Shanktified! » Software Reviews

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Deals!

Ron Shank — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:36:31 +0000

WordPress for iphone is great

Ron Shank — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:02:56 +0000

The wordpress app for iPhone is awesome. I highly recommend it for anyone with a wordpress blog and an iPhone.

Windows 7: What happens if I just keep the trial?

Ron Shank — Thu, 07 May 2009 13:45:02 +0000

For those of us with a full cup of Windows Vista hate, the answer is to run to Windows 7. The release candidate (RC) is out and I too plan to overwrite Vista with this as soon as I can get my head above water. But this article from Lifehacker made me laugh this morning. What will happen when you get the Windows 7 RC and fail to upgrade to the paid version? At first (in March 2010) you’ll get a nag/pop up. I’d expect that. Then in June, you’d expect to be locked out, right. But no, even funnier. You can use it for 30 minutes. Then it auto-reboots – without warning. Maybe it’s just me, but that’s funny and worse than a total lockout. Like what you see? Too ba(reboot).

It’s all fine. They don’t have to give you a nag-free year to begin with. If you don’t want to pay for your operating system, then get Ubuntu (or some other flavor of Linux).

Amarok2: The Weekend at Bernie’s 2 of Software

Ron Shank — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:13:48 +0000

Amarok 1.4 WAS by far the best music player I had ever seen. So many options, a great functional layout with nearly everything you wanted no more than a single click away… I did say was. My recent upgrade to Ubuntu 9.04 automagically left me with Amarok 2. Not only was it not playing out of the box, I seem to have lost all ability to customize it or control it. They say it’s the future of media players. Of course they do because, it’s sure not the present. I haven’t seen a sequel this bad since Weekend at Bernie’s 2.

Okay, enough ranting. What’s the answer, Ron? Right now, I’m extremely impressed with Exaile. It has all the features I use the most and sounds great. It lacks a way to sync my mp3 player with it (at least I haven’t found one yet) but I can still drag and drop. There is a plug-in for Ipod, but I’m not using an Ipod so I am not sure how well that works. Feel free to leave your thoughts/comments/rants below.

Only 2 minor hickups after upgrading to Ubuntu 9.04

Ron Shank — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 03:08:42 +0000

I’m up and running with the latest Ubuntu release. It’s an upgrade from 8.10 which was an upgrade from 8.04.. you get the idea.

Only two hick-ups so far. The first, compiz boogered up on my leaving my Panels (or menu bars as some call them) not displaying properly. I finally had to reset them back to square one. Which is really easy to do, thanks to this post: How to Reset Ubuntu/Gnome Settings to Defaults without Re-installing.

My next minor problem was even easier to fix: Hide the drive and partition icons from my desktop. Ubuntu question #2625: “removing icons from the desktop”.

I also had to reconfigure my compiz settings manually. Everytime I restored from the back up profile, it boogered up something again making me reset my gnome defaults.

If you are a Ubuntu newbie and don’t understand half of what I just said, please feel free to post a comment or check in the Ubuntu Forums. We were all new once.

Don’t have Ubuntu or even know what it is?

Check out their website: www.ubuntu.com or nag me to put up a screencast of my own desktop.

How to Add Twitter in Pidgin

Ron Shank — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:04:53 +0000

I just installed this.. follow me on Twitter if you wish: @ronshank

How to Add Twitter in Pidgin Windows/Linux ~ Web Upd8.

Ubuntu 8.10: The Fastest-Most-Just-Worksiest Version Yet!

Ron Shank — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:32:40 +0000

I installed (upgraded to be exact) the Beta of Ubuntu 8.10 and it’s by far faster and “just works.”

Yeah! My video in Skype (still waiting for Skype to get serious about Linux, or find an alternative) now works (so I can see that my cam is not showing my head) Also working without extra effort: NVidia drivers and Broadband Wireless.

More updates when I have a little more time. If you have played around with it and find it better (or worse) than a previous version post away… oh and the new “DarkRoom” theme is McAwesome!

Google Chrome: Do we really need ANOTHER browser?

Ron Shank — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:10:56 +0000

Google Chrome is out (for windows only). But I have to ask? Did we really need another browswer? So far, I haven’t seen a reason to leave firefox. What do you think?

Top 4 Alternatives to Ubuntu Linux

Ron Shank — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:59:01 +0000

If you stop by here often or get my feed, it is probably no secret, I like Ubuntu. One of the great things about Linux is that it comes in other flavors and even people using the same distribution (“distro”) as you may have loaded a theme or customized it (see my last post) so that it look very little like your own.

If Ubuntu is not your thing, that’s fine. But don’t give up on Linux because of one experience with one distro. E-Linux.it has some (4) good Ubuntu alternatives they like along with the pros and cons they saw.

Linux grows UK PC market share | IT PRO

Ron Shank — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:12:39 +0000

From across the pond:

Linux reaching a record 2.8 per cent share last month [in the UK] pointed to an increasing appetite for OS alternatives, much like other research has found. Wanna read the full story?

Keep in mind this is up from .1 percent in early 2007.

The main reasons (besides Vista frustration) are Ubuntu has made it easier for people to get started in Linux and it sure helps Dell is pre-loading Ubuntu on some machines.

If you are frustrated with Vista, or just want to give this Linux thing a try, don’t be afraid. You may have to learn a couple new things (like burning an iso image to a CD) but there are some great guides online that make it easy. Heck, you can even Skype me and I’ll help you if I can. The biggest question most people have is “can i go back if I don’t like it.” Absolutely. Ubuntu (and nearly ever version of Linux) has a “Live CD” where you can put a CD in the drive, reboot and it bypasses (but doesn’t touch) your operating system with Ubuntu running completely from the disk and your memory. Keep in mind this is much slower than how it will actually run. But it is a great way to get a peak at it and see if it will work well with your hardware. When you are done, log out, remove the disk, reboot and you are back in Vista (burp – I just threw up in my mouth a little typing that).