Thanks to Tech Source From Bohol, I learned more Twitter Desktop Clients for Linux. I don’t use Twitter as often as I used to but it’s nifty to have a Linux desktop client when you’re always following people. The clients I learned about today:

• Tweetdeck
  
  Interestingly enough this seems to have a lot of nifty features. One of them is creating groups of people to follow, manage conversations with @ replies and direct messages, manage multiple Twitter accounts, view photo thumbnails from Tweetdeck, avoiding Twitter spam via the Spam button.
• Twhirl
  
  This runs on Adobe Air. You could find it easier to use this to connect to your Twitter, laconi.ca, Friendfeed and Seesmic accounts plus cross-post your updates via ping.fm to boot. This also allows searching of tweets via Twitter Search and Tweet Scan.
• Choqok
  
  Choqok is the KDE microblogging client and it currently supports laconi.ca and twitter. It supports multiple accounts too. One nice thing for those who prefer keyboard shortcuts to launch this: Ctrl + Meta + T does the trick.

I’m more of a GNOME user so I might have not been posting much KDE apps here but I am glad that this blog entry pointed out one KDE app for Twitter. I wouldn’t know about it if not for this. It seems that Choqok is still relatively new so it looks like interesting to follow if you’re a KDE user.
May you find a good Twitter client for you to use!

Carla Schroder’s blog entry today about changing the world one penguin at a time gave me a different perspective on advocacy. It’s not the same as what I’d normally encounter. I’d usually encounter people saying “Let’s introduce Linux to one and all.” But she has a different perspective: Introduce Linux to those who are actually interested. In her words:

In other words, don’t waste your time on people who are not receptive. Using a well-set up computer isn’t very hard for even the greenest Linux greenpea, despite all the propaganda and FUD to the contrary. But no matter how easy it is, there will always be people who have mental blocks against even trying, so don’t waste your time.

I might have been thinking in terms of “the world must know what Linux is” and so I take into consideration how to introduce it even to people who are not very receptive. I guess it’s because a lot of the people I have around me know Linux already but they are still thinking about it differently, that it won’t work and that it’s scary. Closed minds will find it difficult to accept what Linux could do for them and what they could do for Linux as well. So yes, she’s got a point when it comes to advocating Linux.

However, I personally think that it’s still best to be prepared to tell others about Linux no matter the level of interest they have, as long as the opportunity is there. It’s just that it will not be as effective compared to those who want to know more in the first place.

Some of you might not be familiar with thin clients because you don’t use them at home. For the enterprise, there are thin clients that are mainly for input and output and rely on servers for content, software, etc. One of their suppliers is IGEL Technology. This company has launched their “Linux Universal Desktop firmware” and this adds features in power management, multimedia and virtualization.

What’s the benefit of using their firmware?

• Power saving
  It allows them to have the IGEL thin clients go into standby mode and back on in seconds. This means that it won’t take long for them to boot up their thin clients. This would even increase the savings in power usage + time.
  If your company is using IGEL’s thin client lines such as IGEL one, UD2 and UD3, this firmware makes them in line with the upcoming Energy Star certification for thin clients.
• Virtualization
  Virtualization becomes better with this firmware. There is a way for IGEL thin client users to have support for multimedia acceleration as well as USB redirection.

If you’ve got IGEL thin clients in your office, check out igel.com and see what’s in store for you. It’s free to download if you are already using them

It takes an awesome parent to raise kids who have a healthy appreciation of technology. They will not be afraid to let their children know more technology and they will even teach them how to become responsible as they use various technologies in their lives. It does not mean that they will just let their children run wild among the many internet forums or let them use technology irresponsibly.

Sometimes my co-workers joke around about how they will raise their children. They joke that they will teach them how to program even when they’re just babies. Sometimes they say that they will teach them how to fight against boys (if they have female children) so that they will not get boyfriends right away. (Haha. I think that this could actually backfire. But, as one of them said, at least she’d grow up knowing how to defend herself against jerks.)

But I like it more when they say that they’d teach their children about Linux, aside from Windows and Mac OSX, etc. I like it that they want their children to be more well-rounded in terms of their perspectives. They want their children to grow up not limiting themselves to only a specific technology and that’s something inspiring. It’s not just a matter of growing up with a good set of values but a healthy appreciation of technology we are exposed to. Hopefully they will also have this attitude towards other technologies that are not necessarily related to computers.

I heard that one of my co-workers plans to take a picture of his daughter with a penguin plushie. I wonder how he’d introduce her to Linux and programming when she’s older. I’m pretty sure it will be very interesting.

linuX-gamers.net announced its latest release linuX-gamers live 0.95. There are different versions available for download and it depends on your needs.

• Lite ISO: Small CD image (700MB)
  
  This has games suitable for children and older computers. You just burn it on a CD with your favorite CD-writing tool.
• Lite USB
  
  This has the same games as the Lite ISO version but it is made for USB keys and USB sticks (requires minimum of 1GB USB device).
  
  You could use:
  sudo dd bs=8M if=/path/to/lg-live-0.9.5-i686-lite.usb of=/dev/your_usb_device

  
  Or: use the Flashnul utility. You could also refer to this guide to using Flashnul.
• Big ISO
  
  Big DVD image (4.7GB) with the full games selection for adults and more recent computers.
• Big USB
  
  This has the same contents as the Big ISO but this is meant for USB drives. So yes, your USB drive must have as much capacity or you can’t write this on it. Writing method could be the same as the Lite USB version.

For the complete list of games, check this page.

I would probably get a copy of the lite versions so that I could give it to my co-workers who have children. Some of them do allow their children to use their computers but having the USB with a distro with games will probably limit their young ones so that they won’t be able to just click on anything just because it’s on the browser. I see that a lot of their children go online to play games so this will give them another option.

The wait is over for Fedora fans as Fedora 11, named Leonidas, because it has been released. You could start with the downloads already. You could get it from the Fedora Project’s download page. There are install CDs and live ones too.

Nifty features:

• 20-second boot-up. How much faster could boot-up times go? But a 20-second boot-up would be nice.
• Automatic fonts and Mime installer. If you’re not familiar with the file format, it’s ok. You could try opening it and you will be prompted if you want to search for the application that will open it. If you’re opening a file in a word processor or something, you will be prompted that the application will install the appropriate fonts.
• GNOME 2.26 - You could get the latest version of GNOME with Fedora 11. And if you’re not a GNOME user, there’s always…
• KDE 4.2 which has PolicyKit-KDE, Network Manager plasma applet among others.
• Invidia graphics cards will use Nouveau as the default driver.
• Access your Microsoft Exchange inbox using OpenChange. You could use Evolution or kdepim with Exchange using OpenChange.

All those features and more are available in Fedora 11. If you’re dying to see some screenshots, you could view h-online.com’s slideshow of Fedora 11 screenshots.

Whether you are Linux newbie or a veteran, you have a perception of Linux and why you find it easy or difficult to use it, right? Trying to advocate Linux to others would take some knowledge about Linux, the free and open source software world and the philosophies involved, as well as understanding what the users’ needs are. This is especially true for those who want to advocate it to their work place. You can’t just force everyone to migrate to Linux one day just because. It takes quite a lot of work and research!

Perspectives could be as anti-Linux as the following:

• Nothing I use will work on Linux.
• There’s nothing on Linux. It’s boring.
• It’s all command-line and you expect me to use that?
• Using Linux is like going into a new religion or cult.

With the first one, it could be true for someone who uses highly-specialized software. If all the software he/she needs is all on Windows or Mac and he/she is fine with paying for the software, etc. then trying to convince this person to switch to Linux will be quite difficult because of the productivity issues he/she will encounter. However, there could be free and open source software counterparts of the specialized software needed by this user. But you have to take a look at the counterparts well if all the needs are met. If so, maybe you could give your friend or colleague some help in trying out the software you found.

If the person tells you that there’s nothing on Linux and that it’s boring, maybe the person only encountered it briefly and did not give it a try. Also, it could be that the desktop environment or window manager and package manager on the distro he/she tried seemed to restrict him/her from exploring the software available. Some window managers might not feel as intuitive as using Windows, Mac OSX, or another distro with KDE, GNOME or XFCE. Why? In most desktop managers, there’s a menu for the user to select an application. It also has the menu where in the user could check out the package manager. These things may not be as obvious to users who are encountering a Linux distro with Openbox for the first time. In most desktop environments I’ve encountered, a package manager could be seen in the menu as “Add/remove software” or something with a similar wording. Even if you don’t know what a package manager is, at least you still know what you’re going to do and that’s something new users would probably be looking for.

For the command line argument, yes, you could still encounter Linux in a totally command-line kind of environment but a lot of distros give you the option to choose anyway. Most distros have a window manager or a desktop environment that could help users navigate throughout the system. You could counter this by showing your Linux setup and letting your friend use it. There’s nothing like an actual demonstration of what it’s like to use Linux. At least you could answer your friend’s questions by showing actual applications and tools to use. It would be educational and it could convince your friend more. On the spot you could look for the kinds of apps your friend needs/is looking for.

For the last one: Being a Linux user is not like getting into a religion or cult. It might feel like it to some who hear so many talks about the philosophy of Linux and free and open source software. Maybe it’s time to balance it out by showing how the community interacts. If you’re active in the Linux community maybe you could introduce your friend/colleague to other Linux users locally just so your friend knows who else are using Linux and what they think about it personally. It’s not just all about the intellectual stuff, after all.

If you’ve been wondering when we could have multi-touch support for gestures and other actions, well, it could be sooner than you think. There is a team with a proof of concept that native multi-touch with gestures is indeed possible on Linux. This would work on Linux kernel 2.6.30. If you’ve got Compiz and you’ve been wanting more awesome funkiness then their proof of concept video would probably get you excited over this development.

Video from: Laboratoire d’informatique interactive

Right now the team from ENAC is still working on a better implementation of multi-touch support, you could already check it out if you are interested.

Requirements:

• Linux kernel 2.6.30
• a computer with any of the following: a Broadcom 5974, Stantum, NTrig or DiamondTouch surface (the HP TouchSmart tx2 has a Ntrig surface — get the appropriate firmware from the NTrig site)
• the ENAC driver for NTrig, Stantum, or DiamondTouch, or the Broadcom 5974 driver from Henrik Rydberg
• the ENAC team’s demo code for multi-touch support
• Compiz with the DBus plugin
• freewins

Now I wish I knew someone with a computer with such surfaces so I could test the code too. I don’t need so much funkiness on my own computer but it would sure be neat to demo to people who love these things. And if someone else asks me about it, at least I could share something, right?

Who says Linux cannot have fancy stuff? This is proof it could!

One could easily get software for Linux through various repositories available to users. Most distros would have repositories which could be accessed via package managers. However, Novell thinks about opening a store dedicated to making open source software available to users — wouldn’t that be redundant?

Matt Asay’s blog entry challenges this idea of an open-source apps store. He pointed out:

But this almost seems counterproductive for Novell. For years open-source companies have had to combat the idea that “open source” is synonymous with “free.”

So with that, would a store be really helpful to new users who have been used to Windows and buying software from online stores?

I think that the pressing issue here is how do we address the mentality of users. Opening a store with totally free software might be counterproductive indeed, as pointed out by Asay. If you have a store with everything on its shelf is free, would that lead to users always thinking about software being free as in free beer? Well, repositories do have free for download and installation software so people could think that it’s free as in free beer and that’s that.

Will Novell be selling software eventually? I wonder. What do they see that repositories do not address well?

I think that repositories are good enough to meet the needs of users. A store might get confusing because the analogy is skewed if they will offer only free (as in free beer) software. Some stores do offer freebies but they still have something to sell that is their specialty.

Also, this store and repositories issue is a reminder that as advocates of free and open source software, we should find ways to teach others about it well. If it involves making better analogies for the new users, then we should do that. We cannot let people be confused these things.

Looking out for a lightweight distro for the heck of it is interesting. If you look at Distrowatch there are a lot of distros there and the name Crunch Bang just stood out for me so I had to click the link to its page. It is described as a faster Ubuntu.

What is interesting about Crunch Bang?

• It happened to be based on Ubuntu so you have access to repositories. And the forums, as well. But of course there might be things that won’t apply to Crunch Bang because it is not an official fork of Ubuntu. At least you’ve got access to more applications.
• The Crunch Bang site also claims that you should be able to play various kinds of media right away. That includes mp3s, DVDs and Flash videos. This is something a lot of users might be wondering about because not all distros support these media due to legal issues related to the proprietary formats.
• Lightweight apps by default. It uses some lightweight apps by default which makes it feel faster than your regular Ubuntu install. For one thing it does not use the GNOME desktop environment by default, nor is it using KDE. It uses Openbox as a window manager and if you’re wondering if it has a file manager, there’s the nifty PCManFM.
• You might miss OpenOffice.org but you’ve got Gnumeric and Abiword. However, if you have to make presentations, looks like you’ve got no other choice but to install OOo anyway.
• Crunch Bang has a Lite edition and an Asus EEE edition. I think that the main difference lies in the applications each of them has by default. CrunchBang Lite seems to have a lot of command line interface apps such as irssi and newsbeuter. The ones in the EEE edition are graphical.

I might download the EEE edition just to see if it would be alright on my Aspire One. Why not, right?