Mac4Lin 1.0 documentation has been released

While fighting with a dead parrot, er computer, Anirudh Acharya, the lead developer for Mac4Lin, announced in a post on the Mac4Lin support thread on the Ubuntu Forums that the Mac4Lin 1.0 Documentation is finally available. You can download it form the Mac4Lin download page.

That’s not all the good news Ani has for us, either. He posted on his own blog yesterday that Mac4Lin has gotten some nice in an article by Howard Wen in ComputerWorld magazine about Transformation Packs.

Of course with Ubuntu 9.10  “Karmic Koala” reaching the Alpha 5 milestone there’s a good chance that once it comes out some parts of Mac4Lin will break, all thanks to changes devs are making in features that Mac4Lin uses. (This is why the Usplash for Ubuntu 1.0 hasn’t been released yet, unless I missed something.) The Mac4Lin development team will be looking at the interaction of Mac4Lin and Ubuntu 9.10 as Karmic moves it’s way to the final release and we will do all we can to make sure the Mac4Lin themes, etc., play well with the newest release of our favorite open source OS.

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.

The polls are open at SourceForge

Earlier this month I mentioned that Mac4Lin was nominated for the SourceForge Community Choice Awards. The final voting is now open, so please go to SourceForge and vote for Mac4Lin under the Best Visual Design category.

Please also consider voting for eeebuntu for Best New Project, especially since a goal of the project is to “striving to convert the netbook market to Linux by making it as simple and easy to use as possible for those who want to switch from Windows.” GNU/Linux started out with a great advantage in the netbook market but the boys and girls in Redmond have woken up to the opportunites in that market and is giving our favorite open source operating system a battle on that platform.

Voting closes on Monday, 20 July, and the winners will be announced on Thursday, 23 July at OSCON.

Full Disclosure: I am a member of the Mac4Lin development team, and I’ve been largly responsible for updating the documentation for version 1.0. I know, I missed the release of mac4Lin 1.0 due to my not having enough time on my GNU/Linux box, but we’re hoping to get it ready for the dot release, which is even now getting ready for testing before release. We found a few things that slipped past our release testing and are getting them resolved.

Mac4Lin 1.0 is out!

I was going to hold off on posting today until after I got finished going through my email and news feeds, but I decided there’s one bit of news that simply can’t wait. That’s right, Virginia, Mac4Lin 1.0 has finally been released!

We’ve been waiting for a while, but I think you’ll find it worth waiting for with all these improvements:

• Fully supports GNOME 2.26 and backwards compatible
• Improved support for GlobalMenu, support integrated in the default GTK theme
• Better native Xfce support
• Icon additions
• Statusbar is now fixed
• New progress bars
• New tabs
• Improved installation and uninstallation scripts
• Integrates well with Gloobus
• Finer UI refinements
• Metacity theme now supports different button sizes
• Firefox 3 themes are now updated
• Songbird plugins included
• Pidgin AWN 64bit plugin now included
• Fonts are now consolidated
• Transparent top panel
• GDM theme is now in-line with Mac OS X login window
• Cairo dock is the default recommended dock

The docs aren’t included in the release but we should have that posted in the next day or two, if not by the end of today. We ended up having one section of the docs added at the last minute and we’re simply needing to make sure it doesn’t need changing before we generate the PDF version.

There are a few known issues (in addition to the missing docs).

• There is an issue with how the installation script installs the Emerald themes. You will have to install them manually until we can get that fixed.
• The wallpapers aren’t showing up due to a permissions issue. It should be an easy fix for us and we’ll include them in the update already being planned. Until then you can always add them by hand from the Wallpapers folder where you extracted the .tar.gz.
• Usplash is still buggy (I hope to have that fixed today)
• Thunderbird theme is still buggy
• GDM theme is not automatically set by the script (this seems to be a GNOME limitation rather than a Mac4Lin issue)

There is one other thing that I just saw: The uninstall script will not actually remove your installed files. This is due to an issue in the bash script itself that we’re still having to deal with so we’ve disabled it for the time being.

Check out some screenshots on the official announcement, and if you run into any issues we haven’t covered in the documentation feel free to post them in our Ubuntu Forums support thread. Just please don’t post that there aren’t any instructions. We’ve already said we’re working on that.

Mac4Lin is a finalist!

Anirudh had some great news for us this week. You may remember that last month I shared with everyone that Mac4Lin was getting nominated for the 2009 edition of the SourceForge Community Choice Awards. Now we’ve learned that Mac4Lin was selected as one of the finalists, and it looks like the final voting should start around the 22nd. I’ll let you know when the voting is open.

Nominate Mac4Lin, and Gmail stupidity

One of the pleasant surprises I’ve seen while perusing our stats is the amount of traffic we’ve gotten from people looking for info on the Mac4Lin Transformation Kit. (Yes, we’re still in Release candidate status for version 1.0, but we’re hoping we can get it out before summer ends.) The good people at SourceForge are taking nominations for the 2009 Community Choice Awards. Please help us by nominating the Mac4Lin for Best Visual Design.

Mac4Lin

Did Google’s servers suffer a concussion?

Now for the not so great news. As the tech news media is reporting, yesterday Google had a network glitch that made many parts of their sites unavailable for about an hour. But as many Gmail users will tell you, they’ve been having a pretty major issue with showing images for a couple weeks now. The problem is that when Gmail shows you an image that includes images they ask you if you want to see them, but their servers have suffered amnesia as to whether you have said to always show the images or not. It’s getting to the point that I’m having to say “always show the damned images from this sender” on a daily basis for many of the same senders, and some users are reporting that they’re doing it multiple times in a single day. Just today I had to tell Google that I always want to see the images from a good 90% of the senders that I have email subscriptions with for news, shopping info (such as sale flyers) and entertainment (such as ICHC and Comics.com). Sarah, one fo Google’s employees, said that the devs are aware of the issue and are working on it, but she posted that on 30 April and we don’t seem to be any closer to a resolution than we were when she posted the response and their blog has been strangely silent on the matter. Unfortunately it’s making some of us question whether we were smart when we elected to rely on Google for many of their services, such as email, online documents and site search.

So if you’re thinking about signing up with Google for something, you may want to hold off on it or go with someone else until they get their act together better.

Mac4Lin gets ink in Linux Mag

Anirudh Acharya, the developer of the Mac4Lin Transformation Kit, has let me know that they got some very nice coverage in the January issue of Linux Magazine as they look at two programs, Mac4Lin (with the docking benefits of the Avant Window Navigator) and Pdfsam, an open source PDF document editor.

Now, thanks to the Mac4Lin project, Linux users can enjoy the visual side of Mac OSX without dipping too deeply into their pockets for expensive Apple hardware.

Congratulations on the coverage for Mac4Lin, and I’m glad to say that the Subversion (svn) repo for Mac4Lindoes have the latest possible files for the otherwise unreleased 1.0 Release Candidate 2, including the latest version of the PDF documentation. For those who look at the svn files and wonder how the heck you use them, I was wondering that as well. I asked Ani and he said that the install scripts you get from svn don’t work because they look for .tar.gz files that are in the normal download of Mac4Lin but not in the svn versions. Luckily he wrote a post on his own blog about how to use them so you won’t have to spend too much time trying to use them.

For those who have looked at the Places icon on the AWN dock from Mac4Lin and thought it looked out of place, you’re not alone. Ani is going to change it (thank you!) and if you update the svn files regularly you’ll see when the icon gets changed.

Mac4Lin gets Subversion support

After much demand from our users and testers, Mac4Lin 1.0 now uses the Subversion (svn) version control system.

What does this mean in plain Engrish, I mean English? It means that rather than having to wait for Anirudh or another member of the Mac4Lin development team to put together an updated testing build for Mac4Lin 1.0 you can now snag the updated files quickly and easily. And as an extra bonus, you can get the internal Mac4Lin 1.0 RC2 that isn’t being made available on our Downloads page. You can also get the latest update of the PDF documentation via Subversion. Mega thanks to whoever made that available, because I know the docs have been updated them since I last touched them and I haven’t updated the PDF yet.

I get updates of the Sonata MPD client via Subversion and it’s a great way to keep up to date with the efforts of the developers.

To get the details you need read Ani’s announcement on the SourceForge Mac4Lin Discussion Forums.

[UPDATED] Install Vala without compiling source code

Last week I wrote a post on installing GlobalMenu (nee MacMenu) and I said you had to install Vala, which had to be installed from source code. This morning I saw ayoli’s comment and it sent me hunting through Launchpad for a PPA that held Vala 0.5.1. After finding several PPA’s with older versions I found the one that had the current version.

Before we install Vala from Bruce Cowan’s PPA we need to uninstall our current build of Vala. You’ll need to restart your computer during the change so either bookmark this post or print it out so you can refer to it after you restart. Since GlobalMenu depends on it let’s shut down the GlobalMenu first. Go into your home directory and open ~/.gnomerc again in your favorite text editor and comment out all of the lines that you had uncommented to run GlobalMenu. Save the changes and close your text editor, then open a Terminal (or your favorite command line app). Change to the folder where you installed Vala and let’s run the uninstall command.

cd vala-0.5.1
sudo make uninstall

Enter your root password when asked and you will see a rather long list of remove file operations. One that’s done you’ll need to reboot to apply the changes, but before you do right click on your Global Menu Panel Applet and remove it, then add either the Main Menu or the Menu Bar to your panel. This will give you the main application menus to use after you restart your computer. Now close any application you’re running (including your web browser) and restart your system to apply the changes we made. I’ll see you when you get back.

/me fires up Sonata and plays a little Fragile while he waits for you to get back

Welcome back. Let’s get Bruce’s PPA added to your sources.list file.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bruce89/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/bruce89/ubuntu intrepid main

Updated 2 June: Vadi’s comment reminded me that there’s a better PPA for Vala, namely the one for the Vala Team. Use these sources in your sources.list for the latest builds of Vala:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/vala-team/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/vala-team/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Update your package list (sudo apt-get update) and install Vala by running

sudo apt-get install valac

I know that look weird but you want Vala, a “C# like language for the GObject system” (from Bruce’s PPA page), if you want to run the current version of GlobalMenu. I’m running GlobalMenu as I type this so I can confirm that valac is the package that you need from Bruce’s PPA.

Go back to ~/.gnomerc and edit the file to the setting you used the last time you ran GlobalMenu. You can either replace your Global Menu Panel Applet now or when you get back, but it’s time for yet another reboot.

/me enjoys a little Mood for a Day while you reboot again

If you didn’t put the Global Menu Panel Applet you should put that back on your panel now. The GlobalMenu should be working, showing that the valac package was the right one to install. I’ll be adding these updated instructions to the documentation for Mac4Lin 1.0 so Mac4Lin users will have the compiled instructions in a single handy file.

Thanks to aoli for giving me the idea of finding a PPA that has Vala, and thanks to Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, Chris Squire and Bill Bruford (collectively known in 1971 as Yes) for making such a sweet album to listen to as I blog.

Updated 20 November 2009: Commenting on this post is closed due to its age and use by somment spammers.

[UPDATED] Get the GlobalMenu without all of the hassle

[We have a change in the URI for the GlobalMenu Team PPA. See below. And I've (finally) updated the package name. -Peng]

One of the things users of Mac4Lin (as well as others) love is the GlobalMenu, which used to be known as the MacMenu. The one pain in the rump is trying to get the damned thing installed, because it invariably involves compiling it from source and the very large possibility for spending a bit of time in dependency hell.

But not anymore. I found a link to a part of the Google Code site for the GlobalMenu code. They have packages for several distros as well, and while they have packages for Ubuntu Gutsy they have installation instructions that include using a PPA for Ubuntu Intrepid. But rather send you over there and risk your getting a side trip through Dependency Hell I’ll give you some nice easy steps to follow for users on Ubuntu Intrepid. There’s a new URI for the GlobalMenu Team PPA. I’ve updated the data to put into your sources.list below.

Dependencies are a bugger

NOTE: Vala, a dependency for GlobalMenu, is available in a Launchpad PPA. If you want to skip the section on compiling Vala read this post and then jump down to the heading “Not so fast…“ I was following this tutorial to try to get GlobalMenu working before I found the PPA so I already had Vala installed. There are some dependencies that you need to have met before installing Vala so fire up your favorite command line app and run this:

sudo apt-get install build-essential flex bison gnome-common libglib2.0-dev gtk-doc-tools autoconf2.13 automake1.9 libgtk2.0-dev libdbus-glib-1-dev libwnck-dev libpanel-applet2-dev

Before you close your terminal let’s get Vala installed so let’s follow ayoli’s instructions for installing it. (The dependencies you just met are also from ayoli’s site.)

cd ~/
wget -c http://download.gnome.org/sources/vala/0.5/vala-0.5.1.tar.bz2
tar xjvf vala-0.5.1.tar.bz2
cd vala-0.5.1/
./configure
make
sudo make install # (for some reason, checkinstall doesn't work here)
sudo ldconfig

Not so fast…

You need to make sure the libgnomenu GTK module is loaded, but there’s an easy way to do it. Create a file in your root folder called ~/.gnomerc, and open it in your preferred text editor and paste the following into the file.

# Uncomment to load the GTK module

# export GTK_MODULES=globalmenu-gnome

# Uncomment to tell the GTK module to open a Gtk

# TreeView for all menus in the application you start.

# export GNOMENU_FUN=1

# Uncomment to disable global menu.

# export GNOMENU_DISABLED=1

# Uncomment to print a lot of debugging messages

# export GNOMENU_VERBOSE=1

# Uncomment to save the debugging messages to the given file.

# export GNOMENU_LOG_FILE=/tmp/gnomenu.log

# uncomment to disable the plugin for specific programs.

# export GTK_MENUBAR_NO_MAC="fast-user-switch-applet"

You’ll need to uncomment the particular lines you want to use. To use the GlobalMenu you’ll need to disable uncomment the line to export the GTK module, but the rest are up to you.Updated 13 February 2009 8:05am: You no longer have to uncomment the first line for GlobalMenu to work. Now you can comment/uncomment that and all other lines via the new settings window, which is just a right click away.

I tried using the option to use the GTK TreeView but it opened a new window and I had absolutely no clue what it did so I disabled it. I do, however, save the debugging messages, and I had them saved to a file in my /home folder just so I can find it more easily.

Now to install GlobalMenu

You need to add a pair of entries to your apt sources.lst file. Updated URI for the GlobalMenu Team’s PPA, posted 3 December 7:30 am, pointed out by Ali Servet Dönmez.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/globalmenu-team/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/globalmenu-team/ubuntu intrepid main

Save the file and close it, and you’re just about ready to install GlobalMenu. I forgot to post it because I do it automatically, but first you need to run

sudo apt-get update

and then you can run

sudo apt-get install gnome2-globalmenu
sudo apt-get install gnome-globalmenu

Updated 13 February 2009 8:05 am: The package name has been updated to reflect the current name of the package. Sorry about that, and thanks to nicad for reminding me that I hadn’t changed it yet.

Now restart your system log out* and and when you log back in there will be one detail left to take care of. If you have a panel menu on your upper panel remove it and right click on your panel, select Add to panel… and add the GlobelMenu Panel Applet. Now you’ll find the menu for whatever window you’re using showing on your panel. There is a list of compatible applications, but it’s easier to say what won’t work with it. Any applications that don’t use GTK will keep their menus inside their windows. Namely that means any KDE app you use (such as Amarok), OpenOffice.org and Mozilla’s Firefox and Thunderbird. Any applications you run with sudo permissions (like Synaptic) won’t use GlobalMenu either, but that’s a safety precaution.

Here are a couple of screenshots of my system after I installed GlobalMenu.

My desktop with some details in the AWN Terminal

My desktop with Firefox 3 and Nautilus running. You can hide your menu in Firefox with the Hide Menubar add-on, but I have to warn you not to disable it without first using View > Toolbars > Mainmenu Toolbar. Otherwise you’ll find that your menus are hidden when you’ve restarted Firefox with no way to bring them back.

If you use Mac4Lin…

The normal themes for Mac4Lin are missing some components that make a difference for using GlobalMenu. You should either install the MacMenu version of the Mac4Lin GTK themes, or if you’re using Mac4Lin ver.1.0 RC1 simply use System > Preferences > Appearances > Customize to select the Mac4Lin_MacMenuv1.0RC control set, then save the modified theme. Now you’ll be able to enjoy even more OSX-like goodness.

*-Thanks to BobCFC for letting me know in his comment that you only need to log out, not reboot, to get it working. I thought it was just logging out but I did a reboot to clear up other things and I didn’t want to risk telling you the wrong thing.

Peng’s links for Tuesday, 25 November

• Launchpad News: Launchpad 2.1.11: OpenID support and now easier to contact other people. I love it when a software updates provide an extra goodie. If you were trying to find a good OpenID source (my blog isn’t so great since I share it with Nanci and I keep getting ID’d as my little sister) and you have a membership on Launchpad you may have found a great resource. Too bad I was at one site that didn’t accept the ID, but I’m not sure if that’s a Launchpad issue or an issue with the other site.
• Anirudh Acharya: Mac4Lin featured in Linux Magazine. Mac4Lin 1.0 is working toward a second release candidate but that’s not keeping the folks at Linux Magazine from giving it a nice article in the January issue. Ani’s got a PDF of the article you can download, as well as an updated pack with the new versions of the GTK scripts and a new uninstall script that one of our users was kind enough to contribute.
• Scott Ritchie: Redesigning WineHQ.org. The WINE team is working on a redesign of their website and is asking for feedback on the new design.
• E-LINUX.it: No more Microsoft Internet Explorer for the 2010 soccer world cup. When I first saw the headline on Google News I thought it would be a report of Microsoft loosing a contract, but it’s actually a great look at the hazards of doing web design to fit a single browser. I especially love this statement: “Must work on all browsers – If you don’t you get to lose 1/3 of your audience.” That goes for designing for any browser, whether it’s IE, Opera or Firefox. You should always design to standards, not to a browser. And don’t worry, the article is in English so you won’t have to worry about finding your Babel fish.
• Ceci Connolly/Washington Post: Doctors Are Slow to Start Writing Prescriptions Online. My doctor’s started sending my prescriptions straight to my pharmacy, which is really nice. No longer will have have to drop off my script, then go do some shopping to kill enough time until my new meds are ready.
• The Media Equation/NYTimes.com: Google Seduces With Utility. David Carr admits to using a ton of Google services, and he’s getting a little worried about it.