How would you like to run the latest OpenOffice completely on line in a web browser? Web applications like this do not appeal to me (yet) but if some of you are interested then check out Ulteo. The creator of Ulteo is none other than Gael Duval, the founder of Mandrake. At this time the project is still in beta and selecting a limited few as beta testers.
Well I did it! I bought one of those Wal-Mart gOS PCs. Of course, it’s not for me. I bought it for my kids for Christmas to replace (or add to my growing network at home) the ubuntu 6.10 desktop that they already have. I think that this computer will be perfect for them. It should handle homework, games (specifically RuneScape), Internet, chat, and light graphic projects (Inkscape and Gimp) just fine. In return they’ll probably get me a three-pack of socks. Pft! 
Here are the specs:
Operating System: gOS
Processor: VIA C7-D 1.5 GHz
Cache Memory Type: L2 cache
Installed Size: 128 KB
RAM Installed Size: 512 MB / 2 GB (max)
Technology: DDR II SDRAM
Hard Drive: 1 x 80 GB - standard - ATA-133 - 7200 rpm
Software: OpenOffice.org 2.2 Office Suite
Graphics Controller Type: Integrated
Graphics Processor / Vendor: VIA UniChrome Pro
Optical Storage Type: CD-RW / DVD-ROM combo
Read Speed: 48x (CD) / 16x (DVD)
Write Speed: 48x
Expansion / Connectivity Expansion Bays Total (Free): 2 front accessible - 5.25″ x 1/2H ¦ Internal - 3.5″ x 1/3H ¦ 2 front accessible - 3.5″ x 1/3H
Expansion Slots Total (Free): 1 ( 0 ) x processor ¦ 2 ( 1 ) x memory - DIMM 240-pin
Networking: Network adapter - integrated
Modem: Fax / modem
Dimensions: Width: 7.1 in Height: 14.2 in Depth: 17.1 in
Not bad for $200.
Episode 047 is live. In it I demonstrate how to create a clock using tiled clones in Inkscape. This screencast is my longest to date. It’s just over 25 minutes long. Sorry for that, on the other hand, I felt like I was moving at a comfortable pace. I hope that you enjoy it.
Losing to my daughter (twice) at Wii baseball yesterday resulted in a very sore arm today. I am not sure what is more frustrating…realizing that I am out of shape or losing to a 4 year old. I felt great after losing to her in the first game (physically, not mentally) but I TRIED beating her in the second game. Maybe I had gotten a little too into it. I clocked some fastballs in the mid 90’s. I was impressed with myself. Felt like Nolan Ryan. However, she hit a couple home runs off of those. That wiped off any smile that I had on my face. Pretty humbling, I must say. She must have cheated somehow, right? Hmm. It will proably take a day or two for my arm to feel better. When it does…it’s GAME ON!
Has anyone checked out episode 021 of Meet The GIMP? In it Rolf explains how to use the iWarp filter in the GIMP. I can honestly say that I had never noticed that filter before. I thought perhaps it was new in GIMP 2.4. A quick check on my son’s ubuntu 6.10 rig with GIMP 2.2 verified that iWarp was there in that release as well.
Anyway, my point to this is that iWarp is a lot of fun to play with. I think my kids and I played with it for about an hour last night. We transformed quite a few pictures of ourselves into something that looked out of this world. I recommend that you watch Rolf’s video. You’ll likely learn a new skill if you hadn’t already tried iWarp.
Additionally, I came across a post last night regarding festival for Linux. Festival is a text-to-speech synthesizer. So basically it takes text and converts it to sound…think, “Do you want to play a game?” from the movie War Games.
If you are on ubuntu then you can “sudo apt-get install festival” to install it. openSUSE with Smart takes a “sudo smart install festival”. After it is installed you can simply open a terminal and type “echo “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die” | festival –tts” to get it to say something. Make sure your speakers are turned up. Also, you can create a text file called “festival.txt” for instance. Write some text inside of it and save it to your /home/user/ directory. Now fire up a terminal and “festival –tts festival.txt”. It will read whatever you have written in your test file.
Obviously, festival gets old after the first 10 minutes of use but it’s another one for the kids. I even let then write some swear words just so that my computer would play them back. That never gets old.
Now go waste some time playing with these things.
Episode 046 is ready. I illustrate in this screencast how to draw a dogtag with a logo on it instead of the traditional stamped text. Many times when I illustrate things I have have absolutely nothing to apply it too. This is one of those projects. Fun to draw but not really useful for me. On the other hand maybe someone out there will find it useful.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I downloaded gOS today because I was very curious about all of the hype. I read some positive reviews and felt like I should give it a try. I fired it up in VirtualBox and just played around with the live cd without installing anything. Of course one doesn’t need VirtualBox for this. Just burn the iso to cd and boot with it. It won’t harm your system if you don’t install it. This distro is based on ubuntu 7.10 and uses the Enlightenment desktop manager. Since it’s ubuntu based that means you’ll have access to the ubuntu repositories. If you feel at home with apt and synaptic then you’ll be able to install all the packages that you wish.
I must say that I thought the distro was really neat. It didn’t feel gimicky or tacky. It’s seemed like a very polished operating system. I was very impressed with the Enlightenment desktop too. That was the first time that I had used it. It seemed very responsive. In a way, it kind of reminded me of XFCE. I think that I would feel comfortable using Enlightenment on a daily basis.
Also, I really liked the iBar. That’s the group of icons sitting at the bottom where one’s taskbar would most likely be. This works similarly to a Mac. Drag your pointer to slide the icons with a zooming effect. I could get pretty used to this feature. I would prefer it to be a little smaller. Perhaps that can be changed.
I really think that my kids would love this OS. They already use and love ubuntu and xubuntu. I may have to install it for them. Or…I could just wait and buy the $200 Wal-Mart gOS PC for them. Hmm…Christmas is just around the corner.
We have been added to the Miro Guide. That means if you open Miro and search for “Inkscape”, “Screencasters”, “Querin”, or “heathenx” (the tags that I used) you’ll find the screencasters.heathenx.org channel and you can subscribe to it. Additionally, we have added Miro subscription buttons to both our web site and our blog if you wish to use them.
Only two episodes, our last two, show up in Miro. Sorry for that but there is very little that can be done as I understand it. I blame Richard (<- that never gets old). Miro mirrors what is posted on our blog. That means if only two episodes are listed on our blog then only two episodes will be listed in Miro. At the time that our channel was set up only episodes 045 and 044 where listed. We have since changed our WordPress blog to display 30 posts rather than the default 10 to help with this in the future. As time goes by more episodes will be listed and probably a few will drop off.
Enjoy.
Talk about an emotional roller coaster. I no more than blogged about removing the PayPal donation button last night when this morning I found that PayPal finally contacted us. Our problems have now been resolved and we’re back in business, so to speak.
For those of you with PayPal accounts you already know that their service is very weak. They are not quick to respond, no matter the size of the issue. It would be nice if they had some kind of online chat so that one could get to the bottom of an issue quickly. Maybe someday. Until then it’s wait a week until you’re contacted.
Anyway, we are back up again. The bottom line…I blame Richard.
