So I installed Cairo Dock. Cairo-Dock is an animated application launch bar for the desktop, comparable to the dock in Mac OS X or Rocket Dock (for Windows). I trimmed out the task tray (still want to use my panel at the moment. But I added a few of the things I use frequently and of course Second Life was added as well. I just wanted to get things off my desktop as far as the icons. Want to add this to your machine? Read on!

I know people will say go through the Software Sources section or edit /etc/apt/sources.list which is done by:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

or

sudo kate /etc/apt/sources.list

Either way you add the following repository:

deb http://repository.cairo-dock.org/ubuntu jaunty cairo-dock

This repository needs an authentication key so run:

wget -q http://repository.cairo-dock.org/cairo-dock.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Then, to install Cairo-Dock, issue these two commands in the terminal:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cairo-dock cairo-dock-plug-ins

The Cairo Dock will be under System on the KDE Applications menu. Not sure what it is under Gnome. I ran the Non OpenGL one and it’s really smooth under KDE.

After I did the install updates came in for the linux kernel.  So I ran the updates and then had to reboot. This is the only thing I really need to reboot for as far as updates. Suck it Windows! I can’t count how many times I have woken up to my desktop with windows I had left open overnight that were closed because of the autoupdate rebooting my machine.

I installed Inkscape and Gimp. I really need to sit and play with those more. I didn’t install Pixel so I could concentrate on these programs somewhat.

So now I am looking over things I need to get re-installed since the complete KDE install. I need the following things which have slipped my mind:

• SSH
• VLC
• Skype
• Audacity
• LiVES
• Some more Games (like Majhong (sp?) and some of the KDE games)
• Import pictures and other things from External HD

So my little list is still a bit large but I think it will be quick and easy to do for tomorrow’s posting. I think I will start documenting some How-To’s but I will probably open up VooDooStevie.NET to do that. We’ll see. I have a Joomla install going on there with really nothing on it. Maybe I will make it a one stop thing with a bunch of different things on one site. Wheee!

Still bummed about the mixer. Thinking of picking up a headset soon as I can. Just can’t right now. Maybe I will pull out the original USB mic I used on the show MANY moons ago.

Well… Perfect in the sense that it showed things and did things, but it was S…L…O…W as molasses because our network is a little on the laggy side.

So to announce I was able to connect from work to the home machine, I sent out a tweet using Gwibber. Of course my friend Graeme (of ITRadio fame) had to make a snarky reply.

Through there I was able to install a few things. I am trying to get my music sorted a little so I looked up a few possibilities to do so. People were saying that Cowbell was a program that aided in the sorting of your digital library so I installed that.

It was not quite what I had hoped it to be. It was basically a tag editor ONLY and did not sort your music files what-so-ever.

Rhythmbox also does not sort out the files into a nice Artist – Album manner so I did some more hunting around. Then it dawned on me. SONGBIRD! I had tried this out under windows before, it was decent, but people were calling it the iTunes killer app. Well, it’s not quite there yet. Yes it is a killer when it comes to functionality, resources,  and the add-ons. But it doesn’t have the podcast functionality iTunes has so a lot of people that listen to podcasts will be still drawn to iTunes, in my opinion.

So I installed Songbird. It imported all my media and it also sorted the files into the directory structure I mentioned earlier. So it works perfectly. Goodbye Banshee and Cowbell. Rhythmbox, you will be used for ripping audio CD’s  (another feature Songbird lacks). gPodder, you are definitely my podcast downloading and syncing solution.

After all this I played a little more in Second Life and called it a day.

Feeling a need to play a MMO type game I gave in and installed Second Life. Call me a loser now, LOL. If you are on Second Life, add me as a friend VooDooStevie Mixmaster is the name of my character on there.

After installing the program from GetDeb I found there is a newer version of the game out so I downloaded it and copied the files over to the install location on my hard drive. And voila it worked.

I played the game for a bit. No issues with the game really. Nothing that would seem more like a bandwith issue, but they really smoothed it out since my last time playing it which was like 4 years ago.

I found some free clothes and items for my Avatar, tomorrow I will post the image of my Avatar as he is. Downside is I can’t get it to look more like me.

Everything else is running right. I’m still getting my podcasts fine, album art is still a little issue, but not 100% important to me, I can still listen to them which is what I really needed.

I am a little apprehensive as to how my music collection is sorted so I am looking for something to fix that. I think I have to pull the Podcasts out of that directory for things to properly sort things. I found cowbell as a music management and sorting utility so I will install that and see what happens.

It’s almost 2 weeks into this experiment. I need to get on the podcast thing soon! And play with Skype as well.

Well today I had installed cheese (play with webcam). I also installed kq, Bub’s Bros. Fontmatrix, Flickr uploader, and then Tried Planeshift. It locked up horribly so forget that.

After that I installed Rengum Online which was toted as another MMORPG that was available for Linux. It didn’t start up and gave errors about drivers and DirectX. I will try updating the drivers later.

I don’t understand how a game that is made for Linux that uses OpenGL as it’s primary graphics can use DirectX which is a Microsot related graphics thing. *sigh*

I took a dive and seeing I didn’t really want to do it, I thought I’d give it another chance. I downloaded Second Life from GetDeb. I will install it tomorrow.

Evolution is the native mail client for Gnome. I prefer using GMail via web lately but I think I might use Evolution here and there. I also added a few contacts from Google’s mail which was an easy export and import. The nice thing about the contacts is it helps create a full adress book that you can add important dates and mailing info as well. This might be handy for other reasons as well, i.e. Family functions and mailing lists for holidays.

Aside from that I did my usual syncing of podcasts, general browsing, played a few games of Same Gnome and looked around for some MMO’s to check out. I installed PlaneShift to try it out. I haven’t created an account on their site to do so yet, but I heard a good write up of it. I will review it later on. There are a few others I am going to try out. Of course Second Life is available for Linux, but I sooooo want to stay away from that for some reason. I think primarily it’s because there really is no point to that game. I mean no level ups, no fighting beasts, you just fly around and talk. It’s a chat room on meth and just as addictive.