Haguichi 1.0.7 has been released, the big news being that it finally adds AppIndicator support so you don't need to tweak the notification area in Ubuntu 11.04 to get Hamachi to show up (but of course, the AppIndicator works in older Ubuntu versions too). 

As usual, I've updated the Haguichi PPA (this is basically the official PPA) so you can easily stay up to date with new versions in Ubuntu 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04.

(Dolphin running in Gnome)

Getting KDE applications to look native in Gnome is rather easy (contrary to what you may think when looking at the lenghty instructions below - it's actually just a few clicks) thanks to an Ambiance KDE style created by WebUpd8 reader Alaukik. This means that while the instructions below work with any GTK theme, you'll need a KDE style similar to the one created by Alaukik for your current GTK theme to get everything looking properly.

As you probably know (if you don't, read the Ubuntu 11.04 beta 1 post again), Ubuntu 11.04 will ship with an option to use the classic Gnome Desktop so Unity is not a must if you don't want to use it. All you have to do to use the Gnome panels is to select the Ubuntu Classic Desktop in the login screen.

Well, according to Mark Shuttleworth (see his comment here), there won't be such an option in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot:

The Equinox GTK themes is a pack of (now) 5 beautiful themes created by Tiheum (who's also the Faenza icons author). Check out our previous posts about the Equinox GTK themes: here and here.

An update to the Equinox PPA brings 3 new great looking themes: Equinox Evolution Dawn, Dusk and Midnight (which complete the Equinox Evolution series along with the regular Equinox Evolution and Equinox Evolution Light) as well as an updated Equinox GTK engine. The Equinox Evolution Midnight theme is experimental because "Gnome doesn't support dark themes well" says Tiheum.

Each GTK theme comes with a Metacity theme with either rounded or squared buttons.

(Equinox Evolution Dawn)

Pinguy OS alpha 1 has been released yesterday, bringing some new default applications and some other interesting changes.

Even though it's based on Ubuntu 11.04, Pinguy OS 11.04 will use the classic Gnome (panels) 2.32.x as the default interface and the final release should be a lot like this alpha 1. What could change is removing the Global Menu with the AppMenu but for the moment there's a memory leak in the AppMenu so that's not an option yet.

Also, Pinguy OS alpha 1 comes with various PPAs for the applications it ships with but the final version will use just one Pinguy OS branded PPA that will have all the packages mirrored from the other PPAs, but tested firstly so this should bring more stability and control over the updates.

Since a lot of people want to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal already, I though you'd like to see a video (well actually 2) on how to upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04. Remember that starting with Ubuntu 11.04, you can upgrade using the Live CD too.

Firstly, a short introduction of "Lenses" via the Ubuntu wiki: "Lenses used to be known as Places. When referring to code and APIs we still use the term Places, but the user-visible name is Lenses. The Places name will be retired in 11.10".

I've recently came upon a very interesting Unity Lens for Gwibber developed by Ken VanDine and couldn't wait to try it but it didn't really work until the latest Unity update released a few hours ago. You can use the Unity Gwibber Lens to quickly access your Gwibber posts, replies, private messages and so on. And it also comes with a search.

Kupfer is a quick launcher (like Gnome DO or Synapse) which comes with many very useful plugins but always lacked a nice user interface. Well, an update today finally brings some UI love for Kupfer. Check out the new Kupfer interface:

UMPlayer is a new cross-platform SMPlayer fork. Since it uses Mplayer, it can play most video formats and comes with some very interesting features. For instance, it supports CSS skins so it's very easy to theme. For now, there are just a few themes available but more should be available soon.

Will you upgrade to Ubuntu 11.04 soon and want to know if your favourite PPAs will be updated for Natty? David Callé has set up a script (comes with a GUI thanks to Zenity) that automatically checks all your current PPA repositories and lets you know the supported Ubuntu versions for each. Here's a screenshot with this Zenity script in action: