July 3rd, 2008
I could say two things, from observing other people around me who use Vista:
1. The annoying security thing. I saw that in several people’s laptops. There were pop-ups asking for the user password almost every time they tried to save something in their local working directory.
2. The sudden black screen for no apparent reason.
But I don’t know the whole story. I just saw two votes on the sidebar poll and got curious. What happened with your Windows Vista experience? How much better is your Linux experience? How do you compare both experiences?
Can someone humor me by answering my questions?
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By Clair -- 0 comments
July 3rd, 2008
It sucks to be on a laptop using Intel 945 GM. I currently have difficulty using an extended screen. Especially because the current LCD I have as extra LCD is a MAG. It seems that there is a problem detecting it and its proper resolution. Aside from that, I had to ask help from one of our sys ads in the office. I wanted to tweak something in xserver-xorg but I couldn’t and he had to edit the settings of my virtual screen. That was something I tried to do on the GUI tool but apparently it’s still lacking some features that would help me fix the settings. (But hey! At least there is now a GUI tool for Linux newbies. And that’s a really awesome thing.) Others who are on Acer laptops with Intel 965 drivers are lucky because they could have an extended desktop setup and still have Compiz!
So now I have to find someone who will trade monitors with me. :D
But still, for now, it is a pain.
And one more thing: I lost the ability to use the funky Compiz effects like magnifying the screen. Oh well. I could live without Compiz. (Ironic, considering I just started to appreciate it on a personal use level.)
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By Clair -- 0 comments
June 30th, 2008
- I was getting tired of using other operating systems.
- I just got curious about it.
- The school/office changed the operating system on the computers we use and I got hooked after that.
You could choose your answers from the list or add your own. It depends on you. If you want to give a detailed story of your migration to Linux, you could post a comment here so that I could easily read them all at one place.
Even if you haven’t made the switch yet but you’re about to do so, feel free to answer the poll. :) You’re potential new Linux users and it would be awesome to hear from you.
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By Clair -- 5 comments
June 29th, 2008
The results are:
- Downloaded from the Internet - 59 (91% of all votes)
- A burned CD/DVD from a friend - 1 (2% of all votes)
- Bought online - 2 (3% of all votes)
- From a magazine subscription - 1 (2% of all votes)
- Ordered DVD’s for free! - 12 (3% of all votes)
Total Votes: 65
Two people said they ordered free DVDs! XD It’s an easy way of getting a pressed copy of a distro you like. Especially if you don’t have the bandwidth for downloading an iso. Thanks for participating, folks. Watch out for the next poll question!
Tags: distros, linux, pollsShare This
By Clair -- 0 comments
June 29th, 2008
Hey, Timelady! I owe you once again for this awesome link to download YouTube videos. I hardly download videos on YouTube so this set of tools would be great.
I like TubeLeecher and KissYouTube. It’s easy to just remember the URLs of those two tools.
I am not sure if there are any other YouTube video download tools. But these are two of the nifty ones I’ve seen from the list and I like them. :)
How do you download YouTube videos?
Tags: downloads, tools, youtubeShare This
By Clair -- 0 comments
June 29th, 2008
The blog entry on Red Devil’s blog is interesting. It asks:
Where is the sense in striving for a unique look for your distribution if, within a few hours of installing it, the user has completely changed its appearance?
Seems a waste of time, doesn’t it? I know it would break my heart, if I’d spent hours working on a theme for my new distribution.
You might argue that some time needs to be spent on appearance to at least make a distribution stand out from the rest.
It certainly helps if, when you first log in to your new desktop, everything looks polished and professional.
But really, what’s the point of spending hours trying to decide which icon set to use, or even creating a new one, if some awkward Joe like me is immediately going to change it for one that better suits his current mood?
I almost haven’t changed anything about my Ubuntu install’s look and feel when I switched to Hardy Heron. No theme change, no icon changes. I just moved the panel on the left side instead of the top of the screen so that I could make Emacs fit the screen.
But I really like the default desktop of 8.04 because it looks clean. Plus the desktop background was awesome too! And because Compiz works fine now I didn’t disable it on my laptop. I used to find it difficult to use Compiz because it would often crash. I really think that they made the desktop like that.
So are developers who spend time on improving users’ desktop experience wasting their time? No, not really. Even for those with small teams who’d like to improve their desktop would benefit from such a thing IF they would like NEW Linux users to be at ease. But if they’re creating a Linux distro that’s mainly for old users, I think that they could keep the window manager and icon defaults.
What do you think?
Tags: linux, newbiesShare This
By Clair -- 1 comment
June 28th, 2008
In particular, I really like two things about Compiz. One is the preview of the windows I have open when switching from one workspace to another or from one app to another. The other is the magnification of the screen when I press Alt +1 (or 2 or 3). I find it really helpful.
I haven’t really turned on the option for Compiz before. When I installed Hardy Heron, the settings were normal and I just had to take them as they are so that I could try out some Compiz effects for the heck of it. I haven’t really done that before because I was having trouble often enough, aside from the fact that I mainly used GNOME or Openbox and they met most of my needs anyway.
When I need to look at details and couldn’t use a dual-monitor setup, the keyboard shortcut for magnification is simply great. It is also nifty in highlighting details of an app so you could easily show it too.
Do you use Compiz? What is useful to you?
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By Clair -- 0 comments
June 26th, 2008
I say get down and dirty with it.
There’s no other way than to use Linux and the apps bundled in the distro you’ve chosen to work/play with. It’s the only way you’d figure out if Linux would meet or solve your needs and wants. It’s also the only way to let you learn if you could use it for day to day tasks. It’s true that no one distro is able to give you everything you need but at least you have a better idea of what’s with Linux. Reading the manual, scouring forums and mailing list archives will be part of the deal, that’s for sure. Especially for those who are considerably shy and less social than most Linux users/newbies. Going to a friend for a more personal approach sounds good too. For someone like me, that’s what’s more effective. Sometimes I don’t know how to learn about the technology and there are moments when I get frustrated too.
A blog entry on Echoes talks about what the blogger thinks is the best way to learn Linux. One of the things mentioned on the blog:
I think keeping asking questions rather than reading manuals and tutorials first will get you out of trouble for the moment, but there will always be problems in the future which need to be taken care of.
I think that the point raised is valid. Because as users we mainly want something that works. We want something quick. What we need to learn that from the questions that we ask today are things that we need to build upon. If we think that we only ask other people to fix our problems, then we won’t grow in knowledge. And that seems futile doesn’t it?
Not everyone has the patience to learn through reading man pages. But we need to do that. There are other learning materials now. There are also videos on YouTube. There are also comics like Hackett and Bankwell, as I blogged about before.
Tags: learning, linux, newbieShare This
By Clair -- 2 comments
June 23rd, 2008
I have only been recently introduced to Plurk and I haven’t been plurking as much as my buddies. Probably because I have stuff to work on and there’s nothing much to plurk about.
In any case, for those of you who don’t know Plurk yet, it’s this nifty thing that lets you post your thoughts and feelings on the spot and quite easily at that. If you’ve heard of the term microblogging, Plurk lets you do that with ease. And even shows it to you via a timeline.
I only got introduced to Plurk because Twitter was down too often and it’s pretty annoying already. Plurk hasn’t totally replaced Twitter in my eyes yet but if Twitter can’t handle the scalability issues it faces… I am not sure. In any case, I am looking for a Linux client of Plurk. I haven’t found any yet. I only have the add-on of Plurk on Firefox.
As you can see on my Flickr account, the screenshot includes the blog where I got the information about the Plurk add-on for Firefox. It’s quite nifty and at least I don’t have to always look at the timeline or load Plurk all the time. But still - I would love to know if there is a client for Linux! Could you please post a comment here so we know? :) Thanks!
Tags: linux, plurkShare This
By Clair -- 0 comments
June 20th, 2008
There are students from NICGA and the University of NSW who made a clarinet that could be operated by a computer. The description of the robot is that there’s an embedded computer that is connected to brass plungers with rubber nylon feet to control the keys and mouthpiece of the internet. They used Gumstix boards to make the project and those used the Open Embedded Linux distribution. It played “Flight of the Bumblebee” and “Bolero” — the judge admitted that it doesn’t seem quite as “warm” as a human musician playing .
That sounds really amazing, right? :D You could even view a video clip of the robot in action. For more details you could refer to the article in Computerworld.
Tags: clarinet, linux, musicShare This
By Clair -- 0 comments
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