Owais Lone

Remember The Rhythm

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I recently switched to Rhythmbox from Banshee and I'm loving it. It's fast, loads up almost instantly, doesn't consume as much resources as Bansee and doesn't crash after every 3 songs. I do miss some features that Banshee had though like remembering the last playing song. So, I created a plugin for rhythmbox just to do that. It remembers the last playing entry (song, radio station, podcast, etc), playback time, browser filters (genre, artist and album) and playlists. It remembers these things (except playback time) even if Rhythmbox crashes for some reason.

Install on Ubuntu using

 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:loneowais/ppa
 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get install remember-the-rhythm

For other distros, download the tarball, extract and install using

sudo make install

Banshee 2 in Ubuntu

Sun, 17 Apr 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Just noticed a small but nice change in Banshee 2. Usually, our music players minimize to system tray when closing the main window so that the music keeps playing in the background. We have to manually look for a quit function in order to entirely close the app or pause the music and let the app live in memory and consume cpu cycles. Banshee 2.0 has no quit function per se. Closing banshee while the music is playing hides the window, otherwise quits entirely.

We need to promote this bahavior across the freedesktop scene. Abstract underlying concepts as much as we can and make apps inteligent enough to decide for themselves.

An Update on GmailWatcher

Wed, 15 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

In case you don't already know, GmailWatcher is a Gmail notifier specifically designed for the Ubuntu Operating System. It relies heavily on Ubuntu specific packages like MeMenu, Notifications, DesktopCouch but I'm planning a stock Gnome version also so that people on Fedora, Suse and other rocking distribution can use it too.

Features

Multiple Accounts
Google Apps support
Secure password storage using Gnome-Keyring
Themable unread emails page
Preferences sync using U1

Right now, my target is to make it stable/usable enough in time for Maverick. I'm planning to release the first stable version and getting it into Universe for Maverick. In fact, I've already submitted it to REVU (MOTU Advocate, Anyone?).

Request

I intent to spend the next few days polishing the app. This post is essentially a call for user feedback. I would like to know what you don't like about the way GmailWatcher works. Bugs, usability issues, appearance, anything that doesn't count as a new feature.

Themes

You can also contribute some themes for the email summaries view. A GmailWatcher theme is a simple HTML page styled with CSS. It's pretty basic right now. Once Maverick is released, I'll add JavaScript and local media support. Take a look at lp:gmailwatcher-themes-extra in case you would like to add a theme or two.

Install


sudo add-apt-repository ppa:loneowais/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gmailwatcher

From TC 90 to Python

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This Saturday I'll be delivering a workshop on the Python programming language in my college. Our university has an age old course for Computer Engineering. C is the introductory language and is taught using the Turbo C compiler from the 90s, VB 6 is considered the best way to make GIUs. It's time to introduce my friends to 2010 in Computer Science.

If this goes well, Django or PyGTK will be next.

Update

The workshop was successful. A lot of students showed up and really enjoyed python. \m/

Announcing GmailWatcher

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Features

Multiple Accounts
Google Apps support
Secure password storage using Gnome-Keyring
Themable unread emails page
Preferences sync using U1

Request

Themes

Install


sudo add-apt-repository ppa:loneowais/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gmailwatcher

Kargil

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Rest of the Set

FOSS Kashmir

Sun, 23 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Finally Mir Nazim has kicked off the Kashmir FOSS mailing list. Things should only soar from here on. Really excited. Check http://fosskashmir.appspot.com.