14. Evolution email and Google Calendar(s)

The process is already described here:
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-sync-google-and-evolution-calendars-in-ubuntu.html.

It's not much of a post, but it may be of help to someone who tried the Google option when setting up the calendar sync in Evolution and found it less than satisfactory.

Edit 16/12/2011:
Recently (last two days, version 3.0.3-3) been getting error messages in evolution when trying to connect to my google calendar. While using the method described above for a while I switched to using 'google' instead of 'caldav' as the calendar type at some point. Well, it doesn't work anymore.

Here's how to use google calendar in Evolution:
New -> Calendar
Type -- CalDav


URL: caldav://www.google.com/calendar/dav/myemail%40gmail.com/events/
Use SSL: yes
User name: myemail@gmail.com
User email: myemail@gmail.com

Then clock 'Browse server for calendar and select the
+ /calendar/dav/myemail%40gmail.com/
         - myemail@gmail.com


Whether  you want to copy content offline or use it as default calendar is a personal choice.

Edit: 16/12/2011 -- 2 hours later
Well, it's not working anymore. Same TLS handshake BS as before.

"Error loading calendar
Cannot open calendar: Unexpected HTTP status code 6 returned (Peer failed to perform TLS handshake)"

What I can't understand is why there is no good description of this problem on the web, given that Evolution is the default email and calendar client for gnome. I don't like thunderbird/icedove+sunbird/iceowl much, but things seem to work better in general there.

13. phpSheduleIt - basic installation

phpScheduleIt is a nice web-driven instrument scheduling system, which I first come into contact with as an NMR user at the University of California at Davis, where it is used to manage the scheduling of the instruments in the NMR facility there.

You will need to have a LAMP server set up (see e.g. http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_debian_lamp_server). You will need apache2, php and mysql to play nicely together. Basically follow steps one and two, then sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart.

Download phpScheduleIt from http://www.php.brickhost.com/

A basic way to get it up and running goes as follows:

1. create a directory under /var/www. In our example it will be /var/www/nmr
sudo mkdir /var/www/nmr. Unzip the file you downloaded from www.php.brickhost.com and put the files in the /var/www/nmr directory

2. in your terminal, go to /var/www/nmr and chmod o+x all files (including subdirectories)

3. cp /var/www/nmr/config/config.php.new /var/www/nmr/config/config.php

4. Edit it.
change $conf['app']['weburi'] = 'http://localhost/phpScheduleIt';
to

change $conf['app']['weburi'] = 'http://localhost/nmr'; 

edit other relevant items, such as adminEmail, defaultLanguage, timeFormat, emailType, defaultPassword etc,

The admin email is important, since this will become the administrator account.

5. go to http://localhost/nmr/install

If nothing happens, or you get an error message, it's time to start trouble-shooting. Going to the terminal and

cd /var/www/nmr/install

php index.php

might give some useful information. Most likely you have either a) made an error in config/config.php, or b) you haven't chmod:d the subdirectories.

6.  If all goes well, you are asked for your root user name and root mysql password (which you set during the installation). Thus, login as root with the correct password. Once you're in, hit the button saying 'create tables'. If all went well you can now delete the /var/www/nmr/install directory.

7. Go to http://localhost/nmr

You should be greeted with a log in window. Important: select create new user and enter the email address you gave as the administrator email in the config.php file. This will then automatically become an administrator account. It has nothing to do with the order you create accounts in - it's all about what email address you put in the config.php file. 

8.  Once you've set up the account you are able to create instruments, user groups, booking restrictions etc. 

Anyone who wants to use the facilities can create their own new registered users, BUT only the administrator(s) can assign resources to them. 

9. Be careful with your GMT setting...

This page has some information as well: http://www.m-osaka.com/jp/plaza/readme.html

12. Pulseaudio - controlling where the output goes

The non-free flash plugin can be a bit of a headache, since even if you install it and flash videos play nicely, you may not get any sound. On a laptop, you might not notice it, since the default output seems to be the laptop speakers. However, you may have problems piping the sounds through any attached USB speakers. Same goes for desktops, where the default output may be the sounds ports on your motherboard.

The fix is simple (assuming you have pulseaudio installed)
create an /etc/asound.conf file or a ~/.asoundrc file, with the following in it:

pcm.!default.type pulse
ctl.!default.type pulse

Rebooting should take care of things