Software » Livrelux

Linux is a never ending work in progress, and sometimes that is noticeable. If you go through the menu of your GNOME installation, say in a standard Ubuntu or Linux Mint installation, you can find under Menu-> Preferences or in the System Settings dialog box something called “Online Accounts”.

GNOME's Online Accounts dialog box in Linux Mint 12 Cinnamon

The only thing so far you can fill out there is your Google account. But if you do, chances are that nothing happens afterwards. One could hope that it would install a Google Contacts, Docs, Gmail or YouTube app, or at least give options to do so, but so far, it might work with calenders in Evolution, and chat in Empathy.
It is clear that “Online Accounts” is something for the future, and it waits for developers to make use of it.

The “Online Accounts” option is written by David Zeuthen in the beginning of 2011. As he states in a comment on his blog on April 2011:

In fact, my main motivation for working on this is that I wanted the calendar drop-down to work (which I wrote) with my Google account out of the box … without any magic URLs etc etc

(note: Is he referring to something like this?)

So far nothing really happened with his work, although, a year later, there are some hints of movement: GNOME Contacts, with its new release included in Ubuntu 12.04, apparently uses it, and the very latest Calender Indicator does seem to use it in GNOME-Shell.

But that is all there is. We – end users – just have to be patient to see if more applications show up, and if Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn etc. will be included at some point.

If you are a developer and wonder about it too: – here is the reference manual.

I have been using Ubuntu (and Fedora at some point) since 2007 or ’08, but the recent forced change to Unity threw me off. It seemed that Linux Mint provided a good user-friendly alternative for Ubuntu, so I switched to Linux Mint 11. Recently Mint 12 was released, with a GNOME 3 interface that is based upon the looks and functionality of GNOME 2. I did have some doubts whether the desktop environments installed in the first Mint 12 releases where to my liking, but with the latest addition of Cinnamon I feel at home.

I made a fresh install of Linux Mint 12 and added and tweaked it to my liking.

Linux Mint 12 – Wallpaper by Svenne1985

Here is what I did and installed to get Mint 12 Cinnamon as I want it:

Tweaked Firefox

Add-ons and search engines.
Used Firefox Sync, which had my bookmarks and preferences saved.
Installed the research organizer and collector Zotero and Zotero Word Processor plug in. My Zotero account came in very handy to reinstall data.
Installed Scribefire 4, the blogging tool.

Screenshot of the whole screen with Firefox open.

Installed Dropbox (synchronisation) again and feeling blessed to have so much online – it contains a lot of important files, like backups and databases.

Downloaded the launcher Kupfer. IMO it beats Unity, and is therefore the main reason for switching away from Ubuntu. (Gnome-Do is a good alternative).

Kupfer

Changed the power- and screensaversettings

Went through the programs that start automatically at every boot of Linux. Disabled those not needed. (As explained in this blogpost)

Downloaded Chromium to install the Tweetdeck app. – Even though it was a sort of downgraded after Twitter took over, it still works.

Installed the password manager KeepassX and thank Dropbox for keeping my Keepass database available. So no passwords were lost this way.

Downloaded Skype – Eventhough it is not the full version that is available for Linux, it comes in handy for long distance calls to those without internet.

Tweaked Thunderbird. I choose IMAP again in stead of POP-mail.
Installed for fun Add-on Display Contact Photo.
I found my mails from MInt 11 in the .thunderbird map in the backup on my external harddisk.
Installed the e-mail notifier Mail Notification.

Installed the gworldclock app.

Downloaded RSSOwl and imported my exported feedlist. It is a fast rss-reader with lots of options to play around with.

RSSOwl

Downloaded Abiword. I want that fast and lean word processor at hand.

Installed Textroom. The full-screen text processor to grab those fleeing thoughts that can’t stand distraction.

Installed Rednotebook, a calendar based notebook that I use as a logbook.

Installed FileZilla, for FTP (transferring files to a server for example).

and Scid. Has all you need to study and play chess.

I couldn’t resist installing

0AD again. The real-time open-source strategy game with the truly stunning graphics. The game-play is not quite finished yet, but starting it up feels like going on a holiday to the Mediterranean.

While I tried backing up my system with the back-up tools provided by Linux Mint, I am not a fan of it so far. I prefer backing up my files to an external harddisk and uploading again whatever I need.

Linux Mint Cinnamon is a new GNOME 3 desktop for Linux Mint, and is at the moment the one that I am using. It is stable and doing fine with my setup at the moment, but it is not perfect yet. One of the things it doesn’t have (yet), is the ability to enter different time-zones in the (good looking) time- and dateoverview:

The date and time settings only allow setting the computer’s standard date and time.
I suppose other time-zones will be added later, so that one can have an overview of local times from that neat little window there.

For now I looked for an alternative, and installed gworldclock from the software center:

The version there seems to be from 2005, but it works as it should (The oldest version I quickly found is version 0.3.3 from january 2002, so it has been around for a while). It is also available in the Nokia app store where it is offered by “Emmerall Consulting”.

By right-clicking in the Linux Mint Menu it can be installed on the bottom tool bar as an app.

It doesn’t look very smooth and well designed, and doesn’t open in the same window-size as I left it, but it does the job.

Picture: Trelby.org

One of the things I am always looking for is good writing software. I mean “writing” in the sense of “novels”, “short-stories” or even “whole books”. It is a bit silly actually, for in order to write something decent you need pen and paper, or, if you must, a text editor. And every computer has a good text-editor, producing wonderful, allround .txt files.

But, of course, I prefer to dream about great software “helping” me. OMG!Ubuntu! wrote some days ago about Trelby, a free, multi platform, feature-rich screenwriting program. It is, according to OMG!Ubuntu! a resurrection of “Blyte” – a “film-making friendly tool”. This old Blyte page confirms this.

It looks good and interesting, but it is, as it also clearly says, for screenwriting. And I am not planning to write anything like that.
I downloaded it nevertheless, to see if I could disable the screenplay editor, which “Enforces correct script format”. I couldn’t find out how to do that, though it might be possible.

It should definitely be no problem to use the program to write novels, or other types of works, once you get past the hurdle of learning the screenwriting-script. There is not too much help around about ways of using it in the Trelby Manual, but the internet can, as ever, help you out.

So it seems to be a program for people who know what they are doing, namely screenwriting, and who know how they are supposed to do it.

Personally, I’ll keep waiting for my dream program, something along the lines of yWriter5….

Online Accounts in GNOME settings.

My Linux Mint 12 setup

Installed Gworldclock in Linux Mint Cinnamon for now.

Trelby – Open Source Screenwriting Software