My HTC Desire - rooted and fed a dose of CyanogenMod

As you may know if you live in the tablet/smartphone world, "rooting" a device is becoming very common.

Essentially just gaining "root" (administrator) access to your device grants you the ability to turn it from a stock vendor locked down tool to a fire breathing, do-what-you-like all purpose machine.

Chrome Web Store – Made of surprising awesome

NOTE: As I have moved my blog from elsewhere, this is simply a re-post and hence this was originally dated May 19th, 2011

Perhaps I have been living in a cave the last few months but it is only now I have truly discovered the Google Chrome Web Store. Opening up a new tab in my “Chromium” browser (yes that’s right) where I’m usually accustomed to just seeing and accessing my bookmarks (the interactive New Tab page if you like), I finally noticed the Web Store app icon! How I have missed it all this time I do not know.

It’s not like I’ve never heard of the Web Store however, but like many new “gadgety” type things these days I just didn’t take it too seriously; I assumed it was merely full of gimmicky apps I’d never bothered with.

Vapor – open source cross-platform Steam client… sort of

Ever wanted a cross-platform lightweight Steam chat client? Then Vapor may be looking the goods.

Clementine – get your old school but not old school Amarok fix!

Looking for a new music player/manager but the latest Amarok is just too bloated or “busy” for you? Then I’d highly recommend looking at Clementine.

Gnome 3 with Gnome-Shell – early days but tonnes of promise

NOTE: As I have moved my blog from elsewhere, this is simply a re-post and hence this was originally dated May 14th, 2011

So after a year or so of using KDE 4.5-4.6 on my Arch Linux install, I decided to format and do a totally clean re-installation of Arch…and then Gnome 3/Shell.

There wasn’t too much wrong with my previous install, indeed KDE was a sweet beast and surprisingly fast. I still love KDE and would recommend it wholeheartedly; especially for those who want a more conventional almost Windows like default desktop layout. Then there’s the widgets. Everyone likes widgets, right?

Nevertheless, I was intrigued to try this new beast from the Gnome guys