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In In Focus

After Ubuntu 18.04

Author Jesse SteelePosted on

Ubuntu 18.04 is great! I’ve beta tested it, tweaked Vrk (my desktop quick setup app at http://verb.ink) to recognize the new desktop features, and it all just works! Bravo Mark, loved Unity with certain desktop setting tweaks from Vrk, but it’s great that GNOME has been “Unity-ized” for more of what everyone wants and one less desktop environment for me to support for Vrk.

Now, can we all please take a break from this “perfect desktop push”?

Don’t get me wrong, I want to come back to desktop and I even have a few priorities I’ll describe here. But, there are other issues with Linux on desktop computing, mainly more external hard disk support and printing.

Linux started as terminal work, just like DOS back in the early 90s. OS2 was a dream that should have been, Windows 95 broke the mold, which even Linux desktop systems still use (the ‘Start’ menu as a one-for-all resource and right-click context menus).  · · · →

In In Focus

Why Some Conservatives Hate Trump

Author Jesse SteelePosted on

I wrote this after thinking about Rush’s second hour on Wednesday, January 24, 2018. He discussed a survey question by Axios/SurveyMonkey, “Do you want another Republican to challenge President Trump for the party’s nomination in 2020?” reported in the Axios article Younger Republicans want an alternative to Trump and asked: Why Do Millennial Republicans Despise Trump?

The Conservative “never-Trumpers” are easy to understand when we consider leaders like John Sculley of Apple and Roger Smith of General Motors.

Sometimes, they are all “team-shmeam”: Go-along to get-along, be “diplomatic” until/so-that the cows come home, compromise on your values until the other guy “understands” you, and never take a stand for what you believe because that would alienate the people you want to convert.

Other times, they are well-read, engaging in deep discussion, hyper-analytical, love public-funding (even as Republicans or ‘Conservative’ Democrats), and often achieve some very remarkable things we respect them for.  · · · →

In In Focus

Copyright, Content & YouTube

Author Jesse SteelePosted on

In a recent video I uploaded to YouTube, some background music was playing at the place where I shot the video. That music’s copyright holder made a claim that I was including their copyrighted work. I had the option to let that copyright holder post ads in the video or else to cut out the audio—including myself talking. I chose to cut out the audio because I might monetize the video myself one day.

I advise everyone: Do not make YouTube videos if copyrighted music is playing, even in the background. Ask whoever is playing the music to stop, wait for the song to end, or make the video somewhere else. And, if you own a store or art gallery, do not play copyrighted music in the background. Play music published by more friendly people instead.

I mean, background music, seriously? The audio quality is terrible. Try putting music that bad in a TV series and see if a network airs it.  · · · →

In In Focus

Convergence and the Linuxist

Author Jesse SteelePosted on

To the meat: for now, I’m back to Xfce on desktop.

If you’re gonna’ be beautiful and stuff, then get on tablets or go home. When doing desktop, do desktop. I’m going with the “eXtremely fast computing experience”!

I always feel ahead of the curve. I wrote an article a few years ago on Seven Reasons I Chose Xubuntu Over All Else. Then, I switched to GNOME one year before Unity made the big back-to-GNOME announcement. In that time, I wrote my own “break-it-in” script, Vrk at verb.ink. The original goal was to “make Unity less unbearable”. In the end, with stability and options I set through gsettings and dconf, I had Unity 7.5 running as the slickest, most user-friendly thing I’ve seen. Unity was stable. Since using GNOME as of 16.04, every install was buggy and glitchy out of the box. Budgie also just arrived on the scene and UBports is taking off.  · · · →