Sidebar missing?

October 31st, 2006

Legend has it, the sidebar on the right is missing.

I’ll look into getting that sorted soon. If you could leave a comment with the error message you see, that’d really help.

Sorry for any inconvenience!

Update: The sidebar has returned to us!
Update 2: It’s apparent that most sidebar problems occur in Internet Explorer 6 and below, consider using Firefox.
- Matt

Dvorak, the typing alternative

October 23rd, 2006

Everyone’s heard of the QWERTY keyboard layout, it’s on every keyboard and typewriter, and is the default setting for all operating systems.keys

QWERTY originated when the first typewriter was developed, which typed letters from below. The original layout read alphabetically “ABCDEF” were the first letters. However, the first typewriter had problems. Each time you pressed a key, the arm flew upward (remember, typing from below) and made the ink impression on the bottom of the sheet. Then, gravity pulled the arm down, and you had to wait for it to come down before you could type the next key. Read the rest of this entry »

New Desktop, Major Changes!

October 22nd, 2006

Screenshot

As you can see, I’ve removed the top bar, and shrunk things down a little.

The bottom is transparent, and looks alot nicer than before.

As the “show desktop” button and the “wastebasket” button had to be removed from the panel, I put a wastebasket icon on the desktop, and set my previously useless Windows Key to trigger the desktop.

Kubuntu 6.06 Experience

October 21st, 2006

Today a Kubuntu CD came in the post for me (yay!) and I’ve just been running it on my system via. the Live CD.

It’s fast. Very fast. Even running from the CD it was nice to use, and I was changing wallpapers without any lag. Speedwise I couldn’t compare to Ubuntu, as the CD speeds are similar, and I didn’t actually install Kubuntu.

I wouldn’t use it as a primary OS just yet, as I have *alot* more experience with GNOME, but maybe in the future I could consider it.

This is the OS, as it would boot from a fresh install:
snapshot

This is the OS running a standard transparent Konsole/Terminal:
snapshot

This is the beginning of the installation, at language selection:
snapshot

And this is the OS once I’d shrunk the bar down to a size I liked:
snapshot
It’s certainly a fairly good looking OS, even before customization, I even took some wallpapers off the CD for use in Ubuntu.   ;)

Kubuntu 6.10 is set to look even better, so I may try that once it’s released in it’s final state on the 26th of October.

IE7.com

October 20th, 2006

Sure IE7.com is a microsoft owned domain, redirecting to the internet explorer 7 page?

Why don’t you click it and see? http://www.ie7.com

“Small Number” of iPod Videos have Windows Virus!

October 19th, 2006

I couldn’t help laughing when I saw this one! http://www.apple.com/support/windowsvirus/

One of those “virus” things Windows users get were shipped with a few of the new iPods. Hey maybe mine has one, for all I care, it can have a thousand, Linux protects me from that.  Haha, had to get that dig in there. ;)

Apple:
“We recently discovered that a small number - less than 1% - of the Video iPods available for purchase after September 12, 2006, left our contract manufacturer carrying the Windows RavMonE.exe virus. This known virus affects only Windows computers, and up to date anti-virus software which is included with most Windows computers should detect and remove it. So far we have seen less than 25 reports concerning this problem. The iPod nano, iPod shuffle and Mac OS X are not affected, and all Video iPods now shipping are virus free. As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.”

That last bit is great, laughed some more reading that… Although, one little thing. I’m assuming all the computers behind iPod manufactuering are Mac based, right? How did a WinVirus manage to sneak it’s way through and onto some iPods? Do Apple use Windows behind the scenes? :?

Something fun to ponder there, whilst you’re checking for viruses! :D

Edgy Eft RC1 Available to Public

October 19th, 2006

Not only does Release Candidate 1 mark Eft’s coming out of Beta, it marks next week’s arival of the final release.

For more information on the release, see Official Edgy Release Notes or read the post below.

To upgrade from Dapper Drake to Edgy Eft Release Candidate 1, simply hold Alt, tap F2 and type/paste:

gksudo “update-manager -c -d”

The “-c” tells the update manager to immeadiatley check for updates, and the “-d” tells it to look for non-final releases too. The manager will notify you of RC1 and give you the change to GUI upgrade. :)

Edgy Eft only a week away, Feisty Fawn announced.

October 18th, 2006

Only one week to the Edgy Eft final release date!

Release candidate 1 is set to be released tomorrow, and it’ll have one week of bug fixes and alot of development meetings I hope to attend, before the final release date on October 26th.

Basically Edgy has GNOME 2.16, a new faster smoother Upstart init redone bootup sequence, a nicer default theme, a generally smoother finish, updates for all included applications, the latest linux kernel and faster shutdown performance, which will hopefully see me shutting down in less than 5 seconds. (Currently takes around 10 ;))

As for Feisty Fawn, Mark Shuttleworth himself described the fawn (in an email to the development announce team) as “a young deer that sets out to explore a world that is new and exciting - seeing the world through eyes unprejudiced by what has gone before.” (Sorry, has to laugh here, when was the last time you Windows users got an email from Bill Gates himself? Never? Oh right, thought so)

He also mentioned that we can expect alot more features and improvements available to the immeadiate end user, which is brilliant news.

Keep up the good work, team!

Microsoft buy Blinkx

October 12th, 2006

A few days after Google accquire Youtube, Microsoft signs it’s own deal on purchasing Blinkx.

I’m not even going to write about this. The fact that Vista is a replica of Mac, Blinkx is a wannabe Youtube, and that Microsoft are left with little or no originality whatsoever is enough to annoy me to the state of not wanting to write.  :(

Click here to read the full story as told by someone else.

Addition: Also remembered Microsoft’s iPod Clone, the Zune which also annoys me.
Sick of Microsoft? Please, add me to msn at msn@moture.net - I personally will help you through every step of getting rid of Windows and moving onto Linux. Seriously, just get away from microsoft, now!

Urgh, I can’t believe I’m even writing about them.

- Matt

1.65 Billion Dollar YouTube Takeover

October 10th, 2006

Everyone’s talking about it, it’s all over the news, so you’ve probably heard all about it.googleyo

Which means I won’t ramble on. If you want the info, click a link in the “Everyone” at the start of this post.

My thoughts:
Google Video is better than YouTube. Just integrate YouTube into Google Video, set youtube.com to redirect and get everyone to shut up!

Links:
google video | youtube | digg