Compiz actually runs quite nice on the One, although there are some problems with streaming video (well, any video actually), it lags, but I think that’s just a driver problem.

Anyway it’s simple to activate, yep, not install, but activate. Since Linpus is based of Fedora 8, it’s actually intergrated into the operating system itself, just not turned on. The only thing you have to do is install one app and you’re set. This app is called “Fusion-Icon”.

The first step to doing this is to open up terminal either via right click or ALT+F2. After this, type in the following “sudo -y yum install fusion-icon”, for those who don’t know, Yum is the installation program that is used in RPM based system, it’s no the best, but it works. The -y parameter is just saying “Say yes to everything”, I would suggest you use this if you know what you’re installing!

After this is done, just launch Fusion-Icon via Alt+F2, it’ll activate compiz and you’ll be spinning the desktop in no time.

Oh, and if you want more themes for Emerald (the window decorator), in terminal just type “sudo yum install emerald-themes”, this will get you a nice amount of themes to choose from, I recommend Minimal for a great space saver, there’s is a thinner title bar theme, but I found it a tad to small for me.

Thing is though, due to the lack of access to the session manager, at least to my knowledge (I don’t usually use this environment, if you can access a session manager, please email me with the details and I’ll update the guide, or make a comment of course! ) you can’t easily launch Fusion-Icon on each startup, which if you’re like me that really annoys you, >.<.

The best thing to do is knock out 2 birds with one stone, that is, killing the startup of the desktop search bar and also allowing Fusion-Icon to start upon, well, startup.

The key to this is in the launch script for acer-search-desktop itself, which is located in “/usr/share/search-bar/start-search_bar.sh”. This file looks like this on default.

#!/bin/sh

#resolution=`xrandr |grep \*|awk ‘{print $1}’`

resolution=`xrandr |grep current|awk -F”current” ‘{print $2}’|awk -F”,” ‘{print $1}’|sed ‘s/\ //g’`

if [ $resolution = "1280x800" ];then

acer-search-desktop –x=650 –y=90 –width=490 –height=31

elif [ $resolution = "1024x600" ];then

acer-search-desktop –x=510 –y=65 –width=490 –height=31

else

acer-search-desktop

fi

Now, to take out the booting of the search bar, simply comment the lines that have “acer-search-desktop”, then after doing that, before the if statement asking for resolution size add “fusion-icon”.

#!/bin/sh

#resolution=`xrandr |grep \*|awk ‘{print $1}’`

resolution=`xrandr |grep current|awk -F”current” ‘{print $2}’|awk -F”,” ‘{print $1}’|sed ‘s/\ //g’`

fusion-icon

if [ $resolution = "1280x800" ];then

# acer-search-desktop –x=650 –y=90 –width=490 –height=31

elif [ $resolution = "1024x600" ];then

# acer-search-desktop –x=510 –y=65 –width=490 –height=31

else

# acer-search-desktop

fi

Remember though, keep an empty line at the end of the file!

And that’s it, you’re done, you’ve taken out the booting of the pesky desktop search bar as well as booting compiz, give yourself a pat on the back, .

Thanks for reading, remember to comment, oh, and as usual, don’t forget to email any ideas for posts, may it be Digg posts, hot topics, or just ideas for how-to guides to my email address: ghostinterface@gmail.com.

Anyway, we moved over to WordPress as well as changed our name, I give you Heretic Studios!

Let the information sharing continue! I hope you guys enjoy the content, oh and don’t forget to tell your friends about us here at Heretic Studios, .

Since it is that time of year, everyone is getting ready to back to a long year of school, netbooks are a big craze, so I figured I’d put out a guide on how to make one in particular, the Acer Aspire One a bit more useful!

First off, I know there are a lot of guides on how to enable system access, but I think this guide is going to be a lot easier/faster than other guides, if not just by a few steps, .

I’m hoping guide will be the cleanest and as simple as possible while teaching some common use linux commands that you will be using in the future when using the device. A few of these commands are trivial, but in my opinion are critical in having a smooth quick experience.

So, the first step to setting up the desktop right click behavior is to actually show the XFCE control center, this can be done simply through how we’re going to launch the terminal, but in order to save time, lets just launch it through Terminal, this is because we’re going to have to set a root password through terminal as well.

While holding ALT press F2, this will bring up an application run dialog, type in “terminal”, then hit run or enter.

One terminal is open (don’t be afraid, trust me, this is your best friend in linux, and if you’re experienced enough, you can perform tasks much faster through terminal than the standard desktop interface, as well as the XFCE linpus modded desktop) type “sudo passwd”, then after this put in a password that you want to be used with root; this is needed especially if you plan on using the application installer gui within the system.

After this, type in “xfce-settings-show” and press enter, the settings dialog will show up. Click Desktop options, then the Behavior tab, lastly Check the Right Click behavior, this will allow you to run applications downloaded as well as provide simple access to the settings and much more.

And that’s it really, you can now run the Add/Remove application program or install from terminal through yum (I’m really a fan of Debian based systems myself, but at the price of boot time on the One, the best thing to do is stick to Linpus…but you can still have some fun…).

Thanks for reading, feel free to comment, and don’t forget to send suggestions for future posts to me at: ghostinterface@gmail.com!

Really the only thing I have to say now is just some things that were high up in the wants and get lists on the holidays!

Probably near the top of the list would be the iPod Touch, and iPhone, along with a lot of Apple stuff.

The most sought after gadget though, would be of course, the Wii.

Now, since Nintendo didn’t put out enough of them, many people were disappointed in the fact they didn’t get one.

Now, as said I’m sorry that I couldn’t put up much on this post, but the tech feed is starting to pick up, and soon I’ll have a lot of stuff to report, so I can’t wait, .

Later,
~Toko

So I’ve sorta been waiting and saving stories lately.

The only 2 noticable things that have happened is FireFox 3 Beta 1 has finally be released. I’ve been using it since Alpha myself and fixing errors on my own, but the Beta version runs quiet nicely, but still though, not much compared to the new Safari on my Macs, .

The other story which wasn’t really exciting but did happen was the Amazon Kindle.

The revolutionary wireless reading device from Amazon, or so says Amazon.

The device itself looks actually bulky for a ebook reader to me, and it has a keyboard for some reason, I suppose it’s a word processor as well, but who’s gonna really need that? Writers, but they carry their Macbook/Macbook Pro’s to every Star Bucks they go to, so I don’t see a practical use for the keyboard in the future.

The screen itself is the same technology the Sony E-Reader uses, eInk displays, that have that dull gray with black with not really any contrast at all.

And after all the downs, it’s biggest down is the price tag, 400 USD.

Now this is REALLY overpriced for what it does, sure they claim it has wifi to keep up to date with your news paper subscriptions and you can buy books straight from it, but seriously, that’s WAY to much Amazon!

We’ll see how it plays out when the Holiday season fully kicks in (the last week/day before Christmas usually). Then we’ll truly see what gadgets Kindle the Fire of the holiday wants and gets this year.

Till next time and hopefully when there’s more news,
Toko

Lately, and whenever any type of big update occurs (generation in API’s upgrading, etc), people (mainly gamers and people in the 3D realm) have been wanting to upgrade, but don’t have a huge pile of money reaching in the amount of 5 digits to just spend on upgrading or building a entirely new computer.

The first solution to this is to build a new computer, but do just that, build you own computer, there are many guides on the web that show how, and honestly, it’s like putting together a 20 piece puzzle or even a 10 piece puzzle, so anyone could do it without a sweat.

The reason I say build it entirely yourself is because sometimes when you even have a shop build it for you, they end up charging a lot more for the end product than what you could of paid for doing it yourself, and I can back this up due to the fact that I own one the only computer shops around my region, and in order to keep it running, I have to charge a decent price on some things, but I try to keep them down as low as possible, and most places don’t do this. So with that, I recommend you build it entirely yourself.

The next tip is to look in the right places. An obvious place to get parts these days would probably be eBay, which is great for most parts, and for the people that want completely brand new parts, with user reviews, and other bits of information, I’d have to suggest newegg, then tiger direct for a circuit city or Wal-Mart type approach to buying items.

The best place to get them, and this goes for double if you live a more rural area, is to wait for say a computer shop or just a store to go out of business, or maybe they are just moving and selling off their stock they had that location.

You can get great deals on these items, and they are usually (most almost always) brand new parts.

I got a Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB (has SLI, ) for 10 dollars, regular 700 or so (US Dollars), so I guess that really does prove the point, local auctions are usually the BEST way to get parts that are new for cheap.

Lastly, do research on what is coming up, and just what you’re planning on using the system for.

If you’re a gamer, I’d wait for the OpenGL 2.1 and mainly OpenGL 3.0 cards to come out, they’re going to be well worth the wait and last a good long while as well.

Usually you’re going to want a Dual Core processor these days, so find a good priced motherboard that supports a variety of Speeds of Dual Core processor sets, that way you won’t have to buy a new one sooner than later.

Memory goes along with the board issues as well, you would probably want to buy a board that can take at least 2 gigs of ram, but I recommend at least 4 gigs especially if you’re going to be using Vista in it (hopefully not at the moment).

I guess the main tip is use your brain, look for deals, and think for the future.

I hope this guide helps some of you guys and till next time,
~Toko

Lately as most of you have seen probably Google has moved into buying a lot of things, such as this site even. But a big thing that people have been talking about is the 700 MHz (I believe) Spectrum Auction that should be coming up and the fact that Google is looking to purchase this area. Now this could mean many things, but the latest announcement of Google has set what they’re wanting to do, at least first, in stone.

Google has been poking around the idea of a GooPhone for some time many believe, and even on some Google blogs there was talk of it might appearing, but most recently a big event that really seemed to prove Google was gonna do it was a Google Employee rushing to a Apple Store to get an iPhone saying they were going giving G-Phones to a select number of people in the company.

Now weeks later, Android has been announced, a Linux mobile device operating system that has all/most of the Google apps implemented and can hopefully be installed on many of the phones that are on market and has both Keypad and TouchScreen interaction.

My initial thought on this was edgy, I mean, this doesn’t mean that there will be a G-phone in the future, but then I thought, the service will still (hopefully) be free just like any other Google service, of course there would be ads, but hey, we’ve lived with ads all our life’s, a few more won’t hurt.

Although, one of the major things that was getting to me was the localized ads, or the ability for the phone to know where you are at all times and keep a history of behaviors, so say, if you eat pizza a lot, and you’re near a pizza parlor, the phone would say “Hey, there’s a Pizza place on the next right” or something similar, which in truth is a ad, but it would quiet possibly be a helpful ad.

The main part about this is the knowing where I am at all times, and memorizing behaviors, now up till now and probably far into the future Google has done a great job on keeping all our information between us and Google, and if you think about it, they have plenty of information on you 9 times out 10. But think though, if this information were to fall into the wrong hands, a lot of not so good things could be done with it.

Ah well, we’ll just have to see what comes out of this I suppose, if Google stays true to their history, we’ll probably end up with a pretty good service offered by a Great company, but then again, it could flop, you never know.

I guess a major thing would be Apple Partnering with Google and making the service free but have a small amount of the ad revenue be put towards Apple possibly, and all of the iPhone’s cost of course would go to them as well.

But with past relationships with Apple with other companies and their not so pleasant results, I doubt Google would be an official partner with Apple as a Hardware developer anytime soon.

If you’d like to read more on the Android bit, Tom Krazit wrote a great article over at cnet on it, of which you can find at this link.

Well, that’s all I have for now, I’ll probably be putting up a Guitar Hero III overlook sometimes before Friday, so if you’re not sure if you’re wanting to get it or not, be sure to look over it, I’ll try to give all the info on it I can.

And, of course, if you want to contact me you can reach me at GhostInterface@gmail.com.

Till next time,
Toko

I’ve been messing with summerboard themes on my ipod touch lately, and figured I’d throw together one that would cause a lot of discussion and possibly through one screenshot some arguing (arguing is good if it’s getting something done, debates are also good in the same instance, ^^).

Firstly, I’ll just the joke theme I threw together in what would be 10 minutes, but icons were hard to find.

So, as you can see, it’s a Windows 95 theme, yea, humor me, I was bored and figured I’d start a fight between Microsoft and apple fan boys on multiple forums.

Well, not really, but that’s about it, all that is left to show is the image that could be used to make a false debate.

EDIT:
Yea yea, I couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d make a XP theme as well, and even I’ll say this one is actually functional…

Have a good night, and till next time,
Toko

As I’ve said before, it’s a evolutionary update more than a revolutionary update, so the average user will probably only see a few new things they really like, say time machine is helpful, or the coverflow in finder is REALLY helpful.

One of my favorite things from the leopard seeds was probably the ability to instantly connect to all computers in the network, which was only half of why I loved it, the main reason was the screens for windows machines, made me roll over laughing honestly.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just search Leopard Network BSOD Windows and you’ll find out, or check out LockerGnome (Chriss Prillo) on youtube, he has a video showing it, I busted out laughing when I saw it, and any mac user, and windows user alike will as well, .

Besides that, I’m really glad that Apple has done a lot of modifications and plenty of improvements on 3d acceleration, etc. Now, these changes really won’t apply to a general user, but to a software firm, this is one of the greatest things to happen, especially for 3d and video type software creators, it gives them the tools to make their apps stronger and faster than any other version of OSX could of ever gave them!

Now, there are a few negatives, as everything has, mainly the negatives are easily fixed, for instance I hate the transparent menu bar, it bugs the living hell out of me, as well as the stacks in the dock looking like they’re about to fall down. But remember these are easily fixed, so I really don’t have a bad thing to say about it.

I really can’t say much else about the release other than it’s a really great update, and now’s a great time to buy a mac, or get one as a christmas gift for someone, this os won’t get pulled off the shelfs, so don’t worry about that.

Till next time guys,
Toko

Most people believe that they are expensive and out of reach for just to have in case you would need it, which in this day in age is false, of course a year ago they were overpriced, but now that the technology has become common place and they have gotten bigger in the storage factor, the price has dropped by 50 or more dollars on 1 gig drives, which while they’re at 30 USD right now, this time last year or so they were 80 USD, which isn’t a bad drop at all!

Now there are many different types, more than a few can even be found at your local walmart, and for once walmart has some decent brands in this field.

First off, we have the sandisk brand which has many types branching off, the most popular probably being the Cruzer, mainly the Cruzer Micro.

You’ve probably seen one of these at walmart on the shelf, or even on someone you know. They’re pretty good drives, 1 of the 2 I carry around is a Sandisk Cruzer 2 gig model which works great, also as all sandisk devices, it comes with U3 software installed.

U3 is software that is basically a application launcher that uses mobile versions of software or software designed just for mobile purposes, this is how most Sandisk flash drives these days comes with Skype pre-installed, it’s just the U3 mobile version, which in truth is the full version but mobile.

There are other brands and types of course, all ranging in different capacities, from 128 mb to 13 gb, or higher, the size determines on what you’ll be needing.

I’d say get at least a gig these days, they come cheap at 15 to 20 dollars, sometimes 10.

I myself carry 1 512mb and a 2 gig, the 512 is a older one that I carry to backup anything I need from computers, and the 2 gig is for general use like photoshop lite, etc.

So it all boils down into what you want for the price you want. I’d say anyone should get what I have, a 2 gig sandisk cruzer for around 30 USD from your local walmart, and maybe 25 to 40 USD from a electronics store.

That’s all for now, I’ll try to post something bigger this weekend, afterall, it is time to round up this week’s news, till then.

Toko

Microsoft according to the Journal (link) has purchased a small chunk of FaceBook a popular Web 2.0 style social networking site for a whopping 300-500 million dollars, which would raise the network of FaceBook to over 10 billion dollars.

Now that’s great and all, the site will now be filled with Microsoft endorsements and such, but was this a wise decision?

I’ve come to understand as many others in the net field have, that social networking sites are as as much a trend as clothing is, which is to say teenagers control it, and usually don’t stay on a certain one/style for long.

And when that mass audience leaves, the site would be dead in a fraction of minutes making the net worth and stock value to plummet to nothing, which would create some angry investors.

So with that, I guess that it’s obvious what my opinion on the subject matter is, they probably shouldn’t dump a nice amount of money into a trend that could last from 10 seconds to 10 years, it’s as unpredictable as a earthquake, it shows tremors that might give off a hint of going off, but then after that nothing may ever happen again.

You never know, but that’s how the market works, gamble on a educated guess on what will go up and just hope that it will at least earn some profit and not fall to the ground.