I have never done this before. As a part-time blogger I have the utmost respect for people with enough passion to write IT on a full-time basis.

This is not an attack, yet I cannot sit idly by and not answer this story by Gavin Clarke of The Register. Read the rest of this entry »

About a week ago I had the unmitigated pleasure of heading out to a client to do a routine harddrive swop for their backups to be transferred offsite. This is a weekly thing that gets done to keep their data safe.

As I walked in the door the owner of the company (a financial planning business) asked me to check why they had run through their local bandwidth so quickly.

What I found both horrified and amused me.

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So I am an Ubuntuphile. I could not resist installing Alpha 1 of Karmic Koala once it came out. I have had it running on a VM for a while, and overall it seems solid.

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In my previous post I told you of my experience with an Aspire One running Linpus Linux. After tooling around with that disaster I offered my colleague two options, either I install Ubuntu or he gets someone else to install Windows XP.

To my joy he told me to go ahead and install Ubuntu on it. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been an avid Tuxophile for a few years now, taking my first steps with linux back in 2000.  Back then Linux was very much the domain of the committed geek. Nowadays distributions become more and more easy to install and use, interoperability is second to none, and many distro’s have a very narrow focus on their target market.

Linux Mint is such a distro, and their focus is the desktop market. Based on Ubuntu as many other distributions are these days they provide an elegant and well maintained alternative for the user looking for a desktop Linux OS.

I have used various versions of Mint before, having been introduced to it at a local installfest a few years ago. With previous versions I have always returned to my all time favorite Ubuntu, since they started feeling like a broken Ubuntu install as I added more and more packages from the repositories.

With the letdown Ubuntu Hardy was recently I decided to give Mint another try and installed Mint Elyssa. Based off Ubuntu Hardy I was very impressed, and eventually canned my Ubuntu install.

Enter Felicia, the newest incarnation of the Mint family. Released Yesterday it promises to be the most complete and mature version of Linux Mint to date.

Will it deliver?

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Today I had the opportunity to install Intrepid Ibex on two machines. A high end monster with a 47″ HD monitor and our mid-to-bottom range pc in the bedroom

This is not an in depth review - these are my impressions after configuring and fooling around for a bit.

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So I hit on a cool little applet that will feature quite a bit in my posts these next few weeks: byzanz.

It allows the user to record their desktop and save it to an animated giff file. I decided to use this applet to give you guys a quick weekly tour of the Ubuntu desktop, so here goes:

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I enjoy a lot of things. Desktop widgets generally aren’t among them. Why? I use screens with square aspect ratio’s most of the time and I like my windows to be fullscreen most of the time, so a maximised browser (where I spend most of my work-day) leaves nothing around the edges for applets that usually run in my panels in any case.

Enter screenlets - and a new appreciation for desktop widgets have been awoken in me.

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I came across this while reading the Gnome 2.22 release notes. Apparently Gnome has some compositing effects included all on its own, with no need for Compiz-Fusion!

Now the effects are not as flashy or pretty as those you can get with Compiz-Fusion or Beryl, but it adds some pizazz to your desktop nonetheless.

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Now this is one of the coolest desktop gadgets I have been introduced to. One of my colleagues showed me this, and helped me install it. It is a cool little program that utilises bluetooth technology to secure your laptop when you are away from your desk. Boss call you into his office for a quick chat? No problem - your work is safe while you pop into his office - and when you get back you automatically log in and continue working.

I am talking about BlueProximity - a utility that uses your Cellphone’s bluetooth and a few calculations based on signal strength to manage when your desktop gets locked.

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