[Heads up] New Google+ interface doesn't come with invisible cloak for Gtalk - Geek With Us

Taken from: [Heads up] New Google+ interface doesn't come with invisible cloak for Gtalk - Geek With Us:

Google gave their social network, Google+, a make over.

I haven’t had time to really dive into the new interface, so I can’t tell you guys much about it. There was one thing I noticed, that kinda erk’d me. The messenger list that you see on the right hand side of Google+ is Gtalk. It’s the same IM service as the stand alone GTalk, and the same IM you find when you log into Gmail.

Google switched it up for Google+ though, and I guess renamed the messenger (again) to Hangouts.

The thing is, when you are signed in to the “Hangouts” Gtalk, you do not have the option to be invisible.

If you are logged into both Gmail and Google+ at the same time, and you are invisible on the  Gtalk in your Gmail, signing into the “Hangouts” Gtalk in Google+ will supersede Gmail’s Gtalk, and make you un-invisible.

Google Sites - Free webpage creator & web hosting service

What:
Google Sites is one of many free services offered by Google. Google Sites lets you easily create wiki and webpages. You save all the pages you create directly to the site, so Google Sites also acts as a free host server, and will host all your webpages for you.

It's actually a pretty neat service, and it actually IS pretty easy to use. There's a bunch of templates you can choose from. You'll still have to do some work if you go the template route. The template is more like a general idea, with a bunch of crap typed out, sitting there, acting like a place holder for you.

I quickly whipped together a site I named HighGeekValue. I just applied a template, and let it so you can see what I am talking about (Actually, I made that a while ago because I wanted to claim the name. I applied the template, and then totally forgot about the service until now). You can check out the site here:

https://sites.google.com/site/highergeekvalue/

[Fix] No audio with some games in Chromium

WHAT:

I use the Chromium browser a lot more than I use the Google Chrome browser. They are from the same family, & are pretty much one in the same, but Chromium is missing some of the built in apps that Chrome has, which tracks your surfing pattern for Google.

Anyways, I used to have a small problem in Chromium when it came to some of the browser games like Cut The Rope and Angry Birds. When I tried to load either of those games (and a few more titles), the game would load perfect, but there would be no audio.

I installed the Google Chrome browser and tried to load the games on that browser, and it loads WITH audio.

They problem wasn't big enough, nor was it annoying me enough where it made me feel the need to find a solution.

I finally found some time to figure it out and am sharing the solution here for anyone else out there experiencing the same problem.

HOW:
We will need to install "chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra"

You can either install it via Synaptic or through the terminal

[Link] Ubuntu To Get Its Own Package Format, App Installer

I dunno about this.... I mean, why? What's the point?

I can't help but think they have some stupid master plan brewing in the mix, and this is like stage one of operation "stupid master plan". They [Canonical] are "promoting" the move by saying it's just to "complement apt/dpkg and to not replace the traditional Debian packages."

Ok... but why try and fix something that ain't broken ?? Or why try something new ?? Lets be honest here... Ubuntu tried something new with Unity, and that didn't do too well. So... their "try something new" track record ain't too good.

Anyways, here's the article. Link to original found below.

From "Ubuntu To Get Its Own Package Format, App Installer":

While Ubuntu already has its own software store, Canonical developers are now working on their own application package installer and package format. Before getting too concerned about this latest Canonical move, how it's being promoted right now is to just complement apt/dpkg and to not replace the traditional Debian packages. This new package format and installer would just be for newly-distributed packages, namely third-party software on the Ubuntu Phone/Tablet and written against the Ubuntu SDK. Colin Watson shared these initial plans on the Ubuntu-Devel list. Colin explained, "it'd just be second-system-effect on top of our current packaging system. So the scope of what I've been considering is purely leaf apps built on a fixed "base system", which in the case of the initial target of the Ubuntu phone/tablet work would be the run-time part of the Ubuntu SDK." The proposed features of this new package installer/format would be no dependencies between applications (packages would only depend upon the base system and ship everything they need bundled within the package), each package would install to its own directory, the entire package format would be purely declarative, and the package format/building seems like it will revolve largely around Python and JSON. There's still a lot of work ahead but they already have proof of concept code working with the current system written in Python and acceptable performance. Code will supposedly be published next week. In Watson's mailing list post he did bring up "why not use an existing system out there?" to complement apt/dpkg, considering the vast selection of open-source package management systems... The answer is that they still might but that it wouldn't make much difference. The longer explanation appears to be they want the package format catered to their platform more than anything else with each package format already being rather designed around its own system.

Originally posted by Michael Larabel. Original article found [here]

My Google+ tip: Starring a post

This is a very old trick I've been using in Google+ to give me the "starring" option found in most Google services. All you seasoned G+ users no doubt already know about this, so this is geared more towards the Google+ newbies out there... 

What:
You know how most of the Google services have a star function? If you don't know what it is, when you "star" something, you're marking it to be read later.

The star function/option is available in services such as Gmail, Google Chrome, Google Drive, Google Maps, and the soon to be retired Google Reader.

Starring something basically means you're marking so you can get back to it later. For example, if I am skimming through my emails in Gmail, and I come across an email that looks important, but I don't have time to fully read through it, I'll star it, move on to the next email. Later, when I have time, I'll browse the starred label, get go through all the emails I had marked.

When you star a website in Google Chrome, you're basically adding the site to your bookmarks so you can easily get back to the site again later.

Google+ doesn't have a star function, but there is a very simple solution if you're looking to add the star function to your Google+ experience. It is a solution I've personally been using since Google+'s beginning.

How:
What I ended up doing was creating a new circle, and naming that circle "star". I left that "star" circle empty.

An empty circle I created named Star

When I'm browsing Google+, and I come to a post that looks interesting, but I am on a roll surfing posts and don't have the time to really read through the post to determine if it is really re-share worthy, I want to be able to star it and read it later. What I'll do is re-share the post, but only re-share it to my empty star circle. The circle is empty, so no one can see the re-share except for me.

I set the empty star circle as one of the circles that shows up in my "Home Stream". To do add a circle to your home stream, click on the circle you want to add as if you would with any other circle you are going to browse. Look for the "Settings" button over to the right, click it, and check off the "Show posts in Home stream" option (see image below).

Click to enlarge

Now when I want to get back to my "starred" posts, I can easily get to it by clicking on the circle from my home screen.

[How to] resize your swap partition in Linux

pic

What:
I made this video a while ago, but I forgot about it and never got around to writing it up and posting the video here. The video is a tutorial on how to change the size of your swap partition.

I forget what distro I used to make the video, but I think it's Backbox 3.01, which is a Ubuntu 12.04 based distro.

How:
Make the jump for the video tutorial