Daniel Brierton

Jolicloud Alpha First Impressions

While I was on holidays I received an email telling me I’ve been Joliclouded! I opened the email with great excitement since I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. After trying different operating systems for my Aspire One, including Moblin v2 Alpha, which I reviewed, Ubuntu Netbook Remix and Xubuntu, as well as the default Linpus Linux Lite, I haven’t found the right netbook OS for me, but Jolicloud seemed like the OS I was waiting for. I was wrong.

In a nutshell, this isn’t really a new OS, it’s just Ubuntu with a blue theme and a Jolicloud program, which quite frankly seemed like nothing but a pretty program installer. I was greatly disappointed… This wasn’t the wonder OS I was expecting. I was expecting to have all my social networks integrated into my desktop, one universal place to keep up with friends on Twitter, Facebook and others. But no, the only social network was the Jolicloud one, which is useless, coz then friends without Jolicloud can’t participate. I also expected to be able to launch my applications from the Jolicloud interface, but that was a no go.

Not all was bad though, the Prism based web apps work well, and Jolicloud adds nice high-res icons for each application, so your not stuck with tiny favicons, and the overall look of everything is nice. Boot time was quick. I can’t quite tell if it was quicker than Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04 (UNR), but I think it was. The launcher interface from UNR has been tweaked to a solid black, with white borders, and seems to run faster. And My Jolicloud is a Prism app itself, and is quick enough to respond, although freezes up for a second here and there, as Firefox does on a netbook.

Overall, I think Jolicloud is not the OS I’ve been waiting for. Perhaps Moblin will turn out as I want it, or failing that Android will be properly adapted to netbooks. I might track down a build of Android for Atom netbooks (if there is actually any out there), and give it a go soon.

July 1, 2009 — Posted in: Reviews — Tags: jolicloud, Linux, netbook, OS, Ubuntu
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Lifestream Digest for June 30th

	Liked Stack v3 for iPhone OS 3.0 – awesome plugin for SpringBoard — 4:43pm via Digg
	Shared 70 photos. — 9:40pm via Flickr

June 30, 2009 — Posted in: Randomness —
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Lifestream Digest for June 23rd

	Shared Popple3: http://twitpic.com/7ncoy — 8:15pm via TwitPic
	Shared Japan Loot — 5:21pm via Picasa
	Shared Popple3: http://twitpic.com/83yo1 — 4:44pm via TwitPic

June 23, 2009 — Posted in: Randomness —
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Lifestream Digest for June 16th

	Shared The secret to Palm Pre dev mode lies in the Konami code — 5:17am via Google Reader
	Shared This Couch Turns Into a Snooker Table [Furniture] — 6:00pm via Google Reader
	Shared Popple3: http://twitpic.com/7gu5u — 3:14pm via TwitPic

June 16, 2009 — Posted in: Randomness —
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Lifestream Digest for June 9th

Shared 2 photos.

— 8:54pm via TwitPic

June 9, 2009 — Posted in: Randomness —
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Lifestream Digest for June 7th

	Shared ECS stuffs Atom, ION and Blu-ray into a vase for all the right reasons — 3:26pm via Google Reader
	Shared 500 Internal Server Error — 11:32pm via Delicious
	Shared Apple Gets Pwned, SF Store Is Now Advertising DVD Jon’s doubleTwist — 11:55pm via Google Reader

June 7, 2009 — Posted in: Randomness —
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My First Day With a Mac

Yesterday morning I took delivery of my shiny new MacBook. I opted for the low-end aluminium model, it was all I needed and was still an upgrade from my old laptop. The best thing was though, I got it for a mere €940 including shipping. This costs €1199 directly from Apple, so methinks I got a bargain.

As a Windows user all my life, and dabbling in Linux, I thought I’d get frustrated a lot, mainly because I have keyboard shortcuts hard-coded into my fingers. But surprisingly, it wasn’t all that bad. Yeah, I often hit Ctrl-T to open a new tab, or Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V to copy paste, but I was surprised at how quickly using Cmd instead became second nature. I knew using a Dock wouldn’t be a problem and neither would the menu bar, as I’ve used both in Linux, same goes for the Close, Minimize and Zoom buttons being on the left.

The Good

Two finger scroll works brilliantly and is much better than a scroll wheel, or using the side of a track pad.
The looks of course, both the laptop itself and the OS are beautiful.
Finder’s column view.
The fact that iTunes actually WORKS in Mac.
As I’m typing this I realise I really like this keyboard.
The menu bar and dock.
The battery.
Spotlight.
Exposé
Tweetie for Mac
The way the Adium duck(?) flaps it’s wings more than makes up for the lack of custom emotes on MSN
These speakers are pretty good and loud.
CrossOver seems to run games pretty well (although I’ve only tried Counter Strike: Source. Next I shall try Team Fortress 2.

The bad

Dragging. If you use the button, when you get to the edge it often depresses, if you use tapping, it holds on to the window/icon/whatever for a little bit after. (Is there anyway to make it let go as soon I let go?)
Tied in with above, when you get to the edge of the trackpad, it just stops and doesn’t continue like pretty much every Windows trackpad does.
The lack of sending custom emotes for Adium.
That damn @ button and ” button!
Why would I ever need to type §?
I also don’t see myself using ± very much either.
The eject button doesn’t seem to very responsive. Actually, now that I think about it, that’s probably a feature so that you don’t accidentally eject it.
Enter renames instead of opening.

Overall

I love this thing. A lot of things just work, and so fluidly. I do believe I have been converted. I’m gonna try my best to not install Windows, although I think I might need to for college, since we’ll be using Visual Studio to code C#. But if anyone has any suggestions for this, please leave a comment. And to think, I used to always dismiss Mac, and now this looks like it’s gonna be the start of a beautiful relationship.