Meet nmon, the task manager that runs in a terminal

A few weeks ago on the Linux Action Show Chris and Matt covered nmon as their desktop app pick for the week. While they provided a great in depth look on it, I also wanted to look into it as well out of my own personal interest, so I went ahead and installed nmon on my Ubuntu machine and started playing with it.

Date and Time Formatting the easy way (Video)

Yesterday I installed Lubuntu-Desktop on my Ubuntu installation to use as my desktop environment. My computer is old, and LXDE (the desktop environment that comes with Lubuntu) is the lightest and therefore fastest desktop out there.

Format Junkie -- how to get the new official PPA and remove the old one

If you guys remember, I did a in depth look at Format Junkie, a neat little application that converts media and other files from one format to another. I didn't become aware of this myself until today, but there is a new PPA for getting updates to the app. The Format Junkie program is also updated, with smaller icons and from what I notice more settings to control how conversions are programmed.

Need a good format converter for Ubuntu? Check out FormatJunkie!

Project's
Official
Icon

If you are a user of Ubuntu or use Linux, you might have known about the Ubuntu App Showdown. During that contest, this app churned out of a man named Alex Solanos. This app is called FormatJunkie. This app is an all around media converter. It converts a variety of audio and video formats, and even can convert ISOs to other disc images (in this case the CSO disc image). In addition to audio, video, and disc image files, this converter even converts images.

This applications has a nice interface, although some people think that the icons can be smaller. I personally don't think that is a problem, though.

Site Update: Unity Web Apps Integration Coming!

Today I have some news to relay to you regarding Unity Web Apps integration. I have covered it in the past, and now I am looking to add this to the site.

For now, all integration with Unity is going to be slim, meaning that for now it is going to be a bookmarked app. As I learn more from the API, I might even be able to set up notifications, menu options, and more.

If you want to take a look at the Unity Web Apps API, go here. It is actually very simple, and personally I found it odd that it wasn't hard. You do have to put this in between <script> tags. Right now, many popular websites support Web Apps integration, such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, GrooveShark, and more.

If you want to provide feedback on this, you can in the comments below.

Has the Ubuntu 12.04 GRUB2 Background Image changed?

If you are a user of Ubuntu, maybe you can help me here. Yesterday after installing updates for Ubuntu 12.04 32 bit, I got a new splash screen image for GRUB2. Now if you usually pay attention to GRUB, you would know that the usually splash screen is purple, like the purple is when the splash screen loads (shown above).

SnapChick Releases Two New Videos Talking about Shotwell and GIMP

Professional photographer SnapChick has released two new videos talking about Ubuntu. More recently, she has been talking about the software part of the Gazelle Professional (Ubuntu), and going over some of her most popular apps that she uses.

In the videos below, she gives her thoughts on both GIMP, and Shotwell. Shotwell is installed by default with Ubuntu, and GIMP is just a one click download from the Ubuntu Software Center.

For more videos of SnapChick going over the Gazelle Professional, go over to this page I did a few weeks earlier. That page I did will also be updated for these videos, as it seems that that page is now the hub for all of this.

So without taking up more of your reading power, the two videos are below. I know I was kinda late on this (the videos came out two days ago), but as they say "better late then never," right?

SnapChick uses GIMP on Ubuntu



SnapChick uses Shotwell on Ubuntu 

 If you can, please let me know of your thoughts below.

Microsoft Account Changes Arrive for Windows Live Users

While logging into Windows Live (to use the awesome Unity web apps integration), I ran into something really interesting. Remember a few months ago when Microsoft announced it was merging all of its account systems into one unified system -- the Microsoft Account?

Well it is finally coming for Windows Live users. When you visit a login page for Windows Live (I just used mail.live.com as an example), you will now get a refreshed screen. In addition, you will get some new metro like styling to the login page, probably to fit into its upcoming Windows 8 operating system.

Why you shoule be using Ubuntu and not Windows.

This is the first part of why you should be using (OS) and not (OS). This article is about using Ubuntu and not Windows. The companion article is Why You should be using Windows and not Ubuntu. I composed this article offline before I am posting it here, so most errors should have been fixed.

Ubuntu is a Linux based OS. Since Ubuntu is a great OS. Here is a few reasons why you should be using Ubuntu as your operating system, and not Windows.

Ubuntu Countdown widget now HTML5 for browsers other than IE

Hello all, today I just added a new Ubuntu countdown widget, based upon HTML5, to the Ubuntu countdown widget area. If you are using IE, you will just see the previous countdown widget.


If you inspect the widget's code, you'll see that there are two if IE tags. One is a style tag, one for the old countdown widget. The Style tag hides the HTML5 widget, because all you will see is Ubuntu (version counting down to), and the background. The old countdown widget is also in a if IE tag, so it only displays for IE browsers.


If you are using a newer browser with at least HTML5 canvas support, you'll see the widget. Of course, I will be taking feedback in the comments below.

Techman's World...in 3D!

So recently I was using Ubuntu on my dad's computer, and decided to load my site on Firefox. You see, if you didn't know, my computer is not so good. It is 6 years old. It has lived its days....

But anyways, I was using Firefox's web inspector, and decided to tour Techman's World in 3D.

Go ahead and soak up the image below :). Click to enlarge it, because is small to fit in the blog post.

 Oh, and this was in Intel Graphics. Cool isn' t it?

Add Movie Review Search to the Ubuntu Dash

Want to know of a movie is worth watching? A new scope for Ubuntu’s Unity Dash aims to make finding the answer to that question super easy.


If you are looking for reviews for movies, this is for you, as I already have mentioned earlier.


This lens/scope is fresh out of the development press, and is good to get. Its search is powered by Rotten Tomatoes.

Rotten Tomatoes is one of the webs leading movie review sites and is famous overall for delivering a ‘fresh’ or ‘rotten’ rating based on the opinion of leading and professional movie critics.


Oddly, for a scope built around data from Rotten Tomatoes, search results do not display the ‘freshness rating’ for which the site is famed. Instead it offers up the average star rating based on user-submitted reviews.

Usually, user reviews are taken to be more considered by users on the site than the professional reviews. Does this really matter? Not really.

Install Movie Review Scope in Ubuntu 12.04

Since this scope/lens is new, it is not yet in the Ubuntu Software Center. Don't worry, I'll tell you how to get this.

It can be installed, along with the ’Utilities Lens’ is needs so that it can display data in the Dash, from the Scope Packagers PPA.

The PPA be added by entering the following command in a new Terminal window, or by manually adding the part in bold to your Software Sources.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:scopes-packagers/ppa

After adding you can install the Scope and Lens by running:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install unity-lens-utilities unity-scope-rottentomatoes


Once installed, you have to log out and then log back in to refresh the dash with the new lens/scope.


If you give the lens a try be sure to leave your critical opinion of how ‘fresh’ or ‘rotten’ it is in the comment space below.


Via: OMG! Ubuntu!

Poll: Have you Upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS?

Hello to everyone who uses Ubuntu in the community. Today I have a nice poll, and it is for exactly what the article is named.

So, have you upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS? Post a comment and/or vote in the poll below.

Kubuntu 12.04 LTS Review

Kubuntu is a free open source operating system that is based of off the hugely popular Ubuntu linux distro. Kubuntu includes the KDE Plasma desktop environment instead of Unity, like the main distro includes. Kubuntu also has customized packages that could or could not be the same in the main Ubuntu distro. An example could be the web browser. More on that later

If you know already, I have been review the 12.10 versions of Ubuntu. The reason why I chose 12.04 over 12.10 in this release was because of the file size. At the time when I downloaded the ISO, my own limitations caused me to get this release. Besides, the 12.10 version was almost 1 GB in size, almost too big to fit on my 1 GB USB stick. Now that we have this sorted out, lets start the review.