FettesPS

Last week saw the release of version 10.04 of Ubuntu Linux, also known as “Lucid Lynx”. This latest version of Canonical’s popular Linux distribution includes a number of improvements over this already incredibly user friendly operating system. Ubuntu has a well-deserved reputation as being one of the easiest Linux distributions to install, if not necessarily the easiest to configure, at least for Linux newcomers. However, there are plenty of new features included in Lucid Lynx which will help attract new users and enhancements which will appeal to long time Linux users and win some converts from other popular distributions like Mandriva, Mint and SuSe.

So What’s New In Lucid Lynx?

One thing which some users have noticed about the latest release of Ubuntu is that supports many iPhone devices out of the box – while this feature hasn’t been heavily promoted by Canonical, it seems that at least for the moment, iPhone users will be able to transfer files to and from their phone and PC with ease. However, this could change with the next iPhone firmware upgrade, so if you’re truly committed to your iPhone you may eventually need to install some other (free) software to manage this mobile device with Ubuntu Linux.

The new version uses the 2.6.33 version of the Linux kernel, meaning that most onboard and peripheral hardware devices should be supported from the get-go; this is a distribution known for good hardware support out of the box, saving newcomers a lot of frustration trying to get soundcards and video to work properly, something which any old hands at Linux systems reading this will know about all too well. However, for the vast majority of users, the hardware support will be completely transparent – all you’ll likely notice is how quickly the base system installs (around 25 minutes on most machines) and how quickly the system boots up, even compared to Ubuntu’s already exemplary performance in that department.

Features which are more likely to interest the average PC user include Lucid Lynx’s easy integration with Twitter, Facebook and other social media and social networking platforms, with a “MeMenu” built into Ubuntu’s Gnome 2.30 desktop. As usual with Ubuntu, Gnome is the default desktop manager with this version, though users who prefer KDE, FVWM, IceWM or any other desktop can download and install these options through Ubuntu’s user-friendly software management tool.

The software manager is in fact one area where Ubuntu 10.04 really shines. Ubuntu’s software installation and removal tool is much easier to use than many competing distributions, largely due to its Debian-based heritage. If you’ve ever spent an afternoon cursing the developer of RPM software packages, you’ll definitely enjoy the way that Ubuntu handles package dependencies for the user, downloading additional software as needed. Updates are also a snap, as users have come to expect of this newbie friendly distribution – and there is an enormous variety of free software available for this system, ranging from office productivity packages to games, multimedia players and editors and much more besides.

So is Ubuntu 10.04 worth a try? If you’re a fan of Debian based systems or already use Ubuntu, absolutely – and unless you’re tied to Windows due to work or proprietary software, it’s well worth checking out; a live CD is available for free, so you can give the system a try and install it if you find Lucid Lynx to be a good match for the way you use your PC.

May 1, 2010 — In this day and age, there’s no better way to keep in touch with all of the members of your extended family than by using social networking websites. But often, it’s difficult to separate family, friends, and work associates on these types of sites, which makes it tough to engage in family-only interactions.

Our Family Circles, a new social networking website designed just for families, operates in a similar fashion to sites like Facebook, but Our Family Circles profiles are completely private and viewable only by you and members of your family.

At Our Family Circles, you and your family members will have access to live chat and can post pictures, leave each other comments, share recipes, organize events and more. Best of all, because your network will only contain members of your family, you won’t have to worry about alienating your friends and acquaintances when you engage in social interaction with your family.

Our Family Circles is the perfect place to upload your photos of family gatherings, plan your next family reunion, or share news about upcoming weddings and new arrivals. If you and your loved ones can’t be in the same physical location for the holidays, you can log on to Our Family Circles to chat and have a virtual family get-together.

Our Family Circles profiles are free and totally private. You can get a feel for the how the site works by visiting OurFamilyCircles.com and trying the free demo. Once you’ve gotten the hang of using the site, the team at Our Family Circles welcomes you and your loved ones to create your own free profiles and begin interacting with your family members today.

About Our Family Circles / TST Group:

Our Family Circles is a family based social networking tool developed by the TST Group, a communications company that is based in the Niagara Region and is rapidly expanding in Fort Erie, Niagara Falls, Welland, St. Catharines, Port Colborne and surrounding areas. TST Group strives to develop useful online tools for families which are free to use.

For further information, please visit OurFamilyCircles.com

Media Contact:

Our Family Circles
1-905-871-9019
OurFamilyCircles.com

A while back I discovered a post on someone’s blog that talked about using Emacs key bindings in bash. Since then my efficiency in bash has gone up drastically as these key bindings are second nature to me. This is definitely one of those cases where you wish you could go back in time to tell yourself something because you discovered it much too late in life. Today I learned this can be taken a step further. If you use Gnome as your window manager you can enable it to use the emacs key bindings as well. This will work for any Gnome applications that were built using GTK.

At one point in time these bindings were enabled by default, however they were eventually disabled in the default configuration. This was supposedly for the intent of simplifying Gnome. To re-enable these key bindings hit F2 and enter gconf-editor or you can also enter it into the shell. For those not familiar with gconf, it’s similar to Windows Registry but a lot less temperamental and cluttered. Navigate to /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_key_theme and change the entry from Default to Emacs and close gconf-editor. The change should be immediate, however some applications will pick up the change immediately. To test it out, start up Firefox and try doing a kill (c+k) and then yank (c+y), it should work just as it would within emacs.