Peng’s links for Sunday, 31 January

• Lior Kaplan: Hamakor, the Israeli Free Software Society, calls for the annulment of Software Patents. People have been calling for the end of software patents since it’s getting (almost) to the point where it’s getting tough to determine whether a new patent contains prior art due to so many patents being granted. I found this post on Planet Debian and I’m glad to see the Israeli Free Software Society taking the lead on this.
• MJ Ray: Get the Survey Monkey Off Your Back. I’ve long thought using surveymonkey was a pain in the rear because they (seem to) ask for so much from people who are just voting on a survey. It turns out that surveymonkey may be not just a pain in the rear but also violating UK accessibility and privacy laws.
• Lasse Havelund: OpenOffice.org is “a piece of crap” – or is it? OOo has gotten some pretty bad press lately so Lasse did a personal recreation of a study that had a group of teenagers try their hands at word processing and presentation management tasks using both OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office 2007, all in the name of seeing how OOo really compared. He tends to use LaTeX for his writing and hasn’t used either OOo or Office 2007 much “over the last few years.” I won’t spoil his results so you need to read his post. You may be glad you took the time to read it and you can follow his links to get more background info on the test.
• Siegfried Gevatter: GNOME Activity Journal, and installing it on Ubuntu. I’ve been hearing about this app (formerly known as GNOME Zeitgeist) and am curious about it. Siegfried some nice info on why you’d want to use it as well as some easy steps for getting it installed.
• Stephan Hermann: Is it just me, or… People have been kvetching about non-free software being included in distros like Ubuntu ever since it first came out. Stephan writes such a good post on the matter that I doubt I could have said it better myself.
• DesktopLinux.com: Second Lucid Linux alpha said to offer 15-second start-ups. Eric Brown takes a good look at the latest early test release of Ubuntu 10.04, listing both the good and bad to be seen in this bleeding edge release, including some kvetching about support for some proprietary software being included (see previous link).
• Google Chrome Blog: Over 1,500 new features for Google Chrome. Google Chrome dev Nick Baum writes about some of the new features in Chrome and includes a video walk-through for installing an extension (not one that I personally use but you may find it helpful). The post is mostly about using Chrome on a Windows-based box but some of the info is also good for Mac and GNU/Linux users, as well as users of Chromium. There’s also a great tips post on the Chrome blog about managing tabs that you may find helpful.
• Launchpad New: ACTION: Back up old sources from PPAs. It turns out that Personal Package Archives on Launchpad are a little too popular. You may need to back up some of the packages you’ve gotten from PPAs. Jonathan Lange has some info every user of software from a PPA should have.
• Bastian Venthur: How to find packages installed/updated yesterday? If you’re like me you take regular updates to the software you run and every now and then you find a problem has cropped up after updating. The problem is that sometimes you don’t recall what got updated to know where to start tracking down your issue. Bastian asked he readers for ways to find out which packages got updated or installed and he got some really good responses. This is one post you’ll want to add to your permanent reference/resource list.
• Nick Mamatas: Ursula K. LeGuin to Google: Hands off my books! Not every author is satisfied with the proposed solution to the problem of Google’s plan to digitize books to make available online.
• Carlos Garnacho: Multi-touch support in Linux/Xorg/GTK+. Apple made other OS’s jealous with their ability to use two fingers to select and modify content on their smartphones and DMPs (Digital Media Players). Now GNU/Linux users can use it, if they can resolve the dependencies, that is.
• Steve Langasek: Ubuntu 8.04.4 LTS released. The Ubuntu devs have released the fourth maintenance update to Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy Heron” LTS (Long Term Support). Since Ubuntu 10.04 “Lucid Lynx” will also be an LTS release this will be the last maintenance release for 8.04 LTS but there are about 70 updates in this update so if you run Ubuntu 8.04 you’ll want to take this update.
• Mike Hommey: Feeling alone. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has an experiment to see how much info your browser lets web servers know about you. I’m kind of worried about how much information they report about me.
• NewsAskew: Green Hornet #1 FREE! May 10, 2010… All right all you lovers of comics and Jay & Silent Bob. Kevin Smith has been lending his talents to comic books, including being the writer for the very first of the new series of Green Hornet comic books. Thanks to Free Comic Book Day you have a chance to pick it up without having to shell out any cash for it. And without risking an arrest for shoplifting!
• Nigel Tao: The Road to One Point Zerodom. Nigel is the author of the SuperSwitcher app, and he’s glad to announce that he has a goal of getting Superswitcher 1.0 out in time for the release of Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. I. Can’t. Wait.

I have more things to post but I want to give them their own posts so if you’ll allow a  little commercial promotion, I found a great product that you may join me in wanting to buy.

• QMx Insider: Put a Firefly in Your Pocket for $9.95! Fans of the Joss Whedon show Firefly and it’s follow-up movie Serenity will be glad to know that you can finally own your own Firefly-class ship without having to spend an arm and a leg. Shiny!

Have a most excellent start of February 2010!

It’s almost time…

No, I’m not referring to the release of Ubuntu 9.10, although Peng and I are keeping an eye on the Ubuntu home page so we can see when they change the Coming Soon graphic showing that it is in fact out. Instead I’m referring to All Hallow’s Eve, which is coming up on Saturday.

Greg Evans has a great panel of his Luann comic today and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to share it with our readers.

Do you have some kids’ books that you no longer need? Visit Books For Treats and see how you can promote literacy rather than cavities.

I’m not saying candy is bad, because both Peng and I definitely have at least a couple of sweet teeth (I’m pretty sure he has more than I do ), but sharing the gift of reading is always a good idea.

And speaking of candy, make sure you’re ready to celebrate the next adult holiday, Half Price Chocolate Day, which falls on Sunday 1 November. After all, if you share the gift of reading you deserve a treat.

Peng’s links for Monday, 21 September

No, your eyes are not deceiving you, I finally have a new omnibus links post. I’ve meant to write one a lot sooner than today, but time and my todo list have been busted for conspiracy to deny me the time and energy to do quite all the things I want to get done.

And yes, you are seeing a new hackergotchi on my posts on Ubuntu Weblogs and the Ubuntu Universe, as well on my About page here. Since I finally got some pics of me that I don’t hate I decided it was time to make a new hackergotchi that reflected two of my loves: Mac4Lin and the Los Angeles Dodgers. As I write this the Dodgers are a mere four wins away from locking up their trip to the post season and they’re 8 wins away from repeating as the champions of the National League West.

Some of these links are a tad old, but as I went through the items I’d flagged in Evolution (there’s no way I was including 70 links in a pair of posts, let alone one post) there were a few things I’d found early last month that I really did want to share.

• Panji Nushantara: Digsby: All in One IM Client for Linux (soon). Not everyone loves Pidgin, and Panji has info on a multiple IM client that’s currently available for OSX and Windows. the good news is that the Digsby devs know we’d like a Linux version and they’re hard at work on a native GNU/Linux version. They even have a page you can use to ask them to let you know when Digsby for Linux is available. With Pidgin getting replaced as the default IM client for Ubuntu 9.10, and I’m really not thrilled with what I’ve seen of Empathy so far, there’s a good possibility that Digsby may become a favorite IM client for fans of the penguin.
• directhex: Vive la différence. The person responsible for getting Moonlight easier to install for Ubuntu users has a great post about “Free Software”, including links to how a few others define that term. A must read, and I apologize for not getting the link posted before Saturday’s Software Freedom Day.
• Panji Nushantara: 2.6.30 Kernel on Jaunty Jackalope and Karmic Koala’s Kernel on Jaunty Jackalope. As always, the 9.10 version of Ubuntu Linux will include an update to the Linux kernel. Alpha 6 of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala has just been released (see below), but since it’s a really bad idea to install testing releases on computers you use every day, especially alpha versions, Panji has given us a pair of posts on how to update your kernel to the newer version while still running Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope. I haven’t made the upgrade myself (see the above mentioned conspiracy charges) if you’re interested in making the jump yourself I’d love to hear your responses to it. Just remember the very important disclaimers about what can go wrong if you apply this upgrade. If you make the jump and your computer breaks please don’t come crying to myself, Panji or even Nanci. If you do we reserve the right to use those three words we hate using almost as much as you hate hearing: told you so.
• Colin Walters: Pay no attention to the processes and X Windows behind the curtain… Colin, a Fedora user whose posts are syndicated on Planet GNOME, gives us a nice preview of GNOME 3. There’s quite bit of geek speak in his post, but there’s also a nice glimpse at how GNOME 3 will make being a GNOME user even better than it is now.
• Scott James Remnant: Making a splash. One of the biggest pains in working with the Mac4Lin dev team is that every time Ubuntu rolls out an upgrade there are a number of things that break until we can get the components upgraded. This is the reason getting a Mac4Lin 1.0 Usplash created has been such a royal pain in the arse, and Ubuntu 9.10 includes a major change. They’re dumping Usplash for the boot splash screen, the first splash screen you get when you boot a computer into Ubuntu, and they’re replacing it with xsplash. Scott looks at the matter, including why the change is in fact a good idea. And yes, once I get 9.10 installed on my system (hopefully soon after it reaches beta status) I’ll see about getting a xsplash screen created for Mac4Lin.
• Stormy Peters: 3 ways our awesome habits get us into trouble. Currently the executive director of the GNOME Foundation, Stormy has long been a great source of information, especially on security issues within GNOME. This time Stormy looks at three habits that it’s great to develop if you don’t already have them, but she also points out “gotchas” that can turn on us if we’re not careful.
• Stormy Peters: Stacks of books are disappearing. If you love books you may be aware that libraries around the world are changing, and not always for the better. Stormy looks at the problem and why libraries are no longer the great resource they used to be.
• Dustin Kirkland: Encrypted $HOME Now Offered at Installation. I’m not one of them but some users make a point of encrypting the data on their hard drives. It’s a good idea, but in Ubuntu’s past it’s been a bit of a pain to do it. Ubuntu 9.10 has given users the ability to encrypt their home directories as a part of the install process since the fifth alpha came out earlier this month.
• André Gondim: New Ubuntu Screens Installer. Installing Ubuntu 9.10 will no longer be the rather boring experience it’s been in the past thanks to new installer screens that will finally let you know about some of the programs that are getting installed with the OS. André is kind enough to give us screenshots of the ten new information screens.
• Matthew Helmke: Drowning out what I want to hear. While not a tech post, Matthew has written a must read article on how to present your viewpoints, whether the subject be technical, religious or political. This is an article that should be bookmarked at the very least, and printing it out for future reference wouldn’t be a horrid idea.
• Stefano Forenza: LifeHacker’s Ubuntu Wishlist. LifeHacker has some things they’d like to see in Ubuntu, and it turns out the Ubuntu devs are already working on the first item. It turns out that LifeHacker has some very nice words for Mac4Lin, and Jono Bacon has written a very well thought out response to LifeHacker’s wishlist.
• Kees Cook: uninstall sun-java6. The vrms meme that’s been going around the ‘net has brought out an important reminder that there’s a very good open source replacement for Sun’s Java. I need to look into that to see if I could kick some non-free software on my system to the curb. And yes, I know I have two versions of Java installed. There’s a good reason I did that but I don’t recall what it was at this point.
• Jono Bacon: The Art of Community Available for Free Download. Jono wrote a great book about how to build a community of like minded people. While it’s not explicitly a tech book it does look at things that Jono discovered in the open source community. Now you can get a free PDF of the book, although Jono does recommend buying a printed copy of the book (and not just to put some money in his pocket). Whether you pay for your copy or not he asks that you write a review of it on Amazon.
• Christoph Haas: Tired of Nagios and Cacti? Try Zabbix. If you run network monitoring software, or even think you may want to run some, Christoph found an open source app that you should definitely consider.

There are a few more things I definitely want to post before I hit the Publish button. First off, as I mentioned above, the sixth alpha version of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala has been released. It’s likely to be the last alpha release, and I’ll try to post when it gets it’s first beta release, but feel free to start taking a look at what’s coming in the new release. The devs are working on a countdown banner that I’m hoping to add to the sidebar here once they have a version that will play well with WordPress.com blogs.

On a lighter note, if you saw the Emmy awards last night you know that the show was taken over temporarily by Dr. Horrible. If you missed it then thank the good people over at the SciFi Wire because they have the video posted so we can enjoy it.

That’s almost it for today but I have one more thing to post that deserves a post all of it’s own. I trust tomorrow’s first day of fall brings you some decent weather.

Two free Ubuntu PDF’s that should be on your hard drive

At the end of last month I got a message from the Ubuntu Mass. LoCo mailing list about the new Ubuntu Pocket Guide, a killer reference book by Keir Thomas, the award winning author of Ubuntu Kung Fu (a book I want for more reasons than the adorable feline on the cover). Not only can you get the 170 page guide at a very low price from Amazon.com, you can also get it in a dead tree free PDF version at absolutely no charge beyond your ‘net connection costs. I haven’t had a chance to read much of it yet, but if anyone knows of a way to put a PDF file on a PDA running Palm OS 4 (not version 5) from within Linux please let me know. Adobe has a way to do it but it looks like it’s either limited to Palm OS 5 or requires access to my PDA, something I can’t do under WINE.

The other publication your hard drive wants is the newest issue of Full Circle Magazine. Issue 21 has the results of the survey they ran at the end of last year, how to put Ubuntu on a USB stick (great for checking out other distros and versions but can do damage to any bandwidth limits your ISP may impose) and how to change the aspect ratio of a video. If that’s not enough there’s also reviews of the Creative Zen V Plus media player and the beta of the Tribal Trouble 2 game an interview with packaging guru and Ubuntu Master of the Universe (MOTU) Nicolas Valcarcel, and the top 5 torrent tools.Of course they also continue their series on using the command line, programming in C, and doing web development in GNU/Linux.

Make a point to download both of these PDF resources this weekend. Your hard drive will thank you and your Ubuntu installation will run even better. If you don’t run Ubuntu yet they’re also great for finding out some of what all the hubbub over GNU/Linux is.

Full Circle reaches a milestone

On Monday Full Circle, the independent Ubuntu Linux magazine, published their 20th issue. They’re marking their milestone by starting a brand new series on web development software for Linux users.

Of course that’s not all they have in their newest issue, and you’ll also find part four of their Programming in C series and a tutorial on backing up and syncing your music; a Command and Conquer article on using the Terminal; a book review of Ubuntu Kung Fu and a contest to win a copy of it; the top five backup solutions; a MOTU interview with Andrea Colangelo from Italy; as well as articles about making money with FOSS, Italians using open source software, Ubuntu Women, games, letters and more.

They also have a survey they’re asking everyone to take so they can get some feedback on how they can make Full Circle even better.

Peng’s links for Tuesday, 2 December

• Richard Hughes: PackageKit and Pango are now friends. When Pango comes across a document specifying particular fonts that you don’t have it can now ask if you want to install them.
• Herman Bos: From Evolution to Thunderbird (Part II). Last month Herman decided to go the opposite direction from me and move from Evolution to Thunderbird and he’s given us an update on how things are going. Personally I like how Evolution is working for me, although I wish it were easier to theme so I could get it working better with Mac4Lin.
• Mackenzie Morgan: Compiz? Emerald? Metacity? What’s the Difference? This has got to be one of the most asked questions Ubuntu users get (apart from what’s the difference between GNOME and KDE) and Mackenzie gives us a great article on straightening out confusion. In fact her article should be required reading (or at least really easy to find) for all Ubuntu noobs.
• Dustin Kirkland: Tux on a Groom’s Cake. Dustin read an article about Ubuntu bread (he has the link) and was reminded of the groom’s cake at his wedding. We should get one for the next Ubuntu release party.
• Miguel de Icaza: Moonlight 1.0 Beta 1. The Linux port of Microsoft’s Silverlight is finally available for beta testing. Now Linux users can enjoy the content that silly webmasters put up using Microsoft’s proprietary attempt at dethroning a very popular proprietary web media format, Adobe’s Flash. He also has a link to a page of sites you can test Moonlight out on, although Major League Baseball isn’t one of them. I tried watching some of their Silverlight video content and got stuck at “Loading…” forever so I’ll have to check it out on one of the sites they link to. He also has a nice article on Moonlight’s media stack that has some good info on Moonlight’s media rendering.

Before I put a lid on today’s post I need to point you over to a writeup about a new Ubuntu reference coming out in January. Even better? It will also be available in what looks to be a free PDF version. Thanks to this week’s Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for the heads up.

Peng’s links for Saturday, 25 October

I know I owe you a follow-up on upgrading to Intrepid but I’m checking a few more things and making some screenshots to share with everyone.

• Ruben Romero: Announcement: SpreadUbuntu alpha0.1. If you like Ubuntu and SpreadFirefox you’ll love SpreadUbuntu! I can’t wait until it’s out of testing.
• Ubuntu Release blog: Ubuntu 8.10 release candidate available. The Intrepid RC did come out on Thursday. They do have a link to some release notes that do have some important information, you may find some additional information Ubuntu wiki, although it’s not as pretty as the link they provide.
• Dustin Kirkland: Announcing ‘musica’ for Ubuntu Intrepid. If you are looking for a way to browse and stream your MP3′s over HTTP musica may be for you. And yes, he has a screenshot and there’s a package in his PPA for Hardy. For Intrepid users it’s simply an apt-get away. In fact I need to check it out for the possibility of sharing my tunage with the roomies a little more easily. ETA: Dang. It doesn’t support Ogg Vorbis files. Yet.
• Jordi Hernàndez: Gloobus-Preview 0.11. Another new version with even more new features.
• Christer Edwards: Upgrading Using the Alternate CD (8.04 -> 8.10). If you’re looking to make the upgrade to Intrepid Christer has a tutorial to help you get it done.
• DesktopLinux.com: You, too, can learn Ubuntu-fu. A brand new book has come out to help users of every experience level, including a “crash course” in doing system administration work in Ubuntu.
• Christer Edwards: Ubuntu Tutorials Search Plugin. One of the very best features of Firefox is the Search bar that you can add any number of the Mycroft Open Search site searching tools. Now the Ubuntu Tutorials site has a site search plugin for both Firefox and IE7. Adding this search tool to your browser should be the very next task on your todo list.

I’ll try to get that Ubuntu Intrepid article posted for you tomorrow morning. Unfortunately one of my roomies has finally come home from his hospitalization (about a week early, actually) and it’s ended up putting a few things on my “gotta do” list several days before I expected to have to get to them. Have a great evening!

Peng’s links for Sunday, 15 June

• DesktopLinux.com: Sample chapter available for revised Ubuntu book. Rickford Grant, author of Ubuntu for Non-Geeks, has updated the book to cover Ubuntu Hardy. You can get a free sample chapter to see if it may be something you’d want to buy.
• Christer Edwards: Mozilla Firefox Easter Eggs. There are several hidden goodies in Firefox 3, and Christer tells us where to find some of them. I love the new one about robots.
• Asa Dotzler: search toolbars considered. Some people hate search toolbars, some people love them. But Asa looks at the possibility that they’re no longer needed thanks to the powerful search tool built right into Firefox.
• Steven Harms: Simple. Steven lists the things he did in Ubuntu this past week. “without opening any consoles or terminals.” [Emphasis his] He even looks at some excuses why people wouldn’t want to use Ubuntu.
• Matt Galvin: The Linux Hater Inspires Microsoft Hating. I don’t know how many of you know about the Linux Hater blog, but it’s a Microsoft fanboi’s soapbox for trashing Linux. Clearly the writer has no interest in actually trying Linux for any length of time to see if it could be as good as his precious Windows. But someone has started a Microsoft Hater blog specifically to counter some of the crap the Linux Hater writes. My only problem is that it feeds the Windows/Linux war, much of it just being a lot of trash talk which probably doesn’t do much except show the writers may be in their mid-teens. And we have enough of that all over the place as it is. We even have some of that on the Linux Forums, as someone recently wrote on the Mac4Lin thread that if we want to have a Mac look and feel we should just go and buy a Mac. When I called him on it he asked if I could be more condescending. And yes, I could. :p
• Philip Newborough: Aenigma Fonts for Ubuntu. Philip has created packages with over 400 fonts created by Brian Kent, and some of the decorative fonts are pretty nice. I may have to use Embossing Tape myself before long.

Watch this space later today (or perhaps tomorrow morning) for my promised post on exactly what I dislike about Firefox 3.

TV Review: Women’s Murder Club

After reading the Women’s Murder Club series of books by James Patterson I was looking forward to seeing the series based on them. After seeing the pilot episode tonight I’m not sure how I feel about it.