I’ve finally got Ubuntu (7.10) up and running. I tried, and failed, to get it running under Paralles a while back and finally took the time to try again. This time on a Windows machine that had some extra space.

Overall the install was great, but once up and running there are a lot of items that are just to complicated. I understand that Ubuntu is a great alternative, but until it becomes more user friendly in some aspects, it’s going to be a hard sell.

When I decided to backup my iPod today, I found out my Life2Go application has quit production and was unable to read the music on my iPod. So I went out to MacUpdate to find another. That’s when I came across YamiPod.

YamiPod is a free application for Mac, Windows and Linux that will manage the music on your iPod. I downloaded it, exported all my songs to a DVD and am burning a backup disk as we speak. This is a great example of a free application that just works.

The number of different applications that use Gecko are ever increasing. What’s Gecko? It’s the rendering engine that powers such programs as Firefox, Thunderbird and many more.

I guess it all starts with Netscape back in 1998 and possibly even before that when Netscape decided to make a technology to power their browser. It’s come a long way and here are a few applications taking advantage of this open source technology.

1. Firefox* - The most popular and most wildly used Gecko application. It’s the little web browser that’s trying to change the world. With hundreds of extensions and themes, customizing it to fit your needs is one thing that makes it so popular.

It took a few days and lots and lots of test builds but I think all the Linux crashing issues with Tinseltown, iPox and MidnightFox are fixed! Even better yet, the fixes have no ill effects for Mac or Windows users. I’m so happy.

A huge thanks goes out to all my help including ehume, terry(Denver) (Teruel de Campo MD), Albireo and Richard Hemmer! Without you all I could never have figured it out.

All theme updates should be available on Mozilla’s Add-On site in the next day or two.

I don’t know how people do it, but I’ve tried to install Ubuntu (Linux) over a dozen times in Paralles and it doesn’t work. The last time, my iMac ended up with a kernel panic.

I have downloaded Ubuntu 6.06 (99% sure it is the right version), I upgraded my memory so now I have 1.5 gigs, tried many settings and still fail. I tried the latest official version of Parallels plus the new beta. I usually install directly from the iso disk image. It starts up fine, slower than slow though, and I’ve gotten though parts of the install, but never all the way though. About 15% of the OS gets installed then I give up or the iMac did.