Archive for February, 2010
February 28, 2010 at 10:53 am ·
KDE on your netbook. Sounds pretty. The eye-catching style of KDE 4.3 is growing on me, actually. And so I am beginning to wonder how it would be like to use it instead of GNOME. Heading to the KDE page on the Plasma Netbook made me drool. The interface for KDE on the netbook has the SAL acronym which stands for Search and Launch. Sounds like something I’d definitely use. The reason why I love using GNOME-Do is that the launcher just lets me search for stuff instead of looking for them in their supposed exact location. And now KDE will adopt such an interface. Coolness.
Interestingly enough, they made an application switching widget on the top left corner. Aside from that, this particular flavor of KDE makes it easier for users to access social networking and microblogging services quickly. There [...]
Full story: Clair Ching
February 28, 2010 at 9:43 am ·
I learned about Tonido from Scribbles and Snaps’ blog entry non two open source tools for photographers. It was stated there that Tonido is a tool which you could use to share photos with other people from your desktop without having to upload them to a different service. Although it is possible to share them online too.
So what’s with Tonido?
It’s one heck of an all-around server but a lot of the things you want to share, you don’t have to upload via FTP clients and stuff like that. First you just install Tonido on your computer. Then run the script for Tonido. Once you run the script, your web browser will be launched and you will be asked to enter your preferred Tonido ID and you could check if it’s available. Once you set that, you could start playing around with the settings of Tonido. You could start adding [...]
Full story: Clair Ching
February 28, 2010 at 9:43 am ·
Some of the things that make KDE and GNOME awesome are the widgets and applets that they have. As well as some related applications. I’ve been using KDE almost exclusively on my older laptop at work and I’ve become pretty much accustomed to KDE there. In fact, I miss using KDE from time to time.
So which KDE widgets do I like a lot?
Picture frame. Yes, a simple looking picture frame makes my days happier. Why? Because those pictures I see from time to time keep me sane. That or they remind me of some good things when I am feeling stressed out.
Twitter widget. I don’t have Tweetdeck because I think that that will keep me from working at all. Meanwhile, the Twitter widget only shows a certain number of tweets every so often. In that case, I know that those tweets [...]
Full story: Clair Ching
February 28, 2010 at 8:37 am ·
Speaking of Ubuntu, the Ubuntu derivative with LXDE as a default desktop environment looks great. I just started looking at some of the screenshots of Lubuntu 10.04. There are screenshots from Alpha 3 and Alpha 4. Looks like I might consider upgrading to Lubuntu 10.04 instead of the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Why? The screenshots I saw convinced me that LXDE in its netbook session mode is a good option. Although I’d have to see if it could be used permanently because it does look nifty.
Lubuntu 10.04 will have the following applications as deaults:
Chromium
gnome-mplayer
network manager
Pcmanfm2
The new login screen looks beautiful too.
In any case, I am once again looking for other options for my netbook. I like vanilla OpenBox but because my sister’s been borrowing my netbook often on weekends, I’d like her to have a better user experience. Lubuntu could help in making [...]
Full story: Clair Ching
February 28, 2010 at 8:37 am ·
Familiar with how the Ubuntu Netbook Remix looks like? The screenshot on this article about Ubuntu on ARM-based devices made me think it was UNR. They’re designing a new user interface that looks quite like UNR. There’s a challenge with regards to graphics drivers and so far they’ve found a different interface to be the possible solution. The new interface will be using Enlightenment Foundation Libraries. This interface is also said to be based on Edje. The sample themes are beautiful and they are said to be possible to create even if you don’t have a lot of programming background. That simply sounds awesome.
What’s the big deal with using the EFL for the launcher for netbooks?
It means that even if your machine does not have the 3D hardware for the awesome effects, it will be fine. That’s why it’s great for ARM-based [...]
Full story: Clair Ching
February 28, 2010 at 6:22 am ·
As someone who writes blog entries, documentation, and stories, I find myself having to consult the dictionary from time to time. Especially when there are words I don’t use often and they are the more appropriate words to use. Fortunately, there’s an offline dictionary application. It’s called Artha.
What’s awesome about Artha?
Well, for starters, it’s available even when you’re offline. Also, the graphical user interface on this dictionary application is pretty good too. There is a space for entering the word you are searching for. And if you make a mistake in spelling it, you could also see the suggestions for the proper spelling of the word. If you’re not sure at all, then just select one of them and click the word. You will be shown the meaning and its usage. At the bottom, there are several tabs too. They show the synonyms, antonyms, derivatives, attribute of information and similar [...]
Full story: Clair Ching
February 28, 2010 at 6:22 am ·
If you’ve been using Linux and having doubts that you could make a difference, then take a look at this article about three young Linux and free and open source geekettes at the Linux Expo. How young are they? They’re 8 and 12 years of age. Mirano Cafiero and Saskia and Malakai Wade were able to talk about technologies they use such as GIMP, Tux Paint, OLPC XO and Open Shot. These girls use the OLPC XO to do digital paintings as well as collaborate on stories.
You don’t have to be an adult nor a man to be an advocate of Linux and free and open source software. You just have to be someone who’s familiar with these applications as well as the philosophies and related technologies. It could be quite overwhelming, yes. But if you’re someone who has immersed himself/herself in [...]
Full story: Clair Ching
February 28, 2010 at 5:13 am ·
So earlier, I posted about Ubuntu’s upcoming support for the iPod Touch as well as the iPhone. That’s something cool. Aside from the support for the iPod Touch and iPhone, there are other interesting features coming to Ubuntu such as:
MeMenu
Facebook Chat on Empathy
Better Sound Control
The MeMenu is something that some users might love and some user might hate it. Why? It is a feature that makes it easy for people to go and broadcast things on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. It also gives you an overview of what’s going on in those social networks. Some people who love being connected might love this feature but there are those who’d wonder why the heck would you want this from the panel? I personally use a Twitter widget on KDE so this is one thing I’d appreciate.
Facebook now has support for XMPP [...]
Full story: Clair Ching
February 27, 2010 at 9:05 pm ·
Just when I wanted to know if there are other torrent client on Linux, there is a listing of the torrent clients on Linux. Thanks to distrotest.com! And amazingly enough their list gives us an idea of how much RAM these torrent clients consume.
By default I am using Transmission in Ubuntu. I never really bothered checking how much RAM it uses but compared to a whole lot of them, it uses way less RAM at 10 MB. No wonder I hardly feel it running in the background. I like using it because of the settings it has like setting the speed limit, as well as giving priority to certain files.
There is this one torrent client I got interested in. It’s called Frostwire. It’s said to be compatible with iTunes. Now there are magnet torrent links support here too. As a [...]
Full story: Clair Ching
February 27, 2010 at 6:38 pm ·
Hrmm. I’ve been using VirtualBox for a month now and there are things I don’t quite understand with it yet. As I’ve been trying to catch up with some other tasks, I haven’t been able to solve certain mysteries about it. One of which that bugs me the most is that launching VirtualBox sometimes makes my laptop restart. I’ve encountered those times that I saw my laptop restart at least 3 consecutive times. Each of them happened while launching VirtualBox. It’s pretty annoying because that’s VirtualBox and I need it for testing some things for work.
So yeah here are some symptoms:
When launching VirtualBox, my laptop restarts without me doing anything.
At first it had something to do with hibernate and swapping. However, as evidenced by the first symptom, it’s not just after I resume from hibernate then launch VirtualBox.
There are times when the VirtualBox xml file [...]
Full story: Clair Ching
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