The war against curly braces

Coding guidelines, there are numerous of them. Everyone prefers a different coding style. After all, it comes down to personal preference, right? One of such practices is the omission of curly braces. It's everywhere, even SASS has a syntax which doesn't have curly braces!

Gnome 2 and Gnome 3, Now and Then

Gnome 2, probably a much loved desktop till the date. It is both friendly and customizable. In the past I had posted a post Do We Really Need Gnome 2 Forks? I then emphasized on making the Fallback mode more usable to use like Gnome 2. But conditions are different now. Fallback mode will be no longer maintained, as in Fedora 17, Gnome Shell won't require 3D acceleration to work, and there will be no use for fallback mode.

Fedora Utils just got easier

I initially created Fedora Utils so that I could save the hassle of configuring Fedora manually each time I install. From a simple terminal script, it got a new life with a GUI using zenity. Then, I got to know about other options like Auto Plus and easyLife. They made it easier for me to include many of the functionality they had to include in Fedora Utils. Probably Fedora Utils wouldn't have been born if I had found them earlier, and I'm happy I didn't. Eventually, Fedora Utils got new and new features. Finally it has a lots of options now, a lot more than Auto Plus and easyLife have. But one thing Fedora Utils was still lacking.

Test Hub to Test HTML on the Go

After struggling with eclipse for overnight, I have made an android app named Test Hub. The app is pretty simple. You can practice or test HTML tags with it. It uses your phone's Webkit engine and result is displayed as you type.

Do we really need Gnome 2 Forks?

I came across an article on +OMG! Ubuntu! about a new Gnome2 fork, called Mate. In the past, we also have seen another attempt called the Blue Bubble project, which was also an attempt to keep Gnome 2 alive. The point is, do we really need such a totally unnecessary wastage of time and resource to keep the old (Which will obsolete soon) software alive? No I'm not just a Gnome Shell fan. Yes, I like Gnome Shell, but agree on that it is not quite feature complete. But I just don't see any point in maintaining the old packages, when other active projects exist, having similar goals, and need developers.

Thoughts about Gnome Shell, Unity and Elementary

All the new interfaces popping out there, trying to be touchscreeen friendly and provide a whole new experience, have one thing in common; they are hated by most. Unity, which i believe is hated by most ubuntu users despite of bringing many new features and ideas. Reasons might be different for different prople. For me, it is canonical’s decision to force users with the totally new interface, ditching the notification area and the big bulky and immovable dock in the right. While its space saving features can be useful for smaller resolutions, it doesn’t look good to me on high resolution desktops and laptops.

Fun TV - Live TV on your Smartphone

When I bought my first smartphone, many of my friends asked me, "Can you play Live TV?". But I was unaware of the links for different channels and could not find a right app. But finally, I've made an app myself.

Fun TV is an app which lets you stream TV Channels directly through the built in video player or any other player that supports live streaming. Adobe Flash is absolutely not required.

Problem Accessing Blog

In the past 2-3 days, I saw our blog having extremely low no. of visits. I was surprised, but didn't know why till today. I posted some articles today and noticed that the tweetmeme button was not functional and showing some error. Then when I tried to check my blog in another browser, it asked me to login. Then when I checked the blog settings, I found that it was accidentally made restricted to few people. I guess that was the problem. But now I fixed it and I wish you are reading this post.

Blog Updates

After lots of work, I've made many changes to our blog template for better usability and faster loading time. Those include,

• Print stylesheet
• Improved mobile version
• More accurate related posts
• Redesigned searchbox with autocomplete
• New All posts page and dynamic view
• New contact us page and dynamic view
• Facebook like buttons and Tweet buttons in blog posts
• Follow button below blog authors widget
• Blog header and footer now use only CSS and no images
• Many other template optimization for faster loading
• Enhanced look - link transition effect, image lazyload
• Improvements to android app

Hope you like these changes.

Backup your phone data

Mobile phones have become a part of our life. We always have a lot of important informations stored in our phone. There are also messages of our loved ones and important contacts numbers. While it is not hard to backup the data in the phone memory, I recommend not to store anything in the phone memory. This will slow down your phone and you always have fear of losing the data. You can easily backup the data on memory card on another memory card, PC or USB stick. So the main concern is about the Contacts, Notes, and Calendar entries etc. Today we will take a look at backing up our important data so that we can easily restore them in case of data loss. The data loss can be accidental, or due to firmware upgrade or flashing.

New Print Stylesheet in Funsurf

I've made a little enhancement to the blog template. It now includes a print stylesheet. This means if you want to print any article from our blog, you can print just the content that matters to you, without any extra clutter. I've also added a print button below the headings.

Paintings or Real?

If you think taking a photograph was a piece of cake, then try painting one. This is a great post I came across. Read and you won't believe your eyes.

Via weburbanist

My Android Phone

It has been quite some days since I bought a new phone. While my first android smartphone, the shiney Xperia X10 Mini doesn't have a large display or fancy features as others, it is quite stylish and I came just in my budget.

Our Android App was Updated

Well, I admit I don't post as much content as others in my blog. But I certainly post what I think is useful. So that is not the matter here. I had recently published our new app. But it was just the mobile version of the blog packed in a standalone app. It had nothing more extras than an option to share the posts.

Powered by Linux

I found a very interesting post about Linux and want to share it with you.

I've only revealed the tip of the Linux iceberg, but if there is any doubt Linux is everywhere, consider its latest foray into TV game shows, no less. Watson, the supercomputer and contestant on a specially staged three-day "Jeopardy" event handily defeated two of "Jeopardy's" greatest champions. Yes, Watson is Linux.

Rest here.

The post explains where and how we use Linux in our daily life, but though don't know about it. Really nice stuff.

Why should you try Linux

Well, it might be my personal opinion. But I think you should consider trying Linux. Days are gone when Linux used to be only for geeks. Now it has become more desktop oriented by distros like Ubuntu. Note that there are thousands of Linux based distros. Its upon you what you choose. I personally like Linux Mint.

Some important issues

As you might have noticed, I've not published any articles here from a long time. It's because of my lack of time. Anyway, I'll soon be posting new articles and the blog might revert back to its original domain i.e. funsurf-blog.blogspot.com and the mobile version to funsurf.mobify.me. So old links might not be available any longer. Thanks for visiting.

Download Chrome OS Fonts

Google's Chrome OS will come with a nice font set which include 'Tinos', 'Armio' and 'Cousine' similar to 'Times New Roman', 'Arial' and 'Courier New'. Hence this font set can be used instead of Microsoft's core fonts. Installing the fonts are simple. Just download them, extract and double click to install. These can be installed both on Windows and Linux.

Download Chrome OS Fonts

Via OMG! Ubuntu

Enhance Your Browser Experience with Greasemonkey Add-on

Greasemonkey is a Mozilla Firefox Add-on which allows the user to install userscripts (written in Javascript) to enhance the browsing experience.

My Journey begins with Funsurf...

Hi, I am Anamitra Saha (aka Oni). Just joined Funsurf as a co-author. Let me first introduce myself. You may find me as Anamitra or o_n_i or Oni64 on various social networking sites and forums. You can contact me at anamitra.saha21@gmail.com or @o_n_i on twtter. I am an engineering student and I take interest in various technology stuffs. Computing is my hobby, exploring Linux, Windows and the world of internet is my favourite pastime. I am here just to share those experiences with you all. I was a reader of Funsurf from the very first day; learnt a lot of things from this blog. So nothing can be better than joining this blog as a co-author. Thanks to Satya for giving me this opportunity. I will try my best to keep you updated with latest info, tips and tricks. I hope you will enjoy.

Thank You All.