How To Sync Your Pidgin Profile Across Multiple PCs by Dropbox?

Pidgin is definitely our favorite universal chat client, but adding all of your chat accounts to multiple computers can be frustrating.  Here’s how you can easily transfer your Pidgin settings to other computers and keep them in sync using Dropbox.

Getting Started

Make sure you have both Pidgin and Dropbox installed on any computers you want to sync.  To sync Pidgin, you need to:

1. Move your Pidgin profile folder on your first computer to Dropbox
2. Create a symbolic link from the new folder in Dropbox to your old profile location
3. Delete the default pidgin profile on your other computer, and create a symbolic link from your Dropbox Pidgin profile to the default Pidgin profile location

This sounds difficult, but it’s actually easy if you follow these steps.  Here we already had all of our accounts setup in Pidgin in Windows 7, and then synced this profile with an Ubuntu and a XP computer with fresh Pidgin installs.  Our instructions for each OS are based on this, but just swap the sync order if your main Pidgin install is in XP or Ubuntu.

Please Note:  Please make sure Pidgin isn’t running on your computer while you are making the changes!

Sync Your Pidgin Profile from Windows 7

Here is Pidgin with our accounts already setup.  Our Pidgin profile has a Gtalk, MSN Messenger, and Facebook Chat account, and lots of log files.

Let’s move this profile to Dropbox to keep it synced.  Exit Pidgin, and then enter %appdata% in the address bar in Explorer or press Win+R and enter %appdata%.  Select the .purple folder, which is your Pidgin profiles and settings folder, and press Ctrl+X to cut it.

Browse to your Dropbox folder, and press Ctrl+V to paste the .purple folder there.

Now we need to create the symbolic link.  Enter  “command” in your Start menu search, right-click on the Command Prompt shortcut, and select “Run as administrator”.

We can now use the mklink command to create a symbolic link to the .purple folder.  In Command Prompt, enter the following and substitute username for your own username.

mklink /D “C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\.purple” “C:\Users\username\Documents\My Dropbox\.purple”

And that’s it!  You can open Pidgin now to make sure it still works as before, with your files being synced with Dropbox.

Please Note:  These instructions work the same for Windows Vista.  Also, if you are syncing settings from another computer to Windows 7, then delete the .purple folder instead of cutting and pasting it, and reverse the order of the file paths when creating the symbolic link.

Add your Pidgin Profile to Ubuntu

Our Ubuntu computer had a clean install of Pidgin, so we didn’t need any of the information in its settings.  If you’ve run Pidgin, even without creating an account, you will need to first remove its settings folder.  Open your home folder, and click View, and then “Show Hidden Files” to see your settings folders.

Select the .purple folder, and delete it.

Now, to create the symbolic link, open Terminal and enter the following, substituting username for your username:

ln –s /home/username/Dropbox/.purple /home/username/

Open Pidgin, and you will see all of your accounts that were on your other computer.  No usernames or passwords needed; everything is setup and ready to go.  Even your status is synced; we had our status set to Away in Windows 7, and it automatically came up the same in Ubuntu.

Please Note: If your primary Pidgin account is in Ubuntu, then cut your .purple folder and paste it into your Dropbox folder instead.  Then, when creating the symbolic link, reverse the order of the folder paths.

Add your Pidgin Profile to Windows XP

In XP we also had a clean install of Pidgin.  If you’ve run Pidgin, even without creating an account, you will need to first remove its settings folder.  Click Start, the Run, and enter %appdata%.

Delete your .purple folder.

XP does not include a way to create a symbolic link, so we will use the free Junction tool from Sysinternals.  Download Junction (link below) and unzip the folder.

Open Command Prompt (click Start, select All Programs, then Accessories, and select Command Prompt), and enter cd followed by the path of the folder where you saved Junction.

Now, to create the symbolic link, enter the following in Command Prompt, substituting username with your username.

junction “C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\.purple” “C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\My Dropbox\.purple”

Open Pidgin, and you will see all of your settings just as they were on your other computer.  Everything’s ready to go.

Please Note: If your primary Pidgin account is in Windows XP, then cut your .purple folder and paste it into your Dropbox folder instead.  Then, when creating the symbolic link, reverse the order of the folder paths.

Conclusion

This is a great way to keep all of your chat and IM accounts available from all of your computers.  You can easily access logs from chats you had on your desktop from your laptop, or if you add a chat account on your work computer you can use it seamlessly from your home computer that evening.  Now Pidgin is the universal chat client that is always ready whenever and wherever you need it!

Links

Downlaod Pidgin

Download and signup for Dropbox

Download Junction for XP

What kind of liabrary feature Windows 7 got?

The new libraries feature in Windows 7 makes it easier to manage your files and folders. Today we take a look at how to access libraries, how to use them, and how to include network locations to the libraries as well.

The libraries feature in Windows 7 provides a central place to manage files that are located in multiple locations throughout your computer. Instead of clicking through a bunch of directories to find the files you need, including them in a library makes for quicker access.

Access Libraries

To access the libraries in Windows 7, type libraries into the search box in the Start Menu and hit Enter.

The default libraries in Windows 7 will open up in Explorer which are Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos. 

Anytime you’re in Windows Explorer, you’ll be able to access libraries from the Navigation Pane.

Using Libraries

In these examples we’ll take a look at the Documents Library, but the procedures will work for any library you want to add locations to. If you’ve been working in Windows 7 for a while and storing documents to the My Documents folder, when you open the Documents Library, you’ll see those documents. Some applications install folders in the My Documents folder by default and you’ll see those as well. 

What if you have documents stored in a folder other than My Documents? You need to add it to the Documents Library. There are a couple of ways you can go about it. Right-click on a folder and select Include in library from the context menu, then choose the Documents Library. Keep in mind that when you add a folder to a library, that folder is still in it’s original location.

Or when you have the folder containing your documents open, select Include in library and choose the library to put them in from the dropdown.

Here we take a look at the Documents library that contains files that are located in different places throughout the hard drive, including some on another partition.

You can also remove items from libraries as well. When you’re in a library click on the locations link.

  

The Documents Library Locations window opens up and from here you can add or remove locations.

Create New Libraries

The default libraries are all well and good, but if you really want to take advantage of this feature, you’ll want to create your own. While in the libraries directory click on the New library button and give it a name.

In this example we made a new library called Work Projects. The first time you open it you’ll be prompted to include a folder.

Browse to the location with the files you want to add then click Include folder.

Now the files included in that folder will show up in the new library.

After you’ve created some libraries they’ll be added to the list to select from.

 

Add Network Locations

While libraries are a handy new feature, it’s not perfect. Not all folders can be added to libraries as Microsoft has stuck some rules on them. You can pretty much add anything from a local drive, including other volumes or partitions. External USB drives formatted as NTFS or Fat32 can be added as well. Things get kind of weird when you’re trying to add network and non-indexed locations.

Thankfully there’s a handy free utility you can use that makes adding network locations a lot easier. Win7 Library Tool is small and straight forward to use. Just click on the Create a new library button.

Then add the network location you want included in the library. Notice this tool will also allow you to easily change the library icon which is a neat additional feature.

In this example we’ve added a home network share that contains music files to a library named MP3 library. 

Conclusion

This should help get you started using Libraries in Windows 7, which at first might take some getting used to. Once you understand how they work and start creating your own, you’ll find they’re actually pretty useful. Once you get going, you’ll find the Win7 Library Tool makes adding network locations a snap. How about you? Do you use libraries in Windows 7? Leave a comment and let us know what you like or don’t like about the feature.

Complete Guide to Symbolic Links (symlinks) on Windows or Linux

Want to easily access folders and files from different folders without maintaining duplicate copies?  Here’s how you can use Symbolic Links to link anything in Windows 7, Vista, XP, and Ubuntu.

So What Are Symbolic Links Anyway?

Symbolic links, otherwise known as symlinks, are basically advanced shortcuts. You can create symbolic links to individual files or folders, and then these will appear like they are stored in the folder with the symbolic link even though the symbolic link only points to their real location.

There are two types of symbolic links: hard and soft. Soft symbolic links work essentially the same as a standard shortcut.  When you open a soft link, you will be redirected to the folder where the files are stored.  However, a hard link makes it appear as though the file or folder actually exists at the location of the symbolic link, and your applications won’t know any different. Thus, hard links are of the most interest in this article.

Why should I use Symbolic Links?

There are many things we use symbolic links for, so here’s some of the top uses we can think of:

• Sync any folder with Dropbox – say, sync your Pidgin Profile Across Computers
• Move the settings folder for any program from its original location
• Store your Music/Pictures/Videos on a second hard drive, but make them show up in your standard Music/Pictures/Videos folders so they’ll be detected my your media programs (Windows 7 Libraries can also be good for this)
• Keep important files accessible from multiple locations
• And more!

If you want to move files to a different drive or folder and then symbolically link them, follow these steps:

• Close any programs that may be accessing that file or folder
• Move the file or folder to the new desired location
• Follow the correct instructions below for your operating system to create the symbolic link.

Caution: Make sure to never create a symbolic link inside of a symbolic link. For instance, don’t create a symbolic link to a file that’s contained in a symbolic linked folder. This can create a loop, which can cause millions of problems you don’t want to deal with. Seriously.

Create Symlinks in Any Edition of Windows in Explorer

Creating symlinks is usually difficult, but thanks to the free Link Shell Extension, you can create symbolic links in all modern version of Windows pain-free.  You need to download both Visual Studio 2005 redistributable, which contains the necessary prerequisites, and Link Shell Extension itself (links below).  Download the correct version (32 bit or 64 bit) for your computer.

Run and install the Visual Studio 2005 Redistributable installer first.

Then install the Link Shell Extension on your computer. Your taskbar will temporally disappear during the install, but will quickly come back.

Now you’re ready to start creating symbolic links.  Browse to the folder or file you want to create a symbolic link from.  Right-click the folder or file and select Pick Link Source.

To create your symlink, right-click in the folder you wish to save the symbolic link, select “Drop as…”, and then choose the type of link you want.  You can choose from several different options here; we chose the Hardlink Clone.  This will create a hard link to the file or folder we selected.  The Symbolic link option creates a soft link, while the smart copy will fully copy a folder containing symbolic links without breaking them.  These options can be useful as well.

Here’s our hard-linked folder on our desktop.  Notice that the folder looks like its contents are stored in Desktop\Downloads, when they are actually stored in C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\Downloads.  Also, when links are created with the Link Shell Extension, they have a red arrow on them so you can still differentiate them.

And, this works the same way in XP as well.

Symlinks via Command Prompt

Or, for geeks who prefer working via command line, here’s how you can create symlinks in Command Prompt in Windows 7/Vista and XP.

In Windows 7/Vista

In Windows Vista and 7, we’ll use the mklink command to create symbolic links.  To use it, we have to open an administrator Command Prompt.  Enter “command” in your start menu search, right-click on Command Prompt, and select “Run as administrator”.

To create a symbolic link, we need to enter the following in command prompt:

mklink /prefix link_path file/folder_path

First, choose the correct prefix.  Mklink can create several types of links, including the following:

• /D – creates a soft symbolic link, which is similar to a standard folder or file shortcut in Windows.  This is the default option, and mklink will use it if you do not enter a prefix.
• /H – creates a hard link to a file
• /J – creates a hard link to a directory or folder

So, once you’ve chosen the correct prefix, you need to enter the path you want for the symbolic link, and the path to the original file or folder.  For example, if I wanted a folder in my Dropbox folder to appear like it was also stored in my desktop, I would enter the following:

mklink /J C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\Dropbox C:\Users\Matthew\Documents\Dropbox

Note that the first path was to the symbolic folder I wanted to create, while the second path was to the real folder.

Here, in this command prompt screenshot, you can see that I created a symbolic link of my Music folder to my desktop.

And here’s how it looks in Explorer.  Note that all of my music is “really” stored in C:\Users\Matthew\Music, but here it looks like it is stored in C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\Music.

If your path has any spaces in it, you need to place quotes around it.  Note also that the link can have a different name than the file it links to.  For example, here I’m going to create a symbolic link to a document on my desktop:

mklink /H “C:\Users\Matthew\Desktop\ebook.pdf”  “C:\Users\Matthew\Downloads\Before You Call Tech Support.pdf”

Don’t forget the syntax:

mklink /prefix link_path Target_file/folder_path

In Windows XP

Windows XP doesn’t include built-in command prompt support for symbolic links, but we can use the free Junction tool instead.  Download Junction (link below), and unzip the folder.  Now open Command Prompt (click Start, select All Programs, then Accessories, and select Command Prompt), and enter cd followed by the path of the folder where you saved Junction.

Junction only creates hard symbolic links, since you can use shortcuts for soft ones.  To create a hard symlink, we need to enter the following in command prompt:

junction –s link_path file/folder_path

As with mklink in Windows 7 or Vista, if your file/folder path has spaces in it make sure to put quotes around your paths.  Also, as usual, your symlink can have a different name that the file/folder it points to.

Here, we’re going to create a symbolic link to our My Music folder on the desktop.  We entered:

junction -s “C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\Music” “C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Music”

And here’s the contents of our symlink.  Note that the path looks like these files are stored in a Music folder directly on the Desktop, when they are actually stored in My Documents\My Music.  Once again, this works with both folders and individual files.

Please Note: Junction would work the same in Windows 7 or Vista, but since they include a built-in symbolic link tool we found it better to use it on those versions of Windows.

Symlinks in Ubuntu

Unix-based operating systems have supported symbolic links since their inception, so it is straightforward to create symbolic links in Linux distros such as Ubuntu.  There’s no graphical way to create them like the Link Shell Extension for Windows, so we’ll just do it in Terminal.

Open terminal (open the Applications menu, select Accessories, and then click Terminal), and enter the following:

ln –s file/folder_path link_path

Note that this is opposite of the Windows commands; you put the source for the link first, and then the path second.

For example, let’s create a symbolic link of our Pictures folder in our Desktop.  To do this, we entered:

ln -s /home/maguay/Pictures /home/maguay/Desktop

Once again, here is the contents of our symlink folder.  The pictures look as if they’re stored directly in a Pictures folder on the Desktop, but they are actually stored in maguay\Pictures.

Delete Symlinks

Removing symbolic links is very simple – just delete the link!  Most of the command line utilities offer a way to delete a symbolic link via command prompt, but you don’t need to go to the trouble.

Conclusion

Symbolic links can be very handy, and we use them constantly to help us stay organized and keep our hard drives from overflowing.  Let us know how you use symbolic links on your computers!

Download Link Shell Extension for Windows 7, Vista, and XP

Download Junction for XP

How To Upgrade Ubuntu ISO Without Re-downloading?

Ubuntu 11.04 is finally here and you can’t wait to download it, but as is typical on any Ubuntu release day, the mirrors are crawling. Luckily if you have an old Ubuntu .iso you can update it easily with zsync.

Zsync is a Linux command that allows you to compare an existing .iso with an up-to-date zsync meta file to download only the missing or out of date parts. Combine those parts with your existing file and what you are left with is a completely up to date iso without spending the time to download the entire file.

 

Just how much bandwidth can this save? In our testing, upgrading an iso from Ubuntu 10.04.2 to 11.04 Beta 2 needed to download about 89% of the original file and 10.10 to 11.04 Beta 2 needed 84%. Obviously the more current the original file is, the less you will need to download.

Install zsync

Although zsync is a native Linux command it still works just as well under Windows with the help of Cygwin. If you need help installing Cygwin in Windows,in my another post.

While you are installing Cygwin you will want to make sure you search for zsync on the select packages step.

Zsync is available in the universe repo all the way back to Karmic Koala. So if you are currently using Ubuntu you can install zsync with the normal apt-get command.

sudo apt-get install zsync

Update ISO image

To update your old Ubuntu .iso image, open a command prompt and issue the following command with similar options.

zsync -i /path/to/old/ubuntu.iso http://Path-to-Ubuntu.iso.zsync

This will compare your existing file with the new iso available online, download the missing parts from your current iso, and give you a fully up-to-date new file. Here is an example that lets us update our Ubuntu 10.04.2 image to the latest Ubuntu 11.04.

Note: Using the below command will keep your original Ubuntu 10.04.2 .iso in tact and will create a new Ubuntu 11.04 .iso file.

zsync -i ./ubuntu-10.04.2-desktop-i386.iso http://releases.ubuntu.com/natty/ubuntu-11.04-desktop-i386.iso.zsync

As you can see from the screenshot below, the file we updated with zsync (left) is exactly the same as the original file we downloaded directly (right).

Use the links below for the different zsync files available.

Ubuntu live desktop (with installer) x86 and x86_64

http://releases.ubuntu.com/natty/ubuntu-11.04-desktop-i386.iso.zsync

http://releases.ubuntu.com/natty/ubuntu-11.04-desktop-amd64.iso.zsync

Ubuntu alternate installer x86 and x86_64

http://releases.ubuntu.com/natty/ubuntu-11.04-alternate-i386.iso.zsync

http://releases.ubuntu.com/natty/ubuntu-11.04-alternate-amd64.iso.zsync

Ubuntu server x86 and x86_64

http://releases.ubuntu.com/natty/ubuntu-11.04-server-i386.iso.zsync

http://releases.ubuntu.com/natty/ubuntu-11.04-server-amd64.iso.zsync

You can also use zsync to change between Ubuntu distributions. Use any of these links for the popular downloads of different Ubuntu flavors.

From our testing, changing from Ubuntu 10.10 to Xubuntu 10.10 required us to download less than half (42%) of the full Xubuntu file.

Kubuntu live desktop (with installer) x86

Note: Kubuntu is only available in DVD form so you will be downloading a significant portion of the DVD image.

 

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/11.04/release/kubuntu-11.04-dvd-i386.iso.zsync

Xubuntu live desktop (with installer) x86

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/releases/11.04/release/xubuntu-11.04-desktop-i386.iso.zsync

Ubuntu Studio live desktop (with installer) x86

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntustudio/releases/11.04/release/ubuntustudio-11.04-desktop-i386.iso.zsync