Transferring files between Fedora and BlackBerry 10 device

I am using BlackBerry Z10 and its hard time to transfer files between Fedora to BlackBerry and vice versa. Today, I successfully transferred files between Fedora and BlackBerry with help of Bluetooth. I am trying hard to get USB to work, unfortunately I am not able to make it work. So for now let me show you how to transfer files using Bluetooth.

Prepare your system - Get ready with Bluetooth drivers
Previously I was using Windows Phone and I already written article about transferring files between Windows Phone and Fedora. The steps are similar to that. Here is what you have to do to transfer files between Fedora and BlackBerry without any interruption.

Install bluez-hid2hci

Switch to root user and install bluez-hid2hci by issuing following command in terminal

yum install bluez-hid2hci -y

Start Bluetooth Service

To start Bluetooth Service you need issue following command

service bluetooth start

All the steps should be done in root user. Then restart your system to apply new changes.

Add BlackBerry to your PC - connecting device
Now you need to setup BlackBerry device in PC. It is critical part you need to do without any errors. If any error shows up then start from scratch. You need to look for error in both phone and PC. Usually the error occurs when you share pass-code. Follow below steps to setup.

1. Click on Bluetooth icon and Set up a New device.
2. A window opens which look for devices with Bluetooth turned on. You will see your device gets listed in the box. If not, turn on Bluetooth in BlackBerry and make sure your Blackberry is in Discoverable mode. In your PC, press continue if you device get listed.
3. Now check your phone, you will get a pass-phrase, accept the pass-phrase. The pass-phrase is sent from your PC and you can see that the pass-phrase in your PC and phone matches. This step is to make sure that you are making connection intentionally.

Note: If you didn't get pass phrase in this step, then start from step 1. Your phone gets registered in your PC only if you pass this step.

4. Then click next util the window get closed. Now when you press Bluetooth icon you can see your device name like below image.

Transferring files and common errors
To transfer file, click on Bluetooth icon -> Phone Device name -> Connection ON. Then send click on send files to open file manager. There you can choose the file to transfer. Below is the screenshot when you transfer from PC and receive in phone.

Transferring

Receiving

Error 1: Transfer got interrupted
This error occurs when your phone doesn't show as connected. In your phone settings -> Bluetooth -> click on your PC name. It should show connected. Below is the image when my PC is connected to the phone.

Error 2: Unable to transfer
Make sure that you are running Bluetooth service in your PC. To run Bluetooth service you need to be in root user. Then issue following command

service bluetooth start

If again you are not able to transfer then setup device again by following above instruction.

How to enable caps lock notification in Fedora?

Issue:
I don't have caps lock notification light in my keyboard. Is there anyway to enable on-screen caps lock notification in Fedora?

Solution - Using LXPanel
I switched my desktop to LXDE long back. So this solution will be applicable only for those who use LXDE desktop in Fedora. I hope this solution will also work in all LXDE desktop but I am not sure about it.

The caps lock notification that I am talking about belongs to LXPanel. To activate it follow below steps:
1. Right click on the task bar (where you see time, battery level etc) and click on Panel Settings.
2. In Panel Settings, open the third tab Panel Applets.

3. Click on Add button, scroll down to find Keyboard LED. Highlight it and click Add button.

4. You can place it anywhere on the task bar by using up and down option. By pressing up button your applet will move right and left when you press down button.
5. By default, Keyboard LED is will be on for Num Lock and Scroll Lock. You can enable caps lock by right click on the applet and open tick the notification you want.

A button is caps lock applet

6. When you press caps lock the applet will be black out the A letter and gets grey out when cap lock is off.

Since LXDE is light weight version it doesn't support on-screen caps lock notification. Since applet belong to LXDE, the same option will not be available in GNOME 3. This applet feature is bundled with LXDE and so my guess is it should be available in all Linux distros.

If you in other desktop like KDE, GNOME 3, XFCE etc you can install LXDE by issuing following command in terminal.

yum -y groupinstall lxde

You should log in as a root user to perform the installation. If you get any errors related to groupinstall, read this article to fix. It is normal to get errors while performing groupinstall. After installation, to switch to LXDE desktop from any other, you need to install desktop switcher application. There are several working desktop switching tool, you can use any of them.

LXDE clock showing wrong time in Fedora 19

Issue:
Clock shows wrong time. It is showing one hour past time. In the settings I am not able to find option to change time. There is only option for changing the format. How to change the time?

Solution:
To change time open terminal and enter the command system-config-date. This will open an new Window like the below screenshot.

The left screenshot is Terminal and right is the Window opened after providing the command. You can manually set the time by changing Hour, Minute and Second.

Synchronize:
In the above screenshot you might have noticed that there is check box called "Synchronize date and time over the network". You can also use it if you have internet connection. Clicking on the check box shows NTP servers. You can choose any of the Fedora provided servers and in the Time Zone you need select the nearest possible location. You can either you the map or the list to choose the location.

Reason for Wrong Time:
You can use the command timedatectl to check what went wrong. In my case my time zone has been changed. I don't know how it happened but it gives some explanation about the wrong display of the time.

Many users reported that after some update the time gets reset to GMT. But it my case it is different. For me the time change happened during Day light Saving ends. In my country there is no concept called Day Light Saving.

Best video editing software for Fedora

Video Editing Tools for Fedora

There are not much video editing tools that are available for Fedora but sure there is decent tools to get your job done. Here are the tools that I installed in my PC running Fedora 19. Don't worry about the version, the tool that run in F19 will run in older and newer versions too. 

Video Editing Softwares

• Pitvi
• OpenShot
• Cinderella
• Kdeinlive

Pitvi

I won't say Pitvi is fully functional software but it has its own ups and down. I use this tool for my post production process. Using this tool I was able to cut precisely. I tried the same in other tools but it is not as good as Pitvi. Pitvi score high for post production processes. 

Pitivi has good number of options for preparing slide shows. It gives me flexibility to choose different time window for different slides. For example, If I wan't to show the slide 1 for 5 seconds and slide 2 for 45 seconds then it is doable in Pitvi and I didn't find this option in other video editing tools like OpenShot.

OpenShot

This is one of the actively developed software. It has got excellent number of feature but the downside is it prone to crashes. When I used it for first time I was very happy with this software but intermittently it got crashed. I am using Core i3 and 2 GB RAM, may it needs more that that.

However it is one of the best video editing tool available for OpenSource.