Tomboy Notes

Dan Piekarski — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:58:03 +0000

Tomboy is a desktop note-taking application for Linux, Windows, Macs and Unix. It allows you to quickly create individual notes and then add them to topical notebooks. You can also link between notes much in the way hyperlinks work on webpages.

I’ve been using Tomboy a lot on various computers at home and work. The main problem with Tomboy is there was no way to synchronize the notes between machines. I was on Ars Technica recently and came across a project called ‘Snowy’. According to the developer: “Snowy is Tomboy’s best friend on the web. Snowy is an online service that allows you to view, edit and share the notes you create in Tomboy on your desktop computer.” Snowy is not quite ready for use by your average user yet but it is a promising project.

Another tool that adds functionality to Tomboy is the Tomfox addon to Firefox. According to the author: “Tomfox adds a ‘Create Tomboy Note’ option to the right click menu. This lets users send a selected piece of text to a Tomboy note directly.” This is a helpful tool if your memory is as wonderful as mine. If you’re always wishing you jotted down a quick note or can’t find your way back to some website this is an extension for you.

Since I use Ubuntu 9.04 more than half of the time I setup Tomboy to start automatically every time I load that OS. To do this I went to System -> Preferences -> Startup Applications. This gives you a GUI tool to determine what programs start when Ubuntu loads. Since Tomboy notes is not part of the list I clicked on the “add” button. In the name field I simply wrote: “Tomboy Notes” and in the “Command” field I wrote: “tomboy”. Now click on the “add” button and you are done.

No Cable? No TV? No Worries.

Dan Piekarski — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 02:46:54 +0000

Ever missed your favorite TV show, didn’t have access to TV, or been bored at work (don’t do this at work, I’m joking…kind of)? Of course you have. I’ll show you how to watch TV over the internet using either Windows or Ubuntu. I’ll start by assuming that you’re really impatient and work towards solutions for people who have more time on their hands.

The first decision to be made is whether you would like to watch the episode by downloading it to your computer, or stream it directly from a web server. The benefit of streaming an episode is that you have instant access to it. The downside of this approach is that the episode is usually highly compressed(sound and video aren’t that great). On the other hand you could use BitTorrent. BitTorrent is much slower, you have to download the episode first but you usually get a much much higher quality product. On the flip side, the major television studios are always looking to sue people for piracy. Let’s start with the software you need….

Programs:

Adobe Flash Player (32 Bit Ubuntu & Windows): This is how most of your streamed files will get to you.

Download

Automatix(Ubuntu Only): If you’re using Ubuntu, you probably already know that it doesn’t come with all the codecs you need to watch different types of media. Automatix also allows you to download other programs that you’re going to need for a positive multimedia experience.

Download

Azureus(Both Ubuntu & Windows): Azureus is a BitTorrent client. It supports plugins, which is important for your protection.

Download

Peer Guardian(Both Ubuntu & Windows): Peer Guardian is a plugin for Azureus. Essentially it attempts to block any connections from the MPAA, RIAA, or anyone else who’s going to sue you for filesharing. No need to download this, you can get it right in the Azureus client by going to plugins.

Website

Swiftfox (Ubuntu Only):Swiftfox is the optimized, 32 bit version of Firefox. If you have a 64 bit version of Ubuntu, you’re going to need this to watch streamed media.

Download

VLC Media Player (Both Ubuntu & Windows): This media player plays just about every file format out there.

Download

Streaming TV Shows:

From The TV Studios Themselves (The main way of getting episodes streamed legally for free):

Streamed from other places (Without Ads, more choices, but probably less legal):

BitTorrent:

Editor’s Pick

Want to Own your Episodes?:

I can’t really recommend iTunes or any of the other ways to buy electronic copies of TV shows. They all come with DRM built in. Treat your customers like thieves, and they will become thieves. You’re better off waiting until the boxed set comes out, then at least you have a copy that you can do whatever you want with (well technically they say you can’t, but what are they going to come into your house and stop you from lending the DVDs to your friends?)

Amazon.com Tv Central