Now that I know how to do this, it seems so easy and straight-forward. To change the default application files of a specific type are opened with, do the following:

1. Right-click a file that you wish to change the default application for and select Properties.
2. Click the “Open With” tab.
3. Select the desired application’s radio button.
   • Additional applications can be added if the one you want is not listed. Use the Add button to find the desired application.
   • You can also remove applications from the list by highlighting the application and clicking the Remove button.
   • Adding applications to or removing applications from this list changes which applications are available in the “Open With” option when you right-click a file.
4. Click the Close button.

Again, it seems so easy and straight-forward now. Go figure.

I recently watched the entirety of the Revolution OS documentary. While it definitely is not a video that can be enjoyed by most people, nor even most computer users, it is a very intersting watch for a number of reasons.

Visiting the documentary’s site, you quickly gain a sense of what this documentary is aimed to be: “… the inside story of the hackers who rebelled against the proprietary software model and Microsoft to create GNU/Linux and the Open Source movement.” However, that’s not what this video is about.

When I first started watching the documentary, I thought I would get this intimate insight into how people made calculated movements against the growing monopoly of Microsoft’s operating systems. In fact, this isn’t anything near what actually happened.

Microsoft and its actions were not the focus of anyone involved in getting the ball rolling on the open source movement. Richard Stallman was motivated to create the Free Software Foundation and started building GNU not because of Microsoft, but because of the actions of administrators that wanted to control access to computer systems, by hardware vendors that didn’t release the source for their drivers, and by a myriad of other things. If Bill Gates and his company, Micro-Soft (as it was called at the time), was any consideration, it was merely another straw on the camel’s back.

There are many other surprises like this in the documentary, and it is why I highly recommend those that are interested watch it and pay attention. You will gain a good beginning understanding of the foundation and history of GNU, GPL, FSF, Linus Torvalds and the Linux kernel, how the Linux kernel created the opportunity for today’s Linux distros, how the open source movement began, how the open source business model works, and much more.

The documentary may not be perfect. The creators may not have understood what they actually produced. And the material is actually quite dated by now. Just the same, it’s a very good watch, and I recommend that you check it out.

I’m not exactly a racing fan, but I have enjoyed watching races now and again. Out of all the motorsports, I find Formula Racing the most interesting. Thus, I was very interested when I saw this video.

New rules are going into effect for Formula 1 starting this year with changes that will continue through 2011. Red Bull Racing put together this video to highlight the changes that they are making to their vehicles to comply with these new regulations.

Even if you aren’t a racing fan, I suggest that you watch the video. The special effects are incredible.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IJ-tcz1bME

I’m very new to running Linux as a desktop OS, but I am by no means new to running Linux itself. I’ve managed Linux servers in a professional capacity for more than five years, so I have a healthy foundation on how to work with it, but I don’t know how to use it day in and day out as my entire computing experience. That being the case, I started to look for books that would help me out.

I primarily limited my search to Ubuntu books (in hindsight, maybe that was my issue). Off to Barnes & Noble I went in search of a great book to bring me deeper into Ubuntu.

I quite literally grabbed every book on Ubuntu that I could find (even the ones that were obviously just for beginners). I found a good place to sit, and then I started skimming. Much to my surprise, and dismay, most of the books covered very little that couldn’t be answered with a 10 second google. Questions such as “how do I change my desktop image”, “how do I install and use a printer”, “how do I connect to an FTP server”, etc were some of the more advanced topics that most of these books covered. After skimming through every book I found there, I left empty-handed.

Frankly, I didn’t know what I expected to find, but I definitely desired more depth. I suppose I want a book that transcends the standard obvious questions and gets to the meat of how using Linux as a desktop OS can provide a depth of experience that goes far beyond what other OSes can offer. For example, I’ve found out that with relatively small amounts of effort, I was able to create scripts that automatically mount remote shares as if they were local filesystems when my internet connection is available and removes them when disconnected. How about a really good guide on how to configure Samba for five standard scenarios in your home or office? What about making your Linux system a media hub that can serve a variety of content to thin clients?

I know that entire books exist for some of those topics, but most people would be overwhelmed by an entire book on Samba, wouldn’t be likely to purchase it, or wouldn’t know what Samba is without being directly told. I suppose that the beginner books do a good job of answering the questions that people know to ask. The intermediate books (that I haven’t found yet or don’t exist) should expose possibilities that most users haven’t thought possible.

Yes, I have found books that I would consider advanced, but these go farther than I care to. Most of these books involve coding customizations to distros in C. Even I’m not going to do that any time soon. So, we need a library of books that bridges the gap. This would help cement in the more technical users who dabble with Linux and may like Linux at first swing but then quickly think “so what?” since they don’t know the true potential.

In closing, I think that three categories of Linux books should exist:

• Beginner – Get the user to a usable machine and tell them the answers to their most prevalent questions
• Intermediate – Show the user the power that lay just beneath the surface that can be used to improve productivity in ways not thought of before
• Advanced – Want to create a custom kernel? Build your own distro? Of course you do, keep reading

Back to my comment about maybe my problem is that I’m limiting my search to books specifically for Ubuntu, I think that I may have been limiting myself but could have also exposed a problem here. If Ubuntu is geared toward making it easy for people using other OSes to migrate over to Linux, why limit the amount of intermediate level books?

Imagine a person named Craig. Craig has worked as a developer for years and has always used Windows. He heard about Linux and Ubuntu in particular, so he decides to try it out. He thinks it’s a great OS but doesn’t understand what is so special about it. The Compiz thing is neat, but he wants a productivity boost. So, he goes to Barnes and Noble, picks up some books, and starts looking through them. He sees neat tidbits but nothing is compelling enough to make his go, “Wow!” So, in the end, he decides to go back to Windows since he already knows it and more or less does the same thing as far as he can tell.

Maybe if there were some books that helped expose Craig to the potential, he would have stuck to Linux and maybe even been a community-minded individual who helps the development of a distro or software for Linux. Of course this is all hypothetical, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other people out there like me who wonder were all the published material about the true power of Linux is.

I started writing this a few days ago. Since then, I realized that I had yet to look online to see what other books were available there rather than just in stores. So I looked around Amazon and ordered two books that look promising: Ubuntu Kung Fu and Ubuntu Linux Toolbox. Hopefully these books offer more than what I found while browsing around Barnes and Noble. I’ll review each book as I get a chance to go through them.

If you have any book suggestions, please leave a comment.

As for the picture, yes, I know those are not Ubuntu books. I did the best I could with what I had, which is no Ubuntu books.

I’ve always been a big fan of AMVs. Years ago, I would find and archive my favorites and then show them to my buddies when we’d hang out at IHOP. It was always a great way to start conversations about music and anime. Over the years, my focus on AMVs has waned. Fortunately, that has now changed.

Lately, we’ve been having groups of friends over to the house frequently, and queuing up some AMV Hell on the HTPC is a great way to keep everyone entertained and talking. This has broken my fast and got me back into digging around for some great AMVs, and great AMVs are what I found. I had never Nostromo is my new-found favorite AMV creator. Checking out his deviantART page, I found that he’s from Paris, has a pretty sweet computer setup, creates some cool images, and is a fellow fan of The Big Bang Theory. Also, considering how he is younger than me by a few years and has created some awesome AMVs, I am incredibly jealous (even though I have no knack for creating AMVs and probably never will create one myself).

Nostromo, to you I tip my hat. You have some amazing work that not only has me hooked on AMVs again, but you also have me purchasing music because I enjoy your music selections so much. Thanks for introducing me to Watch Them Fall Down by DJ Spoke and Lifelight by Andy Hunter.

I’d have to say that two of his AMVs stick out as definite favorites of mine. I’ve included vids of them here so you can check them out.

Galaxy Bounce by Nostromo

Auriga by Nostromo

The Youtube vids don’t do adequate justice to the quality in his vids nor to the audio (even though I embedded the high-quality versions). You can find the full-quality versions of the videos on Anime Music Videos.org at the following links: Auriga and Galaxy Bounce.

If you haven’t been bitten by the AMV bug yet, what are you waiting for? Browse around the Anime Music Videos.org site.  You can search by song and by anime so you can find something that you are sure to enjoy quickly. After digging around for a while, start looking at random videos, you never know when you will find something that makes you want to watch an anime that you’ve never seen before or when you’ll discover an artist that you’ver never heard before.

Another great way to jump into AMVs is to watch the AMV Hell videos. Make sure you pay attention to the warnings as some of them have explicit content. AMV Hell 2 and 3 are definitely my favorites. They are huge movie-length videos that are composed of dozens of songs.

In closing, I leave with a short AMV that I enjoy that features scenes from Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. The video is called Project Xanthium by Niotex and features You’ll be Under My Wheels by Prodigy

I found this gem right before going to bed, and I’m so glad that I stayed up to check it out. It’s a series of three short musical-style episodes about a mad scientist with aspirations for villainy who longs after a woman at the laundromat.

Joss Whedon, yes the same Joss Whedon who brought us shows like Firefly and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, cooked up a crazy idea to break outside of the standard mold of show making. The idea came up during the Writers’ Guild of America strike that effectively paralized Hollywood for half a year. Joss wanted to test how successful a show could be outside the grips of production studios and networks; Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog was the result.

By pooling all of his connections, Joss Whedon put together this series of three shorts on a very limited budget but with great results. Some very famous and recognizable faces make up the cast. You may recognize Neil Patrick Harris from How I Met Your Mother, Nathan Fillion from Firefly, Felicia Day from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Simon Helberg from The Big Bang Theory. The combination of these easily recognizable faces with witty lines and silly songs makes for great entertainment.

I hope that Joss Whedon, the actors, and the talented crew that helped with development and production are all handsomely rewarded for their efforts.

For more information about Joss Whedon’s idea and the plan for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, check out the plan page.

This song is going to be stuck in my head for weeks.

I love computers, I love fishies, I love WordPress

I love the whole world, and all of its wonders

I love thunder storms, I love friends and smiles, I love silliness

I love the whole world, it’s my favorite place

I love ones and zeros, I love peanut butter, I love ceiling fans

I love the whole world, and all the human race

Boom de ah da, Boom de ah da, Boom de ah da, Boom de ah da