You can easily install Google Chrome browser on your Ubuntu Linux. Follow the below steps to install Google Chrome browser on Ubuntu Linux.

1. Go to this page and download the 32 bit or 64 bit deb of Google Chrome for Linux. These are the Dev channel builds for Chrome, so you always get the latest updates.

2. Open Terminal and type the below command to install Google Chrome:

If you have downloaded the 32 bit version:

sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-unstable_current_i386.deb

If you have downloaded the 64 bit version:

sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-unstable_current_amd64.deb

This will automatically add Google’s repo to your Software Sources. So you receive all future updates from Google automatically.

If you are using Adobe Flash on your Ubuntu, here is how to enable Flash on Google Chrome. Type the below commands in Terminal:

sudo cd /opt/google/chrome/

sudo mkdir plugins
sudo cd plugins
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so

/opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --enable-plugins %U

Now open Google Chrome. A faster internet browser with Flash.

The line ‘gtk-button-images = 0′ in GTK themes does not work in GNOME 2.26 anymore.

There is now a new key in GNOME Configurator Editor. Below are the steps to disable buttons on icons in GNOME 2.26 and above.

• Press Alt + F2
• Type gconf-editor and hit Enter.
• Go to Desktop –> GNOME –> Interface
• Uncheck the key buttons_have_icons

The change will be immediate and there will no icons on buttons anymore.

This change will affect all GTK themes. Somehow this is more convenient as I need not edit GTK themes everytime.

Just right click on a ISO image and select ‘Burn Disc Image’, Windows 7 burns the image onto a blank disc.

No third party softwares needed.

Disk Cleanup in Windows 7 still shows a warning about Windows Vista.

Isn’t this supposed to be changed?

Downloaded and installed Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 and now have Windows XP running inside Windows 7 without any problems.

Some random things about Windows 7:

1. The first thing I did was turn off UAC but apparently that has a side effect. Desktop gadgets cannot be used without turning on UAC. Don’t know why.
2. If you are beta testing Windows 7, be sure to read this great list of 30 Windows 7 secrets by Tim Sneath. Its a seriously great article about some cool things that are present in Windows 7.
3. If you are annoyed by the Send Feedback link present on all windows, use this simple registry hack from Tech Recipes to get rid of that.
4. Love the desktop slideshow feature of Windows 7. Just select a folder containing wallpapers and specify a rotation interval, Windows 7 will rotate the wallpapers. Earlier people used to downloaded third party software for doing this.
5. Windows 7 includes DivX support in Windows Media Player. So codec packs are not needed more.

You will need a Passport ID to login. Also Firefox is not supported for the download. You will need IE 7 and above to download the ISO. Thats because MS uses an Active X Control as a download manager to resume downloads.

Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 support the Windows 7 Beta download experience. Please note that Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 users behind a proxy server should use the automatic configuration for their proxy server for the best download experience.

It is good that MS has extended the availability of Windows 7 Beta till 24th January. Hopefully the 3.15 GB x64 ISO will have finished downloading by then on my computer.

P.S. – I have a 160 kbps unlimited internet connection.

Some of the problems which were bugging me on KDE 4.1 were slow responsiveness and lack of features when compared to KDE 3.5. Also the graphics performance was not that good with my nVidia GPU. These were the first things I wanted to be fixed in KDE 4.2.

Thankfully, KDE 4.2 fixes most if not all the problems in KDE 4.1. And if you experience graphics problem be sure to install the latest beta of the nVidia driver. (180.18 is the version available in AUR). The driver makes things on KDE 4.2 a lot smoother.

You can read a pretty nice review of KDE 4.2 Beta here and here along with some delicious looking screenshots.

But in between all these improvements there are some  things which are bugging me in KDE 4.2 Beta.

1. Plasma seems to be taking shape well with Plasma add-ons working pretty good now. But still Plasma keeps crashing every now and then. And everytime I go offline in Kopete, Plasma crashes.
2. The new system tray is nice but it keeps flickering everytime I minimize or restore a window. I hope that is fixed before KDE 4.2 is released. Also the system tray icons seem a bit blurred at times.
3. This one is not really KDE related but I dont like Amarok’s new look and feel. Hope the developers give the UI a second thought.
4. I really hate KTorrent startup. It keeps on stacking notifications on top the system tray. Though the notifications are OK when I am copying or moving a file, KTorrent stacks at least 10 notifications when I open it.
5. KDE 4.2 reminds me of Vista. The taskbar is too similar to the one in Windows Vista. Though KDE has been using that kind of taskbar even before Vista.
6. Theming – KDE 4.2 appearance is not all that customizable.

These are not really negatives. May be I am just stuck with GNOME.

Hopefully I will try out KDE 4.2 final when it is out. For now I am back on GNOME 2.24 + Compiz Fusion.

Did you try KDE 4.2?

If you are using ArchLinux you can grab the KDE 4.2 packages from the kde-unstable repository of Arch Linux. Though the repo is not announced yet, the KDE 4.2 Beta 2 packages (4.1.85) are available in all the mirrors.

Just add the following lines to your /etc/pacman.conf file.

[kde-unstable]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

The lines have to be added above all the repositories core,extra and community. You will also need to enable the [testing] repository as the kde-unstable packages have been built on the packages from testing.

After adding the above lines to pacman.conf, give the command pacman -Sy as root.

Then give the command pacman -S kde to install the full KDE 4.2 Beta 2 packages or pacman -S kdebase-workspace to have a minimal KDE 4.2 environment.

I am installing KDE 4.2 Beta 2 now. I will write about my experience once I try it out.

The Yahoo! messenger team will be stopping development on the Vista version of Yahoo! messenger and instead concentrate on the Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 which works on all versions of Windows.

As of today, Yahoo! Messenger for Vista will no longer be available for download from the Yahoo! Messenger website. We have discontinued stand-alone releases of the Yahoo! Messenger for Vista application in order to focus on delivering one Windows experience that is optimized for all Windows users.

This decision will help us increase efficiencies on our team and deliver one consistent, full-featured product for all of our Windows users. Our application was based on the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) platform which we will continue to experiment with and invest in. The knowledge we gathered from developing Yahoo! Messenger for Vista will also help us improve future versions of our Windows software.

Bad news. Yahoo! messenger was starting to look good on Vista because of  WPF. Guess its finally time to move on from Yahoo! messenger.

Yahoo! Messenger for Vista version is no longer available