Well, I’ve taken quite a break from blogging obviously, but just about ready to hop back in the saddle. For various reason, I’ve also been taking a break from linux. I was quite happy with the Release Candidate of Windows 7, and ended up with it on the two computers I use the most. Then I got really busy and I didn’t have time to get Linux on anything so I just kept the status quo for a while. Finally the other night I had the feeling that enough was enough, I needed some Linux, and Windows 7 was pretty and all, but it just wasn’t cutting it for me.
I’ve been ‘borrowing’ a tiny Lenovo X41 from the IT department, and have been very happy with the portability. Just to get a quick fix, I dumped Windows 7 for Xubuntu 9.04, but then something else caught my eye. It’s called Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix, and I’m about to give it a whirl on here and see how she handles.
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In my quest to use Linux full-time, I’m building a list of “equal or better” Linux programs to replace the ones I used in my former Windoze life. I think many others are on that same quest.
When it comes to chat/social network all-in-one clients, nothing can compare to digsby. Unfortunately, although we’ve been promised a native Linux version for quite some time, it has not yet been delivered. As such, I’ve been quite happy with Pidgin for a chat client, but have been looking everywhere for a decent standalone twitter client.
I’m not sure why I never found it before, but today I found gwibber hanging out in the Jaunty repositories. A ‘sudo aptitude install gwibber’ later, I was very pleasantly surprised.
As you can see, it has a very smooth interface that blends quite well in gnome. What sold me on it though, was how nicely it integrates with Jaunty’s new notification system. I have it set to check every 5 minutes, and when new updates come in, they show up in the now-familiar fade-in-fade-out-overlay in the top right corner of the screen. I like it.
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The hype is all about One Bad Pig, right?
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For a while now I’ve been dual-booting Windows 7 and whatever flavor of Linux I’m currently interested in. I feel like I’ve really settled in with the release of Ubuntu 9.04 and I wondered if there was a way for me to easily get into my current Windows installation without having to reboot my computer (a la parallels). Well, a quick google on the internets turned up a very helpful article which stepped me through creating a virtual disk which was really my physical hard drive, and the rest is just standard stuff.
I booted my virtual/physical disk, was very careful to only select the Windows installation from GRUB (see warning in article), and Windows came up like a champ. I didn’t even have to do the extra steps outlined at the end of the article, but I may go back and do them as a safeguard… hopefully not borking my install in the process. The good news for everyone is that VirtualBox is free/open and available for all three major platforms. Look out, parallels…
Beautiful, isn’t it? I’ll be able to work much more quickly and efficiently now, and that’s what computers are all about, right?
