Top 6 Quicklists for Ubuntu 11.04 Natty to Enhance Unity Launcher Functionality

Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal has been a revelation of sorts in terms of UI improvements it brought to the table. One of the highlights of the new Unity UI is the launcher that sits on the left side of Ubuntu 11.04 Unity desktop. Now I can access my most favorite apps much more faster and my desktop will remain clean at the same time. But i didn't noticed the limitations of Unity launcher until I implemented the following quicklists which further enhanced the Ubuntu Unity launcher functionality. I am pretty darn sure that you are also going to love these awesome Unity launcher improvements as I did. 
Add Your Favorite Places as Quicklists for Home Icon in Unity

LibreOffice 3.4 released:A worthy replacement for premium Office Suites

Microsoft seems to have a tough ride ahead, they seem to have lost the patent case for its Office suite. Now open source tools from Open Office.Org and LibreOffice Suites are competing aggressively with MS Office for market share. The main reason is the Open Source tag associated with the first two choices. It is inexpensive and enjoys backing from a large community of developers. Today let us take a look at the latest release from the LibreOffice Suite- the LibreOffice 3.4.

tricky tips for ubuntu 11.04 unity

The following tutorial will teach Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) users how to customize the new interface developed by Canonical for the Ubuntu operating system, Unity.

The new Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) operating system introduced a different user interface, designed by Canonical, called Unity. But the development team did not offered some easy to understand and learn tricks, to make Unity usable by human beings.

With these trips and tricks, users should familiarize with Unity and find it very useful and user friendly. Without any ado, we'll let you now test these nice tricks.

But first, you will need the Compiz Fusion Settings Manager Tool installed in your Ubuntu 11.04 operating system. To install it, click the link below:


Install CompizConfig Settings Manager
Unity Autohide

We bet that few of you knew that Unity can be hidden during your entire session. To do this, press the Windows key and search for compiz. Click the CompizConfig Settings Manager icon and search for the 'Ubuntu Unity Plugin' entry. All you have to do now is to set the "Hide Launcher" option on "Autohide".

Oracle gives OpenOffice to Apache - What a Terrible move.

Oracle announced this AM that it was giving the OpenOffice.org open source project to Apache. The effort has already been endorsed by IBM as well.

To me this move makes no sense at all.

Oracle and Sun before them, messed up the OpenOffice.org community which is what eventually led to the LibreOffice fork. Oracle earlier this year finally admitted that it was the right thing to do to give OpenOffice back to the community, and hey now they've decided that Apache is the right community.

If LibreOffice didn't exist, Apache would be a brilliant home for OpenOffice.

• Reality is that LibreOffice is a vibrant project that has put out the BEST VERSION of OpenOffice ever.
• Reality is that the heart and soul of what used to OpenOffice is now vested in the community of developers that work on LibreOffice.
• Reality is that EVERY MAJOR Linux distribution now includes LibreOffice

Oracle, Apache and IBM need to wake up and see reality for what it is. Continuing to perpetuate the myth that OpenOffice.org can somehow survive as a separate project without the support of LibreOffice and the Linux community is a fallacy.

The bigger question is likely around whether or not LibreOffice will merge back with OpenOffice.org. I don't think that's likely to happen in the short term, but it could happen.

The best option for Oracle and for the broader community of OpenOffice.org users would have been for Oracle to come to terms with LibreOffice. The best solution would have been a resolution of the fork, rather than the perpetuation of it via Apache.

Don't get me wrong, Apache is likely the best home for OpenOffice.org. It's just not necessarily the right thing to do for the overall community of open source office users.

Ubuntu 11.04 won't be the same old Linux desktop

new Unity Linux desktop interface is the change that everyone is talking about, but it was far from the only change that Canonical and Ubuntu's developers are making to Ubuntu's desktop. In fact, even without the change from straight GNOME to Unity, the developers are planning on major changes to the Ubuntu desktop.
We knew some of these changes were coming. Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu's founder, had already announced that Ubuntu would be moving from OpenOffice to LibreOffice for its default office suite. At this point, LibreOffice is 99.9% identical to OpenOffice. By the time Ubuntu 11.04 is released in April, LibreOffice is expected to have improved performance and increased interoperability with Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010 formats.

Some people had expected to see Ubuntu switch from Evolution to Mozilla Thunderbird for e-mail. That did not happen. Although many dislike Evolution -- I've never understood this myself since I like Evolution's do-it-all functionality -- it was decided that Thunderbird simply wasn't ready yet.
I'm not sure Thunderbird will be ready anytime soon. Although I was a Thunderbird supporter early on, the Mozilla Foundation hasn't spent much time or effot in keeping Thunderbird up-to-date. The two main reasons why the Ubuntu programmers have deferred making Thunderbird the default e-mail choice are it's lack of a built-in calendar and no Microsoft Exchange support.  There were also my main problems with Thunderbird last year.
If you want a better, full-featured e-mail client in Ubuntu, my suggestion is to start working on cleaning up Evolution. I don't see Thunderbird taking its place.
The most controversial change, other the switch to Unity for the main interface, is that Ubuntu is changing its default music player from Rhythmbox to Banshee. Personally, I welcome this move. Banshee is my favorite Linux music application. As I said when it was first introduced in 2006, Banshee is as close as you can get to an iTunes for Linux. I still think that's true.

While some people love Rhythmbox, and other music players like Amarok and Clementine have their fans, Banshee's biggest opposition will come from those who hate that it uses Mono, the open-source version of Microsoft's .NET infrastructure. For some people, the mere presence of Mono in a Linux distribution endangers it from Microsoft software patents taxes.
I don't think that's the case. Software patents are an evil that, as the current mobile phone sue-me, sue-you circus shows, don't require the explicit use of a named technology. Besides, Mono users and developers already have Microsoft's blessing. You may dislike using a program built on top of a Microsoft technology, but I don't see any special legal danger in using it.
In any case, if you really can't stand Banshee, Unity, or LibreOffice in the forthcoming Ubuntu, you'll still be able to switch back to Rhythmbox, pure GNOME and/or OpenOffice. Personally, I'm looking forward to Canonical's new take on the Linux desktop, but if you can't stand it, you can have your desktop your way. After all one of Linux's beauties is that you can always set it up just the want you want, not how someone else wants it to be.