Exaile player

I was looking for a gtk+ music player. Because Amarok is really slow on a default install of ubuntu even with a decent spec machine. Some users might go with banshee, rhythmbox or even the great songbird. However the best I have come across (although songbird when out of beta should kick some ass) is exaile. It's aimed to be like amarok but with gtk+. It has last.fm support that works. You can sort your music with the Library functions, search your library music and look through files. All the features you would expect are there.

To download it (Repository):
www.exaile.org/downloads

Thoughts on ISPs warning BBC

" The explosion in popularity of online video could lead to increases in the cost of broadband for UK consumers.

Internet services providers, such as Tiscali, say that the raft of recently launched on-demand services will "undoubtedly" congest the network. "

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6944176.stm

The way I see it is that the "network" is already congested with uk ISPs gaining more and more new users than they can handle. Instead of raising the already high prices compared to the rest of Europe, why not invest in "network" instead of being greedy?

The fact is most, if not all, ISPs in the uk advertise speeds such as 2mb and 8mb when there service comes no where near those advertised speeds. Although no one will get an exact advertised speed there is no need for a 3 figured number (mb) loss of speed that your paying for.

If the BBC goes ahead with its iPlayer video service its not going to make a difference to an already poor network.

My beer is a success

The stout is really good. Its only 4 days old and it tastes great. Its kinda like a Mackeson meets a Murphys. Dead smooth, chocolaty, sweet and nutty. I'm surprised how good it is only 4 days old. I put some in bottles too. I not to sure how good they will be since the rest is in a keg. Ill get a chance to compare them. If there any good I have like 6 500ml a few small ones.



So ill see how it goes. 2 weeks it should be great. Ill be making a lighter beer next.

Will I move back to KDE?

After using KDE on and off over a few years it's not really changed. I find the artists are obsessed with blue. Icons, panels, window borders, backgrounds, all blue. Blue, blue, blue, lots of blue. That's fine if you like that kind of thing or just blue. I also dislike the way konqueror works too. So I have stuck with beryl/gnome or fluxbox for a while now.

Though after seeing kde4 screenshots with plasma, KDE's new desktop shell, I think I might be tempted to try it out again. Kwin has supposedly been given composite effects like Compiz Fusion.


Since I don't like konqueror there is now an alternative file manager called Dolphin.


It looks promising. Defiantly better looking than vista. Makes me wonder what all the fuss was about longhorn/vista screenshots. Windows XP with a black theme and a few effects. Yeah amazing. It has nothing original unlike this project. At the moment its still in beta, but runs well on top of kde4 desktop.

Check out some other screencasts on youtube
youtube.com/results?search_query=plasma+kde

If you want to try it out, try the kde live cd
home.kde.org/~binner/kde-four-live/

Brewing a big style stout

Today I spent just about all day in the kitchen trying to brew a huge stout. It started with a john bull stout kit with some barley for a nice head, oats to make it smooth, crystal malt for added body, fuggle, cascade, willamette hops. Was a very big brew. I think I should have added less oats and more crystal malt but we will see when its finished. When I finally got all the wort in and the must done, the colour was opaque black. I didn't use an Irish yeast like normal I went for the Scottish yeast since it worked well with my barley wine.
The must O.G was 1.025, seems a bit light?

Epiphany web browser

I love Firefox just as much as any other open source geek, I like the Mozilla gecko engine, it renders pages fast and properly unlike IE. A few days ago I noticed a blog post on some blog (cant remember it) calling Mozilla for there to be a Firefox lite. Well if anyone really wants a lite Firefox there is Epiphany. Of course you will need gnome. Though I run it within fluxbox with gnome installed. I have used it once before along time ago and I wasn't impressed by it all. I guess I was stuck in my ways with Mozilla and Netscape navigator. After trying it today I am confidant to say I like it.

Its the fastest GUI browser I have working on a 1ghz, 256mb celeron. I think its a little quicker than Firefox to load but it defiantly beats Firefox on loading pages.

It features

• Gecko engine (used by FireFox)
• Smart address bar / Google search
  
• FireFox 2 like tabs
  
• Security / privacy options
• Extensions such as ad blocking and smart bookmarks
  
• Nice zoom feature
• Customizable toolbar
  

I just miss the search plugins for wikipedia and ubuntu packages. I haven't yet fully understood how the spell checker works if there is one. But hey generally I like this browser.
To install it look for the epiphany-browser package or
sudo apt-get install epiphany-browser