“Unity.. what?” - Unity dev talks shop. Simply.

Before I make for the land of slumber tonight let me leave you with a quick read that doubles up as a must read not only for Unity fans but for those with a naturally curious disposition…

Canonical - and Zeitgeist superstar - Mikkel Kamstrup talks about his work on Unity - everyone's favourite new netbook interface - over on his blog. It’s a succinct, interesting and, most importantly, accessible read that dices up his development on Unity into an easy-to-follow format.

• http://www.grillbar.org/wordpress/?p=494

P.S. Whilst we’re almost on the topic of Zeitgeist, a quick heads-up that our/your/the worlds very own Seif Lotfy will be shoving his reporters mic under the noses of the Zeitgeist team* very shortly, an interview which will, i’m in no doubts, will be a must-read.

*Figuratively, natch.

Continue reading

17 Recommended apps for Linux designers and developers

Freelance web developer John Hamelink has put together a tight little list of apps he recommends for Linux developers and designers.

The (as of writing) 17strong list includes many applications we’ve raved about on OMG! - from screenshot-ing tool 'Shutter', task managers, time trackers and image editors to the ace image compression tool 'Trimmage'.

Even better, the list contains lots of ‘one-click install’ apt:urls for easy installation.

John notes at the bottom of his post that the list is far from exhaustive and welcomes tips on ‘any killer apps'’ he has skipped over. So feel free to head over and chuck in your two-cents!

• johnhamelink.com/2010/07/linux-apps-freelancers

Update: It seems the site is now down. Hope we didn’t crash it! In the mean time view a cached copy: -

• http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.johnhamelink.com/2010/07/linux-apps-freelancers/

Continue reading

Ubuntu Stickered: My keyboard finally gets ubuntuized

It didn’t take me long to cave in and buy some of the (very cheap) new Ubuntu sticker sets we mentioned a few days ago.

Admittedly this was, in part, because I spied that the sheets contained some neat circular Ubuntu logo stickers that seemed an appropriate size for the Windows keys on my keyboard…

36 Stickers

The sticker set comprises of three sheets of 12 stickers.

The 12 stickers are the same on all 3 sheets and consist of 7 round ‘logos’ in varying sizes, 3 rectangular full logos, again in varying sizes and two ‘squarer’ stickers that look particularly neat in place of ‘powered by windows XP’ etc style stickers.

There are no ‘lozenge’ shaped stickers as previously available.

As noted above my main reason for buying the stickers was to slap some Ubuntu loving on my keyboard.I asked OMG! Ubuntu! twitter followers whether I should go with Orange or White and they tweeted overwhelmingly in favour of orange. Much nicer! Not that I can think of a time when I make use of the “Windows” key…

Netbook

I also decided to replace the Ubuntu sticker on the back of my EeePC with a sexy new-style one.

Annoyingly the stickers are quite opaque allowing for the turgid ASUS logo underneath to peek through.

I still have a slew of stickers left - What can one Ubuntuize next? Hmmm…

New style Ubuntu stickers are on sale now in the Ubuntu Store.

Continue reading

Nexuntu - The OS your Nexus One has been dreaming of

If the Linux-based Android OS running on your Nexus One isn’t nearly as nerdy-enough as your needs dictate then bust out the big boy and install Ubuntu on it.

The crazy people over at NexusOneHacks.net did just that and the evidence is in the video below: -

Crah. Azy.

If you’re equally as crazy, instructions are @ http://nexusonehacks.net/nexus-one-hacks/how-to-install-ubuntu-on-your-nexus-oneandroid/

Continue reading

Ubuntu on TV: The IT Crowd

Some of the more-hip readers amongst you have tweeted my attention towards this little beauty: -You can clearly see an Ubuntu logo on the the back of one of the characters’ monitor from Channel 4’s geek comedy ‘The IT Crowd’ (which has just started a new series o’er here.)

Nice spot!

Continue reading

Safari 5 works via Wine; handles basic browsing well

Apple have just launched version 5 of their flagship web browser Safari for Windows and Mac. Linux users who, for some reason or another, feel left out and want to see what the fuss is about will be pleased to learn that Safari almost works well under Wine.

Protracted emphasis on the 'almost' as whilst Safari 5 handles basic pages like Wikipedia, BBC News, Google.com & search results with relative ease caveats remain elsewhere. Calling the Safari 'top sites' speed-dial page or using more than one tab results in a swift and flawless victory for the crash gods, rendering is pretty darn slow on every page & the new 'reader' feature (which presents a page in an acely formatted overlay) doesn't work at all.

HTML5, Flash & Other bits n' bobs
Providing you have Flash installed under Wine you'll find that YouTube and flash-using sites work at varting degrees of acceptable performance. Install Quicktime via Wine and most HTML5 videos (that use the H.264 codec) work, too.

Install in Wine
Still, if you're keen to try it out you can download the Windows installer @ apple.com/safari/download and install via Wine as per any other application. Remember to mark both the launcher and resulting desktop icons are 'Trusted' (Right Click > properties > 'allow executing as programme' )


Disclaimer: Remember that not everyone's results or experiences with an application in Wine will be uniform.

Continue reading

Linux powers 91% of the worlds top supercomputers

With the biannual list of the top 500 supercomputers the world over released, the following screenshot of a graph showing the operating systems used in those 500 peta-flop crunching machines, and produced by the University of California Berkeley, makes for an impressive visual glance at Linux’s dominance in Super Computing.

Check it out in its full interactive form @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10187248.stm to get down and dirty with the stats behind it.

Sadly Ubuntu doesn’t feature in the list breakdown, but given these rigs are used for number-crunching rather than World of Goo and twitter that’s no surprise!

Continue reading

How to recreate the Ubuntu 10.04 wallpaper in Inkscape (Step-by-step)

With a few weeks to kill until the next Beta of Ubuntu 10.04 why not stoke your creatively-sapped juices by re-creating the new Ubuntu 10.04 default wallpaper in Inkscape?

Popular Spanish design site cursorlibre.com have offered up a step-by-step tutorial on recreating the aubergine-inspired wallpaper from scratch.

If you don't speak Spanish you can view a (in places bizarrely) translated version via Google @ this link.

Worth a few minutes of anyone's day – and be sure to share your attempts in the comments!

Cursorlibre tutorial Via | rm -rf /

Continue reading

Is the UbuntuOne Music Store ready yet?

Keep an eye on this and you'll be first to know:

http://isthemusicstorereadyyet.com/

 

Continue reading

Apologies, Pandaol & Tetris.

Hello,

I know some of you are fearing that the launch of our new IRC channel has been the cause in a slowdown of new posts over the last few days but let me assure you that it’s not.

If you follow the OMG! twitter you may already know that I've not been too well this week (nothing life threatening thankfully, although it does feel like it…) and as a result of my bed-based internment I've only been exercising my fingers to cover major Ubuntu updates and respond to some tweets.

One upside to this is that I've found myself thinking about the kinds of posts I could be writing (when not vomiting) so brace yourself for an influx of new posts in a day or so.

If you’re newly subscribed then rest-assured that I feel even worse – not the best show of the typical veracity OMG! exhibits.

In the mean time feel free to send anything interesting you find in my direction (joeysneddon[@]gmail.com) or via the Contact form on this site.

If you get really bored then why not play Tetris in your terminal whilst trolling around in the OMG! IRC on FreeNode #omg!ubuntu!

• sudo apt-get install tint

I’m off to neck some more vitamins and Panadol… and maybe play some Tetris ;) 

d0od (Joey-Elijah)

Continue reading

"50% of Banshee Users run it full screen" and other interesting* Banshee facts

Banshee 1.5.4 was released last week with some shiny new features and a handful of new functions - including equaliser presets, extra shuffle modes and, notably, an opt-in usage data collector thingy.

Gabriel Burt, a Banshee developer, posted stats from the opt-in on his blog and they fascinating for a stat junkie like myself!

Here are some facts gleaned from the data: -

• Out of over 500 people who opted in, 383 use Ubuntu.
• 4 use Fedora.
  
• 363 of those Ubuntu users are using Karmic, 4 are using Jaunty and 16 are using Lucid
• 82% of all users have compositing enabled
  
• 5 people use Banshee in Swedish
  
• 73% don't enable the equalizer feature
  
• 51% have the context pane showing, 49% close it.
• About half have Banshee maximized and half don't.
• Median screen size is 1400x900
• Average number of tracks sits at 5,200
  

Over 500 people already have opted in - if you use Banshee and don't mind developers collecting some anonymous data on how you use the app, opt in and help improve Banshee!

*debatable

© omgubuntu.co.uk 2010. | Ubuntu News, Tips, Apps and more.

Continue reading

Ubuntu to deliver update alerts via Twitter

A new method of alerting Ubuntu users to potentially headache-inducing system updates is being launched - via twitter!

Users following @ubuntustatus will be informed of any issues or problems with update packages and advise users not to run update manager until the problem has been fixed. Although such instances of serious update problems are rare they do happen and using twitter to inform users of potential problems is a great way to leverage both the social web and Ubuntu's Social integration features.

Continue reading

Homosapien Metacity Customizer - Tweak Homosapien Online Then Download It!

So we've droned on and on and on about the make-it-default-already proposed Lucid Metacity Homosapien. It's amazing, beautiful stuff. Zac Barton - fast becoming my favourite themer - has now created an online customization tool that allows you to tweak the Homosapien metacity to your liking. And then download it. Zac sells the features of the editor with aplomb: -

• Want a smaller titlebar or how about a bigger one... no problem.
• Want the menu icon to be that orange dot again or maybe just stick with the application icon... no problem.
• Want to define the theme color independent of your system/gtk color or maybe just stick to matching your system/gtk color... no problem.
• Hate those rounded bottom corners... no problem just turn them off.

Crazy awesome, right? Check it out @ zacbarton.com/homosapien/customizer/

Continue reading

Awesome 'Made On Ubuntu' Badges For Your websites, Projects

Tommy Brunns 'Made on Ubuntu' badges are great way to show off the power of Ubuntu when creating something using the worlds best OS - Ubuntu! (He also has some "made on Linux" ones, but sssh!) If you have ever seen a website created by iWeb on OS X you will be familiar with the 'Created on a Mac' badge that sits at the bottom of said sites. These 'Made on Ubuntu' badges follow the same 'show-off' principle and are a really awesome way to demonstrate that websites and other creative pursuits can be born from Linux! Where to use them Popping them on the bottom of your website created on Linux is their intended and most logical placement. I've used one on OMG! Ubuntu! for a long time (scroll down to the bottom to see it in action). I have placed one on both the front cover and back cover of the PDF version of my forthcoming 'Ubuntu Newbies Guide' as well as using them at the end of some videos I have edited on Ubuntu. Download You can download a tarball full of variations on the design and view them in action (including code for nice hover-over effects like ours) @ blastfromthepast.se/linuxbadges/

Continue reading

Ubuntu Used In Doctor Who

It seems the Naismith’s work on The “Immortality” gate in Doctor Whos’ festive finale ‘The End Of Time’ was done using computers running none-other than our very own awesome OS Ubuntu!Take a closer peek…

Whilst it isn’t Karmic Koala running (karmic has a centred logo) it’s still a version Ubuntu through-and-through!

Super props to Popey who spotted and blogged about it days ago. As a massive Doctor Who fan this is beyond all possible expressions of awesome.

Continue reading

VLC looks so pretty at Xmas...

VLC's cute easter-egg is once again cracking itself open...

Continue reading

Random Things To Do In A Terminal: Play Tetris

Have you longed to play Tetris in a terminal session? No, me neither, but you can!

Install

• sudo apt-get install tint

To run just type "tint" into a terminal, choose a level and you're good to rock!

Continue reading