openSUSE 10.3 (demo / review)

Hello and welcome to my first VIDEO Demo and review. This is on the open source linux based operating system called 'open SUSE' developed by Novell. Today I will showing you the 32Bit 10.3 version.

for more info check out : www.opensuse.org

Window Management:
Window management is really nice and smooth due to compiz fusion; a application that can be easily installed with just a click on open SUSE. With this installed you can place windows across 4 different workstations and use the 3D cube to switch through different applications or windows set up on different workstations. You can also use other cool window switchers and many cool toys.


3D cube:
As mentioned this is a 3D cube with 4 different workstations spread across it. You use hot key combinations to switch workstations with ease.



Usable applications in openSUSE:
There are many popular usable applications for linux, and alternatives too! Here's a list of popular programs that will work on this operating system.

-Firefox (out of the box)
A popular open source browser.

-Opera
A popular web browser.

-Open Office suite (out of the box) Works out of the box, comes pre installed. As the name suggests this is a open source office program which serves as a windows office alternative. If you have used office you will find this almost identicle. It includes : a word processor, a presentator (think power point), spread sheet creator and manager, Database creator and manager, and a planner. With these programs, for example the word procesor, you can save files as window office files. This makes them readable in office programs, making this software much more useful. You can also save as different office year formats (ex: 98, 2003, 2007).

-Google Earth
A satellite viewing program.

-Skype
A VOIP internet caller program and service.

-pidgin (out of the box)

Pidgin is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once.

Pidgin can work with:

• AIM
• Bonjour
• Gadu-Gadu
• Google Talk
• Groupwise
• ICQ

• IRC
• MSN
• MySpaceIM
• QQ
• SILC

• SIMPLE
• Sametime
• XMPP
• Yahoo!
• Zephyr

-aMSN
It's a MSN messenger clone, like pidgin but only for MSN, it looks more alike aswell. You can also download different skins and plugins.

-Banshee (out of the box)
A multimedia music player that feels like itunes.

-FrostWire
A limewire clone, P2P program for multimedia downloading.

-XMMS
A music player that feels like winamp, plugins and skins can be added.

-FileZilla
A popular and successfull FTP and SFTP client.

-Thunderbird
A email client.

-F-spot (out of the box)
A photo organiser and viewer.

-The GIMP (out of the box)
A photo editor similar to photoshop.

-Qtorrent, Deluge, Azureus, ect.
Torrent downloaders (like bit torrent)

-Brasero and Nero 3 for linux (out of the box)
A DVD/CD creator and burner.

-Audacity sound editor
A popular sound editor.
-Samba (out of the box)
A printer and network manager for network sharing with window computers.

-Cinelerra
A non-linear video editing program.

-Gnu Cash
Finace Managment program.

-Virtual Box
A open source program that will virtually run other operating systems

WINE
For other programs that only run on windows, or certain games, you can check out a program called 'Wine' which can run window programs off a windows partition or hard drive on linux.

http://winehq.org/

Eye Candy
As for the basic default look, this operating system is very clean. It has a fairly simple UI but also keeps its functionality. However, all this can be changed. In the video you can see that I have changed the gnome theme, which is the way everything looks (the taskbar, menu, windows, ect.) Aswell I've added the 'Cairo Dock', which is like the mac dock, but with different themes. Then I downloaded 'Screenlets' which is a look-alike to the windows vista sidebar, except that you can download many other screenlets to place on this bar, you can also move them anywhere on the screen, or place them as widgets - so that every time you press F9 they appear on the screen (think mac widgets). I also added a custom skydome for the cube, changed the GDM login screen theme, changed the emerald theme, and some other minor things. All these are not necessary but are just appearance changes. Which is fun if you have too much time on your hands or like playing with this kind of stuff!

Some Cool eye candy tricks on compiz fusion are here:

My youtube account

check out my youtube channel at youtube.com/user/792247 for some awesome videos or just to leave some love!

-N. Polyz.

Asus Eee PC 900

It's the new Asus Eee PC laptop - the 900. It's great for on the fly web browsing, emailing, basic office use, conference, messaging, and more. It's extremely portable at 2.18IB, with a 8.9" screen. My friend has one of these, it's pretty awesome!

Upgrades Include:

1GB DDR2 (from 512MB) - upgradeable to2GB
12GB SSD solid state drive (from 2/4GB) - shock resistant
Added 1.3 MP webcam
Windows XP Home or Linux

prices range from $399 - $670 depending on the OS and model.

For full information click HERE.

Forumpeers.com

My blog posts are now available on the blog subcategory "Polyz Blog" - Check it out at forumpeers. This means that I will be trying to post at least three times per week. The results? MORE AWESOME TECH POSTS!

XD
-N. Polyz.

Flash Awards

Hello everyone and welcome to my very first blog post. I'm usually talking about everything tech - new software, hardware, tech news, reviews, rants, opinions, and other blabbering!

You may want to take a look at the Newgrounds.com for the first annual Tank Awards. These are awards for talented flash artists and coders. Awards will be given for best flash movie and best game, there's a lot of cash in prizes, including a bronze trophy! Winners will be announced May 30th. Check out the website for details.

(click here for more information)

openSUSE 11.0

It's the newest version of openSUSE - the open source linux based operating system developed by Novell. The hype is on full blast, it's scheduled to hit the ground June 19th!

"The next version of openSUSE is coming Thursday, June 19th, 2008! Some of the new features and cool innovations in openSUSE 11.0 include updated desktops with new features, including the revolutionary new KDE 4; a new installer which makes the installation quicker and nicer; Live CDs so you can try openSUSE before committing; innovative new desktop effects, quicker and slicker software management, and many new applications to improve your daily life."

check it out here! Get your own countdown here!

The countdown (right corner) will remain until it's over :)

RAB Collection DVD (Review)

Title: Retarded Animal Babies : The Definitive DVD collection
Type: DVD (Flash Movie Series)
Sold on: http://www.umop.com/
Price: $18.95 USD (shipping ~$2 - $4)


My first review is on this DVD of a animated internet flash series called Retarded Animal Babies (RAB). It's not recommended for the wee-ones but is absolutely hilarious. If you haven't seen the flash series, go to newgrounds.com and check out the 20 episodes. This is a DVD collection of episodes 1-16 and tuns of bonus features! This means the unseen episodes 9 and 16, plus bonus material.

It's good to have this classic sitting in your DVD collection, there's not too much extra content, but it's overall worth the buy.

BUY IT HERE.

Mac vs PC : sick of it. (RANT)

What has life came to : arguing over operating systems and computers. Who has the better software? 'OOOOH well I can run your software!' 'Ohhhh well I can run GAMES!' I'm sick of it. What happened to the times whens no one cared if Pepsi was better than coke, or when someone could buy Pepsi and not get harassed by someone who loves Coca-Cola.

People are hating other companies, apple, microsoft, sony, dell, companies they know nothing of. If you haven't shaken Bill Gates or Steve Jobs hand, then don't talk about them.

I use linux, I like linux over other systems. Most of my tech friends use windows or macs, but I don't go around saying 'HAY GUYZ SWITCH TO LINUX ITS FREE!!!!' when ever they're talking about windows or macs. Why? Because people are entitled to their opinions but should respect other peoples opinions or choices.

This is a civilized world, 'open minded' and 'respect' should be in our vocabulary.

-N. Polyz.

Computer Cooling

What cooling do you use on your computer? I have 5 case fans which I like because there cheap, and If you look hard you can find one silent enough that pushes enough air. Heatsinks are awesome for CPU/GPU cooling, but I want to find out if there are some cheap liquid cooling packages that come with everything included, because I'm not a fan of dust - cleaning my case - and sometimes the noise is a bit too noisy, on full load. Any tips?

Make Firefox FASTER! (tip)

Here's a very useful and noticeable soft mod for firefox. It's simple and straightforward, anyone can make this work.

Published by CPU Magazine all credit to CPU Magazine.

Speed up browsing. This next set of modifications exemplifies what’s
possible with Firefox, but it can be controversial. You can set Firefox
to use multiple connections to a Web server to retrieve multiple files
instead of just one. Some consider this approach as inconsiderate to
Webmasters, because their servers must spend more effort serving you a
page than someone else. That said, this can boost performance
considerably and illustrates how to modify technical settings in
Firefox.

First, open Firefox and type about:config in the Address Bar and press
ENTER, which displays the equivalent of Firefox’s Registry. Next, type
HTTP into the Filter field, which displays only those entries that have
“http” within them. Then, do the following:

1. Change network.http.pipelining to true by double-clicking it;

2. Change network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to 8 by double-clicking it and entering 8 in the pop-up window;

3. Change network.http.max-persistant-connections-per-server to 8;

4. Change network.http.max-connections to 48;

5. Change network.http.proxy.pipelining to true;

6. Change network.http.max-persistant-connections-per-proxy to 8; and

7. Right-click anywhere in this screen, and choose New Integer from the
pop-up menu. Enter the Preference Name as nglayout.initialpaint.delay,
and its Value as 0.

Restart Firefox to enable the changes.

-N. Polyz.

packaged media VS online media

It's an interesting discussion, if packaged media (CDs, DVDs, BluRays, ect.) will be replaced with online or downloaded media. CDs have already been replaced with iTunes and Limewire, but will the same thing happen to DVDs and BluRay? There are already websites like BitTorrent and Steam which let you pay to download content like movies, games, music, ect. Which are becoming more popular methods, Yet also allowing piracy to sky rocket. Which is the better method? Well let's see what will happen with BluRay in the next 5-8 years.

-N. Polyz.

Is Linux right for you?

Linux is a hard topic to blog about, it's not for everyone. But I'm going to explain the basics to you and you can figure it out for yourself.

Linux means open source operating systems, or in plain english; an OS like windows or macs except it's free. There are many different versions or flavors of linux, which are called distributions. You should find a popular enough distrobution and try it out, some examples are; openSUSE, Ubuntu, Fedora, ect. You can download it and burn it onto a CD/DVD, or buy a CD/DVD and get it shipped to you. Once you have a CD you can test it out without swipping your hard drive or screwing anything up. This is because most new Linux distrobutions have 'Live CDs' which means when you put the CD into your tray and reboot, you will get to run the OS right off the CD with out installing. This gives great opportunity to try it out before you decide to install the OS. When installing you usually have the option of leaving your other OS on the machine, for example Windows. Once installed you can change between windows and Linux if you choose to keep windows.

Now, talking about Linux, linux has all your basic basic stuff preinstalled, out of the box. Most distros come with firefox, or a browser, a music player like Banshee, office programs like the Open Office suite, and so fourth. So you can do most of your stuff like email, office, and web. You can also install stuff like IM alternatives, P2P programs (think limewire), Torrent programs, photo/video editors, and other programs.

But their photo / video editors and more advance programs are not top of the line, It lacks some compatiblity aswell (like my mp3 player) but if works with ipods and the popular mp3 players, it also works great with my camera. It has excellent features and desktop managment. Compiz fusion is one of the neatest things on linux, it's usefull eyecandy to be said simply. I might put up a demo video sometime soon.

Click

-N. Polyz.

Firefox add-ons and themes

There are many cool firefox addons like adblocker, toolbars, security gadgets, and so fourth. I myself have never added anything to firefox in all the years I've had firefox. But recently, I looked through the firefox addon and theme pages and tried some cool stuff like; McAfee site advisor, a weather forecaster, gmail notifier, torrent finder toolbar, and I installed some cool themes.

If you haven't fooled around with firefox's addons and themes, I suggest going to the mozilla firefox website and browse through there addons to see if there's something you think would be a great addition to your internet surfing experience.

-N. Polyz.

Hello

Welcome to my blog. This is the first post, today on May 4th. I hope to update this blog upon new findings, to express my opinions, to show readers things I find interesting, and so fourth.

-N. Polyz.