johnnyg created a .deb package for Ubuntu 64bit only with the new Compiz plugins. These include: Animations Plus, Cube Snow Globe, Simple Animations, Anaglyph, Photowheel, Freely Transformable Windows, Stars, Title Bar Info, Swap Windows, Workspace Naming, Smart Put and a lot more.


You can see all the available new Compiz plugins and download the 64bit .deb package from Gnome-Look.

Mozilla Weave Sync lets you synchronize your browser (including Fennec) across multiple computers. Also, it is likely that Firefox 3.6 or 3.7 will integrate Weave Sync by default.

Mozilla Weave Sync 1.0 release candidate is now available for download, and among the improvements are:

Install Mozilla Weave Sync

Desktop / App Switcher is a simple Gnome panel applet, which just like Talika or DockBarX, it displays the currently opened windows as icons, but Desktop / App Switcher has something extra: you can see the desktop on which the applications are opened. It's basically both a desktop and app switcher combined.

However, "Desktop / App Switcher" still needs some work; for example, it doesn't inherit the panel color (at least it didn't in my test) and there is no option to configure it in any way. Other than that, it works great.

Here is a quick tip for setting up automatic updates using cron. I've used "apt-get" in my post, but you can use "aptitude" instead, or any other distribution upgrade command.

There were rumors for quite a long time that Google will one day release a cloud service called GDrive. They aren't launching GDrive, but instead they are allowing users to upload any file types to Google Docs which is basically the same thing:

Initially, the GIMP 2.7 repository (unofficial) had some GIMP 2.7 builds which were quite stable. Then, when the GIMP developers started working on the single-window mode, the builds became pretty unstable and it ended up breaking GIMP 3-4 times on my computer. But now, it finally seems stable again, so if you want to use a pretty (still not very) stable GIMP 2.7 (currently 2.7.1) which has the long awaited single window mode, follow the steps in this post.

A note: you can always switch back to the multiple window GIMP - it's all done with a simple setting!

To install GIMP 2.7 in Ubuntu Karmic, firstly add the following PPA:

The Ubuntu Manual (more about it, HERE) has been proposed for example content in Ubuntu Lucid. What you can do to help? Simply log in to your Launchpad account, go to the "Ubuntu Manual for example content in Lucid" 'bug' and click on "Does this bug affect you?":

Then select "Yes, it affects me".

The whole Ubuntu Manual team thanks you! =)

After 8 weeks of development, Amarok 2.2.2 "Maya Gold" has been released.

This is mostly a bug-fix and UI improvements release, but new features have been added too, such as the Custom Labels (these are actually reintroduced) which allow you to add your personal touch to your music. Another new addition is the moodbar, which you can use to change the progress bar to fit with your current mood: normal, angry, frozen or happy:

Other minor additions include:

Icons on menus and buttons were disabled by default in Gnome 2.28, but I enabled mine because I find items more quickly if they have icons and also, the menus and buttons look better with icons.

For this reasons, I've always disliked the Nautilus scripts: because all their icons look the same. But you can easily change these icons. Here is how!

Most of you already know the game called Freeciv, a a Free and Open Source empire-building strategy game inspired by the history of human civilization, inspired by the commercial proprietary Sid Meier's Civilization series. A browser based fork of the Freeciv game has been released, so now you only need a browser to play this great game.

Freeciv.net was released on 13 December and it's Facebook integration came today as a great addition for Facebook fans. There are currently more than 1500 registered players, in less than a month from it's release date. Hopefully, more people will find out about this great game and will start playing!