Apps of the Week: Hubble Space Center, Sonic the Hedgehog, Field Trip and more!

May 20, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Apps of the Week

A game and a couple of tools highlight this abbreviated list of picks

The combination of Google I/O going on in San Francisco and BlackBerry Live in Orlando this week has our team a little sparse, but we think there are a few great picks to be seen this week regardless. Whether its just four apps or ten, we do our best every weekend to bring you apps that each of the Android Central writers have been using regularly the previous week.

Stick around after the break and see how this week's picks stack up against the rest.

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Cinnamon 1.8 Gets Its Own Control Center And Screensaver, Easier Spices Installation

May 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Cinnamon, the desktop environment used by default in Linux Mint, has reached version 1.8, getting its own Control Center, screensaver and more.

Cinnamon is a GNOME Shell fork which tries to offer the layout and customizability of GNOME 2: by default there’s a panel at the bottom (but optionally, you can also get one on top like in GNOME 2) that supports autohide, it supports applets, a classic system tray and more.

Let’s take a look at what’s new in the latest Cinnamon 1.8!

Cinnamon 1.8 video

Below you can watch a video which presents the most important changes in Cinnamon 1.8:


(direct video link; for more videos, subscribe to our YouTube channel)

Sorry for the fonts in the video, it’s an YouTube bug because the fonts look ok in my original video. The fonts don’t look like that when using Cinnamon.

What’s new in Cinnamon 1.8

Cinnamon 1.8 no longer uses gnome-session for fallback which has advantages such as the ability to restart Cinnamon after a crash or the use of a wrapper which allows Cinnamon to restart itself after potential crashes. This should also fix the issue with Cinnamon not working on some hardware which was actually capable of running it.
Cinnamon 1.8 comes with its own Control Center, so there’s no longer the need to use GNOME Control Center. This is especially useful if you have installed multiple desktop environments: features that are GNOME Shell or Unity specific don’t show up in Cinnamon Control Center, so you should now have a more clean, less confusing settings app. 
In Cinnamon Settings you can find all the GNOME settings that also apply to Cinnamon as well as Cinnamon-specific settings such as applets, desklets, theme settings, windows behavior, hot corners setup, panel settings and more:

Cinnamon Control Center

By default, Cinnamon Control Center displays only some of the system settings and for more advanced settings you must click the “Switch to Advanced Mode” button in the lower left corner.
The Cinnamon Screensaver about which we were telling you a while back, is available by default with Cinnamon 1.8. The screensaver is very simplistic, displaying the date and time on a shaded background and optionally, it can also display an away message:

Cinnamon Screensaver

Cinnamon screensaver settings
The new Cinnamon release also introduces “Desklets” (desktop widgets), but since this is a new feature, there are only a few available for now:

Cinnamon Desklets

Cinnamon desklets settings

The desklets can be set to snap to a desklets grid so they align nicely, with configurable grid width and users can also select if the desklets should use a border, border and header or no decoration at all.
Another interesting new feature in Cinnamon 1.8 is that you can install or update “spices” (which include applets, desklets, themes or extensions) directly from the desktop, via Cinnamon Control Center, so Cinnamon users no longer need to manually download and install them from http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com:

Cinnamon 1.8 applets install

In my test, installing themes didn’t work for some reason, maybe because the available themes aren’t compatible with the latest Cinnamon 1.8 yet, but I was able to successfully install applets and desklets.
And finally, Nemo, the default Cinnamon file manager, has received many improvements since the previous stable release that’s available in Linux Mint 14 (1.1.2), such as:
  • buttons in the statusbar to easily hide the sidebar and switch between places and treeview (sidebar);
  • option to hide the menu;
  • collapsable sidebar categories;
  • breadcrumbs;
  • Sidebar Disk Indicators: indicators are displayed under each drive, displaying the free/used space;
  • various fixes and more.

Cinnamon 1.8 Nemo
Nemo 1.8

See how to install Nemo file manager in Ubuntu.

Other changes:

  • Cinnamon now automatically falls back to Software Rendering (previously known as Cinnamon 2D) when the full Cinnamon is not supported – a critical notification is displayed on startup when running Software Rendering – this usually happens because of a problem with the drivers or if the graphics card doesn’t support any acceleration;
  • improved hot-corner configuration;
  • new coverflow and timeline alt-tab;
  • updated default applets, many fixes, etc.
Cinnamon hot-corner configuration

Cinnamon coverflow alt-tab
Coverflow ATL-TAB style

Cinnamon timeline alt-tab
Timeline ALT-TAB style

Bumpmaps, a feature that was supposed to be added in Cinnamon 1.8 didn’t make it unfortunately as it’s not yet fully ready.

Install Cinnamon 1.8 in Ubuntu

Cinnamon 1.8 will be available by default in Linux Mint 15 (Cinnamon Edition – RC should be out mid-may) and it should also be available in the “Romeo” repository for Linux Mint 13 and 14 soon.
Ubuntu Precise, Quantal, Raring and Saucy users can install the latest Cinnamon via PPA:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cinnamon

Once installed, log out and select Cinnamon from the login screen.

For other Linux distributions, see the Cinnamon downloads page.

Originally published at WebUpd8: Daily Ubuntu / Linux news and application reviews.


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XBMC Media Center 12.2 Brings Numerous UPnP Fixes

May 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The second point release of the XBMC Media Center 12 software has been announced last evening, May 3, 2013, for the Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, Android and Raspberry Pi platforms.
LXer Linux News

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Facebook shows us what life can be like with Facebook Home front and center

April 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment

You'll never be lonely when all your friends are just a tap away, but Facebook thinks you'll have more fun when they are right up front

A long plane ride is a pretty boring thing. Sure, you could get out your laptop and work, or keep handing over your plastic for those tiny bottles of entertainment, but Facebook has another idea — with Facebook Home and the HTC First you can bring along all your friends. And cats.

While we imagine the average Facebook user's feed will be slightly different (and a lot less safe for work), this is a good ad that gets the idea across. I have a feeling we're going to see a lot more like it.

Source: YouTube

    


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Plasma Media Center, aka KDE TV, out now

March 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The Plasma Media Center, built on KDE, offers a “rich experience” in its first release as a competitor to many other open source HTPC offerings
LXer Linux News

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GNOME Control Center 3.6 Available In The GNOME 3 PPA [Ubuntu 12.10]

November 26, 2012 by Leave a Comment
GNOME Control Center 3.6 (along with GNOME Settings Daemon 3.6) has finally made it into the GNOME 3 PPA for Ubuntu 12.10. This was the last piece that was missing for Ubuntu 12.10 users to get a truly complete GNOME 3.6 experience.
Here’s what’s new in GNOME Control Center 3.6 (version in the PPA is 3.6.3) compared to the previous version available for Ubuntu 12.10 users (3.4.2):
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New Icons For Ubuntu Software Center, Nautilus, Software Updater And Unity Launcher Revealed [Ubuntu 13.04]

November 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment
A bug called “Update the default wallpaper in 13.04″ has been reported on Launchpad today, revealing the new Ubuntu 13.04 wallpaper which, like we’re used to, is just a slightly modified version of the previous default wallpaper:
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Linux Game Publishing releases Games in the Ubuntu Software Center and on Desura

September 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The publisher of the video games for Linux LGP (Linux Game Publishing) has begun to release games in the Ubuntu Software Center and on Desura. While Sacred Gold was selected for releasing first, the company intends to release further titles in the Ubuntu Software Center and on Desura in the near future.
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XBMC Media Center 11.0 Released, Install It In Ubuntu

March 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

XBMC 11 “Eden” has been released recently and comes with speed increases, better and simpler library, better unencrypted BluRay support, default skin improvements, better networking support, AirPlay support, upgraded weather service with geoip lookup and much more. The new version also brings support for Apple TV2 and iOS.
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Ubuntu Command Center: Gnome Control Center

February 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Ubuntu 12.04 is all about pixel perfecting everything and focusing on the quality of the overall release.
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XBMC!How to turn your Ubuntu into the Media Center of your Dreams.

January 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Do you have a nice TV or projector? You are in the right place. Today we will see how to make an incredible and surprising combination of a low-performance PCs and a nice TV or projector. Our goal is to turn that old PC into a fantastic Media Center, which will give you many possibilities. From the view of Film and/or video, to listen to music (excellent if you have connected a good sound system), an excellent way to show photographs and browse the web with a simple click .
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Linux Deepin Software Center Will become OpenSource’s own App Store by End of Year

January 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The internet is on a boom time with App store centers, software centers and with the arrival of Amazon, the humungous Amazon Store as well. Then there is our own Ubuntu Software Center:…


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