This is a desktop recording of the UbuntuNetbook Remix.
The tinker attack occurred again and I’ve implemented the Mac4Lin package for Linux. Pretty sweet overall. Makes for a smooth and clean desktop. Was pretty easy to install, so much so that I installed it on the wifes as well.
Adobe has created a web app portal named Adobe Air. This clever little bloke allows the install of web widgets and apps directly to the desktop.
Now, what this means for you is if you are a Twitter member, you can now “twit”, “tweet”, or whatever the heck it’s called, directly from you laptop/desktop running the superior Ubuntu Linux operating system.
Here’s the skinny as provided from Sizlopoedia:
Adobe Technologies released the Linux version of Adobe AIR some weeks ago which brings web applications and widgets to your desktop. Installing new applications on a Linux distribution is always a mystery for newbies so here is a guide that teaches you how to install Adobe AIR on Ubuntu.
1. Open the Terminal 2. Download the file from here using the wget command: http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/1.5/AdobeAIRInstaller.bin 3. The name of the file is AdobeAIRInstaller.bin 4. Save the file in the Home folder (Places > Home Folder) 5. Run this command: chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin 6. Now run this command: sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
The normal installer will open, install it. From now whenever you download a .air file, just double click it and it will be installed.
Also take a look at 10 Most Useful Adobe AIR applications reviewed by Sizlopedia.
Once you have that, you can install TweetDeck and DestroyTwitter easily.
For a complete listing of Adobe Air apps available, visit Adobe’s Air Marketplace.
I went with a smooth, plastic style GTK resembling an OS X style. Dock in 3-D and icon set also OS X type.
While the default boot screen is pretty nice, it’s cool to customize with custom boot screens.
The procedure in Ubuntu 8.10 is pretty easy and straightforward, however, it does require a bit of terminal. Yeah, the dreaded word, “terminal”.
It’s not so bad. You do need an “usplash” boot screen. My favorite is HERE. The lines below have this usplash title in them, so if you use a different usplash, replace with the proper name.
Copy and paste (via right click of the mouse) these lines into the terminal once you have directed your terminal to where you store your usplash themes (via the “cd ./” command).
sudo apt-get install libusplash-dev
Then go to your theme folder (In this example we are using this and the filenames used below is for this one )
make
sudo cp ostux-usplash.so /usr/lib/usplash
sudo rm /etc/alternatives/usplash-artwork.so
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/usplash/ostux-usplash.so /etc/alternatives/usplash-artwork.so
sudo update-initramfs -u
sudo update-grub
Viola! and you should see a new screen upon reboot.
First things first: Moblin. Netbooks have awesome potential. That is, unless you’re running Windows. So, the good people at Acer have teamed up with Novell to port Moblin across their line of netbooks. Acer netbooks are currently some of the most popular being sold told. Intel is also behind the push for Moblin to optimize the performance potential of the Atom processor.
Most netbooks today ship with Intel’s Atom chip but run the Windows XP operating system, which Microsoft ships for low-cost laptops. But Intel wants to ensure that every “ounce” of technology — including Moblin — put into Atom is optimized for size and power consumption, said Doug Fisher, vice president and general manager of the software and services group at Intel
Check out Moblin’s intro vid:
Moblin is available for download from moblin.org as a .img file.
Now, the next coolest thing: Songbird.
Songbird is about as iTunes-ish as you can get on Linux. Songbird is developed by Mozilla. With a myriad of extensions, it has more functionality than iTunes. I love the scrolling lyrics, the customization, and all the other cool features. If you’re running Ubuntu, you will want to grab the .deb file from getdeb.net rather than getsongbird.com.
We knew that Linux was a more secure environment than Windows soley based on the server market numbers. Tippingpoint’s hacking contest has nailed the coffin shut pitting Ubuntu, Vista, and Mac OS X in a hack attack contest spanning three days of penetration attempts.
Given the results of the contest, while the winner walked away with a decent prize purse, there aren’t much in the way of bragging rights since Ubuntu failed to fail to the sword.
The Linux fans will be thrilled to find out that their favorite operating system have proved the safest at the contest organized last year by the security firm TippingPoint. The contest was in Vancouver, Canada and it had three phases: during the first day, only network attacks were allowed, but none of the laptops could be broken into remotely. In the second day, rules stated that the hacker could give instructions to a staff member. During the third day, the rules of the contest allow the installation of popular 3rd party client applications on the notebooks. The prizes were $20,000 for those who would manage to break the security of the laptops in the first day, $10,000 on day two and only $5,000 on the third day. Apple’s MacBook was first to be hacked and for the team led by Charlie Miller, an analyst at Independent Security Evaluators, two minutes were enough to break the notebook. The team of Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Mark Daniel from Independent Security Evaluators has successfully compromised the Apple MacBook Air by exploiting a brand new 0day vulnerability in Apple’s Safari web browser. In the third and final day Shane Macaulay from Security Objectives won the Fujitsu U810 laptop running Vista Ultimate SP1 after it was installed with the latest version of Adobe Flash. In addition he won also $5,000, which he will probably share with the friends who helped him, Derek Callaway and Alexander Sotirov.
The Linux fans will be thrilled to find out that their favorite operating system have proved the safest at the contest organized last year by the security firm TippingPoint.
The contest was in Vancouver, Canada and it had three phases: during the first day, only network attacks were allowed, but none of the laptops could be broken into remotely. In the second day, rules stated that the hacker could give instructions to a staff member. During the third day, the rules of the contest allow the installation of popular 3rd party client applications on the notebooks.
The prizes were $20,000 for those who would manage to break the security of the laptops in the first day, $10,000 on day two and only $5,000 on the third day.
Apple’s MacBook was first to be hacked and for the team led by Charlie Miller, an analyst at Independent Security Evaluators, two minutes were enough to break the notebook.
The team of Charlie Miller, Jake Honoroff, and Mark Daniel from Independent Security Evaluators has successfully compromised the Apple MacBook Air by exploiting a brand new 0day vulnerability in Apple’s Safari web browser.
In the third and final day Shane Macaulay from Security Objectives won the Fujitsu U810 laptop running Vista Ultimate SP1 after it was installed with the latest version of Adobe Flash.
In addition he won also $5,000, which he will probably share with the friends who helped him, Derek Callaway and Alexander Sotirov.
At the end of the third day, a Sony Vaio VGN-TZ37CN laptop running Ubuntu remained unhacked.
No Man Can Defeat Me
I found this post on the Ubuntu forums and thought it was rather well written and informative….so I copy and pasted.
The author is Sarai the Geek.
You can read her blog @ http://saraithegeek.wordpress.com/
Today is my six month anniversary of switching to Ubuntu! I was planning on writing out this long testimonial about what a crazy journey it’s been, but instead I’d just like to share a few of my thoughts about open source software in general and what it means to me, so… <.soapbox> As a college student, a free operating system populated by free software was ideal- I liked that I could get the same quality software without having to fork over my hard earned cash so Bill Gates (or Steve Jobs) could add another story to his mansion. I didn’t actually realize what “free” meant until a month or so ago, when I made the sorry mistake of reading Apple’s new license agreement that I had to sign before I could keep downloading music. Like most people who started out on computers running proprietary software, I had gotten used to just ignoring the license agreements, but this time I decided to actually read it. I was so incensed by it, I kept it, here are some choice sections: Quote: “Each installation of the iTunes and QuickTime Software must result in the iTunes and QuickTime Player icon residing on the desktop of each authorized user. ” (You listening, everyone? Gotta have that icon showing… hey, your title bar is too low, pull em, kiddos…) Quote: “You agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes Store from outside of the available territory. Apple may use technologies to verify such compliance.“ (US rules, everybody else drools. It’s not like America only makes up 5% of the total population of the globe, or anything, right?) Quote: “Licensee may not use, reproduce, sublicense, display, distribute or dispose of the Software, in whole or in part other than as expressly permitted under this Agreement.” (You can’t even get RID of it without their permission… I’m guessing tossing it out the window isn’t in the terms of agreement?) And so on and so forth. It struck me- I’m paying Apple my hard earned money to buy their product: where exactly do they get off telling me how I should use it? That’s when I realized, they can call it whatever they want but I’m not buying their product: if I went out and spent what, like $200, to “buy” a copy of osX, I still don’t own it. I own a license to use it on a computer solely of their choosing, in the country of their choosing, in a manner in which they strictly control. If I don’t follow their rules, they’ll use their “technologies” to track me down and drag me screaming into the night. Using proprietary software is more like renting than buying, I’ve discovered. Think about it: if you paid in cash to buy a house, how would you react if the old owner showed up and told you you couldn’t paint it or install a new sink? How about if he told you that no more than five people can live in your house, and you can’t have any guests? Would you finally tell him where to go when he informs you that you can’t loan your stuff to a friend or donate that ratty chair to a thrift store? When he evicts you and sues you for every penny you’ve got because you’re not following his rules? In any other situation this sort of business practice would be considered unethical to say the least, but in the technology world it’s par for the course. I’d like to blame Apple, or Microsoft, or any other company for this, but we can’t, really. This is how our economy operates, people’s livelihood depends on making money off of these products and the best way to make money is to have absolute control over your product. I just wonder how far this will go before the masses start to get disgruntled… and when large amounts of people get angry tends to be when the most progressive stuff happens. I look forward to that day. Oh, and one last tidbit: Quote: “You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.” Well crud, I was almost done developing my atomic bomb built out of recycled iPods and powered by iTunes. It came with a “Genius” feature that automatically targets countries that have communist intentions, too… <./soapbox> Long live Ubuntu!
Today is my six month anniversary of switching to Ubuntu! I was planning on writing out this long testimonial about what a crazy journey it’s been, but instead I’d just like to share a few of my thoughts about open source software in general and what it means to me, so…
<.soapbox>
As a college student, a free operating system populated by free software was ideal- I liked that I could get the same quality software without having to fork over my hard earned cash so Bill Gates (or Steve Jobs) could add another story to his mansion.
I didn’t actually realize what “free” meant until a month or so ago, when I made the sorry mistake of reading Apple’s new license agreement that I had to sign before I could keep downloading music. Like most people who started out on computers running proprietary software, I had gotten used to just ignoring the license agreements, but this time I decided to actually read it. I was so incensed by it, I kept it, here are some choice sections:
Quote: “Each installation of the iTunes and QuickTime Software must result in the iTunes and QuickTime Player icon residing on the desktop of each authorized user. ” (You listening, everyone? Gotta have that icon showing… hey, your title bar is too low, pull em, kiddos…)
Quote: “You agree not to use or attempt to use the iTunes Store from outside of the available territory. Apple may use technologies to verify such compliance.“ (US rules, everybody else drools. It’s not like America only makes up 5% of the total population of the globe, or anything, right?)
Quote: “Licensee may not use, reproduce, sublicense, display, distribute or dispose of the Software, in whole or in part other than as expressly permitted under this Agreement.” (You can’t even get RID of it without their permission… I’m guessing tossing it out the window isn’t in the terms of agreement?)
And so on and so forth. It struck me- I’m paying Apple my hard earned money to buy their product: where exactly do they get off telling me how I should use it? That’s when I realized, they can call it whatever they want but I’m not buying their product: if I went out and spent what, like $200, to “buy” a copy of osX, I still don’t own it. I own a license to use it on a computer solely of their choosing, in the country of their choosing, in a manner in which they strictly control. If I don’t follow their rules, they’ll use their “technologies” to track me down and drag me screaming into the night.
Using proprietary software is more like renting than buying, I’ve discovered. Think about it: if you paid in cash to buy a house, how would you react if the old owner showed up and told you you couldn’t paint it or install a new sink? How about if he told you that no more than five people can live in your house, and you can’t have any guests? Would you finally tell him where to go when he informs you that you can’t loan your stuff to a friend or donate that ratty chair to a thrift store? When he evicts you and sues you for every penny you’ve got because you’re not following his rules? In any other situation this sort of business practice would be considered unethical to say the least, but in the technology world it’s par for the course.
I’d like to blame Apple, or Microsoft, or any other company for this, but we can’t, really. This is how our economy operates, people’s livelihood depends on making money off of these products and the best way to make money is to have absolute control over your product. I just wonder how far this will go before the masses start to get disgruntled… and when large amounts of people get angry tends to be when the most progressive stuff happens. I look forward to that day.
Oh, and one last tidbit:
Quote: “You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.” Well crud, I was almost done developing my atomic bomb built out of recycled iPods and powered by iTunes. It came with a “Genius” feature that automatically targets countries that have communist intentions, too…
<./soapbox>
Long live Ubuntu!
A recent search on Google’s Trends Lab posts the latest search results for the Worlds best Linux OS: Ubuntu Google Search Trends
While the Google search results are impressive, testimonials by Ubuntu converts speak louder than graphs:
I’ve used various distros at various times in the past, usually just as an experiment to see “what else” was out there. A couple of months ago, after innumerable and seemingly endless problems with Vista, I decided to downgrade to XP, which at the very least had served me reasonably well in the past. As I was sat watching XP install, I suddenly thought “Hang on - this isn’t right. I’m having to downgrade to an older version of Windows just to get a decent level of reliability and performance.” So I decided to give Linux a serious go, to see if it could provide what I wanted from an OS where Vista had so dismally failed. Some quick research quickly led to Ubuntu being my distro of choice, given its ease of use, cutting edge features and extensive documentation and community support. I’m glad to say that Ubuntu has lived up to my expectations. The learning curve is, for the most part, surprisingly gentle - I’m by no means a computer novice but I had almost exclusively used Windows beforehand. Criticism of Linux as being “too hard for the average user” and stereotypes of it being “terminal centric” are proven wrong on both counts by Ubuntu. Granted, there are things I’ve needed to do for which terminal use was essential or just more efficient, but on those occasions a quick google search always pulls up exactly what I need to know - often here on these forums. I love the almost infinite possibilities for customisation; the fact that, if not for the sake of the planet, I’d most likely never have to switch off or reboot my pc; the new lease of life Ubuntu has given to my now slightly ageing hardware; and of course, the fact that I can get for free what other vendors charge great sums of money for (and often don’t even manage to do as well). Anyone reading this that is considering Ubuntu - give it a go. You won’t regret it.
I’ve used various distros at various times in the past, usually just as an experiment to see “what else” was out there. A couple of months ago, after innumerable and seemingly endless problems with Vista, I decided to downgrade to XP, which at the very least had served me reasonably well in the past. As I was sat watching XP install, I suddenly thought “Hang on - this isn’t right. I’m having to downgrade to an older version of Windows just to get a decent level of reliability and performance.”
So I decided to give Linux a serious go, to see if it could provide what I wanted from an OS where Vista had so dismally failed. Some quick research quickly led to Ubuntu being my distro of choice, given its ease of use, cutting edge features and extensive documentation and community support.
I’m glad to say that Ubuntu has lived up to my expectations. The learning curve is, for the most part, surprisingly gentle - I’m by no means a computer novice but I had almost exclusively used Windows beforehand. Criticism of Linux as being “too hard for the average user” and stereotypes of it being “terminal centric” are proven wrong on both counts by Ubuntu. Granted, there are things I’ve needed to do for which terminal use was essential or just more efficient, but on those occasions a quick google search always pulls up exactly what I need to know - often here on these forums. I love the almost infinite possibilities for customisation; the fact that, if not for the sake of the planet, I’d most likely never have to switch off or reboot my pc; the new lease of life Ubuntu has given to my now slightly ageing hardware; and of course, the fact that I can get for free what other vendors charge great sums of money for (and often don’t even manage to do as well).
Anyone reading this that is considering Ubuntu - give it a go. You won’t regret it.
We’ve had good days, we’ve had bad days; but with each passing day we always knew that the next would be better than the one before.
Oh, how naive we were.
While we would shrug off minor annoyances - like unrealistic technical terms and unlimited ammo supplies - plot issues would crop up from time to time and circulate around the Web in the form of, “WTF?!! How can you possibly….”
But hey! true 24 fans have an ingrained ability to magically make those issues disappear in a cloud of fanaticism and still enjoy the show.
Then they hit us with this season. Maybe it was the long hiatus due to the writers strike; maybe it was Kiefer’s ever returning role as a convict; maybe the stars were in the wrong house - but this, without a doubt, was the worst season of 24 that was ever scraped together off the editing floor.
Yes, the writers returned to the scripting room with techno babble that made no sense. Yes, the writers returned to the scripting room with scretched plots that dangled together by a thread of overused tooth floss. No, they did not return to the scripting room to write a season of 24 that made any type of sense whatsoever, and was more of a put-off than a newborn with a full grown porn actor mustache.
The bad guy in the airport shot his weapon 21 times or more w/out reloading.
While Jack by all rights, once infected, should have been writhing in pain and foaming at the mouth like an overfilled dishwasher, Superma….Jack Bauer was still able to run, fight, and shoot with marksmen skill.
Of course, when Chloe is spitting out crap like, “Encrypted drive through multiple relays” while trying to locate it’s source, Jack’s invulnerability to a biologic AND sedative shouldn’t seem so far fetched.
The “D.C.” airport had palm trees outside of the parking garage (when Kim was saving the laptop from the burning car).
The best thing that the producers of 24 could do at this point is publicly deny that this season ever took place. I would have no problem believing them. After all, they attempted to get this season past us as completely believable! Whats one more leap of faith?
Except for Tony. Tony, I liked. I liked him good and I liked him bad. Even more so bad. I think Tony has a real career ahead of him as the Bizarro Bauer. That is if Jack survives. Which realistically he wouldn’t; but what the hell do I know. I just have Google. They have Kim’s stem cells.
Do they get them injected in time to reverse the damage done by the biologic?
Does the “experimental” treatment even really work?
Does anyone even care now?
Well, we won’t know till next season. Hopefully we’ll see the return of Tony “Bad Ass” Almeda. He helps make up for the rest of the shows shortcomings.
Next year, fans.
