Gnome 3 - recommended

Well, this is interesting - some famous people (Linus Torvalds, Mark Shuttleworth) plus folks I respect at work have a real downer on Gnome 3. I installed it today (3.2.1) whilst trying to get something else to work, and gave it a try.

 And I think it is great. It looks good, performs well, and is highly usable.

•  Mouse to the top left of the screen (or press Windows key) gives thumbnails of the running apps (Activities-> Windows) 
• or you can click on Applications to get a list of apps, which are categorised (All, Accessories, Games etc.). 
• Hit the Windows key and start typing: this searches for Apps or Contacts (I wonder if it can be made to search for files?) 
• Also on the Activities screen is a dock which shows favourites. It looks very similar to the Unity side bar except it doesn't pop up irritatingly when you put the mouse over it whilst trying to use the windows max/min/close buttons which are on the left in Unity. 
•  max/unmax is just double clicking on the windows top bar 

 So I was getting used to Unity, and could see where Canonical were going with it. But it seems to me that Gnome 3 is here now and working well - recommended!!

 (PS: Using Ubuntu 11.10 on Lenovo W520)

stumpwm under Linux

True to my normal form I find something interesting but am loathe to do anything too irrevocable!

In this case, I have found stumpwm which is a mouse-less window manager inspired by emacs - lots of key commands! Very fast ( when you know what you are doing)

The instructions talk about changes to .xinitrc which sounds much too difficult if things go wrong. Then I found this gem which describes how to add stumpwm (or any other window manager) as a choice under Ubuntu on login.

Works great.

Now I just have to remeber a new set of key bindings!!

Update: Found this screencast. Very cool - note 2 things: 1) the ogg version is far clearer, C-e is used as the prefix whereas C-t is the default.

emacs-snapshot for ubuntu jaunty

Good pointer http://jfm3-repl.blogspot.com/2009/04/nice-ubuntu-emacs-snapshot-ppa.html

Ubuntu Mobile

Ubuntu Mobile takes on Apple touch interface

This looks very interesting: good looks like the iPhone, but the possibility of getting lots of interesting extra packages running on it.

Apple has a few problems for me: 1) every time I think about geting a Mac or an iPhone I read something about Apple placing restrictions on what you can do - no personal ringtone loads, only stuff from ITunes store.... 2)restrictions on the software the iPhone can run.

I don't want those types of restrictions - I just feel like I am about to give money to a bunch of control freaks.

So, for people like me, let's hope the Ubuntu Mobile looks good, is open, and runs on decent hardware