Basically, Desktop Drapes is a GNOME applet that sit in your tray and automatically flips through your wallpaper collection at specific intervals. What I really like is that it monitors your wallpaper directory and automatically adds new images to the queue. If you don’t want your stuff changing automatically, you can just have it sit there, ready to pick a new wallpaper at random whenever your left-click on the icon.

It’s a little thing, but it’s nice to have around. Seems like Desktop Drapes probably has a permanent home on my GNOME desktop.

Do you like switch your wallpaper frequently, or do you pretty much leave it as is? What other apps like Desktop Drapes do you use?

Unfortunately, I think I may have to call it quits on the Linux blogging front. No, I probably won’t ever stop writing about what’s exciting me in the Linux world, but I may just not have the time to keep it up at my current pace. My goal for the past couple of years has been to post at least once a week (usually more than that) and not only talk about what I think is cool, but offer tips, tricks, and news related to my topic. Posting just a few times a week might not sound like it takes a lot of time…but it does, especially when you factor in research and feed-reading in order to stay on top of what’s happening in the ever changing world of Free and Open Source Software.

I’m really trying to spend more time on my music (since that is indeed what I do for a living, and it’s what I’m getting my Master’s degree in), and very soon, I’ll be a Dad. I’m thoroughly looking forward to fatherhood, but I know that it means I’ll have less time on my hands, and I don’t want to feel stressed because of self-imposed pressure to blog. Although Linux-blogging is fun and fulfilling on many levels, the fact is that when I try to do it on any kind of semi-professional level, it brings a bit of pressure with it. I’m not sure I need that in the context of my current life circumstances.

Right now, I’m strongly considering drastically reducing my posting frequency on my ProductiveLinux.com blog. I don’t think I could ever stop writing completely, so I know I’ll be throwing in a couple posts per month (at least) on cool stuff that pops up on my radar…but I’m not sure this warrants its own blog anymore. Why maintain an extra Wordpress installation, a domain, and design on a two-post-per-month blog? Maybe I should migrate the posts to the nathanrhale.com (my personal site), and just leave ProductiveLinux.com up as resource for Googlers, with a pointer to the new content at my personal blog. Or maybe it is worth it…after all, I’ve built a bit of a brand with ProductiveLinux, and it’s not too much work to keep things going…I’m just not sure what the best course of action is at this point.

I welcome any thoughts or advice my sage readers might offer.

Photo Credit: Limonada

Click for larger size

I recently expressed my frustration with the lack of good clients for Linux that effectively aggregate Twitter & Identi.ca.

In the comments to that post, Kari suggested I try out PeopleBrowsr.com, and I have to say…I’m pretty impressed. PeopleBrowsr takes pretty much all your social networks, and allows you to view updates in streams arranged in columns–a lot like TweetDeck. So, while everything’s not in one stream the way I prefer, all my updates are easily visible and in one window. I can live with that. PeopleBrowsr also has some really useful features I’m already really enjoying:

• It’s easy to ReTweet, Follow, and Unfollow straight from the default PeopleBrowsr interface.
• Facebook integration is tight. Comment on status updates and search Facebook straight from PeopleBrowsr. This drastically improves my Facebook experience.
• Saved searches make keeping track of hash tags and keywords easy. Plus you can sort search result with powerful options like location and time.
• Integrated trending topics display is also really convenient.
• Threaded conversations. Need I say more?

Pros:

• Features. See above.
• Simple sign up…just an email, plus your Twitter info.
• Runs in your browser or via Adobe Air.
• Attractive and customizable interface.
• Will let me keep using both Identi.ca and Twitter productively.

Cons:

• Interface can be a bit sluggish.
• Not free or open source.

So, there you have it. I would of course, prefer a free (as in speech) solution, but PeopleBrowsr works, and seems to work well. Check it out, and let me know what you think.

Managing multiple social networks is rarely easy, and almost never fun. I’m always trying to streamline and simplify, and one thing that’s really been eating away at me lately is having to handle two microblogging communities.

I know there are ways to have my tweets show up as dents, and my dents as tweets…cross posting really isn’t the issue. I just hate having to check two websites for @replies, group messages, etc. As of right now, there doesn’t seem to to be a single desktop app for the Linux desktop (or possibly any desktop) that aggregates the two services the way I’d like.

Twirl uses multiple windows, Tweetdeck doesn’t have Identi.ca support, and Friendfeed (a web-based solution) requires me to manually create “virtual users” in order to get updates from Identi.ca peeps that
aren’t members. There seems to be no simple solution. Gwibber would great…if it worked. Seems like it’s been pretty unstable lately, though…lots of crashes, unresponsive windows, losing of tweets.

So what should I do? Give up one of the two communities? I’m not happy with this idea because I love what Identi.ca stands for and I enjoy many relationships I’ve built through it…but Twitter is equally hard to leave because of its ubiquitous presence.

I haven’t decided yet, but I think until a workable desktop application (or a really awesome webapp) comes along, I may have to ditch one or the other.

Notice how hard it is to read urls. Click for larger image.

The problem is…I love Firefox. Despite its flaws, it stands head-and-shoulders above Epiphany (which remains a bit too simple for heavy web browsing) and just about every other browser out there when it comes to features, security, and extensibility. I’m not giving up Firefox anytime soon, so…I guess I have to change my choice of GTK themes.

Naturally, I went to GNOME-Look.org (a great site) to begin my quest for a light theme that would look great on Firefox and my desktop, but I couldn’t find quite what I was looking for…light, but not cold. Most of the bluish themes out there lack any warmth or inviting feel to them. I like a clean look, but with a bit of cosy-ness to it.

MurrinaVerdeOlivo is clean but warm. Click for larger image.

In the end, I installed the Murinne GTK engine from the standard repos along with the murrine-themes package, and found some nice options…right now my desktop is running the MurrinaVerdeOliva theme with the Blended Metacity window borders and the Crashbit Ubuntu icon set. I’m pleased with the look. If you install those packages, you’ll also get some nice blue themes and couple cool graphite options as well.

What’s your favorite light theme for GNOME/GTK?

I’m using Dropbox to sync my Zim Wiki notes, but tech blog Starry Hope gives us the low down on how to best use Dropbox for all you Tomboy users out there. Looks really simple, and I bet you could do something similar with the private-beta Ubuntu One, too.

Full Story: Synchronize Tomboy Notes With Dropbox

Unlike Firefox, there are absolutely no buttons or controls (”chrome”) to get in your way; everything is done with Emacs-like keyboard shortcuts. You can have multiple webpages open in one window with “buffers” and many Firefox extensions are compatible with the browser.

If you’re not a fan of Emacs-style keyboard navigation, the shortcuts are totally customizable, so you can get it to behave anyway you like…even like Vi(m).

Conkeror on my Eee PC with the buffer list open. (click for larger image)

I’m aware that there are extensions for Firefox (like Vimperator) that make it more keyboard friendly, but the advantage that Conkeror offers is its super-light resource usage. With two buffers (the equivalent of tabs) open, Conkeror was using about 66 MB of RAM. With the same tabs, Firefox was using well over 100 MB. So Conkeror makes for a great, full featured browser for low-end systems. Without all the chrome, it’s also a great choice for netbooks like the Eee PC series, Acer Aspire One, or HP Mininote.

Full Story: The Conkeror Web Browser Conquers Small Screens

How do you browse from the keyboard?

I also decided this would be a great time to experiment a bit with an inexpensive, Linux-powered solution for bringing my existing media collection into the living room.

I found a Dell GX60 on Ebay for $99 with free shipping, so I jumped on it. The specs were meager (2.4 GHZ Celeron, 512 RAM, 40 GB HD) but I beefed it up with an additional 512 RAM stick I had lying around, and attached an external 1 Terrabyte drive I already had.

Turns out this humble machine runs XBMC like a champ, and actually plays even high def video pretty well. I eventually plan to step up to a true HTPC like the Neuros Link (looks like a fantastic product) but in the meantime, this little box is working great as a way to play music, dvd backups, etc on my 32” LCD TV.

XBMC playing some Snow Patrol on my super cheap, Linux-powered HTPC

Stuff that doesn’t work too well:

• Sometimes it struggles a bit with certain high definition videos; there’s the occasional tear or visual artifact.
• The onboard Intel graphics card just can’t handle flash video, so YouTube and Hulu are out of the question. I could probably beef up the graphics card a bit, but then I’d need a larger power supply…and that’s just more trouble than it’s worth for me.

Despite these drawbacks, I think the machine was definitely worth the $99 I spent, and I think it will serve us well as we begin our migration to web-only tv and a totally digitized music and video collection.

Do you have a Linux-powered home theatre pc? Share your experiences in the comments!

Over the course of that week, I learned that a good graphics card is essential to productivity on Linux and computers in general. Not only were YouTube videos unwatchable with onboard graphics (hey, I learn lots of stuff about Linux via YouTube ;), but fonts were blurry, I could use only one of my two monitors, and loading even basic web pages full screen was laborious. And of course, there was no Compiz with all of its many productivity features like the Scale and Desktop Wall plugins.

At least GNOME Do still let me fly through my essential tasks.

All that being said, I found an inexpensive card that works great with Ubuntu at Newegg.com, and now I’m back in business.

What are your experiences with graphics cards and everyday computing?