A Portable Search Tool for Windows: Dropout

Index is the single most important thing for any search engine. The more faster and efficient it is ... the better the results are (obviously). Starting with Windows Vista, the Microsoft operating system uses an advanced index that gives you extremely faster search results when comparing with the latter versions such as 98 or XP for instance.

But still, to achieve this relatively "faster" performance, first Windows has to create a data-base (index) of your attached drives and that can take sometime. What if you have a big USB drive (12-20GB) filled with a lot of files that's always on the move. Then if you plug it in a new computer then searching can be quite frustrating since there's no index for Windows OS thus it will take sometime for it to analyze the files and give you your results.

Even more, sometime there could be file types that the Windows built in search utility don't understand. In that case it simply cannot deal with them thus even if has an index of your portable USB drive, still you won't be able to search for those files (for instance, unless a dedicated plug-in is installed, Windows index won't be able to search within the content of a PDF document).

In that case if you're looking for a portable "desktop search" type application that is really fast, creates the index a hell lot faster (even lets you search when an index is being created) + has the ability to deal with a lot of different file types ... then Droupout is an excellent solution.

Main features...

*. Portable (just copy the .exe file to the root directory and it'll scan all the files within that directory automatically).

*. Ability to use advanced search expressions such as "AND", "OR", etc.

*. Refresh the index.

*. Exclude certain files.

*. Auto-complete using your previous search history.

*. Open files or their containing directory... are few of the main features.

I tested it with my USB drive that contained files around 190 which is not huge but Dropout indexed it within few seconds!. So, if you're looking for a completely free, portable search tool that can be used in MS Windows... then why not give a try for the Dropout!.

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Google Search Engine for Programmers: Google Code Search

If you're a computer programmer then a general purpose search engine can still be quite useful if all you want is to find tutorials, community based forums, etc. But let's say that you have few specific needs such as debugging or trying to find codes, etc then you need a special search engine that "understands" your needs.

In that case (I'm pretty most have heard about it but if you're a programmer newbie...) Google code search is still one of the best online tools since it's index is completely different from the traditional "version" and designed for the purpose of helping programmers to find what they're looking for, with ease.

So, unlike with a traditional Google search engine the "code search" allows you to...

*. Specify packages using their names (such as only search for codes in GNU/Linux Kernel for instance).

*. Use languages defined by you (C/C++, C#, Java, Pascal, Python, etc).

*. Search using "Class" attributes.

* . Search with with certain platforms such as Android or Chromium, etc.

*. Search in Functions or only codes that are available in a certain license.

So, the next time you want to search for a publicly available programming code, why not give a try for Google Code Search! :).

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Cross-Platform Collaborative (real-time) Text Editor: Gobby

Collaborative file (text file in this case) editing is a pretty common thing these days because computer networks or Cloud computing in general is becoming a "major thing" these days.

So basically if you're a part of a network and looking for a way to edit a document (in simple text format) with multiple users without having to lock it... then Gobby is a cross-platform ready, free application that can do, just that!.

Although don't hope it to be an advanced or a fully featured text editor since it's purpose is to let you create a basic document that can be proof-read later. It's designed using the GTK+ toolkit yet integrates with GNU/Linux, MS Windows and Mac OSX platforms quite well too.

Main features...

*. Comes with a simple UI.

*. Connect/Disconnect with other networks using different ports, user authentications, create a session or simply open your previously used session.

*. As said it's a basic text editor but lets you do things like: Find and replace text, go to lines, enable/disable automated indention, change font related settings (size, bold, etc) ...

... although most of these feature will have to be accessed via the "Preferences" window using the menu which is not the most efficient way to do that and could be the only complaint here (or perhaps it's more oriented around computer programmers). 

*. You can start a text file from scratch or can open an existing one.

*. Syntax highlighting for various programming languages: C/C++, Java, HTML, XML, Perl, Prolog, etc.

*. Text wrapping.

*. Automatic recognition of various programming language related file extensions.

*. Send live messages. 

*. Show/Hide connected users or document lists... are among its main features to mention.

You can install Gobby in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, 11.10, 10.10 and 10.04 by using the below command in your Terminal window.

sudo apt-get install gobby

Anyhow, if you're looking for a free text editor that supports collaborative editing + can be used on Ubuntu (GNU/Linux in general) and other OS platforms, but can cope with the fact that perhaps it's more of A programmer friendly (concerning the fact that font changing, etc type usual settings are hard to access) one, then Gobby is a pretty simple yet an effective opensource "solution" nonetheless.

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Ubuntu One for Windows (Cloud App Client) is Released!

"Ubuntu One" is the brand name for the cloud computing (storage specific) model of the Ubuntu Linux operating system. Although the Ubuntu Cloud model is an open one unlike with other models such as iClould or MS Windows Cloud version which are proprietary in nature.

I don't know much about the business oriented cloud... but I'm against the idea of the personal cloud "module", because something doesn't feel right man :). Anyhow, whether it's necessary or not, it doesn't matter because it's at our doorsteps. And if you use Ubuntu as your primary OS then you're aware that it comes highly integrated with the Ubuntu One account which easily lets you manage your data in the Ubuntu Cloud.

It's here! ...

But since the idea of the cloud storage is to let you access your data wherever you are, no matter what platform that you're using, then as a cloud storage service provider you must have a cross-platform ready cloud model.

As a result of this, Ubuntu One has already released it's desktop front-end to other platforms such as Android and iPhone recently but the MS Windows version was still in beta. But today, Ubuntu One team announced that the Ubuntu One for MS Windows is officially available to download!.

So if you don't like to pay for anything, then Ubuntu One will give you about 5GB of Cloud space for free! (a free sign-up is necessary first). And as long as you're using any device that's powered by a the MS Windows platform and have this app installed, you'll be able sync/access your data with ease.

You can create new folders, manage music, delete files, upload/download files, etc using this utility. It's about 22.3MB in size and if interested, you can get it from this official Ubuntu One for Windows page.

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Ubuntu Font Family Version 0.80 (with "Mono" at last!) is Released

Ubuntu font family is a completely free, open font sets that are release under the Ubuntu font license. Although it's not that long ago they were released thus some of the standard sets such as the the "Mono" fonts were at the beta stage previously. But today the Ubuntu Font Page made it official that with the latest 0.80 version, now the "Mono" version is also included!.

If you're a webmaster then you can easily "install" these fonts thanks to the Google web-fonts API. These fonts are inspired by the Sans-Serif fonts and comes pre-optimized for desktops and mobile device screens especially according to Canonical.

Although personally, at smaller sizes I find it a bit difficult to read (could be a personal thing :D) and in general I'm not quite fond of the overall "square-y" type physical attribute which again I find it a bit hard to read (in comparison with the beautiful Arial font for instance.

Anyhow, if you're looking for a completely free fonts with minimal of restrictions (if none at all) then why not visit this Ubuntu Fonts page and download it!.

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Simple Personal Information Manager (PIM) for Ubuntu: Vazaar!

If you live "around" your computer all day long :D and also quite busy already, then having a simple yet an effective personal information manager software (you know all the features & also the ability to backup your PIM data, etc) is pretty handy. Although the Gnome desktop used to come with a one of its but it was "let go of" long ago thus if you use Ubuntu Linux and looking for a simple PIM software, then Vazaar is an excellent application.

Remember, the last time it was updated was around 2010 and the current version is only for Ubuntu 10.04 (but does work in 11.04 anyhow), so it seems that the project seems a bit outdated.

But as said, if you're looking for a simple utility that lets you easily manage your daily tasks... then Vazaar is an Open-Source PIM suite that can meet most of your needs nonetheless.

Main features...

*. As said, has a simple GUI that runs in the notification area, easy to getting used to.

*. Add notes.

*. Add diary/Journal entries.

*. Bookmaking and tags support (makes it easy to search and find).

*. A welcome window that gives you a quick sneak-peak into things.

*. Annotate notes/diary entries and other resources.

*. Open or Edit your resource with appropriate programs. For instance, you can simply right-click on a note and open it in your default text editor for advanced editing.

*. Add resources (easily "attach" files/folders to your entries).

*. Plugins and Tag managers. 

*. Delete entries.

*. Create collections and link your entries to them.

*. Uses MySQL and SQLite for database handling.

*. Backup your PIM data (both import and export support actually).

*. Semi Automated data base updating by analyzing your PC meta-data, clipboard, etc.

This is no magic since almost all PIM suits supports these features but just to mention: Both "Mplayer..." & "Vazaar..." entries were added by the suite after analyzing my clip-board memory data which will also add entries to tags as well...

*. Switch between full-screen mode and a windowed mode... which are among the main features to mention.

You can install Vazaar PIM in Ubuntu 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04 Natty Narwhal (not sure whether it'll work under 11.10 though) by first downloading the .deb package from this Vazaar downloading page.

And then simply double click on it which should open it in your Ubuntu Software Center. Just follow the on-screen instructions. The rest is automated.

As a final note, if you're looking for a simple yet a powerful personal information manager with reasonable amount of features + the ability to backup your PIM data with ease (in the somewhat universal database formats that makes the sharing is also pretty easy), then Vazaar is most certainly an excellent little utility without a doubt. Enjoy!.

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How to Install Firefox 7 in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat & 10.04?

The fully Open-sourced & highly secured web browser, Mozilla Firefox just got a hell lot faster!. This "was" one of the things that Firefox had for a long time, the somewhat "excessive" memory consumption when comparing with other rivals such as Google Chrome for instance.

Although that's not to say Chrome is superior than FF by a huge margin since it also uses reasonable amount of your RAM, but somehow Chrome manages to stay relatively faster while rendering web pages (it uses the WebKit for page rendering which is known for being "light-weight") and other GUI aspects. Also it's worth mentioning that Google Chrome has a pretty simplified interface which should also be helpful to stay resource friendly.

Anyhow, yesterday Mozilla announced the availability of Firefox version 7 and according to them and my first few hours of using it... it does feel faster!. It's said that it may use 20% to 50% times lesser memory while running (including startup times, multiple tab openings, etc) when compared with the predecessors, mainly due to a feature called MemShrink, developed by Mozilla foundation.

Firefox 7 in Ubuntu 11.04...

And if you use MS Windows, then the new Firefox 7 will be using the Direct2D API, assuming that you have a reasonably powerful GPU, this should also help to balance some CPU power over the GPU resulting an efficient + stable web browsing experience.

This however does not fasten-up the web page loading times but only addresses the local resource management of the web browser itself.

Main features...

*. As said before the biggest change is the enhanced memory management (20% to 50% reduce).

*. Better HTML5 rendering and hardware acceleration support.

*. Web page load speed testing support for developers.

*. Opt-in performance report sending to Mozilla to help building an even better browser in the future.

*. With the start of Firefox6, the browser started to highlight the top-level domain URL. And with the version 7.0, the 'http://' URL prefix is now hidden by default (inspired from Chrome :D).

*. Update Web-Socket protocol (the protocol that controls the communication between your PC and the Web-Site that you're trying to load), meaning enhanced security while browsing web pages.

*. Few other CSS improvements and bug fixes are few among the main features to mention (there are no major GUI changes as far as I can see).

Anyhow, if you use Ubuntu, then:

You can install Firefox 7.0 in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and 10.04 Lucid Lynx thanks to the stable PPA channel. To do that, simply open your Terminal window and enter the below commands.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install firefox

That should do it. Although not necessary ... but since "things" can happen, just make sure to backup your data such as Bookmars, etc. Just in case.

If you use Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal, then FF7 is already in the official repositories (not sure if it's available for the 11.10 beta users at this moment though) thus you should've received the automatic updates.

But if you had disabled the automatic updates, then you won't receive "the update". In that case, put the below command into the terminal which should do the trick.

sudo apt-get install firefox

So, it's true that the Google Chrome is still quite impressive and got me a little worried about Firefox for sometime now.

But when seeing the performance jump, although it may still not be huge (since 50% decrease won't happen to all), yet Firefox 7 is one of the most secured web browsers, although not be the most fastest (yet!), but it's certainly getting there :). Enjoy!.

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How to Edit Compiz Settings in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot?

Compiz is an advanced 3D Graphics rendering manager + is one of the first to add the 3D compositing feature to the X-Windows GUI library. After sometime a bit of a rival came called Berryl (a fork of Compiz) but later it was merged back into it thus Compiz the current dominator. But that could change since Gnome Shell uses a one of its own 3D render called Mutter.

Anyhow, you can find a decent amount of GUI tools to edit Compiz settings but for some reason most of the GUI tool can drag you into a bit of a unstable system. And I think the reason is that when you change a setting or two using them, those 1 or 2 settings applies some certain amount of "child" settings inside them which means a lot of changes concerning the 3D rendering engine which leads to the unstable OS, perhaps.

Ubuntu Linux made some serious adaptations of Compiz with the introduction of their Unity desktop module and as almost all knows it has two versions.

Unity 3D: The default version which uses the 3D rendering by default to create a beautiful looking windows, resizing or minimizing effects, etc.

Compiz is useful, somewhat :)...

Unity 2D: This is the non-3D version thus does non rely on Compiz.

Anyhow, the thing is, with Ubuntu 11.04 it was pretty easy to edit advanced settings of Compiz thanks to the Gconf-editor. But since Ubuntu 11.10 uses a lot of Gnome 3/Shell apps + Gnome Shell is migrating from Gconf-editor (a Gnome desktop configuration database editor GUI) to a new tool called Dconf-editor...

... The problems is that, while I was writing this post, Ubuntu is at its Beta 2 stage and I don't know whether things would change when they release it official (don't think so)... neither "Gconf" nor "Dconf" is installed by default in Ubuntu 11.10!.

Enough talking, let's do it!

1. So if you want to edit Compiz settings then you gotta first install Gconf-editor manually in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot (Dconf is pretty new still and won't even include any settings concerning Compiz). To do that use the below command.

sudo apt-get install gconf-editor

2. Now, press "Alt" + "F2" keys and put the below command into the search box and hit enter.

gconf-editor

3. This should open a window similar to the below.

Ahh, the good & "old" friend...

Now, since it's not install by default, the first time I ran it it did not let me choose anything (looked like "stuck", errrrrr). But I waited like 15-20 seconds and things worked as expected. I guess it just need time to "import" the settings to its database. A re-boot could be the best solution.


Anyhow, from your left go to: "apps" -> "compiz-1".

That's it. Under "compiz-" -> "plugins", you'll find all of those "hidden" Compiz OpenGL 3D rendering settings such as: animation, blur, composite, cube effects, decor, ezoom, etc.

They're all there! ...

If you messed up things (story of my life! :P) as usual, then open your terminal and enter the below command to restore the values to their original settings.

gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/compiz-1

And if you want to load the desktop with Unity's default settings (user profiles, launcher preferences, etc) then use the below command for that.

unity --reset   

You can also use the below command which gives a short introduction to "Unity-Shell", etc (the command-line manual actually).

man unity

Also remember, since OpenGL 3D graphics rendering means deeper hardware integration thus always make sure that you have the up-to-date GPU drivers installed to get the best out of your system. Good luck.

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How to Access Advanced Power Options in Windows 7?

Although the sole purpose of using MS Windows 7 in a powerful desktop PC is all about gaming :P... thus accessing advanced power settings makes little sense to most. But, if you use a portable device, say something like an Ultraportable Laptop or a Netbook, etc then configuring few advanced power settings concerning Windows 7 can come in handy.

When it comes to desktop UI designs it maybe true that you can learn a lot of from Apple Mac but the Gnome desktop developers can also learn a great deal from Microsoft. For instance, in Windows 7 (including Vista) Microsoft has done an excellent job of creating a pretty simple power related configuration window which is really good for the newbies since it doesn't "touch" a lot of advanced settings.

But unlike with the GNU/Linux default desktop, the Gnome, if you'd rather like to have some additional control over the computer then you easily do so in Windows 7. Most of the average users like me know how to do this. But for those who don't ... this is how you access that additional configuration settings that lets you change a big list of advanced settings concerning the ACPI of your PC.

1. First click on the Batter or the Charger icon on your notification area and from the window choose "More power options" as shown in the below screenshot.

2. Then from the next window that you get, choose the "Power plan" that you want these settings to be applied and click on the Link next to it that says "Change plan settings" which should bring a new window similar to the below one.

3. From the next window that you get, look for the bottom section and click on that says "Change advanced power settings" as with below picture.

Once you click on this link you should be reveled by a new window that lets you configure a lot of advanced power settings concerning your hardware through the ACPI (advanced configuration and power interface, a standard) and using this you can change some big number of settings such as:

Note: If you click on the "Change settings that are..." (marked in Red) link, then it'll only display the settings that are not available in the default/simple configuration window...

*. Manually change the Hard-Disk turning off time.

*. Pause the desktop background slide-show.

*. Change whether the Wireless adapter should give you the maximum performance or maximum power efficiency.

*. Enable/disable wake timers, change auto hibernate time or enable the Hybrid sleep mode (turned on by default for Desktops), etc.

*. PCI Express cards related settings.

*. Change Advanced Processor related settings such as: Cooling policy, Minimum processor state or Maximum processor usage limiter (which can have a significant effect on your battery life if you know how to balance things a bit :D), etc.

*. Display related settings.

*. Multimedia related settings such as : Enable/Disable media sharing, switch between performance and low power mode while playing videos.

*. Internet Explorer related Javascrpt timer setting.

*. GPU related settings.

My personal favorite is few of the settings that this window allows you concerning the battery. For instance, if you're trying to calibrate your battery then sometimes it's important to let it completely drain itself (0% or somewhere near). But by default, Windows will put your Laptop into Sleep mode when it reaches a certain point in its battery life (default is 7%) which is called "Reserve battery level".

But if you forcefully disabled it then when the battery reaches about 5%, Windows WILL put your computer into Hibernate mode which in this case (we're trying to calibrate the battery, remember? :D) is not what we want since we'd like our battery to die to its absolute zero or close. So in that case, you can use this window to re-configure and completely disable that default action which is very handy in my experience.

But once you're done with the calibration make sure to set things in their default values since these power modes do help to recover your PC from failures. Also remember except for some (such as the mentioned "Better critical..." settings) most of these settings are automatically adjusted when you change settings in the "Power Plans' window. But this configuration window gives a lot of advanced options that are sometimes necessary to get the most out of your PC nonetheless. Good luck.

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Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot (beta 2) Review

Well, it's been quite a while since Ubuntu Developers started to roll-out the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10 Oneric Orcelot and few days ago they released the beta 2 version. Now, I've never used the 11.10 because it was too new and wasn't that much production ready, so to speak.

But after hearing the Beta 2 is out now we have like few weeks left and another RC left before the official launch of 11.10, I thought the Beta version 2 should be much closer to the official release of the long awaited 11.10 thus it's about time that I'd try to come up with a review.

So remember, all the feature that I'm gonna talk about are the changes from the current 11.04 Natty release thus if you've used 11.10 since the beginning you may already experienced these features (so don't blame me dudes! :D).

The desktop is identically the same, except the "right-click" now is even simplified (the "Create new Launcher", which is useful as hell for some, is removed)...

Gnome 3 (also known as Shell) has a lot to do with Unity, still!

As most knows, Unity carries some fundamental difference the way desktop UI designs, etc. But it still uses a lot of Gnome's applications thus most of the differences that we see in individual applications such as in "System Settings", user management, etc are due to the changes in the Unity's implementation of the Gnome 3 applications.

Let's begin with some of the changes in the Unity interface changes...

*. "Dash" icon: Except for a single major change, the application launcher is almost the same as in 11.04 version and still it lacks some serious customization abilities.

Anyhow, the most noticeable change is the "Dash" icon, which is now sits on top of the launcher which used to be on the left edge of the screen.

As many others, I also think this is a good move since it helps to make the most out of the screen since if you use something like a small screen device, say a netbook, then every pixel counts!.

And when you click on the "Dash" icon then on the left-edge we're greeted with a a "close/maximize" buttons (the minimize is disable which makes sense). So now you can easily close the window by using your mouse thanks to this without the need of the "Esc" button. 

*. Buttons on the "exact left-edge": Thanks to the little movement of the "Dash" icon, now buttons are arranged on the very left-edge on the screen previously they used to just after the "Dash" icon. This helps to give a more sensible location + until you maximize a window you'll see a the name of the app/window (or whatever that you're using) on the left-edge (as with below screnshot).

Note the "Text Edi" to the left where the "Dash" icon used to be...

Also when you use an application in full screen mode the buttons are hidden by default a and are only visible when you move the mouse pointer over to the top panel. This helps to give a much more cleaner and uncluttered look. So in general, I personally like what's gone with the "Dash" and the "Buttons".

*. The new "Alt-tab" UI: This is another beautiful looking "window switching" utility which was implemented sometime ago. But for some reason, while I was using it, if I had already an un-minimized window on my desktop screen then the "Alt-tab" display behind it which is not helpful at all since to serve its purpose it should always be on top of everything.

Other than that it looks beautiful and worked nicely.

*. New appearance Window: The appearance window section has also gone through some major changes and I gotta say it looks more polished and professional.

Arranging or adding images is really easy too but the themes have been reduced to four. The standard Ambiance theme + the Radiance version is there as the default ones and two version of the "High contrast" themes ... that's about it for themes.

This makes sense in a way and I guess having one or two themes by default helps the "branding" of Ubuntu but as long as you have a working internet connection around you... installing a new one is pretty darn easy nonetheless.

The Ambiance theme also has gone through few changes it seems. The tittle bar has lost somewhat its "3d-ness" as you can see with the below screenshot when comparing with the 11.04 version.

Perhaps the middle strip is a bit too "thick/sharp"...

*. Nautilus: The default file manager is Nautilus 3.1 that's also shared between Gnome Shell and Unity and the "Path-bar" is now black and looks ugly (at least for my taste). I don't know whether its the "arrow" or the squared version of the selected path on the "path-bar" or the new look-n-feel in the sidebar, but Nautilus looked really weird :D.

"Something is wrong with me... help!" :P...

I think that it's the side-bar color that jeopardize things here since it doesn't go well withe the Black title and Pathbar ... so if they can do something about that + add a bit of a 3D separator to the side-bar... well I think it could solve some of the issues (any ideas??). 

*. All new Ubuntu Software Center: This is another major decision by Canonical to drop the Synaptic graphical package manager and replace it with the Ubuntu Software Center.

Now in the past USC was painfully slow and did require reasonable amount of system resource while installing applications, etc. But the 'new" one feels a bit faster and has gone through some major changes, at first I didn't even recognize her! (kidding).

Although the "Our star apps" takes a huge space out of that window which is waste since as long as I was using it didn't do anything other than displaying that "message". The only good thing about is that you can access all the "starred" apps by clicking on it. Other than that... that's A waste.

Users: Um, what exactly is your purpose again? | USC Star-apps Logo: "Well I'm here for... oh you know, I mean I do that... that, but ..."

 Anyhow, when compared with the current USC in 11.04 the "Installed/Get/History" buttons are moved to the top and the categories are to your left and in the middle sit the "starred" apps. A quick reminder, if you want "Synaptic" back (heck you do :P) then simply search "Synaptic" and simply follow the on screen instructions to install it (ahh finally :D).

Other that the UI changes the performance is also improved but not by a huge margin, while I was using it. And I don't think they can make it as fast as Synaptic because USC is designed for achieving different goals (Mark did mention about "different ways of monetizing Ubuntu", nothing wrong with that anyway). But there's still room for improvement but for a start, this is not bad.

The preferences window and the menu are almost the same and nothing major to report there.

"ahh the same old me..."

*. System Settings: This is another area that has gone through some changes and it feels like you're inside Apple Mac OSX Lion :D. I actually liked the "old" interface in 11.04 but in a way this new window lets you access things much more faster.

And as said, most of the individual application changes inside the System Settings, such as Keyboard layout changing or user management is due to the Gnome 3 changes thus has nothing to do with Ubuntu.

The new "Screenshot tool" does something cool (highly relative :D). Now whenever you take a screenshot, it'll output a camera shutter sound + will "white" the heck out of your screen too :).

Ehh... what was that all about! :D...

And as many knows, Ubuntu 11.10 comes with a backup software by default called DejaDup which you can access via the System settings which will be appreciated by many for its simplicity and usability.

Other minor changes includes such as: the default image viewer is the one comes with Gnome desktop thus if you wan to crop, etc then you'll have to use the Shotwell (which is also installed by default).

LibreOffice still comes without the "indicator menu" support. If they can't find a work-around that... it could be a bit disappointing when 11.10 comes out.

Oh one more small thing, the Terminal window now has a small White strip around it (as in the below screenshot) which looks awesome!. Since this is still one of the most widely used utilities in GNU/Linux... I think most would love it.

The "System Settings" menu has also received few new options. Now you can use it to configure network printers, add a web-cam software (which will take you to installing the Cheese web cam utility in USC), access display settings (another useful update) and startup applications and can configure attached devices directly from the menu as well.

The Shutdown menu is also changed quite a little which now lets you reboot as well.

How was the performance??

Well, I didn't measure the seconds but things were noticeably faster (startup/boot, etc) and the new LightDM theme also loads fast (looks good too). If you use AMD fusion chips, then 11.10 comes with the latest builds of the Kernel 3.0 which brigs enhanced support for these never chips (including ARM). I'm also quite pleased with the open-source ATI/AMD GPU driver which worked really well under Compiz without any issues whatsoever + it detected my monitor this time correctly.

As always, if you want the best performance, then I highly suggest that you install the proprietary driver.

But I'm not entirely happy with the ACPI since the Fan on my netbook kept running in  a decent speed (even while I wasn't doing anything at all) but I cannot blame this on Ubuntu since it could be some issue with the Kernel and most probably is related to my hardware specifications.

To be honest I've been one of these that criticized the Unity desktop for sometime but after using it for sometime + when looking at the changes in the 11.10, although they aren't that "huge", but from a users perspective these small changes do make a difference and I actually love the Unity desktop. 

But as with Gnome Shell, Unity has its issues and some absolutely hate it (which is totally understandable, but for me personally it only needed just a little getting used to).

But if you're an average computer user or someone who's new to GNU/Linux and still learning about Ubuntu and other stuff from scratch and looking for a professional looking GNU/Linux distribution that's slightly faster than the predecessors + which is user friendly too: then I gotta say that I was a bit wrong about the Unity interface and even though it's still at its beta stage, yet, I think Ubuntu 11.10 looks really good.

So if you can't even wait till its out officially... then other than installing it in commercial environment I think it's really stable (although Nautilus 3.1 crashed ones, yikes!) enough that you can give it a try, safely :). Good luck.

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Ubuntu Tweak 0.6 (beta) Review

To be honest, just like with most others who've been using GNU/Linux for some time now, I had it quite rough with GNU/Linux. I started with RedHat Linux and had to figure out how to compile and install applications, didn't have a broadband Internet connection thus I manually downloaded the source code from else where and after or while doing the "./configure", bugger used to give me "dependency" errors about which I had no clue what the heck was that all about at that time, etc. So learning GNU/Linux wasn't the most enjoyable task.

But in a way I'm glad that it happened that way. Because I love computers and it taught me a lot. But most of my friends who didn't (still don't :D) care about OS and whether it's free or not... they just wanted to something to watch a movie and play few games thus no one made their peace with GNU/Linux :. So from their point of view, having the ability to customize the OS "here and there" easily does make a difference. 

In that sense for all ya non-geeks who's leaning Ubuntu Linux from scratch and if already a bit frustrated with the Gnome (Unity included) desktops' lack of customization features and thinking how nice it would be if there's a utility not necessarily lets you access a huge list of options but gives you the ability to sneak-peak into some useful tweaks... then Ubuntu Tweak is certainly one of the best!.

The last time I tried it was about few months ago. And few days ago the developer announced the availability of the Ubuntu Tweak 0.6 Beta which brings a lot of new changes (specially concerning the UI). And after using it for a while it really impressed me and I thought that I should brag about a bit :P.

*. As said before if you've used it in the past then you'd remember the options were located to the left side of the screen and the "sub options" were located on the right side. But with the 0.6 beta version the "tabs" have been moved into the top center of the UI and their options are reveled right under them which is pretty cool implementation in my opinion.

*. Overview Tab: This is sort of the "welcome screen" and give you an overview of your Ubuntu computer. Things like your basic hardware details, OS version, tips such as how much you could gain by removing the cache files, whether your system is up to date or not, etc.

*. Tweaks Tab: This contains some additional tweaks per few popular individual application that you can edit manually using the Gconf-editor. But since the UT has implemented things more graphically... if you want to edit things like

1. Log-in settings: Enable/disable play sound at log-in, Disable user list in GDM, change screen logo and background.

2. Change Session settings: Such as disabling, reboot, shutdown, log-out buttons and changing the window manager/file manager + Panel settings.

3. Few Gnome desktop related settings: Change the desktop menu icon, enable panel animations, disable "history" list, etc.

4. Nautilus file manager settings: Show advanced permissions on file/folder properties, display location entry instead of path-bar and few thumbnail related tweaks.

5. Few Metacity Related settings: Run Metacity as the compositing manager, enable/disable transparency, change the button layout and location, etc.

And few other Compiz, security, power manager and few "workarounds" are also there.

*. Admins Tab: You can use this tab to access few administrative options such as taking "desktop" backups (very useful), edit default folder location/layout, repository source editor, file mime-editor but the "shortcut commands" doesn't work at this moment (guess it's still under development).

*. Janitor: Although Ubuntu has a Janitor app of its own which is know to cause problems after using (errrrr :D) but Ubuntu Tweak lets you things like: Clean the Nautilus Thumbnail cache, remove PPA from the synaptic list and remove apt-get cache (+ few other cache related settings).

And if you want more tweaks then you can easily install them using the "Preferences" window too. On the main window to the right-side UT also displays a list of your recently used tweaks as well.

You can install Ubuntu Tweak 0.6 (beta) in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal and 11.10 by using its testing PPA channel. To do that, use the below commands in your Terminal window.

    sudo add-apt-repository  ppa:tualatrix/next
    sudo apt-get update
    sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak

I tested it on Ubuntu 11.04 and worked without any issues. But the 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot support at the moment is not as good as with 11.04 according to the developers. Anyhow, just remember, Ubuntu Tweak is still at its beta stage thus I don't recommend anyone to use it in their "serious computer" :).

But if you wanna give a try at this excellent, all in one type Ubuntu Customizer, then even though the UT 0.6 is still at its beta stage if you want to access few additional tweaks of individual apps and the OS core files, then it looks awesome (say goodbye to learning Linux, just kidding! :D).

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