Archive for the ‘Free Software’ Category

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QtCurve faster than the rest?

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

I have an EeePC 1201n that has a pretty descent graphics processor (Nvidia Ion), but I was still noticing a little bit of sluggishness with KDE’s KWin desktop effects enabled.  Things like minimizing or switching desktops produced minor little hiccups.  Overall, it was still fast, but it was enough to make me try some different settings.

I happened to like QtCurve (style and window decorator) anyway, so I compiled the latest version and installed it.  As soon as I started using the window decorator, replacing the default Oxygen one, poof, instant speed.  The response time is excellent with absolutely no hiccups at all.  Is QtCurve just that much faster than Oxygen, or did building it from source specifically for this hardware make enough of a difference to increase the speed?

Either way, it is smooth sailing from here on out.

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Beautiful HTML5 Video Demo

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

HTML5 video will hopefully soon replace Flash Player as the video streaming method of choice for websites.  YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion, and others are currently providing beta examples of their future HTML5 video players.  While these demos are OK, they do not really showcase how beautifully seamless the experience can be.

SublimeVideo does just that.  It feels like you are watching an HD video from a Blu Ray drive on your computer.  If you have an HDMI out on your laptop, you could display it on your TV, and it would be picture-perfect.  Flash never functions exactly like native video, and it hogs CPU and RAM.  Anyone with dual monitors like me knows that playing Flash in fullscreen is a pain as well.

HTML5 video requires no additional browser plugin, and the webmaster has the freedom to customize the interface and fullscreen support (which is built in to browsers anyway).

To view the video, you will need the latest release of Safari (v4.0.4+), Google Chrome (v4.0+), or Firefox (v3.6+).  It also works with Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame installed.

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Latest articles

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

I am way behind in posting my articles. I have been very busy working on the final projects in the final semester of my degree. So, here is a quick run-down of my latest writing.

Miniaturize Your Photos With TiltShift Generator

How to Install QtCurve in KDE

How to Install OpenOffice.org 3.2 in Ubuntu 9.10

How to Install And Setup Ubuntu One In Kubuntu

XMind: A Cross-platform Mind-mapping Solution

How to Run Fullscreen Games In Linux With Dual Monitors

I am also writing for a new website, ServerSchool.com. Make sure you check it out too.

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Ubuntu Java versions

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Just a quick note. I discovered that the Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04) version of sun-java6 provided in one of their updates is a higher version than the base version provided in Karmic (9.10). This produces installation errors if you try to add any additional Java packages.

The solution is to remove sun-java6 and its associated components and reinstall (You can also downgrade in Synaptic by using "force version" and selecting the Karmic version).

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KDE 4.4 and Tabbed Windows

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

KDE logo blue background with white KKDE 4.4 Beta 1 has been released, and the talk of the town is the new “tabbed windows” feature. They completely slipped this one past me. I didn’t even know anyone was working on it. Anyway, it is exactly what the name implies: the ability to have multiple windows all tabbed in one window. You can even drag one window onto another window’s row of tabs.

As a writer, I have long wished for tabbed word processing (outside of Google Docs), and now that will be possible with this KWin feature.

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The Year of the Linux Desktop Mobile Phone

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

htc-magic-scaled
Since its creation, over fifteen years ago, free software and open source advocates have longed for the day when masses of people around the world would adopt GNU/Linux or Linux (depending on who you ask). There is little doubt that the past five years have seen tremendous strides in Linux desktop adoption.

Some hardware vendors, such as Dell, now sell Linux desktop computers, although you have to page through their online catalog to find it, and their promotion of it seems spotty at best. The netbook craze has also seen the rise of several Linux offerings, but even the company that arguably started the netbook craze with its Eee PCs, Asus, still proudly displays “Better with Windows” on their website.
(more…)

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How to Use Digikam to Export Photos to Flickr, PicasaWeb, and Facebook

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

splash screen
Digikam is a free and open source photo management software package for KDE. Many KDE-based Linux distributions either come with Digikam installed or have it available in their repositories. With Digikam, you can import photos from your digital camera or flash memory, organize and tag them, rate them, edit them, and export them to various services or custom galleries.

Three popular services that Digikam can handle are Flickr, PicasaWeb, and Facebook. The first two are social photo sites, and the last is a social networking site. All three support photo plugins used by Digikam. This makes uploading photos quick, easy, and painless.

I am operating under the assumption that you already have accounts on the services you want to use. If not, you will need to register and activate whichever accounts you want before you proceed.

Read the rest

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Nokia N900 Phone?

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

Nokia N900

The Web is buzzing about Nokia’s announcement of the next in the Nokia Nxxx series, the N900.  I found it odd that Nokia had chosen to make this version a phone when the previous three versions, the 770, N800, and N810 were all “internet tablets”.  The only reason I even believed this one would be a phone is because of all of the buzzing, with numerous tech news sources reporting it as Nokia’s new phone.

After looking at the website for the device for a few minutes this morning, however, I found absolutely no mention of it being a phone.  They have pictures of its interface but never show a dialing pad.  The specs mention mobile broadband but not mobile voice.

It does run the new Linux-based version of Nokia’s Maemo operating system, which will probably not be compatible with previous versions of the tablet, since this tablet will finally introduce a 3D graphics chip with iphone-ish effects (as if that’s important).

But no, it is not a phone, unless Nokia just really wants to minimize the significance of it being a phone.  According to Nokia’s own website, it is the “Nokia N900 mobile computer”.

UPDATE (2009-08-27): The features site now mentions “phone” as one of the features.  It actually looks pretty cool.  Let’s just hope they don’t tie customers to a 2-year contract with a crappy service provider like a certain other company who shall remain a nameless red fruit.

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A Quick and Easy Guide to KDE KIO slaves

Monday, August 17th, 2009

One of the many ways KDE makes our lives easier is by providing graphical interfaces for many of the  tasks that computer users want to perform. Web browsers typically accept certain protocols that connect them to resources, such as http, https, and ftp. In KDE, these are called KIO slaves, and nearly all KDE applications can interact with them.

What makes KDE unique is that there are over 50 KIO slaves available for use. These include everything from basic file management (file:/directoryname) to remote network management (remote:/). I have selected a few notable KIO slaves to demonstrate how they are used and have also included a list of useful ones at the end of this post.

Read the rest at MakeTechEasier

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How to Set Special Window Settings with KWin

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

kde_logosvgKWin is a free and open source window manager and is the default in KDE. It is a powerful, highly customizable window manager with a plethora of both aesthetic and nuts and bolts features. With the release of KDE 4, the developers added 3D desktop effects, but they also carried over many customization features from KDE 3. Here are some of the window-specific settings that you can use in KWin.

Read the rest at MakeTechEasier

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