Geek Swagger.
Linux
A Trial Run With Linux Mint 10
Jan 18th
One thing I like to do every now and then is try a new distribution of linux, so when I heard about Linux Mint 10 I had to give it a try. I'm constantly looking to give new life to older computers I enjoyed in the past, fo instance my 2006 black macbook, and linux is a perfect way to do that. In many cases you'll end up with a computer that's much more functional when you had to begin with, and above all else it's just fun to try new operating systems.
Why Linux Mint?
I'm not gonna lie, I'm one of "those" types of linux users. You know the type, they install linux every now and then and they usually go with Ubuntu or some variation of it and there's really no commitment there because they have a Windows or Mac OS X machine within reach if they really need it. That's me. I have friends that committed to linux as their primary operating system for years at a time and I envy their immense knowledge and skill-set, but I'm not there yet. Linux Mint 10 plays to those attributes perfectly as it packs a whole lot of functionality in a simple and intuitive package, and since it's a derivative of Ubuntu there's no learning curve.
Easy To Setup & Use
I said above that I installed Linux Mint 10 on an older MacBook and as is the case with Ubuntu the install process was a snap. Pop in the live CD, click install and away you go. Best yet all of the laptop's hardware worked straight away without having to hunt for drivers, and even some seemingly mac-specific features like two-finger trackpad scrolling and awesome windows management via an exposé-like UI element made me feel right at home.
Finding and Installing Software
Remember, the best I can get on this MacBook is OS X Tiger so I couldn't even run current versions of iTunes or Google Chrome let alone a photo editor like GIMP, but finding and using all of those applications (or superior alternatives to them) with Linux Mint's software package manager is just as easy as using the mac app store. Best yet, all of the applications are free, so I don't have to worry about blowing $100 on apps I'll use once and then forget about.
Lightning Fast
One of my biggest pet peeves with operating systems is when they take a decade to boot or shutdown. Linux Mint 10 is the perfect representation of what I like to call "lean functionality," that is to say all of the capabilities you'd expect out of a modern OS with a 5 second boot or shutdown time. I'm not sure if part of the way Mint cuts down on load speeds is by removing some of the UI niceties that Ubuntu 10.10 has (which I think is gorgeous, by the way), but the result is a greasy fast user experience.
The takeaway is that if you have an older computer that is prohibitively dated, especially in the case where the native operating system is unsupported by newer third party applications, do yourself a favor and pursue a distribution of linux. As a casual user as I stated at the outset of this post I can recommend none higher than Linux Mint 10.
Livestation – Video Streaming for Mac, Windows and Linux
Dec 13th
I've got another application screencast for you this weekend. This time I talk about a handy little video-streaming program called Livestation. It lets you get news (and other TV channels from around the world) delivered right to your desktop. Thanks for watching, as always. =)
Dropbox : The Video
Oct 25th
I wrote a post some time ago about Dropbox. It's an awesome online storage solution for backup, syncing and sharing your files. Despite having written about it I was still inclined to do a video showing how the whole thing works, so that's exactly what I did. I even compared it to Live Mesh a bit so that's a bit of a bonus. Thanks for watching!
Dropbox
Now Playing:
, (multiplayer beta)
Asus breaks the code
Nov 27th
Lately there's been a lot of talk about Asus' ultra-small laptop called the . Eee stands for Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play. I think it should have a fourth E which would stand for Easy to lose because the thing is tiny but that's beside the point. It's not exactly a of a machine but the Eee PC is a great business portable that lets you do some basic things like word processing, internet browsing, and make Skype calls. This is all done from a homebrew of the Xandros linux distribution, but drivers for Windows XP are included (so you can install XP on it). The best part about it is that it's only $400, which shows that these are finally getting into a reasonable price range. I think paying $2,000 for a limited-function machine that you'll use sparingly isn't a great investment, but if the prices continue to drop these things could catch on quick. The Eee PC has a 7" display, a 900mhz processor, 512 megabytes of ram and a 4 gigabyte flash drive. These specs seem pretty miniscule but remember this is not a machine you're going to be doing any serious gaming or development with. If you want to learn more check the un-boxing video below, I thought it was pretty interesting.
So now that you know all about the Eee PC I must tell you Asus has gotten into . I said above that the Eee PC runs a distribution of linux similar to Xandros, and if you're familiar with linux and how it's developed you know that it's all open source. Because of this, developers adhere to a license called the (GPL) which basically states that the source code for your project must be distributed freely. Asus must have forgotten about this bit because, though they claim to offer the project's source code on their website, people are having trouble using it to modify the Eee PC's operating system. This has caused some turmoil in the community as everyone's assuming that the code offered is not really the whole project. You can bet that Asus will either explain how to circumvent their laptop's software or just release the full bit of source code fairly soon.
Now Playing:
,
Gutsy.
Oct 30th
I've been using a bit, the newest release of , and I have to say it's pretty good. There are a lot of new features some of which are pretty cool and others of which I can't get to work. Let's start with the good things. First off there's a new app that lets you quickly perform common actions that you use. For example, say you find yourself constantly launching Firefox to check Gmail. You can set up a Deskbar action that lets you quickly do this without having to individually launch Firefox and then type in the address. It can also be used as a desktop search, allowing you to find files on your machine. If you've ever used for OS X then you'll be pretty comfortable with Deskbar.
There's also a nice fast-user switching option which lets you get into a different account without having to shut down individual user sessions. This has been in Windows for a while, starting with XP I think, so I'm glad they finally got that in there. I'm the only one who uses the machine that I have Ubuntu installed on however, so that isn't a big deal for me. Out of all of these new things (I'm sure I'm leaving out a bunch, I haven't had a whole lot of time with Gutsy yet) the one I was most excited for was the default integration of . If you don't know what Compiz is or what it does, it basically adds a bunch of visual effects to your desktop. Think only cooler. This is the one area where Gutsy seems to really have stepped it up - with display improvement and tweaks like the graphical configuration tool - but unfortunately I can't use any of it. That is to say I can't use Compiz.
I run Ubuntu under on my and it has never liked Compiz. Before Gutsy you could install it separately but I could never get it to work right. Now, with Gutsy, it still doesn't work. I'm kind of bummed about it (if anyone has a solution please post a comment), but I have seen it in action and it's pretty slick even if it's a bit buggy. I've been trying to use Ubuntu more and more lately, especially because I need it in a couple of my classes, so apps like these that are somewhat exclusive to Ubuntu really catch my eye. If only all of my games were supported natively and it ran Visual Studio I might be able to make the complete switch! I don't know if that will ever happen though, I sort of like being comfortable with as many platforms as possible.
Currently Listening To:
Currently Playing: ,
Three operating systems, one machine.
Sep 7th
I've been running 3 operating systems on my for a while now, (yes, I paid the extra money for a black version of the Macbook) but just recently I installed a 100% working edition of 7.04 Feisty Fawn via virtualization. Before getting this particular version of Ubuntu running I had an older installed via Parallels. It worked well enough but I figured it was just about time to upgrade since a lot of what I wanted to use Ubuntu for was making 6.06 seem very legacy.
Before I get too deep into that though, let me first give a brief explanation about what it means to run a virtual operating system and why it's useful. OS virtualization is the process of running a complete operating system via software. This means that you can use your current hardware and software setup to support a second OS via emulation. You set up a separate hard drive image and all of your current hardware is taken over by this application to control the separate OS. In effect, it seems just like you installed whatever it is you're running (in my case Ubuntu linux) directly on the hard drive and are running it natively, when in fact you're running it on top of another system. This is useful for a few reasons. First, you don't have to commit an entire machine to just one operating system. It's great if you just want to try something out and don't want to monkey around with dual booting. Second, it allows for easy management. For instance, if you were to get a virus on a virtualized version of Windows vista you wouldn't have to worry about it infecting your system as a whole. All you'd have to do is delete the files that make up the virtual system from your hard drive and start over, simple as that.
So I set out to install on my Mac. My initial thought was to just go ahead and use just as I had for Dapper Drake. I ran into problems during the installation though, a well documented hang when Ubuntu starts to load system devices (the installer gets stuck trying to load the Intel processor 'piix' and must abort). I tried everything I could think of to get around this error but eventually I just decided to give in and try a different method.
The next thing I tried was downloading , a free piece of virtualization software for OS X. I hated the UI right off the bat though, and decided to axe that from my machine. Finally, I found a handy application called that runs exactly the same as Parallels and and is also free. I read that a lot of people had success getting Feisty Fawn up and running so I went ahead and gave it a shot. The installation went fine, the only problem was the resolution of my Macbook. Ubuntu's default resolutions only went as high as 1024x768 but because of the widescreen Macbook monitor (1280x800) I was getting black bars on both the right and left sides of the window when I was running Ubuntu in full-screen mode. This isn't a huge problem, just an annoyance. I ran into the same problem with Parallels but in order to fix it with VirtualBox there were a few extra steps involved, including installing VirtualBox's "Guest Applications." Once I had that installed (as well as ) everything was right as rain.
Now I'm writing this in for OS X while is installing some applications in another minimized window for Ubuntu. It's really cool to have every OS at the tip of your fingers. Though Ubuntu is the only virtual OS I'm running (OS X and Windows XP are both installed physically on the hard drive via bootcamp) it gets a lot of use. It's really the best candidate for a virtual setup since the resources required to run Ubuntu are relatively low, allowing me to have OS X as well as its apps running at the same time as Ubuntu and its apps run without the system performance suffering. I'd definitely recommend giving OS emulation a try, especially because there are free tools out there like VirtualBox so you don't have to spend money to test it out.
