KDE4 Test Drive

Well, January 11th has come and gone. After painfully updating my system to Kubuntu 7.10, I’m ready for KDE 4. It’s big, it’s shiny, and it’s slow in downloading the relavent DEB packages. Oh well.

Just as a quick overview before I review it (and while it installs), here are some of the new features:

• KRunner replaces the third-party Katapult.
  
• Plasma widget engine brings the Dashboard to KDE, to replace the third-party SuperKaramba.
• Dolphin replaces Konqueror as a file manager. It is the new file manager for KDE 3 on my system, and it offers a dazzlingly large amount of features. This could take a while.
• The Oxygen icon set is here, too. Let the pretty pictures do the talking:
  

Amarok, iPods, and the Rest of the Circus

Right on schedule, there’s an empty iPod box sitting in my trash. The AAFES I shopped at was out of the 4GB Nanos, so for a mere $50 extra, it doubles up to 8GB. It looks like silver is the only color people don’t want, so that’s what I got too. It has a lot of nice features: syncing calendars with any iCal-formatted calendar, same with vCard-formatted contacts (all easily possible out of Kontact, Sunbird, and (I think) Thunderbird). Support for album art, just about any *.mp4/*.m4v video, podcasts (Diggnation, anyone?), photos (plus album art), the usual music, and games (official only, short of using iPodLinux or RockBox). Pretty good package, for being about a quarter of the weight/thickness of my Zen.

Now, under Linux, it just gets a little difficult. Users have two main choices: Amarok or Gtkpod. I use Amarok, since it came with KDE. It supports podcasts and a load of players (Creative products, Samsung, Apple, and Zunes, I think), including (gasp) iPods. But the Ubuntu repository has version 1.4.6; fine for what it was used for: listening to music and Diggnation episodes. But G3 iPod (3rd-generation, all you laymen out there) support was added… in 1.4.8. And libgpod was also outdated in the repos, so all that was left was to compile it all on my own. It wasn’t that hard, and most of the prerequisites were already met from my programming, and those that weren’t were in the repos/solved by a quick Google. It shouldn’t require more than 1 gig of space (less than your average Windows game), and then just the usual commands are needed:
./configure
make
sudo make install
And now, with no work, it works (no pun intended). Plug in the Nano, and up comes Amarok with it pre-connected. It gives options to sync/add album art, podcasts, etc., many of the same features as Amarok.

I have yet to get the pictures to work, since GPixpod refuses to recognize it; it’s a bit too new, I think. As for videos, I’ve read that Gtkpod can handle it, so that should work fine.

Tiddly Winks

I’ve been using Google Notebook for a good while now. But what I don’t like is that Google doesn’t provide an offline version. It’s a great tool, and I would love to have it on my desktop. So I set out to make an offline version from the original (Firefox’s Save As… Web Page (Complete)). But after going through over 1000 lines of Javascript, it occured to me: where’s the notebooks? I did some research and found it it was AJAX based. So that was a no-go.

But I continued Google-ing and reading for a while, until I stumbled on a post about some new technology or other that could make it possible. For Windows. But as I read the comments, somebody brought up something they used and liked better, TiddlyWiki. A bit more searching brought up the link. It was actually rather amazing, to me.

It was an alternate Wiki system. It describes itself as a “non-linear reusable web notebook,” but its much more. Built with pure CSS, HTML, and Javascript, it is all in one HTML file. You can have plugins, stylesheets, random CSS, macros, themes, the works, while still just contained inside of that one file.

There are a lot of different uses for it. Some people use the “flavors” (modified versions distributed with plugins or themes pre-installed) MonkeyGTD and d³ as GTD systems. Others use it as a blog (you can deny non-admin editing), or as a way to present stuff at work (aided by the Presentation distro), and some as a simple notebook.

It’s got all kinds of stuff written for it. All macros and plugins are just combinations of CSS and Javascript and HTML, so anybody can write one. There are some that change it to a more Wikipedia style (combining SingePageModePlugin with BreadcrumbsPlugin, and the right style), some that add calendars, splashscreens, GTD systems, little toys… the system is your playground. It’s very cool, and I highly recommend checking it out.

You can run it anywhere, as long as you use IE or Firefox ( > 1.5). I’ve even got it running on my DSL installation. As for hosting, I know for a fact that GooglePages can run at least 1 copy of it, with plugins and themes. There’s also TiddlySpot, which is just for TiddlyWikis, and offers a bunch of pre-installed flavors to start of with (though Standard is still an option).

Fawning over Kubuntu

I just updated my Kubuntu installation to the latest version, Feisty Fawn. KDE 4 is just around the corner; Gusty is being tested as we speak. So I’ve decided to not miss a thing and update already.

I can’t name anything that wasn’t updated at some point during the process. Even the boot screen got an overhaul. But here are the main things that I picked out:

Amarok: As long as I’ve had it, it’s never had a major update. Until now. While I’m still behind by a version (current is 1.4.6, complete with Oxygen icons, and I use 1.4.5), lots of new stuff has come in. Most importantly, the team has built in support for MagnaTune, a Creative Commons music store. You can listen, and then buy albums/songs right from the program’s sidebar. Some bugfixes, obviously, too, but they’re pretty minor. I think.

Interface: There’s something new about the interface. I don’t exactly know what they did, but some stuff is a bit more shiney, the taskbar’s a bit more streamlined, etc. etc. The desktop’s cool, too. When you click on an icon, now, it kind of pops out and fades out fast, ending up with a pretty neat effect.

OpenOffice: Upgraded to 2.2. I don’t know why (Fawn’s kind of vague, I think), but it just looks and feels more integrated. It doesn’t look square and gray like your average GTK/Wine program does… it takes on the style now. The features are pretty much the same, though.

Anyway, just an update about my update.