Technology. Without Error

The open source chromium OS on which Google Chrome OS is based on, was launched yesterday and soon many torrents were teeming with the Developer preview edition of the Chromium OS. I tried out Chromium from gdgt who had files for running them off virtualbox, (virtual machine software from Sun Microsystems) . The Chrome OS img itself was around 300 MB compressed and I had to download Virtualbox as well. Gdgt requires you to sign up before you download and you can use your facebook account to accelerate the process(Though, in my opinion they do ask for a lot more fb rights than actually required)

If you do not know what the chrome OS is all about, watch the video below:

If you have not setup a virtual machine before, try using this link here for a complete guide.

The Chromium OS login: Enter your gmail id/pw. I used a makeshift id; just in case.

The Chromium OS with a new tab open

The Menu?

These are the specs of the Virtual machine I used to run Chromium OS. And considering I loaded it on my Netbook, it took around 20 seconds to boot up. If I to install it, I’m sure time boot time would be less than 10 seconds.

Watch the Chrome OS launch:

You’re tired of windows and all its travails and decide to look around for alternative operating systems (read open source!). What flavor of Linux do you chose, if you’ve never used Linux or any other operating system other than windows? We recommend that you try Slax on your USB flash drive or a CD. That way you’ll always have your boring Windows platform to come back to, if you ever chose to (or even if you had to!!)

Before we download Slax, lets take a look at what Slax is all about. Slax is a Linux operating system  build based on slackware linux. You can read more about it at slax.org or on the wikipedia page here. Linux as you might have heard is open source and as a result of which comes in a variety of shapes and sizes such as Ubuntu, Redhat, Knoppix and a hundred others built by people like you and me around the world.

BTW, you would find a lot of links on this page considering that this post was not written for geeks alone. We tried the Slax installation on a 4GB USB drive, although it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle running it from a 1GB USB drive either. But as always, bigger is better. Slax also gives you an option to run completely from RAM (*really fast!) although you need to load it from your USB or CD in the first place.

Head to the Slax website to download the slax installation package for the USB or the CD as you may want to. The first roadblock you may face is the installation file itself. Its available either as an ISO or as TAR package. (no! no Zip files or installers!). Most software for the linux operating system itself is packaged as a TAR package. Now a TAR package isn’t too different from an average Zip file and you can extract if you have the latest version of your File extraction software (if you run into trouble extracting it into a folder, use google!) Copy the contents of the folder to the USB drive (In case of the CD image, just burn the ISO onto any CD).

Ensure the first bootable device on your BIOS is set to your USB or CD as required. Now plug in the USB/pop in the CD and reboot. Now if everything goes fine, it should bootup to load Slax. Linux boots up on the default root account. Connect your PC to the network cable and it should pick up the internet connection just as easily. If not, click on the select IP and click ok to associate the IP with the system. Load Konqueror which is the default browser for the KDE shell(which is the desktop environment for linux; similar to what the explorer means to Windows) go and search for all those software which are available ready to use as slax modules here. You just need to download and click on the files to install them, which you would find installed in your start menu.

You can find a few screenshots here. Now come the gripes, I miss using the Wifi on the HP Pavillion laptop and no matter what, slax did not recognise my wifi card. Of course I was too lazy to pick up an NDISWrapper for my Wifi card’s windows drivers. That should make any windows driver work with Linux and the same goes for Slax.

Its been a long time since I made desktop customization except for the regular change of the wallpaper that I do…So, I decided it was time to spice up my desktop and decided to go for the MacOS look…I already had the best windows look, since I had Vista. So now how do I go about making my desktop looking like MacOS? First a little basics on the Mac world for all those MS Windows lovers out there…

Macs run the OS X which succeed the Mac OS operating system, and you might be interested to know that all of Mac OSX versions have been named after the big cats family like the OSX puma, panther, Jaguar, leopard and so on…The latest in the line of the cats is the snow leopard..and here we have a screenshot which should make things a bit more clear

Now that we know how the interface looks lets work on changing the interface..The first important part of the OSX interface is the “dock” which you will find at the bottom of the screen..
So, we download that one. I found two free alternatives to the “dock” for windows, one is Objectdock from Stardock and the other is Rocketdock from Punklabs. There are other alternatives too, but these are the two I decided to try out…Stardock has been a company synonymous with the best windows skinning programs like Windowblinds, DesktopX etc..and after trying out both of the products, I decided, much to my surprise that Rocketdock worked better for me, it was simple and easier to use..but I would say that making the choice is merely a matter of random selection.

Now we have Rocketdock installed, lets load it. Add icons, right click the dock to add new icons, separators and docklets (like clocks, weather icons etc..)
I write this post primarily for windows users and so I would know how much have come to love the convenience of minimizing to the taskbar. So, right click on the dock -> dock settings -> General tab and enable the “Minimize windows to the dock” checkbox.
The second app we need to download is, Objectbar. This is for the top bar and also to ensure that you continue to have access to your tray icons and to make the transformation complete.

lets get the last bit of the interface quick now, the wallpaper. You can get the original set here.
The dock icons are usually .png icons and you can download them as per your requirement from deviantART.

And this is how my desktop looks now…

The disclaimer part
I love windows and I love the mac as well. I do not have a Mac. All copyrights, trademarks, brandnames are all properties of their corresponding owners. This is not a post for Mac purists. It is for an ordinary windows user who wants to add some spice to his desktop. It wont change your windows to make it look and feel as good as Mac. you should get a Mac if you want the experience…

Update Aug.07, 2009: Get OSX font smoothing for windows as well!

I was getting really bored so decided to visit one of the email websites which I had subscribed to long back..(really really long back)..I had signed up for the service since it was a flash enabled email interface…When I went over to the website, I realized that a lot had changed..it was like going back to the house where you spent your childhood after a long long time (ok that was too much of an exaggeration) What I meant was that the site had changed a lot for the better..It not only boasts of a flash interface but gives you a complete online desktop at your disposal..I would say this is the future of the web..Real web 2.0 (now for more on that click on the link which should take you to a lovely blog on the subject)…I have received a few forwards about how google is planning to come out with an online operating system…But till it comes around, I would like to taste the future..The website belongs to aol now and its got everything integrated into it (online storage space, email, chat, bookmarks, search and even games) In fact, the games on the website are not just there for the sake of being there…Some of them are plain outstanding…I loved the feel so much that I decided to dedicate a whole post just for the website.