Windows XP is still the most popular operating system today, despite being ever so slightly outdated. The main reason is that people are comfortable with it. They’re comfortable with the way it looks, the way it works, and the way it acts. That’s a huge reason why many people refuse to switch to Linux, OS X, and even Vista. Luckily, there is hope for Linux evangelists. Just make Linux look like Windows!

Before you go down to the comment section to write an angry comment about why we shouldn’t make Linux look like Windows, stop and read this. My Kubuntu install looks very KDEish, and I have no intention of making it look like Windows. However, some people just can’t live without Windows’ look and feel. They are the people this article is targeting.

Before…

…and after

Skinning Ubuntu

The first thing to do is combine the top and bottom desktop panels. First, delete the bottom panel by right-clicking on it and hitting Delete. Then, drag the top panel to the bottom so that it resembles the Windows taskbar. Next, delete everything except the Notification Area, the time, and the sound. Add the Main Menu and Window List, and then move everything around until it looks right.

Now, it’s time to configure the desktop. Hit Alt-F2 and run gconf-editor. Go to apps/nautilus/desktop and check computer_icon_visible, home_icon_visible, network_icon_visible, and trash_icon_visible. Optionally, uncheck volumes_visible to prevent drives to show up on the desktop. You can also double click on the corresponding icon’s name to change it to a string like My Computer or My Network Places. Finally, add a Windows XP-like wallpaper to your desktop (like my Tux Family Portrait wallpaper).

The next thing to do is to install the GTK+ theme. My favorite XP-like themes are XPLuna and XPLuna Metallic, the blue and silver versions of the (in)famous official Windows XP theme. Just download them from their homepage, open the theme manager (System > Preferences > Appearance), and drag them into it. However, the transformation may not work right away, often resulting in a very ugly 1990s look. To fix this, hit the Customize button and change the Controls and Window Borders to XPLuna. You may also notice that the panel is a little small. Right-click on it, hit Properties, and change the size to a size you fell happier with. I personally like 30px.

The fonts are also a little off. The solution for this problem is to install the package msttcorefonts with apt, aptitude, or synaptic. You’ll also want the Tahoma font, with install instructions available here. Once everything is installed, go back to Appearance Preferences and then the Font tab. Change the Application font and Desktop font to Tahoma 8, the Window title to Trebuchet MS Bold 10, and the Document font to Times New Romans 12. Now, the fonts should be much closer to what they look like in Windows XP.

There’s still one thing that doesn’t look quite right: the icons. You may have noticed that the Tango icons don’t really make a nice contrast with the Luna theme. There’s a simply solution: the GnomeXP icon set. Just download it and drag it into the Appearance Manager like you did with XPLuna. Then, click the Customize button again, click the Icons tab, and select GnomeXP.

Now that the interface is all set up, there’s one more thing to make Ubuntu look completely like Windows XP. The login theme. Right now, Ubuntu still uses the Human GDM login theme, which looks great, but not very XP-ish. You can solve this problem by downloading Windoze Professional, a GDM theme from Gnome-Look. Then go to System > Administration > Login Window, click the Local tab, click Add, find Windoze Professional, and then select it in the list.

All that’s left is the optional job of skinning some of Ubuntu’s main programs to make them integrate even more into Luna. The first place to start is Firefox. In my opinion, the best theme for fitting into Windows is the Firefox 2 theme, available here. There are also the MozXP and IE6 themes, but at the time of this writing neither worked with Linux.

Another popular application that can fit very well into Luna is the VLC media player. To Lunatize it, download the MediaPlayer skin from the VLC Skins page. After you do so, run the command vlc -I skins2. When VLC launches, right click on it and hit Select Skin > Open Skin… Select the .vlt that you downloaded, and VLC should now resemble Windows Media Player.

Conclusion

Obviously, it’s impossible to make Ubuntu look completely like XP. However, I believe it’s very close. And if people see something similar to what they already know, they’ll be much more inclined to try it. This setup still won’t function completely like Windows, but new users will feel just a little more at home in their new Ubuntu setup.

Further Reading

• The Ubuntu Help Wiki’s Free Software Alternatives page
• The Ubuntu Help Wiki’s Windows Applications Equivalents page
• The Ubuntu Help Wiki’s Software Equivalents page
• The official Ubuntu Switching From Windows guide
• Wine, a compatibility layer for running Windows apps on Linux

When Google filed their Android patent in September 2007, the hype was almost as high as the hype surrounding Apple’s iPhone. Native apps, any phone, any carrier, and open source sounded pretty dang good. But then, Google started losing its jump. Apple picked up speed, added 3rd party native apps, and brought down the price. Meanwhile, Google twiddled their thumbs and announced a few developer contests. Soon, the iPhone was achieveing popularity next to the iPod. And Android? The only ones who remembered it were the Google diehards, a few programming geeks, and the guys at the Buzz Out Loud podcast. Recently, the hype has been picking up, especially since the Android might actually be shipping soon (or, by the time you read this, already been shipped). But Android will still be second-best to the iPhone, unless Google makes some significant steps.

Step 1: Bring up the Hype Again by Shipping the Dang Thing (and Shipping it Well)

The main reason the hype died was that Google never shipped anything. There were a few prototypes and demos, but YouTube videos don’t compare to actually having the phone in your hands. By contrast, Apple managed to keep the hype up by not announcing anything until they were close to shipping it. To get its hype up, Google needs to start shipping models. The HTC-made T-Mobile-supported Dreamphone will start shipping soon. But Google needs more than just the Dreamphone to get its hype back up. Google needs to start working with all the carriers and all the manufacturers. Why didn’t they incorporate Android into their recent Verizon deal? Why haven’t we heard a thing about AT&T since April? And heck, why stop at mobile phones? Why not make Android work on all mobile platforms? Start with the Nokia n810 and other OMAP devices. Hackers have already ported it, for crying out loud. It’s not that hard to tidy up the code, slap a logo on it, and release a binary.

Step 2: Use the Wow Factor for Both Hardware and Software

Half of the appeal of the iPhone is that the hardware is so great. The iPhone pioneered the concept of an elegant finger-based touchscreen. The Android needs to do more than just match it with another touchscreen.

Software is also crucial. Sliding to scroll, pinching to zoom, and all the other touch-based operations of the iPhone seem standard now. The Android definitely needs something at least equivelant to that. But it also needs to go above and beyond the iPhone basics. Copying the competition never brings a “wow” product. The only way for a copycat to suceed is to use questionable marketing tricks, as with Internet Explorer and Microsoft. But if you stay legal, you’ve got very little chance. Heck, look at today’s iPhone clone market. How many of them have taken off? None. The Android needs to wow the crowds. Add in amazing touch gestures that no one has ever thought of. Create an awe-inspiring operating system has the power of Windows Mobile and the ease-of-use/non-clunkyness of the iPhone.

Step 3: Get 3rd Party Devs

The iPhone was adopted immediately. But not because it was a great phone. It was, but the main reason that drove the iPhone adoption, especially for the 3G, was the apps available. There are thousands of software programs in the iPhone App Store, many of which take advantage of the iPhone’s hardware to make revolutionary new apps. Android needs a huge app market to get sales numbers up. According to their blog, they are. Google’s also been very smart in that they’ve been rewarding programmers with their $10 million Android Developer Challenge. The challenge has already been a success, producing such applications as Jeffrey Sharkey’s barcode scanner, Jose Fernandez’s iris authentication wallet, Robert Mickle’s finger painting app, Eric Wijngaard’s innovative image editor, Stephen Oldmeadow’s music composition program, and Tunewiki Inc.’s cool music player. But if you look at the full list of apps from the first round, you’ll notice that most are created by individuals. That’s great, and I’m a huge supporter of the free software movement. Despite this, Google needs to start getting commercial developers and companies into the mix. Commercial companies are able to put more time, effort, and manpower into applications, something that an employed programmer with a day job just can’t do.

Conclusion

Google’s really lost a lot of ground to the iPhone. In order to make it up, they need to act fast, but not forget the quality of their software.

Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about cloud computing. The CherryPal Linux-based machine got on both Slashdot and Digg when it announced it was shipping a machine with “Firefox as the OS”. The BBC ran an article that claimed that Microsoft was ending the Windows era with a new operating system, Midori, which would store almost all your information in the cloud, getting rid of you being tied to one machine. And the Red Hat CEO thinks that cloud computing is the way of the future. Unfortunately, they’re all wrong. For now, the computer is staying right where it is.

It’s All About Speed and Power

Today, hardware failure isn’t the main reason computers stop being used. What is? Outdated power. Not corrupted hard drives, broken RAM, or fried processors. I have a computer in my attic. Everything is in working condition. Windows XP runs on it perfectly well (which for Windows XP is only-crashes-once-an-hour well). However, no one in our family uses it. Why? It’s got a crummy 128 MB of RAM, a Pentium II processor, and an ancient graphics card. To put it bluntly, it’s too slow. People want powerful machines. And the internet isn’t ready to take on the power of desktops, at least not yet. A recent Pew Research study found that approximately 10% of Americans still use dial-up. 10%. Additionally, there are still many people in the world who just don’t use the internet, whether for lack of availability or for lack of interest. There’s no chance that these users could use a cloud-based operating system without changing their data plans, which many of them just don’t want to do.

But even if those users could be persuaded to switch to broadband or DSL, there’s still the problem that neither are really that fast. Ever tried downloading a gigabyte file? It’s slow. And then, how about uploading the dang thing? Cloud supporters would argue that you’d create everything online so that you wouldn’t have to worry about uploading, but that’s just not true. What about digital pictures? Are you really going to want to wait half an hour for a gigabyte of photos to be uploaded to your cloud? And upload speeds aren’t th only problem. You can’t play Call of Duty 4 via the cloud. It would be way too slow. The only way it could possibly work is if you keep the client and all the graphics on your machine. The problem? Besides the fact that this completely defeats portability, you’ll still need a big hard drive. If that’s the case, what’s the real advantage of cloud computing?

It’s the Price, Stupid

Internet pricing is extremely expensive. For example, look at Amazon S3, one of the most popular cloud hosts around. I looked at how much 160GB was worth, as 160GB should be enough for the average user (of course, it’s far too little for users who do lots of multimedia or graphics editing). It was $24/month, plus $0.10/GB for data transfer. Not bad. But then I looked at NewEgg, a popular online computer store. I found a 160GB Western Digital hard drive with a 7200 RPM, 8MB of cache, and a 3.0GB/s speed. Price? $43.99. In less than two months, the WD hard drive was cheaper than Amazon S3. Just to make sure it wasn’t just Amazon, I looked at Apple’s MobileMe. It only offers 20GB by default, but you can add more storage. It’s not really worth it, though: 160GB of storage is $445/year, or about $37/month. And of course, it’s only compatible with Windows and OS X, leaving Linux users out of the picture.

There’s been hope that online hosting prices will go down enough so that it won’t be a factor in cloud computing. Sadly, I’m not so sure that will be the case. Certainly, prices will go down. However, will it be low enough? The answer lies in why the pricing is so expensive in the first place. Companies need to buy servers, backup servers, and a place to keep all of these servers. In addition, they need to make a profit. Server pricing is tied to hard drive pricing, since the hard drive is one of the most expensive parts of a server. Certainly, there are other factors. But often, when server pricing goes down, hard drive pricing has already gone down.

Security, Security, Security. Oh, Privacy Too.

Google’s been the target of a lot of public outcry recently. But what have they all been about? That’s right: privacy. We scream about giving Google our shopping history and letting them potentially see inside of our emails. How is it that we are even considering letting Google host all of our files? And that’s Google, which has a near-perfect track record with privacy. Would you seriously trust Microsoft (the probable cloud host for its Midori OS), a company with a horrible privacy track record, with all of your data? Would you trust CherryPal or Red Hat (the host of the CherryPal cloud computer and the probable host if RHEL ever does go into the cloud), companies with no privacy track record, with all of your data? Would you trust Amazon (one of the most popular cloud hosts), a company with a lousy privacy track record, with all of your data? You might try and encrypt everything, but that will make everything even more slower. Besides, encryption can be broken. Therefore, you’ll only want to put your data on a server that’s owned by a company that you trust. And who can you trust? The big companies are the ones that have all the privacy leaks (both unintentionally and intentionally), while the small ones are run by people you’ve never heard of. Of course, some would suggest hosting it yourself. First of all, you have to assume that the cloud OS will actually let you run your own server. In the case of Midori and CherryPal, that is very doubtful. Besides, even if you could host your own server, all the advantages of cloud computing (portability and remote access, for example) would be gone.

Downtime Isn’t Cool

Cloud computing’s uptime record is far from perfect. In fact, it’s crap. Look at MobileMe’s syncing problems. Or Twitter’s perennial downtime. Heck, look at Gmail. A couple of weeks ago, it went down for almost everyone. It was maddening not being able to access Gmail for over half an hour. I was expecting several important emails, and I couldn’t read them. Luckily for me, none of them were time-dependent. Can you imagine if it was? What if I were working out a difficult contract with an impatient client, and the server went down? I’ll tell you, I’d be mad.

The main reason is the hosts. The best-known cloud host out there is Amazon S3. In July, it went down for a whopping 6 hours. 6 hours. It was bad enough that a few relatively unimportant applications (in the scheme of life) like Twitter and Pownce went down. But imagine if your word processor was S3-dependent. Sure, that’s only about 6 hours every year or so. But 6 hours can make or break an important business deal.

Another well-known application host is Google App Engine. Since it’s Google, you’d expect it to have terrific downtime. And in Google’s defense, it does. But for 5 hours in June, it didn’t. In fact, it was completely down, which meant that applications like Jaiku also went down. Again, Jaiku is not really that important to people in the grand scheme of things. But what if you were scrambling to meet the tax deadline, and your finance application broke down becuase of a five hour downtime period? You’d be pretty upset, let me tell you.

But Wait, There’s Hope!

It’s still possible that cloud computing can take off. The speed and power and the uptime issues will eventually die down. Once they do, their pros will outweigh the cons of price, or the price will go down enough so that it will be affordable. All that’s left is privacy. And I’m confident that the internet will find some way to compensate for it.

Open source operating systems obviously give more bang for the buck than any other operating system in the world. After all, they’re free, and you can’t get lower than free (unless you’re Kaspersky). However, what about pre-installed Ubuntu machines? Do they beat their Windows and OS X competitors in the bang for the buck category? Dell got rid of the so-called Windows tax, so it’s obvious that pre-installed Ubuntu on Dells give more power than pre-installed Windows on Dells. But what about Macs?

First of all, it’s impossible to do a 1:1 comparison between any PC and Mac. Duh. However, I attempted to make it as accurate as possible by customizing parts on the Ubuntu side to match up as close as possible to the Mac. Second, I realize there are a ton of manufacturers out there that make pre-installed Linux computers. I couldn’t compare them all, so I just went with Dell and System76, the two most popular and best-known. Third, it’s impossible to be non-biased. I won’t pretend that this isn’t, because it’s impossible. I tried my best to be fair, however.

Also, this is not a comparison between Ubuntu and OS X. That is, I believe, impossible to do. This is a comparison of tech specs. And note that these are only tech specs. Often, a computer may seem faster, whether for psychological reasons or some magic Steve-sauce that Michael Dell hasn’t yet learned.

Mini Machines: Mac Mini 1.83GHz vs. System76 Koala Mini

Since Dell doesn’t make a mini computer with Ubuntu on it, I only compared Apple and System76’s products. The Mac Mini is one of Apple’s most popular products, especially for PC users who want to switch but already have a mouse and keyboard and monitor. However, one complaint is that it has always been overpriced for the power it gives (which isn’t much). So I matched it up against the Koala Mini, a System76 desktop that looks similar to it, albeit much uglier.

The Mac Mini that I chose to compare the Koala to was the 1.83GHz model. I left everything at its defaults except that I bumped up the hard drive to 120GB (the Koala didn’t have an option for 80GB). That meant that the Mini had a 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, and a CD-RW/DVD drive along with the hard drive. There were also 4 USB ports, a FireWire port, integrated graphics, and 802.11b/g wifi. Total cost was $649.99 plus shipping.

The Koala was much more customizable. I opted to give it a Celeron 540 processor, an inferior chip to the Mini’s Core 2 Duo but with a 1.86GHz speed. I added on 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, a CD-RW/DVD drive, and the standard 1 year warranty that also came with the Mini. The Koala also comes with 4 USB ports, a FireWire port, integrated graphics, and 802.11b/g wifi. Total cost was around the same as the mini, at $625.00 plus shipping. So far, it didn’t seem like the Ubuntu-based PCs were that much cheaper.

Low-end Laptops: Dell Inspiron 1420N vs MacBook vs. System76 Gazelle

The laptop market is an important arena for Apple. Many students use laptops, and much of Apple’s advertising targets students. I therefore compared the MacBook with Dell’s Inspiron 1420N, a fairly popular laptop even outside of the Ubuntu scene, and the System76 Gazelle.

The MacBook’s biggest advantage was it’s screen size. It weighed with a 13.3″ screen, perfect for students who need an ultraportable. Besides the screen, the one I tested comes with a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, a CD/DVD±RW drive, integrated graphics, two USB ports, a FireWire port, wifi, Bluetooth, and a webcam. The final cost was $1099 plus shipping.

The Dell was about the as the MacBook when all was said and done. It came with a 14.1″ screen (small, but not quite as small as the MacBook’s), a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, a CD/DVD±RW drive, integrated graphics, four USB ports, a FireWire port, wifi, Bluetooth, and a webcam. I also upgraded the screen to a glossy display, similar to that of the MacBook’s. The final cost was $919 plus shipping. It was cheaper, but not by that much.

The System76 was about the same. It too had a 14.1″ screen, which was slightly disappointing because I had wanted to see how a 13.1″ laptop would have stacked up. I also gave it integrated graphics, a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive, a CD/DVD-RW drive, wifi, Bluetooth, four USB ports, and a FireWire jack. Final cost was $948 plus shipping. Also, there was no webcam, so if you wanted one the price would be much steeper. Again, the PCs were fairly similar in price to the Mac.

High-end Laptops: Dell XPS M1330 vs MacBook Pro vs System76 Serval

The MacBook Pro is one of the nicest professional laptops around. However, Dell has long been a champion of high-end notebooks, and the XPS M1330 is no exception.

The MacBook Pro is a real beauty. I went for the default options with the white 15″ 2.4GHz model. That’s a 15″ screen, a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 200GB hard drive, a CD/DVD±RW drive, a beautiful Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT, two USB ports, two FireWire jacks, Bluetooth, and a webcam. But the cost was definitely high end: $1999 plus shipping.

The XPS was a painfully obviously inferior model. The 2GB of RAM, 200GB hard drive, CD/DVD±RW drive, two USB ports, FireWire port, Bluetooth, and webcam were fine, but the screen size was only 13.3″, the processor only 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, and the graphics card was only a Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS. The price wasn’t that much lower either: $1573 plus shipping was the final cost.

The System76 was much more up to par. It had a 15.4″ screen, a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 200GB hard drive, a CD/DVD±RW drive, four USB ports, a FireWire port, Bluetooth, and a webcam. And surprisingly, it was even cheaper than the Dell, at $1342 plus shipping. All-in-all, the System76 carried this category easily.

Desktops: Dell Inspiron 530N vs 20″ iMac vs System76 Sable

I then went to the desktop arena, comparing the 20″ iMac to the only Dell desktop and the System76 Sable. The iMac is arguably the most popular product that Apple sells, since it’s the only full-blown desktop around. Because of this, it’s very interesting to look at the results.

I left the iMac specification as it was. That is, a 20″ screen (with built-in speakers, microphone, and webcam) with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, a CD/DVD±RW drive, an ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics card, four USB ports and a FireWire port, built-in wifi, and a mouse and keyboard. Final cost: $1199 plus shipping.

The Dell was astoundingly cheaper. I upgraded it to a 20″ screen, a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, a CD/DVD±RW drive, an ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO video card, 10 (yes, 10) USB ports, a FireWire port, and a mouse and keyboard. It didn’t have wifi, but you can easily get an adapter for that. Final cost? $689 plus shipping. Almost half as much as the iMac.

The difference between the Mac and the System76 isn’t quite as marked. I added a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, a CD/DVD-RW drive, a 19″ monitor (about an inch smaller than the iMac or Dell), 5.1 surround sound speakers, 6 USB ports, a FireWire jack, and a keyboard and mouse to get $1023. That also didn’t include a microphone, webcam, or wifi adapter, so the price is much more closer to the iMac when all is said and done.

Conclusion

So is the idea that Ubuntu machines give more bang for the buck than Mac machines a myth? It depends, but for the most part, no. The mini machines and the low-end laptops were about the same price, especially when you add in the $129 operating system. However, the Inspiron blew the iMac out of the water while the Serval destroyed the MacBook Pro. Now, these are just tech specs. It’s certainly possible that in the real world, the Mac actually performs better because of some secret Steve-sauce. But that’s a test for another day.

Recently, Gnome’s been gaining a lot of ground on its KDE counterpart in the desktop environment wars. The KDE developers were hoping to change this with KDE 4, the new radical release of KDE, but it was not to be. KDE 4.0 was buggy and unstable, leaving everyone except the hard-core KDE lovers unsatisfied. Mainly, this was because it just didn’t work most of the time. However, the developers were not without hope. They promised that KDE 4.1 would be more stable and fix all the holes and problems with KDE 4.0. That time is coming soon: in just four days, K Desktop Environment 4.1 will be released to the Linux masses.

What is KDE, KDE 4, and KDE 4.1?

For this question, Wikipedia is our best friend. According to the universal repository of all things, KDE is:

a free software project which aims to be a powerful system for an easy-to-use desktop environment. The goal of the project is to provide basic desktop functions and applications for daily needs as well as tools and documentation for developers to write stand-alone applications for the system. In this regard, the KDE project serves as an umbrella project for many standalone applications and smaller projects that are based on KDE technology. These include KOffice, KDevelop, Amarok, K3b and many others.

As stated above, KDE 4 is the latest cutting edge version of KDE. However, the 4.0 release and many of the subsequent releases were very unstable and not recommended for public consumption. KDE 4.1 is supposed to be the stabilized version of KDE 4. Let’s take a closer look to see what exactly has changed.

Changes from KDE 3.5 to KDE 4.0

Arguably the biggest change in KDE 4 was the move to platform independence. Previously, KDE applications would only run on UNIX-based systems, leaving Macintosh and Windows users out of the loop. Now though, the KDE 4 applications will run on any platform (assuming the developer ports it). Already, applications like Amarok, KOffice, and Konqueror are being ported.

There are lots of other features as well. There’s a new multimedia system called Phonon. There’s a wonderful new theme known as Oxygen that’s arguably even better than the old Crystal theme (which means a lot coming from me). There’s also a radically new user interface tool known as Plasma that handles widgets, the desktop, the taskbar, and much more. The old K Menu is replaced by Novell’s Kickoff Menu, which I have mixed feelings about. And the wonderful old Konqueror file browser has been replaced by Dolphin, though Konqueror is still the default web browser.

Changes from KDE 4.0 to KDE 4.1

KDE 4.1’s main feature is stability. 4.0 had a ton of problems with stability. Those problems are no more. Almost all the instability should be gone by the time it is released (or so, at least, say the KDE developers).

There were also huge gaps in KDE 4.0 software-wise. For example, most of KDE-PIM isn’t available in 4.0. Other missing programs include the popular Amarok media player and the KDE CD Player. Luckily, most of these applications are going to be ready by the time KDE 4.1 is available. That way, you won’t have to resort to using the old-school unattractive and oddly out-of-place KDE 3.5 applications.

KDE 4.1 ships with a bevy of new applications. The old Noatun player is finally retired (good riddance!) in favor of the new Dragon Player, a Phonon-based media player that just works. My favorite PDF reader KPDF has been replaced by Okular, a reader with support for much more formats and many more features. A bunch of new games are included, including KDiamond (a Bejeweled clone) and Kubrick (a Rubik’s Cube game). And the old Control Center is sadly replaced by the new Mac-like System Settings tool.

Many applications also receive updates in KDE 4.1. The first pieces of a Semantic Desktop made their way into the Dolphin file manager. The Plasma widget engine has a few major upgrades, among them support for Macintosh Dashboard widgets (and support for Google Gadgets coming soon) and a bunch of new widgets. Dolphin finally gets tabs, which might actually convince me to use it instead of Konqueror.

One of my biggest envies of GTK/Gnome users was the fact that they could use Compiz Fusion. Sure, Compiz Fusion works on KDE, but not as well as on GTK-based environments. My envy is now completely gone with the introduction of KDE 4.1’s new KWin bling. Effects include “Cover Switch” (Alt-Tab similar to Apple’s CoverFlow), “Present Windows” (similar to Apple’s Exposé), “Wobbly Windows” (pretty self-explanatory, a clone of the famed Compiz Fusion wobbly windows), “Cube” (the clone of the famous Compiz Fusion virtual desktop cube), and many opening and closing effects like “Explosion”.

Conclusion

KDE 4.1 is going to be a very exciting release. I personally opted not to use KDE 4 when it was first released, since it was way too buggy and was missing far too many features. This could change in a few days.

Ah Vim. You can’t live with it and you definitely can’t live without it. It’s the world’s most powerful (and arguably the most popular) text editor, yet it’s virtually impossible to understand. You start typing, and nothing happens. You look for the save button, and it isn’t there. You try and exit, and Ctrl-C won’t do it. Fear not! Vim is actually quite easy, once you know a few basics.

First, what the heck is Vim?

The first thing you need to learn is what Vim actually is. Before you do that, however, you need to know what vi is. vi is a text editor written by Bill Joy (co-founder of Sun Microsystems) while he was at Berkeley. It quickly took off, becoming the undisputed champion of terminal-based text editors until Emacs came along.

But why is this article called The Dummies’ Guide to Vim? Well, in 1991, Bram Moolenaar created an extended version of vi for the Amiga platform. He chose the name Vim (Vi IMproved), included a lot of extra handy features, and made it cross-platform (vi only worked on UNIX). Soon, many people were choosing Vim over vi. Additionally, Vim releases new versions quite often while vi’s last release was back in 2005.

Most Linux and UNIX users have Vim or vi installed by default. Either one will work with this tutorial, though I suggest using Vim for its more advanced features if you have a choice. Windows, OS/2, Amiga, and OS X users can install it using the instructions at the download page. Make sure you install the command-line version of Vim (Windows users, this is the Win32 console executable), not the GUI version known as gVim.

Editing Documents in Insert Mode

The most important (and arguably the hardest) thing to do with Vim is edit a file. First, open up a terminal (gnome-terminal, Konsole, xterm, DOS prompt, Command Prompt, or OS X Terminal just to name a few) and run vim (or vi if you’re using vi).

After vim launches and starts a new document, hit the I key to go into Insert mode. This is the mode that acts just like a regular GUI text editor. The ~ represents a line that is not present in the document. Try typing a few lines to make sure you’ve got the hang of it.

So far so easy, right? Well, now it’s time to save it. However, you can’t do that in Insert mode, so exit it by hitting the Esc key. Esc will bring you out of whatever mode you are currently in, a handy feature to remember if you accidentally go into some bizarre mode. Now, hit the : key. That tells Vim that you’re about to execute a command. Then, type w ~/yay.txt (in Windows, this command won’t work, so run w yay.txt to save yay.txt in the same folder) and hit enter. This tells vim to write to ~/yay.txt. To make sure it saved, open another terminal and run cat ~/yay.txt. You can also go into a file manager and double click on the yay.txt file in the ~/ (home) folder (or in Windows, the folder where you installed Vim).

Wunderbar! You now know how to create a new file. Of course, that’s only half of it. You also need to know how to open an edit a previously saved file. To do this, run :q to quit Vim. That should take you back to the terminal. Now, run vim ~/yay.txt. The file you just saved (you did just save it, right?) should pop back open. If you want, you can also open a file from within vim with the :e filename command.

Editing Documents in Normal Mode

Normal mode won’t let you type, but you can actually do quite a few important things in it. Before you learn them, however, you’ll need to learn how to move the cursor in Vim. The keyboard that vi was programmed with had a left arrow on the H key, a down arrow on the J key, an up arrow on the K key and a right arrow on the L key. Therefore, the H key moves the cursor left, the J key moves the cursor down, the K key moves the cursor up, and the L key moves the cursor down. Here’s how to remember if you’re an American. Hawaii is west, Jamaica is south, Kalamazoo is north, and London is east. Simple geography. If you get really confused, just use the + and - keys to go up and down and just remember that H is the farthest to the left on an ergonomic keyboard and that therefore L has to go right. If you get really, really confused, you can use the arrow keys (wimp!).

There are other handy keyboard shortcuts as well. The { and } keys ([ and ] with Shift held down) will let you skip to the next paragraph. You can also move forward and back with the W and B keys. And the 0 (as in, the number) and the $ will let you move to the beginning and end of the current line.

There are also a few commands that are extremely useful when programming code. You can search for a pattern by running /pattern, replacing pattern with some pattern. For example, typing /Hello and hitting enter will take the cursor to the first hello. The ?pattern command does the same thing, but in reverse. And then there’s my favorite programming command, the % command, which moves your cursor to the matching bracket or brace that your cursor is currently on (that is, (), [], and {}).

Conclusion

You now know how to edit and create documents in vim, plus navigate around fairly well. And you still haven’t even scratched the surface. There are many more tips and tricks in the official user manual (warning: this is often considered heavier reading than War and Peace and the mplayer man page put together) with vimtutor (a UNIX program, not a Vim command) or the Vimdoc online manual. You can also try messing around with gVim, the afore mentioned graphical version of Vim that is often packaged together with its command-line counterpart, and Cream, a set of scripts to make Vim more powerful and more easy to use.

With less than twenty-four hours before the launch of iPhone 3G, the hype is out of control. Lines are forming, Twitter is abuzz, the big three tech columnists have reviewed it, and bloggers can’t stop writing about it. The level of hysteria about this product which promises “Phone, iPod, and Internet in one fast 3G device” is intense. I’ve got my game plan down for tomorrow, and if all goes well, I will be a proud owner of another Apple product by the end of the day. And I am definitely pumped for it all; I’m eating up all of the hype.

Why all of this obsession over a phone? Sure, it’s more than a phone. Sure, it’s revolutionary in several ways. But it seems to be turning into a panacea, a silver bullet to solve all of our problems and fulfill all of our deepest desires. Again, I’m guilty here too. My friends and family can attest to the fact that lately, at multiple times in a day, I will declare that if I had an iPhone I would be able to solve whatever problem we were facing.

But it can’t do everything, and people have been quick to point that out as well. No voice dialing, no MMS, no video capture, no stereo bluetooth, no cut-and-paste, no flash, no dish-washing, no garbage-take-outing, no little sister whine-quieting, no guaranteed lotto-winning… Wait a minute, what expectations do we hold for this device?

I’m not here to defend Apple for the features they haven’t implemented on the iPhone, but I think all of this whining about missing features really boils down to people wanting this device to be the best thing since the creation of the universe by God himself (since many people compare Steve Jobs to a deity, I’m not sure my hyperbole is that outrageous). Some people want the iPhone to be their magic wand—satisfying their every wish with a simple glide of the finger across the touchscreen. Why do we hold such unreasonable expectations for a simple device?

Technology on the cutting-edge has always been a big mystery to people—sometimes exciting, sometimes scary, and often misunderstood. Imaginations dream of technological advances far beyond what is capable inside the current understanding of the laws of physics. These dreams are not entirely unhealthy. In fact, they are what spur the able-minded to push the boundaries of what is possible.

But our dreams of magic wands shouldn’t lead us to get carried away. The developers of this cutting-edge technology work to give us the latest and the greatest, but they are human and they do have limitations. It’s not an instant leap from monochrome television tubes to color tubes to projection to liquid crystal to plasma. These technologies take time to develop. And even when technologies do exist, there are always trade-offs to implementing them in a device.

Still, it’s fun to dream. Transporters (à la Star Trek) would be really freaking neat. They’d add a whole new dimension to the interconnectedness made possible by virtual communication technologies today.

What are your dreams of the future?

The future of the web is within reach. The web is now primarily two things: a new platform for applications, and a means for distributing and consuming media.

Currently, due to the open standards which power the web, no one company or group controls it in any real sense. Google may dominate search and advertising and Microsoft may dominate the browser market, but neither company has any absolute control. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer market share has steadily declined as other convincing browsers, such as Firefox and Safari, have become available. Real control comes in owning the technology which powers the web.

Online video, though, largely because of YouTube’s success, is now mostly delivered in Flash format. Adobe Flash has become a de facto standard for online video, and is now being pushed as a web application platform in and of itself.

Recognizing the threat this poses, Microsoft has responded in its usual fashion — it has released its own proprietary platform, Silverlight, to compete with Adobe’s Flash.

Apple is in the opening moves of its own response, but perhaps surprising to some, Apple’s response is based on open standards. Apple, which is viewed as closed and loathe to use the work of others, has become open web and video standards’ greatest evangelist. Apple’s battle is not to control the web, but rather to keep it open.

The Post-PC, and the Web

This all seems rather esoteric, and so it is worth discussing why any of this matters. The web is becoming an application platform. More than anything else, people now use the web for Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google Documents, and other applications. These applications are based on, mostly, HTML, CSS, Javascript, and XML, all open standards. Because of the relative maturity of these standards, their ease of entry (all are free to use and develop with, and are relatively simple to learn), and the platforms that have developed around them, the quantity and quality of these applications has become rather impressive.

Even more interesting, though, is the openness that these applications have engendered. Most have an API which allows other websites, web applications, or desktop applications to tap in to their own web application. For example, I can integrate Flickr and Twitter with my own weblog without much difficulty, or more powerfully, I can combine Google Maps with location-based data and create something of more value than the two by themselves.

There is a rich future in relatively-easy to develop, and relatively-open web applications, which connect different data and people together.

Part of this is technological, and another part is philosophical. XML is an excellent language for sharing data, but the second part is the most important: open standards encourages openness. Application APIs, OpenID and other developments are not surprising when you consider the languages used to build them — they are predisposed to openness, and that is a really, really good thing.™

Moreover, the move toward web applications will accelerate soon as mobile computing devices like the iPhone become more prevalent. These devices — the post-PC — are Internet communication devices. They are built to use the web ubiquitously, and that means primarily using web applications and consuming online media. To control the web is to control the future of the computer.

Which is why Adobe is pushing Flash so feverishly, and Microsoft created Silverlight. This is the browser wars all over again, but perhaps with an even greater degree of importance: whoever succeeds this time could control the web.

The Danger of Flash

It is unlikely that even if Adobe or Microsoft succeed in establishing their platform as the web application standard that HTML, CSS and Javascript will disappear completely, but this is also largely irrelevant. Flash has already become the web video standard, and therefore even if Flash does not power a majority of web applications, it will not matter — combining Flash’s domination of video with even mediocre success in web applications would likely cause many HTML, CSS and Javascript developers to switch.

This would give Adobe, which sells desktop applications to develop in Flash, a strong control of the web. They would own web video, and increasingly web applications as well.

The ease of entry for becoming a web developer would be much higher. Developers would more or less need to buy Adobe’s own development tools, whereas with HTML, CSS, and Javascript and related frameworks developers can work in nothing more than a text editor, or choose from a sea of code editors.

Combined with Flash’s hold on video, Adobe would become the web company. All roads would pass through their doors.

Perhaps even worse, though, is the attitude Flash conveys. While open standards encourage openness, Flash’s closed nature could encourage just the opposite. Adobe could control the web and undercut its most innovative uses.

Apple’s Open Strategy

If Apple were only interested in selling hardware, they would be concerned with Flash and Silverlight’s clash with HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Apple, however, sells an experience, a combination of hardware and software, and that experience is increasingly becoming dependent on the web. And they sell something else, too: media. Music and video.

Apple’s strategy has two parts, which all converge on the iPhone. First, build a world-class suite of web applications that are as close as anyone has come to a desktop experience, based entirely on HTML, CSS and Javascript. MobileMe serves two purposes: further entrench these open standards as the web application platform, and show that building incredibly powerful applications using them is not a problem, which is a central concern underlying a movement toward Flash.

Second, while Flash has established itself as the video standard on the desktop, there is no real video standard on the mobile device. Apple’s goal is to establish MPEG4, an open audio and video format, as the standard on mobile devices, which are the future.

And this is why these two parts come together with the iPhone. Through the iPhone, Apple is trying to establish MobileMe — HTML, CSS, and Javascript-based web applications — and MPEG4 — open media formats. Web Kit’s incredibly-fast Squirrelfish Javascript engine, which is in Safari 4, will undoubtedly come to the iPhone, and with it, desktop-like experience for web applications. I would then expect HTML, CSS and Javascript-based applications to be allowed to be stored and run locally on the iPhone. ((Which I believe was Apple’s original intention with the iPhone’s widgets, but was ditched because of slow Javascript speeds.))

This also explains quite nicely why Flash is not on the iPhone: not only is it slow and a subpar solution for video, but Apple is keeping the iPhone clean of Flash so open standards can continue to power the web.

That may be hard for some to swallow, but it is undeniably true: Apple’s restrictions on the iPhone are helping to keep the web open.

Ubuntu is, according to DistroWatch, the #1 Linux distribution. That’s a huge feat in itself. However, once you realize that Ubuntu is only three and a half years old, the feat is much bigger. How did the Linux rookie beat out the nine-year-old Mandrake, the fourteen-year-old SUSE, or the fifteen-year-old Debian?

Reason 1: Ease of use

This is the number one reason that any product takes off. If you’ve got a product meant for the masses, it needs to be easy to use. When Ubuntu came out, Debian was still using a text-based installer. Ubuntu adopted the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) philosophy and made sure that their project stayed along those guidelines. You don’t have to know bash from zsh to use Ubuntu, unlike many of the other Linux distributions. Most of the programs have labels that explain what they do (Disk Analyzer, Word Processor, etc). That’s why Ubuntu has the reputation of having everything just work great. That’s the reputation that catapulted OS X into second place in the operating system wars, and that’s the reputation that will bring Linux back into play.

Reason 2: Perfect balance between ease and power

Most Linux distributions fall into one of two camps. About half oversimplify everything, attempting to satisfy the masses. The result is a half-baked underpowered operating system that is useless for everything except email. The other half concentrates on putting power in the hands of the user. Unfortunately, the learning curve is often too steep and this results in users getting scared away (terminal? Did you say terminal? Windows, save me!!!). Ubuntu solves this problem by putting a foot in each camp.

For example, the software installer has multiple components. One part is an Add/Remove portion for the average Joe. It has titles, descriptions, and is wrapped in an easy-to-use GUI. However, more advanced users don’t need to worry that it’s too basic. They have the more advanced package manager, Synaptic, with repository editing, all the programs in the Ubuntu universe, and advanced filtering options. And if you’re really feeling geeky, there’s the powerful apt and aptitude package managers that are used from the command line.

Another good example is amount of text editors that Ubuntu ships with. For users who have never seen the terminal before, there’s Gedit, a friendly editing tool that goes by the alias “Text Editor” in the Ubuntu menu. For basic (and for many things, advanced) users, Gedit is a wonderful tool. Then, for those who prefer doing their text editing in the command-line but don’t want to learn a lot of new commands, there’s nano. This text editor, a clone of Pico, is an intuitive text editor that works much like Gedit works. Of course, it’s also terminal-based and therefore doesn’t require an X server or the GTK libraries. Finally, for those uber-geeks out there, there’s the old standbys, Vim and Emacs. These are two very complicated and extremely powerful terminal editors, and if these can’t satisfy you, nothing can.

Reason 3: Community

One of the biggest Linux forums around is the LinuxQuestions.org Forum. This forum is eight years old and attracts users of all distributions, and therefore has a huge user base. There are over 350,000 members, 600,000 threads, and 3,000,000 posts in those threads. However, that’s tiny compared to Ubuntu’s community forum. The Ubuntu Forums, only three years old, has over 600,000 members (70,000 of which are active), contains 800,000 threads, and holds over 5,000,000 posts, ranging from obscure howtos like “HOWTO: Wii remote in Ubuntu 8.04” to answers to basic questions like “What is Sudo?”

The forum isn’t the only way the community helps each other. There are hundreds of articles at the Ubuntu Wiki and the Ubuntu User Documentation, two handy wikis to help you to do almost anything you can imagine with Ubuntu. There are hundreds of users on the ubuntu-users mailing list. Hundreds more wait to answer you in realtime at the Ubuntu IRC channel on irc.freenode.net. And of course, there is the immensly popular LoCo project, which aims to put different local support groups in multiple localities around the globe (check the team list for a group near you).

Reason 4: Roadmap

Every six months, a new Ubuntu edition is released. Each edition is supported for eighteen months. Every two years, an LTS (Long Term Support) is released, with thirty six months support. Businesses know this. They know exactly how long their product will be supported for. Most other operating systems, both free and non-free, are released whenever the developer feels like it is ready. But sometimes, one operating system (think Vista) is a dud. Businesses have to wait for several years while their computers are completely unsupported for the engineers to upgrade. Not so with Ubuntu.

Another great feature of the roadmap is that the community also knows exactly when Ubuntu gets released. I personally get bored after being told multiple times that a new version is coming out, only to find out that it’s postponed again (Trillian is a good example of this). Heck, I just get sick of waiting even if I do know that it will take a while. Ubuntu does a great job of staying fresh by simply releasing new versions every six month. It doesn’t even have to have a lot of changes. It just needs a new name and a new wallpaper and Ubuntu automatically is freshened up.

Reason 5: Canonical

Canonical, the parent company, is one of the biggest forces behind Ubuntu. First of all, it offers resources. It offers legal protection, a marketing team, and a hierarchy to make sure everyone is in their place. Third party businesses are also much happier working with a reputable business (even if it is registered in the Isle of Man tax haven) than with three geeks in a garage. I seriously doubt that Dell would be pre-installing Ubuntu on their machines if Canonical wasn’t around (the only other distro they were considering was SUSE, which has Novell behind them, and Fedora, which has Red Hat behind them).

Canonical is also able to offer professional, 24/7 support. Sure, the Ubuntu Forums support is great. But your average businessman won’t feel comfortable with receiving community advice. A CEO will feel much more comfortable receiving support from Canonical or one of its many support providers. And if a business feels comfortable getting support for Ubuntu, they’ll be much more likely to stay with it rather than moving to the next operating system.

I have this huge love/hate relationship with Firefox. It’s way too bloated and so much slower compared to the other browsers I’ve tried. But I can’t live without it, simply because I never found a decent alternative. I can’t use Internet Explorer or Safari simply because I run Linux. Besides, neither seemed extremely stellar to me. Konqueror won’t render everything. Sure, that’s the programmer’s fault and Konqueror is W3C compliant and all that, but that doesn’t help me read that site. Ditto for Opera. I also don’t need an email, BitTorrent, and feed client. All I need is a web browser. And Epiphany and Dillo are great, but I don’t like running Gnome apps in my KDE install. That’s why I was quite excited when I found Arora, a WebKit-powered Qt web browser.

What is Arora?

Originally, Arora was created to test out the WebKit library in Qt 4.4. In layman’s terms, WebKit is an engine that displays web pages and Qt is a library that displays programs. But then, the project leaders decided to fork it into a browser that would one day be able to stand proudly next to Firefox and the other champions of the open source web browsing world. Currently, it’s still in heavy development (there are no stable or even alpha versions), but it’s remarkable mature for its age.

So why would anyone ever use it over Internet Explorer, Opera, Firefox, Konqueror, or any of the other popular web browsers out there? Well, Arora is extremely lightweight, weighing in at under a megabyte. It’s also lightning fast (WebKit is one of the fastest browsing engines around), uses less than 10,000 lines of code, and works on all the platforms that Qt is supported on (Windows, OS X, and Linux).

Installation

Installing Arora is easy on Windows or Debian-based systems like Ubuntu. There’s a handy Windows installer and a .deb package for both. Ubuntu users will also need to turn on the hardy-backports repository while Debian users will need the testing repository. Macintosh users and non-Debian users aren’t so lucky: you’ll have to compile it from source. Luckily, there’s a very useful wiki page, Beginner Step By Step Instructions, on this topic.

Arora: A great web browser, though a little buggy

After installing Arora, I opened it up and was pleasantly surprised. All the browsers I’d ever run, with the exception of Konqueror, looked horrible in KDE. But Arora looked great. It was clean, simple, and looked terrific. I was so impressed by the look that I decided to see if it would look as good in non-KDE environments. I wasn’t disappointed. Arora adopted the theme and icons of both Gnome and Windows XP with style.

Being a true geek, the first place I went was the Preferences pane (Edit>Preferences). All the standard options (homepage, fonts and stylesheets, JavaScript, cookies, proxies, and so on) were there. Since most of the defaults were fine, I closed out and went back to the main browser. I was impressed by the amazing speed. I didn’t benchmark it, but it seemed to me to be the fastest browser I’d ever seen, even more than the often touted Firefox 3.0. Gmail, Digg, Newsvine, and Facebook all loaded twice as fast as they did in Firefox.

Speed is, of course, not the only factor in choosing a web browser. I was curious to see how well it would perform handling rich AJAX apps, so I headed over to Google Docs. Everything worked flawlessly. Well, maybe not flawlessly. Gmail had a few problems when logging in. I had to tell it to not remember me in order for it to work, which is kind of a problem. Also, Flash (and other Netscape plugins) aren’t available until Qt 4.5. Since Qt 4.4 was just released and each 4.x release has taken between seven to twelve months, Arora users won’t get Flash for quite a while.

Stability is also a little bit of an issue for Arora. It’s very easy to crash the browser, especially if you’re using rich Web 2.0 apps. Also, opening multiple items at the same time, opening one page while loading another, or trying to type in a textbox while a page is loading is a very bad idea. Of course, this is simply a stability issue that will be resolved down the road.

There’s one other minor problem: a huge lack of a password manager. Most browsers have some sort of password manager, ranging from Firefox’s built-in one to Konqueror’s KWallet integration. However, Arora has nothing. That can get quite annoying, since you’ll always have to type in your password rather than having it automatically filled.

Luckily, these little quirks aren’t such a big problem for me. Why? Chances are, they’ll get fixed. The project lead, icefox, and the members, zander32, Jason Donenfeld, inetperson, and ariya.hidaya, are extremely active. You can expect your bug report to be answered within forty-eight hours and you’ll find that many of the feature requests you send in will actually make it into the project code. Out of the three feature requests I’ve submitted so far, one has been fixed, one has been started, and one won’t be fixed because it’s not technically feasible.

Conclusion

Right now, I’m still using Firefox. I can’t live without Flash and those usability bugs are too much for me. But this is one web browser I’ll be definitely keeping my eye on. I recommend that you do too. Because one day, I can actually see myself uninstalling Firefox and using Arora instead. And I never thought I’d see that day.

Rating: None (pre-alpha)

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