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I enjoy getting the latest XKDC comic in my RSS reader, but it wasn’t until I checked out Planet Ubuntu did I know I should go hit their home page.
As pointed out by both Brian Burger and Colin Pruitt, GeoCities will reach it’s end-of-life tomorrow. I’m one of the millions of users that has had a GeoCities site at one time or another (until I learned how to create my own site, of course) so I definitely took note of the closing when I first heard about it some time back.
But as I read Colin’s post on Planet Ubuntu I discovered that the crazy folks (in a good way) over at XKCD have decided to note the passing of GeoCities by redesigning their site to look like it as created as a GeoCities site. He also includes a thumbnail screenshot that I won’t post here. Not because the pic isn’t CC licensed but to help preserve your eyes.
That’s right, XKCD has made their site look like it was designed by a noobie over at GeoCities. Almost as soon as the page loaded my eyes started screaming MAKE IT STOP!!! It’s that hard on your retinas, as pointed out by some readers on the XKCD forum thanks to Brian for the link).
Go check it out while it lasts, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
[This post was actually written by Nanci, but I'm changing the authorship to mine so we can get it on the Ubuntu Universe. -Peng]
It’s come to my attention that somebody has decided that someone has declared tomorrow, 9 September, to be A Day Without Cats on the Internet. The idea is to have a worldwide ban on cat-related coverage for the day. Of course I have to agree with the good people at I Can Has Cheezburger and say that this is an utterly horrible idea. Lucky for us fanciers of felines the good folks at Cheezburger have out backs.
To those who think this “celebration” is a good idea, just remember that you can post about other animals any time your heart desires. In fact the Cheezburger devs already have a site devoted to the adorable canines out there. You may remember that I wrote about it back in 2007 when I found out about it.
[sarcasm] Of course if you would prefer not to see posts about cuts felines, canines or other animals there’s an invention you can use to avoid them, just like there’s an invention for people who hate a particular television program. For web users you can connect a device called a mouse to your computer and use it to leave any site you don’t like. In fact I bet you already have one connected to your computer. [/sarcasm]
I trust none of our readers are getting this error message today.
As much as I tried to stay on top of my feeds this week I still end up with 25 items in my ToBlog folder. Luckily I’m going to cull out some of the older ones as well as a few things that aren’t so post-worthy at this point. But I have a great (OT) vid to share with y’all at the end.
ArsTechnica: Get it done with GNOME Do 0.8. A very nice story on how much easier Gnome Do makes using GNOME-based GNU/Linux distros. Thanks to Peter Stuifzand over on the Do Google Group for letting me know about it.
Stefano Forenza: Chinese MID deploying Ubuntu by default. Speaking of netbooks, I may have to find a way to get one of these. Not only do they run my fav OS, but they’re pretty darned inexpensive as well.
Wouter Verhelst: Dealing with apt’s GPG signing stuff — the right way. If you use third party sources for installing and updating your GNU/Linux you know about adding GPG signing keys. Wouter has instructions for adding them in a way that doesn’t inject a security flaw, and that defeats the purpose of importing a GPG key in the first place.
Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo: Is ext4 unsafe? The next update to Ubuntu will add support for ext4 partitions, and lately people have been talking about security concerns with ext4. Luckily Jose has info to set your mind at ease.
Josselin Mouette: Which logo for the main GNOME menu in Debian? I could have skipped this post from Friday, but the “swirl foot” icons are so cute I may have to grab them for my own system.
Isabelle Duchatelle: Ubuntuforums nuts and bolts. Isabelle has some very handy Ubuntu Forums links you may want to bookmark, as well as some rather nice numbers for what’s going on at UF)
Tom Dryer: How-to Install Google Earth 5 on Ubuntu. The latest update for GE brings some really nice new features. Tom gives us a very quick and easy way to install this new version, as well as some troubleshooting info.
Joe Barker: Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) – My Thoughts So far. Joe’s been playing with late alpha of Ubuntu 9.04 and is kind enough to let us know how it’s behaving on his system. Remember, no matter how well (or unwell) any software runs on a person’s system, Your Milage May Vary, simply because their hardware, software and particular configuration is bound to be different from yours. But so far Joe’s pretty happy with it, although I’m hearing that those of us on the Mac4Lin dev team are unhappy about yet more bloody changes to things that are affecting our software. Yet again. Grrr.
Guillaume Desmottes: Good GNOME news. We’re just about to see a beta release of Ubuntu 9.04 and that means there is an update coming down the pike for GNOME. And as a matter of fact it came out on Wednesday. Guillaume has the best post that I’ve seen with info on what’s new in this update, next to the release notes, that is. Hell, just looking at the improvements for users makes me want to snag the beta for Ubuntu 9.04 “Jaunty Jackelope” just so I can play with it sooner!
I had a few other links I was going to share with y’all, but I think that’s enough for a weekend. If you’re in need of a good laugh (and some of your NCAA brackets may be in the toilet by now from what I’m hearing), check out this vid. As much as I try not to laugh at what happens to the poor feline I just can’t help myself.
I just heard the best news from Peng! For quite a while now you’ve been able to add pictures on the Pundit Kitchen and I Has a Hot Dog, but not on the Cheezburger site. But that’s no longer the case.
Peng contacted the Cheezburger folks and asked about it and was told that it seemed to be a browser issue because IE and Opera users, and maybe Safari users, could do it but Firefox and Chrome users didn’t get the button on the lolcats pics for some odd reason. But he tells me that when he fired up Epiphany this morning he was able to mark Cheezburger pics as favorites. Woo hoo!
It seems like you can’t mark videos on ICHC as favs yet, but I’m going to have to join Peng in going through some of the older pics and mark some as favs. I just wish there weren’tover 90 pages to go through.
Thanks for letting me know about it, Peng, and thanks for letting me blog this one. Heopfully I’ll get this new video card installed soon and be able to start getting a few more things to post, like maybe some pics from SecondLife since I’ll finally be able to see all of the pretty Windlight goodies.
I meant to post some links yesterday but there were a few too many things that had to get done before the jolly old fat man started coming down chimneys. I’ve got some special links down at the bottom, but I do have some (hopefully) great links to share with y’all. I know some of them are a little old, but I didn’t want to make some of you miss out on them.
Jeff Baily: “I’m Linux”. The Linux Foundation is having a contest (or two) for people to create some videos. Some will get rolled out to corporate tech folks (and their suits), and some will answer the “I’m a Mac” and “I’m a PC” ads. Although I really wish we’d see more vids in Novel’s PC Mac Linux series (see under Other Marketing Videos).
Jun Azua: 5 Known Linux Anti-virus Software for Paranoid Users. While Linux doesn’t have the need for anti-virus software like the users of that big, proprietary operating system do, but if you do much dual booting or run things under WINE, or even if you simply want more to be extra careful, Jun has five apps you may want to get installed on your Linux box. And even if you don’t need the extra protection you should go read Jun’s article and see the very cute Warrior Tux.
Thomas Wood: New art.gnome.org. The GNOME Art website has gotten an update. I’ll join Andreas for some very good work done on the page design.
Gerry Ilagan: Linux netbook market share dwindling down. Netbooks started out as a great way go expose people to the joys of our favorite open source operating system but lately more netbooks are getting sold with another OS installed. Gerry did some checking and found out why our market share is trending downward. We definitely need to find a way to correct the bullet points Gerry lays out.
Uwe Hermann: 256 Creative Commons Christmas Songs. Before you fuss at me and tell me I should have posted this link earlier this week (I saw the article when it hit Planet Debian on Sunday), let me just say that this may the perfect link to finish the preparations for your holiday gatherings. And all of these songs are licensed with Creative Commons licenses so you don’t have to worry about some big multinational conglomerate telling you what you can do with the songs. You can even burn them to CD’s or add them to the pen drives you’re giving those friends and family members.
Daniel Holbach: No More Holy Cows! No, he’s not referring to a twist on a certain Dogmascene, it’s an honest look at how to try to make a much loved GNU/Linux distro even better.
Jun Azuza has found some great holiday humor that may be just the thing you need after a meal with your family or (deity forbid) assembling all those toys for your little ones. There are Christmas Tech Jokes and Chrismukkuh jokes for Linux/Unix geeks, and Amaya Rodrigo (another Planet Debian blogger) has an adorable post called Self-steem issues? But whether you need a smile or not, be sure to check out Gerry Ilagan’s most excellent Chrismukkuh “card.”
On behalf of Nanci I want to wish everyone a the very bestest possible holiday season. I’ll be back in a day or two (or three?) with some more links, but I’m going to take some time off with some very good friends, my sis, and some of her friends. Our family is back in New Orleans so we won’t be able to make the trip this year, but our friends are the next best thing to family.
Thanks to everyone who corrected my inaccuracy yesterday. I hate getting facts wrong (even if I do have to post in a hurry sometimes) but it’s good to see so many people not just reading our blog but also contributing.
Brian Burger: Got Goat? Brian shares the things he loves (and isn’t quite crazy about) Ubuntu 8.10.
Matthew Helmke: Did my hardware get dropped? It seems that older Nvidia graphics boards aren’t alone in seeming to lose their welcome in Ubuntu Intrepid. Matthew’s ATI board isn’t playing well with Compiz anymore either.
I hope your week is off to a good start. Of course, if you live in the United States don’t forget to vote tomorrow! If you’re still undecided, look at where the candidates stand on tech and open source issues. (I know, I should have posed that question months ago. My bad.)
We’re just 10 days away from the release of Ubuntu Intrepid and I’m seeing some great reports from people who are trying the betas. I do have an update on the possibility of a thread about upgrading to Intrepid’s kernel while staying in Hardy but first let me share a few pages that I think you’ll enjoy.
Steve Pearce: “sound-juice” Changes in Intrepid Ibex. There are a number of changes in the Sound Juicer cd ripper that’s included with Ubuntu Intrepid, and one of the biggest changes is that it now prefers to use .oga rather than the generic .ogg. While I appreciate the specification of Ogg Vorbis (.oga for audio) or Ogg Theora (.ogv for video) some apps are having some issues with it. Steve looks at the issue and lists media players that have problems with the .oga extension.
Nick Ali: Ubuntu Halloween Pumpkin and US Store. Nick’s found a new Halloween pumpkin decorated for our favorite Linux distro, plus he has news that some of us have been waiting for: Canonical has opened up an Ubuntu Store in the US! Now we won’t have to pay overseas shipping for our Ubuntu gear. They don’t have the Hardy tee that Nanci and I loved so much earlier this year, but hopefully they’ll have tees for Intrepid. Of course I have to see about getting either their messenger bag or backpack, although their backpack is still north of $100. Is it just me or is that a ton of money to spend on a backpack?
Updated Link: Nick Ali: apt-get wife. Too bad I didn’t know about this twenty or so years ago, but I wouldn’t have known what apt-get is, let alone Bugzilla. Now I still laugh my arse off at it.
Steven Rose: Sound Juicer missing in Intrepid… It looks like Sound Juicer may not be on the LiveCD for Ubuntu Intrepid. It’s probably due to space constraints, the same reason why the Java for OpenOffice.org isn’t on the LiveCD either. Since I use the DVD iso I don’t have an easy way to confirm whether it’s there or not.
Debian Package of the Day: memstat: Identify what is using up virtual memory. I’ve long wanted a program like this. Right now I’ve been using the System Monitor to try to see what’s sucking up RAM and CPU cycles, but this app makes it even easier! It’s in Ubuntu’s repos so there’s little excuse for not installing it NOW. Trust me, you’ll be glad you have it.
Cnet’s Digital Media: Move over pinochle, Web stimulates aging brains. There really is a benefit for doing more web searching as you get older according to a UCLA study. So fire up your favorite search engine, it’s time for your daily mental calisthenics.
Onkar Shinde: Rufscript – A nice handwriting font. I’m a bit of a font fiend, and it’s really hard to find a nice handwriting font. After seeing Rufscript I had to install it. It’s one of the best handwriting fonts I’ve ever seen, and the next time I need one I know exactly which font I’ll try first.
The lasttwo times Ubuntu got ready for an update I was able to report on a thread over at the Ubuntu Forums about moving to the new version’s kernel without doing a full upgrade, thanks to the efforts of UF member walkerk. He hadn’t written a thread for moving to Intrepid’s kernel while staying in Ubuntu Hardy so I asked him about it a few weeks ago. Alas, it turns out his plate has been too full to allow him to do it sooner, and today I got a private message from him that pretty much kills it for this time around.
It’s a little late at this point w/ Intrepid coming out. I guess there will be some people that choose not to upgrade so perhaps I’ll create the thread…
Let me first test it on one of my machines…
While it did end up working on his own machine it is pretty close to Intrepid’s release, and just starting a thread like that will create large demands on his time and energy that simply can’t be supported this time around. So it looks like if you want to check out Intrepid’s kernel you’ll need to either snag a disc image and burn it so you can check it out for yourself or simply wait for it to be officially released next Thursday.
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Luckily I’m going to cull out some of the older ones as well as a few things that aren’t so post-worthy at this point. But I have a great (OT) vid to share with y’all at the end.
