Happy New Year!

2010 has already begun across the globe and we’re about 12 hours away from the new year here in Boston. Three years ago I posted links to a great Java applet for the countdown on timeanddate.com and I wanted to make sure the links were easy to find for this year’s festivities.

• Java Applet Version (my personal favorite)
• Static version
• Single city text version
• Flash version with more graphics

I tried to embed the Flash countdown for Boston but WP.com won’t let us embed Flash objects due to security reasons. I understand their reasoning, and it’s just one more reason Nanci and I talk off and on about moving our blog to another service so we can include fun things like this countdown and the Ubuntu countdown widgets.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year. May your 2010 suck a lot less than 2009 did for so many of us. I know 2009 is being a b!tch right to the end for me. I ordered a 160GB hard drive for my system to replace a pair of drives so old one they’re starting to fail and it arrived today but I got a very ugly reminder when I went to install it. I need to make sure I get an EIDE drive, not a SATA drive that my system has no clue how to talk to. Grrrr.

I do have some links that I’ll try to get posted this weekend (since I won’t have to spend so much time giving my system a clean install of Ubuntu on the nice fresh drive) and I have a review of a DVD I mentioned some time back that I’m hoping to get posted before long now that I’m finally able to enjoy it.

Peng’s links for Sunday, 2 August

Holy crap it’s been a busy month and a half. Remember the long links post I wrote last month? I’m afraid this one may be even longer, in fact when I started writing it on Friday and I ended up having to save the post and finish it later. I honestly hoped it would have been published on yesterday, but that didn’t work out like it that.

I’ve pulled some of the older items I had flagged for posting, but there are still a few from early this month that I just couldn’t justify not passing along.

• Andrewsomething: GNOME-Colors in Karmic. I’ve played around with some of the Shiki-Colors themes available but I ended up sticking with the Mac4Lin themes. Your milage, of ourse, may vary. Which is the beauty of open source software. Andrew even has a screenshot to help you see why you may love GNOME-Colors.
• Dustin Kirkland The Ubuntu Museum. With Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) reaching the end of it’s support lifespan Dustin put together a great site with some great info and images from Ubuntu’s past. If you want to know more, just go to Dustin’s post. It’s one museum you don’t even have to get dressed to go visit.
• Chenthill Palanisamy: What’s cooking in evolution? There are some nice additions coming down the pike for GNOME’s email client, and Chenthill has some info.
• Tyler Mulligan: The “easy” way to listen to internet readio in Ubuntu. Tyler has gone through the usual pain of trying to listen to his favorite ‘net radio station while running Ubuntu, and he’s found a way to do it that is probably easier than any other way, including Rhythmbox and Exaile.
• Alan Pope: Migrating from WUBI to Full Ubuntu Install. Have you (or a friend of yours) looked at Ubuntu with the WUBI tools running on Windows? If so you may have decided you like Ubuntu and don’t really need Windows around anymore. If that sounds like you or someone you know Alan has a nice tutorial on making the switch to full Ubuntu without losing any of the data you currently have.
• Martin Owens: Learning: Identifying Computer Ports. Alan is teaching a System Adminsistration course, and he’s had to come up with some of his own materials for it. Luckily he’s sharing his guide to computer ports with the rest of us. Thanks, Martin!
• Christer Edwards: Updating Default GDM Theme: Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty” and My Ubuntu Look and Feel. Christer has posted a pair of tutorials that will show you just how easy it can be to change how Ubuntu looks. Who says you have to settle for how an operating system looks when it comes from the “factory”? Not a GNU/Linux user, that’s for sure, although in all fairness it’s getting to be easier for other OSes as well, although Linux users have a crap load of possibilities to choose from.
• Matthew Helmke: The Official Ubuntu Book, Fourth Edition — first review and more. If you have a copy and want to get an updated edition, or if you’ve been meaning to get a copy and never have yet, you can now get it in PDF format rather than in dead tree format. Matthew”s even got a link for you to get a sample chapter if you’re not sure you want to get it yet.
• Muammar El Kahtib: Flash player in Google Chrome for Linux. If you’re testing Google Chrome, or even Chromium, you can now enable plugins such as Flash in Chromium! No more having to open another browser just to see Flash applets, whether it’s cheezburgers or something as simple as the MLB Gameday applet to keep up with your favorite baseball team. You can also get some addition info in a post by Omshivaprakash H L.
• Marc Deslauriers: Goodbye Apple. Marc and his wife have had quite a few iPods, but they won’t get another one. I’ll let you read his post for more details, and it’s not simply an I-frigging-HATE-Apple post. I will say, however, that once I can get some details worked out with the device I got a month ago I’ll be posting info on getting another company’s digital media players (DMP) working with GNU/Linux. There’s just one or two annoying little bugs I’m trying to get resolved, but I will say this: You can get a DMP that plays Ogg Vorbis files right out of the box, and as soon as you get it out of the box you can load not only Ogg Vorbis files on it, but also text, pictures and videos (but sadly not Ogg Theora vids) on the little buggers using nothing but your favorite file manager.
• Andreas Nilsson: A tale of menus. I really hate saying this, but they’re at it again. The GNOME devs are changing the themes yet again, this time adding 256×256 icons for places, etc. But it’s not all bad news, unless you’re a third-party theme designer like the good folks at Mac4Lin. At least this time we’re forewarned.
• Garrett LeSage: Nautilus, streamlined. The GNOME artwork devs have come up with a bit of a winner: a simplified Nautilus that gives you more space for the things that count, the filespace you’re working with. There’s a PPA with the new look and I have to say that it looks like it fits with the Mac4Lin themes really well.
• Hylke Bons: Adding fonts in GNOME. Yes, we have yet another post on adding fonts to your system, but Hylke is working on an even easier way to do it, complete with visual mockups. I have to say I really like what he’s come up with so far. Thomas Wood has a followup with a little more work on the idea.
• Linux * Screw: Top 3 Linux HTML editors. If you’re running the MacOS or Windows there are a plethora of options for doing HTML coding, including the old standby “real web designers code  by hand”. Let’s face it, some of us just like having a visual editor handy when we write or change HTML code, even if it’s just for some of the time. The guys at Linux * Screw have looked at three tools you may want to add to your Linux toolbox.
• Steven Rose: Removing Evolution Mail is NOT dangerous in the slightest… Some people want to remove Evolution from their Ubuntu installation, because they prefer another email client, and others are quick to predict doom and gloom if they even attempt to uninstall Evo. Personally I love Evo, but not everyone likes the same apps. Steven dumps some of the FUD and brings the truth of the matter of removing Evolution. And guess what, it doesn’t unleash the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Although you can have my Evo when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.
• Mark Brown: Full quoting. Yes, it refers to replying on email lists, but it’s not another rant about the right way to write a response. In fact he says nothing about replying above or below the quoted message, although Mark reminds me I need to spend another half minute (or less) before I hit Send on any email response.
• Jono Bacon: Change for Change. Jono’s got a great idea for some of the loose change we keep finding in our pockets and purses. I can’t wait to see it get started and make its way to Beantown. It’s a hell of a lot better idea than all of the stemmers I keep finding outside of stores and restaurants, but then I know some stemmers who make more money in a given day than I do.
• Dougie Richardson: Replacing Firefox. I admit it, the moment I saw his post title I flagged it to read later, but now that I’ve read it I knew I had to share it. Dougie needed something leaner to use on his netbook and looked at all the possibilities “from Epiphany to Opera”, and he decided to go with a Webkit browser. He looks at Midori and Arora in his post, complete with some screenshots. If you need a browser for a device with a smaller screen (and available memory) you owe it to yourself to read his post. He does bring up some bad news, namely that some apps in Ubuntu’s repositories aren’t exactly current, and while he doesn’t have a solution he does have some good information.
• Shane Fagan: Reply to Ballmers recent interview. You may have read or heard an interview with Steve Ballmers on cNet, especially his comparison with Mac about quality and price. Shane has a great response for Ballmers, and no matter what OS you prefer you should see what Shane has to say.

For those who voted for Mac4Lin in the SourceForge Community Choice Awards, I’m afraid to say that they didn’t win. Anirudh Acharya, the main dev for Mac4Lin, does thank all their supporters and mentions a very nice surprise in the final tally. There was also a great article in Linux Magazine comparing Ubuntu 9.04 with Mac OSX, and while it doesn’t mention Mac4Lin it does present Ubuntu in a very nice light.

Baseball fans were made very happy last week with the news that Vin Scully, the voice of the LA Dodgers would keep working for one more year.You may remember that almost a year ago I posted the good news that he’d be working for this, his 60th year, and even if you hate the Dodgers you have to respect that man’s talent. There’s no better example of Suclly’s talent was shown just last month when Manny Ramirez his is pinch hit grand slam. Check out the video on that page if you need any more evidence of Vin Scully’s wisdom and class.

And for those who hate baseball and need a smile on this first Sunday in August, there’s a post by directhex from last weekend that I dare you to read and not smile at.

That’s a full lid. Have a good week, or at least have as good a week as you want to have.

Peng’s links for Saturday, 30 May

I bet you guys (and gals) thought I wasn’t doing these links posts anymore. Things have been crazy on my end of things but I’ve still been making notes of things I wanted to share with y’all. I won’t post all of them (some are well over a week old) but I do have a dozen or so that I think you’ll like.

• Leo Iannacone: A simple plugin for Sonata… If you love the Sonata GUI for MPD Leo has a plugin that you may love as well. What does it do? Read his post for all the good news.
• Martin Owens: Who Needs Flash, I Don’t, SVG For Me. Martin has found a great way to use rich graphics for the web without having to go the proprietary route with Flash.
• Josselin Mouette: Reporting userful bugs. One of the biggest issues for any software tester is the need to file a bug report with the information that will help the devs identify the problem enough so they can see about fixing it. If you even help test a single prerelease software application you should bookmark Josselin’s post.
• Kartik Mistry: artha. Ubuntu ships with a dictionary application, but every now and then you need a thesaurus. Artha may be just what the doctor ordered.
• John Stowers: Playing With Clutter. Last October I started a links post with some news about Gloobus, a nice open source way to bring the MacOS coverflow feature to GNU/Linux, and John has some nice info on getting it to play well with Nautilus, one of the biggest issues with Gloobus, which isn’t any fault of the Gloobus dev.
• David Thomas: Preston Gralla: Why you Shouldn’t Care. David read an article in Computerworld that tries to minimize the benefits of Linux. David writes a very well thought out response that shows why Mr. Gralla’s article doesn’t seem to have all that much to do with a little something we like to call facts.
• Matthew Revell: Launchpad’s YouTube channel. Matthew has created a channel on YouTube where you can find demos on how to use all the benefits of the Launchpad code hosting service.
• Paul Cutler: Meet Snowy, Tomboy’s best friend. Tomboy, the note-taking applet from the good people at GNOME, has gotten a web app that will make your Tomboy notes even more uesful.
• Lior Kaplan: “Get Openoffice.org” icon on a new laptop. What would you say if you bought a new laptop and found an icon to get the most popular open source office productivity suite on your desktop? No, I don’t mean like you get when you install a GNU/Linux distribution on your computer, because they tend to have the actual apps installed rather than simply providing you with a “get me” icon. What if that new laptop came from Toshiba? And had Microsoft Vista and MS Office 2007 installed? That’s right, that’s the very thing Lior found on his brand-spanking-new, fresh out of the box Toshiba laptop.
• Stefano Forenza: GiftWrap helps you create .debs. Every now and then a GNU/Linux user needs to install an application that doesn’t have a pre-compiled package. Now people who run Debian-based Linux distros have a nice little helper, except rather than using the link to the debs that Stefano provides for installing GiftWrap you should use the GiftWrap devs’ PPA so you make sure you have all the dependencies satisfied when you install it. I’ll see if I can use it to create a .deb of Mac4Lin to make the install process even easier.
• Paul Tagliamonte: Making a bootable USB drive. Have you tried creating a bootable USB drive so you can have your favorite operating system on just about any computer? I have, and I’ve run into some issues, although I’m thinking it may be due to a BIOS setting I need to tweak. Anywho, Paul has a great tutorial to walk you through the process of making a bootable USB drive.
• Andrew SB: “Because humans need Oxygen.” You may know Andrew from his andrewsomething PPA on Launchpad (which has a ton of software you should check out if you run a Debian-based Linux distro), brings a little Sweet to his news about a new icon set. Or am I the only one that thinks of that band when you read his article?
• Dave Richards: Evolution Picture Gallery Under Development. Dave tells us about a way to bring a popular OpenOffice.org feature to the GNOME email client.

MLB grants Silverlight it’s unconditional release

Last year I displayed my severe displeasure for Major League baseball’s decision to use Microsoft’s Silverlight technology for their online video, a move that essentially cut GNU/Linux users out unless they wantedto jump thorough a number of hoops. Last night I was reading some news from Cnet and I got some delightful news. It turns out that back in November MLB decided not to continue to use Silverlight technology for their online videos, going back to relying on Flash technology that a very large majority of computer users already have installed.

It seems that MLB realized that to install Silverlight a user needs to have administrative privileges, something most users won’t have on their work PCs. There were also a number of glitches that made viewing the video content from Netflix (and I assume MLB) even harder.

All in all it’s a nice win for fans to start the season with, regardless of which team they root for. To make things even better, while fans in Boston have to wait an extra day for the start of the season thanks to some rain in the area yesterday, I saw this morning that the team I root for started off their season with a win yesterday. Hopefully we’ll get another win in the home opener next Monday.

For more on why MLB found Flash to be a better solution for their online video you can read the article I found last night from Cnet’s News.com. I love being abletoread the news on my PDA.

Peng’s links for Monday, 22 December

[Sis? Why is your name showing up as the author of this post? I'm pretty sure I'm the one who wrote it. - Peng]

Yes, I’m still alive. Just busy over the last few days do I’ve collected a bunch of links I’d like to share with our readers.

• Mozilla Developer News: Firefox 3.05 and 2.0.0.19 security updates now available for download. Alas, the support updates for Firefox 2 are over, and the Windows version has seen a 2.0.0.20 release to deal with a “non-critical issue” specific to that OS but other than that they don’t expect to release any additional security and stability updates for the once top web browser. At the end they decided not to include the Phishing Protection service that Firefox 3 offers, but that doesn’t break my heart since I’m pretty observant when it comes to possible phishing links. That and Gmail filters those out for me anyway. Once the holidays are past I’ll be on a full court press to see if Epiphany can be my primary web browser and I still have no intention of taking Firefox 3.1 when it comes out unless I have clear evidence that they’re going to let the users decide where the New Tab button goes. I know Cat Thief has once again ridden to the rescue, but I’m tired of having to install remove-ons just to countermand the questionable usability choices that the Firefox devs shove down or throats. Even if that means I have to pass on Firefox 3.1′s support for the <video> tag and Ogg Vorbis/Theora files. Otherwise when will enough be enough?
• Linux Today: The Wrong Way To Sell Linux and More Tips For Documentation Writers (You Too, Ace Coders). Mackenzie Morgan (a GNU/Linux chick who flat out rocks) was kind enough to pass these articles along to me. The first article has some great thoughts on how we promote our favorite OS and the second one should be required reading for all documentation writers. The second one may also show a great way to help support those favored FOSS OSes and apps that we can’t live without. Thanks for the links, Mackenzie!
• Normand Bissonnette: The Diversity Of Linux Window Managers. In Windows you have a choice, 95, XP or Vista, for how your desktop looks and behaves. OSX users don’t have much choice, but they like it that way. Linux users have a veritable alphabet soup of desktop environments (GNOME, KDE, and xfce just to name the three that can come with *Ubuntu -flavored distros), and it can be pretty confusing. Normand wrote a nice, fairly short article with a number of links as he looked at the freedom that having so many desktop environments give us.
• Jun Auza: Extensive List of Keyboard Shortcuts for Ubuntu/GNOME Desktop. People who have used computers for a while know what a time saver keyboard shortcuts are, but there are a number of possible places to look up shortcut key possibilities. Jun has been kind enough to compile a list of keyboard shortcuts for GNOME-based GNU/Linux distros. You’ll definitely want to bookmark this page so you can refer back to it until you learn what all the time savers are.
• Siegfried Gevatter: Nautilus: File size below the icons. I don’t know about you but I usually use Nautilus in Icon View and it can be tedious when I have to find out how bug a file is (select the file, look at the status bar to see how big it is, then select any other files you previously had selected, …), but Siegfried has a great tip for us that he came up with after reading am Ubuntu Brainstorm idea. I have to say it’s one of the best bits of info I found last week.
• Mackenzie Morgan: Adobe Flash: Avoiding Checksum Errors. Yes, another link from the über Mackenzie, this time a tip to make updating Adobe Flash easier along with an explanation of why it can be such a pain in the rear.
• Sayak Banerjee: VLC Celebrates Christmas! I haven’t been able to get it working myself due to something borked on my end, but VLASIC has a delightful little way of helping you celebrate Chrismukkuh.
• Matthew Revell: Launchpad news: Exaile media player. A number of users are discovering the GTK-based Exaile media player, especially with it’s recent updated beta release, and Matthew was kind enough to talk with the project’s founder about Exaile and why they decided to use Launchpad.

I’ve got more links to share, as well as a response to a post by Jono Bacon, but they will have to wait until tomorrow as my time’s getting short. I don’t know why we’re getting so much traffic today (over a thousand hits today after usually staying in the 300-400 range), but if you’re new to our little blog then welcome! I hope Nanci and I have some content that will give you reasons to visit us again.

Peng’s links for Friday, 17 October

TGIF! Thank God It’s Fried-day, “Fried” as in this penguinista is TOAST!* You’d think now that the Dodgers have been eliminated from the World Series my schedule would gain many, many hours to get everything done and I’d actually have more spare time. You’d think so, but you’d be wrong. I still need to finish some documentation (that was kind of due two weeks ago), plus I want to start giving Ubuntu Intrepid a test drive but I can’t do that until the docs are finished. Plus RL is still throwing more crap onto my todo list.

But enough of me, I have some links I want to make sure y’all are aware of.

• Adobe Flash 10 is out! Naturally the news is everywhere, so I have a few links you may find helpful
  • DesktopLinux.com: Linux an equal Flash player. With Adobe’s release of Flash 10 they’ve finally stopped treating Linux users as second (or third) class citizens.
  • LinuxDevices.com: Adobe reiterates OPS commitment. Adobe is working with the Open Screen Project, and is good news for anyone hoping to use a Linux device such as a netbook or Linux-based smartphone.
  • Tom Dryer: Install Flash Player 10 in Ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10. Now that Flash 10 has been promoted from beta to release status it’s time for more people to get the upgrade. Of course it’s Tombuntu to the rescue.
  • Steven Rose: Flash Player 10 Under Ubuntu 8.10 — Far easier than has been documented! Tombuntu’s instructions can be over some users’ heads so Stevey makes it nice and easy for us, especially if they’re running Ubuntu Intrepid. Thanks, Stevey!
• Jono Bacon: Frets On Fire Transcribers Wanted! Frets On Fire (FOF) is a great open source clone of the hit Guitar Player game that allows users to add new songs to the list of available tunes. The open source metal band Severed Fifth is looking for volunteers to transcribe their latest album, Denied By Reign, so it can be used in FOF. Any takers?
• Jordi Hernàndez: New Preview Progress. Wednesday I posted a link to Jordi’s new Preview application to bring the popular Quickview app to Linux desktops, and Jordi’s been busy making Preview even better.
• Launchpad News: Launchpad 2.1.10 – faster branch uploads. Yes, there’s yet another upgrade for the Launchpad site, but among the new goodies and bug fixes in this latest update is great news for people who use it to host Bazaar branches.

I know I promised you another post on Wednesday but there simply weren’t enough hours in my day. I’ll write it next before I have to run out to see my physical torturer.

—
*-Thanks to Annalisa, a former morning drive dj at WZLX who came up with the Fried-day line, although she said “this chick is TOAST”. Unfortunately when ‘ZLX got sold several years ago the new owners pink slipped her when they decided to ditch anything that could be fun, like her show and the Dr. Demento Show. If someone knows where she’s working now please post it in the comments. I miss listening to  her shows.

Peng’s links for Friday, 26 September

• Alan Pope: Minor Annoyance of The Day. I have to admit I’d said something very similar a time or two (text zooming in Firefox 3 got this type of response from me), but Alan gives a bug fixer’s perspective to the old “if this bug isn’t fixed I’m changing apps” threat. Unfortunately some bugs (like Firefox’s text zoom) change basic functionality to the point where the program is no longer a good fit for the user. Yes, sometimes it’s an unfortunate realization rather than a churlish threat, but Alan still puts a good, short look at the matter.
• DesktopLinux.com: Linux Foundation courts individual members. After looking mostly for developers to join, the LF is letting individual users join for a mere $50, and you get not only the quarterly newsletter and other perks, you also get a tee to show that you love, and support, the penguin. A great deal at any price, at no matter what value for the USD.
• Oliver Grawert: Announcing the first ubuntu-mobile image. Do you own one of those snazzy little netbooks? If so you can snag a daily build of Ubuntu Intrepid to check out on it. Of course Ubuntu Intrepid is still in alpha stage and shouldn’t be used on any device that is used on a regular, if not daily, basis just yet. That said, I wish I had a device that could run it.
• Frank Taylor/Google Earth Blog: Top 10 Games With Google Earth. You’ve probably played FlightSim in Google Earth, but did you know you can play D&D in GE, as well as (American rules) football?  And you thought Google Earth was just for being productive and looking things up. I may have to fire up GE for a round or two of Mars Sucks.
• Mackenzie Morgan: Swfdec 0.8: Open Source Flash. Even the latest testing versions of Flash 10 don’t work completely right in Linux (and not just because they’re testing versions, either), and if you’re running a 64bit build of Linux it’s even worse. Mackenzie has an open source alternative that comes in a 64-bit version that I may have to check out (although I’d use the 32bit build). There’s even builds in a PPA for Hardy and Intrepid so you won’t have to build it to check it out on Ubuntu. Swfdec even prevents Flash video from starting automatically, making it as if you had FlashBlock installed.
• Nicolas Deschildre: Introducing the Ubuntu Wanted project. Do you need some specific help with a project? Or are you someone that wants to help out with Ubuntu but don’t know where to start? Sense Hofstede and the Ubuntu Wanted project may be just what you’re looking for.
• LinuxDevices.com: GNOME Mobile hits the road. When GNOME 2.24 came out earlier this week they included a mobile version of their desktop environment, and LinuxDevices is happy to get away from their desk and check out the new kid in the mobile computing town.

Peng’s links for Saturday, 20 September

• DesktopLinux.com: Ubuntu to fund Linux development. Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Ubuntu parent (and Free Software Day 2008 sponsor) Canonical has hired a team of designers to make Linux the most usable operating system in the world.
• Markus Thielman: Flash 10 RC2 for Ubuntu Hardy. Adobe has updated Flash 20 to a second release candidate (aka version 10.0.10.12) with a bunch of new features and bug fixes, and Markus was kind enough to package it and make it available the updated flashplungin-nonfreebeta his PPA. Being in his PPA means that if you’ve added his PPA to your software sources list you’ll get the update in your next upgrade cycle. (Markus’ post was written on Tuesday and I didn’t have it flagged properly for my last links post. My bad.)
• Nick Bauermeister: How to set up Compiz Fusion 0.7.4. With Compiz Fusion’s  update to 0.7.4 earlier this year (available with Ubuntu Hardy) came some new goodies you can play with. Nick once again has an updated post for how to Desktop Effects to get some really cool effects, like using the Desktop Cube and setting up transparencies, as well as making your cube into an aquarium with the Atlantis plugin. Alas, I believe the Desktop Sphere comes in a new version of CF but he still has some great settings. If you are a Linux user and use Compiz Fusion Nick’s post should be bookmarked, whether you usually bookmark pages or not.
• Scott Ritchie: “Native Ports” are not better. Many people love to rant about how using programs like WINE to run apps is bad and how devs should simply port their favorite app/game/whatever to Linux. Scott, being a pretty smart guy, gives the rant a reality check and points out that properly bringing an app to work nativity in Linux is a ton of work.
• Wine HQ News: Wine 1.1.5 Released. Speaking of WINE (WINE Is Not an Emulator), the WINE devs have rolled out yet another update, with “substantial JavaScript implementation” a quite a bit more. If you have WINE HQ on your repository list you should have gotten the update this morning. If you don’t, what are you waiting for?
• Alan Pope: No competition. Have you seen the Microsoft ads with Jerry Seinfeld? They’ve been replaced by ads that take aim squarely at Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ads. But those ads remind Alan of something that happened to him at a pub not to long ago.
• Ed Bott: Apple continues to deceive users. You may remember Nanci’s post from March about Apple trying to shove Safari down the throats of Windows users who have installed iTunes and the ruckus Apple got for doing it. It looks like they’re doing it again, and this time they’re not even respecting the user’s decisions on what not to install. Thanks to Asa Dotzler for bringing the matter to my attention.
• Marius Nestor: Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 6 Screenshot Tour. When I wrote about Ubuntu Intrepid Alpha 6 being released yesterday I didn’t know about this, but the good people at Softpedia have once again put together a snapshot tour of how the Ibex is coming along. I would have added this to yesterday’s post but I wanted to make sure all of our readers got this update. Thanks again to sharks from the Ubuntu Forums for letting me know this latest tour was available.

Before I hit the Publish button on this post I wanted to join Matthew Helmke in urging everyone in the United States who are eligible to vote but haven’t yet registered, check out this very comprehensive list of info on voter registration in the USA. Being a republic, the voters here don’t actually make the decisions, we elect people who will make them for us. Do you really want someone else to pick who’s going to make decisions that affect so many areas of your life, especially with the current economic crisis? If you’re a convicted felon you may want to see if you’re eligible to vote again. Some states, including Virginia and Florida, have decided that some felons are eligible to vote again. You may be able to vote again, too, so check with your local Registrar of Voters to see if you are.

Peng’s links for Monday, 18 August

• Markus Thielmann: Adobe updates Flash 10 to RC. Flash 10 is a little closer to release, although it seems some new bugs were introduced for x64 users. Markus looks at not only the update but also gives info for possibly dealing with issues in the RC.
• Jonathan Carter: Not blogging enough? No, it’s not a question of where either Nanci nor our buddy Sus has been lately. Jonathan posts a small collection of links, but within the post is a response to Mark Shuttleworth’s challenge to make Ubuntu prettier than OSX. (I meant to blog the challenge to Ubuntu devs but I see that I didn’t. My bad.)
• David Futcher: Announcing Freespeech: Simple Cross-Platform Text To Speech. Some may consider text-to-speech just a toy, but there are a lot of people for whom it’s a must have. And this is truly cross-platform, working on not just on Linux but also Windows and Mac.
• Douglass Clem: Comcast Gives Cold-Shoulder To Non-Profit School Running Linux. I was checking out this week’s issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter when I found this story about a Florida school that had to deal with the joy of getting Comcast support for their Linux system. The boys and girls at Comcast really need to support Linux, especially since they already support OSX and Unix, and both Linux and OSX share a basis in Unix. I trust that Comcast tech support guy got enough detention to help him realize that they should support Linux, too.

Get better RSS support in Evolution

When I decided to switch from Thunderbird to Evolution for my email client back in June one of the things that I missed from Thunderbird is the ability to see the original web pages for my RSS feeds. Yes, you can switch between Summary and HTML message formats, but unless you build the plugin yourself you have no way to switch from the default, rather fugly, formatting to using either the Gecko (Mozilla) or Webkit rendering engines. Unfortunately I found that some RSS feeds will crash Evolution every time you try to validate them. (I’m looking at you, LA Times feeds.)

Luckily I filed a bug against this crashing, Bug 540932 – Evolution Mail and Calendar: Evolution crashes while …, and in the process of trying to get stack traces to show what the problem was (the bug is in evolution-rss, not in Evolution itself) I was directed to a GNOME page on getting stack traces for the evolution-rss plugin. Generally I would have to rebuild the plugin to generate a stack trace (the listing of exactly how the pooch was sexually assaulted), but the good people at GNOME Europe have links to already built packages for both i386 and amd64 versions of the plugin with the debug code.

Now I can not only see the original web page for any article in an RSS feed, I even watched an embeded Flash video without having to open the page in Firefox! Granted, I’m loosing my Adblock Plus when I view webpages this way, but I can deal with that. Just being able to enjoy rich media without having to open a page in my web browser more than makes up for any ads I can no longer avoid.

I am seeing that since I installed that package Evolution now crashes any time I try to open the Preferences window, but that’s a different bug and I need to track that one down soon.

Massive thanks to Lucian Langa for providing that link. I owe you a beer.