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Wow, time flys. It seems like only yesterday I was having fun upgrading Ubuntu from Breezy to Dapper and now only one week away (26th Oct) I will upgrade to yet another fantastic update from the Ubuntu team. I have been using Ubuntu since Warty, switching from Windows to Linux full time at the start of 2005 nearly two years ago. Were it not for Ubuntu I doubt I would be using Linux today, it really helped ease me into Linux.

Having been a Windows junkie for over 11 years then jumping to Ubuntu Linux in an instant Ubuntu had to be doing something right. What impresses me is the improvement with each release. Every six months it seems there has been a tremendous amount of work going into the next release, you can almost "feel" the updates.

Just take a look at some of the changes in store https://wiki.ubuntu.com/EdgyReleaseNotes

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AllofMP3.com is hands down the best source to download music from, having such a vast collection in the format/quality of your choice (Mines OGG q5) with no DRM means I have never spent so much money on music before and now have a very large collection of music and an even more varied taste in music.

AllofMP3 even produce a nice app for you to interface with their music store and add files to a queue which this app will download for you, great! If your using Linux however you can try and emulate this app under Wine/Crossover Office (a pain even if it works) or use a download manager and add all the files by one to many clicks for my liking. Well, there must be a better way? Actually, no, not that I could find. So to scratch my own itch I have started work on one dubbed AllofTUX (great name right? ).

I shall be releasing a version of it sometime in the not so distant future, GPL'ed of course. It's a simple app but I might expand it's feature set later on.



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For those who don't know, compiz is a Window manager that can be used with XGL to provide a new level of "eye candy" for Linux, and it just got better.

Beryl is a fork of Compiz, and comes with some fantastic tools that make running XGL/Beryl even easier such as the Beryl Manager notification area icon that allows you to easily restart the window manager or window decorator or switch between your previous ones. Also a very handy fall-back window manager option is included whereby if Beryl crashes (hasn't happened yet but still it is beta software) it can fall back to your previous window manager or restart Beryl.

Another introduction is the Emerald window decorator that was previously known as CGWD. The Compiz settings tool has also been updated and is now called the Beryl Settings Manager. Both apps have had a makeover with Beryl Settings Manager having an entire reorganisation making it better then ever. Aside from this a few new effects have been added, some new minimise/maximise effects such as an OSX genie style and one that spins/shrinks the window. The blur/motion blur plug-in is working much better and many other effects such as cube rotate and wobbly windows seem to be smoother.

Compiz is really coming along nicely now that it has become Beryl. I look forward to seeing what the future brings, hopefully Beryl will be included in Ubuntu Edgy instead of Compiz.

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Oh how I hate it, the art of "putting it off till later". I have a degree in this skill. No matter where it's work or something like a blog post, there's nothing I do better than wasting time doing something else instead and I don't know why this is. I wouldn't say I was lazy, often once I have got started I do a good job and put a fair amount of effort in but it's the getting started that's so hard. Every task small or big seems like a chore even if I don't really mind doing it.

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