My GNU/Linux journey, part 1: Introduction

Hello and welcome back to my humble blog!

It has been a while (more like years, almost 3!), but here we are. This blog has been through a lot, mostly through so many comebacks and then hiatuses, again and again, but I always end up coming back and having new plans for it.

However, this time is, hopefully, different. The reason being me switching completely to FOSS (Free* and Open Source Software), ideologically and practically, where applicable.

Even though I have been a GNU/Linux user since 2010, starting with Ubuntu 10.04 (I am old ^^”), I have never really understood what GNU/Linux is, why it exists and what it stands for. That is, until a little over a year ago, when I stumbled on one of my all time favorite content creators and GNU/Linux youtuber, DistroTube.

The goal of this mini series, which I have been planning to write for a while now, is to share my journey of leaving propriatry programs/mindset and fully becoming a GNU/Linux user and a FOSS advocate. By sharing it, I hope to spread the message and meaning of FOSS in general and help those who want to, potentially, switch to GNU/Linux from Windows or Mac. I would also like to share what I’ve learned so far, everything from new GNU/Linux lingo, to programming, to using the actual OS and even to the somewhat nerdy advanced stuff. I have a lot to share! :D.

This will be all for now, I want this to be short and sweet, because what’s coming is very interesting and long for sure.

For all my lovely followers, for years now, thank you for your constant support, and I hope you also check this out, even if you’re not a techie kind of person, you might find something for you in here.

As always, questions and suggestions are always welcome and much appreciated! ^_^

Until the next part,

*Free as in freedom or libre not the cost ‘gratis’, because a FOSS project might be either gratis or paid, the importance is not in the price. More on this in the next part.

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I did it!!!

Oh yeah, who’s the geek??? I am!!!

I had to use 3 different programs, solve 7 occurring issues, spend 3 and a half hours staring at the screen and kill my old Nokia 5800 about 15 times for me to be able to unlock it (I accidently activated the SIM lock option under settings, forgot the pass code and it wouldn’t reset to factory setting >_<) and be able to give it to my brother and get my SIM card back!!!

Oh, dear God, thank you!

More detailed article coming sometime today or tomorrow, and yes, it can be easy but it also can be as hard as it was for me, especially when you’re running Windows 8, using advanced programs to unlock it or flash it and your phone won’t cooperate with you. Things can get very tricky.

But I did it!!!  

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a celebration to do .

Randa

What has been going on lately (Senior year mainly)…

I don’t even know how I’m supposed to start this blog post.

I must start, though, by apologizing to all of you guys for not blogging nor updating my blog here. I’ve been planning on doing so for the past months, once my senior year ended, but I guess now I’m stuck in a circle and it would never end…

Anyways, if you want to know the details, click on the more link below, if you don’t, well, still, thank you for reading this far. In the next many paragraphs I’m going to go through everything that’s happened and what’s going to happen according to the previous events, of course mainly in my personal/educational life. But there will be tech related stuff too .

Grooveshark: Music Streaming Wherever You Go!

Music streaming services are the most popular services of nowadays to listen to our longtime favorite songs or the new hits of the week.

There are a lot of services, from Rdio to Mog to Spotify to Grooveshark which I’ll be reviewing in this article. Since all the above services are restricted to certain areas and Grooveshark has been available worldwide, I’ve had the great opportunity to try it for over a year now and experience what music streaming is really like.

Grooveshark lets people upload their own music on their (Grooveshark’s) servers so they, along with other users, can listen to it via the web, their mobile phones or using the desktop app. It’s available for free but for the ad-free web app, the desktop app, Last.fm scrobbling and the mobile app along with the offline mode you have to either be a Grooveshark Anywhere member or a plus subscriber to remove only the ads and be able to use the premium theme .

To not wright a long blog post explaining Grooveshark from A to Z, I decided to do a video review (now that I fixed my 5 months microphone issue ) which I haven’t done for so long. However, I’m warning you, this video is so long, I apologize for that, but it’s only because I explained it very well!!!

P.S: I missed a thing , visualizations, video mode and power hour, but you can get to them thru clicking on songs above the queue. They’ll let you show a visualization while the song is playing and you can choose from 5 different ones and you can also make full screen . Video mode will show you a bunch of videos that match the current song you’re playing so you can watch its video.

Power Hour “A power hour is an American Collegiate tradition that involves a lot of adult beverages. Power Hour Mode accommodates people who’d like to participate in Power Hours by playing every song in your playlist or queue for 60s or 1 minute, creating a convenient signal for “It’s Time To Drink!”

So this is pretty much it. I would love to review the app on my phone but I don’t have a camera to record it nor an app to actually film what’s going on on my screen, I found someone who did that but I never found the app, so If you happen to know one, please share it with us, I have a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic .

If I missed anything, you have a feedback or you just want to tell me to stop saying “mmm…, well…” (I’m still trying, I swear! lol) you’re welcome .

The Review:

The Desktop Application:

The Mobile App:

 

Thank you for watching!

See you soon,

Randa

3 apps I can’t live without

There are many apps that I can’t have a mobile phone without having them installed on it, but since the Ovi Blog Article asked to choose only 3 of them, I can only pick 3 :).

So, I’m going to start with my portal to the internet:

Opera Mobile:

Opera Mobile screenshots VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

A great web browser, the reason why I love, even when I use the built in browser of my phone a lot, is because It has multiple tabs, I love tabs and I love it because it gives me that option. I recommend this app if you’re an internet addict :D.

My music crush:

Grooveshark:

Grooveshark screenshots VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Well, I LOVE IT!!! I wasn’t able to know how awesome it is to have streaming to your phone through the internet and still have the choice to make it offline until I got Grooveshark Everywhere. Grooveshark is a streaming service which you can use on both the web, for free, and on a mobile device as well as using it through a desktop app when paying a small fee. Unfortunately, in my dear country >_< we can’t pay for other services so I didn’t know how great it was until I got a free month of Grooveshark Everywhere. The Grooveshark app let’s you enjoy all the sweetness that you enjoy on the web in addition to the offline ability. This app is always running on my phone even if I have to close every other app ❤ (A special review of the service and the app is coming this week ;)). You can add me and see my songs here.

My photo world:

Molome:

		Molome screenshots VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Although I’m kind of new to this app, I’m so loving it. It’s similar to Instagram for the iPhone but it’s for Symbian^1 and ^3 I believe :).

It has cool effects that you can use and you can share your photos with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. It’s still pretty buggy, and I mean really buggy but hey! It works sometimes! =) You can find me here or search for ranousha ^_^.

So these are my top 3 favorite apps, I still have others but mainly, these are the essentials.

Good luck to everyone in the competition and keep watching for this week’s review :D.

Randa