2010 will also be the year when Google becomes a major player in the physical world. Think augmented reality, real Google hardware and cloud services. In just a few days the Nexus One will be released and we are just 6 or 7 months away from the first all-Google cellphone. Whatever happens, this will definitely be the year of the Goog.

Google Chrome will match Firefox’s browser market share

Google, who is by the way Firefox’s biggest revenue source, is pushing Chrome to users by all possible means. Now that the snappy browser supports extensions, it would almost not be an exaggeration to say Firefox’s days are numbered. If Firefox does not step up its game (I certainly hope it does, being a Firefox user), especially in the speed department, we might see a very different browser market share chart next year. Except the sheer number of addons, there are now almost no advantages to running Firefox.

Android will overtake the iPhone

Apple might own most of the phone market at the moment, but there are millions of people out there who still have not upgraded. The trick to reach many people is to match their needs perfectly, giving them a reason to switch: Android is not tied to the same company – we have juggernauts like HTC, Motorola and Samsung working on numerous new models, all somehow different. Apple will surely present a new iPhone this January. However, they will never be able to reach every consumer with their small and expensive lineup.

Chrome OS will be a huge flop (initially)

You might think I am contradicting myself due to mentioning “light” operating systems as exciting technologies. But, like most of you guys, I am not an average consumer. I will probably install Chrome OS ot of sheer curiosity, then delete it because I know many other competitive operating systems that offer much more. I am betting on people’s distrust to the cloud. We have Linux distributions that do much more and can even run Chrome, plus in a few months they will boot just as fast. Why use a handicapped OS? The hardware for both reliable local and remote storage and applications is already almost cheap enough. My guess is that Google will be disappointed by the slow adoption and Chrome OS will become more and more similar to standard operating system, driving adoption in the following years through the Google brand name.

Ubuntu 10.04 will not start up in ten seconds

I think there is no way they will make it. Be sure to check out the Internetling around the release date, when I will see if the new version will boot in under half a minute on a minimal spec machine. Because now it takes a lot more to boot on 2 gigs of RAM. I believe Canonical has a very capable developer team, but this is a bit too optimistic, even for Linux.

Overall, more ARM and MIPS-based “smartbooks” will be sold than x86-powered machines UMPCs

I am willing to bet the so-called “smartbook” market is just short of exploding. With chips like the Longsoon and distros like xPUD, there is no way people will be able to resist under-$100 smartbooks. This will be achieved in 2010, it is the next big thing, not tablets. I am aware of the broken promises by vendors in the recent years. Now it will be different, prices have been driven very low, we just need to wait for someone with a vision (no, not Negroponte).

So, let’s talk about 2010 in the comments! What are you excited about, what do you think will happen?

I also want to thank everyone for reading the Internetling in 2009! It has been a very stressful year for me, but I am determined to keep writing. Thanks a million for your support!

Linux and FOSS-related Predictions for 2010

And today I want to talk about Opera Mobile 10 beta, because even though they are not very well accepted by the open source community, I cannot help but to think they have a team of experts from another planet, because what they just did with my 2008 Symbian S60 Nokia phone is just incredible. They literally modernised my phone.

Opera mobile 10 features a complete overhaul of the interface and a ton of new features, providing Symbian users with a very smooth ride (Animations), TABS, Bookmark Sync and one of the best mobile rendering engines I’ve ever seen, rivalling even the other WebKit-powered browsers on more powerful devices and it is not even the final version.

These are real screenshots from my Nokia E71.

I am not kidding, you have to test this browser yourself. The UI is just incredible. And I’ll be damned if it’s not one of the best pieces of programming Symbian has ever seen.

Opera Mobile 10 beta scores 100% on the Acid 3 Test

Aside from the “significant” UI changes one immediately sees when taking a first look at Windows 7, I was wondering where all the good stuff is hidden, since many changes have apparently (at least according to the last 8 to 6 months’ worth of Windows 7 news items) been made “under the hood”.

Well, I decided to take a look “under the hood” and is is what I saw. Brings a tear to my eye.

By the way, don’t let the German language scare you away

I personally have seen enough and am blowing away this install with some Fedora. What about you guys?

Feeling Nostalgic? Windows 7 has got you covered.

Bookmark syncing (via Xmarks in my case) is a must-have for users like me (and likely some of you) who are constantly on the go and use multiple machines to do their work. Now you can sync your Chrome, Chromium bookmarks on Windows, the Mac and last but not least, LINUX.

To enable sync, just use the command –enable-sync

You will need a Google Account to perform a synchronization.

Chromium is shaping up to be a delightful little beast, let’s see how much time it will take for them to replace all my Firefox plugins. The browser scene is much more interesting than a few years ago.

via DS

Google Chrome (Chromium) bookmark syncing now available on Linux!

-greg

Hello Blogosphere

This blog is still active.

New content will arrive,

I just moved ot another country and do not have an internet connection. This will get sorted out next week, hopefully, so please stay subscribed, I’m working on it

Cheers

Greg

Not dead

From mobile-watcher.com

And finally, we have more info on the upcoming Nokia n900 Linux-based phone. The new phone features a transition from the S60 platforms, Nokia decided to use their Maemo platform, originally used only on their Internet tablets. The new Freemantle (code name for Maemo 5) version of Maemo represents a transition to the QT toolkit, although GTK+ support remains in the Debian-based OS. The phone will retail for 550 EUR and is coming out later this year. If you like Linux phones, this could be the right one for you. I personally prefer a REAL Linux environment over Android’s Java layer.

More on the Nokia n900 Maemo Linux Phone – First Look

Image from Wikipedia

The Internet has been abuzz about the new, Slim edition of the popular Playstation 3 lately. What especially grabbed my attention was that Sony decided to remove the option to install 3rd party operating systems, which means, no clean Yellow Dog or Debian Linux installs. The aim is, apparently, to “standardise” the OS on the PS3 platform. I suspect this means Yellow Dog are going to lose a financial backer soon and people who want to use the Playstation 3 and its powerful Cell processor (even though it is a restricted virtual environment) as a basic computer are out of luck this time. Bad move, Sony. Oh well, let’s just hope they don’t screw it up with their awesome motion-sensing controller.

Playstation 3 Slim – no more Linux?

It was a love-hate relationship. While I still adore the elegance of Arch Linux, pacman started acting up. After every update, my Wacom tablet ceased to work. Gwibber and pywebkitgtk were almost impossible to set up and I couldn’t rotate my wallpaper correctly (found a script to do this later). I like to (since I’m a pretentious nerd) think of myself as a power user. I don’t mind doing things in the terminal or learning new commands. Sadly, even though I am on vacation, after an update, I’d like to draw with my Wacom tablet in the GIMP. I can repair it, but it takes up to 10 minutes. 10 minutes during which I’d rather be drawing. With a heavy Windows XP setup and a once again broken Arch system, I finally decided it’s time to scrap both.

For what?

The first distribution I ever tried was Ubuntu, in 2005. Ubuntu, at least for me personally, represents the best parts of GNU/Linux in a polished package and while I’ve used PCLinuxOS, Fedora and Knoppix as my main Linux machine, I always came back to Ubuntu. Everytime, switching back to a new and improved Ubuntu was a wonderful experience.

Alas, Ubuntu got a bit old.

I heard about Linux Mint numerous times and even tried out a few releases. The major “selling” point of Mint is its main focus: to provide a ready-to-go, user-friendly desktop. Most readers are probably familiar with the fact that Fedora and Ubuntu, for instance, don’t ship with Flash because of certain licensing issues. Well, Linux Mint does not care about that. The project aims to provide a full, out-of-the-box experience, so you get a distribution with i. e. Flash installed. This is both a pro and con, since you do not have a completely open setup anymore. However, many Linux users are not even aware their Linux distribution ships with other closed-source components, such as the famous binary blobs in the Debian kernel. There are certain distros like Gnewsense who use strictly Free Software, though arguably , most of the popular distros all contain proprietary components. So, if we’re going to have to worry about it anyway, why not use a leaner distribution?

Mint is built on Ubuntu. As a consequence, upgrading to a new version of Mint will bring you new Ubuntu features. Alongside the basic Ubuntu setup and some proprietary components, Mint also ships with some different applications and front-ends, which you can see in the gallery. Here are some notable ones.

1. Gnome Do, my favorite launcher application (that also features a Dock) and a must-install for most power users.

2. The good-looking, but unnecessary mintInstall (how many APT GUI do we need anyway). A nice feature is the rating system, even though I believe something similar already exists in the Ubuntu installer. Synaptic does the job much better, can now download screenshots, and is also easy enough to use.

3. The Compiz Config Manager, which is absent in Ubuntu. Good idea to tweak Compiz settings if you’re running it.

4. The excellent MintUpdater, an update manager that sorts updates by “safety”. Depending on the reliability of the package, the updates (originally pushed for Ubuntu) are ranked from 1 (Certified working updates) to 5 (most unstable).

5. Gufw. It is basically a GUI for the Ubuntu Firewall. Sadly, it has very few options. I’d at least like to have the option to get asked whether to allow Internet access when an application requests it. Or is that not the Linux way?

5. Giver. Allows you to easily share files with other users you can see on the network. Yes, this is the most creative description I could come up with.

6. MintBackup. Helps you backup your home directory. Most people who do backups will probably use other applications. Despite this, it might come in handy.

7. APTonCD. This tool allows you to backup your downloaded packages to a CD/DVD. Something like a backup of your installed applications. You can later insert this CD and restore what you backed up.

8. Mozilla Thunderbird instead of Evolution. Hell yeah.

9. SCIM (life-saver for a Japanese learner like me) and Mint Nanny, a rudimentary lock-down app.

10. The Control Panel – just a GUI with all the configuration front ends neatly grouped and sorted by category.

You might notice in the screenshots that Linux Mint does not use the regular GNOME menu, instead they decided to go wtih the SLAB menu, an advanced GUI used primarily in OpenSuse. Some might not like it, I’m still making up my mind. It is nice to have a Search feature for menu items and a Favorites Section. The main downside to SLAB in my opinion is its rather large size. See the screen grabs and decide for yourself, I’m personally sticking with it for the moment.

All in all, Linux Mint 7 is going to be my main machine from now on, at least until I get my claws on another unsuspecting distribution. It is a distribution I spent very little time customizing and I have a pretty specific setup. Flash was there, Gnome Do was there, the GNOME bar was already on the bottom of the screen, I liked the icon theme. Linux Mint is the Ubuntu cake with some extra-delicious icing. The icing doesn’t make it slow, just better. Way better than vanilla Ubuntu. So, if you chose Ubuntu because it does most of the things for you, take Mint for a spin. It does everything, you can just sit back, relax and have a few evil laughs in your secret control tower. Minty fresh.

Get Linux Mint here

There’s also a KDE4 version!

Linux Mint 7 Review, Screenshot Tour and Love

When the new version of Knoppix came out earlier this year, it caught my attention that the project dumped KDE3 for LXDE, an environment I’ve only heard about and never seen used in a distribution as the default desktop. During the test, I was surprised to find out the lead programmer was, and still is, Hong Jen Yee a.k.a. “PCMan” , the author of my favorite file manager PCManFM. That is why I couldn’t wait to take LXDE for a spin, since I knew it was going to be an interesting ride.

On my first login, the system greeted me with an error message, claiming it couldn’t detect my GTK+ icon theme correctly. I ignored it and continued loading the desktop. LXDE managed to find another GTK+ icon theme so the initial desktop looked pretty attractive. The LXDE logo seems to be a swallow. If any good graphic designers are out there, LXDE needs your help. Even though the swallow logo looks shiny in the task bar, the same swallow completely ruins the desktop background. Well, maybe it’s just me being a spoiled little brat, take a look at the screen grabs and decide for yourself.

Apart from the swallow detail, the lower panel reminds me of GNOME. The task bar looked similar, though I’m not a big fan of the CPU usage graphs, they’re just so 90’s… still, considering how fast the environment is, it is a small price to pay. As most complete desktops, LXDE is build around a set of apps. There is a Preferences Manager, a terminal emulator called lxterminal, an image viewer (gpicview), PCManFM which acts as the default file manager and manages the desktop and the icons, and the  lxappearance GTK+ theme manager (which I couldn’t find in the menus).

And now for the most amusing part. Do you remember those Windows Plus! Themes, bundled with retail copies of Windows 98 SE? Well, LXDE followed KDE4’s path and also decided to include those annoying OHGODPLEASESTOPICANTTAKEITAANYMORE desktop sounds. I know it is intended to help visually impaired users and for the initial “wow”-factor, but I suggest that this feature be turned off by default and to add an easily locatable option to turn it on if you really need it. Did I mention I couldn’t find the option to turn it off? Well, I guess I probably couldn’t find it, although a menu called “Desktop Settings” should include this, in my opinion. Finally, a thumbs up for including an LXDE package that is made specially for Asus Eee PCs, I believe netbook users will get the most of this desktop environment.

In conclusion, LXDE still needs some polishing. I have no doubt that PCMan will work hard to make it an excellent desktop, but at the moment, there is still lots and lots of room for improvement. If you are looking for a lightweight desktop environment, be sure to give LXDE a try. Maybe you’ll find it useful.

Please note: the LXDE packages I used for testing come from the community-supported Arch Linux repositories.

LXDE 0.4.2 Review and Screenshot Tour