Where Will I Be And What About The Future?
by Adam on Dec.30, 2009, under Personal
Well as all of my friends and some others may know, on January 19th I will headed to Air Force basic training for 8 weeks. I will be out in sometime late March. I will have no phone, internet, computer, or any communication of any kind. Except letters which I will be writing to my family. A lot of friends have become family on the internet these past couple of months. I will miss all of you and hope to continue my work when I get back, I decided to make my appearance on the internet before I went so that when I get out I will be going full force on Anoxiatech. The test is now over and Anoxiatech will now become a powerhouse. I have learned a lot and after basic training I will have the money and resources I need (faster internet) in order to complete my goal. I would like something to do when I get back so lots of messages and emails would be nice to read and catch up on. I will be starting a podcast when I get out in March and hoping that will be a success. If anyone wants to help out with anything, just contact me at anoxia425@gmail.com thanks for ALL of your support to everyone that has ever helped out. I really do appreciate it and I hope to return full force. Please do not unsubscribe or just think I am dead, I will be back and hope to continue where I left off. Enjoy these next months without me, because I will be back.
-Adam Radcliffe
Google Chrome Extensions Are Here!
by Adam on Dec.08, 2009, under Computing
Google Chrome extensions have just rolled right out the door, the same day that the Google Chrome beta for Linux has been unveiled. What a week for Google. Google Goggles, real time search, extensions, OS X and Linux beta builds. Google has done some amazing work but of course, being a Google fan boy I just could not resist feeling like a kid on Christmas when this kind of stuff happens. When I ask Firefox users about why they use Firefox the most given response is “I need my addons”. But now today most of those Firefox users are emailing and messaging me about Google Chrome and how great it is now. Google is on the way to make brilliant features for their already top of the line internet browser. Simply download the latest beta build of Chrome to use the Google Chrome extensions and point your browser here. Allowing you to simply install Chrome extensions with no restart required, once installed you may manage your extensions here. I hope you do enjoy these great new features. Bookmark sync has also been added to the Google Chrome list of growing features. Enjoy.
-Adam
App Review: Seesmic Desktop
by Adam on Nov.23, 2009, under Applications, Computing, Linux, OS X, Windows
If you are searching for a good Twitter client with lots of support including Facebook fan pages and updates. I have the solution here for you. Seesmic Desktop features an entirely brand new set of features for an Adobe Air social media application. There are multiple social media tabs. First you have your basic Home, Replies, Private, Sent, and of course Favorites tabs. Below that you have your Twitter and Facebook account tabs. One of the coolest features of this application is that Seesmic Desktop gives you the ability to add multiple Twitter Accounts in the same feed. Below that you have a Facebook Page tab, you may customize this tab to view what pages you want updates from and not show pages that you don’t want to see updates from. Seesmic Desktop does in fact give you the ability to create User Lists for your Twitter accounts. Below that you have a search option which allows you to search Twitter for certain trending topics or maybe just a topic that you are interested about.
Seesmic Desktop is split up into three columns by default. First column of course “Home” which contains all your Twitter and Facebook feeds into one column. Then a Twitter reply column, followed by a Private Message column. You may customize your feeds into multiple columns or even just one column. When Updating your status inside of the status bar it gives you options such as “add URL”, “add image”, and even a built in “shrink text” option. You may customize the “shrink text” option (shown above) within preferences to choose what service you would like to use.
Seesmic Desktop has become my default Twitter and Facebook app. I do encourage all of you to use it and I do in fact love this app way to much. This is Adam “Anoxia” Radcliffe and these are just my thoughts and opinions on Seesmic Desktop. I hope you enjoy. Download links will be provided below.
-Adam Radcliffe
Review: Kdenlive – Linux Video Editor
by Adam on Nov.23, 2009, under Applications, Linux
Kdenlive is a Linux only application which features some very rich features very similar to Window’s very own Sony Vegas Pro software. Kdenlive features a very rich and powerful engine with a seemingly familiar UI as seen with Sony Vegas.
Kdenlive features a very unique drag and drop feature as seen in most up to date video editors. Also supports numerous export file types for all of your latest video codec needs. Subtitles and other rich effects are also included in Kdenlive by default to offer the user an "easy" experience unlike other video editors.
(Working on my next drum cover)
Kdenlive gives a simple UI and a nice “Windows feel” for all of you brand new Linux users. The application has lots of different layers for your video/music editing experience. The application of course being open source is free. So for all of you aspiring movie editors and on a tight budget this application is perfect for you.
Any Linux questions? Feel free to email me at Anoxia425@gmail.com.
Thanks and I hope you enjoy Kdenlive.
Features: 8/10
Interface: 9/10
Performance: 7/10
Price: 10/10
Overall: 8.5/10
Or search ‘Kdenlive’ in your Software Manager.
Adam “Anoxia” Radcliffe
Linux Mint? Oh Gloria
by Adam on Nov.23, 2009, under Computing, Linux
Linux mint, it has one of the greatest repositories I have ever seen in my life. If you have a a desktop or a laptop Linux Mint is perfect. It has fairly the same amount of attributes that Linux Ubuntu has, its just a matter of “compatibly out of the box”. For example I have a Toshiba Satellite A70 laptop, at first I was going to install Ubuntu Studio but for some reason the laptop would shutoff during the installation every time. So what I ended up doing is downloading the 700 mb image file of Linux mint and installing the ISO from a USB flash drive. The installation was quick and painless, it booted up on the fresh new install of Linux Mint and everything worked like a charm. I had full audio quality, wireless drivers and even video card drivers (ATI drivers even). Everything worked perfectly right from the fresh install. Also even to my surprise all of the necessary audio and video codecs were installed as well as making it easy to use without the hassle of installing any extra codecs that would be needed. Besides the shock of all the codecs being installed I was even surprised that flash was even installed so I could watch all of my Youtube videos without the hassle of installing flash on Linux. All of this being said. In my own personal opinion I recommend this Linux distribution as the choice for any beginner looking to install Linux for the first time to try it out because it offers a lot of programs installed out of the box with no editing of code or playing with the terminal later. Enjoy Linux mint, and take care of your technology.
Google Voice
by Adam on Nov.23, 2009, under Computing
Google Voice has changed my life ever since I got that magical email saying that I have been invited from Google to create a free Google Voice account. From the moment I picked my out new Google Voice number, to the moment that I received that first transcribed voicemail, I was impressed to say the least. Google Voice introduces a ton of already used features and some quite new features. Old features such as call screening, block calls, SMS, place calls, taking calls, and forwarding calls to other phones. But Google Voice has introduced some new features as well, including Listen in, Voicemail transcriptions, Personalize greetings, and shared voice mails. These new features have turned around the mobile phone era in an entire new direction. There will be a moment in time where I cannot find my phone, my phone is dead, or my phone is charging somewhere and I can just log on Google Voice and check my text messages or voicemails. There will also be a period of time when I walk into my house and I start to lose signal so I press pound on my mobile phone and it will ring my house phone to pick up so I can continue the call without them even knowing I switched phones. Google Voice is taking the mobile phone era and connecting it with the brand new web 2.0 era.
-Adam
Why Not Switch To Linux Full Time?
by Adam on Nov.23, 2009, under Computing
Ah Linux, a very powerful yet weak Operating System. I have been using Linux (mainly Ubuntu) for years now. But in May of 2009 I dove into a 100% Linux world. I had reformatted my hard drive and only had Linux Ubuntu 9.04 installed on the system (64-bit). Things were going great in the wonderful world of Linux. Then of course I ran into some bugs, but also some software compatibility with programs and lack there of. Linux had turned into an obsession for me to use as a main OS. It was a wonderful experience overall but here are some issues that I ran into.
Issue #1: Flash- Adobe Flash, in my opinion, has terrible support for anything and I hope it gets replaced soon seeing as support of anything for Linux seems to be half-assed. At the time Flash 64-bit support was virtually impossible to get working, though now it seems pretty stable. Still not up to par with what I could do on Windows or OS X. I like to stream about once a week but with Linux it was impossible as it seems Flash could not seem to get access to my webcam or my mic. Though very disappointed, I learned to live without it for months ( I do keep a partition of Windows for all of the problems I describe).
Issue #2: Web cam support- My web cam works very very well in Windows, but that is all do to one very important feature that Linux does not have access to yet by Logitech and for the most part all other hardware companies. This one very important feature, is the support of OEM drivers, without the driver the hardware will not act as it is supposed to. Thus the problem with the web cam will not be fully fixed without the support of OEM drivers.
Issue #3: Lack of skype support- Ugh this issue really makes me mad. Windows users have the Skype version 4.1 as Linux users have just now gotten 2.1, this makes for lack of user friendly features seen in 4.1 that are not there in 2.1 such as the voice conference and chat conference to be in the same window, this creates this issue of having multiple Skype windows open when I should only have one.
Issue #4: Pulse Audio- This is the worst audio implementation I have ever seen in an OS to date. It makes audio sound terrible. Just find another audio driver to use instead, I recommend using ALSA.
Issue #5: Gaming- Of course this a huge issue for me seeing as I am a hardcore PC gamer, I did not play games for months and that was very very hard. Yes of course I know I can install Wine, but Wine can only go so far with OpenGL games and you can just forget about Direct X 10. Not having games was pretty boring as the most interesting game I could find on Linux was Tux Kart Racer. Just was not up to par with playing Team Fortress 2 or Crysis.
Issue #6- Lack of Commercial “Pro” applications- Ah yes a very big problem in the world of Linux, although alternatives there are just not up to par with the commercial apps of todays world. In Windows I use apps such as Camtasia and Sony Vegas Pro. In Linux my substitutes are GTK-recordmydesktop and Kdenlive, though good apps, just not up to par with the pro apps. Also you can kiss goodbye using Photoshop (I really do hate GIMP).
Now these were just a few of the reasons of why I cannot FULLY switch to using Linux 100% percent of the time. I can safely say that I remain in Linux 75% percent of the time I am on the computer and on Windows 25% of the time. I hope you enjoy the list, and if you have any questions about using Ubuntu Linux just post a comment or send me an email at anoxiatech@gmail.com. I hope you guys enjoyed reading this and be sure to prepare your self for the the next blog: “When receiving more compensation will I continue to go Open Source?”. Stay tuned for more videos and blogs!
-Adam
Spotify: All Of Your Music Needs And More?
by Adam on Nov.23, 2009, under Computing
Spotify ( not available in certain areas) is a great application for music gurus and lovers alike. Creating a way to listen to all of your favorite music without having to own or purchase the song. What Spotify attempts to accomplish here is to have music freely available for streaming so that the user (that would be you) to enjoy any song or album at his or her pleasure whenever you please!
Giving you a beautiful layout and pretty snazzy UI, Spotify offers millions of tracks for the users to choose from. In the upper left hand corner there is a search bar allowing you to search for any artist or song. I chose Basshunter for this search. Once searched for, Spotify will give me a great deal of tracks to choose from. By selecting a track from the list it allows for the album cover to be displayed in the bottom left hand corner. With Spotify you can create playlists with your favorite songs so that you can listen to your favorites over and over again without searching.
Overall Spotify creates a welcoming and very appreciated feel, allowing users to listen to any song on demand. I hope all services will be treated like this in the future. Because as Web 2.0 users we have become very selfish about having things that we want at the moment we want them. Hopefully things will not change because the Web 2.0 era is becoming very convenient.
My name is Adam Radcliffe and that is my opinion and review for Spotify, any questions or comments please leave them below.
-Adam
Google Wave: Another Google Win?
by Adam on Nov.23, 2009, under Applications, Computing, google
Now that the Google Wave beta is out and so well received from those trying out the service. I thought I would tell you (the readers) some features and maybe my thoughts of Google Wave improvements that I would like to see.
The main UI to me seems good. But overall a little bit slow for Google. Google Wave does in fact take some getting used to but overall a good interface in the end. As you can see from the screen shot, I added some pictures into the conversation which was easy as clicking the picture icon in the top layout bar. In every box there is an arrow, when clicked it creates a drop down interface allowing you to do numerous tasks such as edit and reply. The top left box called “Navigation” provides your standard features such as inbox and settings. This reminded me much of Gmail. Since it reminded me of Gmail I felt right at home. Right below the navigation box is your contacts page. I have about 15 contacts so that gave me plenty of people to talk to on Google Wave to try things out.
It is setup a lot like Gmail. In the inbox, you see I have a couple of waves going on, by clicking one of the waves. It brings up the wave to edit and respond to in the right column. Giving you a nice clear layout right in front of you without losing any of your options. On top of the Wave you will see pictures of the corresponding members you are chatting with at the moment. By Clicking the arrow beside the pictures it will allow you to add more friends into your wave.
Numerous features in the wave include real time chatting, the ability to add pictures, links, videos, and numerous other multi-media effects directly embedded into the wave itself. Some features that I would like to see include: The ability to see who and who is not online. Also some right click features would be nice inside the wave. I would love to see Gmail and Google Docs incorporated with Google Wave. Those are just some of the little things that I would like to see improved and added within Google Wave. But so far I am fairly impressed that Google would even think about replacing email and especially impressed with the way they have done it and layed it out. Interesting to see how people can re-design something so standard.
My name is Adam Radcliffe and those are my thoughts and opinions on Google Wave. Feel free to leave a comment of what you would like to see in Google Wave or even your thoughts about it. Thank You. My name on Google Wave if you would like to add me is Anoxia425@googlewave.com.
-Adam
Pushing The Cloud: What can it do for you?
by Adam on Nov.23, 2009, under Computing
As most of you may know cloud computing lets users of the same cloud access each others documents, media and other assorted goods through the sharing of cloud networking. But something that you guys may not know, is that most of you are probably using cloud networking without even realizing it. Something I have noticed these past couple of months is that Google is a company that is strongly pushing this cloud technology the most. My guess as to why they are pushing so hard is because their operating system, Google Chrome, will be entirely based on “The Cloud”. Google has introduced Google Docs (I use to write all of my blogs) a prime example of the cloud, Google docs allows users to share and collaborate in real time on a single document then is stored on their server. Which means less space on your hard drive, no third party apps needed, and of course it will always be stored on the cloud.
Why are people pushing the cloud so much? Why can we not just do it our way? The answer is simple, cloud computing and networking is the future. It allows faster and a more reliable source of storage and also makes real time collaboration a piece of cake for anyone on your cloud. But who do you want on your cloud? Is cloud computing going to be a security failure? We do not know the answer to these questions just yet but companies such as Google and Yahoo will soon find out the answer and soon enough we will to. The cloud will prove to be something very powerful, but how reliable? Leave a comment about how you feel about the cloud and what you think will happen in the future about Google Chrome OS and other cloud networks.
-Adam
