New Adventures in Technology

I think I’ve made my desktop look sufficiently like a default “install”.

I really like the look of this, and could very much get used to it.

I’m running RC2 of the latest Mandriva from a live-cd to test a couple of things out, and thought I’d have a look at how KDE is doing. It’s pretty, but doesn’t seem anywhere near as instinctive as Gnome.

But maybe that’s just me.

It’s still pretty though.

I’ve built an RPM that installs fine on my installation of Mandriva 2009 (RC1).

Downloadable from here, but I’m only prepared to say that this works for me right now, as I’ve not tested it elsewhere.

Update: this version of Dropbox will also install on Mandriva 2008.1 on my EeePC. Mission accomplished.

Seeing as everyone in the world is doing it.

• brick (Toshiba laptop that is my main Linux machine – Ubuntu 8.04.1)
• kallisti (G5 iMac that runs all my music-related things – OS X 10.5.5)
• eeepc (new toy that goes everywhere with me – Mandriva 2008.1)
• impulse (G4 iBook running Ubuntu 8.04.1 – lives in the kitchen)

I also have some inactive desktop machines that I don’t find I need to use these days:

• Cerberus (old IBM web server – running Ubuntu 7.04 I think)
• Baptist (very old Dell optiplex I’m half way through setting up as a router)
• Scorpio (my old desktop from a couple of years ago. Now used to test things that might break my laptop)

Steph also has three machines; a desktop and a laptop running Windows XP and a server running Fedora 8.

Too many computers? There is no such thing. And it’s not like we have more than 3 or 4 on at a time.

I downloaded this album because I liked the front cover. It reminded me of “Funeral” by The Arcade Fire, and I thought that as The Rest were also Canadian they might be operating in the same sort of area. Reviews of this album have even likened it to The Arcade Fire, but also to U2 and other fairly large and commercial bands.

“Atlantis, Oh Our Saviour” sounds a little like quite a few bands I like, but also does a good job of sounding exactly like it should. There are quiet parts, loud parts, and screamed-into-the-microphone parts (sometimes within the same song). There is rock, orchestral pop, electronica, and a strong sense that this is the start of something beautiful.

I feel the same way I felt when I first heard The Fleet Foxes, The Arcade Fire or (if you can remember that far back) Jeff Buckley’s “Grace”. I can’t pick out favourite tracks because you just have to listen to it all and see if you have room for it in your life.

“Atlantis, Oh Our Saviour” can be downloaded for free from Jamendo.

British singer/songwriter Sean Wright has been releasing one full album a month for the past year and a half. A couple of weeks ago I started to dip into these, and have so far downloaded about 30 songs, all of which I like to a greater or lesser degree.

It makes me wonder how much longer he’ll keep doing this, and whether he will ever run out of songs. I also wonder how many of these albums will make it onto Jamendo, because Last.fm is really best suited to individual tracks.

Kouki deleted all their albums from Jamendo, which is slightly annoying as I’d only got about half way through downloading them.

I must have listened to about 24 hours worth of new music this week, and as I’m off work on Monday I might even get a chance to review some of it.

Icarus Crash are a melodic hard rock group from Malaga in Spain. They sing in Spanish, with a few English phrases thrown in on occasion (I think).

As I’m not really a fan of the genre, I didn’t expect to like this as much as I do. It sounds like a more compact and more melodic The Mars Volta, but also has a great deal of crossover potential, and I think that this would be a bit hit in rock clubs as it has the sort of energy that will drag people up to dance even if they don’t normally like to. My favourite track is “Ro”, but there isn’t a bad track on it really, and the whole listening experience is really enjoyable, which was a nice surprise.

The whole album can be streamed or downloaded for free from Jamendo.

Again, a really simple command to pull up a google map.

map B457HJ

There is a lot more that can be done with maps, but that will have to wait for another day.