Google Chrome Weather app

Lately Iv'e been using more and more Chrome apps (on Linux I use Chromium and on Windows I use Firefox 3.6, but that's for anther post). One of the nicest apps is the "Weather Underground" app. Most weather apps or extensions on Chrome and on Firefox don't put ecstatics  or user experience and user interface in the center, the main focus is on the information, delivering it in the fastest and simplest way mostly in the status line at the bottom or in the tool bar above. The "Weather Underground" app may not bring you the weather in the fastest way but it will give to you in the most beautiful way, you get all the information you need at the bottom of the screen but you also get A beautiful photograph relating the current weather. There are two kind of computer apps, the first is an app made for regular people by computer people, the second is regular people use computer technology and computer people for building an app,"Weather Underground" is from the second kind. 

Software I couldn't leave with out - Part II

Continuing my last post here are three more software items who make my life easier.

Dropbox - At last some one had did it, some one had fixed one of my biggest problems, I work on three computers two of them have two operating systems, until now if I needed two share a file between two computers or two operating systems I had one of two ways. The first way was to send it to my self threw a web base e-mail application, the second is by using a flash memory disk. Both of those ways are a nightmare, every time I'd work on a file, I had to update every ware else, I'd often made mistakes or forget to update, some time I was sure I had updated a file when I didn't. Finally someone invented Dropbox, the magic folder, when I update a file that's in that folder, the file is automatically update where ever I installed Dropbox, now everything is synchronised and updated. Dropbox comes with 2 GB of storage space, you can get extra space by getting a friend to sign up for For every friend you sign up you get another 250 MB and he also gets a bigger space for storage, so if someone wands two sign up just live your e-mail at the comments and I'll send you an invitation, by doing so you and me will both get extra storage space.

  Miro - Formerly none as Democracy player, with Miro you can download pod casts and videos to you computer and listen or watch them when ever you have time, you don't need a Internet connection while watching the videos it's all on you computer. I mostly like it because I don't always have a wireless Internet connection, but I can still watch video programs that I like or listen to a podcast. There is a giant list of Internet TV stations that you can choose to subscribe. Here are the stations I've  subscribed to:

1. Linux Journal - News about Linux, mainly tips.
2. CommandN - News about the web.
3. Ted Talk - Interesting people with interesting ideas.
4. Cooking Korean food 
5. Tekzilla - Gadgets and geek stuff.
6. Tekzilla Daily Tip - Tips on computers.
7. Happy Tree Friends - Stupid but funny cartoons.
8. Hungry Nation - A nice food and recipe show.
9. The Digg Real - A show about the most viewed videos on the web.

VLC - An amazing video and audio player, it can play any format none to you, from the avi to flv and MP4, every thing. It has tones of options, you can convert formats with it, you can add subtitles, it has extensions and skins, you can play streaming media with it, and all of that is open source. I must admit I actually don't know about most of it's options that's because there is so much you can do with it.

Software I couldn't leave with out - Part I

Here are six software apps I find hard to leave with out, I use them on a daily bases and they are the main reason for me having a computer:

 Ubuntu - Linux - as appose to other items on this list, this is a o.s., I hav'e been using It for the past year. It all started a year and a half ago I purchased a new laptop with Windows Vista installed on it, I immediately encountered problems  ,so I decided to check out Ubuntu Linux after trying it a few year back, and returning to Windows after a while. I first did with the Wubi installation, and after a while I read "The Ubuntu pocket guide"  installed it on my laptop along side Windows Vista. It's been now a year and a half and Ubuntu is my preferred choice for an o.s. It's reliable, It's free, It has plenty of customizing options, It doesn't slow out with time, there is plenty of software for it and the part I liked the most is the support Ubuntu has, It's forums are undeflatable , for every problem you encounter you just post it on the forum and someone will get back to you with a solution, some time more then one person gets back to you and if you need more help, someone will always be happy to help you, and all of that for free. When using Windows I always feared that I will have a problem (and Vista had allot of them) that I couldn't solve and no body could help me, with Ubuntu I never got this filling there is a strong and helpful community behind you. Thanks to Conical for developing Ubuntu, thanks to all the Ubuntu users that dedicate from there own time for helping other users.

Firefox - My preferred  choice of browser for the last 6 years has been Firefox, I still remember when people didn't understand what I was talking about when I told them that I serf the web with Firefox, they didn't even understand the difference between the internet and Internet Explorer, most people thought it's the same thing (people today don't know what a browser is). Firefox gets its power from it's addons, an endless amount of extensions that can be added to it, they change a simple browse in to a great tool not only for serfing the web but also a great tool for working or studing, it has an endless amount of addons, any problem you incounter there's a good chance there is an addon that can help you, you can see my list. This is a great demnstration of opensource's power.

Skype - One of the greats achievements on the web is VOIP and the software that makes it so good is with no doubt Skype it has more then a 170 million users all around the world, the technology it uses combined with the big number of users, had changed the face of telecommunication in the last decade, the price of international phone calls dropped and in the same time it makes people closer. Another thing is video capabilities ,not only I can speak with my friends and family who live far away, I can also see them and all of that for free. For a very cheap price you can call a land line phone or a cellular phone all over the world, you can all so get a voice mail if you want. Their is only one thing I'd be happy to see, they haven't upgraded there Linux version for more then 2 year, it's about time they do it.

To be continued.....

Google Wave

What's the big fuss about 100,000 users and how much posts about "Google Wave" !?

 Now there is a Firefox extension and probably it's a mater of time until there will be a chrome extension for "Google Wave".

To make things short and simple i'm still waiting for my invitation to see what the big fuss is all about.

Buy the way I love the new Blogger editor, works a lot  better then the older one , great work !!!

My quest after a Ubuntu blogging client

Those of you who've been following my twitter may have noticed I've been looking for a good blogging client for Ubuntu. I've tried scribe, an extension for firefox, but it made a lot for problems when I published, some times it just crashed, some times the design changed (font size etc') and I had problems every time I wanted to add a picture or embed a video.

Yesterday thanks to LazyFeed I discovered Bilbo Blogger, I must say it looked very promising, since all the other clients haven't been updated since 2004 or 2005, like BloGTK. I installed it, and went on to configure it, already while configuring the problems started, I have two blogs, it couldn't distinguish between the two, it showed one blog and published a post on the second blog. There is a side bar to see the last posts on the blog that doesn't quiet work, while writing the editor stops responding for a few seconds and some times the client just crashes.

But to finish with a face forward this is a very good sign, for the beginning it means that some one is aware to the problem and is working to solve it, the design is quiet good and intuitive so Bilbo Blogger is on the right path and hope fully those problems will be solve and maybe more people will take on the challenge of developing a good and easy to use blogging client for Ubuntu

Until then, while working off line I'll continue writing my posts on OpenOffice Writer.

My Firefox Extensions

1. Gmail manager - So I cam manage my Gmail.
2. Google Reader Notifier - So can manage RSS feeds.
3. Drag & drop.io - Because I work with more then one computer and two operating systems, this is a easy way for moving files around.
4. Shareholic - The easiest way for sharing bookmarks on Delicious & Digg.
5. qtl - The best dictionary you can find.
6. Smart Bookmarks Bar - Saves me a lot of space on the bookmarks bar.
7. StumbleUpon - A great way for waisting time, having fun & discovering new things.
8. Foxy URL - Good for twitting links.
9. Google Gears - So I can access my mail and calender when i'm offline.
10. Google Redesigned - It just looks better this way.
11. Twitter Fox - So I can follow Twitter.
12. Undo Closed Tab Button - Saved more then once.
13. WiseStamp - So I can edit my Gmail signature with HTML.
14. Yahoo Mail Notifir - To keep track of my Yahoo mail.
15. Colorful Tabs - Makes life easier.
16. Customize Google - Makes searching easier.
17. Fox Clocks - For keeping track of time around the world.
18. ScribeFire - Makes writing a post so easy, you can even do it offline.
19. Google Bookmarks for Foirefox - Makes it easy to access my Google bookmarks.
20. Taboo - For reading things later.
21. Locator - For locating any address on Google maps.
22. New Tab King - for opening new tabs.
    

On Ubuntu

1. Ubuntu Firefox Modifications - Allows me to install Firefox add-ons through the Ubuntu package manager, it comes already installed.
   

On Windows

1. IE Tab - Unfortunately there are sites that still don't work on Firefox.
2. AVG Safe Search - Protects my computer.
   

If anyone uses any useful or interesting extensions I would love to hear about it, please live me a comment.