Restoring Grub after Reinstalling Windows

Okay, you've had a very nice dual boot system with windows and linux set up, and you had to reinstall windows due to some some virus/upgrade/other issue. Boom! the first thing you see (or rather don't :P) after you restart is the windows boot loader which does not seem to be generous enough to show the ubuntu OS. This is in contrast to the Ubuntu boot loader (GRUB) which accommodates for other installed operating systems too. (For this reason, if you are setting up/reinstalling the whole system, it is generally advisable to first install windows, and then install Ubuntu.. This way, the windows boot loader will get replaced by GRUB which will allow you to boot into both the OSs).
Anyways, coming to our original issue, you have messed up with your boot loaders and now want to be able to boot into both the OSs.. do this:
1. Insert the Ubuntu Live CD and boot into it.
2. Once the CD gets booted, go to the live session and open a terminal.
3. Type 'sudo grub'. You will see a grub prompt like:
grub>
After this, type the following commands:
4. grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
- This will give you something like '(hdx,y)'
6. grub> root (hdx,y)
7. grub> setup (hdx)
8. grub> quit

Now, reboot the system, don't forget to remove the LiveCD and you should see your rocking dual boot system back!

References: check this.

Disabling Update notifier popup in ubuntu

Folks who use Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) might be bugged by a particularly irritating feature: as soon as you log in, the update-notifier pops in and asks you to upgrade - and keeps popping in forever at regular intervals! Some (or most) people get irritated when they see a pop-up anywhere while they are working..

Here's how you disable this annoying pop-up:
1. Open the terminal
2. Type the following command:
gconftool -s --type bool /apps/update-notifier/auto_launch false

- If, for some reason, you want to revert back, you can issue the same command and type 'true' instead of false.

Source: click here (this one also gives a GUI based method)

Welcome!

Welcome, folks, to my technical blog! Here's a bit of what I intend to share with you on this blog...

I intend to share some basic computer science things, nothing esoteric - things which could help you to manage your desktop better, or maybe just enhance your knowledge. As an IITian, I have a chance to learn a lot of new things which I would never have otherwise learnt. I intend to share those with all of you. I intend to prove that some things you can do with your computer are really simple and do not need a computer 'expert' to fix.

Note: The things I will share here could be things I got from the internet, in which case, I will provide relevant links for you to check out. Some solutions are developed by myself with the help of some of my friends at IIT, to whom I will always be thankful. So watch out for my next post!

Enjoy Reading guys!!

-Dhaval