and then my cursor jumps to an unexpected location - not sure if that is an unknown fat finger problem, or something else weird.

1. See you next time!