Ubuntu changes theme and design, close but no cigar

March 3rd, 2010

Ubuntu have decided that after 6 years, its time to freshen up their image and try to shake off that Brown slur that has followed them for the past several years.

Here is a link to the page going through it: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Brand

Overall, it appears to be a good move, however, why move the buttons!? They were perfectly fine in the location they were. Just one step too far Ubuntu. Doh!

Ubuntu Theme Changed Buttons Moved

Word of Moth is more important then first understood…

February 27th, 2010

I was just reading the latest news on the Google Nexus One and came across the Telegraph’s article regarding an April launch to be likely.

Whilst reading something didn’t seem right:

“The Nexus One is unusual because it is available online only direct from Google, and so relies heavily on word of moth marketing. Although sales had initially been reported as slow in comparison to the iPhone, the Nexus One has not benefited from the significant promotion that Apple has bought for its flagship product.”

Word of Moth? Really? I didn’t think Moths could speak, oh well, it really is a ground breaking phone.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7326554/Exclusive-Google-Nexus-One-to-launch-in-April.html

This is probably been corrected by now, so I took a screenshot too, it made ME smile anyway :)

Telegraph Website Nexus One Article

Click for bigger image

Don’t let the Sun, go down on me……

February 12th, 2010

Well, I’m not sure when it happened but it looks like the rebranding of the Sun Microsystems Page has finally happened.

Suns Old Style Website

Old Sun (still looks like this on .co.uk)

Sun/Oracles New Style Website
New Sun/Oracle

It’s gone all red essentially, and there is an obvious Oracle presence around. Not sure if its a better design or not. Changing of the guard it seems.

Sweet Home 3D

January 7th, 2010

I’ve just discovered Sweet Home 3D. So far, I have to say its one of the best applications I’ve used on Linux.

It’s Java powered and you just download the tar.gz file and unpack it. Once unpacked, run the SweetHome3D file and that’s it. You’re presented with a pretty straight forward interface if you’re used to 3D modelling.

Sweet Home 3D Main Window

Its logical though as opposed to some 3D modelling apps, right click, choose your tool then left click.

To add one of the many models available, simply drag and drop.

To change the properties of an item, double click on it and modify its properties.

Modify Table Properties

Once you’ve happy you’ve put things where you want them, you can render a photo of the image:

Sweet Home 3D Rendered Room Photo

You can download it from here: http://www.sweethome3d.eu/index.jsp

It’s cross platform too as it’s Java. Try it out.

Share Rage this Christmas

December 13th, 2009

Rage Against The Christmas

You may have heard of the campaign to get Rage Against the Machine to Number 1 in time for Christmas.

There are many reasons people want to do this but my two reasons are that its a great song, and that if we actually DO manage to get Rage Against the Machine to Number 1 then it proves that as an online community we did this, we made it happen.

It cost me 65p to buy the track, I already owned it but I bought it again for this effort.

Do us all a favour, buy a copy today and lets be proud we made something happen this Christmas that wasn’t the inevitable X-Factor Finalists track getting to number 1.

I have nothing against Jo, but this is our time, and we will vote with our feet.

Come on Britain, do it for the laugh :)

Python, Glade and GTK

December 7th, 2009

I’ve just found that Glade can make application layouts easy for me. I was learning TKInter but got a bit bored with it. Glade allows me to put a layout together and then hook it into my python code.

Following some basic tutorials at the moment.

Evolution is great

November 1st, 2009

Just had evolution save me from an “Egg on face” moment. The one I’m sure everyone has done before, intend to attach something in an email, type the email then forget to actually attach it item.

I did just that, and was prompted with this:

I heard of this type of feature with GMail, not being a user of GMail I never really got accustomed to it, this was a first for me in Evolution, don’t often attach things in emails.

PS3 on hold until they release Home

November 1st, 2009

I have to say, I’m not willing to buy a PS3 until they release Home for it.

There have been several reports recently which suggest that the long in development Playstation Home isn’t exactly being hurried along.

One of the things that got me interested in the Playstation 3 was their Home application. Which is still not released several years after it was released. Well, until they actually pull their fingers out and get it finished I won’t be a customer of theirs. Unless someone just gives me a PS3 of course :D

Virgin Media Terrible Service

October 16th, 2009

Let me share my dismay at Virgin Medias terrible service so far.

Earlier this month I opted to upgrade my broadband connection from 20Mbit to 50Mbit. Sure, 20Mbit was probably enough but I worked out that as I use my internet more then my TV and Phone I could downgrade my packages on those and get 50Mbit and a free D-Link 802.11n router and a free 802.11n USB dongle in the package for 30% less then what I’m currently paying. No brainer.

So, I arranged with Virgin Media to send out an engineer. On the 8th of October I took a half day off work for them to install the modem assuming I would be up and running in a couple of hours at best.

Today is the 16th of October, I still have no broadband. They claim that the problem they are having is registering the modems. Fine I said, send me another one. Apparently this won’t help.

I’ve called their tech support every day since I first reported this issue and there is still no real estimation of when this will be fixed.

What kind of service is this?! I’ve sent my letter off complaining but I cannot find anywhere on the internet them reporting that there is a problem, also, why didn’t they just say we’re having issues at the moment so installation won’t be for a month rather then cut me off!!!

I’d seriously recommend anyone looking to move to Virgin Media or upgrade to hold off at least until November.

Free online backup with Virgin Media and Linux

October 7th, 2009

My ISP Virgin Media offers online backup packages as part of their internet bundles.

The bundle that I am currently on offers 10GB of online backup space FREE as part of the account. Well, obviously its not really free as I’m paying for the internet connection.

The partner that Virgin Media use to offer this online backup service is provided by a company called steek who are based in Belgium. The software that they provide is Windows only, but you can make it work with Wine to a satisfactory degree.

Here is how I set mine up:

1) Download the Software from Virgin Media My Stuff Page: https://my.virginmedia.com/dashboard/start

2) Using winecfg I setup a Z: drive which points to my root /

3) In the Virgin Media V STuff Backup Software I turned off all the auto backup email items as they just look for Hotmail and My Documents etc and I choose “Backup All Files/Folders”

4) Now simply choose the files you want from this screen:

I am backing up my .evolution, Documents, and Pictures. That way at least I have these backed up. The software works ok, although it doesn’t seem very good at only uploading the changes, if the file changes it seems to need to upload the whole file again.

There are many more options in the software that can be configured but what I have setup is enough to get you going with it.

You may want to setup this software to autostart with your PC, to do this I added a script:

#!/bin/bash
sleep 480
env WINEPREFIX=”/home/lee/.wine” wine “C:\Program Files\VirginMedia\V Stuff Backup\v_stuff_backup.exe”
exit

to my scripts directory and then I setup Sessions in Gnome (System -> Preferences -> Personal -> Sessions) of this:/home/lee/Scripts/startvbackup.sh

This starts it 8 minutes after login enough time to warrant a connection from it :)