Digitivity » desktop

Google Kills 10 Products

Digitivity — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 18:18:00 +0000

Posted in Images

It's the end of the road for 10 perpetual-beta Google products: Aardvark, Desktop, Fast Flip, Maps API for Flash, Google Pack, Google Web Security, Image Labeler, Notebook, Sidewiki, and Subscriber Links.

Were you using any of these? And was it a good idea to kill them when they could have just shunted them off to a less-accesible corner of the Google website?
Via Related posts:

Trimslice: The First NVIDIA Tegra 2-powered Desktop Computer

Digitivity — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 13:45:00 +0000

Posted in Links

http://trimslice.com/web/

Trimslice is the first NVIDIA Tegra 2-powered desktop computer. It’s available in various configurations from $199 to $319. Related posts:Notebook Computer Sales Overtake Desktop Sales How to Change the Background Image of the Windows Desktop Dreamvue: A Desktop App to Manage Your Dreamhost Account Related posts:

KDE Renames Itself as the KDE Plasma Desktop

Digitivity — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:53:12 +0000

KDE is undergoing a marketing exercise in renaming itself and its various products:

The phrase “K Desktop Environment” won’t be used
KDE means the community and an overarching brand
Various KDE products’ new names:
KDE Plasma Desktop and KDE Plasma Netbook
KDE technologies become the KDE Platform
The KDE Applications remain the same
KDE 4.3 will be called “KDE Software Compilation 4.4″ in the next release

Although there’s some logic to the name changes, I think force of habit is going to have people continue to refer to KDE as KDE 4.4.

The fact is, people call products what they want to call them, regardless of what company marketing departments want. For example, Xerox doesn’t want you to refer to photocopying as xeroxing, but people still do. Kleenex doesn’t want you to refer to facial tissue as kleenexes, but people still do.

Slashdot discussion here.

Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 Is Out

Digitivity — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:10:53 +0000

The latest release of Ubuntu, the easy-to-use Linux distribution, is out. With a version number of 9.10 (which stands for October, 2009), it’s code-named Karmic Koala.

Some features of the new release include:

The Ubuntu Software Center. This is an application that replaces the old Application Add/Remove. It’s nice for browsing available software, and you can install from there too.
Firefox 3.5 Browser
OpenOffice version 3.1
UbuntuOne, a cloud-based file storage and backup service. Ubuntu offers a free 2GB of storage to everyone, with various paid plans after that.
Empathy replaces Pidgin as the instant message client
There’s a new login manager (gdm 2.28) which provides a more integrated login
A revamped Network Manager whose goal is to just have networks work without a lot of fuss
Social network integration, having e-mail, web-mail, IM, and twitter clients all acccessible from a single messages indicator applet running on the top panel.

Some features under the hood include:

Use of DeviceKit instead of hal (hardware access layer) for power management and laptop function keys.
Use of the ext4 filesystem by default on new installations
GRUB 2 as the boot manager for new installations
Non Executable Emulation: Allows installations on computers that don’t have hardware non-executable protection to emulate approximate it.
More applications are build as “position-independent executables”, decreasing the risk of attack by malware
Replacing the input method framework SCIM with IBUS

Download Karmic Koala here.

Dreamvue: A Desktop App to Manage Your Dreamhost Account

Digitivity — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 03:42:11 +0000

Dreamhost recently (within the last few months) released a remote API to manipulate accounts and get account information. They’re holding a contest for the best apps using the API.

Digitivity.org presents Dreamvue, the Desktop Dreamhost Management App.

Click the picture for more info.

Dreamvue Dreamhost Desktop Management Application

Notebook Computer Sales Overtake Desktop Sales

Digitivity — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:01:05 +0000

eWeek is reporting that notebook sales have passed desktop sales for the first time. In the last quarter of 2008, 38.6 million units of notebooks shipped compared to 38.5 million desktops.

One of the problems with mobile computers, though, is they’re easy pickings for theft, which has reached a hundred thousand per year for notebooks.

The story is here. It’s being discussed on Slashdot here:

Slashdot | Notebook Sales Outpace Desktop Sales

I think one benefit of the laptop craze may be that companies will stop putting out newer versions of software which require double the specs of the last version.

While the idea of a small notebook for mobility’s sake is appealing to me, I don’t really like the idea of having a notebook as a desktop replacement. For people who use their computer a lot, including typing a lot, being crouched over a laptop keeping your neck craned downwards while typing on a small, probably un-ergonomic keyboard doesn’t sound appealing.

As well, as pointed out in the comments at Slashdot, parts that you can’t replace on a portable include:

case and panels
keyboard
touchpad
LCD
CD/DVD
battery
power adaptor
motherboard

To each his own, though.