Easily Reduce Cable Clutter on your Desk

If you have USB cables, cell phone chargers and other connecters lying all around your desk, just get a couple of binder clips from your nearest stationery store and fix them to one edge of your table as shown in the picture.

De-clutter your Desk

The wire arms (or the handles) of the binder clip can act as “holders” to not only give you quick access to your most frequently used cables but they’ll also prevent the wires from falling off your computer table.

Binder Clips are available in many different sizes so if you are working on a thick desk, you may want to buy a larger version of the clip.

First Look at Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Beta

All platforms: You want change? Ubuntu 10.04, the next long-term release of the free operating system, is full of change. Window buttons are on the left, default apps are replaced, the theme is new, and many more upgrades are worth exploring.

Click any of the images in this post for a larger view.

One of the first things any user will notice in the pic above, whether new to Ubuntu or a veteran Linux user, is the button layout. Ubuntu 10.04, also known as "Lucid Lynx," has opted for a left-side, Mac-style lineup of maximize/restore, minimize, and close buttons, but switched around the order, so that the close/kill button is the right-most button on a left-hand button panel. That is certainly new, and will take some getting used to. An alpha-testing friend of mine said it took "a few hours" over one or two days to start using the buttons without thinking too much about it, but he still occasionally catches himself mousing toward the wrong side of a window. Time will tell whether this was a smart long-term move for Ubuntu.

There's also a new purple/dark gray theme that's seen the usual "It's elegant"/"It's awful" debate around the net. I haven't used the beta enough to render a real verdict, but it was definitely time to try something new.

As predicted, Ubuntu 10.04 will have a built-in music store that ties together with the free 2 GB of Ubuntu One cloud storage given to each user. Ubuntu One's music store is built into the Rhythmbox music player, and once you try to access it, Ubuntu will install the proper MP3 codecs so you can, you know, play MP3s. Alas, I didn't get very far with my own installation, but it does look like a nice alternative to buying songs manually through Amazon and processing them through Rhythmbox.

Ubuntu One itself is integrated into the operating system, and logs in automatically when you sign into your account, after first setting up your credentials. The Ubuntu One folder that automatically syncs whatever you drop in it, just like Dropbox, is stashed in your home folder; why the left-hand location links don't include Ubuntu One by default, I don't know. From your user panel (detailed further down), you can set preferences for how much bandwidth Ubuntu One can use, and control which computers your Ubuntu One account syncs to.

Ubuntu is moving, with each release, toward a more social, net-connected experience built more tightly into the operating system. Clicking on your user name icon in the upper-right corner brings down a user panel that can set your chat status through the Empathy chat client, which connects to Google Talk, AIM, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, and many other protocols. You can also set up "Broadcast" preferences to send out messages through Twitter, Facebook, and other short messaging/social network services. And Ubuntu One preferences are controlled through this panel as well.

I've called Simple Scan a big step forward for Ubuntu, as it takes something that previously involved four windows and hundreds of micro-controls and pared it down to what most people need: a "Scan" button, a rotate-and-crop tool, and a choice of just a few DPI resolution levels. Simple Scan is a default application in Ubuntu 10.04, along with the PiTiVi video editor, which I haven't had a chance to try out in much depth (I've found OpenShot to be remarkably usable of late).

There's a quick tour through what's new and changed in Ubuntu 10.04, but it's certainly not everything. Ubuntu 10.04 Beta 1 is a free download that can be used as a live CD or installation disc on most hardware.

If you give Ubuntu 10.04 a go as a live CD, virtual machine, or on your hard drive, tell us what's new and exciting, and what's just goofy, in the comments. If you're an Ubuntu user who doesn't want the fuss of setting up a test run, consider using TestDrive for a super-simple VirtualBox try-out.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS [Ubuntu]

Supporting Earth Hour Day 2010

Power cuts are pretty common in this part of the world especially during summers so most days are like an Earth Hour Day for a lot of people here. However, for the rest of us, power cuts don’t really affect work as we are lucky enough to have alternate arrangements in the form of battery inverters and diesel generators.

If you are in the latter category of lucky people, and I am sure you do, please support the Earth Hour day on March 27, 2010 (next week, Saturday).

All you have to do is switch off all the lights at your place for one hour starting 8:30 pm (your local time). That’s it!

Earth Hour 2010 is a WWF initiative and is expected to be the largest climate event in history – let’s make this one a huge success and you’ll feel good about it for sure.

Earth Hour Video

Supporting Earth Hour Day 2010

Build a Cooling Pad for your Laptop

Eeshan Chatterjee was looking for a cooling pad to prevent his laptop from overheating. Being a student, he didn’t have the budget for a readymade cooling pad so he decided to create one on his own using some cardboard pieces and a USB fan.

Eeshan inserted thermocol pieces at the edges to adjust the height of the cardboard according to the fan. Now the continuous circulation of air below the laptop prevents the machine from heating up.

Here are some pictures of Eeshan’s home-made laptop cooling pad.

Build a Cooling Pad for your Laptop

PayPal Problems in India Aren’t Over Yet!

PayPal has around 175,000 users in India so it naturally became a big issue when PayPal had to temporarily suspend part of their operations here due to enquiries from Indian regulators.

The issue was resolved after about a month but users in India were no longer allowed to use the PayPal service for receiving personal payments. That’s because personal money transfer via PayPal falls in the category of “inward remittances” and PayPal probably doesn’t have the license to run a remittance service in India.

That said, professionals, businesses, freelancers, and other service provides are allowed, like before, to withdraw money from PayPal to their local bank accounts as long as they can submit the right purpose code at the time of the withdrawal.

It now however appears that PayPal’s India operations are still under the scrutiny of government and if they aren’t able to satisfy the regulators, be prepared for another disruption.

Alpana Killawala, who is the Chief General Manager at the Reserve Bank of India, told Jaimon Joseph the actual reason why PayPal had to temporarily stop transactions in India:

All money flowing across Indian borders is subject to two major laws. The Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and the Payments and Settlements Act of 2007. According to those laws, organizations like PayPal should have submitted themselves to scrutiny by the RBI. They hadn’t, so they were pulled up.

The Reserve Bank of India has now sent a detailed questionnaire to PayPal that they are expected to answer by April 30, 2010. If PayPal is unable to satisfy the regulators, Alpana says, “their operations could be disrupted again.”

You may dislike PayPal for their high transaction fees or because they have their own currency exchange rates, but the fact is that they are more or less a monopoly and there aren’t too many good PayPal alternatives in India yet.

I just hope this tussle between the RBI and PayPal get resolved soon and that the government makes it easy for other online payment services to enter and operate in India so that we have more choices.