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Full Circle Magazine Issue 40

Ed Hewitt — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:58:48 +0000

FCM Issue 40 is now out, with a ton of great Ubuntu articles and news. My section, Ubuntu Games, is in again this month. This issue, I review Aquaria!

Download it now for Free!

Croatia Holiday!

Ed Hewitt — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 14:17:29 +0000

So, I am back from my 'hols' in Croatia! Very picturesque place, a real hidden gem of Europe. Stayed in Cavtat, with a marina which is populated with large luxury yachts and ships. Likely to be the next Puerto Banus and Saint-Tropez. I also visited the historic city of Dubronik.

The 10 posts in 10 days, failed, the scheduler did not work as intended, will need to do more research next time. While away, I have written some articles, mainly looking at Ubuntu One and Dropbox, they will appear in the next few days.

One of my better holiday snaps!

On Holiday, Ten Posts in Ten Days!

Ed Hewitt — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 10:00:49 +0000

Today, I am going on holiday to Croatia for ten days!

So you may be thinking, oh, so no new articles from Ed's awesome website

Well, you are wrong!

I will posting ten posts in ten days, from my articles in Full Circle Magazine.

Hope you enjoy these posts each day, I will update you all in 10 days time!

More Podcasts Please

Ed Hewitt — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 10:57:09 +0000

A few days ago I read an odd and unnecessary post, which seemed to be a slight attack on other Ubuntu/Linux podcast. I was thankful to see a more balanced look at this post, as well as a defence from a fellow host of the podcast I am part of. I was very quick to response to Tony's post, which in the heat of the moment, may have not come across well. I now want a post a more formal response.

It is true that Full Circle Magazine Podcast have a very similar show order to Ubuntu UK Podcast. After listening to an excellent podcast for a few years, and the show order which works well, its difficult not to use the same formula. It could be argued that UUPC copied from other podcasts, I know two other podcasts (PC Gamer, GameSpot UK) which were out before UUPC, which have the same show order. Though both podcasts share roughly the same order, our content is very different.

I see our podcast aimed towards the end user of Ubuntu. We cover only Ubuntu news, at very non-technical level, such as new end-user features. Our discussion topics are also non-technical, I think the most technical we have ever talked about is bug reporting with Alan Pope. Finally, our hosts are still slightly new to Linux, with the most experienced, Robin Catlin, with 4 years experience.

On the other hand, if you look at UUPC, very different. Their news covers Linux in general, with more technical articles. Their discussions are again more general Linux, for the hardcore users, looking at Freedom and communities. They even have section dedicated to the terminal, which I don't think Full Circle has ever discussed. The hosts are all IT professional, and all have at least 8 years experience of Linux.

Full Circle and UUPC have similar formats, but we attract and entertain different audiences. If you are new to Linux or are a non-technical user, Full Circle is more likely suited to you. More technical and long time users of Linux will likely get more out of UUPC.

Does it matter that we have so many podcasts??? Does it matter that they have similarities??? Linux is about choice and freedom to change the original code, and that also included Linux Podcasts!

Is TuxRadar going to put their two cents in???

I do hope we don't see this...

Showing Ubuntu Love

Ed Hewitt — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:50:14 +0000

After the re-branding of Ubuntu, with a new logo and font, many new products on the Ubuntu Store were added which uses the new Ubuntu look. One of these product which interested me was the Ubuntu stickers. The selection of stickers seemed perfect to brand my computers with. Below is what I decided to do with the stickers...

Three Sheets of Ubuntu Stickers.

Ubuntu Sticker on my Acer Aspire Revo!

Replaced the Windows logo on my keyboard!

Ubuntu Sticker on my Asus EEEPC 900!

Still got plenty of stickers left to use on any new computers I get. Any other ideas on what I could do with the rest of the stickers???

Full Circle Magazine Issue 39

Ed Hewitt — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 12:58:36 +0000

FCM Issue 39 is now out, with a ton of great Ubuntu articles and news. My section, Ubuntu Games, is in again this month. This issue, I interviewed Nicolay Korslund from the OpenMW project!

Download it now for Free!

The Spotify Effect

Ed Hewitt — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 13:12:36 +0000

I have been using Spotify on Linux for 24 hours now. It has reminded me how great the service is, in the past I have only used it on and off to try out. Since the release onto Ubuntu, it has made want to try it out again. The price of entry for me was £5, the basic subscription charge. Its nice to have no ads, which became annoying after every couple of songs. The subscription is still very low, as much music as you want for £5, with no limits! Though, I still had my doubts. Spotify is using DRM, your £5/10 is only paying for access, not ownership. If you stop using Spotify or Spotify go bust (reports suggest so), you have no music from your subscription. However, the ease of the service and the limitless amounts of music, in the long run it will save me alot of money, from buying individual songs at 69p or Albums at £6 on Amazon.

Fairly quickly after starting my subscription I knew Spotify was my new way to listen to music. Music removed from both of my computers, and archived onto external Hard Drives. I was going Spotify all the way!

Discovering the social feature to Spotify added another level to this service. Linking your Spotify account with your Facebook account, pulled in all your friends who use Spotify. Very quickly I was checking out songs my friends listened too, and adding the songs to my favourites. It has a nice feature to 'send' songs to each other. This started conversations with friends about music, which I have never done. I dont usually talk about music with friends, but since Spotify makes it so easy to share songs with each other, it just sort of happens.

I am loving Spotify every time I start listening and looking for music. Its nice to pay one flat fee and have as much as I want. Its likely that I will carry on paying for the unlimited service, don't like ads! I will be hunting, sharing and talking about the music on Spotify from now on!

Full Circle Magazine Podcast Episode 10

Ed Hewitt — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:24:11 +0000

Our 10th episode of Full Circle Magazine Podcast is now online! Special Guest, Editor of Full Circle, Ronnie Tucker! Ubuntu news covered, interview with Amber Graner on Ubuntu Women.

Listen Now!

Full Circle Magazine Podcast Episode 9

Ed Hewitt — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 06:07:36 +0000

Our 9th episode of Full Circle Magazine Podcast is now online! Ubuntu news covered, Linux gaming, interview with Lubuntu Lead, and opinion section; Gnome Shell vs Unity!

Listen Now!

Full Circle Magazine Issue 38

Ed Hewitt — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 12:57:36 +0000

FCM Issue 38 is now out, with a ton of great Ubuntu articles and news. My section, Ubuntu Games, is in again this month. This issue, I have reviewed Lugaru!

Download it now for Free!