Ubuntu developers make their first MAJOR mistake with 10.04

You've all been reading over the months of what a fan I've become of Ubuntu... well, I'm trying out the new release, 10.04 Beta 2, and I must say, though it loads SUPER FAST, I have to throw my two cents in now... I HATE THE DECISION BY THE CORE UBUNTU DESIGN TEAM TO MOVE THE LOCATION OF THE WINDOW BUTTONS!!!

The main reason many of us are looking to Ubuntu is as a Microsoft Windows replacement. However, the design team has decided to change the location of the main window control buttons, Minimize, Maximize and Close, OVER TO THE LEFT, like they do in the Mac world, as opposed to Windows and EVERY PREVIOUS UBUNTU RELEASE, where they normally reside on the right.

This one's a BIG deal for a whole lot of people in the Ubuntu community. I've been reading complaints all over the place, and the design team has decided to shut down debate and stick with the left hand placement of the buttons.

Bad move guys... I hope you intend to make it easy for most of us to customize it back, because I can promise you this, it's one of the first things I'm gonna have to do with each and every install I do.

Or it may cause me to not bother with the install. I'm seriously debating whether or not to bother putting this one on my laptop. I was already debating it, having just updated my laptop with the FREE copy of Windows 7 Ultimate that Microsoft provided me with a little while back. (yes, they're trying to woo some of us back into the MS fold)

While I know most people will just look at this as a cosmetic thing, it's not. It's a BIG DEAL, since a lot of us are constantly switching back and forth between the Ubuntu and the Windows worlds. I've even been thinking about putting together proposals on how we can use Ubuntu within our organization, but now, I'm having a rethink on that. YOU try and teach dozens of older nurses a totally new way of doing things with a new OS, and then telling them that the folks who make the decisions have decided to make things more complicated for you by moving the three buttons that are used CONSTANTLY. The main menus being at the top are easy to adjust to... moving those little three buttons IS NOT.

One PARTIAL fix is to run the following command, which will move them to the right side, but will leave the MAXIMIZE and MINIMIZE buttons switched... which I can live with. (to change the order of them breaks the aesthetics) To run the command, press ALT+F2, then enter the following:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string "menu:maximize,minimize,close”

Did that, and now I'm a "little" more at peace with the new Ubuntu...

UPDATE: If the above command breaks the button order, try adding a comma after the "close" option... like so:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string "menu:maximize,minimize,close”

Dropbox - Sweet online storage app!

Best new online storage program BY FAR... Dropbox!

I've been looking at various "cloud computing" online storage options lately, from SkyDrive, to a GMail hack that lets you store files in your GMail, and various other things of that nature. Haven't been too impressed by any of them thus far. SkyDrive is okay, but I want the ability to have it linked to a folder on my PC, or a mapped network drive like I can with the GMail hack, so that I can share files easily betwen my various PC's, laptops, and independent of the OS I'm running, as some are XP, some are Windows 7, and others are Ubuntu 9.04 or the 9.04 NBR.

Anyway, a buddy of mine MSNed me today with Dropbox, and I think I'm in love. It just WORKS, and works the way I want it to. I can have multiple folders, syncronization takes place online in the background, and if the sync gets interrupted (say you shut down before it's complete) it'll just pick up where it dropped of next time you're online.

You can also share files easily. Upload a file to the "Public" folder, and then right click on it, go to the Dropbox submenu, and then click the "Copy Public Link" option. Paste the link into an e-mail, or on your website, and bingo, you're done!

They'll give you up to 2GB's for FREE (another requirement for me), and if you refer people and they sign up, they'll give you another 250MB per signup, growing your storage up to 3GB!

It also kicks SkyDrive in one major area... THERE'S NO LIMIT TO THE FILE SIZES! My friend here in Canada was able to share a 1GB file with a customer in Spain without any problems! This app has already helped me solve several problems that I've been having with the other free filesharing options available.

Check it out, and get signed up!

Google OS on the horizon?

This could be something to watch... Google is working on a low footprint Linux based OS for the desktop market, in a direct challenge to Microsoft's dominance.

I'd be willing to give it a whirl on my Asus EeePC netbook, which is what the first incarnation of the OS would likely target. Though I must say I'm fairly happy with my Ubuntu 9.04, which I have on my netbook and on my HP dv9000 laptop that I'm running right now. (though I have managed to goof up my Java-based SSL-VPN client somehow... that oughta be a fun one to fix)

Ubuntu 9.04 NBR on my EeePC 701 (4G)

Wow, I'm liking Ubuntu Linux more and more... and more!

Have been playing with it on my HP dv9000 laptop for a while now, and I love it. It's quick, has all the major tools I need, and hasn't crashed once. (which is more than I can say about my Vista on that same laptop... still waiting to hear from Microsoft on if they'll let me upgrade to Windows 7, to prevent me from making the switch completely)

So anyway, now that Ubuntu 9.04 is out of Beta and has been fully released, I decided to give the 9.04 NetBook Remix (NBR) a whirl on my EeePC 701, for 4GB SSD model. Seriously, if I can summerize my feelings with one word, it would be "WOW". The thing loaded up without a hitch, all the drivers were loaded flawlessly, and the thing now rocks... WAY better than with the EeePC's default Linux distro. There was one glitch where the mouse was jumpy, but that was solved quickly by running "gconf-editor" from the terminal, and going to "apps > netbook-launcher" and checking the "force low graphics" option. (as the 701's don't have the most beefy specs of the NetBook market) A quick reboot, and life was good.

Didn't take long at all to get it rigged up to use my new SSL-VPN for work. Just had to install the Java6 runtime, and then download and install an RDP client. Getting new programs for Ubuntu is smooth, most of the apps are available through the "Add/Remove Programs" menu, and they download and install in a jiff.

In all honesty, Ubuntu 9.04 is the first Linux I've seen that has a real serious shot at chipping away into some of Microsoft's market share. It's been nearly 10 years since I played with Linux, so I'm really rusty, (and I was never that good with it anyway) but it's been a total breeze to get it running on my systems. I now have it running on 4 systems, a desktop at home, a VMWare server at work, my main laptop and this EeePC, from which I'm writing right now. Oh, did I mention that the wireless worked right out of the box?

Seriously, if you're thinking about reinstalling your Windows because it's been slow lately, give Ubuntu 9.04 a try. If you're primarily using your computer for e-mail, internet and word processing, Ubuntu's got everything you need!

Download the ISO, burn a disk, and give it a whirl! You can actually test it out without installing it, the CD will boot up into a "Live" environment on it's own, and will give you a fully functional desktop OS that's running right off the CD... no installation required. That's how I gave it a test drive on all my systems first, which was great because it was totally risk free. Like I said though... I really think I've crossed the bridge, and have made the move to Ubuntu.

See ya later Billy G!!! (though you still got me on the server side... Microsoft's Server 2003 R2 is just a rock solid and stable product, and Microsoft's DPM has saved my butt a few times over, so I'm not likely to switch on the server side, at least not yet...)

Oh the irony of it all!

So I'm on my new Windows 7 Beta machine at work, talking with a buddy of mine about my recent Ubuntu Linux install on my laptop and desktop at home. Talking about the availability of applications like my VPN client, when all of a sudden, what happens?

KABOOM... BSOD!!! The good old patented Microsoft "Blue Screen Of Death"(TM), just like the one in the YouTube video I posted the other day!



Oh the irony... talking about making the switch to Linux, and my Windows crashes. Yet another reason to finally make the switch!

I'm thinking of converting

No, it's not an April Fools post, I'm seriously thinking of converting... to Linux, thanks to the latest version of Ubuntu!

It all starting through some good natured ribbing from a fellow Tory thanks to the Confiker worm, (for which, for some reason, I'm still ranked really high on Google) after I sent out some instructions on patching Windows computers to all my fellow Tory contacts. Anyway, he sends back some smart-alec comment about how it's time to finally time to come to the "dark side" and make the switch. So, since I figured I've been meaning to give it a whirl on my HP Pavilion dv9000 laptop (remember, the one I bought with Vista?), so I looked up the latest version of Ubuntu, which is the Beta version 9.04. Downloaded it, burned it, and rebooted.

Seriously, even with repartitioning my drive so both Ubuntu and Vista can live side by side, it took all of about 20 minutes to get it all loaded. (on my second attempt mind you, tried installing first on my second hard drive but my dv9000 didn't like that, wouldn't give me the option to boot from my second drive, so I had to install again)

Booted up, man is it ever fast. It's easy to navigate, nice and cleanly designed. First time around, my wireless didn't work, so I plugged in to my router, and ran a hardware update. Found a suitable driver, loaded it, and that was it. Ran some tests, and from a cold boot, it takes one minute and twenty eight seconds till I'm fully online. And that's including the time required to enter my username and password, and automatically attach to my home wireless network.

I've always been hesitant to make the switch, because I've never been much of a programmer, and because basically, Windows has always just worked for me. (especially Windows XP Pro SP2, by far their best OS ever) Linux has always had the problem of getting applications installed, which is a snap with Windows. In Linux, you need the right RPM's, tarball files, the right kernel, etc. Could never be bothered to work through all of that.

But there's been a dramatic shift in the last couple of years. With the advent of high-speed internet connections, everything is moving to an online application model. You've got your Hotmail and GMail for e-mail, you've got OpenOffice and Google Docs for word processing, you've got Facebook, etc., etc., etc. Essentially, the average user doesn't need to install much software anymore.

As such, once you're online, you're pretty well done. You can do everything you need online. Therefore, since I pretty much use my laptop for online communication, I figured what the heck, let's give it a go.

Again, I'm hugely impressed. So much so, that I'm posting this post from the SECOND computer that I've converted, the old P4 tower in my home office. Only a P4 1.6Ghz with 768MB of RAM and a 20GB HDD, and the thing still screams. Of course, XP would also work nice on those specs, but why would I want to spend money and buy an OS to put on that old thing? Exactly... free is good.

Of course, should the need arise, I can always turn to VMWare... I've got the VMWare Player installed on the box, so I can call up an MS Virtual PC image from work should I need it. All in all, it's pretty sweet.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have more to say in the weeks to come. Also got the ISO file configured on a USB stick, from which I can run a LiveCD boot on most computers, so I'll be playing with it on various hardware, like my eeePC. I'll let you know how it goes.