Tech news
Dec 29th, 2009 by admin
At the end of 2009 the list of Ubuntu Apps has grown quite a bit. There are a lot of great alternatives out there for the bloated Windows OS and Windows 7 doesn’t have a chance with new competitors like : Ubuntu 10.04 and Google Chrome. That being said we presented to you the best compilation at the end of 2009.
Tags: IDE, KDE, OS, Roller Gnome
Nov 11th, 2009 by admin
I found Gimp to be one of the most versatile tools on the market. It works like Photoshop, it’s very light and it’s available on across different operating system. The fact that is free is just the cherry on top. People are in general very hard to convinced to work with this tool. I believe it’s a similar experience like going to Linux from Windows or Using Open Office instead of Ms Office.
The future is bright for this tool because in the next version ( 2.8 ) the developers will finish : Single Window Mode. Until then ( the end of the year ) the following tips might help some of you work with this tool and maybe start understand that this is a true replacement for the proprietary software named Photoshop. Continue Reading »
Tags: CTRL, install, SHIFT, Single Window Mode
Nov 1st, 2009 by admin
This release was a pleasant surprise. I hesitated for a few days before making the switch but learning from my previous experience I played it safe : I made a new partition for Ubuntu 9.10 and I let the old Ubuntu 8.10 working full an untouched. To install the new OS I put the ISO on a USB drive with UNetbootin and the installation was a pleasure.
Tags: GUI, install, Software Center, System Preference
Sep 14th, 2009 by admin
An interesting application came to my attention a few days ago. The name : Gminder. This application will connect to your google calendar account and download even for offline use the events from your calendar. The best thing is the fact that you have a dismiss button. As long as you don’t press the button the event will stay on your list and you can see with ease what you have to do and you forgot. Another great feature is the display and GUI of the program : you have a quick overview on past events and future events grouped by day, week and more.
The challange is for you to find a similar application or to make it work under Ubuntu. The best answer will receive a free link and the recognition from the entire Ublender community.
Sep 2nd, 2009 by admin
Without a doubt DropBox changed the life and Internet habits of geeks around the world. The perfect desktop integration for both Ubuntu and Windows, the 2 Giga of free memory in the cloud and the other endless feature all for free make this application a top one. But what about security ?
Did you try to put private files online? Well I personally don’t feel good thinking somebody that owns the server could poke around messing with them. Maybe one day all may password will get indexed by google because of a system glitch and so on.
The first solution that popped into my mind was the one and only Truecrypt. So i started to create a new file volume, I putted in my dropbox account and I started playing around with it. After a while I noticed a big problem : the file was marked as conflicting and each time I made a new modification a new copy was emerging.
In the end, I am disappointed of this inefficient method but I still hope, somebody out there can provide me a quick, easy solution to keep the private files in the cloud where they belong.
Sep 1st, 2009 by admin
Allmyapps is a great idea for a website and I can say I was thinking of such a great system for a long time. My vision was lacking a big thing : the fact that you can put everything in the cloud.
Let me start over if I may : Allmyapps is a tool where you can search,view,save and INSTALL all your favorite ubuntu apps. It uses apt-get of course and a little trick to open the installer but the idea is great. After you make an account you may be sure your list will be saved and after that when you install Ubuntu again you are only clicks away from all your application.
I love the concept so much because
Great job allmyapps team.
Aug 29th, 2009 by admin
There are a lot of things you can do to improve your productivity but you need a little patience to learn when and how to use it. The best things is the tools I presenting now are free to use and work both on Linux and in an Windows environment.
If your company is making you use a tool like Microsoft Outlook don’t despair. Try to find the right settings and configure your Thunderbird client to work directly with your emails. The best way to become efficient is to use a simple folder structure like this
That’s it. No sub-folders, no filters no nothing. Go simple and efficient. The rule is that once you read an email from your Inbox move it right away to the corresponding folder. The ToDo folder is the most important one. Things there are your tasks that must be done asap. Your Check folder contains things that need a feedback, tasks you delegated and things that must be done but now urgent. Important files are the ones that contain all sort of information you will need at a moment in time. Try to keep this folder as compact as possible.
Finally the Archive folder is the place where you dump all your trash : unimportant junk, things you solved or old informations. Learning to use this simple system is the most powerful tool in case you get bombarded with tons of email each day. You can rest assure you will solve everything and people will be impressed with your efficiency.
In time, a lot of files and information will need to be saved on your computer. Don’t use to complicated tools to solve this task, use the text editor of your choice. The pick of the day is Geany, a text editor that has a sidebar where you can see all the open files. Install it for free in Ubuntu and Windows and learn to use it. Keep your text files clean and organized. Make a default file where you put all the informations that you don’t have time to sort. At the end of the day try to find the best container for it.
Don’t use to many folders to keep the files, one for work and one for home with not more the 10 files in each. Use Dropbox to keep them in sync and available when you are on the move. Be aware that hosting files in the cloud is dangerous so don’t put to many confidential information in them.
One of the best extension for Firefox will help you to auto login on all the sites that require a user and password. Install it and click on remember bar on top of the screen the first time you login to a new service. Next time you just push the button and the app will auto-complete the fields for your and securely login you in. There are some sites that put a special rule in their login windows like yahoo but with this nice tutorial Why doesn’t Firefox Password Manager ask me to save passwords for some websites? you can even bypass that.
Learn to use Wikipedia for everything. You are looking for the best Ubuntu music player? Start by searching on Google for something you know like “Ubuntu rhythmbox” and follow the links at the bottom that will show you all the music players available. Looking for the best management tool ? Search on Wikipedia for the list of applications. After a bit of researching you will find all the notable apps for any OS and for any task you need.
If you are using windows then you have two powerful tools at your disposal : Webscreencapture to make complete print screens of web pages and Greenshot to capture any visual element. A simple image editor will open and you will have the possibility to mark some items before the final save. For Linux there is a similar tool called Shutter. To have a quick way to print screen and send the picture it’s very important and will make you communication with other people a breeze. Also make a single folder for images and save them all in a single place.
Think for a second how unorganized your files are. Try to make 2-3 partitions like temp and storage. Put all the new files in temp and in storage sort them when it’s time.
Are the main folders you will ever need. Making sub-folders is a must in this case but if you make the same file configuration on every computer you use ( and even the same partition structure ) you will find all the files in a snap.
Learn about Google, subscribe to their thousand blogs, remember applications like Google Reader, Google Calendar, Google docs , Google Bookmarks and make your life a lot easier. Almost any service has a free Api and a great number of plug-ins for Firefox.
Master the power of free services and you will be on top of everything no matter if it’s file management, news information or time tracking.
This tool needs a special section cause of it’s uniqueness and powerfulness. Basically there are two things you can and need to insert here : birthday reminders and recurrent tasks. Once you learn to love this tool you will be obsess. The best extension for this service it’s called Gminder. Unfortunately it work only on Win OS but a replacement for Ubuntu is a must.
What this tool does is to connect you to the on line service and retrieve all your events. When you’re done you mark them with “dismiss” and the application will set them as completed. You see the things you didn’t had time for , the next events group by current day, next day and next week. Really a powerful tool.
The last things we need to talk about is Bookmark synchronization. Again Google comes to the rescue. Install this plug-in, configure you settings and use you Firefox tool-bar to display a folder from Gmarks. ( Tools – > Addons ->Gmark->Preference->Display->Toolbar->input the name of your Gmark folder ; after that right click on a toolbar , Customize and drag the Gmark Toolbar element)
With the use of this tool-bar you will keep your Firefox window clean and neat. Set the most important links for you in this folder and they will be updated each time on all your computers.
Another gadget ” the star” is available to you so you can manage bookmarks with a few clicks of the mouse. Right click on a tool-bar and select Customize. Drag and drop the star icon. Don’t forget from time to time to sort and clean your endless bookmarks.
Tags: Download Work Temp Are, Google Calendar, install, OS
Aug 29th, 2009 by admin
Hello everybody.
Thank you for the big interest you showed by subscribing to this blog.
I’m happy to announce we are moving to a new location so please update your feed.A better site control, a new design and a bunch of new articles will be available for you at http://www.ublender.com/
New rss link : http://www.ublender.com/feed/
Ubuntu Switch Team
Tags: Ubuntu Switch Team
Aug 28th, 2009 by admin
After a great article from hak5 I tried to find a good solution to create a personal bootable usb dongle. The best tool with a GUI seems to be UNetbootin a cross platform application that let the user select an iso image bootable from an usb drive.
The interface is simple and easy to use : you can choose a linux distribution, you can select an iso file or even an old floppy image. It’s best to format your drive using fat32 file system. After that just select the iso you want and the appliction will make the usb bootable for you.
Until now this was nothing new, the cool trick however is to make it multi bootable.
The path I choose for this is simple :
step1 – after the first iso installation, copy all the files to your local hard drive.
step2 – delete everything on the usb and install the second iso file
step3 – copy the old backup from your hard drive and make sure no folders overlap
step4 ( optional ) – in case the linux distribution is the same try to change the folder and the menu.ls file so it points to the renamed files and folders
This list is not complete without a few good recomandation any linux geek should have at his disposal at any time
Aug 19th, 2009 by admin
After a few painful months with Ubuntu 9.04 i decided to go back to the best stable version of Ubuntu : 8.10
There was a big problem : the ext4 partition I created was not mounted.
This is a small trick I found that worked for me
sudo mkdir /media/temp
sudo tune2fs -E test_fs /dev/sdbX [you need to change X with your partition number]
sudo mount -t ext4dev /dev/sdbX /media/temp [ again change sdbX ]
After this you copy the files to another location, reformat to ext3 and put your files back on.
