I dont know about pre-made stuff but I end up making a lot of my own
software for my own needs. Software really isnt true. I create databases
with webpage front ends. Its pretty simple overall and I get all the
functionality I need.

You might try searching for possibly a web based program that you can
install on your pc and run it through the browser.

Well that sounds very interesting but I haven't the foggiest notion of
what you are talking about. Please enlighten.

Sorry... that wasnt very clear.

Look at these two links:

http://phprecipebook.sourceforge.net/screen.php

http://www.recipewebservice.com/largorecipes/

Largo looks promising but Im stuck. I set up my folders like it
said and downloaded both files. I doubleclicked on the .jar file
but instead of starting LargoRecipes it opens an archiver that asks
me where to extract the files. What program do I need to associate
the .jar files with? Or how do I go about getting this to work.? I
can get the demo pages but not the program itself.

In the repositories is a program called
Gourmet Recipe Manager
One plugin it includes is to import Mastercook recipes.

I've not tried the MC import by I have imported recipes from Recipezaar
and it does decently, with a few tweaks and formatting of the resultant
recipe.

I was totally unable to get this program to work on either PC. If it
did what it claims would be very nice. but neither I nor anyone else
in the ubuntuforums were reporting any success with it.

It works fine for me straight out of the box. A little bit of trying to
figure it out, but that was only a few minutes. Can you give me a link
to the thread in the ubuntu forums?

www.ubuntuforums.org type Gourmet in the search box and will
take you to the thread (s)

Now, what system are you using, which version of ubuntu and what
can you tell us that no one else seems to have been able to figure
out? I tried diligently to get it to work and it just sits
there, doing nothing at all. I could probably type in a
recipe but considering the many thousands I have waiting to be
imported, there is no way I have the time or energy to do that.

You sound frustrated that your system does not perform the way you
want. It would seem that the source of your problem goes back a long
way and it has little to do with deficiencies in Ubuntu.

You are not running a pure Ubuntu system since you installed from Ultimate 2.1
(according to a previous posting) which comes with all sorts of things not found
in Ubuntu itself. The only way to get back to a regular Ubuntu release is to
clean up your repositories so that it only has those found in a regular release
and then Upgrade. It will want to remove lots of things and even then you will
have lots of things leftover on your system. Afterwards, you can clean up from
the command line with sudo apt-get autoremove.

You can continue as you are, but that means that advice such as Emil's may not
work for you. Sometimes you get lucky by using a product such as Ultimate, but
often times it causes more headaches than it resolves in my experience. This
applies to Mint and other wannabes as well. I am happy for people who have had
success with them but it does not mean that it is a panacea for others.

This is my opinion for what it is worth. The best way to use Ubuntu is by
installing Ubuntu from an Ubuntu installation disk. Afterwards you can add other
desktops from the repositories. Adding third party repositories causes
instability and dependency issues which may resolve themselves or not. It is
best not to venture far from standard practice until you are experienced enough
to cope with the ensuing problems. Adding the restricted-extras is a piece of
cake compared to dealing with problems of having a system which is markedly
different from those you seek advice from.

The fact is
my first installation was a standard Ubuntu 8.10 and I wasn't really
happy with it. Then i installed the UE.2.1 on the other machine
and my stuff was running much better, smoother and faster. This
is why I made the switch. Another time I installed Kubuntu- also
8.10 and didn't like it at all. Then I upgraded to 9.04
from a fresh install disk and was not happy with that either.
Almost none of my wine programs will work on it. So back to 8.10
I went. Again this was the standard ubuntu and again I was
disappointed with the performance of wine programs. Reinstalling
UE2.1 seems to have solved all my problems. Only trouble noticed
was with VirtualBox and then I can't blame UE for that one either
because Im also running it on the dual core and VB is working fine
over here.

In all my trials and tribulations I have become somewhat of an expert
in installing Ubuntu LOL I still manage to break stuff from time
to time. When that happens I experiment with other versions and
every single time wind up back with UE 2.1 . It may not work for
all of you, but with My programs on My machines it seems to be
the best choice.

Now I have in my possession the install disk for UE version of
9.04. Next reinstall, in it goes and will see if I like it any
better than the real mccoy.

BTW, the PhenomII performs quite well actually and Im very happy with
it. Twas only VB that gave me trouble.

Hands on experience is the best teacher and you seem to be a quick learner!
Don't give up on Mastercook. I downloaded it and will play with it on my XP VM.
It sounds like you have a powerful enough system if you can run Vista in a VM.
Not being a Vista guy, I can't help much in that department. My Windows days are
long behind me. If something does not work in Linux then I learn to do without
it. Fortunately my needs are modest.

I used to be quite proficient with Photoshop, Corel Draw and Paintshop Pro, but
even that has fallen into disuse as I have taught myself to use the Gimp and
Inkscape. There isn't much I can't do with them. The basics are there; it is
just a matter of re-learning them in a new environment. A professional
photographer may need more features and be willing to shell out big bucks for
Photoshop, but most people don't need it. I feel the same way about most other
Windows programmes. Most users don't use all of the advanced features of
MSOffice for example, so can get by with OpenOffice.

It is more that most people do not want to re-learn which is why I find
ex-Windows users like you to be refreshing. You are willing to take on new
challenges and try new things. Incidentally, Gourmet does not work on my
computer either. However, my system is far from the standard Ubuntu/ Kubuntu
installation.

Just for the record, I have NEVER liked Windows. I was a diehard
DOS fan. The company I worked for was chosen for a test site for
Bill Gates and company back in the earliest version of Windows cant
remember the number but was wayyyy before 3.1. I didn't like it
then and like it even less now. Had I known about ubuntu earlier I
would have made the switch then. I tried Linspire once but just
couldn't get the hang of it.
Now all that being said. I like Vista better than XP and never
thot I would be caught dead saying that.

Yes I have migrated almost totally to Linux programs, but there is
no alternative for Mastercook and that one is extremely important to
me since I Love to Cook. One by one my wine programs are
disappearing as I find viable alternatives, but not ready to give
them all up yet.

Just for the record, I have NEVER liked Windows. I was a diehard
DOS fan. The company I worked for was chosen for a test site for
Bill Gates and company back in the earliest version of Windows cant
remember the number but was wayyyy before 3.1. I didn't like it
then and like it even less now. Had I known about ubuntu earlier I
would have made the switch then. I tried Linspire once but just
couldn't get the hang of it.
Now all that being said. I like Vista better than XP and never
thot I would be caught dead saying that.

Yes I have migrated almost totally to Linux programs, but there is
no alternative for Mastercook and that one is extremely important to
me since I Love to Cook. My personal cookbook contains several
thousand recipes would hate to lose them.

I'm just buttering you up because someday I may need help from you! Keep up the
posting. It will be good to hear how you are making out with your VM and
Mastercook. I got it installed but it is not working for me, yet. I get a
cryptic error that the program [sic] cannot run with an active debugger in
memory. I have never seen that before. Other programmes work great.

I have got Gourmet to install and run and it does say it imports Mastercook
files, but since you now have Mastercook working via the VM that is unneeded. I
will give it a try as I am the cook in our family and have lots of recipes. I
have in the past just printed to pdf which is so easy with Linux.

Welll now. Seems like a recipe exchange might be in the future
somewhere.

I'm running Mint (Gloria), and there's a tiny bit of truth in what you are
saying. There's one quirk in my system which I would like to eliminate,
although it doesn't seem to cause any real problems. I'm not sure if it's
actually due to Mint.

I completely ignore the "Mintness" of my system, and treat it as a standard
Ubuntu installation. That is working out fine for me. I've got Ubuntu Server
running in a VirtualBox...

Can someone explain Mint to me...........

Mint is a lot like Ultimate Edition. When I install Mint, I can play DVDs, MP3s
and Youtube videos -- immediately, without having to download anything.

Other than that, it is Ubuntu. It uses the Ubuntu repositories, etc. There is
one Mint repository, but I don't know what is different in it.

The only odd thing is that Mint comes with no games.

There are also few visual differences, just a bottom menu bar, different
notification of updates, a slightly different presentation of the programs you
can run.

Sounds interesting. Where can I find it?

Downloading now, perhaps this will solve my nbpro
problem, keeping fingers crossed.

I tried to answer on the Ubuntu forums website but every time I tried to
save it said I had typed nothing in. Possibly a short time glitch?

Anyway- I'm running dual boot of Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty and Ubuntu Mint 7
Gloria. I'm using the Gnome desktop with GDM (Gnome Desktop Manager).
I downloaded Gourmet directly from the installed repositories (that is -
not third party). I do remember the first time it took a while to
start. I can see it doing so as it needs to build its dot directory
(.gourmet) in the home folder. It works well under both OSs.

Once started I click on FILE > IMPORT WEBPAGE and then paste the URL of
the page (usually recipezarr such as
"www.recipezaar.com/Ginger-Honey-Glazed-Barbecued-Pork-Chops-182997")
and it giver me a whole window of info and red tags. I usually clear
all tags immediately,then hide as much junk as possible (navigation,
ads, footers) and start adding tags starting at the top of the list.
Once I get all the tags I save it and then reopen it for edit, as it is
now in the recipe card format, and then I can do the final tweaks - such
as grouping ingredients - such as for a sauce or topping.

I'm not big time into recipes but I'm a recipezaar member (free) and
look up stuff for the two of us - two diabetics with allergies to:
alcohol, fermented items such as pickles and olives, shell food,
cherries, etc. And I love the way they let you do multiple filters to
both filter in and filter out.

Gourmet 0.14.54 on an older Dell desktop with Pentium 4 processor chip
and 384 MEGA bytes ram (128+256).

OK, Gonna give it another try. Last night even I tried the import
webpage option it was an allrecipe.com page and was promptly told
of an error. It gave me nothing. Will try recipezaar tonite as
I like their site too.

Here is a PDF output done as recipe cards from the site that you listed:

http://private.angelwoodpines.org/Chicken%20and%20Bacon%20Shish%20Kabobs.pdf

Sorry Emil the link you posted doesn't work either. I get this error
message saying there are no recipes on the page same as before. You
must have just the ideal situation for that program. Sometimes newer
just ain't "better". Is OK Mastercook and VB are working on this
one so thats all I need. Was able to install my MC backups a bit
ago and all went well. Have tested a few recipes with the
MCtoolbar and its working too
I am Happy. It will take linux-ubuntu a very long time to come up
with a program that works as well as MC.

VirtualBox isn't an operating system so what did you install to run
Mastercook?
I've used VirtualBox under Ubuntu to run Win XP and could access the
Internet just fine. Did you enable networking, USB ports etc?

I installed Vista, yes I can access the internet but that browser
is LAME. I tried to install IE but it just wouldn't let me. It
will access the internet but NOT from within Mastercook, I have to
go to the main menu and ask for the homepage. Did I do something wrong?

You might have better luck with XP. From all that I hear Vista is a real
dog. I can run the software for one of our national political parties
through a VPN from VirtualBox on XP under Ubuntu. I don't care for IE either
(use Opera)!
If all is set up correctly the guest operating system can't tell that it is
being hosted and believes it is in total control.
Are you using the latest VBox?

Mastercook only works with IE unfortunately I don't care for it but
there is no other choice. Yes I have the latest Vbox as far as I am
aware.