Andrew Currie

Ah, the first of the month — time to back up my data to optical media, my NAS, Dropbox… And this month there’s a new tool in my arsenal. It’s called Clonezilla.

Developed at the National Center for High Performance Computing in Taiwan, Clonezilla will make a byte-for-byte, partition-for-partition copy of whatever you tell it to. And of course it’s free — even better, it’s been released under the GPL for everyone to benefit from.

Running from a live CD or USB stick, Clonezilla will guide you through the cloning process with a series of text-based screens, or give you a command line prompt if you really know what you’re doing.

I cloned my Linux Mint install before trying out KDE & openSUSE, and reverting back to the exact OS I had more than a week prior was astonishingly easy. You just have to pay attention to the instructions and make sure that whatever you’re cloning to is bigger than what you’re cloning from.

There’s an old saying that there are but two kinds of computer users — those who have lived through a catastrophic loss of data and those who are about to. Whatever your personal backup strategy happens to be, there’s probably a place in it for Clonezilla as well.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some computers to back up and clone…

Okay, before we go any further I need to make it clear that we’re not talking about the latest adult video release, but rather a networking utility for Linux. Sorry. That cheeky tagline comes straight from the author. And it’s true!

Anyone using the GNOME desktop environment with their Linux distribution will probably be using Nautilus as a file manager as well. Among other handy features — like tabbed windows, for example — Nautilus has support for mounting Samba shares (like my NAS) built-in.

As I’ve chosen the more lightweight Xfce for my netbook the default file manager isn’t Nautilus but Thunar — a very capable app in its own right, but without any Samba support.

Fortunately, the latest release of Xubuntu also comes bundled with Gigolo. Let’s check it out…

Here’s Gigolo’s interface. Note that my router (also with media server support) and NAS are automagically mounted, and that I’ve already connected to a Samba share. You can save any shared folder as a bookmark for a quick and easy reconnection. Handy.

And Samba is just one of the file sharing protocols supported, as you can see above.

So how does Gigolo integrate with your file manager? Quite easily, as it turns out… Just click on a connected folder and it will open up in whatever you’ve got on board.

In the desktop grab above you can see:

• Gigolo connected to my NAS in the top-left corner;
• The shared folder open in Thunar at the bottom-left;
• An awesome free download streaming in Totem to the right.

Okay, it’s actually paused but trust me, it works…

And yes, there were a couple of additional steps I had to perform to get my file manager/Gigolo connection working properly — but it’s as easy as downloading the five packages listed here then copying and pasting the highlighted terminal commands here. Once that’s done you’ve got yourself a rock-solid LAN sharing app with more functionality than even the mighty Nautilus on its own.

Gigolo was designed for Xfce but according to the author it can be used in any desktop environment, so long as GTK v2.12 or newer is also present.

Many of you will consider this a huge step backwards. I consider it a small step forwards, and this fuzzy terminal grab is the reason why. Permit me to explain — but first, a quick refresher…

This refugee from Apple bought a Linux-powered Eee PC last spring, and promptly swapped out the default Xandros OS for the awesome Easy Peasy — basically the current Ubuntu Netbook Remix Edition with all the restricted media codecs pre-installed.

Then, this past April I went 100% Linux with a Lenovo all-in-one desktop computer running Linux Mint — a very slick spin on Ubuntu, again with the media codecs included from the get-go. Seeing a pattern here?

Over the past week I’ve been giving the latest and greatest KDE desktop a play on my Lenovo, and the lightweight PCLinuxOS ZenMini a trial on my Eee PC. As of this morning, I have nuked both drives and put Ubuntu proper on the desktop and Xubuntu on my netbook.

The ZenMini spin on PCLinuxOS was very impressive; my only issue was with streaming video to it from my NAS using Samba, a file sharing protocol developed for Windows computers. I think I found all the codecs I needed, but the playback of my (legal) BitTorrent downloads was jerky, and sometimes didn’t work at all.

On the KDE side things were even worse. Kaffeine, the default video player for KDE, has zero Samba support (nor does VLC, in case you were wondering). Same story with Dragon Player, the app bundled with Kubuntu for netbooks.

I could, of course, roll up my sleeves and at least attempt to solve these issues without changing distros, but then I started to think about why I was distro-hopping in the first place. The beauty of using Linux is that there’s literally something for everyone — and I think I’ve figured out that my baseline needs include the ability to stream media from my NAS without issue.

The ZenMini spin on PCLinuxOS remains a very elegant GNOME-based solution for low-powered netbooks, while using KDE literally felt like witnessing the near future of desktop computing firsthand. In the same vein, both Easy Peasy and Linux Mint will be the distros that I continue to recommend to new Linux users without hesitation. But it’s the official Ubuntu releases that feel like the right choice for me — right now, at least.

That’s the progress as I see it — installing codecs on my own, rather than having that done for me. Even if it’s just a command or two, that’s still a small step forward, isn’t it? Please?

Come on, I need this…

Say what you want about KDE, but I don’t think the merits of its default music player, Amarok, would be argued by those who have tried it. I’ve got version 2.3.1 on my installation of openSUSE; let’s see what all the fuss about!

This is the main window. Some features of note, from left to right:

• Your music is sorted automatically by artist, then album, then track. At least mine was.
• Lyrics are fetched for you, where available, as is the artist’s Wikipedia page. Sweet!
• Cicking on any track in the left pane will add it to a playlist on the right, which you can reorganize to your heart’s content, then save.

A small but illustrative example of KDE innovation: This is a pop-up notification that you can position anywhere on your desktop, simply by dragging it there. Clever.

Streaming services and online music stores are also supported in Amarok.They can be added to a playlist just like any local file. A search for additional plugins came up empty, which was a bit odd — I was hoping to get access to my local 7digital store, at least. Maybe I didn’t set it up right?

Support for Jamendo is fantastic, but the built-in podcast directory only so-so. There’s no listing for Dyscultured, for example. Tsk tsk…

Though I’ve only really used Songbird and Rhythmbox for any length of time I’m of the opinion that Amarok trumps both of them, handily. It’s definitely worth trying out, even if you don’t use KDE.

Just for kicks I installed Kubuntu Netbook Edition on my Eee PC. What follows is a brief visual overview of what you can expect should you do the same.

Note that this isn’t the latest and greatest KDE but rather the latest and greatest Kubuntu (10.04.1), with version 4.42 of KDE. I tried to invoke the netbook workspace from an installation from the KDE 4.5 Live CD but it repeatedly crashed my machine so I installed Kubuntu for netbooks instead.

Okay, so this is what you see when you boot up and log in.

You can type a query into that search bar and the icons below will be replaced with matching apps. Very innovative, but using the combination of Alt+F2 keys will do the same thing, and allow you to launch the app directly without taking your hands off of your keyboard.

Also, that top menu bar seems unnecessarily busy to me. And why is that second row of icons so much smaller?

The other main interface of the Plasma Netbook is called “Page one”, a cascading series of connected widgets — er, Plasmoids (…?) You can add or remove them as you see fit.

As for the defaults, openDesktop is apparently something you need an account for, and for whatever reason the Knowledge Base widget wasn’t working. The other two are fairly self-explanatory, I hope.

This is the app/window switcher. Pretty slick.

One thing, though…  since every window is maximized you’ll be treated to a lot of wasted space — like this KWallet dialog box, for example.

If I’m starting to sound like I’m not a fan of this netbook spin on KDE I guess I’m guilty as charged. It’s an interesting idea but lots of the execution seems to be at odds with small screen optimization, from the too-busy top bar to the wasted space in windows like the one above.

Oh, and this Ubuntu-specific version of netbook KDE runs really slow, kind of negating its whole purpose as an OS for low-powered small-screened computers.

Don’t let my humble opinion stop you from trying it if you’re interested, of course. And if this netbook-optimized KDE workspace does better with a different distro by all means leave a comment and let me know.

We are going to bleed and bleed and hemorrhage, unless this Congress at least protects one industry that is able to retrieve a surplus balance of trade and whose total future depends on its p ...

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Transcript of Live Chat, now powered by Jabber!

Show Notes:

Dystractions

Manitoba judge disrobes, uploads. Pics or it didn’t happen.

Love is a game, and so are honeymoons — in Japan.

James Cameron? Guy what produced Piranha 3D? Oh, it’s ON…

TIFF cinema now bedbug-free. Now what about those stains on the carpet?

CRTC to embark on rare non-bonehead moves.

MPEG-LA offers H.264free — see what I did there?

No Polaris Prize nomination makes Justin Bieber sick.

Arcade Fire in HTML5 is still Arcade Fire, unfortunately.

Full Dysclosure

Anthony and Andrew have a typically high-level dyscussion on Apple’s newest products. Mike Vardy is conspicuously absent.

Bonus Video: Zomg, it’s the iPhone Shuffle!!1!

Shout-outs

Listen and learn…or just read here how you can get a mention. Leave a comment, mention us in a tweet, etc, etc. Then you get a shout-out. Yes, it’s that simple. All the cool kids are doing it!

Howdy to our Twitter pals, a #FollowFriday will be yours again this week.

And as always, much love to our chat room participants.

Music

The Acorn and their track “Kindling to Creation – the Megafaun Remix”.

Ah, the first of the month — time to back up my data to optical media, my NAS, Dropbox… And this month there’s a new tool in my arsenal. It’s called Clonezilla.

Developed at the National Center for High Performance Computing in Taiwan, Clonezilla will make a byte-for-byte, partition-for-partition copy of whatever you tell it to. And of course it’s free — even better, it’s been released under the GPL for everyone to benefit from.

Running from a live CD or USB stick, Clonezilla will guide you through the cloning process with a series of text-based screens, or give you a command line prompt if you really know what you’re doing.

I cloned my Linux Mint install before trying out KDE & openSUSE, and reverting back to the exact OS I had more than a week prior was astonishingly easy. You just have to pay attention to the instructions and make sure that whatever you’re cloning to is bigger than what you’re cloning from.

There’s an old saying that there are but two kinds of computer users — those who have lived through a catastrophic loss of data and those who are about to. Whatever your personal backup strategy happens to be, there’s probably a place in it for Clonezilla as well.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some computers to back up and clone…

Das U-Blog by Prashanth: "In anticipation of my new laptop, I decided to test 5 major KDE distributions to see which one could work best on my laptop. As it happens, I ended up testing all of these on my old Sony VAIO desktop and installed Linux Mint 9 GNOME on my laptop"

Enjoy the fine mess, Matt Williams. Digg's newly announced CEO has the privilege of cleaning up after a redesign that has users up in arms, the social news site scrambling to add back old features, and rival Reddit surging. More »

Despite doing what I think are some great things for the American people, the Obama administration has a dark side. Joe Biden and many others on staff come straight from the RIAA camp, and it shows. Today, the Obama administration disregarded every US law relating to theft and copyright by stating that piracy is "flat, unadulterated theft".

Okay, before we go any further I need to make it clear that we’re not talking about the latest adult video release, but rather a networking utility for Linux. Sorry. That cheeky tagline comes straight from the author. And it’s true!

Anyone using the GNOME desktop environment with their Linux distribution will probably be using Nautilus as a file manager as well. Among other handy features — like tabbed windows, for example — Nautilus has support for mounting Samba shares (like my NAS) built-in.

As I’ve chosen the more lightweight Xfce for my netbook the default file manager isn’t Nautilus but Thunar — a very capable app in its own right, but without any Samba support.

Fortunately, the latest release of Xubuntu also comes bundled with Gigolo. Let’s check it out…

Here’s Gigolo’s interface. Note that my router (also with media server support) and NAS are automagically mounted, and that I’ve already connected to a Samba share. You can save any shared folder as a bookmark for a quick and easy reconnection. Handy.

And Samba is just one of the file sharing protocols supported, as you can see above.

So how does Gigolo integrate with your file manager? Quite easily, as it turns out… Just click on a connected folder and it will open up in whatever you’ve got on board.

In the desktop grab above you can see:

• Gigolo connected to my NAS in the top-left corner;
• The shared folder open in Thunar at the bottom-left;
• An awesome free download streaming in Totem to the right.

Okay, it’s actually paused but trust me, it works…

And yes, there were a couple of additional steps I had to perform to get my file manager/Gigolo connection working properly — but it’s as easy as downloading the five packages listed here then copying and pasting the highlighted terminal commands here. Once that’s done you’ve got yourself a rock-solid LAN sharing app with more functionality than even the mighty Nautilus on its own.

Gigolo was designed for Xfce but according to the author it can be used in any desktop environment, so long as GTK v2.12 or newer is also present.

Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at New York University, on what Wikileaks means for the media.

Search Engine #56 by Jesse Brown is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.

Many of you will consider this a huge step backwards. I consider it a small step forwards, and this fuzzy terminal grab is the reason why. Permit me to explain — but first, a quick refresher…

This refugee from Apple bought a Linux-powered Eee PC last spring, and promptly swapped out the default Xandros OS for the awesome Easy Peasy — basically the current Ubuntu Netbook Remix Edition with all the restricted media codecs pre-installed.

Then, this past April I went 100% Linux with a Lenovo all-in-one desktop computer running Linux Mint — a very slick spin on Ubuntu, again with the media codecs included from the get-go. Seeing a pattern here?

Over the past week I’ve been giving the latest and greatest KDE desktop a play on my Lenovo, and the lightweight PCLinuxOS ZenMini a trial on my Eee PC. As of this morning, I have nuked both drives and put Ubuntu proper on the desktop and Xubuntu on my netbook.

The ZenMini spin on PCLinuxOS was very impressive; my only issue was with streaming video to it from my NAS using Samba, a file sharing protocol developed for Windows computers. I think I found all the codecs I needed, but the playback of my (legal) BitTorrent downloads was jerky, and sometimes didn’t work at all.

On the KDE side things were even worse. Kaffeine, the default video player for KDE, has zero Samba support (nor does VLC, in case you were wondering). Same story with Dragon Player, the app bundled with Kubuntu for netbooks.

I could, of course, roll up my sleeves and at least attempt to solve these issues without changing distros, but then I started to think about why I was distro-hopping in the first place. The beauty of using Linux is that there’s literally something for everyone — and I think I’ve figured out that my baseline needs include the ability to stream media from my NAS without issue.

The ZenMini spin on PCLinuxOS remains a very elegant GNOME-based solution for low-powered netbooks, while using KDE literally felt like witnessing the near future of desktop computing firsthand. In the same vein, both Easy Peasy and Linux Mint will be the distros that I continue to recommend to new Linux users without hesitation. But it’s the official Ubuntu releases that feel like the right choice for me — right now, at least.

That’s the progress as I see it — installing codecs on my own, rather than having that done for me. Even if it’s just a command or two, that’s still a small step forward, isn’t it? Please?

Come on, I need this…

Say what you want about KDE, but I don’t think the merits of its default music player, Amarok, would be argued by those who have tried it. I’ve got version 2.3.1 on my installation of openSUSE; let’s see what all the fuss about!

This is the main window. Some features of note, from left to right:

• Your music is sorted automatically by artist, then album, then track. At least mine was.
• Lyrics are fetched for you, where available, as is the artist’s Wikipedia page. Sweet!
• Cicking on any track in the left pane will add it to a playlist on the right, which you can reorganize to your heart’s content, then save.

A small but illustrative example of KDE innovation: This is a pop-up notification that you can position anywhere on your desktop, simply by dragging it there. Clever.

Streaming services and online music stores are also supported in Amarok.They can be added to a playlist just like any local file. A search for additional plugins came up empty, which was a bit odd — I was hoping to get access to my local 7digital store, at least. Maybe I didn’t set it up right?

Support for Jamendo is fantastic, but the built-in podcast directory only so-so. There’s no listing for Dyscultured, for example. Tsk tsk…

Though I’ve only really used Songbird and Rhythmbox for any length of time I’m of the opinion that Amarok trumps both of them, handily. It’s definitely worth trying out, even if you don’t use KDE.

TPB-AFK, the upcoming documentary about The Pirate Bay and its founders, is expected to be released during the fall of 2011. To complete the project, Swedish filmmaker Simon Klose is starting a campaign tomorrow through which he hopes to crowdsource the funding. True to BitTorrent's nature, peers are asked to contribute to the project.

The Pirate Bay has left its mark on the Internet in recent years, and continues to do so as the most visited torrent site of all time. As a result of their battles with Hollywood and other copyright holders, the people who founded the site have become Internet celebrities, celebrities that will soon have their own film credit.

To document the events that happen surrounding the Pirate Bay, Swedish filmmaker and producer Simon Klose started making a documentary about the site titled ‘TPB-AFK’. For the film, Klose followed the defendants both during the Pirate Bay trial of last year and after, and he will also be present at the upcoming appeal next month.

The film will eventually document all the events from a fly-on-the-wall perspective. To complete the documentary, however, Klose needs funding and he hopes to achieve that by asking people who believe in the project to contribute through donations. The official website of the project will be launched tomorrow, along with a discussion forum and a Kickstarter campaign where people can pledge funds.

“I want to prove that people who claim that the network is threatening cultural creation are wrong, and I will ask the Internet for help,” filmmaker Simon Klose said, commenting on his choice to crowdsource the film’s funding.

TorrentFreak contacted Peter Sunde, former Pirate Bay spokesperson and one of the film’s subjects, to ask him about his experiences thus far. “We’re happy with it, as long as the end result is good. So far it looks very good and Simon know that we are cautious, so he listens,” he explained.

Sunde further stressed that other than allowing the filmmaker into their lives, the Pirate Bay co-founders are not affiliated with the project in any way. “It is his project, we don’t own or direct anything. We just help by giving him our time,” he said.

Last year, some early TPB-AFK footage already found its way onto the Internet. The material shows the crew working out how much money they have earned from the site. More evil plans and true motivations of the former site owners are expected to be unfolded in the final release.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

It's hard to believe that Debian has 17 years under its belt, but the project celebrated its 17th birthday on August 16. Though Debian may not be quite as well hyped as other distros, it's still one of the most important FOSS projects around.

Transcript of Live Chat (you should have been there…)

Show Notes:

Dystractions

Gmail can make phone calls now?

Access Copyright wants to bilk students (wait for it) for photocopying.

Dude, don’t bogart that tailpipe…

BC Faeries — sorry, Ferries, can’t handle a bare ass.

Bob Dylan pwns TicketMaster.

(WARNING: Obligatory Justin Bieber links ahead…)

Justin Bieber is coming to Ottawa. You’ve been warned.

(END WARNING.)

Again with the Avatar?

GI Joes or GI NOES!!1! …?

And the dregs, something about some other video game…

Full Dysclosure

Currie talks accessibility (Linux and otherwise).

Marco looks down his nose at FanExpo.

Vardy says “What the FUCK?!”

Shout-outs

Listen and learn…or just read here how you can get a mention. Leave a comment, mention us in a tweet, etc, etc. Then you get a shout-out. Yes, it’s that simple. All the cool kids are doing it!

Howdy to our Twitter pals, a #FollowFriday will be yours again this week.

And as always, much love to our chat room participants.

Music

Apostle of Hustle and their track, “National Anthem of Nowhere”.

Just for kicks I installed Kubuntu Netbook Edition on my Eee PC. What follows is a brief visual overview of what you can expect should you do the same.

Note that this isn’t the latest and greatest KDE but rather the latest and greatest Kubuntu (10.04.1), with version 4.42 of KDE. I tried to invoke the netbook workspace from an installation from the KDE 4.5 Live CD but it repeatedly crashed my machine so I installed Kubuntu for netbooks instead.

Okay, so this is what you see when you boot up and log in.

You can type a query into that search bar and the icons below will be replaced with matching apps. Very innovative, but using the combination of Alt+F2 keys will do the same thing, and allow you to launch the app directly without taking your hands off of your keyboard.

Also, that top menu bar seems unnecessarily busy to me. And why is that second row of icons so much smaller?

The other main interface of the Plasma Netbook is called “Page one”, a cascading series of connected widgets — er, Plasmoids (…?) You can add or remove them as you see fit.

As for the defaults, openDesktop is apparently something you need an account for, and for whatever reason the Knowledge Base widget wasn’t working. The other two are fairly self-explanatory, I hope.

This is the app/window switcher. Pretty slick.

One thing, though…  since every window is maximized you’ll be treated to a lot of wasted space — like this KWallet dialog box, for example.

If I’m starting to sound like I’m not a fan of this netbook spin on KDE I guess I’m guilty as charged. It’s an interesting idea but lots of the execution seems to be at odds with small screen optimization, from the too-busy top bar to the wasted space in windows like the one above.

Oh, and this Ubuntu-specific version of netbook KDE runs really slow, kind of negating its whole purpose as an OS for low-powered small-screened computers.

Don’t let my humble opinion stop you from trying it if you’re interested, of course. And if this netbook-optimized KDE workspace does better with a different distro by all means leave a comment and let me know.

I’m pretty sure I know the answer to this, but I don’t like it one bit.

So far the one big hiccup in my move to OpenSUSE has been with the Samba networking protocol. Though my NAS is plainly visible on my local network and all files held therein are easily accessible, for some reason I can’t stream video from it.

I originally thought it was a codec issue, but files copied over to my home directory play fine. I never had this problem using either Easy Peasy on my netbook or Linux Mint on my desktop computer, so I’m guessing it has to do with the specific, possibly higher-level implementation of Samba on OpenSUSE.

The only thing I was able to Google was a similarly frustrated user on the OpenSUSE Forums, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? I can feel your fingers twitching, and sense the comment you’re about to write — something to the effect of:

“Don’t bother with Samba, use NFS.”

I know I know, if there are only Linux boxes on my local network NFS is a far better choice. And OpenSUSE even has an NFS configuration tool built-in. I tried it; something didn’t take. And I’m definitely going to need someone to walk me through this.

But before I tax the collective brain power of all Linuxdom with my stupid n00b NFS questions, is there anything I can do to make videos play over my network with Samba?

Thanks in advance, even if your answer is NFS.

OpenSUSE isn’t the only new distro at the Oa compound; I’ve also replaced Easy Peasy on my netbook with PCLinuxOS, running the GNOME ZenMini Desktop.

There is certainly nothing wrong with Easy Peasy… If you didn’t know it’s basically the latest Ubuntu Netbook Edition with restricted codecs pre-installed. I’ve just been looking a more traditional interface for my Eee PC, one with an additional virtual desktop — four would be overkill but two is perfect. And that’s exactly what ZenMini gives me.

As you can probably guess from its name, ZenMini is as much about what’s left out as what’s included. From their Polish site (?):

ZEN-mini (often shortened to ZEN) is a minimal livecd that is bootable and can be installed. It comes with a very basic GNOME desktop without additional applications. It is designed for advanced users or for users who wish to learn how to customize their system with the applications and support files they want to use. Additional software can be installed through the Synaptic Software Manager. Add your own background, window decorations, web browser client, email client, music client and fully trick out your desktop the way you want it.

That said, the live .iso of ZenMini comes with Firefox (plus an official Adobe Flash Player  plug-in) and a network manager with working WiFi — for me, anyway.

For an Ubootnu Ubuntu user the learning curve isn’t steep at all; the biggest difference I can see is that ZenMini uses RPM rather than Debian packages. As such the command-line package manager is apt4rpm rather than apt-get, as I learned from the helpful folks on the PCLinuxOS forums.

There is one thing I’m not too clear about:  ZenMini requires two passwords, one for a regular user and one for root. Yet when I’m logged in as a regular user a root terminal is available from the main menu, with no additional password needed. Hmm.

Everything else about ZenMini makes perfect sense, though — at least so far. And the custom cursor set is especially awesome. If you want to see it in action you’ll just have to download and boot up ZenMini for yourself!

As it turns out, I couldn’t stand the wait.

Over the weekend I replaced my trusty installation of Linux Mint with the latest and greatest OpenSUSE. What follows are some first impressions — the best I can do right now as I’m still trying to figure everything out…

The installer is tricky.

Unlike the dead-simple Ubuntu installers that I’m used to, OpenSUSE expects the user to be a little more knowledgeable about what’s going on.

I actually got hung up in two spots. First was the disk partitioner, which left as is didn’t seem like it would let the installer do anything.

Then, right before hitting the “install” button the user is asked where they want to install GRUB, a boot loader for Linux. The default option is not the master boot record but instead one of the partitions on the boot drive. Not knowing any better I chose the default and ended with a system that wouldn’t boot.

It took me an entire reinstallation with GRUB on the MBR to fix it. Lesson learned.

linux-n0b1.site?

This is apparently the name of my computer. I’m hoping there’s a way I can change it.

KMail & Kontact…

KMail seems very spiffy. Though my email now resides on remote IMAP folders I like that KMail lets you choose either Maildir or mbox to store mail locally.

I’m less impressed with Kontact. The address book is fine, but at least one of the recurring events in my calendar are a day off for some reason. And though there’s support for both a journal and pop-up notes, neither hook in to the notes on my hosted SyncML server.

Restricted codecs are a click away.

Here’s the click. I’m still having issues with a couple of video formats, and will have to get back to you on this.

Amarok is pretty fantastic.

I’ll have to devote a separate post to KDE’s legendary music player.

Choqok is a very good microblogging client.

But unless I’m missing something it can’t dump everything into a single stream like Gwibber can. Oh well…

You don’t need Nautilus for Dropbox.

Ignore the stated requirements for Linux; Dropbox works just as well with KDE’s Dolphin File Manager — just follow these instructions.

No performance issues to report.

I haven’t loaded up my desktop with Plasmoids yet, but overall KDE seems very snappy on my Lenovo all-in-one.

Like I said I’m still trying to figure stuff out, but I’ll be happy to take any questions for anyone considering the switch to either SUSE or KDE. Likewise, if you’ve any tips for me, don’t hold back…

Linuxtrends: "In order to get a sense of the popularity of various Linux distributions over the past several years, we entered their names into Google's search insights tool and grabbed images of the resulting graphs. The graphs display some fascinating trends and bode well for the future of Linux."

Here's the dirty little secret about Android: After all the work Apple did to get AT&T to relinquish device control for the iPhone and all the great efforts Google made to get the FCC and the U.S. telecoms to agree to open access rules as part of the 700 MHz auction, Android is taking all of those gains and handing the power back to the telecoms.

The folks behind Kubuntu Linux have decided to drop the separate Netbook Edition once Ubuntu and Kubuntu 10.10 are released in a few months. Instead, netbook-friendly code will be baked into the main operating system and Kubuntu will automatically determine the best settings to use for your computer upon installation.

But that doesn’t mean the Kubuntu team has forgotten about Kubuntu Netbook 10.04. This week the Kubuntu team released Kubuntu Netbook 10.04.1.

The update doesn’t add any major new features, but it does contain every bug fix released since Kubuntu Netbook 10.04 was launched in April. In other words, if you’re already running Kubuntu 10.04 and you’ve been installing updates as they come in, there’s nothing here for you. But if you want to install Kubuntu Netbook Edition from scratch, you can save a lot of time by grabbing the 10.04.1 disc image instead of the older build.

You can get Kubuntu 10.04.1 from the Kubuntu download page. Just make sure to hit the Netbook CD 32bit link if you’re looking for the Netbook Edition.

via GadgetMix and nixTernal

Kubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04.1 ready for download is a post from: Liliputing

O'Reilly Media (2010), Edition: 25th Anniversary ed, Paperback, 528 pages

The Audio Partners (2003), Edition: Abridged, Audio CD

Knopf (2010), Edition: 1, Hardcover, 240 pages

University Of Chicago Press (2010), Edition: 1, Hardcover, 640 pages

Wiley (2003), Edition: 1, Paperback, 368 pages

Wiley (2005), Edition: 1, Paperback, 288 pages

Lantern Books (2006), Paperback, 416 pages

acurrie's review: "Blog post with links can be read here: http://openattitude.com/2010/06/22/were-not-gadgets-but-we-are-artists/ === Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not A Gadget is a fantastic read, provided you stick to the very beginning and the very end of the book. As for the stuff in the middle, well… I just don’t agree with it at all. It’s not like Mr. Lanier isn’t a genius or doesn’t have the pedigree to write about technology — being the one-time roommate of rms is likely a feat in itself — but after such a strong start I was surprised to see such decidedly old-school thinking about online content. He kicks off his book by absolutely nailing what makes Facebook so fundamentally evil — that is, reducing online expression to a series of multiple choices or worse, a single button. Hint: it’s the one marked ‘like’… From there things go right off the rails in short order, to the point that all I remember is a lengthy diatribe making the case that the professional artist needs to be propped up for the arts to survive at all in the age of the Internet. As a professional artist for 10 years, I cannot disagree with this strongly enough. Yes, the vast majority of so-called “user-generated” content is crap. That doesn’t matter. Sure, a lot of it is derivative (or in many cases dependent upon) previous work. Doesn’t matter either. All art is derivative in that builds upon what came before. What absolutely does matter is that more of us are actively engaged with art by creating it. I’ve written about this before. And for the life of me I can’t figure out why such a smart and forward-thinking person can’t seem to wrap his head around the fact that art is no longer a scarce resource, and that more artists = more art = more good art = good. Thankfully the book ends with a bang, with a mind-blowing chapter about post-symbolic communication — you’ll understand when you read it. Put far too simply, the author makes the case that as the global village becomes a reality, the human species must evolve beyond the limitations of our different languages, and for that matter the very notion of symbolic text. No less than physical transformation is brought up as a means to do so, and if that sounds ridiculous consider that virtual reality can help. Lanier uses a video from Dr. Roger Hanlon and the Marine Biological Laboratory as an example of shape-shifting in his lectures — featuring a Caribbean Octopus vulgaris literally morphing as it’s caught hiding amongst some coral. It’s fairly jaw-dropping if you haven’t seen it before, and provides proof that such things are already possible with life forms on this planet. If this is what the future holds for humanity, sign me up!"
Knopf (2010), Edition: 1, Hardcover, 224 pages

acurrie's review: "More for telecom professionals than open source fans, but it is interesting to see the world through their eyes. More here, if you're interested: http://openattitude.com/2010/03/23/educating-the-carriers-on-being-open/"
futuretext (2009), Paperback, 296 pages

acurrie's review: "Kind of a half-review (as I'm currently only halfway through the book) but hopefully this will give you an idea of what to expect: http://openattitude.com/2010/04/14/hackerism-ethics-and-the-best-dad-ever/"
Random House (2001), Hardcover, 256 pages

New York University Press (2008), Edition: Revised edition, Paperback, 353 pages

Basic Books (2002), Hardcover, 288 pages

Harper Collins Canada (2008), Edition: Updated, Hardcover, 272 pages

Picador (2005), Edition: 1st edition, Paperback, 272 pages

Morgan Kaufmann (2004), Edition: 1, Paperback, 244 pages

Prentice Hall Cda (APB) (2002), Edition: 1, Paperback, 244 pages

Portfolio (2008), Hardcover, 304 pages

Gotham Books (2008), Hardcover, 304 pages

Wiley (2004), Edition: 1, Paperback, 334 pages

Palgrave Macmillan (2006), Edition: 1st edition, Hardcover, 240 pages

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