Early Thoughts on Google+

I've been on Google+ for almost two weeks now, but it's just starting to get interesting. Two large influxes of new users (I suppose we should still be calling them testers, actually) over the last few days have brought many of my friends to the service. It's still a lot quieter than those other services, but it doesn't feel too soon to give a few early thoughts on Plus.

It seems to me that Google is trying to position Plus in between Facebook and Twitter, and then expand out from there. With its asymmetric relationships, Plus is more like Twitter in providing the opportunity to find interesting new people for purely online interactions. But, with circles, some of those relationships can be privileged, making it more comfortable to do the kind of oversharing common on Facebook. I think the model is meant to provide the best of both worlds, which just makes sense competitively.

Facebook is so firmly entrenched in people's real lives, which is a major challenge to a would-be competitor. Think about it: When was the last time you used a service other than Facebook to invite people to an event? So, I think the Google+ strategy includes providing Twitter-style relationships and interactions while building up the user base to the point where competition with Facebook is possible. I won't even try to predict whether it will work, but here are a few promising observations.

First, circles are cool. Some have argued that they offer little-to-nothing more than friend lists on Facebook, but I disagree. I think their presence from the start and their prominence in the sharing UI, combined with the asymmetric relationships in Plus, makes circles much more useful and powerful. Even with lists, I've never felt comfortable adding acquaintances or coworkers as Facebook friends. But I really do believe that I could use Plus as a single online home for these different types of relationships, without worrying about sharing the wrong kind of information with the wrong people.

Second, the implementation is great, and already beats Facebook in many respects. The Web UI is top-notch, and I love the integration with Picasa Web Albums (a service I haven't used in the past, but plan to now). And on mobile? From day one, Google+ for Android wipes the floor with Facebook's app. Even the mobile Web version on iPhone (the native app is apparently awaiting approval) is better than the Facebook app there.

Third, I'm hearing a lot of people expressing excitement about the opportunity to dump Facebook. Maybe it shouldn't be surprising, and it's a sentiment I definitely agree with. We hand over all kinds of personal data to this company that holds it captive and gives us reason after reason not to trust them with it. Why? Because there doesn't seem to be a viable alternative. What's interesting, though, is that I'm now hearing these anti-Facebook sentiments from people I wouldn't expect to be concerned about issues of privacy or lock-in.

A final couple of thoughts on glaring omissions from Plus. Huddles and Hangouts are interesting new features, but I really don't think they make up for what's missing. Notably, that's some facility for company/organization/brand presence (i.e. Pages on Facebook) and events. Apparently, the former is already a work in progress, but I'd argue that the latter is just as important, if not more so. As I alluded to above, I think Facebook Events connects with people's real lives more than any other feature, so it's vital for any would-be Facebook replacement. Google has the opportunity for another integration, with Google Calendar, which could be very interesting.

Even at this point, well in advance of its official launch, Google+ is an impressive offering. I'm looking forward to seeing where Google takes it next. Happy +ing!

My Favourite Android Apps

I was recently asked for a list of the Android apps I use. I figured, why not do it as a blog post? So here, for anyone who's interested, is my list of favourite Android apps, compiled after about four months of Nexus One ownership. These are the apps that assist me, inform me, delight me, and keep bringing me back, day after day.

Note that I'm using the latest version of Android (FroYo, or 2.2). Some of these apps may not run on older versions. You won't even see unsupported apps when you search in the Android Market.

Swype

Swype is an amazing replacement for the default Android virtual keyboard that makes typing easy and fast! The idea is that you can quickly swipe your finger around over the keys, and it traces the shape to guess what word you wanted. It works very well, and keeping your finger on the screen for each whole word makes it possible to type while walking or riding in a moving vehicle (as a passenger, of course). Unfortunately, it's not in the Android Market yet, but you can sign up for the beta. It will take some time before you're invited to join, so register now.

FourSquare

With FourSquare, you can share your location with friends, find out who else is wherever you are, and earn mayorships and badges in the process. Who cares about privacy, anyway? I'm going for the Super Mayor badge!

Chrome to Phone

This was a tech demo for FroYo's push messaging this year at Google IO. But, it's also a super handy little app that I use all the time. With Chrome to Phone, you can send Web pages from Chrome or Firefox on your desktop or laptop directly to your phone. Google Maps links open directly in the Maps app, and other pages are opened in the browser. Imagine this: You receive an e-mail on your desktop with the address of an event you'd like to attend. Find it on Google Maps, click a toolbar button, and the address is pushed to your phone, opening right in Maps automatically. With just two presses on your phone, you can get turn-by-turn directions in Navigation.

This should be the stuff of ads, but for some reason I can't even begin to understand, Google never even bothered to put this app in the Market. So, you'll have to download it from its Google Code site. The Chrome extension is available from the same place. You can get the Firefox extension, called Send to Phone, from the Firefox Add-ons site.

Twitter

The official Twitter app was released just a couple of months ago into an already crowded field of clients for the popular service. It distinguishes itself with its beautiful, playful UI and its widgets, which, in my opinion, are the best available by far. It doesn't have all of the advanced features that some others do, most notably multiple account support. Power users may need to look elsewhere (for them, I'd recommend Seesmic).

One caveat: I had a significant problem with the official Twitter app around the time I upgraded to FroYo, though I'm not certain whether or not the upgrade was the cause. Automatic refresh stopped working, so tweets in the app and the widget wouldn't update unless I manually hit the refresh button. That was a major pain, and the lack of response from Twitter on the issue was disappointing. In the end, just clearing data for the app (in Settings > Applications > Manage applications) resolved the problem.

Shazam

Shazam identifies the music you hear. Just hold up your phone and it records a snippet, analyzes it, and it tells you what song it is. Seriously, how cool is that?

Places Directory

Places Directory lists nearby places in categories like Restaurants, Bars, Shopping, Movie Theaters, and Hotels. See photos, reviews (from multiple sources), and location/contact information. There are certainly other popular apps of this sort out there (notably Yelp), but I prefer Places Directory for its clean UI and its slick integration (Dial, Map, Share, and Add to Contacts).

3G Watchdog and APNdroid

If you have a limited data plan, 3G Watchdog will help you to avoid going over your quota. It can even use APNdroid to automatically shut data off when you've used too much. I said a whole lot more about these apps previously.

My Tracks

My Tracks uses GPS to record your hiking, cycling, running, and climbing trips. It plots your tracks and reports stats including time, speed, distance, and elevation. You can even share your tracks on Google My Maps and upload them to Google Spreadsheets.

Barcode Scanner

Barcode Scanner photographs and decodes barcodes and QR codes. It can automatically open links in the browser, add contacts and calendar events, and configure wi-fi settings based on the information encoded in a QR code. A great way to exchange information with the outside world.

Squeeze Commander

If you have a Logitech Squeezebox, you'll love Squeeze Commander, the best Squeezebox remote control app out there. It fully controls your Squeezebox server, plays Internet radio, and is packed with delightful surprises, like volume control via your phone's volume buttons and auto-mute, pause or volume down on incoming calls. It can even download songs from your Squeezebox server to your phone.

Note: this is a paid app, costing €2.99 and well worth every penny.

ES File Explorer

Yup, there's really a file system in your phone. You can use EStrongs File Explorer to see and manage the files on your SD card and, if you really feel the urge, in your phone's internal memory. You can also transfer files with remote systems via SMB, FTP, and Bluetooth.

Astro is another popular file manager, but I do find EStrongs' UI to be a little bit cleaner and more friendly.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a service that automatically synchronizes files across multiple computers and even lets you share folders with other users or the Web at large. The Dropbox app lets you download files from your Dropbox to your phone and upload files to be synchronized across your computers.

Movies

Movies provides listings, trailers and Rotten Tomatoes ratings, all courtesy of Flixster. Never wonder what to see again.

Google Earth

Google Earth lets you explore the globe in 3D, right on your phone. Just wow.

NewsRob

NewsRob is an RSS/Atom feed reader that syncs with Google Reader. Perfect for keeping up with your daily reading while on the go. It offers really nice synchronization features, including the option to only sync while on wi-fi.

TripIt

TripIt allows you to easily access travel plans. You just forward your itineraries TripIt, and it creates trip plans, including flight and hotel information, maps, and weather forecasts. You can that access all that information, and other people's trips that they've shared with you, via the app.

OI Shopping List

OI Shopping List is, unsurprisingly, a simple shopping list app. It supports multiple lists, as well as quantities, prices, and tags on items. You can remove crossed out items from the view by shaking the phone, and then later pick them again to add to your next list.

AK Notepad

AK Notepad is a really simple notepad app. You can set reminders on notes, share them, and sync them with Snaptic.com.

URLy

URLy is a simple but handy URL shortening app. It supports 38 URL shortening services, including bit.ly, is.gd, and tinyurl.com, and integrates nicely for easy use from any other application.

Wikidroid

Wikidroid provides friendly formatting of Wikipedia content for your phone.

Honourable Mentions

The following five apps sound like great ideas, but in all honesty, I haven't had much opportunity to use them yet. Still, I think they're worth mentioning.

Google Sky Map

Google Sky Map is an augmented reality app that displays the planets, stars, and constellations as you point your phone around the night sky.

Carrr Matey

Carrr Matey is a parking app that helps you keep track of where you've parked and, optionally, how much time is left on the meter. It seems like a good idea, especially for really big lots.

Open Spot

Open Spot is another parking-related app, but to help you find parking spots in the first place. As you leave a spot, you use the app to report it (you can also report spots that you just happen to notice are empty). Then, when you need a spot, you can search for open spots that others have reported.

I love the idea of Android users banding together to help each other. Who knows if it will actually work, though!

Bump

Bump lets you exchange contact information, photos, and apps with others just by bumping your phones together. This is a cross-platform app, allowing you to share with both Android and iPhone users.

Key Ring Reward Cards

Key Ring creates a digital copy of all your customer loyalty and membership cards on your phone. You can scan the barcodes from your cards, or just enter the numbers manually. When you retrieve a card, the barcode is displayed so that it can be scanned right off the screen. This seems like a nice way to lighten your wallet, but to be honest, I haven't had the guts to ask anyone to scan my phone yet.

Without question, there are huge numbers of fun and useful apps available for Android. I've listed my faves, but I'm sure there are some great ones I haven't discovered yet. Did I miss a great app? If so, please let me know!

Finally, don't forget to support Android developers. If you can afford it, I think it's a great idea to show your appreciation for apps you like by buying or donating. It's the best way to ensure a steady stream of great apps to come!

Android Data Diet (Postscript)

Last week, I blogged about how, after accidentally burning through my monthly data allowance in one day, I configured my Nexus One to use minimal data, and how I started using a couple of apps to measure and limit that usage. Yesterday was the beginning of a new billing cycle, so I was able to see the damage from my excesses and gauge how successful the ensuing diet was.

My extra data charges for this month: $5.60. Phew, not too bad!

At 5 cents/MB, that means I used 112 megs beyond my 500 meg limit. But 87.6 megs of that was on the day I exceeded my limit and the day after, before I realized what had happened. Once I put my phone on the diet, it only used 24.4 megs over 20 days (1.22 MB/day on average), costing me just $1.22.

I'd say the diet was a resounding success! I managed to keep my data usage very low while still staying relatively well connected. I was manually syncing my mail and contacts, but at least I could check them when I wanted to and look up things on the Web. I did miss having my Twitter and Facebook feeds kept up to date, though.

Now that I have a full month's data available again, I have happily re-enabled all my data-hungry settings, like auto-sync and Twitter notifications. I did leave the unfortunate Wi-Fi sleep policy disabled, and I'm continuing to use 3G Watchdog to monitor my data usage. I have increased my daily quota to 30 megs, which should give me lots of room to do whatever I want, but prevent any more runaway data use in the future.

On an unrelated Android note, Google has rolled out free turn-by-turn navigation to Canada, along with 10 other countries. This is a killer feature of Android, and it's great to have it available here. It also gives us something new to play with while we're waiting for the FroYo update.

Android Data Diet (Part 2)

Yesterday, I described how I curbed my Nexus One's appetite for tasty (but pricey) mobile data. But what's a diet without a scale? I still needed a way to monitor just how much data I was using and warn me or, better yet, stop me if I used too much.

Cue the apps.

As I mentioned yesterday, Android doesn't do this out of the box, but fortunately there are at least a couple of great, free monitoring apps available. I tried NetCounter and 3G Watchdog. I think NetCounter has a really nice UI, and it provides the ability to monitor both mobile data and Wi-Fi, but I ended up choosing 3G Watchdog for its excellent quota features.

You can use it to set a daily, weekly, or monthly quota, and then have it warn you when you exceed a given percentage of that quota. Moreover, you can have it shut the mobile data right off if you exceed another given percentage.

I have set an extremely low daily quota of 2 MB, with a warning at 50% and auto-disable at 99%. I'll keep this setting until the end of the billing cycle -- recall from yesterday that I've already exceeded my data limit for the month and am now paying for each meg I use. The idea is to try to keep below 1 meg a day (which only costs me five cents), and cut myself off at 2 megs. That should keep my extra data fees for the remainder of the month under a couple of dollars.

So far, this approach is working: With the changes to my settings that I described yesterday, I'm finding it easy to stay well below 1 meg most days, and on the couple of occasions where I have exceeded 2 megs, auto-disable has worked like a champ.

Once my monthly data usage resets, I'll re-enable auto-sync and my Facebook and Twitter updates, and I'll increase my daily quota to something like 40 MB. That should give me plenty of room to stay connected and use lots of data when I want to, but will prevent any further disastrous 450 meg days.

By default, 3G Watchdog permanently adds a notification indicating the current state of your data usage relative to your quota. I find that quite intrusive, but fortunately it has an option to disable the notification. I did, and added its attractive little widget to my home screen instead. Even that may not stick around once my data diet month is over.

You can install 3G Watchdog by scanning the following QR code with an Android device (or just by touching it if you're reading this on one):


Finally, I should point out that to use 3G Watchdog's auto-disable feature, you'll also need to install another app: APNdroid. It's a handy little app that simply disables mobile data by appending a suffix to your active APN. It also has a widget that can be placed on the home screen for easy access.

Here is the QR code for APNdroid:


Thanks to Richard Fruet and Martin Adamek, the creators of these great apps. They're life savers...or at least money savers!

Android Data Diet

A couple of months ago, I got myself a smartphone. No, not that one; something better. I got a Nexus One, Google's flagship Android phone. Though younger, Android is already significantly more capable than iPhone OS. It's also open source, Linux-based, and uses Java as its primary development language. Throw in the top-notch development tools based on Eclipse, and it was a total no-brainer for me.

Oh, and did I mention it's dead sexy?

I actually got my Nexus One while I was in California for EclipseCon at the end of March. Google sells the phone directly online (though they recently announced they're ending that experiment and pursuing more traditional sales channels), but I saved myself the costs of international shipping and customs duties by having it delivered to my hotel in Santa Clara and bringing it back with me after seven days in the US.

Since then, I've been absolutely delighted with it, but for one most unfortunate incident: A couple of weeks ago, my phone allegedly decided to eat through my entire month's data allowance in one day. My Telus bill shows over 450 megs of data on one Sunday, and I have no idea how that could have happened. Telus was, of course, completely unhelpful, refusing to share any information about which specific hosts or domains my phone was supposed to have accessed. That information could have helped me determine if and how that kind of data usage actually occurred, but Telus wouldn't even confirm whether or not they actually keep such information (even though Canadian privacy law requires them to, on request, inform an individual of the existence of all personal information and give him or her access to that information). Unfortunately, Android doesn't report data usage out of the box, and I hadn't even thought of installing an app to do that.

So, it's impossible for me to go back and find out what happened that fateful day, but it was immediately clear that I couldn't let it happen again. I was only about a week into my monthly billing cycle and was suddenly being charged 5 cents per megabyte of data. So, the first priority was to severely restrict my data use for the rest of the month. Beyond that, I'll need to put in place a strategy to prevent me from getting into this situation again.

The first thing I discovered was alarming, and it's my only real complaint about Android so far: by default, Android is configured to put Wi-Fi to sleep whenever the phone's screen shuts off, in order to save battery. So, while the phone is sitting at home, unused, it falls back to mobile data, instead. But just because the screen is off, that doesn't mean the phone's not doing anything. I had it configured to automatically sync my Gmail, calendar, and contacts, and to constantly refresh my Facebook and Twitter feeds. Though I wouldn't ever expect this kind of activity to result in 450 megs of traffic in a day, megabytes or even tens of megabytes are certainly quite possible.

So, the first thing to do was to disable this Wi-Fi sleeping behaviour, but for some reason, the setting is very well hidden. From the home screen, you'll need to navigate to Settings > Wireless & networks > Wi-Fi settings to find it. Then, you'll need to hit the menu button, and finally select Advanced. Only then can you switch the Wi-Fi sleep policy to Never. I would highly recommend every Android user do this, as unintentional data use can cost you money. I haven't experienced any noticeable effect on battery life, either: I'm still easily able to get through a day on a single charge. I really think Google selected a poor default, and I've told them as much in this bug. Hopefully, it will be remedied in the future.

Since I'm not always in a location where Wi-Fi is available, my next step was to try to disable all background data usage. All account synchronization can be turned off in one place, which is most convenient: Settings > Accounts & Sync > Background data. Once this is done, you'll need to synchronize manually, such as by selecting the Refresh menu item in the Gmail app. Also, this setting must be re-enabled temporarily in order to use the Android Market. I currently do both of these things only when I'm on Wi-Fi.

Finally, I went through all of my apps and looked for any settings related to background data use or notifications. For example, Seesmic has a notifications feature that relies on polling the Twitter server to update the feed. I disabled all such features, and now my data use has slowed to a trickle.

Still, there was something missing: I needed a way to track my data and be notified if it gets too high. Fortunately, there are at least a couple of great, free apps for data usage monitoring available on the Android Market. I'll talk about those tomorrow...

Squeezebox Server

I just upgraded from SqueezeCenter 7.3.3 to Squeezebox Server 7.4.1. I bought my Squeezebox in early 2006, and this is the second major update to the cross-platform, GPL'ed server software since then. Both times, the capabilities of the Squeezebox were expanded, and the experience of using it improved. Now that's what I call value!

This isn't as big an update as the switch from SlimServer to SqueezeCenter, which overhauled the browser-based UI and added the ability to synchronize playback across multiple players. Indeed, at first glance, it appeared to me that not much had changed in Squeezebox Server.

However, looking a bit closer, there are a few really nice improvements. The most prominent new feature is the introduction of applications (everyone's got to have apps, right?). For example, there's a CBC app that helps you easily find their radio streams and podcasts, and a Facebook app that lets you browse your news feed and post updates about what you're listening to (check my profile to see what I'm listening to as I write this!).

Also impressive is a major improvement to Internet radio support. The listing and organization of stations is great. You can see a very complete listing of local stations (66 for Toronto, all classified and with icons) with just a couple of clicks of the mouse or remote control, and easily browse or search thousands of stations from all around the world. One more click adds the station to your favourites, for easy access from the main menu.

Big kudos to the Squeezebox team and to Logitech. I never would have expected such great things when Logitech bought Slim Devices in 2006. It's all enough to make me pine for one of their newer devices.

More Cool Stuff From Google

Yesterday at work, I heard about Google Web Toolkit (GWT) for the first time. I read their docs and played with a couple of the samples last night, and I'm quite convinced it's really cool stuff!

Basically, it's a framework for AJAX development. It includes a DOM/HTML-based widget toolkit and facilities for localization and asynchronous RPC over HTTP. You use these to write and debug your client in Java, and then use their tools to convert it into JavaScript, which can be added to host HTML and served up from any old Web server. The server side of your application runs as Java bytecode, with the RPC mechanism providing seamless object-based communication between the two.

Not surprisingly, my original motivation for looking at this technology was to try to integrate it with everyone's favourite modeling technology to provide instant browser-based model editor UIs. I'm not sure it's terribly well suited to this task, since with AJAX, you're typically trying to put as much into the client side as possible. The client side is ultimately JavaScript, so of course the EMF runtime isn't available there. So, it seems that some significant glue would be needed to get data across. Also, GWT lacks an equivalent to JFace viewers, so demand-populating a widget like a tree might be more difficult, too.

Anyhow, I think it might be more fun to use this stuff to try to develop some sort of practical Web application, rather than the kind of generic framework stuff that I do all day at work.

Hmm...I just need a good idea...

WiFi for All!

According to The Star, Toronto Hydro is planning to roll out city-wide WiFi coverage, starting as soon as this Fall.

Bring it on! Bell et al. have totally missed the boat with their awful Hotspots at Starbucks and the like. Seriously, $7 per hour to use the Internet? What is this, 1995?

Yay for big government! Make it cheap, and drive those bums at Bell and Rogers out of business!

Ubuntu - Humanity to Others

So, I warned you that you'd have to deal with the odd geek-oriented post from time to time, didn't I? Well, it's time.

As I briefly mentioned in a previous post, my desktop PC died right before my trip to New York. There was a bad storm, the power briefly cut out, causing the machine to reboot, and it never came back up after that. Basically, it would just hang at different points during the boot. Rather than spend ages picking through that 6-year-old kludge clone, trying to determine which parts were fried, I decided to just cut my losses and move on.

So, I grabbed Mythy (my MythTV-based homebrew PVR), deciding that it would make a nice, new(er) desktop. This leaves me without a PVR or DVD player for now, but that can be remedied in the future. I bought a new, bigger hard drive, and set about installing an operating system.

Of course, that operating system would be a GNU/Linux distribution. I've been using Debian for over 5 years now (and other distributions for at least a couple before that), and I have grown utterly accustomed to understanding how the system works, to running for months without rebooting, and to having every kind of application I could ever want at my fingertips, for free.

But lately, I've been hearing so much about Ubuntu that I decided I'd give it a try this time. Ubuntu is a Debian-derived distribution that's meant to be more user-friendly. Not that it's the first, mind you. Other Debian-based distributions, like Xandros, Linspire, and Mepis, have tried to fill this niche, but they've never been hugely popular. In my opinion, their focus hasn't been correct. They've been too concerned with prettifying the desktop and supplying do-it-all configuration tools, and, in the process, have sacrificed the distributed cohesion that is embodied in Debian's elegant architecture.

I've believed, for quite some time now, that Debian would most benefit from having someone smooth over it's long release cycle, and that's exactly what Ubuntu does: every six months, it provides a stable release containing a subset of packages from Debian Unstable that have been frozen and tested. Some new software has been added to Ubuntu before making it into Debian, like the X.Org implementation of the X Window System. As the system has matured, there has been increasing divergence from Debian, which has been the subject of much controversy and of some efforts to address the issue. Hopefully, the two projects' developers will be able to keep the differences to a minimum. That would surely benefit all.

So, the big question: how is it?

Wonderful.

The install is slick, simple, and complete. It autodetects hardware, it suggests a partitioning scheme (and provides remarkable control if you want to tweak it yourself, even handling LVM configurations), it asks a minimum of questions, and it's fast. There's no flashy GUI, as Debian-Installer is used to provide all this nice functionality, with a simple, character-mode interface. I strongly believe that just the video mode has no effect on the ease or difficulty of an installation. It's the information presented and the questions asked that make a difference.

Ubuntu installs a much larger base set of packages than Debian, in order to provide a complete desktop out of the box. However, for security's sake, it doesn't install any servers. The desktop is a slick, well configured GNOME 2.10 (KDE fans would probably prefer Kubuntu).

For the most part, things just work, with no additional effort. My sound card, a Sound Blaster Audigy2, was detected and ALSA was configured appropriately. I was briefly stymied by the fact that it defaulted to optical output, leaving my little old analog speakers silent. A bit of Googling led me to look through the mixer settings until I found the right switch.

On plugging in my camera for the first time, it was automatically mounted, with an icon appearing on my desktop for it, and a dialog popped up asking if I wanted to import the photos into my photo album.

Unfortunately, there was a problem with the initial graphics configuration. It rightly detected that I have an NVIDIA graphics adapter, and so it configured X to use the open source nv driver. That failed to give me a resolution above 640x480, which isn't so much fun. Had it simply opted for the vesa driver, things would have worked fine. Fortunately, Ubuntu packages the proprietary nvidia driver, so properly fixing the situation was easy.

I think that these kinds of problems are inevitable when you're trying to support the huge collection of random PC hardware that's out there. Fortunately, Ubuntu's not just a pretty face. It's pretty under the hood, too: consistent and relatively easy to understand. So, when things do go wrong, it's much easier to fix than most other "user-friendly" distributions.

Ubuntu's rapidly growing user community has been contributing excellent documentation, too. The Unofficial Ubuntu Guide is simply brilliant: it helped me out with my X driver problem, and also showed me the simplest ways to install all those handy proprietary programs and plug-ins like Java 5.0, Flash, and Acrobat Reader. It even covered the often tricky issue of multimedia codecs and DVD playback.

By default, apt, the Debian package management tool, is well configured. The sources.list contains entries for local mirrors of the two supported Ubuntu repositories (Main and Restricted) and, importantly, the coresponding security repositories. A third Ubuntu repository, Universe, includes almost every package from Debian Unstable that isn't officially supported in Ubuntu, rebuilt to have all of the right dependencies for the distribution. It can be addded to the mix simply by uncommenting two clearly marked lines. I also found that it was easy to automatically build packages right out of Debian, myself.

There's one other particular quirk in Ubuntu that has received a fair amunt of attention: root login is disabled. Instead, sudo is used to allow the first user to execute commands as root, using only his own password for authentication. This approach works very well. The user doesn't have to remember a second password, and is strongly discouraged from using root unnecessarily. This compares very favourably to Linspire's Windows-like approach, in which the root account is used for everything. It's still smooth and unobtrusive, with all the GUI administrative tools that require root priviledges using gksudo to autheneticate on launch. Still, I quickly found myself missing su, as I occasionally want to run multiple commands as root, with proper command compleition. In such cases, "sudo -s -H" does the trick, and be aliased to "su".

So far, my day-to-day use has been uneventful (that's a good thing). I've been using applications like Firefox, Evolution, GAIM, Rhythmbox and GnuCash without any problems.

Ubuntu is an African word meaning "humanity to others" or "I am what I am because of who we all are." It's a beautiful sentiment and an apt name for such a community-driven free software project.