Danny's Space

Transmission is the Bittorrent client for Ubuntu ever since I first learned how to use the technology. It is running in natty at version 2.13. Don't get me wrong. It runs fast and it is light and simple to use. For users with limited bandwidth like me, it is annoying to use (before). It would hug all the available bandwidth rendering all other applications useless. I can't do any browsing or email clients hang when I have to multi-task these activities. NOT anymore! Transmission 2.13 is the definitive upgrade I have been waiting for. I guess they finally put auto-bandwidth detection to work because it definitely changes the way I do multi-task now. Firefox 4.0 and Evolution is open (as well as Empathy and Gwibber) and none of them are complaining about bandwidth. And no it isn't my internet connection. I'm still using the same crappy ISP. It is such fun to be able to leave my torrents downloading and uploading in the background and still do my other web activities. ...

Ubuntu 11.04 natty narwhal is available now for download.  This is the final release version of Ubuntu with the default Unity desktop environment. Download it here.

Since my initial install, the compiz freezes have become rare and the system itself seem to me more stable now that the bug fixes are coming everyday. The updates were coming fast especially the past week (before the easter weekend). Will there be a last minute surprise? Hopefully none. Themes are working well. Currently using Equinox Light with Faenza icons. The Ubuntu installer has always given me positive changes since I first install Edgy Eft. Every new version of Ubuntu is easier to install than the last. Don't forget to download apparmour profiles from the repository. I believe Chromium-browser profile is not in natty by default, but you can download the profile from the repositories.

Previously ranted about the blind alley Ubuntu 11.04 seemed to be leading us when it comes to some applications not being ready yet for the dropping of system tray.  What I should have done is press on. There are posts about editing a white list with a recommended GUI tool to help us out here , here and here . Like everything in Linux, there's a configuration file for it, if you can find it and if you have the inclination to go ninja. If not then there's dconf-editor. Download dconf-tools from Software Center. Navigate to desktop>unity>panel. Add your application in the white list. Then close the window. No save button. mmm. So far I have added Shutter, Dropbox and Keepassx in the white list.                Before...  After.

April 22nd is Earth Day. Our Planet.Our Home.Humanity's Cradle. Delicate Arch, Utah Image from Adam Olson's Photoblog.

Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros are photojournalists covering the Libyan conflict. The forces of Gaddafi attacked the rebel forces holding Misrata and a group of journalists are with the rebel forces when the attack began. Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros died from injuries resulting from that attack. Tim Hetherington along with Sebastian Junger won the jury prize at Sundance Festival for their documentary of a platoon of american soldiers in the Koringal valley of Afghanistan, entitled Restrepo. Chris Hondros was known for the iconic photo of an iraqi girl crying after her parents were mistakenly shot for disobeying a checkpoint in Tal Afar, Iraq.

The Periodic Table of Elements has seen many colorful presentation. I highly recommend this periodic table. The temperature slider presents the changes in the states of matter for individual elements. Clicking on the elements produces a window linking to a wikipedia article on that element. Very Cool!  

The photo came from a BBC soap opera EastEnders. It was used in a blog post for Dangerous Minds . The blog post is calling for a protest of a pub in London who asked two young men to leave the premises because they were kissing. The material was posted on Richard Metzger's Facebook page because he also blogs on Dangerous Minds and that's how he works it.  By the way, that's pretty much how I do it too. I post on my blog and if I liked it I post it to my facebook page too. Why? Because that's where most of my friends hang out. Unfortunately, Richard had one friend by the name of Jerry who wrote homophobic words about the picture and found it disgusting. After that, Richard's other friends jumped on the guy. Jerry apparently complained about it to facebook. Facebook removed the material and sent Richard a warning. The real problem here is certainly not that Facebook is a homophobic company. It's that their terrible corporate policy on censorship needs to stop...

I found them at a pile of my friend's cd set. It's a stack of cd's that's in his list of to-listen-tos. Yuck is Yuck's debut album. The sound is like Sonic Youth but with more heart. I've been listening to Stutter, I don't know why. Yuck is Daniel Blumberg and Max Bloom Mariko Doi and Jonny Rogoff. Buy Yuck at Amazon Stutter by Yuck Listen on Posterous

Photo Gallery: Haiti Earthquake Three Washington Post photographers were awarded the Pulitzer for bringing to us the images of desperation after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The Pulitzer Prize Citation Follows: For a distinguished example of breaking news photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence or an album, in print or online or both, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000). Awarded to Carol Guzy, Nikki Kahn and Ricky Carioti of The Washington Post for their up-close portrait of grief and desperation after a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti. Finalists Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Daniel Berehulak and Paula Bronstein of Getty Images for their compelling portrayal of the human will to survive as historic floods engulfed regions of Pakistan; and Carolyn Cole of the Los Angeles Times for her often haunting images of a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, capturing ...

DreamWorks announced Daniel Day Lewis will play Abraham Lincoln in a film biography of the US President. Sally Fields signed on as Mary Todd Lincoln, the former president's wife. The film will be directed by Steven Spielberg.

Anybody here wants to hear a penguin laugh? Cookie is the penguin mascot of the Cincinnati Zoo's Bird House. Personally, I've never heard a penguin laugh. Very nicely done indeed.

I've been using Ubuntu 11.04 natty since the first beta. Firefox updated with Ubuntu branding and support for global menu for the unity desktop. The natty narwhal final release on April 29th is proceeding well. Bugs have committed fixes or assigned.

Intel went on the record today saying that its silicon will support USB 3.0 in 2012 and urged developers to target both USB and its new "Thunderbolt" technology. "Intel is going to support USB 3.0 in the 2012 client platform. We're going to support Thunderbolt capability. We believe they're complementary," said Kirk Skaugen, a vice president at the Intel Architecture Group, speaking at Intel's developer conference in Beijing today. The event was streamed over the Web. CNET News

A lot of people use Google Chrome (or Chromium) like me. A lot of people use Xmarks to synchronize their bookmarks, tabs and history across several computers. Finally, a lot of people use different browsers and  are using Xmarks to sync data over these browsers. I am looking at you. There is an issue with Xmarks performing sync in Google Chrome. It's unable to resolve issues with data duplicates. Xmarks issued a new version of Xmarks addon and yours should now be 1.0.14. If you are still encountering error messages regarding this issue please try this. In your Google Chrome, go to the down arrow (right beside the wrench icon) and select the Xmarks settings. Run Setup Wizard. Run it. Essentially, you are re-setting the addon for this browser. And that will solve the annoying error message.

Jennifer Lawrence shown here during the Golden Globe. This smile is worlds away from Ree's stark rural surroundings, and the character tackled by this 19 year- old former cheerleader. In Winter's Bone she plays the daughter of an absent father who will stop at nothing to keep the family together.  

Right after Mark Shuttleworth announced Unity will be used in Ubuntu as default shell on top of Gnome, I took it for a spin. I wondered about its lack of keyboard access and its impact on productivity. A lot happened since then and developers worked their butts off to make it work. When it was announced that the second beta is ready I downloaded it using Bittorrent. The install was smooth. I had to do some partitioning because I did not want to delete the old Maverick. Just in case. My verdict is that Ubuntu 11.04 Natty will come out of its development cycle a winner. It's a solid 4/5. There are bugs still to be squashed. There are compiz freezes. In my opinion these are not show-stoppers. I want the 2D speed and smoothness in 3D though. Impressions during install: @findingdonato. I love the top bar shadow there.

Banshee is an open source, cross-platform media player announced by Canonical, the sponsor of Ubuntu, as the new default player in Ubuntu Natty, the current cycle's name. It has been updated not four days ago. Banshee 2.0 fixed bugs and is a stable release next to 1.8. The biggest "fix" of course is the track actions applying to the artist and album. Users can play, queue, remove, edit tracks, artists and albums. Now for Ubuntu users, 2.0 will stick on your sound menu even after you close it. Quit doesn't work with Banshee 2.0 anymore. This is the current direction in the Ubuntu desktop development. Most Ubuntu users are waiting for the developers to implement this manner of things in Evolution Mail Client. In Evolution a lot of users want to be able to receive and send emails without opening (a window) Evolution. It's already in the Memenu anyway.

What are SHIPS. Ferdinand Magellan had five. Christopher Columbus had three. NASA had six. NASA gave away their space shuttles to museums. Hopefully they preserve them until the next century. Magellan's Victoria completed the circumnavigation of the world by sailing from the city of Sanlucar de Barrameda, crossed the Atlantic, passed from the Atlantic into the Pacific through a passage (now called the Strait of Magellan), crossed the Pacific, then crossed the Indian ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa and then to Spain. Columbus  set sail on the Santa Maria, the Pinta and the Nina. History will tell you he discovered America or the New World. Actually he discovered the Bahamas. His discovery started a super power race to discover and claim more lands and their riches. The space shuttles were named Enterprise, Columbia, Challenger, Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavor. The space shuttle is a reusable space craft made up of three comp...

we put out our fears then roll and slip the dice looking at each other's eyes I chose you you held out your hand and maybe wait for it a moment a smile and the resignation broken doors that can't quite close guilt without contrition unable to see past those shoulders I follow my friend I follow him downstairs to his father's funeral He raised his head The next king marches followed by guards soon the train will proceed without me but I'm not sorry my friend I'm not sorry at all.

Sidney Lumet was the director of some of the most admirable films I have ever watched (and re-watched for decades now). I really want to talk about each one on dedicated posts if you don't mind. I promise to do that. For now I just want to remember the person who made these films. 12 Angry Man(1957) This film looks inside the deliberation of a jury. Serpico (1973) Al Pacino stars as a rebel cop. Dog Day Afternoon (1975) Bank robbers are the bad guys. So let's remove that from the equation and tell the rest of their story. That's Dog Day Afternoon. With over 50 films under his name, thank you Mr. Lumet.

Julianne Moore as Hillary Clinton    Sarah Palin The changes were due to scheduling conflict.

Today, April 6th 1994, the former President of Rwanda died in an attack on his plane as it landed in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, Africa. The next day moderates in his Cabinet are killed including their families. During the colonial history of this beautiful country, Belgium instituted a strict ethnic identification dividing the country into the minority Tutsi and the majority Hutus. There were no such division before. In fact, majority of Rwandans share a religion, Roman Catholism, the universal Christian Church. The very next day the systematic (mostly) killing of the Tutsi (and some Hutus) by Hutu militias, Hutu extremists in government and military began. It lasted 100 days, The United Nations Commission on Human Rights estimate 800 million Rwandans died within 3 months. While some deaths are due to disease and the appalling conditions in refugee camps, most died at the hands of Hutu militias and their Hutu neighbors. Possession of an ID card like this mean...

The Next Generation Gnome Desktop is released today. Gnome 3 Desktop environment

The Mountains The jump off Conquering your fear Landing site: Mirror Lake The whole thing in video here. Posted on Youtube. Thank you for uploading it, TheFroschyankee A cubicle dweller's day dream. See the full gallery on Posterous

Gandhi (1982)   Starring: Ben Kingsley as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Sheen (as a newspaper reporter, in this scene), John Gielgud   Directed by Richard Attenborough Scene from Gandhi Gandhi:  you've come all this way because you think something is going to happen. Reporter:  is it? Gandhi:  perhaps. I've come here to think about it. Gandhi:  do you remember much about south africa? Reporter:  yes. a great deal. Gandhi:  I've traveled so far, and thought so much...          as you can see, my city is a sea city. always full of Hindus, Muslims, Sihks, Jews, Persians...                   my family's sect was the Panhami, hindu of course but in our temple the priest used to read from the muslim Koran and the hindu Gita moving from one to the other as if it does not matter which book was being read... ...

02_-_Pride__In_the_Name_of_Love_._WwW.LoKoTorrents.CoM_.ogg Listen on Posterous I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self­ evident, that all men are created equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. -Martin Luther King Jr. The music of U2 is always full and meaningful. Few bands in Music comes close to the influence of their songs' lyrics. Today, Ap...

I Have A Dream by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Listen on Posterous The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated April 4th 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for his life long work in the cause of ending racial segregation and discrimination. He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously. He advanced his causes through non-violence and civil disobedience. Something we can dwell on in light of current events in Florida and Afghanistan.