The following articles below were published during the month of June 2011 (times are based on UTC):
/Rant on! We have facebook, twitter, indenti.ca, diaspora, etc... and while some of these are Open Source (or use the technologies), they just aren't going to ever be a perfect fit. Not for an OS that wants to take over 200 million desktops in 4 years... Huh? In short, Ubuntu needs a social network. A real social network. I'm talking a Windows Live Randomness + Faceless Book + Google + + twitter - social network... and we need one soon. The sooner the better; if you ask me. Now I'm sure many people will read this and go "whatever", but if you stop to think about it, it's a bigger deal than we might think. What? Why?! Yesterday I was ...
Funny title ain't it? No, but really. Am I duller person now that I'm almost always running bleeding edge stuff? My software (except most of the underlying OS) is bleeding edge, my ideas are bleeding edge, I talk bleeding edge, I act bleeding edge... if only my life could catch up! Like for example... Thunderbird 5 came out today... but I'm running Thunderbird 7. That's why I didn't exactly, report it :/. Thunderbird 5 isn't news for me, I've already seen it a while ago. Part of the reason for slow updates on here recently, is that quite frankly I'm not inspired lol! Everything everyone else is reporting feels so old D:! Maybe I ought to upgrade to 11.10, but ...
Want to learn how to knit an Ubuntu sweater? Then ask grandma. However, if you want to learn the various aspects of becoming a ninja (Ubuntu, ninja), join the Ask Ubuntu Classroom! Events will be posted on this question on Meta, and anyone is free to join. If you think you have what it takes, then you can also be a "teacher". Just pick your time and subject.
I did mention this earlier, though only through twitter. As everyone knows by now, Opera 11.50 final is out, and it brings with it some interesting changes. Most notable is the new theme (it's not exactly stunning, but it will pass), and speed dial extensions. Other changes include the updated rendering engine (now said to be much faster, but I'm yet to see that), password sync, and improvements in CSS and SVG rendering. In light of the recent Firefox download craze, the Opera crew has added a download slider (personally, I don't trust these stats for any of the browsers, but who cares). Currently, they are just past the number of Rebecca Black dislikes (honestly, I think that ...
Sorry for the delayed nature of this post - we had some issue on the blog that needed to be fixed before we could get back to blogging :). Stupid wordpress plugin nuked posts... A number of days ago I posted that I was getting a bit wary of Phoronix, for pretty obvious reasons. Fortunately today, I'm happy to announce that Phoronix is back in our good books. Not only has Michael released (at last) his findings, but he is being rather detailed and working hard on finding a solution to the Linux power management problems. On another note - remember: developers need to eat! So if you can, donate to Phoronix :). P.S. We need to eat too. ...
One of the biggest selling points for many browsers these days is speed, but isn't speed a bit over rated? Also, isn't speed rather subjective these days? Think about it for a bit. I'm a Firefox user, but I often switch to Chrome/ium and Opera, and sometimes to Midori. One of the things I also do often is clear my cache (not history/cookies/etc) to free space - and also to see just how fast each browser really is - and honestly, I am not sold on the "speed" claims any longer. Okay so I don't have a Core i7 or Phenom with several cores, but my Core2Duo is no slug, my net speed is pretty respectable, and I've got plenty ...
Apparently if you use KDE, and upload photos to Facebook with any KDE application that uses KIPI plugins, Facebook is now blocking the uploads, and has even deleted photos previously uploaded with the plugin. There is not word yet on if other applications (such as GThumb and f-Spot) have been affected. Reason? It seems to have something to do with a rogue ban bot... Source: http://feeds.techie-buzz.com/~r/techiebuzz/~3/Y9heFKfLlqg/facebook-deleting-photos-kde.html
A lot can get lost over time, especially on the internet. Truth is one of those things. You can only imagine my level of surprise, when I found out where the Compiz Grid really got its beginnings. No, the idea for a Grid did not come from Windows 7. In fact, most people are never made aware that this plugin has existed for quite a while, and what also surprises me is that everyone talks about it like if it only came into being after Windows came up with the same thing (by default). Much to the contrary, such a feature has been part of Linux Window managers in some form or another for ages (tiling window managers for example, ...
A few days ago I wrote a short rant about memory leaks (I hate em, even though I used a similar idea for a prank at college ;)). Today, I'm happy to announce, that it seems at least something is being done (no thanks to me most likely) about the problems I was getting. I guess it does pay to run bleeding-edge software after all. The system-load indicator is no longer eating my RAM, and Firefox 7 seems to be doing a much better job since the last update - though it has some ways to go. Now the only one that needs to cut the fat on memory usage is compiz (but this seems not to be a problem ...
I'm late with this one, or maybe not - I run the svn build and update almost daily. Some of the changes in this release are pretty ground breaking for enthusiasts (like myself, even though I don't get around to 3D as often these days), but the majority of them are either bug fixes or minor features. To get this release, and updates you can add the following ppa: ppa:cheleb/blender-svn You can also install point releases from the svn ppa by locking the package version in Synpatic (see my answer on an AskUbuntu question: http://askubuntu.com/questions/50126/blender-has-weird-fuzzy-misbehaving-icon-in-launcher/50130#50130). You will need to do this if you want a stable version (and do not plan to build from source), as the tar ball version ...