My Blog Is Moving

Hey all,

Just to let you know i am moving away from WordPress to add my blog to my site.

To keep following my blog just visit http://www.krismunro.co.uk/blog

Thanks see you there

Taking a bite out of the Apple

After starting with Microsoft Windows 3.11 going through all the updates, all the way up to Vista. Also spending 3 years with Ubuntu as my main operating system, at the end of this month I will be moving to Apple.

So whats the reason? well I have an iPod Touch and AppleTV, soon to have an iPhone 3GS so it just makes sense to make the move…plus the Macbook Pro’s look very nice.

I dont think moving from Ubuntu to Mac is going to be a difficult change, its just going to take time to get used to the Mac OS and find alternative applications to the ones I have been used to…luckly since I am on Ubuntu and use OpenSource software most are cross platform.

I will still use Ubuntu and Windows on the Mac, but as a VM mostly for testing due to the area of work I am in.

Will keep you updated on how I get on once its been purchased and arrived.

Ubuntu 9.04 – First Impressions

I have been using Ubuntu since 5.10 as my main operating system, and recently upgraded from 8.10 to 9.04 and here are my thoughts.

I decided to be brave and do a full format and install 9.04 with ext4 as the file-system…was this wise? time will tell but the improvements I have seen have been great…will talk about them soon.

There is not a lot of new things that jump out, but here are the ones that have

1. Loading Speeds : With using ext4 my boot times are increased and its very noticeable, I have gone from say around 18 to 22 secs to now 10 to 15secs…so far not file system issues have popped up since its new.

2. Loading Screen : The new loading screen looks very smart and for me a lot nicer.

3. Log In Screen : This again is new and for me its nice but does have a server log-in look to it…but its nice.

4. Notifications : This is very nice and I do like it, but it does have 1 bug where the icon displayed is blurry…hopefully a fix will be out soon.

I have now been using it for one week and so far, I have not noticed anything different (apart from the 4 above points) which is good…you dont want a new learning experience every 6 months (How often Ubuntu release a new OS).

Overall I am very pleased with this version, most of the issues I have had with previous clean installs or upgrades seem to be solved.

I will review 9.04 again when I have played with it a lot more.

Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) – Review

With Ubuntu 9.04 coming in April, I thought I would review 8.10.

I have been using Ubuntu since 5.10, but only from 6.04 as a main operating system. At first it was hard to get used to, as all I had ever used was Windows but it didn’t take long before I started to get a feel for it.

I upgraded from 8.04 to 8.10 in November, and here are my thoughts.

Firstly the upgrade went very smooth, downloaded..installed…cleaned up and rebooted.

Issue #1

After the reboot this is when I noticed my first issue, this issue happened at the splash screen. It got half way and paused for around 15 seconds then continued to load. This 15 second wait was very annoying.

I am sure I had this before, and a fix was released but so far one hasn’t. It seems to be looking for a wired connection, and at home I use WIFI so a CTRL+ALT+DEL when it pauses skips this check….but in turn means any wired connections I add to that session wont be seen and a reboot is needed or a restart of the module.

- Solution : For a quick fix used a wired connection or CTRL+ALT+DEL….no fix was issued.

Once the desktop had loaded everything looked just like 8.04, I noticed a few icons had changed a little and a few apps were more up to date. I had issues with Virtual Box before with the kernel changes…I checked it and it worked.

Next I checked to see if my webcam was finally recognised, nope and the modules were still looking for an older kernel. I opened Amarok and everything looked OK, then I tried to remove a song…error due to missing something.

Issue #2

I really liked Amarok and wish it had a Gnome version, but I didn’t mind installing the extra KDE files so I could use it. I searched for a while to see if there was a fix and didn’t find one, but during my searched I found people suggesting alternative. I decided to look for one and see if there was Gnome one that could replace my loved Amarok..

I finally found Exaile, it acts like Amarok 1…has plugins and few other features. I used it for 2 days and then removed Amarok, granted it does have a few things that could be improved but its does the trick for me.

I use this laptop at work, and this is where I found my third issue.

Issue #3

The network manager doesn’t seem to see a wired connection, I can surf the net etc but when you check the info in the GUI it says there’s none. Now this could be related to Issue 1, as I have found my WIFI to be a bit on and off at home….and that long wait at boot.

I looked for solutions but its a known bug (this shouldnt have made it to 8.10), so no fix just got to live with it. I hope this issue is fixed in 9.04 as personally I think the wait at boot and the GUI info is a serious bug.

Small bugs

• Trash : Still sometimes shows that its full when empty, and only a reboot fixes it.
• Still cant see Vista shares : A connect to server is the solution, but it would be nice to see the share appear on the network.
• Bluetooth : I would love to see the Bluetooth file sharing app built in to the Bluetooth Applet, to save me having to remember to open it. Not really a bug, but more a feature issue.
• Webcam : I would love for Ubuntu to be able to see my HP Pavilion6000 Webcam, these drivers need to be included with future releases.

Overall for me…I feel that 8.10 has only one advantage over 8.04, and that’s the more up to date apps. Apart from that there is a lot of “known bugs” that made it into 8.10 which should have been fixed before the release, I am looking forward to 9.04 and I hope they have fixed a lot of these issues.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Ubuntu 8.10 – Review (Part 1)

So 8.10 has been out for a while now, and I have tried to upgrade to it in the past and have failed. When upgrading in the past I have been hit with a black screen, or when playing SecondLife I only got 1 to 2 frame per second (YUKKY).

I decided to take the plunge again as I new that Nvidia have updated and fixed issues with the drivers, so I though lets give it a go. After downloading and installing it told me to restart, this is when I thought “please no black screen”…..the restart to a long time as the loading process screen froze at half way….this lasted for 20 seconds then continued giving me a total of 45 to 55 second boot time (1st issue).

I saw a desktop and at first glance all looked ok, I check I had wifi, nvidia drivers, bluetooth and sound so all seemed good to start with. I loaded SecondLife and WOW…in 8.04 i was getting 8 to 12fps…now with this i am getting 25 to 35fps woohoo.

Next issue i had was running SL and Skype…all worked fine and using Pulse as my sound I then tried Amarok…problem 2…..i couldnt delete files…bummer and no fix….so I decided to try the Banshee…that had volume control issues…tried Rhythmbox again that also had volume control issues…so tried my last hope Exaile….WOW just like Amarok and runs smoother so bye bye Amarok and hello Exaile

So far its been an ok 24hrs, the only issue is this startup halt…hmmm hope they bring a fix soon

More soon when I play with it more

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Flock 2.0 – Internet Browser Review

Flock The Social Internet Browser – www.flock.com

I have been using from since version 1.0 on Linux, under my Ubuntu operating system. I really like the fact that it has a really nice facebook sidebar, built in RSS feed reader and other small cool features.

It wasn’t until I started using Flock that I started to do more things, for example I created a wordpress blog and started blogging (http://kjhm.wordpress.com/) I also created a Flickr account and started to use the built in uploader to upload photos.

Flock 2.0 has now been released and here are my thoughts, to start with version 2 isnt really a full release for me as it feels more like a point something update. Granted they have added a few more small features like MySpace sidebar, and its based on Firefox 3 (yes there are a few more things added but these are the ones that stand out for me).

I will be moving over to Mac in March 2009, and I am starting to think that I might abandon Flock as its starting to feel a little slow for me now. Granted I like the whole socialness at my fingertips, but I can get Facebook, Flickr and Twitter desklets on the Mac to do the same….hmmm

Overall if your a social beaver then then I recomend you download this, I am sure just like me once you start using it you will start to try new social things.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

To Mac or not to Mac

I used to be a windows user up until about 2 years ago, then I started to use Ubuntu as my main operating system.

Over the past 2 years I have really enjoyed learning about Linux, and also watching how Ubuntu has improved. The applications I use are 99% Gnome and only 1 application KDE based (Amarok). The laptop I am using is an HP Pavilion DVP6000 and I am now finding its getting very warm, when trying to do a few tasks….so I am now looking for a replacement.

I have had my eye on a Sony Viao, as I purchased one so I could use iTunes and SAM Broadcaster. It runs vista and YUK its crap….but leaving that aside its a fantastic laptop.

I have also started to look at Mac Books, though I have never been a fan of the OS. I have been reading up on OSX and I really like the full intigration it has with the apps, the iPhone etc. This has got me thinking about possibly getting a Mac Book now.

I have looked and checked and 99% of the applications I use on Ubuntu, are already ported over to OSX which is great. I then noticed that the graphics card on the Mac Book are a little lower than the Viao i was looking at…so I checked out the Mac Book Pro which has at the time of posting this a 8600GT which is a nice card. The battery life on the Mac’s are really good about 4 to 5 hours, where with my HP its about 30/45mins under Ubuntu which is pants.

So now I am highly thinking about getting a MBP, but not yet probably early 2009 as I have heard they will be doing a refresh to include BluRay support and BluRay drive which will mean a more up to date laptop.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Amarok – Review

This is a little addition to my other Amarok review, I posted a long time ago.

I recently purchased an iPod Touch, and since then I have been more into making sure my music collection is correctly tagged and also has the correct artwork embedded or downloaded. Before I didn’t mind too much, but now that the Touch has cover flow it looks a lot better than blank covers.

I decided to look at how to embed images into mp3’s, as iTunes and sometimes Amarok didn’t get the correct artwork for my jpop/cpop albums. After searching loads I noticed Amarok had a script manager…I have used this application a lot but never ever opened the script manager…now I am glad I did.

The first script I installed was “EmbedCover”, I would google the album artwork..then attach it in the Cover manager and then Embed and BINGO now it will always have the correct artwork.

I have also started to look into playing music of a similar genre so, instead of jumping on to google I looked into the script manager. I saw “LastFM Genre Tagger” and bingo it works like a charm.

Slowly but shurly my collection is starting to get a lot more organised, the only remaining task is to make sure I have no doublers or the wrong cover is attached to the album….this I can do at a nice slow pace, but for now Embeding and genre is doing its thing

I cant wait till Ubuntu 8.10 so I can install Amarok 2, as Amarok 2 looks soooo nice

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Ubuntu 8.04 – First Review

For 8.04 I did an update, and a few weeks later had a few issues so I decided to do a clean install (which am glad I did).

The install process was easy just like the previous versions, I was just using my full HD for this. The install was 15mins, and once it booted to the desktop I was ready to start getting the system back to the way I like. First came downloading the updates, there was 162 updates which took a total of 30mins to download and install. Now it was to get the Nvidia drivers, a mere 4mins and that was me back to using the Nvidia drivers for 3D FX and gaming.

Now it was time to install the software that I used, that wasnt included in the main install. This process again only took a total of 15mins and they were ready to use. I copied all my music and my files that I backed up before the format and after transfering over USB (30mins) that was me back to a fully working and setup the way I like it laptop.

At first glance you dont really see much difference in this version. which you want as you dont want a learning curve (like XP to Vista) to get in the way. Everything felt a lot more zippy, and looked cleaner.

The Bad –

1. As normal my webcam didn’t work out the box, but add a line to the repo’s and thats it working.

2. For some reason I had to find out how to enable my Nvidia drivers, normally an icon appears and I click “allow”. I had to enable the desktop effects for that to pop up, not a big issue but not the best way to approch this.

3. Alsa & Pulseaudio – Since Pulseaudio was enabled by default, when i was using skype and then tried to play secondlife there was no sound in Secondlife and if i ran SL first then opened Skype i had no sound in that.  A quick sudo apt-get install esound fixed that, I feel that this should not have been added just yet…a waiting period where a good percentage of apps using Pulse as the main audio and then impliment this would have been better.

As you can see my bad points are very small and nothing major, so far I am very impressed with this release and look forward to features and versions to come.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Ubuntu 8.04 – First Impressions

Ubuntu 8.04 was released on Thursday 24th April 2008, and this is the operating system (OS) I use as my main OS. Here is my first impression of the latest release.

The Good :

• The UI is just the same, no learning curve going from 7.10 to 8.04 (unlike with XP to Vista)
• New Theme : Its not a major difference but it looks a lot cleaner and sharper
• Firefox3 (Beta5) – This is a great version of the new FF browser, it loads a lot faster and the theme now fits in with Gnome
• Transmission – The new BitTorrent client, its very nice and a big improvement on what was in the previous versions.
• Brasero – The CD burning application, this is very nice and is very clean and fast. I used to use K3B as it was close to Nero, but now thats been removed and i use this.
• Xorg 7.3 – The new graphical manager system is VERY nice for me, i couldn’t watch videos (avi,mpg,flv) while playing SecondLife all i would get is the audio, now this is fixed (not that i did that a lot)
• General Improvements – things load faster, more stable etc

The Bad :

• PulseAudio – the new sound system within this OS, for me Pulse is very nice but if i use voice on Skype and open SecondLife i dont get sound on SL. This is due to audio conflicts (i have fixed this with installing esound). For me this should not have been included in this version as 8.04 is LTS (Long Term Support) this should have been included in 8.10.
• HP Pavilion 6000 Webcam – still doesnt work out the box

Overall it seems like it is the best version to date, I will review it again once I have played with it a lot more.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tags: ubuntu, hardy, linux, review