Tag Archives: OMG THE LAPTOP!!!!

Karmic Win pt. 6, Gnome-do & Twitter [Linux FTW]

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2009-11-11-202755Yesterday, we discussed using the new “UbuntuOne” cloud service, and integrating it into numerous apps on Karmic.

A while back, I discovered the Avant Window Navigator, a Mac-style docking program (available through the USC). Matt McKimmy had commented on that post, mentioning the program Gnome-Do.

At that time, I had checked out Gnome-Do, found it interesting but was still infatuated with my fancy Mac-esque dock, so I never really got around to using it.

This time though, Gnome-Do came pre-loaded with the Karmic installation, and I decided to give it a shot for a while. Browsing through the preferences, I noticed some plugins and integration tools that I hadn’t noticed the first time around; or maybe they just weren’t offered, not really sure.

Gnome-Do, written to function sort of like “Quicksilver” on Macs, is a genius little app that does it all. My favorite aspect of it so far is its integration with Twitter though. Continue reading →

Karmic Win pt. 5, the Cloud [Linux FTW]

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2009-11-10-200859In the last post we discussed using Rhythmbox music player, linking it up to last.fm and configuring it. I will do a future post comparing it to Amarok and Banshee.

With this new version of Ubuntu, they’ve introduced a really awesome new feature that shows a lot of potential. It’s called “Ubuntu One“.

Ubuntu One is a cloud-based platform that allows, at the least, file synchronization across Linux PCs (have not yet discovered a way to synchronize with Windows PC also, but I’m looking!). But really, this service offers the potential to really synchronize ANYTHING with the cloud service and some other applications, including Firefox, Tomboy notes, Evolution, and others, have already created plugins to jump on this.

All users are given 2 GB of space, for free (comparable to services such as Mozy), but upgrading to a whopping 50GB is only $10 / month. By comparison, Mozy only charges $4.95 / month, but that price is “per computer”. Since this service is really intended to be used as a cross-computer synchronization service, using it with 2 computers is essentially an equal price. (Are you REALLY going to be backing up more than 50GB of data?) Additionally, Mozy requires a special “MozyPro” plan for businesses / commercial use, and UbuntuOne makes no distinction (to be fair, Mozy does not support Linux natively, either… so if you’re using Linux, it’s really a non-option anyways. :) )

So how does one get on board with this service? It’s easier than it sounds. Continue reading →

Karmic Win pt. 4, Firefox Win [Linux FTW]

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2009-11-07-182500In the last post, we discussed using Rhythmbox media player and integrating with Last.fm.

Karmic Koala installs Firefox 3.5, the newest version, natively. It’s pretty sweet. It runs a lot faster and has two features I really like: bookmark tagging and the ability to pull tabs out and toss them in other Firefox windows. (Google Chrome did this first, and it’s SUCH a handy feature sometimes)

These instructions below mostly apply to 64-bit linux, since in 32-bit linux they’re somewhat trivial. 64-bit is garnering more and more support though, which is awesome.

One feature I had thought to include initially was instructions on synchronizing bookmarks with the UbuntuOne cloud, but I’ll save that for tomorrow when I discuss the cloud in more detail.

So! How does one win with Firefox? Let’s start with some more integration… Continue reading →

Karmic Win pt. 3, Playing Music [Linux FTW]

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Freyja is excited about Rhythmbox!The previous post in this series discussed configuring the desktop to integrate with Google applications.

Being able to play music while working is one of the nice perks of modern computers. On Linux, there are several different applications you can use for it.

A couple of them are very basic media players that don’t really organize anything — VLC, Mplayer, and a few others like that. There are a couple others that do iTunes style organization such as Amarok and Rhythmbox. I’ve had a little experience with Amarok, and while I really love how it looks and the potential features, I can never seem to get it to work correctly. Rhythmbox, though, is slightly more simple but has proven to be very reliable.

To really maximize the usage of Rhythmbox, there are a couple small things that need to be done first:

  • Enable mp3 support (mp3 is not natively supported, since the codec is licensed)
  • Hook up to last.fm, for internet radio
  • Configure Rhythmbox and its plugins

Continue reading →

Karmic win pt. 2, Google & your Desktop [Linux FTW]

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2009-11-07-171305Continuation of the Karmic Win series — part 1 was about installation and initial setup.

One thing I noticed right away when I first started poking around in Karmic Koala was the little envelope icon in the upper-right corner, by the network monitor and sound volume.

Clicking on it shows “Empathy, Evolution Mail”. Evolution Mail I recognized; it’s the mail client that’s been distributed with Ubuntu for a long time. (Intended to work as an Outlook replacement) Empathy I was unfamiliar with, though. I poked around some more and found that Empathy is an instant messenging client.

Cool.

In the past, when I was on Hardy Heron, I would use a Prism app for gMail / gTalk. It was pretty lightweight, but if we can integrate it even more closely with the desktop, that’s all the better.

Now if you recall, we’ve discussed before about linking the Evolution calendar to Google Calendar. That was my original intent, but in the back of my mind I recalled that gMail has recently made POP/IMAP access available, making gMail even more attractive as an email host. The wheels are churning… oh, and what’s that I see in Empathy? Google Talk? hmm…. Continue reading →

Karmic win, part 1 [Linux FTW]

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WIN!Karmic Koala, the alias for release 9.10 of Ubuntu Linux, was published last week.

Until now, I had been running version 8.04 (Hardy Heron) and had passed on the two successive releases (Intrepid Ibex, v8.10, and Jaunty Jackalope, v9.04). The manufacturers of my laptop had advised that those newer versions, both of which were available when I purchased 5 months ago, had lackluster support for my video card.

So I waited.

A few days before Karmic released, I saw that NVidia had released a new version of the drivers for my video card — now was the time, it would seem.

I downloaded a live CD of both 9.04 and 9.10, to compare, and checked it out.

Wow.

Jaunty (9.04) was ok — it looked basically the same as what I already had, but perhaps with some updates. But Karmic…wow. They have revamped many of the icons, visual elements, and verbiage used. There are new applications. There is now a free cloud service to do document synchronization across computers. The more I used it, the more I liked — it seems like this time around, Canonical (the publishers) have started to bring everything together cohesively.

Based on what I’ve seen so far, Ubuntu is nearly ready for the mainstream; it’s far easier to use. While there are still plenty of advanced things that are POSSIBLE to do, they are very rarely required.

This post is the first of a miniseries documenting the various features, some tricks and ways to integrate the software to (theoretically) increase productivity. Before I get to the good stuff, let’s talk about the installation: Continue reading →