Crazy options for IM clients

On my work machine, I have the following IM clients:

• Yahoo
• GTalk
• Skype
• Digsby

Digsby supports most IM clients but not Skype. It is a good replacements for most clients at work. The only problem is, its not available for Linux or MacOS. I have tried Trillium at some point of time but found it a little resource hungry.

The problem is my employer does not have its own internal IM. Most people use Yahoo. I think a tie up with Skype to provide IM and teleconferencing facilities would be beneficial. Especially considering Skype's international calling abilities.

At home, I have a Ubuntu machine which gives me the following options:

• Pidgin
• Empathy

Pidgin provides most IM features. Empathy is the new IM client added to Ubuntu in the last release. I guess they are planning to finally move to Empathy.
If I want, I have the option to use Skype for Linux but I do not have many contacts there so I don't use it. I also have Ekiga for IP telephony services if I want it at any time.

The problem I have is maintaining my status messages and icon between all these clients. I feel there needs to be a consensus some where.

UI copyrights & the brave world of tomorrow

The some Chinese developers were in the news as they released a Ubuntu based system which worked like Windows XP. My thoughts were as to to what extent can one extend copyrights to UI design? I don't think so. I did a little bit of searching but could not find anything to this effect. I am under the impression that copyrights can be extended to software for a particular functionality.

Windows XP theme for Ubuntu has been around for a long time and so is Mac OS & Windows 7. If I customize my machine to look like another OS does it mean I am violating the copyrights?

User friendly software and good functionality have helped spread IT. If it were not for MP3, do you think online music would have proliferated as much as it has? Many companies released their personal file formats but MP3 is most expected as it is open and easily shared.

With everyone going into cost cutting measures, its a matter of time that companies force employees to switch to open source OS & software. Firefox has gained recognition as a better browser. Ubuntu and Redhat the same set of security features as Windows and many come with official support. Microsoft is going to have to work harder for its share of the market.

Ubuntu Karmic release party

I looked through the Ubuntu release party map. As expected majority of the parties are in US & Europe.

Parties in Asia are far too widespread. Surprisingly Ubuntu Release parties are being held in Iran and none in India. I am going to change this. I will have a party at home and update my Jaunty to Karmic! If you are in Pune, you are welcome to join me.

Unlike other software open source software have the advantage that you are not dependent on the company website for downloading the software. These software are released on Bit-Torrents. Load is kept to the minimum on the main server as the files are shared on a peer-to-peer network. In fact reliability of the download is better when done from Bit-Torrent.

Keep a look out for the final image here.

Logo Infringement?

Saw the Agile 2009 logo today and noticed that it looks very similar to the Ubuntu logo.

Below are both logos for your reference. They represent 3 people holding hands and the picture is taken from the top.

Agile 2009 logo

Ubuntu logo

You be the judge..

Jaunty Intel Graphics - 2

This is in continuation to my previous post, here. Early today, Ubuntu update included the intel graphics driver, copiz and a new kernel (2.6.28.13).

Finally my display seems fixed and performing well! Feels great. Hopefully the upgrade to Karmic will as better than Intrepid and Jaunty.

Ubuntu 100 papercuts

ubuntu love
Originally uploaded by magicfab

Ubuntu community has started a very unique feature to improve usability. These are smartly being referred to as hundred papercuts! A paper-cut are some small nuances which do not compromise usability or stability. These are simple annoyances for a first time user. First 10 have been identified and over the next 10 days, the community aims to resolve 100 such issues.

This could be a natural life-cycle step in projects immediately following UAT. Practically all projects receive UI enhancements/ comments from users. This could be incorporated into project plan. Instead of just fixing major issues as is normally done. This phase should cater to minor enhancements requests.
More than just catering to them, these should be planned for especially for UI enhancements!

Developers, coders and mangers need to learn more from open source project like Ubuntu than just using their products or code.

Jaunty Intel Graphics

Jaunty/ Compiz has blacklisted some intel graphics drivers. Thus when I upgraded to Jauty, my Compiz effects disappeared. After an hour of tinkering with my graphics settings I have got Compiz-Fusion working on my laptop.
My primary source of information was this blog. I used option 1 to revert back my drivers to 2.4 and Compiz works wonderfully. this option will be resolved in Karmic Koala with the new Intel driver (at least thats what all are hoping for!).
Next task: move my file system from ext3 to ext4. Supposed to give significant performance improvement. Lets hope all goes well in this case.

Ubuntu 9.04: Jaunty Jackalope Released

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope has been released. Official desktop announcement is here. Some nice features and enhancements have been included. You can see a quick review of its features at LifeHacker.

Ubuntu has also launched the Jaunty version for its server and netbook platforms.


Personally I am looking forward to the next release, the Karmic Koala (v9.10). This will be important as this will be a long term support release (LTS). This means it will be supported by ubuntu for next 5 years and it will have fewer defects/ issues than the other releases. This what regular users and sys-admins for productions servers should be lookign forward to.

My new desktop

Ubuntu 8.10 desktop
Originally uploaded by HomyarB

After much trial and error, I think I am satisfied with my desktop. I have customized my Ubuntu Intrepid v8.10 with the following to come up with the following look:

* Controls - Clearlooks
* Window Border - Shiki Colours Metacity
* Icons Theme - Gnome Crystal Diamon Icons 1b
* MacOS dock - AWN Dock
* Wallpaper - taken from Flickr
* Screenlets - NetMon & Pidgin

K3B: Burning CDs/DVDs in Ubuntu

Ubuntu by default allows two software packages for CD/DVD burning:
- Brasero
- Through Nautilus

Windows based tools are fairly better than these. Brasero (v0.8.2) used to go into an infinite loop while erasing a disc. There have been some similar reported bugs on this. I was unable to find a better Gnome based alternative for the CD/DVD burning at home.

Nautilus based burning is good for simple burning needs. It does not give you a lot of options or a good interface.

Yesterday out of curiosity I tried K3B and was pretty satisfied with the functionality and performance. It has plenty of user options and prompts to guide you to correctly burn a disc.

It looks like Gnome has some catching up to do.