I’ve had the pleasure of trying out plenty of netbook hardware. Just about every form factor and operating system combination available. These netbooks range from the hardly usable, to the might-as-well-be-a-laptop, and everything in between. It’s that “everything in between” space that appeals to the majority of users on the planet and that’s exactly where [...]
Install and use Ubuntu Unity before it’s released
Mark Shuttleworth has announced that Ubuntu is dropping the GNOME desktop as the default and switching to it’s own, in-house desktop. That desktop is the Unity desktop which was designed for the netbook environment. Whether you like this move or not, it’s happening. But what is Unity? And how do you experience it now, instead [...]
Linux dictionary tools
The dictionary is a tool that any writer or student should have on their computer. And Linux users are not immune from this need. But if you look through the possibilities of Linux dictionary tools you find quite a large amount available. Which of these tools are the best or easiest to use? I have [...]
Multi-view terminal with Terminator
I do enjoy the terminal. Although it’s not necessary in modern Linux iterations, it’s always great to know that terminal is there when you need it. Terminal power users have TONS of options. You can use the multi-talented Guake (see my article “Guake: Hide-able terminal goodness“), you can opt for the standard Xterm, or the [...]
Change your Grub and Grub2 splash screen in Ubuntu
Your first question might be “Why bother changing your grub splash screen?” The answer? Why not! Well, actually there are plenty of reasons you might want to change your Grub splash screen. You could be in a company that wants its brand from top to bottom, or you just want your computer to be cool [...]
Create a slide-show screen saver with the help of F-spot
The desktop screensaver is one of those gray areas that does nothing for productivity but people always seem to want to tweak, change, and otherwise toil over. For some it’s just a way to save some power. For others, it’s a requirement (by law) that screens lock after a certain period of time. For some [...]
Ubuntu 10.10: Get it while it’s hot
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, Ubuntu 10.10 is officially out and officially hot. With plenty of features to make everything ooh and ahh as well as stability built upon the 10.04 release, which is one of the most stable, usable distributions to date. But why should you download it now and install it? What does [...]
Linux text to speech with Festival
There are many reasons why you would want to enable a text to speech feature on a computer. You could suffer from poor (or no) vision, you might need the feature for a science experiment, or maybe you just want to have your log files read to you. No matter the reason, text to speech [...]
Change the window controls from left to right in Ubuntu
According to Ubuntu >= 10.04, left is the new right. It’s old news by now, but I’m sure there are plenty of you out there who have battled to try to acclimate yourselves to the new “standard”. For some users, this is a no-brainer. But for other users, the paradigm of upper right window control [...]