Productivity Sauce

Dmitri Popov
Gwibber to Tomboy

Sep 08, 2010 GMT

Using Gwibber? Here is a nifty feature you might not have noticed: you can save any status update as a Tomboy note. To do this, click on the button next to the post you want to save (the button looks like gears), and choose the Save to Tomboy command. That's it. This feature can come in handy when you need to archive a specific status update or save it for later use. By the way, this feature works with both Identi.ca and Twitter accounts.
Sync Tomboy Notes with Ubuntu One

Aug 13, 2010 GMT

Ubuntu One may not be as popular or feature-rich as Dropbox, but the file synchronization service bundled with Ubuntu has one nifty feature that makes it a handy tool -- the ability to synchronize Tomboy notes across multiple machines. To make use of this feature, you have to enable and configure the synchronization options in each instance of Tomboy. To do this, launch Tomboy, right-click on its icon in the gnome panel, and choose Preferences. Switch to the Synchronization section, select Tomboy Web from the Service drop-down list, and press the Connect button. Authorize your machine with the Ubuntu One service, switch back to the Preferences window and press Save. Do the same on other...
Keep an Eye on Your Hard Disk's Health with GSmartControl

Aug 12, 2010 GMT

SMART-capable hard disks are commonplace these days, and there are a few tools that can help you to use this technology to monitor the health of your hard disk. The smartmontools toolset, for example, lets you monitor and manage hard disks from the command line, while the GSmartControl utility can be used to keep a close eye on the hard disks. Despite its simple interface, GSmartControl is a rather capable tool that automatically reports and highlights any anomalies, performs short self-checks every four hours, and provides comprehensive info about the hard disks and their capabilities. The best part is that GSmartControl makes it...
Access Multiple Map Resources with RMaps for Android

Aug 12, 2010 GMT

Google's own My Tracks is a fine tracking app for Android, but it does have one serious drawback: it can only use Google Maps as its map source. If you want to be able to access other map resources like OpenStreetMap and its derivatives as well as other map services, you might want to give RMaps a try. At first glance, this open source app looks rather simplistic, but it does offer a few essential features like compass, GPS tracking, and even support for points of interest. But RMaps' main attraction is its ability to pull maps from different sources. RMaps lets you use Google Maps, Microsoft Maps, OpenStreetMap (both Mapnik and OsmaRender...
Extension Watch: Colorize Code in OpenOffice.org Writer Documents with COOoder

Aug 11, 2010 GMT

Adding a pinch of color to code fragments in a Writer document can make it easier to read. But coloring code by hand is a rather daunting proposition, especially if the document contains hundreds of lines of code. Fortunately, there is an extension for that. COOoder is a one-trick pony extension that can automatically colorize code in many programming languages. Install the extension, select the code fragment you want to colorize, press the COOoder button in the COOoder toolbar (or choose Tools | Add-ons | COOoder), and select the desired language. Hit the OK button, and COOoder does the rest. COOoder is based on the GeSHi syntax...
Turn a Plug Computer into a Full-fledged Server with Amahi

Aug 11, 2010 GMT

A plug computer sounds like such a good idea, until you realize that before you can actually put it to some practical use, you need to install and configure some software and applications -- a task that requires time and technical skills. Fortunately, the recently announced Amahi Plug Edition solution provides a better and easier way to turn a plug computer into a useful device. As you might have guessed, Amahi Plug Edition is a version of their Amahi open source server solution optimized for the Plug Computer platform. Amahi is a Linux-based home server solution which is both easy to deploy and maintain. Moreover, it allows you to choose among dozens of available applications (e.g.,...
Add a Word Count Feature to Tomboy

Aug 10, 2010 GMT

If you use Tomboy as a drafting tool, a word count can come in handy in many situations. While Tomboy doesn't offer this functionality out of the box, you can easily add it using the Tomboy-Wordcount add-in. Although it's distributed only as a source package, compiling it is not particularly complicated. First off, you have to install two packages: gnome-sharp2 and mono-gmcs . On Ubuntu, you can do this using the sudo apt-get install gnome-sharp2 mono-gmcs command. Grab the latest version of the add-in from the project's Web site, and unpack the downloaded archive. In the terminal switch to the resulting directory, and run the make install command. Once the compilation process is...
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