App Grid: New Lightweight Ubuntu Software Center Alternative

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>App Grid is a new lightweight Ubuntu Software Center alternative</b> that tries to make application discovery easier by using a grid view which includes app screenshots and ratings.</div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">Even though this is the first public release, App Grid already comes with most features you'll need, like software search, app review and purchase and more. As for the design, the application reminds me of <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2013/04/see-whats-new-in-kubuntu-1304-raring.html">Muon Discover</a>, a Muon Suit front-end that tries to make it easier to find new software, a goal shared with App Grid.</div><br />Below you can see some App Grid screenshots:<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/appgrid.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="AppGrid" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8ylyml6T14_G4SscJEAgwpl0FJLjyy5qG-t_5KxqBOF4S8tiINRrYCMnT7FQIXxZdldkWL4fFQb-19Hl2OXcMrX_pgm-q-0HIEGOfnOeQWxey4387j5vJma08f20mb75Df6k7T4ma4AA/s320/appgrid.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">App Grid - main view</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/appgrid-category.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="AppGrid" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/appgrid-category_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Games category</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">You've probably noticed that some applications have a green circle displayed around the application icon - that means they are already installed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The application page displays an install / launch / remove button, screenshots, a short description along with user comments. Clicking on the comments extends the section and you can filter them by rating, language, Ubuntu version or write a review:</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/appgrid-app.png" rel="image_group"><img alt="AppGrid" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/appgrid-app_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/appgrid-comments.png" rel="image_group"><img alt="AppGrid" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/appgrid-comments_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>App Grid features:</b></div><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>discover new apps every time you open App Grid;</li><li>search, filter and sort to find exactly what you're looking for;</li><li>make informed decisions with our extensive detail views;</li><li>sign in with your Ubuntu One account to review and purchase apps.</li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b> <b>Below you'll find a technical comparison between App Grid and Software Center, done by the AppCenter developer </b>(the tests were performed on a Dell Mini 9):</div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">python3 vs python2;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">warm start to home screen is 2.7s vs 20s;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">warm start to details screen (eg opening an apt: link) is 2.3s vs 30s;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">full database build is 58s vs 6min24;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">initial database size is 36.7mb vs 96.5mb;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">memory usage after startup to home screen is 20mb vs 53.6mb;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">lines of code is somewhere around 5900 loc vs 56960 loc (incl tests etc).</li></ul><br /><b>Note:</b> AppGrid is currently proprietary. Its Launchpad page says "Other/Proprietary, I don't know yet" so the developer may change his mind.<br /><br /><br /><h2>Install App Grid in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><s>App Grid is available in a PPA for Ubuntu 13.04 only for now</s>. Update: the application is now available for Ubuntu 12.04, 12.10, 13.04 and 13.10. Add the PPA and install App Grid using the following commands:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:appgrid/stable<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install appgrid</code></pre><br /><b>Report any bugs you may find @ <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/appgrid">Launchpad</a>.</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>via <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/1l52za/initial_release_of_app_grid_software_center/">Reddit</a> / <a href="http://ubuntu-discourse.org/t/initial-release-of-app-grid/960">ubuntu-discourse</a></i></div>

App Grid: New Lightweight Ubuntu Software Center Alternative

App Grid is a new lightweight Ubuntu Software Center alternative that tries to make application discovery easier by using a grid view which...

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E-book Management App `Calibre` 1.0 Released

<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://calibre-ebook.com/">Calibre</a> is an open source tool to manage e-books, which features e-book syncing with popular e-book readers, library management and e-book conversion between various formats. The application is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The latest Calibre 1.0, released recently, features a new cover grid view of the books available in the Calibre library, a faster database backend and more. </b></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/calibre-1.0_0.png" imageanchor="1" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Calibre 1.0" border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_qQxmKyj3C7cW-KXTPjZ-dEzs7ufOwagRCj8b320U7ab6oYTHpEoCVagQ-T_SssToTgQ54cZLhCBYpAbHJzXNBAbXpxdGXyzyDCjtlEzJc5CDEyzep0X-hL7R7q9tBW-MspiBDzvGHdM/s320/calibre-1.0_0.png" width="320" /></a></div></div><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">With Calibre 1.0, an optional <b>grid view</b> which <b>displays books by cover</b> has been added. To switch to it, click the grid icon in the bottom right corner:</div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/calibre-1.0_1.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Calibre 1.0" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/calibre-1.0_1_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The new Calibre grid view</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The grid view is customizable via <i>Preferences > Look & Feel > Cover Grid</i>. Here, you can change the cover height and width, enable displaying the book title below the cover, set the cover cache size and so on.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another interesting feature that was added to Calibre 1.0 is called "<b>Virtual Library</b>". Using virtual libraries, Calibre can split big libraries into smaller virtual libraries. The virtual libraries are created based on a search expression and when using such a library, Calibre behaves like it only contains the matched books so the application only displays the tags/authors/series etc. that belong to the virtual library. To create a virtual library, click "Virtual Library" on the left of the search bar, then select "Create Virtual Library":</div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/calibre-virtual-library.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Calibre 1.0" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/calibre-virtual-library_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Calibre Virtual Libraries</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">This can be useful to easily create a library with your favorite authors, unread books and so on.</div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Also, with version 1.0, Calibre can <b>scan your computer for all TTF and OTF fonts used in documnts and automatically embed them</b>. Further more, Calibre can "subset" fonts, meaning it can reduce their size by using only the glyphs present in the document. This option can be turned on via the <i>Look & Feel</i> section of the conversion dialog ("Embed referenced fonts").</div><br /><br /><b>Other changes in the latest Calibre 1.0 (compared to 0.9.0)</b><br /><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>The database backend has been re-written from scratch and should be 2-3 times faster than the old one;</li><li>A new Microsoft word (docx generated by Word 2007 or newer) converter has been added to Calibre;</li><li>New metadata sources have been added, including Google Image search, Edelweiss and Big Book Search;</li><li>Re-written PDF output engine which should now support proper pagination, inserting headers and footers with templates, auto generation of a printable Table of Contents and more;</li><li>A new "Polish books" tool lets you perform various cleanup actions on ebooks such as embedding fonts, smarten punctuation, update the metadata and more. To use this tool, go to <i>Preferences > Toolbar</i> and add the Polish books tool to the main toolbar. This tool only works with EPUB and AZW3 formats;</li><li>A new ToC edit tool lets you re-arrange entries in the Table of Contents. To use it, go to <i>Preferences > Toolbar</i> and add the Edit ToC button to the main toolbar.</li></ul><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/calibre-metadata-sources.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Calibre 1.0" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/calibre-metadata-sources_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Calibre metadata sources</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/calibre-polish-book-dialog.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Calibre 1.0" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/calibre-polish-book-dialog_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The new "Polish books" tool</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><h2>Install Calibre in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander: </b>Calibre 1.0 has just been uploaded to the Saucy repositories so it should be available via Ubuntu Software Center in a few minutes.</div><br /><b>For older Ubuntu versions, you have two options:</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>A. Using a PPA for Ubuntu 13.04 or 12.04 - the PPAs currently have Calibre 0.9.41</b> but hopefully they will be updated to the latest Calibre 1.0 soon.<br /><br />Using the current version in the PPAs, you won't get the new grid view but other features such as the new Virtual Library, Polish Books, Edit ToC or the new metadata sources should already be available.</div><br /><b>To install Calibre in Ubuntu 13.04, use the following commands:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:n-muench/calibre<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install calibre</code></pre><br /><b>Or, if you're using Ubuntu 12.04, use the commands below:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:n-muench/calibre2<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install calibre</code></pre><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>B. Using the official binary Calibre 1.0 binary</b> that includes private versions of all its dependencies. This should work with any Ubuntu version as well as other Linux distributions as long as you have <i>glibc</i> 2.10 or higher and <i>xdg-utils</i> and <i>python</i> ≥ 2.6 installed. But <b>there is a downside: there is no uninstaller </b>so if you want to remove Calibre, you must remove the folder it creates under <i>/opt</i> as well as all the files it installs under <i>/usr/local/share/applications</i> and so on.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Before using the official installer, it's recommended you remove any Calibre versions you may have installed from PPA or official repositories:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get remove calibre calibre-bin</code></pre><br /><b>To install Calibre using this method, use the following command:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo python -c "import sys; py3 = sys.version_info[0] > 2; u = __import__('urllib.request' if py3 else 'urllib', fromlist=1); exec(u.urlopen('http://status.calibre-ebook.com/linux_installer').read()); main()"</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://calibre-ebook.com/download">Download Calibre</a> (for Linux, Windows or Mac OS X)</b></div>

E-book Management App `Calibre` 1.0 Released

Calibre is an open source tool to manage e-books, which features e-book syncing with popular e-book readers, library management and e-book ...

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Popular Mobile IM / VoIP App `Viber` Available For Linux

<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://viber.com/">Viber</a> is an application that sits somewhere between Skype and WhatsApp, which can be used to make free calls, send text messages, photos and video messages without having to register (all phone contacts that have installed Viber are listed as Viber contacts).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Initially, Viber was a mobile-only application but a few months ago, a desktop client has been released for OS X and Windows.<b> Earlier this month, Viber Media Inc. has released Viber for Linux as a public beta. For now, there are only 64bit binaries available for download. </b></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/viber-linux.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Viber Linux" border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzl4kkQ0lCwtAfYLPUNYA2qqCdGQKUWplHYEuWxrTKEyDB4udXQLvGEpFUOKRYcV8zCy8VN0fwtrbhceNqAoJeiJrVIJw6bRYESd7hzVjH-x6l-5-lpfiFmtAPu7evIhEth372hOsVzRs/s320/viber-linux.png" title="Viber Linux" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">On a first look, the Viber Linux client behaves pretty much like the mobile app: all your mobile contacts are displayed in the contacts list and you can text or call them and so on.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But there are some differences. Firstly, you can transfer ongoing calls from/to your phone: for instance, if you get a call on the desktop app, you can transfer the call to Viber on your mobile phone with a click. And secondly, the desktop application supports video calls (desktop to desktop only), a feature that's not yet available for the mobile app.</div><br /><b>Viber for Linux features:</b><br /><ul><li>HD quality voice calls;</li><li>video calls (desktop to desktop only);</li><li>text, photo and sticker messages;</li><li>group conversations;</li><li>full sync between the mobile and Linux clients;</li><li>transfer ongoing calls between devices;</li><li>no registration or password required.</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://download.cdn.viber.com/cdn/desktop/Linux/Viber.zip">Download Viber for Linux</a> (64bit only for now!)</b></div><br />To run Viber on Linux, extract the downloaded zip archive in your home folder, then run the following command to start Viber:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>~/Viber/Viber.sh</code></pre><br />For feedback, see the <a href="https://plus.google.com/communities/110404948770388605701">Viber Linux Beta testers</a> G+ community.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>via <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1l3o57/native_viber_client_published_for_linux/">Reddit</a></i></div>

Popular Mobile IM / VoIP App `Viber` Available For Linux

Viber is an application that sits somewhere between Skype and WhatsApp, which can be used to make free calls, send text messages, photos an...

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Pipelight: Use Silverlight In Your Linux Browser To Watch Netflix, Maxdome Videos And More

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="http://fds-team.de/cms/articles/2013-08/pipelight-using-silverlight-in-linux-browsers.html">Pipelight</a> is project that brings Silverlight to any Linux browser that supports the Netscape Plugin API. Using it, you can use services that require Silverlight, such as Netflix, in native Linux web browsers like Firefox, Chrome or Midori.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/netflix-linux-chrome.png"><img alt="Netflix Google Chrome Linux" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbE_Gs7mwOXD0VcQf03yV2nZaN07v0aUSDLeZ4XQaUy16RxnOYZreoqHggtFwS-Kbgkfff4tooWL2ee7KtLl2hvdLLjI9YwWLv2fjjAs5qCuYwD5LJ6qisqbjRv6NqIFwkjdJVu4RdM1Q/s320/netflix-linux-chrome.png" /></a></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">Pipelight combines the effort by Erich E. Hoover (the <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/how-to-use-netflix-in-ubuntu-through.html">Netflix Desktop</a> developer) with a new browser plugin which - unlike Netflix Desktop which requires a Windows version of Firefox to run under Wine -, lets you access services that require Microsoft Silverlight using native Linux web browsers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This solution isn't Wine-free because the browser plugin continues to use Wine however, this shouldn't have a big impact on performance:</div><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>"Pipelight consists out of two parts: A Linux library which is loaded into the browser and a Windows program started in Wine. The Windows program, called pluginloader.exe, simply simulates a browser and loads the Silverlight DLLs. When you open a page with a Silverlight application the library will send all commands from the browser through a pipe to the Windows process and act like a bridge between your browser and Silverlight. The used pipes do not have any big impact on the speed of the rendered video since all the video and audio data is not send through the pipe. Only the initialization parameters and (sometimes) the network traffic is send through them."</i></blockquote><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">According to the Pipelight website, <b>the plugin has been confirmed to work "almost perfectly" using Microsoft Silverlight 5 for the following websites: <a href="http://www.maxdome.de/">Maxdome</a>, <a href="http://netflix.com/">Netflix</a> and <a href="https://sumo.tv2.no/">Sumo 2</a></b>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I've tested Pipelight with Netflix, under Chrome (Ubuntu 13.10) and I can confirm it works (and the playback was smooth!), as you can see in the screenshots in this article. Update: I've also tested it with Firefox and it works, but sometimes the browser freezes, something which doesn't happen with Chrome so I recommend using Chrome / Chromium with Pipelight.</div><br /><br /><h2>Install Pipelight in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/netflix-chrome-silverlight.png"><img alt="Microsoft Silverlight Google Chrome Linux" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/netflix-chrome-silverlight_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Before proceeding, it's strongly recommended to close your web browser. Without doing this, the plugin may fail to install or crash the browser. </b></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>1.</b> Pipelight is available in two PPAs for Ubuntu users: a <a href="https://launchpad.net/~mqchael/+archive/pipelight">stable</a> and a <a href="https://launchpad.net/~mqchael/+archive/pipelight-daily">daily</a> PPA. Firstly, try the stable PPA and if you encounter issues, also give the <a href="https://launchpad.net/~mqchael/+archive/pipelight-daily">daily PPA</a> a try.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>To add the Pipelight stable and Compholio PPAs and install Pipelight in Ubuntu, use the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ehoover/compholio<br />sudo apt-add-repository ppa:mqchael/pipelight<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install pipelight</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Once installed, start your browser and try <a href="http://bubblemark.com/silverlight2.html">THIS</a> test Silverlight applet. If it doesn't work, check if Silverlight is available in your browser plugin list (e.g.: you can type "about:plugins" in the address bar).</div><br />If you didn't close the browser before proceeding with the installation and Silverlight doesn't work, run the following command:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>rm -rf ~/.wine-pipelight/</code></pre>and then restart the browser.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>2.</b> We're not done yet. Silverlight should be working now, but some websites such as Netflix check the browser user agent and won't allow you to play any videos since Linux isn't supported. A work-around for this is to use a browser user agent switcher:</div><br /><ul><li>Firefox: install <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/uacontrol/">UAControl</a> or <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-overrider">User Agent Overrider</a> extensions and use one of the following user agents:</li><ul><li>Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:15.0) Gecko/20120427 Firefox/15.0a1</li><li>Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:22.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/22.0</li><li>Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:23.0) Gecko/20131011 Firefox/23.0</li></ul><li>Chrome: install <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/user-agent-switcher-for-c/djflhoibgkdhkhhcedjiklpkjnoahfmg">User Agent Switcher</a>  extension and select Windows Firefox 15 from the extension preferences.</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">That's it! If video playback is slow or laggy, try <a href="https://answers.launchpad.net/pipelight/+faq/2356">THIS</a> work-around.</div><br /><b>Also see:</b><br /><ul><li><a href="https://answers.launchpad.net/pipelight/+faqs">Pipelight FAQ</a></li><li><a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/pipelight">Report a bug</a></li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>For more information, Arch Linux installation instructions, source files and so on, visit the Pipelight page @ <a href="http://fds-team.de/cms/articles/2013-08/pipelight-using-silverlight-in-linux-browsers.html">fds-team.de</a>.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>via Daniel Foré @ <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/101997050734870587600/posts/JDc2xem1rTG">G+</a></i></div>

Pipelight: Use Silverlight In Your Linux Browser To Watch Netflix, Maxdome Videos And More

Pipelight is project that brings Silverlight to any Linux browser that supports the Netscape Plugin API. Using it, you can use services tha...

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Evernote Linux Client `NixNote 2` To Ditch Java For C++ / Qt, Alpha Version Available

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2011/02/evernote-for-linux-nevernote.html">NixNote</a> (previously Nevernote) is an unofficial open source Evernote client written in Java, but it seems this will change with the next major release and C++/Qt will be used instead.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For those not familiar with <a href="http://evernote.com/">Evernote</a>, this is a popular note-taking service that besides regular notes, supports images, video and audio, handwritten notes and basically all kind of information you could add to a note. There are Evernote applications for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry and so on, but not for Linux.</div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">NixNote has almost all the features present in the official Evernote application for Windows, but it's written in Java and many users have complained about its memory usage. But this will change with <b><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/nevernote/files/NixNote2-alpha/">NixNote 2</a>, an effort to rewrite Nixnote from scratch, having speed and a reduced memory footprint as the main goals</b>. According to its developer, NixNote 2 will be written in C++ using Qt's framework and there might be some Java pieces, but he's hoping to keep them to an absolute minimum.</div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/nixnote2.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nixnote 2" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqmhKtBq6tkPYktAyXHg6I2Kiu_ZYzYBLCowtHhpUoIa3CTVMEhyphenhyphena9ZtdpzsYZJazmZ0aJN5WrBPOOMtFQIjOsvAF2-0AiP1DN2lucxbbSTCY6Ln80JqghYZWWNXCwFGP6rghTIE_zOKA/s320/nixnote2.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nixnote 2 alpha 3</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">If you want to try the latest NixNote 2 alpha 3, you can download it already, but only for 64bit. Also, remember that <b>this is an alpha version released for testing purposes only</b>, so you may find bugs and also, some features aren't working yet, like uploads to shared / linked notebooks, encrypted text in notes, you can't pin a note or color it, you can't close a notebook and more. For more info about this, visit the NixNote 2 alpha 3 <a href="http://sourceforge.net/apps/phpbb/nevernote/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=377">thread</a>.</div><br /><br /><h2>Try Nixnote2 alpha in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The latest Nixnote 2 alpha 3 is only available for 64bit</b> (no source available yet) and in my test, it <b>has worked in Ubuntu 13.04 and 13.10 </b>(I didn't test it in Ubuntu 12.10). Unfortunately, the binary is built against <i>libpoppler-qt4-4</i> which isn't available in Ubuntu 12.04, meaning that <b>the current build won't work in Precise</b>.</div><br /><b>Before proceeding, install the required dependencies:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install libpoppler-qt4-4 tidy mimetex</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Then, <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/nevernote/files/NixNote2-alpha/">download Nixnote 2 alpha</a> </b>(make sure you read the release notes before using NixNote 2 alpha!), extract the downloaded archive and simply double click "nixnote" from the extracted folder.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Important:</b> since this is alpha quality, uploads are disabled by default. To get Nixnote 2 alpha to sync with the Evernote servers do the following: in the NixNote preferences (<i>Tools > Preferences</i>), on the Debugging tab, uncheck the "Disable uploads to server" box, then click Ok:</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/nixnote2-uploads.png"><img alt="Nixnote 2" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/nixnote2-uploads_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">And finally, click the "Sync" button on the toolbar, enter your Evernote username and password and your notes should then sync with the Evernote servers.</div>

Evernote Linux Client `NixNote 2` To Ditch Java For C++ / Qt, Alpha Version Available

NixNote (previously Nevernote) is an unofficial open source Evernote client written in Java, but it seems this will change with the next ma...

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Quick elementary OS 0.2 Luna (Stable) Overview

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Two years after the "Jupiter" release, <a href="http://elementaryos.org/">elementary OS</a> 0.2 Luna (stable) has been made available for download recently. With a bit of a delay, here's a quick overview of what to expect from Luna, along with screenshots and of course, a video.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_10.png"><img alt="elementary OS Luna screenshots" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4bm1c7sLVhjAUUSnwKL_waztDjxKCm8lcXcb3FMrHohhHwUznDQe022TZl0xfQbSgIPF6CGj0PCHNYBBYeSFzqRLJP-BuD1dqNHQH4hYr1sW0FFWhIWQ7KUpnhbtCK2NkdvNX5fYcqJs/s320/elementaryos-luna-stable_10.png" /></a></div><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><h2>elementary OS 0.2 Luna stable</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Based on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, which will be supported until April 2017, elementary OS Luna ships with its own shell called Pantheon and applications that respect the elementary OS philosophy: beautiful, fast and minimalistic</b>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">elementary OS Luna uses a window manager called Gala, based on <i>libmutter</i>, which comes with <b>smooth animations</b> along with a really cool workspace switcher (Super + s) and a beautiful Expose-like feature (Super + w):</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_7.png"><img alt="elementary OS Luna screenshots" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_7_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_8.png"><img alt="elementary OS Luna screenshots" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_8_thumb.png" /></a></div><br />You can see these in action in the video at the bottom of this article.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Slingshot</b>, the menu / application launcher used by default in elementary OS Luna, lets you either search for the application you want or browse the available application categories:</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_6.png"><img alt="elementary OS Luna screenshots" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_6_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The top panel, called <b>Wingpanel</b>, doesn't come with the "wing" design used in its first versions (though you can achieve that by following <a href="http://www.elementaryupdate.com/2013/06/safely-use-wingpanel-slim.html">these</a> instructions), but it still stands out from other panels such as the Unity panel, thanks to the cool design used by the indicators:</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_3.png"><img alt="elementary OS Luna screenshots" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_3_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">For the application switcher, elementary OS Luna uses <b>Plank</b>, a dock that supports intellihide along with other hide modes as well as some Unity features such as badges, progress indicators or quicklists:</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_9.png"><img alt="elementary OS Luna screenshots" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_9_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Plank, along with other aspects of the desktop can be customized by using <b>Switchboard</b>, elementary's system settings which comes with some custom "plugs" such as the Desktop plug, which lets you set the wallpaper, change the dock icon size, hide mode or theme as well as set hot corners:</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_4.png"><img alt="elementary OS Luna screenshots" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_4_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">As for the <b>artwork</b>, Daniel Fore's beautiful GTK and icon themes are of course used by default. Through the Luna development, both have received various improvements: for instance, Luna uses new folder icons and the GTK theme has received new switches, infobars, spin buttons and much more. You can see these changes throughout the screenshots in this article.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">elementary OS 0.2 Luna is truly <b>special</b>: the beautiful indicators, the smart dock, the lightweight default applications of which most are especially designed for elementary OS and the classy effects fit really well together and offer a clean, consistent desktop. And all of this, on top of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS which means you have access to all the applications available for Ubuntu and the long term support (supported until April 2017).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">However, since besides the default applications there are very few apps that follow the elementary OS design guidelines, this consistency can easily be broken by simply installing a few extra applications and this takes away some of elementary's charm.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another issue, some would say, is the lack of various options / customizations for some of the default elementary OS applications. The main reason behind this is that the elementary team tries to provide a good set of defaults so you don't have to tweak anything yourself.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><h2>Applications</h2><br /><b>Default applications include:</b><br /><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">Pantheon Files - a Marlin fork which is very fast and features multiple views, including Miller Columns as well as optional extensions for Ubuntu One or Dropbox;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Noise (Music) - the default music player offers multiple views, including a browser based on album covers, an equalizer, iPod sync, Last.fm integration and more;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Geary - an email client developed by Yorba (the team behind Shotwell) and the elementary team, has replaced Postler, and features new email notifications, multiple accounts support and more;</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_1.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="elementary OS Luna screenshots" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_1_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pantheon Files</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_2.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="elementary OS Luna screenshots" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_2_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Noise (Music)</td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_11.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="elementary OS Luna screenshots" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_11_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Geary (Email client)</td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Other applications included by default in elementary OS are Maya (calendar), Scratch (text editor), Pantheon Terminal, Midori (web browser), Empathy, Totem, Simple Scan, Shotwell and of course, Ubuntu Software Center.</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a rel="image_group" href="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_5.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="elementary OS Luna screenshots" src="http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1113424/img/elementaryos-luna-stable_5_thumb.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scratch (text editor)</td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><br /><h2>elementary OS Luna video</h2><br />Below you can watch a quick elementary OS Luna video overview:<br /><br /><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/KE-2BSg_e4U" width="480"></iframe><br />(<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE-2BSg_e4U">direct video link</a>; for more videos, subscribe to our <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/nilarimogard">YouTube channel</a>)</center><br /><br /><h2>Download elementary OS Luna</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="http://elementaryos.org/">Download elementaty OS Luna</a> (32bit and 64bit ISOs available)</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">You can also purchase physical elementary OS Luna CDs (as well as branded t-shirts and stickers) from the <a href="https://www.wepay.com/stores/elementary">elementary store</a>.</div><br /><i>Also see: <a href="http://elementaryos.org/journal/the-road-to-luna">The Road to Luna</a></i>

Quick elementary OS 0.2 Luna (Stable) Overview

Two years after the "Jupiter" release, elementary OS 0.2 Luna (stable) has been made available for download recently. With a bit ...

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Nuvola Player 2.1 Beta 1 Released [Cloud Music Player With Desktop Integration]

<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEdQOe3Tv0G_zqIwcgAgETofsotDb9Proz6SXTM0Bb3qMG2a6Z8iMwUURDxA-DG0Zo9F-dX1H6JcB5XciJu435CZOrx7SixCj6Nm9B8Z3Wquwn7eCa-s9_qFcReZ0JzA9H3VblxlGZJx8/s1600/nuvola-player_1.png"><img alt="Nuvola Player" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEdQOe3Tv0G_zqIwcgAgETofsotDb9Proz6SXTM0Bb3qMG2a6Z8iMwUURDxA-DG0Zo9F-dX1H6JcB5XciJu435CZOrx7SixCj6Nm9B8Z3Wquwn7eCa-s9_qFcReZ0JzA9H3VblxlGZJx8/s320/nuvola-player_1.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="http://nuvolaplayer.fenryxo.cz/">Nuvola Player</a> is a cloud music player that supports services such as Grooveshark, Google Play Music, Amazon Cloud Player, Pandora, Rdio, Hype Machine or 8tracks.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The application integrates tightly with the desktop, providing notifications, multimedia keys support, Unity quicklists, Mpris v2 (Ubuntu Sound Menu / GNOME Shell Media Player extension integration) support and more. Other features include last.fm scrobbling, proxy support, Dock Manager integration (integrates with Docky, AWN or DockBarX) and lyrics fetching.</div><br /><a name='more'></a><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Kkz8Lg_xmXyZFTC-F1nYyEk4ZdJ54NwKNdbOIacLca9Pl5zkj0n59Up2gMHAPgZXdMfnQovWbpyk58tv8n614GGEiNKq4fHwFowdb0BnKHHbzYpVM64JOTSTNbnthEjJqQFMEIJavUI/s1600/nuvola-player_2.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nuvola Player" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4Kkz8Lg_xmXyZFTC-F1nYyEk4ZdJ54NwKNdbOIacLca9Pl5zkj0n59Up2gMHAPgZXdMfnQovWbpyk58tv8n614GGEiNKq4fHwFowdb0BnKHHbzYpVM64JOTSTNbnthEjJqQFMEIJavUI/s320/nuvola-player_2.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nuvola Player plugins - it's now possible to specify which service will scrobble your music to last.fm<u><br /></u></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Nuvola Player 2.1 beta 1 has been <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/110794636546911932554/posts/4eFtmzJZ93E">released</a> today, featuring the following changes:</b></div><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">new supported service: Deezer;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">format support information: when a plugin is missing, Nuvola Player now displays a warning;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">persistent notifications with actions (so you can skip to the next track, pause or go to the previous track from the notifications) - these are supported by GNOME Shell (including the <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/gnome-shell-how-to-enable-notifications.html">lock screen</a>) and Xfce;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">it's now possible to specify which service will scrobble your music to Last.fm;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">added a few keyboard shortcuts: Go back <shift><alt>Left and go forward <shift><alt>Right<br />"show only toolbar" and "show both toolbar and menubar" have been removed and the main menu has been reorganized. A context menu (right mouse click) provides quick access to go back/forward, go home and reload actions; </alt></shift></alt></shift></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><shift><alt><shift><alt>it is possible to set preference of a dark GTK+ theme (so for instance, if you're using Adwaita, selecting this will make the application use Adwaita dark);</alt></shift></alt></shift></li><li style="text-align: justify;"><shift><alt><shift><alt>service selector is opened in a separate window and uses native GTK+ widgets instead of web view;</alt></shift></alt></shift></li><li><shift><alt><shift><alt>main view respects text size set in Accesibility preferences;</alt></shift></alt></shift> </li><li>many <a href="http://nuvolaplayer.fenryxo.cz/releases/2.1/bug_fixes.html">bug fixes</a> and more.</li></ul><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoCp-so5n0tio3M5Lubc6gFh6ZVsMiTPW7V8KbVOULLJ4ACgRSNg9OrmpVkr-pXQAt8Dj-EQbX8Lo-bOChgwnhaqnG54GC30IA1JrB3HoVtCrVNQ4Ihz1Nz_PhkIaqgaZVYKK1ivNworw/s1600/nuvola-player_3.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nuvola Player notification gnome shell" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoCp-so5n0tio3M5Lubc6gFh6ZVsMiTPW7V8KbVOULLJ4ACgRSNg9OrmpVkr-pXQAt8Dj-EQbX8Lo-bOChgwnhaqnG54GC30IA1JrB3HoVtCrVNQ4Ihz1Nz_PhkIaqgaZVYKK1ivNworw/s320/nuvola-player_3.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nuvola Player persistent GNOME Shell notification with actions</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br /><h2>Install Nuvola Player in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Ubuntu 13.04, 12.10 and 12.04 users can install the latest Nuvola Player 2.1 beta 1 by using its official beta PPA:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nuvola-player-builders/beta<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install nuvolaplayer</code></pre><br />Alternatively, you can also use the <a href="https://launchpad.net/~nuvola-player-builders/+archive/stable">stable</a> or <a href="https://launchpad.net/~nuvola-player-builders/+archive/unstable">unstable</a> PPAs.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>You can download the source or report any bugs you may find @ <a href="https://launchpad.net/nuvola-player">Launchpad</a>.</b></div>

Nuvola Player 2.1 Beta 1 Released [Cloud Music Player With Desktop Integration]

Nuvola Player is a cloud music player that supports services such as Grooveshark, Google Play Music, Amazon Cloud Player, Pandora, Rdio, Hy...

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Using Nvidia Graphics Drivers With Initial Optimus Support In Ubuntu 13.10 Got Easier With Nvidia-Prime

<div style="text-align: justify;">As you probably know, the Nvidia graphics drivers have received <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2013/04/nvidia-releases-linux-graphics-drivers.html">initial Optimus support</a> a while back. Currently, the Nvidia GPU can be used to render the desktop, but there's no power saving yet. That means you can for instance play games or watch videos using hardware acceleration.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But to be able to take advantage of this feature in the latest Nvidia drivers, you need up-to-date dependencies (such as Randr 1.4, Xorg 1.13 - that's what the initial Nvidia release notes mention, but it seems you actually need 1.14 -, Linux Kernel 3.9 with some special flags enabled), as well as a custom xorg.conf file and some other bits.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That means that out of the box, the only Ubuntu version that can use this initial <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Optimus">Optimus</a> support in the Nvidia graphics drivers is Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, but even in Saucy, you need to configure some things to get it to work.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>If you're using Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, things got a lot easier and you don't need to configure anything to be able to take advantage of this Optimus feature in the Nvidia graphics drivers 319.12+: a package called "<a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-prime">nvidia-prime</a>", which comes with a set of tools that enable Nvidia's Prime on MUXless systems, has been uploaded to the Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander repositories</b> about a month ago and it has currently reached version 0.4 (released today).</div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">This package automatically checks if your system supports Nvidia Optimus and the required packages, creates the xorg.conf file and tweaks the LightDM configuration to support this.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In my test, I've installed the Nvidia 319.32 drivers and the "nvidia-prime" package (both from the Ubuntu 13.10 repositories) and after a reboot, the Nvidia card was used on my Optimus laptop (Dell XPS L702X):</div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1JArYwpXaCX1NYDVlzikcXNQaivd53CREv-6HDjafP9VtBAZF9QIkyWDGaFQlzlhRne6aLyF0J0ozWl3Fl64VC2TmHapZZ5yiLmJ2O73dCcnA4xf97RHqzKEKe-8ACApquhEiVTbkUTk/s1600/nvidia-prime-nvsettings.png" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Nvidia settings optimus" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1JArYwpXaCX1NYDVlzikcXNQaivd53CREv-6HDjafP9VtBAZF9QIkyWDGaFQlzlhRne6aLyF0J0ozWl3Fl64VC2TmHapZZ5yiLmJ2O73dCcnA4xf97RHqzKEKe-8ACApquhEiVTbkUTk/s320/nvidia-prime-nvsettings.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;">(Bumblebee was removed and as you can see, I didn't launch "nvidia-settings" using "optirun")</div></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">I was also able to play a h264 video using <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2010/10/use-mplayer-with-vaapi-support-hardware.html">Mplayer with VDPAU (hardware acceleration)</a>:</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPUePJI1yhyphenhyphenEX8oD-qTu7WD5Z0zIT5Qmh35IaYfpajEiha5G7RTw9Pg4FBWcuj9sELBjuABMJrIZ6NwgiHR0ITvybkmAUqsON5ht0rfdSj-rzYyV9meXdv_G0Xsis9dTBngOfF3ejpmgE/s1600/nvidia-prime-vdpau.png" rel="image_group"><img alt="Nvidia Optimus Prime VDPAU hardware acceleration mplayer Ubuntu" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPUePJI1yhyphenhyphenEX8oD-qTu7WD5Z0zIT5Qmh35IaYfpajEiha5G7RTw9Pg4FBWcuj9sELBjuABMJrIZ6NwgiHR0ITvybkmAUqsON5ht0rfdSj-rzYyV9meXdv_G0Xsis9dTBngOfF3ejpmgE/s320/nvidia-prime-vdpau.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE3RC8lVq5tU5QfIRkDIgTfGgGWIAQ6nsteDXtV62sb5ff1B65LfFAttab8M9R6n_JMzkmOpBWCdBZjAzXxEXArBpVnp_qhyphenhyphenB7snwOC-4KwkplTSWG5F1a9yG2QRqeMBQlt2qFRg_2Q9k/s1600/nvidia-prime_1.png" rel="image_group"><img alt="Nvidia Optimus VDPAU Ubuntu" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE3RC8lVq5tU5QfIRkDIgTfGgGWIAQ6nsteDXtV62sb5ff1B65LfFAttab8M9R6n_JMzkmOpBWCdBZjAzXxEXArBpVnp_qhyphenhyphenB7snwOC-4KwkplTSWG5F1a9yG2QRqeMBQlt2qFRg_2Q9k/s320/nvidia-prime_1.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>glxspheres</i> reports some insane framerates - this is most probably a bug, but here's a screenshot anyway:</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9xluPW033pwKLAsuu7QIeBYNkdEGTxs53qqecsRPd9UzvLvTrRtmOrI1p6B3Af_M4XAQ9-23c7xenxNCk4m7oF5IJfrx2QIxguovBjuHAPr4ha07-nsP3kBiWQH3HUkSyeHrI2prP750/s1600/nvidia-prime-glxspheres.png" rel="image_group"><img alt="Nvidia Optimus glxspheres" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9xluPW033pwKLAsuu7QIeBYNkdEGTxs53qqecsRPd9UzvLvTrRtmOrI1p6B3Af_M4XAQ9-23c7xenxNCk4m7oF5IJfrx2QIxguovBjuHAPr4ha07-nsP3kBiWQH3HUkSyeHrI2prP750/s320/nvidia-prime-glxspheres.png" /></a></div><br /><br /><b>That's all nice, but there are some important issues I've encountered during my test (</b>the issues are most probably in the Nvidia graphics drivers and not in the nvidia-prime package):<br /><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>my laptop got pretty hot, especially when running <i>glxspheres</i> or playing a video using VDPAU;</li><li>Multiple monitors don't work out of the box; to enable multiple monitors, you need to edit the <i>xorg.conf</i> file, comment <<i>Option "UseDisplayDevice" "none"</i>> and add the devices sections as explained <a href="http://us.download.nvidia.com/XFree86/Linux-x86/319.12/README/randr14.html">HERE</a>;</li><li>this only occurred at first and it now seems to have stopped for some reason: changing the theme from Ambiance to some other theme didn't change the GTK theme (only the window borders changes) and GTK2 theming was broken so GTK2 apps used the ugly Windows 98-like fallback theme;</li></ul><br /><br /><h2>Install Nvidia-Prime in Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: red;"><b>Follow the instructions below only if you know what you're doing and how to revert the changes in case LightDM fails to start, etc.! </b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Note: the  <i>nvidia-prime</i> package only supports the proprietary Nvidia drivers and won't work with Nouveau!<br /><br /><b>If you're using Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander and want to test the Optimus support in the Nvidia Graphics Drivers 319.12+, here's what you need to do:</b></div><br /><b>1.</b> Firstly, purge Bumblebee and bbswitch if you've installed them:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get purge bumblebee* bbswitch-dkms</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>2.</b> Install the proprietary Nvidia drivers and the Nvidia Prime package:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install nvidia-319 nvidia-settings-319 nvidia-prime</code></pre><br /><b>3.</b> Reboot the system.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">That's it, after a reboot, your laptop should be using the Nvidia GPU to render the desktop.</div>

Using Nvidia Graphics Drivers With Initial Optimus Support In Ubuntu 13.10 Got Easier With Nvidia-Prime

As you probably know, the Nvidia graphics drivers have received initial Optimus support a while back. Currently, the Nvidia GPU can be used...

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Tribler BitTorrent Client Sees New Release [Ubuntu PPA]

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="http://www.tribler.org/">Tribler</a> is an open source, decentralized peer-to-peer client based on the BitTorrent protocol, available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X.</b><br /><br />Like other BitTorrent clients, Tribler features a search box you can use to find content however, the search results come directly from other peers, without using a central server and this makes it immune to government anti-piracy attacks (the application will continue to work if the torrent trackers are pulled offline), claims an article from <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2098759/Tribler-New-file-sharing-technology-IMMUNE-government-attacks.html">dailymail.co.uk</a>.</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqFbEngX3j1YGd5S4VnoRqYjZcPhydYfgZjET9fon_BvRagagM-z0_6gkHNOUQKH2krORJ_ADEQ4_iwj1qsYb4Ehi6hSEwCF9k7HSyuezQYwPx2gchN-IczQk04jISkFbd8dS1x9bshgw/s1600/tribler-6.2.0.png"><img alt="Tribler bittorrent client" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqFbEngX3j1YGd5S4VnoRqYjZcPhydYfgZjET9fon_BvRagagM-z0_6gkHNOUQKH2krORJ_ADEQ4_iwj1qsYb4Ehi6hSEwCF9k7HSyuezQYwPx2gchN-IczQk04jISkFbd8dS1x9bshgw/s320/tribler-6.2.0.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The application includes features such as wiki-style channels, video-on-demand (<b>watch videos while you download them</b>) and more.</div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Tribler 6.2.0 was released recently and is now available in the Tribler WebUpd8 PPA</b>. Changes include: </div><ul><li>video streaming is back and it now supports seeking;</li><li>Less disk and CPU consumption;</li><li>improved UI responsiveness;</li><li>various performance improvements;</li><li><a href="https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/issues?labels=&milestone=2&page=1&state=closed">bug fixes</a>.</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjANKoWT4KX95WCiRcGCCkdEd7HYCk90leFqHp2OI6-vghsY51m6iHl3U_2NOGssGXfQydYdM6anY3aP6f1MtGpqbVZNFqfg5jGoGBIMq88ndZL8UOItxHhlUQoOBYXELdxGSY-FtGnXjs/s1600/tribler-video.png"><img alt="Tribler video streaming" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjANKoWT4KX95WCiRcGCCkdEd7HYCk90leFqHp2OI6-vghsY51m6iHl3U_2NOGssGXfQydYdM6anY3aP6f1MtGpqbVZNFqfg5jGoGBIMq88ndZL8UOItxHhlUQoOBYXELdxGSY-FtGnXjs/s320/tribler-video.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The previous version, 6.1.0, failed to start when built in a PPA and for this reason I didn't upload it to the WebUpd8 Tribler PPA. Tribler 6.1.0 changelog:</div><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>faster downloads: Tribler has switched from the old python based bittorrent core to Rasterbar's libtorrent, so expect less resource usage too;</li><li>less disk and CPU consumption used for community synchronization;</li><li>UI improvements (download speed graphs, some new icons, general UI cleanup...);</li><li>throttling (Bandwidth limitation) is working again;</li><li>the "Save as" dialog has been modified to improve usability when downloading from magnet links;</li><li>thumbnails for downloaded media: Now when a new video file gets downloaded, Tribler will automatically create a thumbnail;</li><li>and make it available to the rest of peers to be shown on the search results for all the media you download from your favourite open channels;</li><li>fixed freezing at startup on some machines;</li><li>fixed race conditions and lockups in synchronizations;</li><li>various bug fixes and minor improvements.</li></ul><br /><br /><h2>Install Tribler in Ubuntu via PPA</h2><br /><b>Ubuntu users can install the latest Tribler by using the WebUpd8 Tribler PPA:</b><br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/tribler<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install tribler</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Tribler debs along with Windows or Mac OS X binaries and source files can be downloaded from its <b><a href="http://www.tribler.org/trac/wiki/Download">downloads page</a></b>.</div>

Tribler BitTorrent Client Sees New Release [Ubuntu PPA]

Tribler is an open source, decentralized peer-to-peer client based on the BitTorrent protocol, available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. L...

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AeroFS Makes Cloudless, Secure File Sync Easy

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="https://www.aerofs.com/">AeroFS</a> is a tool </b><b><b>somewhat similar to <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2013/07/bittorrent-sync-beta-adds-file.html">BitTorrent Sync</a>,</b> that allows you to securely synchronize files between computers. The data is synchronized directly between clients, without using a central cloud server. </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The tool is free for personal use (1-3 teammates), with unlimited syncing and 1 collaboration folder or, if you want unlimited collaborators, you must pay a fee of $10 per teammate/month. <b>AeroFS is available for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and Android.</b></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH6gjoVmNo9gwhLZrzXI9gNjMGS7GU5sBVh_JlARZ452EIBb7lRhCWbaScMOwAzzvFEOcPfCafITljT-sW74bt0LXYAvhbu2DQTWlv3Ttv41FjXFMJ8EJxM4HMtSzIQkmr2Wlg-01MLsw/s1600/aerofs-ubuntu.png"><img alt="AeroFS Ubuntu" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH6gjoVmNo9gwhLZrzXI9gNjMGS7GU5sBVh_JlARZ452EIBb7lRhCWbaScMOwAzzvFEOcPfCafITljT-sW74bt0LXYAvhbu2DQTWlv3Ttv41FjXFMJ8EJxM4HMtSzIQkmr2Wlg-01MLsw/s320/aerofs-ubuntu.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Like other file sync tools such as Dropbox or Ubuntu one, AeroFS synchronizes the contents of a folder across all your devices but, unlike these services, it <b>doesn't use a central server * </b>- instead, <b>the files are synced directly between devices</b>. This means that your data is safe, the sync speed doesn't depend on a central server and there are no storage space limitations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>* Optionally, you can install a tool called <a href="https://support.aerofs.com/entries/24141798-What-is-Team-Server-">AeroFS Team Server</a></b>, available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X, which acts as a central repository for all your team's files. Using it, the entire team's files can be backed up either locally or at Amazon S3.</div><br /><b>AeroFS features:</b><br /><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li style="text-align: justify;">Private: your data never resides on the AeroFS servers. Everything you sync using AeroFS is private, and will only be shared with people you explicitly invite;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Unlimited: with AeroFS, you and your team can sync as much data as you need, for free. No caps, no file size limits;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">AeroFS uses AES-256 with 2048-bit RSA to encrypt the data. Because the encryption is end-to-end, even AeroFS can't see your data;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Versioning: files are automatically versioned, allowing team members to retrieve old versions that were accidentally changed or deleted;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Collaboration;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Selective sync;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Remotely wipe stolen or lost devices;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Optional command line interface so you can run it on a server;</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Available for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and Android; </li><li style="text-align: justify;">Ubuntu AppIndicator support.</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih38d9TyhOZpAQ1coRjouITD1uJL19WQDghJDIm1i_EdVC2zDTVKJGfD2jPgUK95Yw0rSRZifMdU0D_EGlDHt7aYJyp2lth19AZq9E3iEvnnAmdhhBz6Na4yagysx_4OY4kSTWISPEn88/s1600/aerofs-downloads.png"><img alt="AeroFS Ubuntu" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih38d9TyhOZpAQ1coRjouITD1uJL19WQDghJDIm1i_EdVC2zDTVKJGfD2jPgUK95Yw0rSRZifMdU0D_EGlDHt7aYJyp2lth19AZq9E3iEvnnAmdhhBz6Na4yagysx_4OY4kSTWISPEn88/s320/aerofs-downloads.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">AeroFS is great, but not perfect and there are a<b> a few missing features</b> that are worth mentioning: you can't sync folders outside the AeroFS directory (symbolic links don't work either) and you can't get a share link for a file like you can do with Dropbox or Ubuntu One.<br /><br />Also, from what I've <a href="https://support.aerofs.com/entries/23756722-Use-true-P2P-technology-for-faster-synchronization">read</a>, AeroFS doesn't use a "true" peer-to-peer (P2P) technology like <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2013/07/bittorrent-sync-beta-adds-file.html">BitTorrent Sync</a>: the files are downloaded from a single computer and not simultaneously from multiple computers. On the other hand,  AeroFS is easier to use compared to BitTorrent Sync, at least under Linux.</div><br /><br /><h2>Download AeroFS</h2><br /><b><a href="https://www.aerofs.com/download">Download AeroFS for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X or Android</a></b> (Ubuntu .deb available) - you need to register (free for personal) before downloading.<br /><br />Once installed, simply launch AeroFS from the menu / Dash.<br /><br />If you want to use the command line client, run the following command:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>aerofs-cli</code></pre>You can control AeroFS by using the following command:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>aerofs-sh</code></pre>After entering the command above in a terminal, type "help" (without the quotes) to see all the available options.

AeroFS Makes Cloudless, Secure File Sync Easy

AeroFS is a tool somewhat similar to BitTorrent Sync , that allows you to securely synchronize files between computers. The data is synchr...

+ Read more »

Rhythmbox Google Play Music Plugin: Rhythmbox-GMusic

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Rhythmbox-GMusic is a Rhythmbox plugin for <a href="http://music.google.com/">Google Play Music</a>.</b></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrkqDWghagMjjT7JMWNg3Mf7aziVdbrzsDTUUA7zK9dR8dQdeAjt_IVfh0V5l_850NmO7XF_nrk3JzWQgQYlWj1Y72B8j3UN-Pa-l9fNnuvYeteje1zCru6ur_fn-jHUnErVLiDxESd8s/s1600/rhythmbox-gmusic.png"><img alt="Rhythmbox Google Music" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrkqDWghagMjjT7JMWNg3Mf7aziVdbrzsDTUUA7zK9dR8dQdeAjt_IVfh0V5l_850NmO7XF_nrk3JzWQgQYlWj1Y72B8j3UN-Pa-l9fNnuvYeteje1zCru6ur_fn-jHUnErVLiDxESd8s/s320/rhythmbox-gmusic.png" /></a></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">Using Rhythmbox-GMusic, you can play your Google Play music using Rhythmbox. The plugin features a very simple and uses an interface similar to the default Rhythmbox layout, with two columns for artists and albums followed by a list of tracks. There's also a search bar so you can easily search your Google Play Music.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">There's no contect menu so you can't right click tracks to add them to the play queue, but you can do that by using drag and drop.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also, the plugin doesn't allow you to add tracks to local playlists (except the Queue playlist which I've mentioned above), but it can read playlists created using the Google Play Music web interface.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Please note that for now, <i>Google Play Music All Access</i> is not supported.</div><br /><br /><h2>Install Rhythmbox Google Music Plugin in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>To install Rhythmbox-Gmusic in Ubuntu 13.04</b>, <b>use the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nvbn-rm/ppa<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install rhythmbox-gmusic python-dateutil python-requests python-validictory</code></pre><b>For Ubuntu 12.10</b>, you need to manually download and install <i>python-validictory</i> from <a href="https://launchpad.net/~dput-ng-maint/+archive/daily/+build/4210644">HERE</a>, then run the commands above.<br /><br />Unfortunately the Ubuntu 12.04 package doesn't work properly, at least with the Rhythmbox 2.96 package available in the Ubuntu 12.04 repositories.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Once installed, open Rhythmbox (restart it if it was running), from its menu select <i>Plugins</i> and enable the <i>Google Play Music plugin</i>. You should then have a new "Google Music" entry in the Rhythmbox sidebar - here, enter you Google username and password (the password is stored in the GNOME Keyring) and upon logging in successfully, your Google Play music should show up.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>For installing the Rhythmbox Google Music plugin via PIP, grab the source code or report bugs, see its <a href="https://github.com/nvbn/rhythmbox-gmusic">GitHub page</a>.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Also see: <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/09/cloud-music-player-nuvola-sees-new.html">Nuvola Player,</a> a cloud music player that supports Google Play Music, Grooveshark, Hype Machine, 8tracks, Pandora, Deezer, Rdio and Amazon Cloud Player</i></div>

Rhythmbox Google Play Music Plugin: Rhythmbox-GMusic

Rhythmbox-GMusic is a Rhythmbox plugin for Google Play Music . Using Rhythmbox-GMusic, you can play your Google Play music using Rhythmbox. ...

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Unity 8 Available In The Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander Repositories

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Unity 8, the Ubuntu Phone Qml Shell, has <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity8/+publishinghistory">landed</a> in the Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander repositories.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For now, Unity 8 is in its early alpha stages and not ready for use, and in fact, there's a message on the wallpaper used by it that says just that:</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY3fK6JYO_gGXag_Wt6XpH37XiT1jYTFNI0A9zBapmMe9Zje03JkHbXOZFiQ4GyuizTGBUjOB31JvOl4O4hRW14HEgLsy0QDxKIjKiBXLBoBu380tnLRuu6nfEwcmxfLS8Qj0tlTnTvPQ/s1600/unity8.png" imageanchor="1"><img alt="Unity 8 shell" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY3fK6JYO_gGXag_Wt6XpH37XiT1jYTFNI0A9zBapmMe9Zje03JkHbXOZFiQ4GyuizTGBUjOB31JvOl4O4hRW14HEgLsy0QDxKIjKiBXLBoBu380tnLRuu6nfEwcmxfLS8Qj0tlTnTvPQ/s320/unity8.png" title="Unity 8 shell" /></a></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">And indeed, while I was able to run it on my Saucy computer, most stuff didn't work: I wasn't able to access the launcher on the left using the mouse, the indicators didn't work and so on. Also, the phone applications that show up in Unity 8 are dummy apps so they don't actually work (and furthermore, clicking any of them freezes Unity 8 for now).<br /><br />Unity 8 currently runs as an app and you can switch from the phone to the tablet mode by resizing its window:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUNTsWUXUv0f6Bp6hv_y3v_KNPa_iq0abKI6QDQoHasM2YPTW29aV9Gk-5LqpGz2AdXCeWoKTm4wrG3r5jk_ibLdgCwV7eTrUSKbua2dV0Sa53hsrTgzsZmNYMCc5cnr7xOTZf7DZMPY/s1600/unity8_2.png" imageanchor="1"><img alt="Unity 8 shell" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxUNTsWUXUv0f6Bp6hv_y3v_KNPa_iq0abKI6QDQoHasM2YPTW29aV9Gk-5LqpGz2AdXCeWoKTm4wrG3r5jk_ibLdgCwV7eTrUSKbua2dV0Sa53hsrTgzsZmNYMCc5cnr7xOTZf7DZMPY/s320/unity8_2.png" title="Unity 8 shell" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaawAwqR99RGCvw_1jPH09Y05IW7njK6ASg9smVYuK7VLn7C1EZ1O2lVvZVTfX-vOC53WAr7msZDwRMopeGXCx09QS86vTTHDuC6UDgH3T_V4N7y6_qxkr-lino7b3FLquGavC5D0JzeA/s1600/unity8_3.png" imageanchor="1"><img alt="Unity 8 shell" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaawAwqR99RGCvw_1jPH09Y05IW7njK6ASg9smVYuK7VLn7C1EZ1O2lVvZVTfX-vOC53WAr7msZDwRMopeGXCx09QS86vTTHDuC6UDgH3T_V4N7y6_qxkr-lino7b3FLquGavC5D0JzeA/s320/unity8_3.png" title="Unity 8 shell" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>According to the <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Unity8Desktop">Unity8Desktop</a> Ubuntu wiki entry, the following Unity 8 features should work for the final Ubuntu 13.10 release:</b></div><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Keyboard input, including hotkeys similar to those in Unity7;</li><li>Mouse, touchscreen, scroll wheels, touchpads, and other existing input devices;</li><li>The HUD should be available;</li><li>Indicators should be available. Should include at a minimum the Networking indicator;</li><li>The Unity 8 Shell and its components adjusts to local screen size.</li><li>Content discovery should be working. At a minimum, the local content scopes should be available;</li><li>Minimal Window management, such as focus control and maybe window move and resize; </li><li>The following core applications should be installable and runnable from the Unity 8 Shell on the desktop: Browser App, Gallery App, Music Player App and the Video Player App.</li><li>Multi-monitor will not be supported.</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The plan is to have a preview Unity 8 on Mir session (so users can select to log in to Unity 8 from the LightDM login screen) available for Ubuntu 13.10 for evaluation and testing - at least that's what the <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Unity8Desktop">Unity8Desktop</a> wiki entry mentions. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On the other hand, Olli Ries, Head of Engineering for Canonical's Product Strategy team, says in a <a href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Unity8Desktop">blog post</a> that "<i>[...] the integration of Unity 8 into Ubuntu Desktop is not scheduled to happen for 13.10 but will only be fully integrated for 14.10. The QML based Unity 8 is currently fully integrated on the Ubuntu Touch images only</i>".</div><br /><br /><h2>Install Unity 8 in Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">If you want to test Unity 8 in Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, use the following command:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install unity8</code></pre>Then, type "<b>unity8</b>" in a terminal to launch it.

Unity 8 Available In The Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander Repositories

Unity 8, the Ubuntu Phone Qml Shell, has landed in the Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander repositories. For now, Unity 8 is in its early alpha s...

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Tiny Tiny RSS 1.9 Available In PPA For Ubuntu 13.04, 12.10 And 12.04

<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://tt-rss.org/redmine/projects/tt-rss/wiki">Tiny Tiny RSS</a> is an open source web-based RSS reader that you can install on a server and then access it from multiple computers/devices. Since it's self-hosted, you're in control of your data and don't have to worry that the service may be discontinued, like it happened with Google Reader (and almost happened with <a href="http://blog.theoldreader.com/">The Old Reader</a>).</div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/tiny-tiny-rss-1.9.png"><img alt="Tiny Tiny RSS 1.9" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm0lKmBR9wktYAgdngXZTmVxeis3yvRjfObgAvm__YHFPzjHkBYdpfT6-zX4xFiMuu_kVjrm-a8CnG6t8Ra1xK6gLmW6vfAOUzcAU-tfIf68nXEFhyphenhyphenWaVPBvjYp5_UM-aBJvntgwBzDnY/s320/tiny-tiny-rss-1.9.pn" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">With a bit of a delay (sorry!), the latest <b>Tiny Tiny RSS 1.9 is now available in our PPA for Ubuntu 13.04, 12.10 and 12.04, backported from Ubuntu 13.10</b>. This release comes with <b>new icons, a new plugin which adds a feed for all articles shared by url, various parser bugfixes</b> and more.</div><br /><b>Tiny Tiny RSS 1.9 changes:</b><br /><ul><li>Minor bugfixes;</li><li>Various parser bugfixes;</li><li>Parser: support xml:base in atom feeds;</li><li>Parser: add support for libxml with problematic handling of character encodings (affects several NAS devices);</li><li>Fixed several bugs when migrating filters using OPML;</li><li>Minor performance improvements;</li><li>Added Korean translation;</li><li>Improved Russian translation;</li><li>Other translations updated;</li><li>Integrated Silk icons by Mark James;</li><li>Added plugin which adds a feed for all articles shared by url;</li><li>Allow unsharing and changing URLs for individual articles;</li><li>Floating title more consistent with the rest of the UI, enable floating title for expandable combined mode;</li><li>Licensed under GPL v3.</li></ul><br /><br /><h2>Install and configure Tiny Tiny RSS in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Because the installation / configuration process has quite a few steps, I won't post them here so for how to install Tiny Tiny RSS in Ubuntu, see our previous article: <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2013/05/tiny-tiny-rss-ubuntu-ppa-google-reader.html">Tiny Tiny RSS Ubuntu PPA</a>.</div>

Tiny Tiny RSS 1.9 Available In PPA For Ubuntu 13.04, 12.10 And 12.04

Tiny Tiny RSS is an open source web-based RSS reader that you can install on a server and then access it from multiple computers/devices. S...

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Official Intel Linux Graphics Installer Updated With 2013Q2 Intel Graphics Stack

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>The Intel Linux Graphics Installer and the Intel repository have been updated with the latest 2013Q2 Intel Graphics Stack, for Ubuntu 13.04 and Fedora 19.</b></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXWwABkjZ0cTZxNT3wdb3fXGANrZPZZ9rnAvbFP2_0sVY5I-FbQF7NX4HkHpCGJ-I6FhV3MxlTXel0ioD9sC4kZ0VspDTTtoijeyYhfu2o6-OalHSFooQzvQI0YhrCC4b9T7a-SMR36c/s1600/intel-driver-manager.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Intel Driver Manager" border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVXWwABkjZ0cTZxNT3wdb3fXGANrZPZZ9rnAvbFP2_0sVY5I-FbQF7NX4HkHpCGJ-I6FhV3MxlTXel0ioD9sC4kZ0VspDTTtoijeyYhfu2o6-OalHSFooQzvQI0YhrCC4b9T7a-SMR36c/s320/intel-driver-manager.png" title="Intel Driver Manager" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The <a href="https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/2013/intelr-linux-graphics-installer-version-1.0.2">Intel Linux Graphics Installer</a> is a tool developed by Intel that allows users to easily upgrade to the latest graphics drivers for Intel hardware. The installer automatically adds a repository used for upgrading the packages provided by Intel - that means that besides the Intel Linux Graphics Installer, you can also use the Ubuntu Software Updater, apt-get, etc. to upgrade the packages.</div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">The latest Intel Linux Graphics Installer 1.0.2 provides the <b>Intel 2013Q2 Graphics Stack</b> which includes numerous enhancements and bug fixes - for a complete list, see <a href="https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/2013/2013q2-intel-graphics-stack-release">THIS</a> page.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Ubuntu repository included with the Intel Linux Graphics Installer provides the following <b>packages</b>: i965-va-driver 1.2.0 (<a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2012/11/install-mplayer-with-va-api-hardware.html">VA-API driver</a> for Intel HD and G45 chipsets), libdrm2 2.4.45, libva 1.2.1 and xserver-xorg-video-intel (xf86-video-intel) 2.21.9. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The repository <b>does not include the latest Xorg 1.14 for Ubuntu 13.04</b> because "<i>upgrading Xorg on Ubuntu 13.04 would have far-reaching implications that go well beyond the graphics stack, including, but not limited to, Xorg input device drivers (e.g. touchpads)</i>", mentions the Installer download page.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Ubuntu 12.10 and 12.04 as well as Fedora 18 and 17 have been deprecated </b>and they won't receive the 2013Q2 Intel Graphics Stack update.</div><br /><br /><h2>Download Intel Linux Graphics Installer</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Before using the Intel Linux Graphics Installer, make sure you read all the notes on its download page</b>! In the past there have been some serious issues with the installer so <b>I suggest you only use it if you know how to downgrade the packages in case something goes wrong</b>. If you have questions about the installer or Intel Linux graphics, visit the <a href="https://01.org/linuxgraphics/forums/general-discussion">Intel Linux Graphics forums</a>.</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a class="external" href="https://01.org/linuxgraphics/downloads/2013/intelr-linux-graphics-installer-version-1.0.2">Download Intel Linux Graphics Installer</a></b> - available for Ubuntu 13.04 and Fedora 19.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Note that I didn't test the latest 2013Q2 Graphics Stack included with this Intel Graphics Installer release because I'm using Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, which isn't supported by the installer yet (and besides, Ubuntu 13.10 already has the latest drivers).</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The installer itself doesn't work in Ubuntu derivatives like Linux Mint however, you can manually add the repository if you're using a Linux distribution based on Ubuntu 13.04 - see <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2013/04/how-to-use-intel-linux-graphics-drivers.html">THIS</a> article for how to add it.</i></div>

Official Intel Linux Graphics Installer Updated With 2013Q2 Intel Graphics Stack

The Intel Linux Graphics Installer and the Intel repository have been updated with the latest 2013Q2 Intel Graphics Stack, for Ubuntu 13.04 ...

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Skippy-XD: Expose-Like Window Picker For Xfce, LXDE, Etc.

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="http://code.google.com/p/skippy-xd/">Skippy-XD</a></b> is a lightweight <b>full-screen window picker</b> for X11, <b>similar to the Mac OS X "<i>Exposé</i>" feature</b>, useful for desktop environments like as Xfce or LXDE, which don't have such a feature by default.</div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">There are Compiz and KWin plugins that offer similar functionality (and GNOME Shell has this built in) however, Skippy-XD should work with pretty much any NETWM or GNOME WM Specs compliant window-manager: Xfwm4, OpenBox, FluxBox, WindowMaker, IceWM and so on.</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/skippy-xd.jpg"><img alt="Skippy-XD" src="http://img.netupd8.com/skippy-xd_thumb.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Skippy-XD is triggered by a hotkey and it displays thumbnails for windows on the current desktop, allowing you to easily pick a window by using the mouse or keyboard. You can also<b> close windows by middle clicking them</b>.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The application supports <b>live previews</b>, videos included, and uses compositing, but only when you press the hotkey to display the window picker.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Skippy-XD development stagnated for a while but now it has a new maintainer and appears to be active again. Recently, the application received support for closing windows (middle click), customizable tooltip position, VI movement keys (h,j,k,l) and many bug fixes. Right now, Skippy-XD doesn't display window decorations but according to a <a href="https://github.com/richardgv/skippy-xd/issues/13">bug report</a>, that should change soon.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Below you can watch an old video with Skippy-XD in action:</div><br /><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/gVRPCd7OS38" width="560"></iframe><br />(<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVRPCd7OS38">direct video link</a>)</center><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Note that the video shows adding the Skippy-XD daemon on startup but from what I've read, the daemon is pretty buggy so you should simply use "skippy-xd" to launch it - or the script I've posted below, under "Usage", which works around an issue with Skippy-XD not showing minimized windows.</div><br /><br /><br /><h2>Install Skippy-XD in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Ubuntu users can install the latest Skippy-XD from GIT by using a PPA. Add the PPA and install Skippy-XD using the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:landronimirc/skippy-xd-daily<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install skippy-xd</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">You'll also need to create a configuration file called "skippy-xd.rc" under <i>~/.config/skippy-xd</i>/. You can install the default Skippy-XD configuration file by using the commands below:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>mkdir -p ~/.config/skippy-xd<br />wget https://raw.github.com/richardgv/skippy-xd/master/skippy-xd.rc-default -O ~/.config/skippy-xd/skippy-xd.rc</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">This file has various Skippy-XD options which you can change: the window update frequency, colors, opacity, mouse bindings and so on.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Arch Linux</b> users can install the latest Skippy-XD from GIT via <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/skippy-xd-git/">AUR</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>For other Linux distributions, you can grab the Skippy-XD source code from <a href="https://github.com/richardgv/skippy-xd">GitHub</a>.</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Report any bugs you may find @ <a href="https://github.com/richardgv/skippy-xd/issues?state=open">GitHub</a>.</div><br /><br /><br /><h2>Usage</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Skippy-XD has a bug and doesn't display minimized windows. A work-around for this is to use a script created by <a href="http://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=8105">B. Murphy</a>.</b> Download and install the script using the following command:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install xdotool<br />wget https://raw.github.com/hotice/webupd8/master/skippy-xd-fix -O /tmp/skippy-xd-fix<br />sudo install /tmp/skippy-xd-fix /usr/local/bin/</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Now let's assign "/usr/local/bin/skippy-xd-fix" a keyboard shortcut from the system settings. If you're using Xfce, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to the Skippy window picker via <i>Settings > Keyboard</i>, on the Application Shortcuts tab, click "Add" and under command, use "skippy-xd-fix".</div><br />See how to set up keyboard bindings for <a href="https://urukrama.wordpress.com/openbox-guide/#Key_mouse">Openbox</a> | <a href="http://fluxbox-wiki.org/index.php/Keyboard_shortcuts#How_to_use_the_keys_file">Fluxbox</a>.<br /><br />If you want to use the Skippy-XD daemon instead, see <a href="http://code.google.com/p/skippy-xd/wiki/SetupGuide">THIS</a> wiki page.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>To set up a hot corner for Skippy-XD under Xfce, LXDE, etc., you can use an application called <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/set-up-hot-corners-edge-flipping-in.html" title="Set Up Hot Corners, Edge Flipping In Ubuntu With Brightside [Without Compiz]">Brightside</a>.</b></div>

Skippy-XD: Expose-Like Window Picker For Xfce, LXDE, Etc.

Skippy-XD is a lightweight full-screen window picker for X11, similar to the Mac OS X " Exposé " feature , useful for desktop en...

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Google Drive Client `Insync` For Linux Out Of Beta, Gets Selective Sync Support

<div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://www.insynchq.com/">Insync</a> is an unofficial Google Drive client that "extends Drive's web functionality to your desktop by integrating tightly with Windows, Mac and Linux so you can get work done".</i></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoRKt5ql7FVhIQz7oUscxU02J4c2xLSkWDsFtqwfA93PeiGNzbMAU767-vZrxosecClTUYLoK00YQtNTlt3l8CEZFx1A36Pv8RJuIcXjB4DO-EtxZag6Kui60r_ES8bEUeq41jkXTQl8I/s1600/insync-linux-stable.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoRKt5ql7FVhIQz7oUscxU02J4c2xLSkWDsFtqwfA93PeiGNzbMAU767-vZrxosecClTUYLoK00YQtNTlt3l8CEZFx1A36Pv8RJuIcXjB4DO-EtxZag6Kui60r_ES8bEUeq41jkXTQl8I/s320/insync-linux-stable.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Insync for Linux: Nautilus integration / Ubuntu appindicator</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Insync for Linux is out of beta</b> and it now offers the same features available for the Windows and Mac clients: </div><a name='more'></a><ul><li>multiple account support</li><li>selective sync (all files and folders)</li><li>offline access to Google Docs</li><li>symlink support</li><li>built-in sharing (without using a web browser)</li><li>file manager integration</li><li>recent changes </li><li>more</li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The Linux version also comes with a feature that allows you to add any folder on your system to Insync via the file manager context menu (using a symbolic link).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Insync was free to use while in beta only so to use the latest stable release you must pay a<b> one-time fee of $9.99 per Google account</b> (which includes unlimited installs across all desktops). <b>You can try the stable release for free for 15 days</b>. The trial period can be extended by 15 days if you <a href="https://www.insynchq.com/referrals">refer a friend</a> (both you and your friend get an extra 15 days).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The tool supports Ubuntu, Debian, Linu Mint, PCLinuxOS, MEPIS and Fedora with the following desktop environments: Unity, Cinnamon, GNOME Shell, KDE, LXDE, Xfce, MATE and Openbox + fbpanel and 5 file managers: Nautilus, Nemo, Caja, Dolphin and Thunar.</div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1g84mfR-eHEo5jG9W3lDU53FyRzTQ-xtUcLKN7o9Fbb_pv_P2Up7oT8wak1wvpD8ReCdpMcYXOk0FvuRiNGbQB-dIc_ml7RCM2OYwbdTNNmgQKUOjvAqDCFBeYjMR6rv84v7w5EDE-cw/s1600/insync-linux-stable_2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1g84mfR-eHEo5jG9W3lDU53FyRzTQ-xtUcLKN7o9Fbb_pv_P2Up7oT8wak1wvpD8ReCdpMcYXOk0FvuRiNGbQB-dIc_ml7RCM2OYwbdTNNmgQKUOjvAqDCFBeYjMR6rv84v7w5EDE-cw/s320/insync-linux-stable_2.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Insync for Linux: account settings</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.insynchq.com/">Download Insync</a></b> *</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">* The installer will try to detect your desktop environment and install the package required for file manager integration. If you change the desktop environment or use a different file manager, you'll have to install the file manager integration package from the repositories (the Insync repository is added automatically): simply search for Insync in Ubuntu Software Center, Synaptic, etc. and install the package for your file manager, like insync-thunar, insync-nemo, insync-nautilus and so on.</div>

Google Drive Client `Insync` For Linux Out Of Beta, Gets Selective Sync Support

Insync is an unofficial Google Drive client that "extends Drive's web functionality to your desktop by integrating tightly with Wi...

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Wine 1.6 Released With ~10,000 Changes

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>After 16 months of development, a new stable <a href="http://www.winehq.org/about/">Wine</a> version has been released: 1.6, bringing around 10,000 changes</b>, including full support for window transparency, a new Mono package for .NET application support well as a new Mac driver.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgobM4zBr6BAR58dBPgbCE93XMtF_tKRiCMHYmiEQUJ0Z16hg9ENfjH0IWaGidwqVOK5YZHURdNjPcGK6zR9QZkDr21_NtGl5u_O4q3wIe_vyB2GVZCJ0AaJmwzRNhJ9RnO-ErbDab1IA0/s1600/wine-1.6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Wine 1.6" border="0" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgobM4zBr6BAR58dBPgbCE93XMtF_tKRiCMHYmiEQUJ0Z16hg9ENfjH0IWaGidwqVOK5YZHURdNjPcGK6zR9QZkDr21_NtGl5u_O4q3wIe_vyB2GVZCJ0AaJmwzRNhJ9RnO-ErbDab1IA0/s320/wine-1.6.png" title="Wine 1.6" width="320" /></a></div></div><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Among the changes in the latest Wine 1.6 are:</b></div><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Window transparency support, including both color keying and alpha blending transparency;</li><li>All window rendering is now done on the client-side using the DIB engine (except for OpenGL rendering). This means that rendering to windows or bitmaps gives identical results;</li><li>X11 server-side font rendering is no longer supported. All fonts are rendered client-side using FreeType;</li><li>There are significant performance improvements in the DIB engine, particularly for text rendering, bitmap stretching, alpha blending, and gradients;</li><li>Sub-pixel font anti-aliasing is now supported in the DIB engine, using the system anti-aliasing configuration from FontConfig;</li><li>Raw input support for keyboard and mouse;</li><li>There is a joystick applet in the control panel, to allow configuring joysticks and testing their behavior;</li><li>Support for Randr 1.2 and 1.3; </li><li>DOSBox is tried first when running a DOS application. The Wine DOS support is only used as a fallback when DOSBox cannot be found, and will be removed in a future release;</li><li>Wine can now be configured to report the Windows version as 'Windows 8';</li><li>The Mono runtime is packaged as an MSI file, and its installation can be managed from the "Add/Remove Programs" control panel. It is automatically installed on Wine prefix updates;</li><li>The Microsoft .NET 4.0 runtime can be installed for cases where Mono is not good enough yet;</li><li>HTTPS connections use GnuTLS (or Secure Transport on Mac OS X). OpenSSL is no longer used;</li><li>The Direct3D 9Ex implementation is more complete;</li><li>Improvements to various parts of the D3DX9 and Direct3D 10 implementations;</li><li>Audio device enumeration has been improved, and multi-channel devices are better supported;</li><li>VMR-9 video rendering has been implemented;</li><li>On Linux, dynamic device management supports the UDisks2 service;</li><li>Building Wine for the ARM64 platform is now supported;</li><li>Preliminary support for building Wine for Android using the Android NDK;</li><li>A native Mac OS X driver has been implemented, for better integration with the Mac desktop environment. The full range of driver features are supported, including OpenGL, window management, clipboard, drag & drop, system tray, etc.</li></ul><b>For a complete changelog, see <a href="http://www.winehq.org/announce/1.6">THIS</a> page.</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The official Wine 1.6 release announcement also mentions "<i>support for many new applications and games</i>" however, I couldn't find a list for this.</div><br /><br /><h2>Install Wine 1.6 in Ubuntu</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">You can install the latest stable Wine 1.6 in Ubuntu and derivatives (Linux Mint, etc.) by using its official PPA. Add the PPA and install Wine using the following commands:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install wine1.6</code></pre><br /><b><a href="http://www.winehq.org/download/">Download Wine</a></b>

Wine 1.6 Released With ~10,000 Changes

After 16 months of development, a new stable Wine version has been released: 1.6, bringing around 10,000 changes , including full support f...

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Dota 2 Officially Released For Linux [Steam]

<div style="text-align: justify;">Quick update:<b> the much awaited <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/570">Dota 2</a> game has been officially <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/news/11109/">released</a> for Linux</b> (Steam). This isn't the "<a href="http://Dota 2 Test">Dota 2 Test</a>" but the real thing so you can play with regular Dota 2 users, as you can see in the screenshot below:</div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ4NBgnWa2hAyMqftiKwwcqeFgOAKgFwpQT28yExNRcRWg0O_yVBx9xAnAMffEzFZZcUeCgsJS5FIIGgV8McVKRlVCySqP0BBBRnEg9-TSZySQXsWkeyevKdrn4MO9FIRmzv4x0_tknJE/s1600/dota2-linux.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Dota 2 Ubuntu Steam" border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ4NBgnWa2hAyMqftiKwwcqeFgOAKgFwpQT28yExNRcRWg0O_yVBx9xAnAMffEzFZZcUeCgsJS5FIIGgV8McVKRlVCySqP0BBBRnEg9-TSZySQXsWkeyevKdrn4MO9FIRmzv4x0_tknJE/s320/dota2-linux.png" title="Dota 2 Ubuntu Steam" width="320" /></a></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">Like many other games, Dota 2 doesn't show up in the Linux section on Steam yet but you can add it to your Steam library and it should work.</div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>As a reminder, the game is free to play and has the following minimal system requirements:</b></div><ul><li>OS: Ubuntu 12.04;</li><li>Processor: Dual core from Intel or AMD at 2.8 GHz;</li><li>Memory: 4 GB RAM;</li><li>Graphics: nVidia GeForce 8600/9600GT, ATI/AMD Radeaon HD2600/3600 (Graphic Drivers: nVidia 310, AMD 12.11), OpenGL 2.1;</li><li>Network: Broadband Internet connection;</li><li>Hard Drive: 8 GB available space;</li><li>Sound Card: OpenAL Compatible Sound Card. </li></ul><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWutbmwbPeNx9bLTPPmQ_1zxsJNL90rwkCQOuNLA3ye0z89fBtQm4f8fR1yIiGEU0K-rIDPuJf_wOxHheJtZa60pRE3prmm1WvDc1zkBNdu1Sgt0jvFA90c1CPuJFacVthoBPLRuiyPyA/s1600/dota2-linux-ubuntu.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Dota 2 Ubuntu" border="0" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWutbmwbPeNx9bLTPPmQ_1zxsJNL90rwkCQOuNLA3ye0z89fBtQm4f8fR1yIiGEU0K-rIDPuJf_wOxHheJtZa60pRE3prmm1WvDc1zkBNdu1Sgt0jvFA90c1CPuJFacVthoBPLRuiyPyA/s320/dota2-linux-ubuntu.png" title="Dota 2 Ubuntu" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Optimus users: for better performance, <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2013/04/bumblebee-321-released-with-ubuntu-1304.html">install Bumblebee</a>, then right click Dota 2 in the Steam Library and select <i>Properties</i>, then on the <i>general</i> tab click "Set launch options" and use the following command: "<i>optirun -b primus %command%</i>" (without the quotes). With this, the game should use the Nvidia graphics card.<br /><br /></div><br />Below you can watch the official Dota 2 trailer:<br /><br /><center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/-cSFPIwMEq4" width="560"></iframe><br />(<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cSFPIwMEq4">direct video link</a>)</center><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Get Dota 2: <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/570/">web link</a> | <a href="steam://install/570">Steam link</a></b></div>

Dota 2 Officially Released For Linux [Steam]

Quick update: the much awaited Dota 2 game has been officially released for Linux (Steam). This isn't the " Dota 2 Test " ...

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Popular Task Management App `Wunderlist` Available As Chrome Packaged App

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="http://www.6wunderkinder.com/wunderlist">Wunderlist</a> is a popular to do list manager that supports reminders, recurring tasks, subtasks, collaboration and more. </b></div><br /><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;">Many Linux users were <a href="http://support.wunderlist.com/customer/portal/questions/695822-wunderlist-2-for-linux-">disappointed</a> when Wunderlist 2 was released back in December: there were packages available for Windows, Mac, iPhone and Android but no native Linux app and while the web interface is nice, it doesn't offer a native experience.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even though there's no Wunderlist Linux application yet, you can now get a <b>native-like experience thanks to the new Wunderlist Packaged App</b>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZGdXX013Zuo2xIa2ub4elJiS8eTDHTMGyygnKgiw-mp1tvPtzhP_BadaXjks1hrkIMcqloJaPe9Cnx670uQ85wcPs6EcrxYdxLyFvK5UFT3d0Gep2aavTU65WxtccPpxdJV1FTEuBslg/s1600/wunderlist-chrome-packaged-app.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZGdXX013Zuo2xIa2ub4elJiS8eTDHTMGyygnKgiw-mp1tvPtzhP_BadaXjks1hrkIMcqloJaPe9Cnx670uQ85wcPs6EcrxYdxLyFvK5UFT3d0Gep2aavTU65WxtccPpxdJV1FTEuBslg/s320/wunderlist-chrome-packaged-app.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Today, 6wunderkinder has <a href="http://www.6wunderkinder.com/blog/wunderlist-packaged-app-for-chrome">released</a> <b>Wunderlist Packaged App for Chrome</b>, which brings <b>desktop notifications, menu integration</b> and, like any Chrome packaged app, it doesn't require Google Chrome to run to be able to use it.</div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG60xSjLGgzrKeAWYbqVysreAatwQWd6ccSjB7AtMJapORoHONT3qtkPCSVjei4TTBTYEj3vKOTrLTloszz4Dk5hzGvNBdocTRiweBhjwoLZFtLjAf_rqvT9jOPhLbeT5TRj5ZgHWYt_M/s1600/wunderlist-chrome-app_2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG60xSjLGgzrKeAWYbqVysreAatwQWd6ccSjB7AtMJapORoHONT3qtkPCSVjei4TTBTYEj3vKOTrLTloszz4Dk5hzGvNBdocTRiweBhjwoLZFtLjAf_rqvT9jOPhLbeT5TRj5ZgHWYt_M/s320/wunderlist-chrome-app_2.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chome packaged apps show up in the menu / Dash just like native applications</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">The Wunderlist Packaged App also features <b>voice input</b> (you can dictate your to-dos) and has the ability to <b>work offline</b>: the data is stored locally while offline and then synced back with the Wunderlist servers once you're online. An Internet connection is required only when logging in to your Wunderlist account.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For those not familiar with Packaged Apps, these Chrome apps look and behave like native applications, but are "as safe as a web page". <a href="http://developer.chrome.com/apps/about_apps.html">More about Chrome Packaged Apps</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To use the Wunderlist Chrome packaged app, you need Google Chrome or Chromium version 28 or newer (or Chrome OS).</div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wunderlist-for-chrome/ojcflmmmcfpacggndoaaflkmcoblhnbh">Install Wunderlist Packaged App for Chrome</a></b></div>

Popular Task Management App `Wunderlist` Available As Chrome Packaged App

Wunderlist is a popular to do list manager that supports reminders, recurring tasks, subtasks, collaboration and more. Many Linux users wer...

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