This is utterly ridiculous. It’s a screenshot with a standard Firefox browser, in the standard screen resolution (1280×800), on a Ubuntu machine with only the OS top panel showing (the bottom is hidden, to reproduce more or less the screen estate you’d have on a Mac).

Hell, I’ve even hidden the bookmark bar and status bar and – STILL – the content area is tall not more than half my screen. A power-user may still press F11 and F to put the browser AND Google Groups into full screen mode, and – STILL – the fixed top bar would not move, even a bit.

Google, seriously, which kind of usability testing you perform on your products ?

Google, seriously, what are you feeding your designers and UX experts with ?

Some of the highlights include:

• Android project started before the release of the iPhone, and was designed to compete with Blackberry
• Android wasn’t originally designed primarily as a touch screen based operating system
• Iphone renders UI with higher priority than Android, at the expense of computation

Check it out:
https://plus.google.com/100838276097451809262/posts/VDkV9XaJRGS

Well, I deleted mine some time ago, but while trying out the new Youtube homepage the first thing I saw was this:

My circles are still saved, my real name is showing and the same is probably true for the people in my circles.

Yet another reminder: don’t believe the big guys, data deletion doesn’t exists on the Internet, no matter what. There’s no escape, you access the internet, you get sold.

Just a quick notice to let you lovely foreigners know that the italian version of Wikipedia just closed everything down in sign of protest against yet another attempt to censor the Internet by the Italian Government.

Try the following link for info, or any other page: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/

You can also read the english version of the notice.

You may remember about an old post of mine where I show a little trick to make gnome panel auto-hiding actually usable.

I have been pleased, today, to find a script automating the whole thing, so I thought I’d share. The code belongs to a nice page on Patricio Páez‘s website, and all credit goes to him.

Once run the script applies the tweaks described in my previous article. If you want to revert your system to the default settings, just un-toogle autohide on the bottom panel, and run the script again.

A word of warning, even tough the code looks ok, as my desktop already has everything set, I haven’t tried this script yet. Feel free to point out any issue. Enjoy !

#
# Auto hide Gnome panels.  Automates the idea proposed by Stefano Forenza
# http://www.stefanoforenza.com/hide-gnome-panel-to-get-the-most
#
# Script found on: http://pp.com.mx/linux.html with slight modifications
if [ $(gconftool -g /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/auto_hide) == "false" ]; then
    # Hide bottom panel
    gconftool -t bool -s /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/auto_hide true
    gconftool -t bool -s /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/enable_animations false
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/hide_delay 0
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/unhide_delay 0
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/auto_hide_size 0
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/size 24
    # Hide top panel
    gconftool -t bool -s /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/auto_hide true
    gconftool -t bool -s /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/enable_animations false
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/hide_delay 0
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/unhide_delay 0
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/auto_hide_size 0
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/size 24
else
    # Unhide bottom panel
    gconftool -t bool -s /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/auto_hide false
    gconftool -t bool -s /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/enable_animations true
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/hide_delay 500
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/unhide_delay 500
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/auto_hide_size 6
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/bottom_panel_screen0/size 24
    # Unhide top panel
    gconftool -t bool -s /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/auto_hide false
    gconftool -t bool -s /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/enable_animations true
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/hide_delay 500
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/unhide_delay 500
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/auto_hide_size 6
    gconftool -t int  -s /apps/panel/toplevels/top_panel_screen0/size 24

http://www.atlassian.com/en/angrynerds

Well, it’s all about the source.

If you running Android X86 inside a virtual machine (such as VirtualBox) and would like to use it to debug your apps with ADB but still cannot connect you may find useful to do what follows:

Open the terminal inside your emulated device (alt+f1) and type:

setprop service.adb.tcp.port 5555
stop adbd
start adbd

then type:

netcfg

and note down the provided IP address.

then on your development machine type:

adb connect <ipaddress>:5555

Works wonders

While rebooting can restore the usual speed for a while, the definitive fix is very easy.

1- go to “settings”
2- then “applications”
3-click on “development”
4- then Tick the box that says “USB debugging”
5-then plug your phone into a computer via USB for a couple of minutes.

your lag problem should be fixed!!

if you have the free app “OS monitor”, it will show and prove to you BEFORE and AFTER you have done this. Before the INT/ one would be on nearly 90%, after it should be not much more than 20% but most of the time 0%.

also this WILL help your battery life alot!, this is because your processor will not be working hard, i would say it has doubled the battery life!!

Here’s the video, many thanks to the author !

Flattr, co-founded by Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde, is a service which enables users to vote things up and have their (arbitrary) monthly fee shared among all things voted. You can think about Flattr as a Digg with real money.

While this is no breaking news, it’s pretty cool what Numerama website did instead. They didn’t just open their own Flattr account, but enabled all their users to have one and have it displaying in their comments.

Have a tour on their announce page, and look to the comment section by yourself:

http://www.numerama.com/magazine/17489-avec-flattr-numerama-vous-propose-de-gagner-et-partager-de-l-argent.html

I can’t help but think that they had a clever and forward looking idea. A little compensation for a good comment can be a great motivator, and may greatly improve the quality of their community.