So for now, I’ll just leave you with an excerpt from late breaking news that Apple is getting sued for iTunes

Internet rights champions have accused Apple of stifling free speech by bullying OdioWorks into ending online sharing of ways to get iPods to work with music websites other than iTunes…

…At the heart of the issue is the BluWiki website that details ways to get Apple’s popular iPhones and iPod MP3 players to synchronize music and video files with media at services such as Songbird, Banshee, Rockbox, and Winamp…

…Apple zealously guards iTunes’ status as an exclusive content delivery and management tool for iPod and iPhone hardware.

“Apple’s legal threats against BluWiki are about censorship, not about protecting their legitimate copyright interests,” said EFF senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann.

Full article at Yahoo!News

All I can say is I’m not surprised and actually expecting it. These days, consumers can no longer be bullied into a monopoly the likes of how Microsoft dominated the 90′s. Personally, I’ve never used iTunes software with my 3rd-gen iPod Nano. As an Ubuntu user, I’ve initialized it in Linux and use Rhythmbox and GTKPod for managing my music and videos. I’ll teach you guys how to do that next time. Till then!

If you found this information useful, buy me a coffee.

So today, I’ll be telling you not only the top 5 things I miss in Windows, but also the top 5 things I miss in GNU/Linux.

DISCLAIMER: Many of you will disagree. Some of you will give suggestions. These are my own experiences, based on what I use my computers for. You’re daily activity and workflow will differ from mine.

THINGS I MISS IN WINDOWS

1. See Your IP Address Quickly Without Opening A Terminal

See Your Connection Details With The Support Tab

In Windows XP, you double-click the LAN icon in the system tray (you have to set the “Display Icon in System Tray When Connected” in the connection properties, but you only have to do this once) and the local area connection dialog pops-up. If you go to the Support tab, you can find your connection’s information including IP address and subnet there.

2. Middle-click scroll

Yes, the middle-mouse button doesn’t scroll your browser or application in Ubuntu. I’ll tell you why later. While it is possible to set this in Linux,  (heck, practically ANYTHING can be set somehow), there is no fancy GUI way to do it so it’s definitely not for the lesser-experienced. The middle-mouse button is useful for those lazy days when you’re surfing the web and  just don’t want to scroll that mouse wheel.

3. Adobe/Macromedia Flash Yes, I know you can go to YouTube, Miniclip, and everything plays fine. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the Windows-only application that lets you make those Flash applications. Flash 8 and Flash MX both have Platinum ratings for Wine, meaning that they do work almost flawlessly in Linux under Wine.  But personally, and this is a really subjective thing, I would prefer a native port or an equivalent. For most applications, I’ve gotten by with a Linux equivalent, and most perform even better than their Windows counterparts. But it seems strange to me that there is no worthy equivalent for Flash. Heck, I don’t even need the CS3 features, just basic animation and even ActionScript 1.0 would do, but alas the closest thing we have is the long-dead F4L project.

4. Drivers for Weird Devices I really want a device driver for my 1-Seg TV tuner (ahem, driver writers, please get in touch with me). Don’t know what 1-Seg is? Thought so. Linux has no problem handling video cards, sound cards, webcams, and in recent months even wireless support has improved greatly. But there will always be that uncommon device that only a minority would have and that only has Windows drivers. And in my case, it was made by a Taiwanese vendor whose email link at their website isn’t even working!

THINGS I MISS IN LINUX

1. Compiz Fusion

Compiz Fusion with Desktop Cube and 3D Windows Plugins

Oftentimes I find myself moving my mouse to the upper-right corner of my screen because I want to see all the windows I have open. It always ends up in disappointment because sadly, not even Aero can provide such feature. In fact, Vista’s Aero doesn’t really provide anything useful, or new for that matter, to the table as it was meant to just prettify your desktop, and at a higher performance cost. For a list of Compiz features, take a look at its Wikipedia page. And then take a look at the Windows Aero page.

2. Built-in FTP program that doesn’t suck Say it with me, “MS Windows’ FTP program sucks!” Didn’t know that Windows has a built-in FTP program? Well, it’s more like a built-in plugin for Windows Explorer that’s stuck in the tar pits of the stone age. You just type in ftp://yourFtpSite.com in the address bar. I can’t stress enough that it sucks. A few examples:

• In FTP sites where log-in is required, you are plopped onto some sort of limbo directory and you have to Right-click and select Login As… to actually log-in.
• When you Right-click > Properties a file, all you’ll get is the size and permissions. No EXIF data for images, no codec info for music, basically nothing useful.
• Try dragging and dropping, copy-pasting between directories, or any of that stuff you’d come to expect from a modern OS, and you’ll be disappointed because it won’t work in Windows.
• Want to edit files directly from your FTP? Again, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

So fire up your Nautilus and log on to your FTP, because in Linux you can proudly say “Yes! We Can!” to all of these.

3. A Codec Manager

Automatic Codec Searching That Actually Works

When you play a DivX video in Windows Media Player and you haven’t installed the codec yet, WMP will offer to search for a codec for you…and it will fail you every single time! Back in the day, the best way to be able to play all those videos and mp3s was to download the Gordian Knot Codec pack or some other codec pack.

There is no more need to manually download and install codecs one by one for DivX, XVid, Ogg Vorbis and Theora, MP3s. In the modern age, you use Ubuntu, double-click on your media file, and if you don’t have the codec, Ubuntu will tell you and offer to install it for you.

4. Driver Support

I’ve been asked by quite a few Windows-using friends, “how did you find drivers for your hardware?” My answer is, “I don’t have to”. I’ve said this a couple of times in previous posts. I no longer need driver CDs. For all of you out there, go check out your drawers, computer tables, etc. Are your driver CDs still eating up precious space? If you think so, go ahead and throw them away because the only CD you’ll be needing from now on is your Ubuntu CD (maybe your Warcraft CD, too).

While Windows does have a few drivers built-in, in most cases your PC or PC parts came with a couple of driver discs for a good reason. And hardware experts will almost always recommend that you use the manufacturers’ own proprietary drivers instead of the ones made by Microsoft. Go figure.

Back then, and even today, device manufacturers wrote their drivers exclusively for Windows. And the Linux people had to resort to their own skillz to reverse-engineer or communicate with the hardware vendor and write their own device drivers in open-source fashion. In my opinion, I think it was precisely because of this that Linux driver support is so good: Linux users with their hardware + Linux device driver writers far outnumber the employees at Microsoft. And they don’t do it for money, they do it to make their hardware work well.

5. Middle-click paste

Yes, I know I said I missed middle-click scrolling in Windows, but considering that I still had my trusty mouse-wheel, middle-click pasting turns you from one lazy middle-clicking-net-surfing couch potato to a highly-productive middle-click-pasting l33t hax0r!

What is middle-click pasting anyway? Well, normally you would:

1. Select text
2. right-click
3. Click copy
4. Right-click on destination
5. Click paste

With middle-click pasting it’s reduced to

1. Select text
2. Middle-click on destination

That’s 3 whole steps removed, increasing your speed by 60%! Even middle-click scrolling can’t beat that.

6. Easy music preview with mouseover

Do you have lots of music files, say voice recordings or even previewing the quality of an MP3 you just downloaded, and you need to preview them? Forget opening each one of them in Media Player. Just roll your mouse over it and it’ll play! Assuming you’ve installed the right codec of course, but that isn’t really a problem because Ubuntu has it’s own codec manager!

7. Always On Top-ify ANY program

Sure, Yahoo! Messenger, Winamp, and a handful of programs have the “Always On Top” feature, but if you’re typing a document or creating a 3D model or whatever and you need to constantly look at a reference, being able to “Always On Top-ify” that Notepad sure would save you from the dizzy of alt+tabbing. Well, if you’re using GNOME (the default window manager of Ubuntu), you can now say with me, “Yes, we can!”.

Just right click on the program on the taskbar or its title bar and choose “Always On Top” and you can work while keeping that chat window with your honey or never missing a beat while that Totem Video Player is playing the latest CSI DVD you just got.

Ok, I really intended to do a 5-on-5, but try as I might, I could only think of 4 things for Windows and I really had to stretch it. On the other hand, it was quite easy for me to think of stuff for Ubuntu. I hope you guys find this info useful. If there are any Mac users out there, I’d love to hear your side of the story. Hit the comments for your ideas and suggestions.

Miro Video Player

I know a lot of people who love watching videos at YouTube. And among them, there are also plenty who like downloading their favorite videos. The problem though is that YouTube doesn’t freely provide this service. Instead they have to rely on Firefox extensions, download websites (which are either full of ads, possibly virus-laden, or just plain dubious), and other such hacks.

That was how I found Miro. I’ve been using Miro for about a year now, and it has improved over the past year in terms of both usability and stability. But Miro is more than just another YouTube downloader. Advertised as an Internet TV player, it does what it says and does it well.

Downloading YouTube Videos

Downloading Videos

With Miro’s integrated video search feature, you can search videos from YouTube, Daily Motion, Veoh, and other video websites without starting your browser. You then just choose your search results and Miro will start downloading them into your library. I find this feature really nice, especially when downloading a long or large video, when I want to show something to some friends, or when I’m just too busy to watch them immediately. WIth the video in my library, I can load it up anytime at my convenience, whether I’m on the train or relaxing after cooking/eating dinner.

Internet TV with Miro

Viewing The Contents of a Channel

Miro comes with a few default channels and lets you add more channels. There are plenty of channels to choose from the integrated Miro Guide, which offers you some of its recommendations or you can search for a particular interest. Miro uses the open RSS standard for its channels, so it’s compatible with practically all feeds on the internet, including iTunes podcasts.

The beauty of using channels is that you can set it to auto-download New content or All content to download even old videos you haven’t seen yet. For example, I am subscribed to the WebbAlert channel, which offers an almost-daily 5-minute round-up of what’s new on the Internet and computing in general. When I get home and turn on my computer and Miro, it will automatically download new episode(s) if any, for my viewing pleasure, at my own leisure. It’s like turning on your TV to your favorite daily program, only you’re not bound by stiff schedules.

More Cool Features

Video Playback

Miro’s core functionalities are wonderfully complemented by the options that Miro’s intellgent engineers came up with.

Afraid you’ll run out of disk space? That shouldn’t be a problem when using Miro. You can easily set Miro to make sure to leave a gigabyte or two. And if space is a problem, the expire feature comes in very handy. Some people unfamiliar with this concept might be wary at first, but trust me, you’re not going to be watching last week’s podcast episodes anyway. YouTube videos also expire in the default 6 days, but you can choose to keep a video indefinitely by clicking on the “keep” button. Of course, there’s also a “delete” button, in case you downloaded a loser video or this week’s podcast episode just sucks.

Each channel also displays the number of unwatched videos you have, which conveniently turns into a play button when you move your mouse over it, giving you instant access to unwatched content. There’s also a “New” item in the sidebar. Just like the channels, it displays the number of unwatched videos across all your channels and clicking it plays it. By default Miro is set to play all videos consecutively in a section (be it a channel, New, or your library), but if you prefer watching one at a time (like me), you can turn it off in the options.

Miro is available for GNU/Linux, Mac, as well as Windows. Download it now from http://www.getmiro.com

While you’re downloading Miro, click on over here to read more about how Miro does what it does. And if you’re interested in making your own videos or channels for Miro, http://makeinternettv.org is a good resource for information.

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Firstoff, some of you may have heard that Aero stole it’s ideas from Mac OS X. Here’s showing that Microsoft didn’t:

Steve Jobs and Bertrand Serlet also talks about Aero’s features:

Of course, Vista does have it’s good points. Take for example its voice recognition system. See how it performs in action:

And of course, the new window switcher included in Aero:

Followed by a video highlighting the features of Aero. And afterwards, Beryl

Now, let’s hear what this Vista owner has to say after buying a brand new computer to run Vista:

Microsoft is proud to offer several innovations in Vista. Here is a timeline of competitor’s innovations. I think it’s self-explanatory.

• January 2000 – Apple comes out with Aqua
• April 2005 – Mac OS X Tiger is released, featuring Gadgets, Spotlight, Expose, and a host of other innovations.
• Janury 2006 – Novell releases Compiz, featuring Annotate, Scale, Minimize/Maximize/Close animations, Desktop Cube, Zoom, and a host of other innovations.
• October 2006 – Beryl forks from Compiz. Changable window decorators, and other innovations were added.
• Windows Vista – End of January 2007. Features the Aero window decorator, theme, and icon set that looks like OS X, and provides other innovations such as live windows like in OS X and Compiz/Beryl, live icons like in Ubuntu, and transparent windows like on OS X and Compiz/Beryl.

Innovations? I don’t think so.

Edit: Did you know Vista requires twice the computing power of Beryl-powered PCs? People are ditching their perfectly good computers to throw money at computer vendors for top-of-the-line models.

Ok, I’m being too kind. Actually, Vista needs up to four times more computing power:

• 4X HDD (15GB vs. 4GB)
• 4X memory (1GB vs. 256MB)
• 4X 3D card (128MB vs. 32MB)

Take my advice, put the money you’ll use to buy a new computer into savings, and put the money you’re gonna pay for Vista to buy a camera or something. What’s that? You need to pirate Vista to get it free?

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