Review: Chakra 2011.12 "Edn"

There's a new build of Chakra out, and I have some free time to check it out, so I'm doing so now. The other reason why I want to try it now is because a member of my family was raving about KDE in Fedora, so I figured it would be worth my time to dig deeper and see if I can massage KDE into becoming something that I could really like and use regularly. I'll spare any introductions because I've reviewed Chakra enough times already, so I'll skip to...

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Done with 3rd Semester!

I'm finally done with my 3rd semester! Yay! Although this semester I was just taking the classes for my major/that I wanted to take, thanks to the combination of 4 classes (all of which have problem sets and exams), a UROP, and grading, this semester was way more grueling than any previous semester. Thankfully, I think I've done fine, so I feel like I would be better prepared to do the same (4 classes, a UROP, and grading) next semester.But before I need to worry about next semester or even IAP, I get to go home for winter break! Wooh...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 December 11

There weren't any posts the previous week, so that's why there was no "Featured Comments" post last week. That's because I was quite busy that week finishing up the last of my problem sets and midterm exams. This past week, there was one post that got a handful of comments, so I'll repost a few from that.Review: VectorLinux 7.0 Standard GoldReader Barista Uno said, "I have the same experience in regard to the speed of Vector Linux 7.0. It is noticeably slower than SalixOS 13.37 when installed on one of my rigs, a vintage HP Pavilion running on...

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Review: VectorLinux 7.0 Standard Gold

One of the distributions I've been wanting to check out for a while now has been VectorLinux. Recently, version 7.0 of VectorLinux was released, so I'm reviewing it. Main ScreenWhat is VectorLinux? It's a Slackware-based distribution that ships customized versions of Xfce and KDE that aim to be a lot more user-friendly, while retaining the benefits of using Slackware. The version I'm reviewing today is the Xfce edition ("Standard"), because the KDE...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 November 27

There were two posts that got a handful of comments this past week, so I'll try to repost a few from each. Review: openSUSE 12.1 GNOME + KDEAn anonymous reader also had some audio issues and some tips to deal with them: "I noticed some quirks with sound when upgrading a couple of systems previously from openSUSE 11.3 to 11.4, in part I think because PulseAudio had now been imposed as default. You could try running Alsamixer in a terminal and fiddle about with some of the switches for mic autodetect / speaker out / LFE, etc. Or try upping...

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Review: Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" GNOME + MATE

Recently, the latest version of Linux Mint was released. Considering that I almost exclusively use Linux Mint on a daily basis and I'm a huge fan of the distribution, I had to review it.GNOME 3 Shell: Main ScreenThis release could easily be one of the most highly-anticipated new Linux releases in a long time, far surpassing the anticipation of its parent, Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot". Why? Well, although Unity had to be ported to GNOME 3, the interface...

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Review: openSUSE 12.1 GNOME + KDE

GNOME: Main ScreenIt's November again, so what does that mean? It means there's another new release of openSUSE, and I'm reviewing it.openSUSE doesn't really need much of an introduction here. There are a few new things with this release, though. The first is that GNOME 3 has become an official part of openSUSE; this is not surprising considering that openSUSE and Fedora were the only distributions who provided vanilla live CD previews of GNOME 3...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 November 20

There was one comment on one post this past week, so I'll repost that one; interestingly, it was on a "Featured Comments" post.Featured Comments: Week of 2011 November 13Reader DarkDuck had this little tidbit of news: "Hi Prashanth, Looks like I overtook your blog by total pageviews. ;-) My counter is already at 430k. Hope to have half a million by January."Thanks to that reader for commenting on that post this past week. I meant to have a review out this past week but couldn't do it due to the Thanksgiving holiday. (Incidentally, my holiday was...

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FOLLOW-UP: SOPA: The Year of the Zombie Internet

This one's a quickie. It's just that I mailed a whole bunch of letters to my senators and representative expressing my opposition towards SOPA and PROTECT-IP and urged them to do the same. I also wrote a similar set of letters (to the same recipients) co-signed by my friends here at college. Hopefully they'll make a difference. If anyone wants to see what I wrote, I'll try to repost it here. And I'd love to see your letters or other comments in the comments section as well!On a brighter note, happy Thanksgiving! I'm going home this evening, and...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 November 13

There were no "Featured Comments" posts the last 2 weeks because I was too busy to post anything until this past week. Anyway, this past week, there were a few posts that got a bunch of comments, so I'll try to repost a few from each. A Disappointing Review of #! 10 "Statler"An anonymous reader said, "The Debian installer is not that to use. It's true on Debian live cd images you have to look a little, no big deal. Crunchbang is designed to be light on resources so you shouldn't expect "point and click." I thought the Dedoimedo review came...

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Review: Pinguy OS 11.10 Beta

A new version of Pinguy OS has come out, and as can easily be predicted, it's based on Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot". And because I've taken a liking to past versions of it, I'm reviewing this new one now.Main ScreenFor those who don't know, Pinguy OS is basically Ubuntu plus everything and the kitchen sink. Also, the interface is made to look much more like Apple's Mac OS X, with a top panel featuring a global menu, along with docks and similar...

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SOPA: The Year of the Zombie Internet

I haven't really talked about issues like these in a while, but there is a hugely important bill making its way through Congress right now that could make the Internet a mere shell of what it is right now. It's called the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA), and it has terrible implications for the whole Internet as it exists today.But you must be wondering, "Isn't stopping piracy a good thing? What could possibly be bad about it? And won't it do its job right? What's there to worry about?"1. I don't know if stopping piracy is such a good thing. Study...

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A Disappointing Review of #! 10 "Statler"

Before I say anything else, I'd just like to say that the reason why I haven't posted anything in 2 weeks has been due to me being quite busy with classes, my UROP, and other related stuff. I will definitely have another post out this week (and it'll actually be a bit like this one), but I can't really promise much more. After all, I did say that I couldn't count on posting stuff regularly during the semester.Anyway, I haven't done a post like this in a while; in fact, it's been half a year, when I criticized Dedoimedo's review of Bodhi Linux 0.1.6....

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 October 23

There were no featured comments the previous week because the comments on the post that week came after the end of the week. That's because I published that post quite late that week. This past week, though, there was one post that got a handful of comments, so I'll repost most of those.Review: Kubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot"An anonymous reader said, "The installer now has a checkbox for installing codecs, as well as a box for installing updates, it's pretty handy. Previews for inactive windows in the taskbar has always been on by default for ...

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Review: Kubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot"

You can consider this to be the second part of a series of reviews of the relatives of Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot. Today I'm reviewing Kubuntu. Main ScreenI've said some bad things about Kubuntu in the past. Mainly, it has to do with how a couple years ago on Ubuntu, KDE and GNOME would not mix very well, and Kubuntu's implementation of KDE, while vanilla-looking, wasn't very vanilla-working (and really didn't work well at all). Things have improved...

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Review: Edubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot"

Main ScreenWell, it's that time of year again: it's October, so another edition of Ubuntu has been released. This includes its official derivatives, like Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, and Edubuntu. Today I'll be testing Edubuntu because I feel like it doesn't get reviewed enough, yet it provides the same experience and support as standard Ubuntu, aside from having a whole bunch of educational applications included in the live session (hence the name).So...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 October 9

There was one post that got one comment this week, so I'll repost that one.Review: Sabayon 7 KDE + GNOME + XfceReader MacLone said, "My problem with every Sabayon i test is the buggy installer. I have tried to install on several machines and the installer ends with some python bugs. This is not new, it has been the same with earlier versions of sabayon. The only way to install this problematic distro is by text. As a "whole" Sabayon is the most rushed and buggy of all the linuxes i test."Thanks to that reader for commenting on that post. This...

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Review: Sabayon 7 KDE + GNOME + Xfce

I've reviewed Sabayon here enough that I don't need to introduce it here anymore. Let's just say that version 7 was released recently, so I'm reviewing it.KDE: Main ScreenBut usually, I only review the KDE edition, so why am I reviewing the GNOME and Xfce editions too this time? Well, GNOME is now at version 3.2, and the Xfce edition is now considered to be stable enough to not be "experimental" anymore, so I think both of those things warrant reviews....

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 October 2

There was one post this past week that got two comments, so I'll repost both of those.Review: Kororaa 15 "Squirt"Reader Jonquil had this clarification: "You can change the icons and themes using Gnome-Tweak-Tool, which should be available in the repositories. Also, Appearance hasn't been deprecated. Something is wrong with the distribution you're using. I've used the Appearance settings in Gnome 3.0 AND 3.2 in Fedora, and they work just fine."An anonymous commenter said, "I totally agree with the above article. After getting my first build up...

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Review: Kororaa 15 "Squirt"

KDE: Main ScreenI've been swamped these past couple weeks. I mean, I've been absolutely, completely, and totally bogged down by work. I had 4 problem sets to do, on top of my recently-started UROP and other work-study stuff I'm doing, so I seriously had no room to breathe, until now. I briefly thought about starting work for next week tonight, but then I realized that whatever sanity I had left at this point would go out the window if I worked any...

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KevJumba and Google Search Results

I know I'm quite late on this one, but I just thought of a better way to explain this somewhat recent TechDirt post on why US Senators' assertions that Google remove all biases and put up "natural" search results is wrongheaded, because Google's search results are inherently influenced by people's searches, companies' advertising, and Google's own algorithms. The issue, if I remember correctly, revolves around the fact that Google is advertising for Canadian drugs when people search online to buy drugs, and it is in some instances illegal to buy...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 September 25

There was one post this week that got a comment, so I'll repost that.The Neutrino News and Science in the PublicReader T_Beermonster had this excellent explanation/clarification: "It's probably just me misreading but it seems like you are saying the measurement was of neutrino speed in rock exceeding only photon speed in rock. The paper clearly states that the measurement was of muon neutrinos in rock (or at least assumed to be travelling through rock rather than taking a short-cut through a spare dimension) moving faster than the speed of...

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So ACTA's Getting Passed After All

The title says most of it. It's supposed to be officially signed and enacted this weekend in a special ceremony. For new readers, you might notice in the sidebar a banner asking people to take action against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (also known as ACTA). Clicking on the banner will explain it to you a lot better than I ever could, but basically, there are so many problems with it, like the way it places liability on different people, how it allows for punishment just through accusation (without a fair trial), and stuff like that,...

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The Neutrino News and Science in the Public

I'm sure many of you have heard the news about the neutrinos that supposedly traveled faster than light through rocky material (though this is all still slower than light through a vacuum, which is still the ultimate speed limit). Given that I'm taking a class on relativity right now, this has made our class even more interesting than before. Our professor sent us all an email a few days ago echoing what I thought before: it would be really cool and interesting if these superluminal neutrinos weren't just an experimental error but were the real...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 September 18

There were two posts that got a handful of comments this past week, so I'll try to repost most of those. Star Wars and George Lucas's OverreachReader T_Beermonster had this explanation: "It seems fairly straight forward, George Lucas really likes money. I and many others really like Star Wars. If George Lucas wants to sell a 1080p immortalization of my happy memories in a format I can watch (so not blu-ray obviously because only a handful of people on earth own or want a blu-ray player) then I'm more than happy to hand over some cash. On the...

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I Met Michael Nielsen!

I did it today! Woot! (And I got a picture with him!) Although he is specifically a physicist, most well known for his seminal textbook on quantum computing, he came to give a colloquium about open science in general, and it's doubly cool for me because I'm interested in both physics and things like open science. (Also, before the talk, I mentioned to him that I first read about him on Glyn Moody's blog, which you should totally read. That's how Dr. Nielsen figured out I'm a free software kind of guy. He also told me that Mr. Moody's a cool guy...

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Review: Linux Mint GNOME 201109

Oh man. I've wanted to do this post for quite a long time now. And now I can! So here it is.Main Screen + System MonitorRegular readers of this blog know that Linux Mint has been releasing snapshots of its rolling-release Debian-based distribution alongside its fixed-release Ubuntu-based distribution. A few days ago, the newest snapshots of the GNOME and Xfce editions were released. Furthermore, even before that, the developers changed from simply...

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Star Wars and George Lucas's Overreach

Recently, George Lucas has made news in the tech world by announcing changes to some of the dialogue in the original Star Wars movies to make the plot and background more complete. The reaction, at least among those who watched the original movies when they were released in the theaters, is that he is needlessly meddling with the movies they love and remember so well just to satisfy his own desires, and it's time that he opened it up (Will Gompertz, BBC News) to the fans to modify and redistribute.I agree with most of the arguments presented in...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 September 11

There was one post this past week that got a couple of comments, so I'll repost all of those.Revisited: Fuduntu 14.10.1An anonymous reader had this tip on how the web applications are created with Google Chrome/Chromium: "Windows user here. Google Chrome, Menu, Tools and here the first entry enables me to make a "Das U-Blog" App. Suppose it works the same with various Distros. Have a nice day."Commenter FEWT, who is also the creator and lead developer of Fuduntu, said, "Firefox 6, LibreOffice, Thunderbird 6, and lots more apps are available in...

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Revisited: Fuduntu 14.10.1

Main Screen + GNOME Main MenuIt has been almost exactly 6 months since I looked at Fuduntu. Since then, it has had one new minor release (version 14.9 became version 14.10) and an update to that release (version 14.10 became version 14.10.1). You would think that not much would have changed between then and now, so what's making me test this?Before that, I apologize for the recent dearth of posts here (aside from the very recent one). First, I've...

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First UROP: Thermophotovoltaics

I apologize for not having posted anything in a while. For one, I've already become quite busy, so I haven't had much time to do stuff like this. For another, I have been (and still am, as of now) sick for over a week, so I've just been trying to rest whenever I can.This week, though, I started my first UROP! Yay! It regards modeling new thermophotovoltaics (thermal solar cells) that use photonic crystals. Photonics are to light what electronics are to electrons, so the idea is that photonic crystals will give enough fine-grained control over photons...

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Third Semester at College

Today was the first day of my third semester at MIT! I was excited to start with the classes that I want to take (and am not just taking to meet some requirements). This semester I'm taking classes in wave mechanics, special relativity, thermodynamics, and microeconomics.There are a couple new things I noticed. First, there seems to be a lot of restoration work. I wonder why, given that the sesquicentennial celebrations have come and gone. Second, I've noticed that a lot more on-campus Athena computers that previously used Microsoft Windows now...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 August 28

There was one post that got quite a few comments this past week, so I'll repost a few from that.Review: Mandriva 2011 "Hydrogen"Reader DarkDuck said, "I also tried to create Live USB for Mageia and failed. It was Live CD for me that time. 400Mb is way too much even for KDE version. My Mageia only takes ~170Mb freshly booted."Commenter Mechatotoro, whose blog about Mandriva you should all read, said, "Thanks for the review. I installed Mandriva 2011 and I'm giving it a test drive. I must say that I'm not crazy about the ROSA panel, but it the...

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Reflection: 2011 Summer

My summer has finally come to an end. Tomorrow, I'll be headed back for college, where the classes of my third semester will start next Wednesday.All in all, it was a great summer. I was able to participate in a really fun internship at NIST for 12 weeks. I was able to hang out with friends a lot. I was able to spend a lot of time with immediate and extended family during the two weeks after my internship ended. And this last week, I was able to relax quite a bit. Now I can't wait to get back to college and meet up again with friends from last...

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Review: Mandriva 2011 "Hydrogen"

Before I begin, I'd like to say that the reason why there was no "Featured Comments" post this week was because there were no comments on last week's posts. That's probably because I didn't write a lot last week as I was spending time with friends and family. Anyway, let's get on with the review. Main Screen I don't think Mandriva particularly needs an introduction. Suffice it to say that it was among the original premiere easy-to-use Linux distributions,...

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Resignation of the Jobs

If you look at the headlines of myriad technology news sources, you'll see that Steve Jobs has resigned as CEO of Apple. But he's not leaving Apple; he's going to become Chairman of the Board, with Tim Cook replacing him as CEO. It's basically the same thing that Bill Gates did at Microsoft many years ago, with Steve Ballmer replacing him as CEO, though this time, Steve Jobs did it because of his failing health making him unable to keep up with all the duties of being CEO.Given that Tim Cook has had large responsibilities in the past in the affairs...

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2011 August 23: Earthquake!

Yup. We had an earthquake here! Even though where I live is basically smack in the middle of a continental plate, halfway between the nearest two fault lines, earthquakes do happen around here. I also happen to live near a quarry, so initially, I thought it was a normal quarry blast, but then I realized that compared to a 0.5 second long quarry blast, the shaking was going on for a good 19.5 seconds longer. Truthfully, 3 hours after the event, I'm still shaking slightly and warily awaiting the aftershocks.Even though I live far from established...

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Featured Comments: Week of 2011 August 14

There were 2 posts that got a pretty large number of comments (one in particular), so I'll try to repost a few from each.Review: Linux Mint 11 "Katya" LXDEBecause this wasn't an entirely positive review (and for all that, my only suggestion was to go with the GNOME edition of Linux Mint as opposed to the LXDE edition, and for that people still somehow got up in arms), there were many comments, a few of them rather mean-spirited and baseless, but aside from that, let's get on with some of the more thoughtful (which doesn't mean no disagreements...

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