1) Create a spreadsheet by Google

Go to http://docs.google.com and click on New >> Spreadsheet. Assign a name and save it. Let’s call our file “My List”. Click on Form >> Create a form, and create a form.

Save the form.

2) Add this gadget to your iGoogle or blog or website. Edit the setting of the gadget by clicking on the icon placed on right top of the menu bar, the downside looking arrow. Enter the ID of the Google form in Form ID. You can find the form ID from the url of the Google form that you have created. If the form url is

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pzHFFuQjqvWx0ZQTRKePsVw&hl=en

then the Form ID is pzHFFuQjqvWx0ZQTRKePsVw

3) Now you should have your form in your iGoogle/blog/website page as:

You can adjust wide and height of the form from menu and fit the form to the gadget. Now, you are ready to fill in the form. Every time that you are submitting an item, you do not need to refresh whole page to refill the form. Just click on the refresh icon placed under the form. You can open and edit the form using those handy icons beside refresh icon.

In case you would like to see the filled form in your iGoogle/blog/website, you can use this gadget. Add it to your your iGoogle page or blog or website, and edit settings. Change Form ID to your own form ID. If you would like to see all of the items, enter * in index field. If you want to see just items associated with some checkboxes in the form, enter desired checkboxes items in index field. For example, suppose that we would like to have items with “Take” in their 3rd column. Therefore,

To avoid showing timestamps and header row, we choose start row and start column equal 2. It is possible to show the first column bigger (or smaller) than other ones by adjusting “First item size”. It is also possible to use different background and text colours for odd and even items. Colour codes can be found here.

This is screenshot of our example:

Enjoy it!

You can get a free Ubuntu from their website. It’s in the form of an image file and a friend of mine burnt it on a CD. I knew that Windows and Ubuntu(Linux) are using different file systems. So, I was not expecting to have both of them on my laptop. I had used PartitionMagic to create partitions with different file system before, but I was not willing to do that. On the other hand, it was tempting to have both Windows and Linux on my system, mostly because of being a newbie in Linux and being used to some programs that I only have their Windows version.

After inserting Ubuntu CD in CD drive and booting, I found out that I can easily have both Windows and Ubuntu on my system and Ubuntu can take care of the annoying partitioning process. So, I “recovered” my Windows by the recovery CD and started installing Ubuntu. Since I was completely determined to switch from Ubuntu to Windows, I assigned most of the hard drive to Ubuntu. Later I found out that Ubuntu is able to see and use the Windows partition but Windows cannot see the Ubuntu partition. So, if you are about to install Ubuntu, have this in mind.

Ubuntu is cool, but after working for 11 years in Windows and forgetting commend line environment, I need to spend a lot of time to learn it. To figure out how to extract a rar file, I spent almost three hours reading forums and blogs. The solution was to install a rar engine by:

to get into tmp directory:
$ cd /tmp

to download rar engine from rarlab:
$ wget http://www.rarlab.com/rar/rarlinux-3.6.0.tar.gz

to untar the file downloaded:

$ tar -zxvf rarlinux-3.6.0.tar.gz

to copy rar and unrar to the bin folder, so that they can be called in anywhere:

$ sudo cp rar unrar /bin

“sudo” should be used here to kinda permit you to copy files to /bin.
After executing those commends, you can extract rar files by running:

$ unrar x file.rar

in the folder which contains file.rar. This works also for divided rar files. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find out how can I redirect the extracted files to other folders directly and this was the part took a lot of time.

If you are a fan of Latex, as me, and you are wondering how you can use Latex in Ubuntu, I should say it is easy after you wandering for five hours in blogs, websites and forums. You can install TETex (which contains PDFLatex) by

sudo apt-get install tetex-base tetex-extra tetex-bin

After executing that in the terminal, go to the folder which contains your Tex file and simply run

pdflatex yourfile.tex

where yourfile.tex is obviously the name of the Latex file. Hopefully, you will be lucky enough to have your pdf file made. If you encountered with any error and you do want to work on Latex files as easy as how you used to work in WinEdt, install Lyx by

sudo apt-get install lyx

Now, if you enter lyx in the command line and enter, Lyx will be invoked. The only problem that I had with Lyx was EPS files. It was not able to handle EPS files. After skimming forums, I found out that Lyx needs a converter to convert graphic files to its own format. This can be done by installing Imagemagick using

sudo apt-get install imagemagick

Now, I have basic tools in Ubuntu and that means I should stop idling and start working!
PS.
1. If you are going to use those commands, do at entirely your own risk!
2. I read in Lyx’s Wiki that tetex is not maintained any more and they strongly recommend to install the package texlive instead.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Kahlil Gibran