Installing Matlab 2008a on Ubuntu 10.10

Update: This method also worked in Ubuntu 11.04.

So I successfully installed Matlab on Ubuntu after much ado. Here’s how I did it.

First mount the matlab ISO:

sudo mkdir /media/matlab

sudo mount matu2k8a.iso /media/matlab/ -t iso9660 -o loop

Create a base directory for Matlab manually:

sudo mkdir /usr/local/matlab

Go to where the ISO is mounted and run the installer:

sudo ./install

Give the path of the directory we’ve already created for the Matlab base directory. Give the serial key and the license file when prompted.

After the setup is completed, don’t start Matlab. Create a .matlab directory in your home and give user permissions.

mkdir ~/.matlab

sudo chown -R ${USER}:${USER} ~/.matlab

Done! Now you can run Matlab using the command:

sh /usr/local/matlab/bin/matlab

You can of course add a shortcut to your main menu.

EDIT: When you’re adding a shortcut to the main menu or desktop, add the “-desktop” option (without quotes) at the end of the command, otherwise only the popup screen will be displayed.

puddletag – Cool MP3 tagger for linux

I’ve been using Kid3 for my audio tagging needs for a long time. The in-built tagging functionality of Rhythmbox isn’t suitable for tagging multiple items. Then UbuntuGeek tells me about puddletag.

Puddletag is the best tagger I’ve seen. It’s got almost all the functionality you’ll need to manage your music collection. The options include downloading tag data from various online sources and renaming the file names. The app’s still in its beta and the deb installer can be downloaded here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trending topics in Seesmic Web

IMHO Seesmic Web is the coolest twitter web client out there. One of its coolest features is deciphering the meanings of weird trending topics for us.

For example Zack Snyder was the top trend today. Being the ignorant boy, I was elated when Seesmic Web told me who Zack Snyder really was.

Zack Snyder

Sometimes it can make your day.