jmv.me

Bisigi Project designs quality Ubuntu themes

Julia Van Cleve — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:24:58 +0000

What the Bisigi Project lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality. After coming across a theme of theirs in Gnome-look I was went to their website, and was hooked. As of now, I have tried:

Exotic
Wild-shine
Tropical
Aquadreams
Bamboo Zen
Step Into Freedom
Ubuntu Sunrise
balanzan (formerly known as Ubuntu-fr)
Infinity (I used the old version)

I loved them all, though my favorite by far was Bamboo Zen, which works really well with the Google Chrome theme Zen Spring. A screenshot of my desktop is below:

Screenshot

Here are some themes that I haven’t tried yet:

As of today, there are 13 themes on their website. Back when I first found them (not exactly sure when) they only had nine. So, they don’t crank out themes every day, but they do keep their current themes up-to-date and when a new theme does come out, you can be sure that it was very well thought out.

Badschemer offers easy theme-design for gEdit

Julia Van Cleve — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:34:19 +0000

Badschemer is an opensource program designed by David Brown which offers an intuitive gui for creating and editing of gEdit style schemes.

Instructions on downloading this application can be viewed here.

Screenshot

I have submitted three patches to Badschemer that can be downloaded below. The first patch is necessary for those using Badschemer 1.0.1 on Karmic Koala, but it has already been included in the November release of Badschemer 1.0.2. The second patch adds the “right-margin” coloring description to the application and the third removes a warning. Make sure to add the “right-margin” patch before adding the warning patch.

A screenshot of gEdit demonstrating the right-margin patch is below.

Screenshot

Winter Break ‘10: Biosphere 2

Julia Van Cleve — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:28:22 +0000

Biosphere 2 is a research center outside of Tuscon, Arizona dedicated to learning the inner workings of Earth’s biomes.

Winter Break ‘10: Titan Missile Silo

Julia Van Cleve — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:27:58 +0000

The Titan Missile Silo is located outside of Tuscon, Arizona. The museum is open for visitors and is run by the Arizona Aerospace Foundation.

Winter Break ‘10: Desert Botanical Garden

Julia Van Cleve — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:26:30 +0000

The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona is home to over 100 rare species of desert plants. It also has a cafe, gift shop, garden tours, and more to entertain it’s over 300,000 visitors per year.

Winter Break ‘10: Arcosanti, Arizona

Julia Van Cleve — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:25:14 +0000

Arcosanti is an experimental city designed by Paolo Soleri, based on the theory of “Arcology.” Its goal is to allow the self sustainable growth of a city, interfering as little as possible on the surrounding area.

Winter Break ‘10: Misc. Phoenix, Arizona

Julia Van Cleve — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:24:41 +0000

Just a few more photos taken around Phoenix, Arizona.

Docky goes solo, doesn’t disappoint

Julia Van Cleve — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 05:03:34 +0000

A while back, I was considering losing the Docky interface of Gnome Do, going back to AWN, and just using Gnome Do for its Quicksilver functionalities. However, I decided that I really wasn’t ready to sacrifice the speed and reliability of Gnome Do for the unpredictable AWN.

That was when I came across a post in Lifehacker which talked about Docky and Gnome Do going separate ways. Now, this doesn’t mean that the Docky interface is completely gone from Gnome Do, it just means that it’s getting less attention in Gnome Do than it is in Docky. I was ecstatic to hear that this split had happened. It was exactly what I had been hoping for. No AWN for me!

Docky is pretty early on in its development, however, it was already apparent that there were many improvements. This means a lot, since I hadn’t felt that there was much to fix in the first place, till I saw how smoothly Docky performed in comparison to Ghome Do’s Docky interface.

There are many more customizations that can be applied to the dock. There aren’t a lot, but more than Gnome Do. You can change the dock background, the dock placement (a definite plus), and even the number of docks. Granted, it takes a bit of poking and prodding to figure out how to change things, but they do work.

Screenshot

Remember that the whole reason why I looked into getting a standalone dock was so I could use the dock solely for window management, and then Gnome Do as my Quicksilver for Linux. Well, I accomplished that, since Gnome Do and Docky work perfectly well together, no interferences.

So, you don’t need to get rid of Gnome Do if you’re content with the limited options of your dock. It’s a wonderful app and will serve you well. However, if you’re picky like me, then try Docky. Be patient and you wont be disappointed.

You can download Docky by adding ppa to your software repositories, then searching for docky in Synaptic Package Manager.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

RPISEC pwns at NYU-Poly’s CSAW

Julia Van Cleve — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:50:15 +0000

RPI’s Computer Security Club, RPISEC, traveled to New York this past Friday to participate in NYU-Poly’s Cyber Security Awareness Week, placing second in Application Security Capture the Flag, and both first and second in the security quiz.

CSAW is a computer security competition where students from around the US participate in team challenges involving computer security. Cash prizes were bestowed upon those in first, second, and third place, scholarships were granted to NYU students, and travel grants were given to those who qualified.

Other events at CSAW included:

Cyber Forensics Challenge (for high school students only)
Embedded Systems Challenge
Research Award
Security Awareness Poster Competition

International students were also free to compete online, however, students were only eligible for final rounds and prizes if they were from the contiguous US.

Courtesy of CSAW NYU-Poly

In Photo:

Alex Rad ‘11 and Ryan Govostes ‘11 competed in the CSAW Quiz Tournament where they were asked about cryptography, security trivia, the history of security, and other topics.

More photos at: http://research.poly.edu/

No related posts.

Bring useful functionalities of Mac OS X to Linux with “Gnome Do”

Julia Van Cleve — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:15:49 +0000

I tend to be very particular about how my computer works, and if it doesn’t do what I say, when I say it, I get angry. A couple of things that I’ve always admired about Mac OS X is the Dock, and Quicksilver. I tried Avant Window Navigator a while back, but sadly, the number of bugs and glitches eventually forced me to revert back to the traditional Ubuntu panels.

Not too long ago, while searching for a “Quicksilver-for-linux”, I can across Gnome Do which integrates the Quicksilver functionality with an optional Dock interface.

Screenshot

How does it work? Install it, click “Windows button” + Space Bar and a search window will appear. Type in an application (ex. Thunderbird) and when it shows up, click enter. Suddenly the application is open! If you’re familiar with how Quicksilver works, this isn’t surprising. But, that didn’t stop me from admiring a few key functionalities of Gnome Do.

Clean interface
Optional “Mac-like” Dock
Recently searched applications remain in Dock after being selected
Auto-hide feature (and an “intellihide” feature, which I don’t quite understand.)
Optional Plugin to enable searching for folder names
A neat weather widget
A non-buggy Dock-able Trash-bin (This was one of the issues I had with AWN)
If it doesn’t find an Application or Folder, it will assume you want a definition. Which is sort of nifty and convenient.

Gnome Do can be found in the Synaptic Package Manager, or at this link: Download

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars