Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx

We've had the chance to install Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" on several machines now. Except for one particular model of Dell, the experience has been wonderful. The boot time is great--less than 10 seconds on reasonably new hardware. The new default visual theme is refreshing and beautiful. It "just works," which is more than I can say for the aging Windows XP at this time, even when used with older hardware that it should "know about."

In fact, this release has been so good, that I've now reinstalled my personal notebook computer with a fresh copy of Lucid.

There are some downsides, such as the lack of customization in the login screen (a problem that has carried over from the previous release, Karmic Koala) but the trade off for speed and stability is well worth it, and I'm sure the missing options will be reintroduced in time.

For fun, I also tried installing Debian Squeeze, and was not as happy with the outcome. The Ubuntu team really does do a lot of work to make Linux more user-friendly. I also tried Linux Mint 9 Isadora, which is based off of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx, and it seems quite formidable in its own right.

Of note--I particularly like the inclusion of the new Thunderbird 3 email client. It has some amazing features, but its attempt to autodetect the settings for my mailbox was a failure, and I had to manually set the options the correct way--a task I don't think a normal user would have been able to do, since it involved turning off features that were turned on that in past versions of Thunderbird never were turned on. On the positive side, I love the new "Smart Folders" and the improved search capabilities.

My Comprehensive List of Free or Open Source Software for XP

I received a brand new hard drive (400GB SATA) for Christmas this year (thanks Mike!), and so I am spending today reinstalling my main computer with Windows XP Pro. Unlike most Linux distributions, Windows is devoid of any useful programs after it has been freshly installed (no, I'm not saying that windows is a linux distro). As I reinstall all of my old programs, I'll be keeping track of them here for future reference, and maybe some passer-by (that's you) will find it useful.

I got tired of adding text and links about halfway through - I will update tomorrow or so.

The Operating System:

Windows XP Pro

Much better than XP Home, if you are going to use your computer in any custom way, or on a network. I'm not even going to go into Windows Vista here.

Debian, Etch

Debian will be installed as a dual boot on my 80GB drive... I've only used Mandriva and Ubuntu/Xubuntu thus far, so this will be exciting.

Appearance:

Royale Noir XP Theme

Download the Royale Noir theme and follow the instructions. This will give you a darker (navy or black) version of the Windows Media Center theme. Or, you could set the theme to Windows Classic and forget about trying to look snazzy.

Desktop Wallpaper

Go visit Smashing Magazine and download a desktop wallpaper. They scour the web for amazing wallpapers so you don't have to. It doesn't matter what you pick as long as it isn't the default 'blissful hill'.

Internet:

Browsers

As a web developer, I install every browser, but only really use Firefox. Opera 9 seems comparable, but it comes down to 1) extensions and 2) familiarity. Chrome isn't ready for consumer use yet, Internet Explorer 6 is a dinosaur, and Internet Explorer 7 is slow / annoying to use. I let Windows install IE7, and then install multiple IEs in order to get IE6. This lets Microsoft update IE7 for me, so I have the latest version for testing. Safari is fast, but I don't like the User Interface - it's too hard to find the features I am looking for (without even knowing if they exist).

Browser Plugins

Flash and Shockwave, Acrobat Reader, Quicktime (skip if you plan on installing iTunes), Java, Real Player or you can install Real Alternative which lets you play the RM files without the terrible media player!

Pidgin

Pidgin is an all-in-one Instant messenger. I like it for the custom smiley themes and plugins. I used to use Trillian, but it conflicted with my computer for some unknown reason. Astra looks awesome, but it's been coming soon for at least two years, probably more. Digsby looks kind of cool, and if Pidgin ever fails me, I'll try it out.

mIRC

mIRC is the best IRC client that I've tried. The UI is simple yet powerful. Lots of bells and whistles if you want them. And no fluff graphics either. I turn the theme to dark as soon as I install it.

Thunderbird

Thunderbird is better than Outlook Express. There might be a better free email client, but this one is good enough for me. I don't like the default theme, so I install Azerty Mail instead.

Azureus

Azureus (or Vuze) is a pretty good P2P app. Vuze sucks, change it back to the classic mode. Useful for downloading the latest Linux Distributions.

eMule

eMule is good for downloading old, hard to find programs.

LimeWire

Limewire is great for getting viruses and spyware!

AVG 8

Before installing Limewire, make sure you have some basic anti-virus protection. Unless someone out there knows of a better free anti-virus, I am currently recommending AVG-Free. Avira is also good, but has pop-up advertisements. Clamwin sucks, as does Avast.

Spybot S&D

Spybot's most useful feature is the teatimer system change monitor. This alerts you to changes to your registry, startup, browser, context menus, etc. Better than Vista's watch-dog because it actually tells you what is happening, and saying no lets the program continue to run as if it HAD made the change rather than just stopping the program from running altogether. I use this for programs like quicktime that want to add a startup entry so that it will load faster. Since I only use quicktime once every couple months, this is hardly a good use of my start-up space.

FileZilla

This is a great program, but I have not had good luck with version 3.x. I can only assume that it DOES work for most people or they would have fixed the issue already (disconnects every few minutes). If you can find version 2.x, it's pretty darn good.

Firefox Add-ons:

Camifox theme

There are a lot of good themes for Firefox, but Camifox is nice and simple without looking ugly.

Add to Search Bar

This lets you add any search box to the firefox search in the upper right-hand corner, instead of relying on the ten or so default ones.

Cookie Swap

Cookie Swap lets you quickly switch between named sets of cookies so that you can use multiple accounts with the same service without re-logging in all the time.

Edit Middle

An AwesomeBar hack.

Enter Selects

AwesomeBar Hack

Favicon Picker

Lets you change or add a favicon to any of your bookmarks.

Flash Block

Special mention to this extension for older computers that can't handle the amount of flash that some websites use. Or, if your eyes can't handle it!

Foxmarks

Useful if you have more than one computer, dual boot, or have ever lost all your bookmarks when your HD crashed. It synchronizes all of your bookmarks with their server, so that when you add a bookmark it is added to all of your computers.

Go Parent Folder

Lets you go to the parent folder after searching for a bookmark in the organizer.

Google Notebook

A notetaking thingy - there are some problems with it, but I haven't gotten around to trying any of the other similar extensions yet.

Google Toolbar

Essential for the 'Go to Next Search Word' buttons. I can't use the web without them.

Hide Unvisited

AwesomeBar Hack

HTML Validator

A Web Dev tool that tells me how many errors a web page has.

Old Location Bar

AwesomeBar hack - Tries to make the AwesomeBar just be a location bar, it isn't quite sufficient, and I'm not sure if it helps or hinders more ...

OpenBook

Lets you customize the add bookmark dialog.

Organize Status Bar

Firefox 3 didn't have the same status bar layout as FF2, this will let you move things around however you like.

ScribeFire

A quick blog editor.

Show Keywords

AwesomeBar Hack

Smart Bookmarks Bar

Transforms your bookmark bar into a list of single icons. This is where the favicon picker comes in handy.

Tagmarks

I haven't tried this one yet. It lets you add little icons to your bookmarks, visually placing them into categories for you.

Unsorted Bookmarks Folder Menu

This places your unsorted bookmarks in a folder that is accessible from the bookmarks menu.

Web Developer

By far the most useful extension that I have installed. It is the swiss army knife of web development tools.

Applications:

Open Office

Open Office is free and comparable to Microsoft Office. Writer is AWESOME! much better than Word for pretty much anything.

Google Earth

Edit Pad

Graphics and Design:

Paint.NET

Paint.NET is a free photo editor along the lines of Photoshop.

Picassa

Inkscape

Pepekura

SketchUp

Audio/Video:

CDex

Winamp

Streamripper

Streamripper rips individual songs from streamed internet radio stations. If you use the WinAmp version, make sure to get a custom skin for it, the default one is (was) terrible.

iTunes

Cool Edit replace

DivX

Step Voice Recorder

Video LAN

Switch Sound Converter

Tools:

Sequoia View

WinRar

TweakUI

For good measure, here's a list of the proprietary/non-free programs that I use:

Photoshop 7 or CS3
Flash
InDesign
Adobe Acrobat
Microsoft Publisher
Nero 6
FolioBound VIEWS (if anyone knows of a good replacement, leave me a note!)
PowerDVD (same for PowerDVD)

Picasa 3

I have a LOT of photos on my computer (approx. 23,000). They range from family snapshots to references for various art projects to charts and diagrams relating to topics that interest me and so on. I currently use Windows Explorer to sort out my images, and as of yet, I haven't found anything that works better. If explorer had tagging or virtual folders or something, it would be all I needed. All of the programs that DO offer those things do so in a poor manner or are seriously lacking in the stability / usability areas. I tried Picasa when Google first bought it, and found it wanting in a number of areas, but uninstalled it because it was unstable and caused my computer to crash. Now that Picasa 3 is out, I thought I'd give it a try. My thoughts, and a wish-list:

The Good

It's stable now! I've added all my pictures, and it still runs. I can't add hundreds of photos to the photo-deck thing without it getting pretty slow, but i can offload them fairly easily.

The collage maker is awesome, and I used it to create the back of a calendar yesterday, and it was great. The only thing that would make it better would be to allow you to individually move the photos around, rather than relying on "Scramble" to put them in the right place.

The thumbnail view is pretty good, the slider bar on the right takes some getting used to, but it's cool when you do.

The Okay

The User Interface has a lot to be desired, but once you find what you are looking for, most tasks are easy and straightforward. Exceptions will be covered in a sec.

The Bad / Annoying

When you're importing your initial collection, you cannot import a single set of folders, sort them into albums then add a second set of folders and still be able to easily see what you just added. You can sort by creation date, but when you have such a variety of images that isn't helpful - new folders appear randomly in the folders list. The same goes for all of the folder sort options. You can sort albums by when you added them to Picasa, but not folders.

Albums are great, but you can only place them in the Album collection, not in any user created collection. This is my biggest beef with Picasa - collections AND albums are both virtual organizers, why do they not work together? If this was added, I think it would finally do the one thing I want a program like it for: to organize my photos.

You also cannot place a folder into more than one collection! This means that there is no way for me to put a collection of photos in more than one place. What if I want to put my photos from a Grand canyon trip with other photos from that year, with other photos of my family and with pictures of the Grand Canyon. Currently, there is no way to do this efficiently. Either, I have to create an album for each subset of images which multiplies quickly and gets to be too much to deal with (remember, I have 20k photos) OR, create collections and choose one collection for each folder. Since there are no other sub folders, this also multiplies fairly quickly.

If I could only add photos to Albums, with a way to have subsets IN the albums (even if it just kept track of which folder it came from) and then add those to my custom collections.

After adding all my photos to Picasa, I ended up with 500 folders that got stuck into the Other Stuff folder. There is no difference (for me) between these photos and the ones in the Folders collection, so, I want to move ALL of them to the main Folders collection. There is NO way to move more than one folder to a new collection at the same time. It might work well for five or sic folders, but I don't want to individually move 500 folders (right click, choose move to collection, choose Folders from a list, repeat).

How does Picasa decide what gets imported into Folders and what gets imported into Other Stuff? About a third of my folders went into the Other Stuff collection rather than the Folders collection. I looked it up on their website, which told me that these are folders which have other types of content in them. But, I looked at the source folders, and many of them are all JPGs - I think this must be a bug.

The Missing

I wish I could select multiple photos between folders. I know I can push-pin them into the "shelf", but this gets annoying, and it's easy to forget that you are required to do so. It's also easy to forget to empty the shelf after moving them somewhere.

Currently you can only email photos with a Gmail account or Thunderbird. I know why, but it would be nice to be able to send with other clients (hotmail, yahoo, outlook, etc)

I remember tagging was a big thing in the older version of Picasa, but it conspicuously hard to get to without using CTRL-T or CTRL-K - and you can't see them either, or look at a list of tags or ... I think they are trying to phase them out, which is too bad - a well designed tagging system can be used for almost anything - which is what a good app can do. It's like a food processor that can only accept foods that are a certain size or shape or color. It seems arbitrary to the people who are trying to use it.

Firefox 3

After using FF3 for a while, it's time to give a review.

Smart Location Bar, AKA the Awesome Bar

It's not really fair starting with the worst feature in the new Firefox, but I'm not the one who named it the awesome bar, so I don't feel too bad.

This is the only new feature that actually HINDERS my use of the internet. I have a few different early extensions installed to try and revert it back to usefulness, but alas, it's still broken. Instead of the old, type what you want to get what you want, now the procedure is much more arcane. Firefox tries to guess which sites you would like to visit by looking in your history, favorites and so on. If I am typing in the address bar, I am usually typing an address, rather than fumbling around trying to find a site I have been to. If I wanted to open one of my favorites, I would ... use my favorites! If I'm looking for a site I visited last week, I would search through my history.

I'll use a visit to Firefox.com as an example of the new process. in FF2 if I wanted to go to firefox.com, I would type firef in the address bar, and by that time, I would be able to pick firefox.com off of the drop down list by pushing the down arrow once or twice and then pushing enter.

Now, however, when I type in firefox, I get every website that has firefox anywhere in it's address, title or even a keyword I added to one of my favorites. I have to either, type the entire address out, or search though a lengthy list in order to reach my destination.

I am just waiting for the perfect extension that will fix my complaints.

Tagging!

I was very excited about adding tagging to firefox, but it was fairly poorly implemented, so .... more waiting for the bugs to be worked out.

I have a complex bookmark sorting system involving 200 folders, sub folders and sub-sub folders. Firefox doesn't give you a way to know what tags you have already used. In huge multi-user systems, letting each user tag items and then reaping the combined efforts of the masses is a great idea. But, the individual needs a concrete way (or ways!) to stay consistent and organized. After all, that's the point of having bookmarks in the first place - finding them again.

There were quite a few bugs involving duplicate tags, blank tags and so on. There is no way to tag a bookmark when you add it through the menu, nor can you add tags when you right click a bookmark in the bookmark menu.

That said, I can happily ignore the tags until they fix them, unlike the awesomebar, which broke a feature I use(ed) regularly.

Themes

I don't care all that much for the default XP or linux themes, and winstripe, the theme I was using on FF2 (since I didn't like its default theme either) isn't going to be updated to FF3.

I've been using Qute, but it's a bit too bubbly and soft for me.

Memory Leaks

Nope, still leaky. It might even be worse now. A few minutes ago, FF3 was using 300,000 K .. after a restart, it's using 137,000. I believe that FF2 only used about 40,000 while running.

Anything good about it?

Yes! There are a few nice things about the new version. Animated PNGs! I haven't tried any out yet, but as a web developer, this is a step in the right direction.

FF3 seems more stable than 2, less crashes and firefoxen running after you close them.

Most extensions are being ported over to FF3, so I won't have to leave much behind.

Over all, I am disappointed in all of the new features, but only one of them has made my life difficult so far. I feel that the Firefox team was rushed, or they are getting to large, or something and inefficiency has crept in. Either way, FF3 was released before it was really ready for all of the fans. So, I guess I'll be waiting for 3.1