Peng’s links for Thursday, 17 December

Sorry about not posting a links post last week (or two). I’m going to include some of the links I found because they’re still beneficial even a week (or two) after they were published.

• Stephan Peijnik: How to copy partitions under GNU/Linux the easy way. I may not be the only one hoping to find a new hard drive under the Chrismukkuh tree next week, and you may need a way to transfer your data off a dying drive, or even just a smaller one, to a new one. Stephan has a very easy way to accomplish the task. And he has the added benefit of spelling his name the right way. Just ask my son Stephen.
• Launchpad News: Getting the most from bug mail. Filing bugs is an important part of being a member of he open source community, but sometimes the follow up emails may not seem to be giving you much value for your time. The Launchpad team has some information that may help you make the most of your bug reporting work while taking up less time out of your busy days.
• Chromium Blog: Extensions beta launched, with over 300 extensions! I know this post is just over a week ago, but if you don’t know that there is an official home for extensions for Google’s Chrome browser and its open source sibling Chromium then you should definitely check out this post. It’s not as easy to surf as Mozilla’s addon site but they have a lot of very helpful extensions to help you use Chrome or Chromium as your new default web browser. To make things even better, Google Chrome for Linux is now available for beta testing.
• Panji Nushantara: How To Use Google Public DNS or OpenDNS in Ubuntu 9.10. If you find that your ISP’s Domain Name System lookups are slower than you find on other systems you can try a pair of public DNS services. Panji makes it easy with step-by-step instructions and screenshots.
• Rick Spencer: And Do it Begins. We can no longer say that there are no malware threats to Ubuntu users. Luckily the news isn’t nearly as bad as you may think from that last sentence. Kees Cook follows up on Rick’s article with a very simple bit of advice: “As quickly pointed out by Rick, don’t install random software that isn’t in the official distribution archive unless you really know what you’re doing (and copy/pasting commands from a website doesn’t count). You’re just asking to be made part of a botnet.” You’re damned Skippy, Kees.
• Juanje Ojeda: Is GNOME 3.0 for users or developers? GNOME Shell is being mentioned as one of the cooler things in the upcoming 3.0 release of the GNOME desktop environment but Juanje looks at the important question of who are the new features designed for?
• Andrew Cowie: Get your icons back. Have you lost the icons on your dialog buttons? Some people prefer a plain text look to their buttons but some don’t. Andrew has information on on why it changed and how to get them back if you prefer seeing them.
• The Fridge: LoCo Directory. The official Ubuntu Local Community (LoCo) Directory is now online! If you’re a part of a LoCo make sure your information is accurate, and if you’re able please help get it translated so even more people can make use of it.
• Launchpad news: Showing the number of affected users. Launchpad has long allowed you to say if a particular bug affects you, but you can now see how many of your fellow users have been bitten by the same bug. That is one nice feature they’ve added.
• Martin Owens: Anime Boston: First Goal Reached. Back on the third I included a link to Danny Piccirillo’s article about efforts to get Ubuntu represented at Anime Boston. Martin has some very good news for us about the plans.
• Robert Ancell: The demise of the function key. If you’re like me you often use function keys to do things without having to wade through menu after menu to do something. Unfortunately many keyboards are re-purposing those very keys, if they include them at all. That’s not just bad news for users, it’s bad for developers as well.
• Tom Dryer: Setting up Ubuntu 9.10. Tom has finally gotten Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala on his system and he shares some tricks he used to get it to run better. He’s also got screenshots of a damned nice theme that he uses.

I hope you’re all getting things ready for Chrismukkuh. Rather than add to the holiday post I wrote last Saturday Nanci and I have been adding some vids to her stickied holiday video post. If you’re still looking for some great holiday wallpaper you should check out the offerings over at blirk.net. You can also check out the posts in the Delicious December 2009 Screenshot Thread over on the Ubuntu Forums. And speaking of Chrismukkuh posts, I have one more link to share with you all before I hit Publish:

• Collin Pruitt: Christmas Online. Collin has some sites to help you make the most of your holiday. And if you’re more of an anti-Chrismukkuh person you should definitely check out the official YouTube channel for Foamy the Squirrel and all the folks over at iLL WiLL PrEss.

[UPDATED] Peng’s links for Friday, 22 August

[Updated to include an update for WINE. -Peng]

• muted articulation. I found this blog while checking the August 2008 Desktop Screenshot Thread and there are some great articles on it, especially one about timelapsed backgrounds in GNOME and his post on browser quirks. This blog belongs in your RSS reader, and I’m hoping we’ll get him on at least the Ubuntu Weblogs planet soon. Btw, if you’re looking for some ideas on things you can do to freshen up your desktop you should try to take the time to go through this month’s desktop screenie thread, and as many months as you can. I’ve gotten some nice ideas from those threads. It does take some time every day to get caught up (we’re up to 92 pages as of this writing) but it’s always worth the time to me. My only real problem is that I’ve got a lot more wallpapers for my rotation after getting some of the ones used on other people’s desktops. They’re that nice.
• Jonathan DiCarlo: Tabbing Through the Tabs and More Questions (and No Answers) about Tabs. Jono has some nice info on using tabs in Firefox, especially moving from tab to tab. I’m not sure if his ideas will be incorporated into Firefox, but if not I hope it becomes an extension. It would sure make moving between tabs easier, especially when I have several tabs open on a single site, which happens a lot more often for some of us than you may realize.
• Gervase Markham: Two Ways To Become a Beta Tester. A short but simple post showing the difference between how Microsoft and Mozilla, and for that matter most of the open source community, looks at beta testing.
• DesktopLinux.com: Linux to gain anti-virus software. McAfee is wanting to protect “Linux-based laptops and MIDs (mobile Internet devices) from ‘security challenges.’” Does this mean programs like Clam AntiVirus are crap? Or does it simply mean that McAfee sees the growing popularity of Linux and figures people will get around to start writing Linux malware sooner or later and wants to start cashing in on it now? (For the record, Linux users don’t really need anti-virus software at this point because it’s so difficult to write and spread that kind of malware on the Linux platform.)
• Launchpad News: Launchpad 2.1.8: Bugzilla and Trac plugins now available, plus karma for commits. Launchpad, the bug tracking software from Canonical (parent company of the Ubuntu Linux distribution) just gets better and better. The plugins for Bugzilla and Trac make it even easier to link upstream bugs, thus getting fixes where they belong faster.
• Kevin DuBois: Tips for spawning GUI’s from the Command Line. Some people love the command line, some people prefer Gui’s (graphical user interfaces). But did you know there’s a way to start a program from the command line without having to tie up a Terminal window while it runs? I didn’t either. I’m going to have to remember Kevin’s info for later use.
• Aaron Leventhal: Firefox and OS X’s VoiceOver … Reading the Magic 8 Ball. OSX has some nice accessibility tools like their VoiceOver screen reader. Unfortunately they’re proprietary tools and it’s just not that easy for other programs to use them. But the Mozilla devs are bound and determined to find a way to make things easier to use for people with disabilities.
• andrewsomething/Ubuntu Forums: Contributing to Intrepid. While I really wish this has been posted to a blog on Planet Ubuntu rather than as a topic on the UF, this is a must read for anyone wanting to help get the next version of Ubuntu ready to ship in October. No programming knowledge, let alone experience, required, just the willingness to install and run Intrepid and help report bugs. Intrepid is still in development and may cause major breakage at any point, so it should not be run on your primary computer, but if you have a second computer you can run it on we’d love to have you help test it.
• WINE HQ News: WINE 1.1.3 Released. I know, another new version of WINE? You betcha, and there are a number of improvements, including “many installer fixes” and “tweaks for better PulseAudio support.” It’s not available in the Ubuntu repos yet, but this may be one of those programs you get directly so you can keep up with updates. Update Sat 23 Aug 8:00: When I checked for updates this am I saw wine_1.1.3~winehq0~ubuntu~8.04-0ubuntu1 presented to me as an update. I believe it’s in hardy-proposed, but I couldn’t confirm that. It should be available to all Ubuntu Hardy users before too long.
• Miia Ranta: If I really knew how to code… A member of Planet Ubuntu shares her wish list. You’ve got to love her emote at the bottom of her post. One of these day I may have to join her in that emote. [Get your mind out of the gutters. It's not that kind of emote. lol]
• Lydia Pintscher: Nerrivik released. You’re thinking “WHAT released???”, but Nerrivik is the code name for the first beta of Amarok 2.0, the next version of the KDE media player I use on my GNOME box, even though it means I have to install some KDE libraries. Amarok used to be my primary media player until I discovered MPD/Sonata. Check out the screenshot that Lydia posts, then go read the release notes. (Her link takes you through Digg, mine gets you there directly. No offense, Lydia.)

Have a great weekend, everyone!