The other results we’re pretty much right on track but…

Either Google Search is really drunk or someone hired the wrong person to do SEO.

The things Google give us… hehe.

• Google on your TV
• Protect yourself from malware
• YouTube gets upgrades
• More Google Updates
• gOS (Ubuntu derivative) is out

The program is called Microsoft DreamSpark and the suite to be given away includes Visual Studio Professional Edition, XNA Game Studio, Expression Studio, SQL Server and Windows Server.

As a developer and a student, the only means of getting such packages were to either pay for them in full (which is hard, I’m a student after all) or acquire them from less legal means (P2P, bangketa shops, etc). Now to rid future developers of that problem, Microsoft is giving away these software for free. I could already imagine the amount of headaches I could’ve avoided had this program been in the works a few years back already.

For now though, only students from Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S. will have access to this offer. Other countries, and even pre-college students, will be added later on this year as Microsoft promised. What you need though is any verification that you are an actual student, an ID or certificate of matriculation should do.

• Nintendo drops 3DS price, gives free games
• The 4th Microsoft Future Pro Photographer Competition
• Free PSP Go Games Downloads
• Microsoft Bows to EU
• Software Review: Week 4

Apparently this happened because the people who are supposed to be in charge of keeping this alive have mostly resigned or are MIA. Aside from neglected online duties like publishing newletters, updating the site, etc, they didn’t file routine paperwork with the proper authorities, which puts the legal status of the Gentoo foundation in jeopardy.

No one has explained why to the community, or said much of anything until Daniel stepped forward.

What will happen to Gentoo now?

Referring to the foundation, Daniel is offering to return to his post as president of the foundation (as posted on his blog) so things at the enterprise end will remain stable. On the distro end, even with the dissolution of it’s legal entity, developers are still putting up support for their beloved Linux distribution so it’s still business as usual. Looking at the front page of Gentoo.org though, a latest update of October 2007 does not look very promising but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for some changes once they’ve patched things up.

On that note, hopefully no one gets behind their backs and revives the Gentoo foundation as a different company. Gentoo has a special place in my heart because of all the headaches it gave me on my early days with Linux so it’ll be a shame if things didn’t go well for this distro. Linux newbs will be missing all the “fun.” No really.

What is Gentoo anyway?

Gentoo Linux is a special distribution of -UX that has one of the deepest levels of customizations around. How? You can compile your own fully customized Gentoo from source code up. That in mind, Gentoo is NOT for Linux newbs because of the steep learning curve and it’s pretty easy to mess things up the first to the -nth time. Gentoo is for advanced to expert -UX users looking for a levels of deeper customization If you’re a linux noob, go for Ubuntu.

• Blizzard Product Roadmap Leaked!
• 6 Reasons to Switch to Linux
• Thoughts on gOS
• gOS (Ubuntu derivative) is out
• Asus EEE hardware details

Panasonic, a major Japanese manufacturer has signed a deal with Google to do just that. The hardware at the center of this deal are Internet-ready Flat Panel Plasma Television with built-in access to YouTube and as well as other Google services.

Big Deal I can do that with my Rig on a XX” screen

Take note that not everyone is a geek and willing to be one. People who do casual computing (and watch online videos) would very much appreciate the technology. Imagine popping up an interesting video like this one while your favorite show goes on it’s 5 minute commercial break.

How good will it be?

Google is still trying to find the Holy Grail of lounge room Internet with many of it’s projects at integration ending up in the deadpool, For a TV with internet access (and services) built in however, Google might give TV stations a run for their money.

• Blizzard Product Roadmap Leaked!
• Google search is drunk
• More Google Updates
• gOS (Ubuntu derivative) is out
• Google Ads on Feedburner Feeds

DRM is copyright protection method that prevents illegal sharing of songs on P2P networks. But like all other anti-piracy campaigns, it annoyed customers more than it prevented theft.

Declaring DRM is officially dead maybe a bit of a stretch since music DRM is still present for several other services but they represent a small minority. You can expect the first few of DRM-free tracks appearing at the during the first quarter 2008.

Amazon’s DRM-free store is now at a good vantage point because offers variable pricing, as opposed to the iTunes store. On that line of thought, services tied with Social network sites like Facebook will also potentially hit it big as they can provide easy access outlets for the sale of DRM-free songs.

2008′s online music market is off to a great start.

[via BusinessWeek]

• Sony announces official PlayStation Wireless Headsets
• Goodbye PSP Go
• Thank you Sony :)
• Sony revives the PS2, in a Bravia LCD TV
• Sony drops PSP Go price to $199

For the first few months, that initial outlook was right as most of the time, sidebars generally were just there to make your Vista desktop look a little more attractive. When a few innovative minds decided to try and created their own version of the sidebar, here’s the result:

Current sidebar programs (both 3rd party and proprietary) are now so useful that you simply can’t do without them. For instance, on my Desktop Sidebar (as you can see in the pic above) I have:

• Sticky notes – a place to jot down ideas I forget them
• An RSS reader – now I don’t need to open Firefox to see what’s hot
• A Google searchbar – for those impromptu searches
• Quck launch icons – got to love them when you have many applications
• utorrent status – I usually download with torrents so this is a must to me
• Free Space info – if you download regularly, you should keep a good eye on your disk space

Like all applications, there are some cons to having a sidebar installed.

• Medium resource requirement – this is specially true if you wish to add a media player (winamp or WMP) to the sidebar or a photo slideshow.
• Less deskspace – If your using a 15″ screen with a 1024 x 768 resolution (or lower) you usually want to get the most out of your monitor. Sidebars can generally “hide” but when they’re there everything shrinks horizontally.
• A sea of plugins – Although it’s not really an issue but just like firefox’s multitude of add-ons, you might find youself lost when looking for a plugin that you need.

The pros are obvious but to save time arguing whether they’re worth it or not I’ll list them anyway/

• Sidebars are fully customizable – add plugins like calculators, calendars or even an addressbook.
• Sidebars are skinnable – far from looking generic, you can make your sidebar blend with your wallpaper or your theme (if you’re using a skinning application like Windowsblinds)
• Sidebars are generally lightweight – although it contrary to what I’ve posted in the top of the con list, sidebars consume about 10Mb of memory which is quite small.
• Sidebars can increase productivity – since you’ve got everything in one place (calcu, notes, quick launch to everything) you spend less time search for what you need and more time working.

Now if I’ve gotten you sold on using sidebars, head over to Desktop Sidebar if you’re on XP or you can download an installer here. If you wish to check out something similar:

• Yahoo Widget Engine – has tons of gadgets called Widgets and formerly known as Konfabulator. Note that most of the widgets do not conform to the “sidebar” look so if you see a widget pop in the middle of the screen, don’t be alarmed.
• Google Sidebar – Part of the Google Desktop Pack, you need to install everything to get the sidebar though
• Thoosje’s Sidebar – almost the same as Desktop sidebar but the current release doesn’t seem to support installing plugins so what you get is the default ones only.

If you’re interested in what plugins are available, check out the Extras page. If you’re on vista and you wish to exted the functionality of your current sidebar, the Windows Live Gallery is for you.

• Blizzard Product Roadmap Leaked!
• Turn your XP to a Vista clone
• HP joins the Linux bandwagon

It’s the worst case scenario especially when you’re rushing to finish work like reports, programs etc. I’ve experienced a lot of PC deaths (some of natural causes and some by me.. don’t ask how) so it’s safe to say that I’m quite competent in the field and I thought of sharing that with everyone.

When your computer dies, here’s what you do:

First off don’t panic. Panicking is the worst thing you can do. Not only will you fail to see any hint that your computer is giving on what the problem is but you also risk doing more damage to your PC than what made it crash in the first place.

Check what’s wrong. If you haven’t learned the basics of PC troubleshooting, I suggest you pick it up sometime soon. It’ll save you a bit of trouble and most likely cash.

Fortunately for us, our PCs has a feature that (sometimes) tell you what’s the problem. If you boot and you hear beeps other than the regular single one, it’s time to check connections, cables or peripherals. If you don’t and you’re faced with a blank screen and little indication that your PC is turning on you need to dig around more or at worst ask for professional help.Note that most computer retailers have policies regarding customers opening their PCs computer cases so ask them first before lifting a screw.Also, it’s best to double check every test you’ve done.

At the rarest case, you’ll have two faulty parts instead of one and replacing either of them won’t exactly help without replacing the other too.

Repair or replace. Once you’ve pinpointed the problem, a faulty motherboard, dead RAM DIMMs, dead video card (like mine) etc, check whether it’s possible to repair or replace what’s dead or use a spare. If it’s a faulty hard drive check whether the file system is still intact (chances are 50/50 when your HDD crashes).

Considering my case, since I’ve been upgrading my rig by parts, I was able to cannibalize an AGP video card from one of my older rigs and got it working with my secondary one. If you don’t have a spare, ask a friend.If replacement is the only option, check if your local (or trusted) computer shops carry the part that you need. In example, if you have an AGP slot like me, you’ll have to scrounge up some cash to get a quality card since they tend to be more expensive than their PCIE counterparts.

Now if you can’t find a replacement part, you check out 2nd hand stores. If you really can’t find anything, you should consider replacing the whole system but this should be your last option since this will probably happen if you have a system that’s 6 years old or older.Note that you should pick a peripheral or part that’s equal to or better than the one you’re going to replace.

Check if the replacement is compatible. It sucks if you finally found what you’re looking for only to find out that it’s not compatible with your system. Check and double check before handing out the cash.

Install and check if it’s working. It’s almost always not an install and run thing since you still have to install drivers. If you’ve chosen a replacement that’s equal to your previous part, then you’re in luck, it’s almost guaranteed to work out of the box. If it’s something else (like me switching from ATI to Nvidia) then you need to remove the software that you don’t need and install what’s needed.

Now if you’re curious, I still haven’t been able to revive my rig since I’m still looking for a shop that carries an AGP card that I’m looking for, Nvidia 7300GT to be exact so I’m using primary (gaming) rig to surf around. The only store I’ve found to carry it at a reasonable price is PCXpress which sells them at P3050. If you know any store in the Metro or even in Cavite that carries one, please let me know. Last I checked they had no more stock of the said card and I really need one. ^^ Happy blogging.

No related posts.

And yes,while others seem to do everything right, there are those who are quite the opposite.

5. AMD and ATI

Even with the merger, things still look grim for the two giants. For the whole year, we’ve been expecting that AMD will launch something worth buying. Sadly, that wait is still ongoing.

On the processor side, AMD’s much awaited Barcelona-platform chips (the Phenom) were called back from shipping due to a processor-level bug and the expected market date was pushed back a few more months.

On the GPU side, even with the release of ATI’s 3800 family, the graphics giant is still unable to match Nvidia’s midrange card the 8800GT.

Pricewise, both AMD and ATI products seem competitive enough with regards to Intel and Nvidia’s high pricing but are currently lacking in terms of performance. There’s not much innovative juice running AMD nowadays and they seem content on just catching up where the competition left off.

4. Microsoft Office 2007

Using ribbons to replace the old-fashioned toolbars may have boosted Office 2007′s eye candy charm but it threw everyone who was so used to using MS Office into confusion. No one knew where everything was so we spent hours and hours trying to familiarize ourselves with the new layout only to find out that the default format for saving files wasn’t compatible with older versions of the Office Suite.

There were several improvements like the addition of One Note and increased usability of common commands but several major flaws are still there. Excel 2007 notably has a major bug that’s all set to derail businesses that rely on it.
Considering the hefty price tag, Office 2007 isn’t worth the upgrade, nor the headaches.

• Handling multiple blogs; a Gaming AND a Technology blog comparison
• Goodbye to 2007 and my pre-blogger self
• The Apple Tablet PC
• Nvidia 8800GT
• XP stays awhile longer

What is Malware?

Malware is a type of software designed to take over and/or damage your OS in one way or another. Once installed, it can be difficult to remove but that depends on the severity of the malware program as well as the degree of damage it brings which can range from being annoying to rendering your PC inoperable.

The most common types of malware include:

• Virus – A program written intentionally to enter a computer without the users permission or knowledge which then attaches to files or boot sectors and replicates and spreads. Other viruses can cause serious damage to your files and system.
• Worms – they are stand-alone software that modify their host operating system, and are likely to be started as part of the boot process.
• Wabbit – Self-replicating malware. Unlike viruses, they do not infect host programs but repeatedly replicates itself on a local computer. They’re really something more of an annoyance than a threat
• Trojan – Harmful software that is disguised as legitimate software.
• Backdoor – Software that allows remote access to the computer system without the user’s permission
• Spyware – a Software that collects and sends information. Keyloggers are a prime example
• Browser Hijack – a script or program that alters a computer’s browser settings

How does malware spread?

The most common way malware spreads on the net is via email or blogspam. These seemingly random messages contain links to sites that, once opened, either runs a script that downloads or installs malware or presents a link to a file with a very tempting filename.

Here are other ways on how malware spreads:

• Downloading infected files using Peer-to-Peer file sharing programs (e.g. Kazaa).
• Downloading infected files from an untrusted source.
• Putting an infected computer disk (floppy, CD, USB Memory stick, or DVD) into your computer.
• Clicking on a web site dialog box.
• Connecting an unsecure computer to the network.
• Clicking random links from Instant Messaging (IMs)
• Randomly opening sites from any SERP (search engine results page)

How do you spot a malware site?

Take this example:
If you search for: ‘drunk dogs site:.cn’ chances are, you’ll get one of these:

Congratulations, you’ve just found a malware site.

There are a number of reasons why that site is suspicious:

• The plethora of “keywords” you see as the description. If you notice, a lot of comment and trackback spam nowadays are full of these. If you’ve ever wondered what they were for, you’re looking at the reason now.
• The seemingly random domain name. If you’re a legitimate person and not just a bot, would you register your site as www.ldwasdadwad.cn?
• The .cn TLD (top level domain). Although I’m not branding ALL .cn sites as malware sources, statistics and and security bulletins prove that most malware sites are hosted with .cn TLDs. If you want to read more on the read Computer World’s article on the subversion of Search Engines.

How do I protect myself?

• Never open a file from an unknown source. Although it’s probably over kill, I suggest that you mark all recently downloaded or installed items on your computer without your prior knowledge to be malware.
• Update your OS. If possible, download and install all security fixes. No matter how much you have Windows it’s always good practice to patch up your OS to prevent others from exploiting it’s holes.
• Install security software like AVs and ASs. Although some people don’t recommend using them, it’s better to be over cautious especially if you’re not the only one using your computer. There are tons of free security software out there like AVG, Avast and Adware to name a few. Try them out and see which works for you.
• Activate the Guest account. If multiple people are using your PC, restrict their access by using a guest account or equivalent. Sure, you may end up editing the Policies so they can save and edit files but at least they won’t be able to install malware behind your back, unintentionally or otherwise.
• Stop look and read that URL! Taking my example above, you’ll note how easy it is to spot if a site is legit or dupe. Just read the URL.
• Use common sense. The spread of most malware relies on carelessness on the part of the victim.  If a sudden message pops in your IM that looks as if it’s screaming “Hey click me I’m a spam site”, do yourself a favor and close the window.

• Online Etiquette 101 – Social Networking Sites
• Software Review: Week 4
• Site move complete
• The Storm superworm
• Save time with RSS

1. Linux is Stable as a Rock

As no doubt many in the industry will tell you, Linux is proven to be a reliable operating system (parts of your system may crash but not everything). While it may not be able to replace your desktop (especially if your a Windows or Mac poweruser), most Linux-based systems are rock-solid thus are being used in servers and embedded systems.

As an experienced Linux user, one of the better aspects of the OS is that you can run your system for months (even years) without needing a single reboot.
Even if you haven’t seen a Linux desktop in action, you’ve surely encountered one or another on mobile devices, dedicated firewall and router systems.

2. Virtually Hardware-Independent

As with Java, Linux was designed and written to be hardware independent. Be it mobile or desktop computing, pop Linux on your device and it’ll run. For individual peripherals though (like webcams, wireless cards) it’s still a hit or miss but that’s because manufacturers still aren’t recognizing Linux as a viable platform to create support drivers for.

Linux is also light in terms of resource consumption because of a combination of the internal design and development contributions from the -UX community. As an example, if you look at some of the derived Linux-distributions, you’ll note that most if not all of them have system requirements that are the bare-minimum of older computers (usually called a thin client configuration). Also, you can make use of older, less powerful hardware to share the resources of a single powerful system to extend their service life.

3. Thousands of Applications

Each Linux distribution (Fedora, Redhat, Debian are the 3 major distros) comes with thousands of application programs available for download with 95% percent of that number being literally free of charge giving you the huge freedom of choice. While some Windows-only applications are still irreplaceable like Visual Basic.NET, Windows Live Writer, Adobe Photoshop, etc, you can pretty much replace everything else with an equivalent or more.

Developers of Open Source platforms like Java, PHP, Python or even Web Development will find a plethora of development tools, compilers and/or interpreters, editors and even versioning tools. Popular programs like NVU and Eclipse have their equivalent Linux versions.

4. Interoperability

Linux does not isolate your or your network to a single, Linux-only community. With more and more computers and gadgets being to local networks and the internet, interoperability with other operating systems has become a must for powerusers, administrators and even casual users.

Linux follows open standards that allow this flexibility in terms of networking which is why Samba, a software that allows Linux to act as a client on a Microsoft Windows-based network was brought to the market. Similar programs are also present to allow you to network with Apple networks and Novell’s Netware.

5. Linux Is Configurable

Powerusers who want a Linux distro fully customized to fit his every need can create one from scratch, adding packages to the Linux core and configuring it until they are fully satisfied. While this is only for a chosen few (indeed, even I wouldn’t bother to create MY distro from the original linux kernel and add things by part), it’s still nice to have the freedom of adding your own configuration on your operating system. Customization can include GUI’s, system behavior, program preference, language preference (if available) and even hardware behavior.

For most users though, being able to switch GUI’s (GNOME to KDE, XCFE, etc) is more than enough freedom.

6. Viruses threat is nil

Yes, it’s very feasible to create malware that specifically targets Linux systems (and Macs for that matter) but the very design of the system saves it from this risk. For example, if a user were to activate a virus that ruins his files and system, it wouldn’t cause wide spread damage because primarily of permissions that would restrict him/her from accessing other user’s, thereby preventing damage.

In addition to this, virtually all Linux vendors offer free on-line security updates. The general philosophy of the Linux community has been to address possible security issues before they become a problem rather than hoping the susceptibility will go unnoticed.

• Six reasons not to worship Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
• Did Gentoo just die?
• gOS (Ubuntu derivative) is out
• Mythbuntu: The Perfect Linux Media Box
• Asus EEE hardware details

A year before, everything on that list would’ve been bulky pieces of equipment, but having to travel to and from work at a regular basis makes it a chore so I’ve opted for mobility or killer specs out of convenience rather than personal preference.

On my list are:

• Asus EEE PC (mine will be coming this year yay!)
• Dell Latitude XT Tablet PC
• A Bravia HDTV bundled with a PS3 or XBOX 360
• Nintendo Wii (will my dad give us his wii? =’c)
• iPod Touch
• A full-spec’d PC from Dell XPS line and hopefully XPS One
• An Nvidia 8800GT for my aging rig
• A Nikon D80
• A Microsoft Sidewinder Mouse
• A RAZR 2

What’s yours?

• Merry Christmas from Atma Xplorer
• Blizzard Product Roadmap Leaked!
• List of StarCraft II Cheats
• StarCraft 2 List of Missions
• Upcomng Anime List Fall 2010

Firefox 3 is built on top of Gecko 1.9, the latest version of the Firefox Core HTML engine which features some major overhauls both in handling and under the hood like support for full-page zoom (a feature already embedded in Opera). Cairo now performs much of the underlying rendering, giving the advantage of hardware accelerated rendering.

I’ll enumerate some of the interesting changes I found with 3.0b1

Right off the bat is the smaller memory footprint:

Note that memory usage is an objective factor since plugins, themes and modifications ultimately contribute to how large actual resource consumption will be. However, it’s still a good measure of performance especially during startup. The picture above is the resource allocation of Firefox 3 and IE7 on the same webpage.

One of the graphical changes is associated with the user prompts. Instead of getting annoying pop-ups, Firefox 3 shows a small, less intrusive submenu much like IE7′s ActiveX alerts. Instead of displaying a modal dialog every time the user attempts to input login information in a web form, the new system displays password-saving buttons in a thin bar at the top of the screen after login information is sent to a server.

Bookmark management is a whole lot easier as well. Implementation of tag support (more on that on Places) is quite useful especially if you have tons of bookmarks. To add a site to your bookmarks, simply click the Star button. It turns yellow (as shown above) and your done. If you click it again, the menu shown appears for easy editing.

Firefox’s native download manager has also been overhauled with the integration of of a search box for filtering completed downloads. Support for existing anti-virus softwares has been integrated into the download manager so that scans are scheduled immediately after a file finishes downloading. The reliability of resuming paused or canceled downloads has also been improved.

The Places is arguably one of the best added feature in the new build. It is a cohesive storage framework that leverages a SQLite database rather than flat files (.xpl etc) and unifies bookmark, history storage and tagging. As shown on the picture, statistics and site rating are also present.

Other things that I could get a screenshot of:

• Support for animated PNG images
• Improvement of the autocomplete system. You can use it on page titles as well as addresses.
• Zoom preference is saved on a per site basis
• Site rendering is quite faster than on Firefox 2

If you read the changelogs, you’ll see that many longstanding problems have been resolved. According to Mozilla, over 300 individual memory leaks have been plugged and new architectural features, like the XPCOM cycle collector, have been added to combat memory waste.

While Firefox 3 beta 1 is not recommended to replace your current browser, it gives a nice glimpse of upcoming additions and features a more reliable (so far) core engine, delivering an outstanding improvement to the user experience. Despite the long delays in development and other setbacks, Firefox 3 is shows much potential in becoming an outstanding browser that outshines and outperforms the competition without compromising usability. I can’t wait what the next installment of Opera will contain to up the competition though.

If you’re planning to test the beta release, I recommended that you create an alternate Firefox profile or backup your Firefox settings directory (~/.mozilla on Linux) before you install Firefox 3 in order to avoid damaging your configuration data and future conflicts with Firefox 2. Users who want to test multiple versions of Firefox side-by-side will have to use the -no-remote parameter.

Despite delays and other setbacks, Firefox 3 is shaping up to be an outstanding web browser that delivers innovative new technologies while retaining Firefox’s signature ease of use.

• Diablo III Beta is now Live!
• Neur0n’s 6.39 ME-2 LCFW BETA
• Blizzard Targeting Q3 for Diablo III beta
• Starcraft 2 BETA unable to load map error
• HowTo: Play StarCraft II Beta Offline vs AI

If it doesn’t work to cool your PC at least it serves as an interesting mosquito repellant. XD

[Via 2day blog]

• Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs preview
• Limited Edition Monster Hunter 3G bundles
• First Look at Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs
• Blizzard Product Roadmap Leaked!
• AMD ATI HD 3800

Flaunting the first Microsoft’s DirectX 10.1 support, the AMD ATI Radeon HD 3800 is built on 55nm process technology with tri- and quad- multi-GPU support with ATI CrossFireX for your heavy duty processing needs.AMD’s 3800 family will launch with two initial cards, the 3850 and the 3870. The difference for each card is as follows:

ATI Radeon HD 3850 (MSRP $179)

• 256MB GDDR3
• 900 MHz Memory Clock
• 670 MHz Core
• 256-bit bus

ATI Radeon HD 3870 (MSRP $219)

• 512MB GDDR4
• 1.2 GHz Memory Clock
• 775+ MHz Core
• 256-bit bus

The new cards will be the industry’s first 55nm GPUs featuring 666 million transistors each, compared to ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT which hosts 700 million 80nm transistors. According to AMD, the move to a smaller processing node results in less power leakage and leads to the HD 3870 having less than half the power draw of the HD 2900 XT.

AMD will also introduce PowerPlay and ATI OverDrive technologies in its new processors. ATI OverDrive allows users to overclock their HD 3800 video cards through ATI Catalyst software. PowerPlay adjusts engine and memory clocks along with voltage levels to optimize GPU utilization.

Both cards have peak board power at 105 Watts, and operating noise at 34 dBA, include 320 stream processors, 16 texture units, and 16 render back-ends.

If you’re interested on how the 3870 goes head to head with the 8800, check out Legion Hardware’s review.

The bottom line? If you’re short on budget the 3800 line will serve your purpose. However, if you’re looking for more punch to power your games like Crysis, by all means jump to the 8800GT.

• Blizzard Product Roadmap Leaked!
• Fallout: New Vegas System Requirements
• StarCraft II lacks anti aliasing
• Starcraft II Official System Requirements
• Sims 3 system requirements revealed

Here’s a few screenshots:

Here’s how the Enlightenment Desktop Environment looks:

Notice the Google Search Bar on the upper left? It’s a quick way access the Google Search Engine but it opens in Webrunner, not Firefox so if you have to do some browsing, you have to click the FF icon on the Dock below.

Looking at the other icons on the Dock (or iBar) you’ll not that more than half of these are web applications and/or services (blogger, youtube, facebook, meebo etc). While I support trimming services and bundled applications down, I think the gOS team overdid things by removing several items that powerusers are likely to use. On the bright side, the gOS is a light distro which makes it a perfect partner to low spec’d computers and laptops and even the gPC.

The only qualm I have on the desktop is that it’s multi-desktop support seems a bit lacking. You can easily configure the gOS for multiple desktops but once I started switching screens, they began to overlap so you couldn’t tell which desktop is holding which.

Overall though, I think it’s the most minimalist Ubuntu distro so far. It’s not bloated in terms of included applications, only what you need for basic computing needs. The front end focus on web apps makes it a good choice for thin clients and people who want to work on their own build of Ubuntu without going back to the original Debian distro.

If you’re interested in what applications google has bundled in, here’s a list:

• FF
• Pidgin
• Skype
• GIMP
• Open Office
• Rhythmbox
• Xine
• GnomeBaker

If you want to test out the Enlightenment Desktop without booting into the gOS LiveCD, simply download it via Synaptic or whichever package manager you are using, log out and use Enlightenment in your login session.

The only drawback I’ve experienced in using gOS is the default file manager. When you launch multimedia files, say a video, Xine launches but doesn’t play. The file isn’t even loaded into it’s current playlist so you have to use the Open File function of the application. It’s not much of a hassle but I suggest installing a more functional file manager like Dolphin.

EDIT: Thanks for the correction

• Blizzard Product Roadmap Leaked!
• Did Gentoo just die?
• Are sidebars really useful?
• 6 Reasons to Switch to Linux
• XP performance tweaks