Fixing “Skype webcam is very dark” problem in Ubuntu Karmic and Lucid

I know this problem has been bugging many Skype users on Linux (especially on Ubuntu), so I want to share my fix for this problem.

I have a Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd 2.0M UVC Webcam / CNF7129 as my default webcam. It works great on Ubuntu Karmic and Lucid especially when I use Cheese to take videos or snapshots despite the lighting conditions. However Skype seems to dislike my webcam, It works fine on finely lighted areas and especially in the morning and afternoon but when it gets dark or there’s a limited light source the webcam video gets very “abnormally” dark!

After searching the web for possible fixes it seems the only way to resolve this problem right now is to manually configure the webcam. To do this, first I had to install luvcview .

Luckily you can download and install it through synaptics or open a terminal and type:

$ sudo apt-get install luvcview

After completing the installation, you have to close any instance of Skype then on the same terminal type:

$ sudo luvcview

It will open up a window displaying input from webcam, on the lowest part of the window you will see the configuration buttons.

Now we set brightness to max! click on the first button on the left, keep clicking on it until you reach maximum brightness. you can also set contrast, sharpness, saturation, exposure levels, etc. here.

Any changes you make here will affect the default behavior of your webcam. Do the necessary changes you want but make sure brightness is set to max, after that close the window then open Skype.

Skype video should be brighter now.

Please let me know if you have a better solution.

xbmc tests

Been trying out XBMC on an ubuntu powered Netbook, and so far it’s been great as a multimedia box. I’m planning on setting up a dedicated xbmc multimedia box with hdmi ready video card for my parent’s Sanyo flatscreen.

If anyone is wondering what XBMC is, It’s a free and open source cross-platform media player and home entertainment system software.
If you want to know more check out their site http://xbmc.org/

Laptop/Netbook powersaving tips #2

Unload your wifi module when not in use! First, issue an lsmod and look for the module name for your device, mine is ath5k. Now, issue sudo rmmod modulename. If it fails to unload the module it might be because another module or another application is using it, try unloading first the modules that depend on it.

You can load it again by issuing sudo modprobe modulename.

Laptop/Netbook powersaving tips #1

If you do not usually use your bluetooth module, disable it from BIOS if possible! Or you can unload the bluetooth module usually you do this by issuing sudo rmmod modulename, issue an lsmod first to find the module name of your bluetooth device, also make sure that no application is using it before issuing rmmod.

You can load it again by issuing sudo modprobe modulename.

Netbook Tweaks Part2: /etc/laptop-mode/conf.d/

Tweaking your hardware’s behavior to save more power.

If you look under /etc/laptop-mode/conf.d/, you can find here more configuration files for laptop-mode-tools in addition to the main config file /etc/laptop_mode/laptop_mode.conf.

Here you will find more hardware behavior tweaks that will help you save power on your machines, like USB auto-suspend, auto-hibernate, bluetooth powersavings, cpu frequency powersavings, sata power management, backlight settings, terminal blanking etc…

Each config file inside /etc/laptop-mode/conf.d/ tweaks a certain feature, for example the file lcd-brightness allows you to set a certain brightness level for your screen when you are on AC or on Battery. I configured my machine to have a brightness of 3 on battery and 12 on AC.

Try playing with the config files here and see what suits you or what settings saves the most power.

My First Zen Wallpaper

A Zen wallpaper I made. Hope someone likes it like I do!

 

Netbook Tweaks Part1: /etc/laptop_mode/laptop_mode.conf

Why enable laptop-mode-tools?

I’m not satisfied with the 4.5 to 5.2 hours battery life of my Asus 1000HG running on Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 beta.

How to install laptop-mode-tools?

Luckily laptop-mode-tools is installed by default on my system but normally, you can install it via synaptic given that you have reloaded your packages. Or you can download the .deb package from here.

What is laptop-mode-tools for?

Laptop-mode-tools is used for tweaking your lappies or netbooks to spin down your harddrive, set backlight brightness, cpu scheduling, configure cpu frequency and throttling, usb auto-suspend, and other power related settings to get the most out of your battery.

How did I configure laptop-mode-tools on my machine?

Given that I already have laptop-mode-tools installed, first I went to my /etc/default/acpi-support file and edited the line from:


ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=false


TO

ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE=true


NOTE: This setting allows to switch to laptop-mode on battery power. This setting might cause your system to hang-up. If it does don’t set this to true.

Next we go to /etc/laptop_mode/laptop_mode.conf, here you can do some basic tweaks to optimize battery. almost all entries here are self explanatory so you shouldn’t have any problems if you read the comments for each entry. For reference here are the contents of my /etc/laptop_mode/laptop_mode.conf:


VERBOSE_OUTPUT=1
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_ON_BATTERY=1
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_ON_AC=1
ENABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_WHEN_LID_CLOSED=0
MINIMUM_BATTERY_CHARGE_PERCENT=3
DISABLE_LAPTOP_MODE_ON_CRITICAL_BATTERY_LEVEL=1
HD="/dev/sda /dev/sdb"
PARTITIONS="auto /dev/mapper/*"
ASSUME_SCSI_IS_SATA=1
LM_BATT_MAX_LOST_WORK_SECONDS=600
LM_AC_MAX_LOST_WORK_SECONDS=360
CONTROL_READAHEAD=1
LM_READAHEAD=3072
NOLM_READAHEAD=128
CONTROL_NOATIME=0
USE_RELATIME=1
CONTROL_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT=1
LM_AC_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=60
LM_BATT_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=60
NOLM_HD_IDLE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=7200
CONTROL_HD_POWERMGMT=0
BATT_HD_POWERMGMT=1
LM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=254
NOLM_AC_HD_POWERMGMT=254
CONTROL_HD_WRITECACHE=1
NOLM_AC_HD_WRITECACHE=1
NOLM_BATT_HD_WRITECACHE=0
LM_HD_WRITECACHE=0


Here is my current working laptop-mode-tools configuration.
You can freely edit your settings and see what works for you.
Or if you are confused with one of the parameters here, you can contact me here or read this.

Now, Try out your settings by issuing sudo laptop_mode auto.
Since I configured my settings to VERBOSE_OUTPUT=1 a few lines will display on my terminal. To verify if laptop_mode worked issue a cat /proc/sys/vm/laptop_mode, if it returns a value of anything greater than 0 then it means that you have succesfully enabled laptop-mode-tools!

NOTE: if you have a better laptop_mode.conf you are free to post it here. And do not believe your power applet! It is not accurate! The only way you can really measure battery life is by manually timing it from the time you unplugged it from the mains up till your battery life reaches 3%.

This ends Netbook Tweaks Part1.

Making Movies PSP compatible using Avidemux

a friend of mine came to me asking, “hey, can you convert some videos for me for my girlfriend’s PSP? It seems the converters we downloaded are either bogus or trial versions.”, with that I tried googling for psp movie converters available for UNR Karmic.

(@jspalding: yeah I know I told before that i’m using Eeebuntu, I removed it from my system. Battery life was decent but somehow I craved for UNR Karmic’s sexy and accesible interface. )

Back to topic, well, I found this quality/free software available at Ubuntu Software Center (popularly known as add/remove programs),  It is called Avidemux. Avidemux can be used for simple cutting, filtering and encoding of videos.

Here is a nice tutorial I followed to get me started with Avidemux. Took me 1hour to convert an unsupported HD .mp4 movie to a PSP supported HD .mp4 movie, FULL SCREEN!

Avidemux is also available for Windows under the GNU GPL license.

Round 1: Typhoon Ondoy, Round 2: Typhoon Pepeng

Saturday, last week, Typhoon Ondoy struck the Philippines (my country). Rivers were flooded, bridges ruined, houses buried under landslides, properties gone, crops ruined and some places are still flooded up to now. I was not able to come home that night since I was stranded on another place. The thought of not being with my family during these times of crisis really made me worried. Being stranded, my only means of communication was Facebook! (Thank you facebook!)

NOTE: I did not make this video.

I was only able to get back home this Tuesday. My house was flooded up to the waist, luckily while I was stranded, some neighbors and friends of mine was able to help my mom and sister move stuff, furniture and electronics around the house as to avoid being ruined by the flood. (Thanks to those who helped my family!).

NOTE: I did not make this video.

Lot’s of people here have not yet recovered from the devastation Ondoy brought upon us. Now, not a week has passed and another typhoon (Typhoon Pepeng) is knocking on our doors. Me and my family, like everyone else have already readied ourselves; rations, clothes, candles and others have been prepared ahead of time. Let’s all just hope that typhoon Pepeng is nothing like Ondoy and will just pass us like nothing happened.

Round 2! Begin!

a bash script for making bash scripts

I use this script to help me build bash scripts then opens the newly created bash script in Vi.

#!/bin/bash
#Filename: shellscript

if [ !$1 ]
#tests for absence of command line arguments
then
#if none was provided prompt for filename
echo “please enter name of new bash script:”
read scriptname

else
scriptname=$1
fi

echo “Please enter a short description of what this script does: “
read desc

#create the new file in the users $HOME/Desktop directory
touch ~/Desktop/$scriptname
#sets permission on the file
chmod 755 ~/Desktop/$scriptname
echo “#!/bin/bash” > ~/Desktop/$scriptname
echo “#File: $scriptname” >> ~/Desktop/$scriptname
echo “#Author: $LOGNAME” >> ~/Desktop/$scriptname
echo “#Description: $desc” >> ~/Desktop/$scriptname

#opens file for editing
vi ~/Desktop/$scriptname