My Googly Theme

I've been reading up on gnome themes and I have put together a really nice one. This is on a small screen so it may look different on a desktop.

Here is a step by step tutorial of how to get exactly what you see in the picture(even chromium!)

First, you need the window theme which you can download here.

Then, you'll need to install it by going System > Preferences > Appearance. Then click Install an browse to the tar.gz theme file you downloaded earlier. Apply It. Then, before you exit, click customise and make the:

• Contols: glossy
• Icons: Mist
• Pointer: Whiteglass

Then, close that and go to background and get this background and set to zoom. Then, go into fonts and make it look like this:

Interface: 

Show Icons in Menu: Ticked

Editable Menu Shortcut keys: Unticked

Ok, from now on is for perfect twitching and chrome with the theme:

Download Ubuntu-Tweak (2 posts ago)

Install it and then open it up, tweak to your hearts content, add chromium to third party sources, install it and get this theme for chrome. And if flash does not work yet in chromium, do this.

Ubuntu CPU bug with fix!

A while back on my EP I got a bug that made my CPU level constanly 100% and I only knew one way to stop it, reinstalling! I got this several times and this time I didn't want to reinstall because of all the setting up and I only wanted to when karmic came out. So, I tolerated it for a bit running all my apps at a very low speed. And today I thought of something to try. Create a new user and kill the other one(moving everything across) and now it's fixed, I am really happy.

So, here is a step by step guide of how to get this stupid bug off your machine:

1. Go to System > Administration > Users and groups
2. Click the 'Unlock' button and put in your password.
3. Click +Add User
4. Put in your Username (a different one!) and a password(can be the same).
5. Then (Before Creating), go to User Privileges and tick all of them(At least 'Administer the System' if anything)
6. Go to the last tab and take note of the user code
7. Click OK
8. Close the users and groups window.
9. Go into the terminal
10. Type 'sudo bash'(be careful with 'sudo', you can wreck your system, I did once!)
11. cd ~/
12. nautilus
13. Then you will find yourself in what looks like your file manager but is not.
14. navigate to /home/(Your Current Username) and copy(not the hidden files unless you want the virus on two users!) all the files. Go 'Up' click on your new username file and paste, Merge All, Replace all.
15. get out of that and in the terminal type 'chown (newusername):(newusername code) (newusername)/' then get out.
16. get out, log out. Login as second user(no virus) and then tweak it to your heart's content.

Here is how to finish off neatly by auto login as the other one and completely removing the other one:

• Go to users and groups, unlock and remove the user.
• Type sudo nautilus(again) in the terminal.
• Delete your old user's directory (/home/olduser).
• Go Out
• Go to System> Administraton> Login Window
• Go to the security tab, enable auto login(if it's not already) and put your new username in the box(it a pop-down so you don't have to)
• Then Put timed if you want
• And Your Done!

If there were any problems, please comment on this post (or my newest one if i don't reply).

Hope This helped(I'd been looking for it around the Internet for ages!)

Ubuntu Tweak or Ubuntu Lovers Heaven

I just got ubuntu tweak because i had heard it suggested once or twice on the forums so i decided to get it so I installed it on my 4gb hard-disk (1 gig left) netbook and...

It was brilliant, I cleaned a ton of stuff I didn't even know I had and I installed chromium complete(which work with flash!) and now I'm doing a complete switch to chromium, no opera and firefox fying out of the screen.

It also has a cool slash screen effect and some stuff that you usually have to get in the terminal, you can now to easily manually, a definetly must-get!

When Koala comes out I'm gonna put it on my 16gb netbook(it's got a bad virus/bug that has hit me loads of times with UNR) hoping it doesn't have the same virus and hasn't gone all no-desktop like the new easy peasy, I will, get rid of gnome-panel and get three things, chromium, gnome-do and ubuntu-tweak and from then see how it goes!

The Four Fighters

Apple, Microsoft, Google and the Open source world are the four competitors in this big electric game. All competing to be better than the others. Not so much the open source world but definetly Apple, the old shiny one, Microsoft, the middle age dusty dying one and Google the young, big and growing fast one.

This post is made mainly to point out that google is growing fast and Microsoft is being over-run. You could put it into a sort of dinasour analogy where Microsft is the big Braceasourus, Apple is the smaller herbivore(the one with the horns, I forgt what it's called) and Google is the Velociraptor family with the rest of the small selection of dinasours being the open source world.

Sorry about yet another short post but that's all I wanted to point out.

The Gnome Dock

When reading the Posts in mikesubuntu.blospot, I found a post about the gnome dock. So, I tried it out and, let me tell you, it is brilliant. It is really simple.
You type home(Windows) + SPACE and then it comes up and you can get qiuck acces to running/not running applications.


If you want to go to the extreme, you could remove gnome-panel from startup apps and just use the gnome dock!


Anyway, i like it

UNR 9.04, Easy Peasy 1.5 or Xubuntu

Some of you may wonder, easy peasy(1.5), UNR(9.04) or Xubuntu(9.04). Which one's better for your laptop/netbook?

First of all, I'm gonna tell you about Xubuntu(9.04),

It is a very fast OS because it's a low CPU consuming DE. Now if you have a brand new computer(desktop or laptop), don't bother with Xubuntu, Ubuntu'll be just as fast. But if its an oldie (like my old deb machine), get xubuntu, It'll run at a good speed and then you can finish off nicely what ever life there is left on it!

Then I'll tell you what you want for your netbook. If it has a tiny screen, you'll want something designed for tiny screens. And I'll tell you from experience that the best one for that is easy peasy 1.5+, I just tried it on a small screen and it works perfectly 'out of the box'. I compered that to UNR on my EP which on the default desktop was dead slow.

If you have a big-enough screen then UNR 9.4 is good, because it can have the default desktop(if you switch, add gnome-panel and gnome-wm to startup or, well, you can find out for yourself!)

So, all that in simple terms is, xubuntu for old(ubuntu for new) laptops or desktops. UNR for new netbooks(the new one's have OK screens) and easy peasy for out of the box performance on an old(or new) netbook.

I just fixed an eeepc 700 with easy peasy!

Before I had my eee900 I met someone who had the eee700 and i played around with it for a bit liking it a lot. Then, I got my one and mucked around with it tons and I found out a few things.

Anyway, the other day he said that it was busted. He turned it on and the screen flashed untill he turned it off. So, I tried to fix it and I coldn't. So I gave it back and told him it was finished.

So, time went on and yesterday I bumped into him and asked him what he'd done with his netbook. He said that he had left it in a draw the whole time. I asked him if I could have it for parts and he said "sure" giving it to me.

Anyway, I got home and turned it on. I saw the splash screen and then the flashes untill i turned it off. Then I remembered that when I reinstalled xandros on my eee900 I had to use the f9 key and choose a bootable usb from the list that popped up.

So, I downloaded the easy peasy(a brand of ubuntu I had used before) image and after ages of mucking around, I got it onto a USB and plugged it into his netbook while booting and hitting f9.

Well, it wasn't on the list. It said nothing about easy peasy usb. So, I was really confused. Then I tried again, this time pressing the ESC key and guess what, it worked!

I booted using the USB, copied his previous files onto an SD card and installed easy peasy, it all worked smoothly. Then I got the wireless and camera working by getting eee-control and installing it.

By the way, I was very impressed with easy peasy, they had fixed a lot of bugs in. their change from 1.1 to 1.5. Keep going easy peasy (with eeecontrol this time!).

And then... I wrote this post!

The Simplicity of Google (and the chrome OS)

Have you ever realised that everything that google makes: Google Search (the obvius one), google chrome, google sketchup(I love it!), Mail, imag... is so simple.

The Search with classic home is just a white page with links above the top and the logo with search in the middle. Easy to understand and easy to use!

And that is why I can't wait for the new chrome OS coming out in january(if I remember correctly!). The first version may not be so good but after a bit, google will jump off and its new product will start competing with Microsoft and Apple.

The nice thing I like about what I hear about the new Chrome OS is that it is going to be based on Unix(Linux is based on Unix) and it will become open source. Which may give Microsoft the ability to copy it but, one there will always be copying, two It will shine it up anyway and three, people will probably stick to Google at that stage anyway!

Google has a lot of things on the go, chrome, wave, etc. and it's working in a very clever way becoming a big company. It will be interesting to see what kind of choises it will make in the future!

An Ubuntu Blog

Here is a blog that I came acroos the other day and I absolutely love it and have read every page in the archive:

www.mikesubuntu.blogspot.com

Believe me, all ye ubuntu geeks, this blog is Fantastic!

(Note: Sorry Mike if you mind me copying your blog picture!)

The Ubuntu Family

Maybe, (if you know what it is!) the ubuntu family confuses you every time you hear abut it. And fi you want to choose quickly without any knowledge, I'm telling you, Choose the Standard Ubuntu!

But I will also give you a quick go-over of all the diffirent most popular official ubutnu family OSs:

Standard Ubuntu: Linux for Human Beings Using the Gnome Desktop Enviroment. A fork of debian made to be more 'human oriented'

UNR(Ubuntu Netbook Remix): Ubuntu for netbooks. Whih is what  us and I love it! Note: Don't use the default netbook desktop, it uses up too much cpu. Just switch to the deafualt one, add gnome-panel and gnome-wm to the startup apps and voila, much better (if you want the netbook window effect, you just need to play around a bit with the toolbar!)

Ubuntu Server Version: Ubuntu for Server Machines (I you don't know what a server is, Look it up!)

Kubuntu: Ubuntu with 'KDE'(Kubuntu Desktop Enviroment) , a more flash and cpu consumptive DE. My opinion of it is that it is extremely flash with brilliant effects but it takes a lot of cpu and requires a good enough expert who is prepared to muck around and do research(unless they are extremely lucky!)

Edubuntu: An 'Educationaly Oriented' Version of Ubuntu. It is basicly Ubtuntu with a bit of 'cheezy' educational software which you can just install on ubuntu as far as I'm concerned. Unless your a teacher and want linux and is just starting.

Xubuntu: Make with XFCE which makes it better for old computers. It is very fast for old computers so don't trash you're oldies, just but Xubuntu on em!

UMR(Ubuntu Moblin Remix) An ubuntu version of Moblin(Mobile linux) I don't know much about it but please comment on this post to tell mee what it's like.

Gobuntu: A 'Green and Free' Version of Ubuntu. I think people are too crazy about green and natural so i don't agree with the philosophy of this one!

Ubuntu Studio: An Artist's Version of Ubuntu. I think it looks absolutey fantastic from the site. But you need a DVD to get it. Which is fine but I prefer to use DVDs for more important things. Otherwise I think this OS looks brilliant!

Mythbuntu: An Ubuntu for 'Myth TV'(I dont have a clue what that i)

Kubuntu Netbook(October09): Kubuntu 'Netbook Remix': Coming out in the future and i sure hope it's good!

An there are probably half a million others (Macbuntu, H...) but they are so small(and much probably worse), that I do not add them to this post!

Chromium or Google Chrome

Today I was surfing around looking at all the 'best browsers'(which is my latest curiosity) and I found chrome. I had seen it before and had liked the look but I had never actually used it. So, I looked around for a bit more and found Chromium (Chrome for Linux) and I installed it and loved it!

It wasn't good on flash and miniclip but it was extremly fast and simple with a very slick appearance. I compared it to Safari and saw no diffirence but for the chrome tab effect and the navigation toolbar boxes both as one in chrome.

This post is only short because unlike any other browser, I had no problems!

Vista OS X 10

The other day, my cousin was looking at my eeepc and he saw that it looked like a mac and he asked if he could have his windows vista machine looking like a mac also. So I said that I would give it a try and started surfing around too find a program to make vista look like mac.

After a while I found something called Rocket-Dock which would put a dock on the screen. So, I tried it and it worked but had one problem, It was in a kind of 2d style unlike the traditional mac one. But, it did for a time, so I moved the vista panel to the top of the desktop and started looking around a bit more...

After a while I found something called vista leopard transformer (or something like that) and I had to swith something off, so I did switch it of and then I carried on and something went wrong. So I looked around some more and found Vista OS X 10, a transformation pack for vista.

So, I tried it... At first I had to restart the computer, second was a bit less dramatic and on the thir time...

It worked absolutely perfectly, toolbars changed, windows changed a diffirent and cooler dock appeared, I loved it! And My cousin liked it even more!

Opera

Yesterday I was using firefox and was getting a bit annoyed that my friend couldn't play miniclip games on it (even though I had java), and I could only watch u-tube movies on it if I was running it in wine which crashed loads!

So, I tried safari (this is on Ubuntu Netbook Remix by the way) and followed the tutorial but when I clicked on it it didn't work! It did the screen jumped (a wine thing) and nothing else!

Then I went onto wikipedia and looked at the top browsers and saw IE (I hate it!), Firefox, Safari and Opera. So, I looked at opera and tried it. It was a big file, probably twice the sise of firefox and safari. Then I installed it, it worked fine and I clicked on it...

It was brilliant, u-tube worked, miniclip worked and everything was cool. It gave me more content than controls (which I liked!) and it was actually faster than firefox!

Then, I started typing this post a minute ago in opera after switching and tried to insert the 'O' image and when I clicked on the insert image button in blogger and it didn't work!

Now, that may not be Opera's fault, it may have been that the blogger 'New Post' html document was only made for IE, Firefox and Safari. Anyway, I'm finishing of this post with firefox and going back to my nearly fully functioning Opera!

The way the Internet Works

You know all these companies, spotify, I-tunes and the radio(I know it's not internet but it works in a similar way to spotify) they all have adverts! I hate adverts! You get them everywhere but just think how do these companies make money!

I'll tell you what would be good, an open source music program like spotify. If they could have something like that that could get past law then I would really be saying "WOW!"

I do like spotify and I do think it will suceed but If only (the world was made of sugar).

Spotify, an Itunes competitor

The other dy, on one of Leo Laporte's shows, he said that he wished he could have something called 'Spotify' in the US and I had a look at the site.
It is a program that works identically like Itunes.

I don't listen to music much so at the time I thought U-tube was fine for that kind of thing. Anyway, I ignored it.

A while later, my friend was using my EP and installed Spotify on it and was using it. I looked more into it at the time and started trying to create an account. But, when I was making the account I saw that it asked me for my valid postcode and I never like putting any valid private info in the cloud so I didn't. So, I ignored it. So, he installed it on my EP with his account and use it while he was there. I didn't remove it after that.

Then, today, I came across it when I was looking at my Wine Apps. I clicked on it out of curiosity and started using it. I love it. The search is very fast. It has hadly any adverts and a BIG database.

I have never used I-Tunes so I'm not soo good at comparing. If anyone who read this post knows which one is better, please tell me. Otherwise I am staying with and using this App.

Ubuntu 9.10: Karmic Koala

Well, it's coming and I can't wait for it! Ubuntu 9.10 is coming fast. It has a few extra features like:

Faster Boot
Better Packages
And stuff I don't even understand.

I hope it will have less bugs than Jaunty though. You can get it early if you want at cdimage.ubuntu.com with UNR and all the other of the 'Ubuntu Family'. You can get it early if you want but I want to wait untill it's completely polished!