Jan 15
Just a single slide at this week’s Steam DevDays was shown of the new Steam Controller for SteamOS, one which identified the chat earlier today on what would happen to … Continue reading
Jan 15
For users that’ve tried the Ubuntu Touch experience in smartphones and tablets over the past several weeks or months, you know good and well that it’s nearly ready for mainstream … Continue reading
Jan 15
This article was written on March 26, 2008 by CyberNet.
Fedora 9 is stepping forward with their first Beta, and it looks like it has quite a few quality enhancements that both GNOME and KDE users alike will appreciate. Being a KDE fan myself I’m extremely happy to see that the Fedora team has taken the time to integrate the new KDE 4.0 into the operating system. And it apparently works so well that they decided to make 4.0 the default for anyone using the KDE desktop. I could be wrong, but I believe Fedora is the first to make KDE 4.0 the default for that type of desktop.
There has been a lot of work going on that will make this an incredible release, and you’ll even see the improvements during the installation. Now you’ll be able to resize ext2, ext3, and NTFS partitions during the installation process making it easier to install Fedora on a drive that isn’t empty.
That’s not all you’ll find in Fedora 9 either. Here are some of the other features you’ll find in Fedora 9 Beta:
- GNOME 2.22
- Helpful world time clock
- Better file system performance
- Security improvements
- Power management at the login screen
- The ability to dynamically configure displays
- Better Bluetooth integration
- Improved podcast support
- And many other enhancements
- KDE 4.0.2, which includes a brand new desktop and panel with many new concepts:
- Integrated desktop search
- Brand new visual style called Oxygen
- New multimedia API called Phonon
- New hardware integration framework called Solid
- Firefox 3 Beta 5
- Native look and feel
- Desktop integration
- The new Places that replaces bookmarks
- Reworked address bar
- NetworkManager Improvements
- Ad-hoc support, so that you can easily form a network with any near-by wireless devices
- Support for mobile broadband cards (GSM/CDMA) through PPP
- System-wide network configuration through Network
Manager with PolicyKit - Support for creating and installing to encrypted filesystems
My download of Fedora 9 Beta is still in the process of finishing, but for those of you who decide to give it a whirl post your thoughts in the comments below.
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Jan 09
Full Circle Magazine Issue #5
Posted in: Today's ChiliThis article was written on September 28, 2007 by CyberNet.
I can’t believe Full Circle Magazine is already on issue 5, but it’s true. They are even planning on starting a podcast which will add an entirely new dimension to an already great magazine.
In this issue I was excited to see their four-page review of Gutsy Gibbon (a.k.a. Ubuntu 7.10), which happened to just roll out in Beta form earlier today. What actually turned out to be the most interesting article in the magazine, however, was a review of a game that costs $19.95 to purchase. It’s called Bridge Construction Set (for Windows, Linux, and Macs), and the whole point is to build bridges that you stress test. I don’t buy or play games very often, but being an engineer I have to admit that it sounds kind of fun. 🙂
I’ve converted this issue of Full Circle Magazine into a JPEG image for those of you who don’t want to download the PDF, and here’s a quick overview of what issue #5 has in it:
- Fluxbuntu – Step-by-step Install
- How-To:
- Report Bugs with LaunchPad
- CoLoCo Edubuntu Presentation
- From VMware to VirtualBox
- Learning Scribus Pt.5
- Review of Bridge Construction Kit
- Preview of Gusty Gibbon
- Top 5 Strategy Games
- Letters, Q&A, My Desktop, My PC, the new My Opinion column, and more!
Read previous issues of Full Circle Magazine
Thanks to toe_head2001 for the tip!
Copyright © 2014 CyberNetNews.com
Jan 06
Ubuntu is going to add BitTorrent search capabilities directly into its Unity desktop.
Posted in: Today's ChiliUbuntu is going to add BitTorrent search capabilities directly into its Unity desktop. Which is neat.
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Jan 04
Some apps do one thing, and they do it well. Others have a host of clever, hidden uses that you might have never thought of on your own. Here are our favorite clever uses for popular apps.
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Dec 12
Gamers that have been waiting to get their hands on the new gaming OS from Valve called SteamOS will be able to get their hands on the software this week. Valve has announced the first version of SteamOS will land Friday. Along with the announcement of the SteamOS launching, Valve has also announced some details […]
Dec 11
This article was written on August 26, 2008 by CyberNet.
Time Saving Tuesday
One of the things that’s always nice to know is what you can remove from your hard drive to quickly regain hard drive space. Maybe there are some enormous games on your computer that you don’t play anymore, or files you’ve downloaded that have never gotten deleted? By using hard drive visualization tools you’ll be able to pinpoint exactly what is eating up your hard drive storage.
There are a lot of different programs that can be used for this purpose, and we thought it would be better to put together a more comprehensive list instead of just covering one or two of our favorites. We’ve broken them up according to operating system below, and for each one we provide a brief description accompanied by a screenshot. That way you’ll be able to figure out which free app is right for you.
Note: You can click on a screenshot for a full-size version.
–Windows Hard Drive Visualization–
- JDiskReport [Homepage]
This is a Java-based tool that gives you a few different options for visualizing your hard drive. The screenshot below shows the typical pie graph, but you can also switch to a distribution graph. As you drill into folders it will update the graph accordingly.
- WinDirStat [Homepage] [Full Review]
This free program is pretty cool because of how it breaks up your hard drive into chunks so that you can see at a glance where the large space-hogging chunks are. The various types of files are also color-coded for easy identification.
- SpaceMonger [Homepage]
This definitely isn’t the most glamorous application we’ve seen, but the way it breaks up the view of your hard drive is very intuitive. Just like with WinDirStat the boxes are proportionally sized to the percent of the hard drive they consume, but what’s nice about this is that some of the files and folders are clearly labeled on the diagram.
- TreeSize Free [Homepage]
TreeSize is a more Windows Explorer-like interface for finding those large folders on your computer. As you can see in the screenshot below it puts the largest folders at the top of the list, and you can continue to expand them to see the largest files and folders inside each of those.
- OverDisk [Homepage]
What really makes OverDisk unique is that it’s visualization method looks more like a pie chart that has exploded. You can use the navigator along the left side of the window to traverse through the directories on your PC, and the chart will adjust accordingly.
–Mac Hard Drive Visualization–
- Disk Inventory X [Homepage]
Look at this the same way as the WinDirStat application for Windows above. It has the same visualization technique, and color-codes the files based upon their type.
- GrandPerspective [Homepage]
Yet another block visualization tool. It’s very similar to Disk Inventory X, and both have nearly the same features and interface.
- JDiskReport [Homepage]
That’s right, you saw this program in the Windows section above as well. Since it’s made using Java it’s available on multiple platforms which is a nice benefit. It uses standard pie graphs and distribution charts to plot the data on your hard drive.
–Linux Hard Drive Visualization–
- KDirStat [Homepage]
This is the original application that used the block-like view many of the different programs mentioned above now incorporate. It also comes with some cleanup utilities to help reclaim the disk space.
- Baobab [Homepage]
Baobab has a clean and intuitive interface for navigating through the folders on your computer. For each line it has a color-coded bar that indicates how much space it is taking up, or you can always switch over to one of the more graphical views. The best part is that this is already included with the GNOME desktop, and is referred to as the Disk Usage Analyzer.
–Overview–
So those are the best hard drive visualization tools that we’ve come across throughout the years. Let us know in the comments what you use to find the pesky files and folders taking up all of your precious hard drive space.
Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com
Dec 01
This article was written on September 13, 2007 by CyberNet.
Walt Mossberg is a very well respected technology journalist for the Wall Street Journal, and he was recently known for being the one to head up the Steve Jobs & Bill Gates interview. His articles typically revolve around either Windows or Macs, but his readers had been asking him to jump into the Linux side of things.
Mossberg was able to get his hands on a Dell 1420N laptop preloaded with Ubuntu. Right there you know he should have a great out-of-box experience since there shouldn’t be any hardware complications (such as getting the wireless card to work). That was partly true, and here’s a quick overview I put together of the good and bad things he discovered while using Ubuntu:
The Good:
- It’s free and open source
- Looks a lot like Windows or Mac OS X so it is easy to get used to
- Runs on the least-expensive popular hardware configurations
- Essentially free of viruses and spyware
- Built and constantly improved by a world-wide network of developers
The Bad:
- No control panel for adjusting the way the touch pad works
- Every time the computer awoke from sleep, the volume control software crashed and had to be reloaded
- Codecs had to be downloaded to play audio and video files, and the user is warned that some of the codecs might be "bad" or "ugly"
- Several computer reboots were needed to recognize a Kodak camera and Apple iPod, and the iPod had problems synchronizing
- No built-in software for playing DVD’s
- Nobody is ultimately responsible for the quality of the product, and open-source developers often have an imperfect feel for how average people use software
Are all of these things the fault of Ubuntu? Not at all. In fact many of the problems could be reconciled if the hardware developers would create proper drivers for the Linux operating system. Instead Linux distributions are often left on their own to make sure the different hardware configurations are supported.
Mossberg isn’t saying that all of these things are show stoppers, instead he’s just trying to get the point across that Linux isn’t quite ready for the mass market. He even quoted Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu’s founder, as saying "it would be reasonable to say that this is not ready for the mass market."
Here’s a 5-minute video that Mossberg put together to explain the details:
Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com
Nov 30
Symantec researcher Kaoru Hayashi has posted a report to the effect that a sizable portion of the “Internet of Things” is now vulnerable to a worm called Linux.Darlloz. The worm attacks CPUs running on devices like routers, set-top boxes, security cameras and industrial control systems, as well as PCs. The worm relies on a pre-May […]
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