Amarok Neon, blog bot, Do and new tees. Oh my!
Posted by Peng on 7 May 2008
I’m going to roll three bits of info I saw on Planet Ubuntu into one post, and I think I’m going to have something for just about everyone. 
My favorite media player on Ubuntu is Amarok, despite the fact that it’s a KDE application and I’m running GNOME, but no other player I’ve looked at give me the same combination of being able to manage my 11,600 plus audio files and play them with great ease, even giving me the number of tracks I have queued up and how long my playlist is. (I didn’t realize how much I loved that last feature until I tried Exaile, which doesn’t have it. Yet.) One thing that I’ve been looking forward to is being able to play with Amarok 2, which has been in development for the past year. Things are getting far enough along that the Amarok devs have put together a PPA archive with nightly builds of Amarok 2 under the moniker Project Neon.
Now you can check out the progress the devs are making on Amarok 2 for yourselves. So far I have just one problem with where they’re going with Amarok 2, and that’s the large center section. I really like the layout of the current version of Amarok where you only see the context info when you choose to, but it’s still early enough in the development cycle that I’m willing to be patient with them and see exactly how they’re going to use the three-pane display, as well as whether they’ll make it so we can get the Amarok 1 look in Amarok 2. There had been some questions when Harald Sitter first wrote about Project Neon, and he made a point of answering the questions the very next day.
Once Amarok 2 is finished it should be truly cross-platform, running on Linux, OSX and Windows, but for now it seems only Linux users can run the nightly builds.
Blog Bot
Tiago Faria has written a bot that looks for new posts on Planet Ubuntu and UbuntuWeblogs.org and lets you know when there’s a new post to read. You do need to use Jabber to enjoy the bot’s work, but if you use Google Chat you already use Jabber. For more info and how to use his bot check out this post.
Do you Do?
No, I’m not referring to that mega caffeine drink from the good folks at Pepsi. I’m referring to GnomeDo, a desktop tool that’s become all the rage. I finally installed it this am to check it out and I have to say I’m really liking it. It doesn’t take the place of a dock like Avant, but as people have pointed out it compliments your favorite dock and helps you work even smarter. Here’s how the wiki describes it:
GNOME Do (Do) is a desktop search tool that makes performing common tasks on your computer simple and efficient. Do not only allows you to search for items in your desktop environment (e.g. applications, contacts, bookmarks, files, music), it also allows you to specify actions to perform on search results (e.g. run, open, email, chat, play). Want to send an email to mom? Simply type “email mom.” Want to listen to some music? Simply type “play beatles.” Do provides instantaneous, action-oriented desktop search results that adapt to reflect your habits and preferences.
Granted, the Do site says it’s not a search tool, so I’ll leave it up to the two sites to figure out what it wants to be, but if you’re using GNOME you should definitely check out GnomeDo and see how it will help you work smarter, not just harder.
New Hardy Tees!
Nanci had posted about the limited edition Ubuntu Hardy Heron tees, but before she had hit Publish they were already sold out. Patrice Vetsel posted this morning that the Canonical Store is taking pre-orders on a new batch of tees. If you wanted one before you should definitely get an order win while you can.
