Technovia

Ubuntu Tweak

Ian Betteridge — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:29:47 PST

Here's a quick recommendation for anyone getting to grips with customising Ubuntu for the first time: Ubuntu Tweak. This is a simple application which lets you change lots of settings, add useful repositories, and much more. Recommended.

(Via TuxGeek)

Technorati Tags: Ubuntu, Linux, Ubuntu Tweak

So I bought a new computer

Ian Betteridge — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 05:00:21 PST

I bought a new computer. It's not a Mac.

It's a Dell. It runs Linux. It didn't cost me £1400.

And I love it. I'll write some more about why I decided to switch later, but so far I've had it a week, and the only reason I've picked up the Mac again is to get copies of some files which aren't supported by anything other than Mac apps and save them into something sane.

Best. Tech. Discussion. Evah

Ian Betteridge — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:04:57 PST

Read it. Go on. You know you want to.

Buying a movie should not give you less quality than pirating it

Ian Betteridge — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:57:06 PST

And yet, as this example shows, thanks to copy protection systems it usually does:

"When my friend John, a high school teacher, attempted to play Hellboy 2 on his classroom's projector with a new aluminum MacBook over lunch, he was denied by the error you see above [an HDCP error]. John's using a Mini DisplayPort-to-VGA adapter, plugged into a Sanyo projector that is part of his room's Promethean system. Strangely, only some iTunes Store movies appear to be HDCP-aware, as other purchased media like Stargate: Continuum and Heroes season 2 play through the projector just fine. Attempts to play Hellboy 2 or other HDCPed films through the projector via QuickTime also get denied. Other movies that don't work include newer films like Iron Man, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and Love Guru, but older films like Shawshank Redemption are restricted as well."

Studios and other content companies should start to realise that this kind of stuff only discourages legitimate customers from paying for their products, and encourages them to pirate it.

The lovely irony of contextual advertising, part 27

Ian Betteridge — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:49:16 PST

Today, we came across a hard hitting column in The Gaurdian by Kira Cochrane, where's she's despairing of "female stars still having to expose their bodies":

Meanwhile, down at the bottom, we get to the ads:

Caned female bottoms, eh? It's good to know that the Graun knows where I can buy them.

Installing Mac fonts on Ubuntu

Ian Betteridge — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 14:18:56 PST

If you're switching from Mac to Linux (and hey, I'm sure it'll be fashionable) then you'll want to head to this page and find out how to grab the Mac fonts. Unless you really, really like FreeSans.

Technorati Tags: Ubuntu, Linux, Mac OS X

A simple way to locally backup your Google Docs

Ian Betteridge — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:59:16 PST

One of the issues that I've always had with online document tools like Google Docs is that there's a kind of lock-in going on. Once your documents are in there, there's no easy way to get them out.

However, that's no longer true. Thanks to some smart software called GdataCopier, you can automatically download or upload files to Google Docs, in any of the formats which Google exports in.

I've set this up with my main machine to download everything every day, using a simple cron job – it should work for any platform which supports Python.

Installing Google Earth on Ubuntu 8.10

Ian Betteridge — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:05:37 PST

Christer Edwards has an excellent blog post up on how to install Google Earth on the latest version of Ubuntu, 8.10. It's a simple three-step process, and while I'm not a huge fan of Google Earth, I know that there's plenty of you out there.

How to update to OpenOffice 3.0 on Ubuntu 8.10

Ian Betteridge — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 13:04:43 PST

Despite only being released a few weeks ago, Ubuntu 8.10 (otherwise known as Intrepid Ibex) doesn't include the latest OpenOffice, 3.0.

If you want to upgrade, here's what you have to do:

Step 1: Add the repository, by going to system -> Administration -> Software sources and adding:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ubuntu intrepid main

to your list of sources.

Step 2: Once that's done, type:

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude full-upgrade -y

And you're all set!

(Tip of the hat to Andre Gondim for the help!)

Yet another reason why Windows Vista was a disaster area

Ian Betteridge — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 12:49:09 PST

If, like me, you bought a Windows Vista upgrade on the day it was released you probably remember the feeling of vague nausea you experienced when you realised that your 18-month old hardware simply couldn't run the operating system well enough.

You weren't the only one troubled by Vista's performance. Jim Allchin, the Microsoft executive directly responsible for Vista, was deeply concerned that customers would be disappointed with the operating system's performance when they tried to run it on what should have been “Vista Capable” hardware:

"We are going to be misleading customers with the Capable program. OEMs (computer makers) will say a machine is Capable and customers will believe that it will run all the core Vista features. The fact that aero won't be there EVER for many of these machines is misleading to customers. ...We need to meet on this. Please set this up ASAP. We need something simpler in my view. I know we don't want to hurt the OEMS, but end-customers must be the top priority. We must avoid confusion. It is wrong for customers. And we probably will have to change your current plans.........."

Despite the fact that Vista includes an awful lot of superior technology when compared to Windows XP, this disappointment undoubtedly did an immense amount of damage to the new OS's reputation.

(Via Boing Boing Gadgets)