Well, that time is now, along with trying to sync files to my iPod as a USB-MSD, some tinkering with my desktop and a quick review of Flock.
That thing I mentioned, was so simple to use. Check it out.
So back into Ubuntu, now I've imported all my music into Rhythmbox, and re-subscribed to the Podcasts I like. It's such a simple interface, just click and drag. No need to sync, which I think is brilliant.
Another really cool thing about Rhythmbox is that you can listen to the songs that are on your iPod without transferring them over to your computer.
Also, it just pops up when you plug your iPod in, which is nice. I know iTunes can do that too, but Rhythmbox doesn't consume all the RAM you can throw at it.
Then I wanted to know if there was a way of copying over files to my iPod (as a HDD) quite quickly, as I like to have some start-ups and other t/s programmes on there in case I'm asked to look at something at someone else's place and there's no inet connection.
So I've got a 10GB partition on my computer purely for the use of stashing files I'll want on my iPod. This also includes photos I take to work for screen savers and such...with plenty of room spare.
So essentially all I want to do is back up my folder on the computer:
to the folder on my iPod:
/media/SID'S IPOD/Non Ipod Stuff |
But I don't want to spend ages doing it, and really all I'll ever want to do is update what's on the iPod.
So I did some digging around, and found this place, and although I couldn't get the terminal line version to work for me, I assume because I'm not too sure how to cope with spaces in directory names, I d/l the GUI one through Synaptic, just search "grsync" and its the only thing to show up. It's really easy to use, and in a matter of minutes, the files were copied over. Also, it saves the session, so next time all I've got to do is click "Execute". Why it shows up under "Applications - Internet" I'm not sure, but hey, it does what I want it to.
Now I just need to figure out how to write a script that sets it up so the files sync on iPod connection. I'm sure it's possible, but that's for another night.
I've done a bit of appearance tweaking with my desktop:
The icons on the bottom are just links to (from left to right)
Music partition, My Rubbish (photos, videos, documents) partition, Spare partition (for whatever fills up first), My iPod files partition, My Windows partition, the Terminal and a "Drawer" (the mouse icon), that had links to Flock and Firefox in it. Next to those is my active windows bar, and then that the Recycle bin on the far right, with the Desktop switcher in the corner, I just re-configured it to show in two rows on the preferences.
A quick thing about the drawers, you can add drawers onto drawers...which leaves you with a kind-of windows situation.
Here's what it looks like with the drawer open (single click):
I moved the "Show Desktop" button to the top left corner, and got rid of the default buttons that are normally the other side of "System".
The great thing is, I didn't even need to d/l anything to get it looking like that. I just edited the preferences that come with GNOME.
I'm totally impressed with the ease of which the Panels go transparent, and I might mess around even more with the top panel. The one thing I am disappointed about is the fact that the windows don't overlap the panels, in that I can always see the panel. In my travels I'll have a mess with them, and might even d/l something else, but with my rig, not a lot will run, as I'm limited to "No Effects" under the standard graphic effects options.
Oh, all the icons came from the sub-directories of:
/usr/share/icons/gnome/scalable/ |
Now what is cool, as with these being scalable, if I make the panel bigger, the icons automatically stretch.
Yeah, I'm like a little kid with a new toy, but who cares?! I'm geeking out supreme, and loving it.
Oh the background photo is one I took with a friends camera shortly after he got it. We went out one night, and I had a few goes with it. I like it.
Flock has turned out to be quite a nice browser. It's based on Mozilla, the browser Firefox is a descendent of, and to be honest, apart from one or two plug-in issues I've had (that I couldn't be bothered to fix with the mix of Ubuntu OS and Flock Browser), it's completely replaced Firefox. On install it gives you all the options of copying over your favourites, and passwords from you current browser, and it has some pretty cool features.
It's helped write this blog. It's got an inbuilt clipboard that shows up on the left pane, and you can drag anything to it, photos, videos and words, and then just drop them in your blog. It's got a built in feed-reader, and a thing that keeps me up-to-date with facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Twitter at a quick glance. My only gripe is the lack of Myspace monitoring, but maybe with time it'll be added? It's cool. Check it out.
So yeah, I leave myself with two things I'm going to attempt to change in Ubuntu now.
1) Trying to write a script to update my iPod Files (that separate partition) every time I plug it in.
2) See if there is a way to make the windows sit above the panels.
Also, I might install Linux on my iPod as well.
This is my kinda DIY... :)
Sid.
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