BRB

Just popping in to let everybody know that the promised Compiz tutorial is on hold for the time being. I upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04 last night and things did not go swimmingly. I will be downgrading to Ubuntu 10.10 this morning, and hopefully will be able to restore everything back to the way it was. If not, I guess I'll be referencing my own tutorials.

I hope you have better luck with your upgrading experience, friends.

Until next time...

A Complete Guide to Unity in Ubuntu 11.04 (via OMG!Ubuntu!)

If you've been keeping up at all with Ubuntu news, you know that Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal comes out tomorrow, April 28. You also have heard, no doubt, that this version of Ubuntu will introduce an entirely new desktop environment called Unity. If you're wondering what Unity is and how it works, click the link below for an awesome guide to Unity and its basic features.

OMG!Ubuntu!'s Guide to Unity in 11.04

Thanks to OMG!Ubuntu! for all their hard work in preparing this material. I'll be trying out Natty in the coming months, and I'll let you know what I think (of course).

Until next time...

A Fresh Start, Part 3: The Finishing Touches

In the first segment of the final chapter of the Fresh Start series (phew!), I'm going to walk you through how to get from here:

Ubuntu 10.10 Default Desktop

To here:

My Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop

I've posted a video at the bottom of this article that will demonstrate a few of the things I'm going to be writing about here, but I'll warn you now, the video is about 30 minutes long and features me rambling about God knows what in a weird amalgamation of nerd-speak and southern drawl.   If that doesn't sound like an unbearable experience for you, I encourage you to check it out because I always feel that it helps to have a nice visual representation of whatever I'm trying to learn.  The written sections below will provide further detail, so if you're ready to get crackin' on some Ubuntu customization, read on after the jump.

What I've Been Working On: Conky + AWN FTW

I will be posting another edition of the "A Fresh Start" series within the next couple of days.  In the meantime, I've been researching and playing around with some customization of my own with Conky and Avant Window Navigator.  I will perhaps one day venture into a Conky tutorial, but since I'm still a novice and am basically stealing other people's code and rearranging it for my own purposes, I'll wait until I understand it better before trying to teach it to anyone else.

I will, however, be going over how to make your desktop look amazing with Avant Window Navigator in the days to come.  I thought for now I would just give you a taste of some of the incredible customization possibilities these tools create.  As of about 15 minutes ago, this is my new desktop:

A Fresh Start, Part 2, cont: Recommended Software and Software Upgrades

As promised, I'm back with another round of software recommendations.  Let's get right to it, shall we?

LibreOffice

Ubuntu 10.10 comes pre-loaded with the now defunct OpenOffice.org productivity suite.  As there will no longer be any updates to this software, I highly recommend ditching it for LibreOffice.

LibreOffice

LibreOffice is basically the next generation of the OpenOffice project.  It started as an offshoot and ended up being so successful that it took over completely.  LibreOffice does pretty much everything that OpenOffice did with a few improvements - most notably the ability to save documents and spreadsheets as Open XML (.docx, .xlsx, etc.).  This really comes in handy if you're going to be editing docs and spreadsheets on both Linux and Windows machines, as all of the newest versions of MS Office use Open XML formatting by default.

Installation instructions after the jump

A Fresh Start, Part 2: Recommended Software and Software Upgrades

Yesterday we talked about setting up a productive workflow environment with quick terminal access, program launchers, and workspaces. Now let's look at some software and a few software upgrades/tweaks that will take advantage of that environment.

Let's start with a few basics. You'll first want to upgrade your file manager from the default Nautilus to Nautilus Elementary. We'll also be adding a few handy scripts and extensions to Nautilus Elementary once it's installed that will make your file browser much more powerful and easier to use.

A Fresh Start, Part 1: Framework

So you've just installed Ubuntu 10.10 and completed all of your software updates (you did run the update manager, didn't you?),and you're not very impressed. I can tell. After all, this is what you're looking at:

Ubuntu 10.10

I felt the same way the first time I installed Ubuntu, but after spending a lot of time researching, digging in, and getting my hands dirty, I turned this seemingly ugly duckling into a powerful, intuitive, and beautiful swan of an OS.

I'm going to pool all of that research and all of those tips and tricks here, spanned across a few installments. This is a great way to learn how Ubuntu and Linux work, and hopefully by the time you're done here you'll be prepared to go out and build your own "pimped out" version of Ubuntu to suit your specific needs.

After the jump, building a framework.

A Fresh Start - The Prequel

Here's some free advice.  If you find bad sectors on your hard disk, either by running a disk scanning utility or discovering lost or damaged files, get yourself an external USB hard drive (preferably USB 3.0 capable to ensure compatibility with next-gen hardware) with some decent storage capacity (mine is 500GB, but you can go much larger than that), and get cracking with your preferred backup software because that hard disk is coming in for a hard landing any day now.

My current hard disk, which I've only had for a year, has 248 bad sectors (and counting), which equates to about 45 to 50 GB of permanently lost space.  Two months ago, there were five bad sectors.  We won't go into why I waited two months to replace my hard disk, just suffice it to say that the time is nigh.

So this weekend, I will be performing a fresh installation of Ubuntu 10.10 on a brand new hard disk, and I'm planning to bring you along for the ride (who knows, I may even set up a dual-boot system with Windows 7 and get real crazy up in here).  Of course, I could easily just restore my latest backup and make everything exactly as it was, but that wouldn't be of much use to you, would it?

Next week, find out how to turn your newly installed Ubuntu OS into a sleek, user-friendly, and highly efficient workspace as I build my current "pimped out" Ubuntu setup from the ground up.  Get stoked.

10 Google Chrome Extensions Worth Installing

We've already covered the "Get Rid of the New and Annoying Facebook Image Preview" extension here at Nerdy Nuggets. Works like a charm, doesn't it? This prompted me to look for other handy extensions for Chrome that can make browsing safer, easier, and more convenient.

After combing through the hundreds of available extensions and installing any of them that seemed at all useful or interesting to me, I chose these 10 as the cream of the crop. Click the title of the extension if you want to give it a try.

After the jump, 10 Google Extensions Worth Installing

"Source Code" is Not a Movie About Software

Not even a little.

It is, however, a pretty neat mystery/sci-fi/drama that puts a fresh spin on the well-worn time travel angle. The story's protagonist (Jake Gyllenhaal) is tasked with solving an important mystery that involves travelling to the past.

The catch? He has to re-live the same 8 minutes over and over until he gets it right. Think Groundhog Day meets Run Lola Run meets Hitchcock, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.

The fresh spin I mentioned? Everything he sees and everyone he meets are but shadows or imprints of an unchangeable past. The reality of the present is not malleable from here.

Hollywood came so close to stumbling onto something great with this one, but as is often the case, didn't have the courage to let the movie be what it should have been. Despite my criticisms, however, and I won't go into detail here at the risk of spoilering, I thoroughly enjoyed the journey. Any time Hollywood even makes an attempt at something new and interesting, I'll be among the first to applaud. After all, the 5th Fast and Furious movie is coming out this Summer. Let's all take a second to ponder that...

If you're looking for something a little different, but still entertaining and fun, I highly recommend Source Code. I give it 3.5 nuggets out of 5.

E4rat Seriously Cuts Down on Linux Boot Time With a Few Simple Commands (Lifehacker)

E4rat Seriously Cuts Down on Linux Boot Time With a Few Simple Commands

This cut my boot time by at least half in Pinguy (Ubuntu 10.10). If you're feeling bold, give it a try. If your GRUB menu does not display on bootup by default (usually the case if you're not dual booting), you'll need to hold down shift to access it. It might take you a few tries to get the timing down. For a less frustrating method of accessing your GRUB menu at bootup, read on after the jump...

My Top 5 Wallpapers

There are plenty of others that I wanted to include here, but these are the 5 that most frequently adorn my desktop. I've provided links in each title to the original artist's site where applicable. Please be sure to download directly from the artist if you can. They deserve the credit and the stats. And feel free to share links to your favorite wallpapers in the comments. I'm always on the lookout.

My top 5 after the jump...

Pinguy OS - Ubuntu For Everyone

Yesterday I finally decided to see what the fuss was all about and installed Pinguy OS. Pinguy is a distribution of Ubuntu that comes pre-packaged with all the nifty software and system tweaks that most power users spend weeks learning about and laboring over. Here, all the work is done for you, so you can just sit back while everything installs, and then jump right in. No muss. No fuss.

How to Lose the Black Box Around Facebook Photos - Permanently

Wish you could get rid of that stupid black box around image previews in Facebook once and for all? Of course, you can get rid of it by pressing F5 to refresh your browser every time you bring up a new photo, but that's pretty lame. Here's a more permanent solution.



Download the add-on for Chrome, Firefox, or IE here. And you're welcome.

Buttons to the left, er, buttons to the right, er left, er...??

If you install and customize themes as much as I do, you've probably noticed that window button locations are annoyingly inconsistent from theme to theme. In other words, on some themes the close, maximize, and minimize buttons are on the left side of the titlebar and on others the right. No matter your preference, I think most of us can agree that we'd prefer those buttons to stay put at all times. Otherwise simple tasks like "x-ing out" of a window or program suddenly become unintuitive and, as a result, frustrating.

I Don't Get A Lot of Sun...

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I burn through hobbies and interests very quickly. I become obsessed, spend lots of time and money on them, and then suddenly, I'm done. Most of these obsessions are hopelessly nerdy. Like last week when I was determined I was going to teach myself how to program in Python...