Cool applications you use that others might not know of

[cardinals_fan]

Excellent thread

My two favourite applications are the fab Flock web browser and the virtual world Second Life. (The latter is the only 'game' i have played in years and is way too addictive)

I would also highly recommend the OpenGeu meta package , I am very fond of my desktop which makes full use of this ubuntu child distro's gadgets

...plus google's prisms for my online applications and webmail

okay ...thats four
anyone recommend a basic counting package ...one, two, many

zoe

OpenGEU uses the Enlightenment WM.

Prism is made by Mozilla, not Google.

[zoe-scutterbug]

OpenGEU uses the Enlightenment WM.

yep true ... i like how using gadgets designed for this desktop I do not need a traditional taskbar/shelf/start button thingybob tied to my desktop edge ...probably similar things in gnome,kde etc

Prism is made by Mozilla, not Google.

oh, I did not know that, I was mistaken...just all the applications I have seen seem to be google based.

thanks
zoe

[bobbocanfly]

dput/dget - Cant imagine many people on here needing these but if you ever need to move around debian packages in source format (.dsc, .orig.tar.gz etc) these tools are invaluable.

Terminator - Terminal emulator that gives you the ability to have mutliple terminals in one window. Really useful and much quicker than tabs (though it does have tabbing support).

[reacocard]

Terminator - Terminal emulator that gives you the ability to have mutliple terminals in one window. Really useful and much quicker than tabs (though it does have tabbing support).

I've been wanting something like this! pity it doesn't do true transparency, but I'll live.

[cardinals_fan]

oh, I did not know that, I was mistaken...just all the applications I have seen seem to be google based.

I only use Prism for the online version of Shredder Chess.

[imjscn]

What's the difference between Prism's google and original google?

[imjscn]

I will second the vote for 'R'. I wish it has a longer name since it's tough to Google with any uniqueness but it's a humble nod to a commercial stats package, 'S', which it largely emulates (hubris would have meant calling it 'T').

It's a simple and powerful interpreted language for statistics and it's worth climbing the learning curve for anyone who uses spreadsheets to work with columnar data. If you spend a lot of time building formulas and copying them in columns adjacent to your data, it's likely that 'R' is a simpler, faster and more powerful way of doing things. Just be aware, the spreadsheet metaphor doesn't apply.

There are hundreds of add-in libraries to do just about any specialized task (sudoku generator, anyone?) , the graphics are powerful and the community support forums are active.

R is powerful, but it takes great effort to learn the language, if need a job in the banks or institutions, learning R is a better strategy. If not, Gretl is easier...it gets the job down without learning the language, but, if you prefer to do the odd coding job by yourself, surely you can do with gretl.

[imjscn]

Isn't that what bash aliases are for? With the following in my .bashrc I just need to do "extract package.tar.gz/.zip/.rar" to extract an archive:

extract () {
     if [ -f $1 ] ; then
         case $1 in
             *.tar.bz2)   tar xjf $1        ;;
             *.tar.gz)    tar xzf $1     ;;
             *.bz2)       bunzip2 $1       ;;
             *.rar)       rar x $1     ;;
             *.gz)        gunzip $1     ;;
             *.tar)       tar xf $1        ;;
             *.tbz2)      tar xjf $1      ;;
             *.tgz)       tar xzf $1       ;;
             *.zip)       unzip $1     ;;
             *.Z)         uncompress $1  ;;
             *.7z)        7z x $1    ;;
             *)           echo "'$1' cannot be extracted via extract()" ;;
         esac
     else
         echo "'$1' is not a valid file"
     fi
}

Please explain---add this code at the end of .bashrc , or...need to edit the whole .bashrc?

[urukrama]

Please explain---add this code at the end of .bashrc , or...need to edit the whole .bashrc?

You can add at the end of your bashrc. I posted my bashrc in this thread; have a look at it to get an idea of where to put it.

[zoe-scutterbug]

What's the difference between Prism's google and original google?

I use prisms set up for my gmail account and google reader, I click on my gmail prism and the prism shows my gmail account.

Its the simplest window onto the web, pointing directly to the online application you want and without any kind of tool bar, address bars, menue or any other distraction above the window.

“Prism is an application that lets users split web applications out of their browser and run them directly on their desktop,” the Mozilla Labs blog states.

"Prism is a simple XULRunner based browser that hosts web applications without the normal web browser user interface. Prism is based on a concept called Site Specific Browsers (SSB). An SSB is an application with an embedded browser designed to work exclusively with a single web application."

zoe