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Htop - Manage Your System Processes in Seconds
2008-02-24 03:25:00
Htop is a process manager that builds on the functionality of top. It allows you to view available memory and CPU usage as well as kill and manage running processes. It integrates quite well into the system manager Conky.You can see it in action with this video via YouTube (credit: owburg):Htop has a few features not found in top. First of all, the interface is more appealing, and it is easier to see what's going on. It opens a little faster, and you can kill processes by highlighting the name and pressing F9 instead of remembering the pid. You can scroll through the process list to see more than the first slew of items. Htop supports mouse operation as well.As Debian Admin points out, top does have one advantage over htop:... top is older, hence, more used and testedYou can install htop automagically by clicking here, searching for it in Synaptic, or by running the following command:sudo apt-get install htopThis is by far my favorite CLI process manager. In fact, I haven't used...
More About: System , Manage , Processes , Seconds

Frozen-Bubble - A Ridiculously Addictive Puzzle Game
2008-02-23 00:42:00
Frozen-Bubble has blissfully stolen hours and hours of my life with its addictive gameplay and flippin' awesome soundtrack. It's an easy game with a simple premise: shoot colors bubbles onto the game board in an attempt to match up three or more similarly colored bubbles. Doing so will cause them to fall from the board, taking connected bubbles with them. If you clear all of the bubbles, you move on to the next level. If the bubbles pile up and cover the entire screen, you lose the game and restart the entire level.Because my description is probably dense and hard to grasp, here's a video. By the way, no one gets to make fun of my mad Frozen-Bubble skillz.The developer website lists the features well:Colorful 3D rendered penguin animations, 100 levels of 1p game, hours and hours of 2p game, nights and nights of 2p/3p/4p/5p game over LAN or Internet, a level-editor, 3 professional quality digital soundtracks, 15 stereo sound effects, 8 unique graphical transition effects, 8 unique...
More About: Puzzle , Game , Frozen

Conky - A Desktop System Monitor
2008-02-22 00:50:00
Conky is a system monitor. It handles a bunch of different system variables, including CPU, disk space, running processes, RAM, temperature, network transfer, and log data. Conky is a fork of torsmo. You can customize the layout, colors, and fonts. It can be a bit of a bear to configure --- it requires significant work with the .conkyrc file in order to get it up and running. Fortunately, you can find a variety of good configuration templates and files all over the internet. (Hat Tip to lyrae for the weather script I currently use)Installing the package takes the normal route. Fire up a Terminal, and type the following:sudo apt-get install conkyFrom there, you can launch the application by typing 'conky' into the Alt+F2 dialog, creating a menu launcher, or by adding it to startup.Speaking of Terminals though, I've been thinking of doing a roundup of my favorite terminal emulators. Currently, I'm a fan of rxvt. What do you use, and why do you prefer it?
More About: System , Desktop , Monitor

Agave - Intuitive Color Palette Management
2008-02-20 18:41:00
Hello dear readers! I'm glad to be back from my vacation feeling refreshed and ready to bring you some nice Ubuntu applications. Thanks again for all of the wonderful suggestions thus far. The best way to keep up to date with all of the new programs featured here at The Daily Ubuntu is to subscribe to the site feed.Agave is a color palette selection tool used to pick design layouts for desktop themes, web site designs, icon creation, and much more. It simplifies the process of choosing colors by generating a palette based on an initial color selection according to the selected rule and color set. Supported color sets include GNOME Icon, Tango Icon, Web-Safe, and Visibone.Picking the initial color requires no knowledge of complex codes: all you need to do is pick a color from the grid, and Agave generates the rest. From there, it will spit out the color information in hexadecimal, RGB, and HSV form for use in The GIMP, CSS, or other implementations. You can even generate a random p...
More About: Color , Management , Palette

Week Off!
2008-02-13 18:15:00
The Daily Ubuntu is taking some time to rest and recuperate far far away from internet access. Therefore, there won't be any new posts until Wednesday, February 20th.Have a good week everybody!
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APTonCD - Back Up Your Packages Easily
2008-02-10 02:30:00
Thanks again to three-time recommender phynix a.k.a. Kyle for this superb suggestion. I think this is his best work yet!APTonCD is an application that backs up all of your packages downloaded from apt-get or aptitude onto a CD or a DVD. This is perfect if you ever lose an internet connection or if you want to quickly install new operating systems without having to remember a long list of packages you needed to install.You can get rid of the need for an internet connection entirely by downloading and burning an entire repository to a CD if you wish (well, probably a few DVDs :-D). YOu can also add .deb packages manually with the add package feature, or by dragging them in from Nautilus.My favorite feature is the ability to create a meta-package with all of the packages you have installed. This makes it easy to trick out a new Ubuntu installation with a single command. This might be a good way to replace Automatix with your own custom solution.You can install APTonCD through the comm...
More About: Back , Back-up , Ages

Desktop Drapes - A Crazy Wallpaper Randomizer
2008-02-10 02:10:00
Thank you to Milosz for recommending Desktop Drapes. He's the developer, so if you like it you should let him know over at his site. It's a good opportunity to learn more about the open source community in the wonderful oasis of Ann Arbor in the desert of Michigan.Desktop Drapes is a nifty utility used to randomize your desktop wallpaper. You add a couple pictures to the list, tell it how long to set them for, and you'll get some instant freshness to your desktop.Drapes makes it even easier by automatically adding wallpapers you add to the directory. All you get to do is put the picture in the right place, and Drapes will figure it out for you.Open up a Terminal (or do it the Synaptic way) and type the following:sudo apt-get install drapesIf you want to get a new Ubuntu application delievered to you every day, you should subscribe to the site feed. If you can't wait that long, you can hold yourself over by checking out Cairo-Dock.
More About: Wallpaper , Crazy , Randomizer

SSHMenu - Conveniently Connect to Remote Machines From the Panel
2008-02-10 01:41:00
Thank you to Tim for suggesting today's application.SSHMenu is a panel applet for GNOME that allows users to connect to remote computers over SSH with a single click.As Tim explained in his suggestion e-mail:[SSHMenu] is useful if you do a lot of work on servers or remote machines.I definitely agree with that. Remembering the syntax for ssh is normally enough to foil me, but I'm sure it's even worse if you have a few different IP addresses and hostnames to remember.The menu looks incredibly similar to the GNOME Applications menu, and it is fully customizable. The interface allows you to add seperators, submenus, and new entries really easy.When you click on an entry, it opens up a new Terminal window connected to the specified SSH server. But, it isn't any old command line. From the SSHMenu site:Here's a killer feature: imagine if every time you connected to a production server the terminal window had a red-tinted background, to remind you to tread carefully. Using terminal pro...
More About: Machines , Panel , Connect , Remote

GnuCash - Keep Your Cash (or lack thereof) in Order
2008-02-08 20:45:00
Thank you to John J. for suggesting this application. Be sure to subscribe to the site feed to keep up with the bombast of new applications.GnuCash is a personal finance and accounting application created to keep you crazy organized. It can do simple things like recording expenses and take care of register transactions, but it can also handle tracking bank accounts, income, and a slew of financial instruments and derivatives.John J. summed it up quite well in his suggestion e-mail:...GnuCash is a great piece of financial software. I just use it to keep my home financials in order, but it has so many other functions that I would never even need to use.It uses professional standards like double-entry accounting, which my professors babble on and on about being important. They generally mention words like 'Enron' and 'lawsuit' in context. The register has an easy interface that can handle checking and credit transactions, as well as currency and stock asset trades. Different curren...
More About: Order , Lack

Ubuntu Tweak - Get Under the Hood With This Configuration Tool
2008-02-08 00:22:00
Thank you to Daniel for today's suggestion.Ubuntu Tweak is a utility created to make it easier for users to configure and change a variety of system settings. You can use it to quickly adjust settings for GNOME Panel, Compiz, and Nautilus, along with some more advanced security settings.Unfortunately for readers who use a different distribution, Ubuntu Tweak will only work for the latest version of Ubuntu with the GNOME Desktop Environment installed.Installation is most easily done on the command line for this one. Type the following in the Terminal:wget http://ubuntu-tweak.googlecode.com/files/ ubuntu-tweak_0.2.6-1~ppa1_all.debInstall the .deb file with:sudo dpkg -i ubuntu-tweak_0.2.6-1~ppa1_all.debIf you wish, you can install it graphically by pasting the above URL into a browser like Firefox and then clicking on the .deb file in Nautilus. If you wish to do so, you can add the Ubuntu Tweak repository following these directions.
More About: Tool , Hood , Configuration

VLC - The Universial Media Player
2008-02-06 17:06:00
Thank you to Kyle (phynix) for this recommendation.VLC (VideoLan) is a cross-platform universial media player. It supports a variety of different inputs, including DVD, VCD, MPEG, AVI, WMV, MP4, and MOV. It has full subtitle support, as well as built-in video filters. There are skins for VLC available at the developer website.One of the most useful features of VLC is playing incomplete video downloads before they finish. I can start watching a movie as the rest of the data trikles in. VLC plugins are available for Firefox and Mozilla.You can install VLC through the command-line with the following command:sudo apt-get install vlcOr, you can select VLC in the Applications -> Add/Remove... dialog. More information about that process is outlined here.If you like learning about a new Ubuntu application every day, you should subscribe to the site feed.Also, I'm currently accepting recommendations. Include your name, website if you have one, and a few reasons why you like the app.What do ...
More About: Media Player , Media , Player

Bonus: Installing Applications Graphically
2008-02-06 16:37:00
For me, the easiest way to install and update applications is through apt-get on the command line. But, I've used Ubuntu for a few years now, and I realize that not everyone is comfortable with the CLI. Today, I want to highlight a few graphical alternatives to apt-get. These directions will work in place of the Terminal directions for any application in the Ubuntu repositories.I don't use the graphical installers, so I don't know all of the tips and tricks available. Ubuntu experts: what are some of the best features of Synaptic and Add/Remove? What else should I add to this description?1. The Add/Remove Dialog:This is the most simple graphical way to install a new program. Go to Applications -> Add/Remove..., check the program you want to install from the list, and click 'Apply Changes'. You can use the search box at the top and the categories on the left to narrow down the list.Not every program in Ubuntu is available through this dialog. If you don't find what you're look...
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Gnumeric - A Powerful and Light Spreadsheet Program
2008-02-06 01:59:00
I'm always looking for interesting, useful applications to feature here on The Daily Ubuntu. Please send in your name, website address, and application, along with a few reasons why you suggest it, and I'd love to feature you on the site.Gnumeric is a spreadsheet application included as a part of the GNOME Office suite. It supports a slew of different formats, including Microsoft Excel, CSV, OpenDocument, and LaTeX, just to name a few. It copies most of the features available in the more ubiquous, proprietary spreadsheet programs, including charts, random number generation, statistical analysis, styling, and batch processing.As many of you know, I work at a job that requires me to use Microsoft Excel by force. I strongly dislike Excel. Therefore, I'm proud to announce that Gnumeric supports 100% of the worksheet functions in .xls documents, and has 154 functions not included in Microsoft's program. The Gnumeric team is working on adding support for Pivot tables.Gnumeric is a goo...
More About: Light , Program , Spreadsheet

Sunbird - A Powerful Standalone Calendar from Mozilla
2008-02-05 01:09:00
Thank you to Russell Beattie for recommending today's application. He's got an entry about playing with legos that has nothing to do with Ubuntu, but's it's too darn cool. Go forth, thy army of readers, and check it out!Sunbird is a calendar application built by the people at the Mozilla Foundation. It's entirely standalone: it doesn't require the bulk of another application, but doesn't offer any integration into other programs.Russ suggested Sunbird for people who prefer not to use Evolution. Thankfully, it's incredibly easy to move your calendar over with the import wizard.For those who use Google Calendar , Sunbird provides CalDAV support to easily subscribe to your web-based calendars. You can also manage your tasks along with support for multiple calendars.As you would expect, there are views for the day, week, or entire month. There's also a feature to publish your calendar to the web. Add-ons are also supported --- the most exciting is Provider for Google Calendar, w...
More About: Standalone

Cairo-Dock: An Animated Launch Bar for Compiz
2008-02-03 19:28:00
Thank you to Dave Jaye for this recommendation. You can hear more from Dave Jaye at his Myspace page.Cairo -Dock is an animated launch bar similar to SimDock or AWN. You can use it to launch applications and utilize small applets that live on the bar. It lacks some of the visual effects provided by AWN, but it my experience it runs a little faster.This application is an continuation of the abandoned GNOME-Dock project. According to the Ubuntu Wiki:... it is compatible with Beryl, Compiz , Metacity+xcompmgr and probably KDE since Kwin now manage composite display.There's definitely a lot of eye candy infused into this bar. It has animated icons, a 3D plane with reflection. And then there's my favorite: carousel view --- the icons are arranged in a circle, saving some screen estate and wowing your friends.Sexy, I know. It turns out that cairo-dock runs quite a bit faster than earlier projects. This video shows that off quite well. The dock is highly configurable, allowing you to twe...
More About: Launch , Animated

Inkscape - The Open-Source Vector Graphics Editor
2008-02-02 19:02:00
This application was graciously recommended by Jake T. You can see more from Jake at Jake's Blog. While you're there, be sure to read his experiences with the beta release of Inkscape. Thank you so much for all of the recommendations and subscriptions so far! My first week back has been better than ever.Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor, similar to Illustrator or Xara. It uses the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format. It's capable of creating objects with a variety of drawing, shape and text tools. You can edit previously created objects with scale, gradients, masks, and filtered effects.The application follows the GNOME Human interface guidelines to meet the goals of interface consistency and usability. All of this works together to make quite a nice interface.Linux.com writer Bruce Byfield notices this simplicity most in the drawing tools:As much as possible, a user's attention is kept on the drawing surface rather than on dialogues opened fr...
More About: Open Source , Open , Source , Open-Source

DVD::Rip - Copy DVD to Hard Drive in a Snap
2008-02-01 18:10:00
DVD::rip is a Perl program for copying a DVD to your hard drive. It gives you full control over the transcoding and copying process, allowing you to select specific audio tracks, angles, and titles. You can transcode with a ton of different codecs, including DIVX, XVID, FFMPEG, and fame. There's also support for subtitles and frame clipping, and a built-in CD burning facility.While it isn't the same as DVDShrink, it doesn't require Wine and it definitely gets the job done. Before you use this program to rip encrypted DVD's, be sure to check the relevant copyright laws in your country.You can install Dvd::rip along with the encrypted libraries from the Terminal. Fire it up, and type:sudo apt-get install dvdrip subtitleripper ksubtitleripper gocr mplayer libdvdread3 debhelper fakerootAlright, I'm starting to run out of application ideas, so you should definitely suggest some. And then you should subscribe to the site feed so you can see your wonderful idea in all its glory!
More About: Drive , Snap , Hard , Hard Drive , Copy

Do - A Quick Launcher for GNOME
2008-02-01 01:43:00
Thanks to Ken Rose for suggesting this application. You can suggest an application, but be sure to include your name and your website if you have one. Oh, and don't forget to subscribe to the RSS feed!Do is an application to find things on your system and quickly perform actions, similar to Quick silver for OSX and GNOME Launch Box. It works on a variety of different desktop environments, including GNOME and KDE. Basically, all you need to do is to press Super + Space on your keyboard, and the Do dialog will open. Super is the Windows key on a PC, or the Command key on a Mac. Type in the name of an application, and Do will launch it for you.But that's just the start of the fun you can have with GNOME Do. As you can see, you can also use it to listen to amazing Radiohead albums! Alastair Otter from Tectonic mentions some of the more interesting features:When installed GNOME Do instantly has access to Firefox favourites, applications and configuration tools on the Ubuntu desktop. The...
More About: Gnome , Launcher

Tomboy - Simple Notetaking Ubuntu Applicaton
2008-01-30 21:50:00
Jack Lhasa kindly recommended this Ubuntu application. You can hear more from Jack, including an interesting article about combining GTD and Tomboy , over at Loki Listens.You can recommend your favorite Ubuntu application too! Send me your name, your suggestion, and your web address, and I'll get you on!Tomboy is a dead simple note-taking application. It's a lot like sticky notes without all of the clutter and resource-draining. The application lives in your task bar, and you can easily add, link together, and search through notes really easily. The text formatting includes highlighting, spell-check, and bullet point lists; you can even instantly create new notes by clicking on words that LookLikeThis.For me, though, the best part is all of the plug-ins that are included. Plug-ins exist to show backlinks, to integrate with Bugzilla and Evolution, and to automatically create a 'Note of the Day' to collect your daily thoughts. Best of all, you can use a plug-in to import notes from...
More About: Simple , Cato

Brightside - Screen Corner Actions and Edge-Flipping Made Easy
2008-01-29 22:55:00
Image Credit: maketecheasier.comThank you to Kyle a.k.a. phynix for this excellent recommendation. Kyle is part of the open-source community and is currently working on publishing a new blog. Keep up with him at his StumbleUpon page. Update: Kyle launched his blog --- you can visit Adventures in Ubuntu to see more.Sometimes I find myself a little jealous of those pesky Mac users, with their pretty-looking hardware and reflective dock bar. Yes, I know, most Linux operating systems provide much more functionality than OSX. But still, it's hard not to notice how well things like Spotlight and edge-flipping work.But then I found Brightside, and I'm nowhere near as jealous. This Ubuntu application adds actions to the corners of the screen in GNOME, such as switching virtual desktops and controlling the volume. You can even enable the screensaver and control the screen brightness on your laptop.Installing it for Ubuntu isn't too difficult. Fire up your favorite terminal and type:sudo ...
More About: Screen , Flipping , Made , Corner , Edge

Audacious - Lightweight Music Player for Ubuntu
2008-01-28 16:59:00
Image Credit: audacious-media-player.orgBack in the day before I ran out of XP activations (stupid thing kept crashing), I used to LOVE Winamp for managing and playing my MP3 collection. It was just so quick, minimal and responsive compared to more management-based programs like iTunes. Imagine my delight when I switched to Linux and discovered XMMS. It was love until the honeymoon stage wore off, and became annoyed by the ugly GTK1 menus and fonts, and the lack of development.Enter Audacious, a fork of the similarly-fated Beep Media Player . It works with Winamp Classic skins, satisfying my inner Microsoft fanboy. It can play back MP3 plus a slew of other formats. It's got a little bit of effects processing, some Last.FM support, and a whole lot of visualization plugins (like Paranormal!). Install this player, young grasshopper, and go terrorize ShoutCast with your listenership.How to install, you ask? Fire up your trusty terminal, and enter the following secret password:sudo apt-g...
More About: Music , Ubuntu , Lightweight

Comix - A Nifty Linux Comic Book Viewer
2008-01-27 16:35:00
Image Source: comix.sourceforge.net Comix is a comic book reader that doubles as a pretty useful generic image viewer. It's written in Python and uses GTK+. It's got a nice sidebar thumbnail viewer,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
More About: Linux , Comic , Book , Nifty

The Daily Ubuntu Featured at LXer.com!
2008-01-27 16:19:00
My post on gLabels was recently featured at LXer.com. Thanks to tuxchick for submitting it! I know, I know, I'm unduly excited by this; but you like me! You really like me! Okay, I'll go find you... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
More About: Daily , Ubuntu , Featured

gLabels - A Business Card and Label Creator
2008-01-26 18:30:00
Image Source: glabels.sourceforge.net gLabel s is a nifty little GNOME application used to make business cards and labels. I used to do it in OpenOffice, but that was starting to become kind of a... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
More About: Business , Card , Creator , Business Card

Whoops: Installation Directions for Amarok are Wrong
2008-01-26 18:05:00
Thank you to my friends over at StumbleUpon for noticing that the command line input to install Amar ok was wrong in my previous post. In addition to the code in the post, you must also enter the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
More About: Directions , Wrong , Alla

Dear Readers: The Daily Ubuntu IS BACK!
2008-01-26 00:15:00
I think I need to apologize to all of you. I promised daily Ubuntu applications, and then I took quite a long hiatus. I didn't mean to be gone for so long, but life got busy, and so on and so forth.... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
More About: Daily , Readers , Back

Gaupol - a text-based video subtitle editor
2007-10-10 20:23:00
Edit or Re-time Your Subtitles With This Nifty Editor : Gaupol provides support for a variety of different text-based subtitle files, and can help you get that video or DVD project corrected, synchronized, and back on track. The designers created this program for GNOME using GTK, and coded it to make batch processing and translating a snap. It works a lot like a standard text-editor, with find
More About: Video , Text

GParted - An Excellent GNOME-based partition editor
2007-10-05 16:44:00
GParted is probably one of the best hard drive partition programs that are out there for Linux right now. It supports plenty of different format types, and can create, destroy, resize, move, check... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
More About: Partition , Editor , Gnome , Base , Lent

Leafpad - A Lightweight Text Editor
2007-09-12 01:04:00
Leafpad is a lightweight and easy to use text editor. It is designed with GTK2. The entire emphasis of its development is to make sure it has only the bare essentials so as to preserve speed, and it... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
More About: Text Editor , Text , Editor , Lightweight , Weigh

Amarok - A Wonderful KDE-Based Music Player for Ubuntu
2007-09-09 18:42:00
Amarok is a really nice music player that connects to Wikipedia automatically, supports lyrics, uses AudioScrobbler and Music Brainz, and connects to your iPod like nobody's business. It's incredibly... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
More About: Ubuntu , Player , Wonderful , Base