"The desktop remains central to our everyday work and play, despite all the excitement around tablets, TV’s and phones. So it’s exciting for us to innovate in the desktop too, especially when we find ways to enhance the experience of both heavy “power” users and casual users at the same time. The desktop will be with us for a long time, and for those of us who spend hours every day using a wide diversity of applications, here is some very good news: 12.04 LTS will include the first step in a major new approach to application interfaces.
This work grows out of observations of new and established / sophisticated users making extensive use of the broader set of capabilities in their applications. We noticed that both groups of users spent a lot of time, relatively speaking, navigating the menus of their applications, either to learn about the capabilities of the app, or to take a specific action. We were also conscious of the broader theme in Unity design of leading from user intent. And that set us on a course which lead to today’s first public milestone on what we expect will be a long, fruitful and exciting journey.
The menu has been a central part of the GUI since Xerox PARC invented ‘em in the 70′s. It’s theM in WIMP and has been there, essentially unchanged, for 30 years."
posted Dec 28, 2011 2:19 AM by Eric von Foerster
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updated Dec 28, 2011 11:56 PM
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Things are locked down pretty tightly in Ubuntu 11.10, but there are a couple indicator applets you can add, with features you might have missed from panels of releases past.
Sysmonitor Indicator (cpu and memory use)
Press Control + Alt + t on your keyboard to open the Terminal
Enter these three commands one at a time, you'll be asked for your password to proceed:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexeftimie/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indicator-sysmonitor
Now press the Super (Windows) Key on your Keyboard, and in the Unity Dash that pops up enter System monitor Indicator ...and then click on it
Then in the panel up top you'll see it open. Click on it in the panel, and choose Preferences.
Make sure to check the box that says Run on startup if you'd like it to do that.
01001110011001010111100001110100
Weather Indicator Applet
Press Control + Alt + t on your keyboard to open the Terminal
Enter this command:
sudo apt-get install indicator-weather
You'll be asked for your password to proceed, then it will install.
Now press the Super (Windows) Key on your Keyboard, and in the Unity Dash that pops up enter Weather Indicator ...and then click on it
Then in the panel up top you'll see it open. Click on it in the panel, and choose Preferences.
posted Dec 28, 2011 1:01 AM by Eric von Foerster
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updated Dec 28, 2011 11:56 PM
]
If you've just installed Virtualbox in Ubuntu, and it pops up a message that you need to be part of the Vbox or Virtualbox users group to use the program, here is a quick way to do it.
Open a terminal (Pressing Control + Alt + t on your keyboard will do it) and enter this command:
sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers username
Of course, replace username in the command with your own actual username, that you login to Ubuntu with.
posted Dec 24, 2011 9:20 PM by Eric von Foerster
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updated Dec 24, 2011 9:27 PM
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If you've plugged your Android phone into your computer running Ubuntu and noticed that you can't mount the storage in your phone, you aren't alone. There are many ways around this, but the easiest way I've found so far, and also one of the coolest, is an app named AirDroid. AirDroid lets you wirelessly manage & control your Android devices (phone & tablet) from a web browser. It doesn't matter what OS you use because all you need is this app on your Android phone, a web browser, and to be connected to the same wifi network. Not only can you import and export music, movies, apps and files, you can also send messages through your computer, check your logs and get the contents of your clipboard.
If you're using Ubuntu and have an Android phone, this is the way to go. Check it out... http://airdroid.com
posted Dec 24, 2011 1:05 PM by Eric von Foerster
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updated Dec 24, 2011 9:27 PM
]
So this morning,, Ubuntu tells me it has updates, so…I do the updates. Then it tells me it needs to reboot, so…I reboot. When it comes back up…the trackpad doesn’t work. I try a wireless mouse…doesn’t work. I then feel the rage of a thousand geeks and press <Ctrl><Alt><F2> to get to the console.
I log in (since I can still type at least) and try to see if sudo reboot will magically make things better. It doesn’t.
So I log in graphically and I then press the “Windows”/Super key on the keyboard to access the search menu. I type in “Synaptic” to get to Synaptic Package Manager, select it and get to it’s search feature using the Tab key and the arrows on my keyboard. I search for “pointing” to try and locate a package that handles pointing devices. I find gpointing-device-settings and from the description it sounds like it will solve the problem. Synaptic will let me select it, but I can’t get it to Apply.
So, I close Synaptic using <Alt><F4>, hit the Super key again, search for Terminal, select it using the Tab button, and in the Terminal I enter:
sudo apt-get install gpointing-device-settings
….and after entering my password it installs.
I then enter sudo reboot and when the computer starts up, I finally have my trackpad working again.
These are the kind of bugs that make people worry about trying a Linux distro, or, make them walk away from one when they don’t know what to do.
posted Dec 24, 2011 1:04 PM by Eric von Foerster
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updated Dec 24, 2011 9:28 PM
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If you’d like to get Google Voice notifications in the panels Messaging Menu of Ubuntu 11.10, just enter the commands below (one line at a time) into the Terminal, once it’s done adding the repository, updating, and installing, you can click the Google Voice entry in the Messaging Menu and configure your account.
posted Dec 24, 2011 1:03 PM by Eric von Foerster
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updated Dec 24, 2011 9:28 PM
]
Ubuntu uses Empathy IM, which is integrated into the messaging menu of the top panel. When you login to Ubuntu, Emapthy does not run until you manually start it. For some this is fine, for me, I wanted it to start on it’s own when I login to Ubuntu otherwise I don’t remember to start it. ;)
Thing is, I don’t want the window to automatically open when I login to Ubuntu, I want it to stay hidden, I want to be online but without having to close the window each time.
If this sounds like a good thing to you, then do the following…
Click the Power Button in the top right corner of the screen, far right of the panel, in the menu that presents itself, click on Startup Applications.
Then click the Add button.
Where it says “Name” put: Empathy
Where it says “Command” put: /usr/bin/empathy –start-hidden
Then click the Add button below.
Logout then log back in and you will see the result. No window pops up, but if you look at the messaging menu, you are online with Empathy.
posted Dec 24, 2011 12:53 PM by Eric von Foerster
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updated Dec 24, 2011 9:29 PM
]
I don’t use a native email client like Evolution or Thunderbird in Ubuntu, I love my Gmail. Even though I could just use a Notifier extension in Chrome or Firefox, I prefer to get my notifications from the Messaging Menu in the panel of Ubuntu 11.10. Keeping Email and IM’s all in one place, instead of looking at notifiers all over.
If you’d like the same, then just run this command in the Terminal:
sudo apt-get install gm-notify
After that, you will see an entry that says Google Mail in the messaging menu below the Empathy IM options. Click on it, enter your Gmail information and you are good to go!
