With Skylight, you get plenty of apps such as Gmail, Gmaps, youtube, Amazon, Twitter and more. The smartbook also has support for Adobe Flash 10.1, and with an application to access Hulu, you will be able to play HD videos on your smartbook.

Other Features of Lenovo Skylight include 1.3 MP camera, two USB ports, inbuilt mic, full QWERTY keyboard, mini HDMI connector, audio port, memory card slot and more. Skylight also has 3G support and has quadband 3G WCDMA service which allows you to browse at a lightning speed.

Price : Lenovo Skylight will be available at the start of April in US for $520 i.e 24000 INR, and will come to India later.



andLinux is actually a full installation of Ubuntu that allows you to run Linux apps directly within the Windows environment. The user interface is the KDE flavor, which should be easier for Windows users to get used to. It’s completely free, easy to install, and is a great way for the Windows user to introduce themselves to Linux.

For details about the installation and configuring the andLinux, you can read it here. Download andLinux here.

Ubuntu 9.04 has got latest GNome 2.26 environment, includes Open Office suite version 3 which was missing in last version.

It also boasts of faster boot up, support for latest ext4 file system and support for wider range of hardware.

Keeping in view the popularity of Netbooks, Ubuntu has got a special version especially for netbooks called Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

Though Ubuntu is available as a direct download from Ubuntu’s official website and from number of worldwide locations, but we recommend that you use BitTorrent to download Ubuntu’s latest version as Ubuntu servers will be overloaded today and your download experience might be bad if you use normal browser download.

And if you would like to know how to install Ubuntu 9.04, then check out this Installation Guide for ubuntu from Make Tech Easier.

If you have already downloaded and started using Ubuntu, you might also like to know 25 useful keyboard shortcuts for Ubuntu.

Guys over at Tuxradar have conducted real time benchmarking tests for Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Ubuntu to find out which one is better.

The same hardware was used for three Operating Systems and they compared installation time, boot time, File Copy operations and time taken to execute Richards benchmark.

Though Windows Vista and Windows 7 lagged behind Ubuntu in installation time and hard disk space consumed, Windows 7 was way ahead of both Ubuntu and Windows Vista in boot up time.

Windows 7 had trouble copying and deleting small sized files though worked with large files pretty quickly and the time it took to copy large files from one hard disk to another was the best among three.

On the Richards Benchmarking tests, all the three performed almost same without any major difference though Windows 7 64-bit edition was quickest of all.

You can read the whole report of comparisons performed by TuxRadar here.

Do you think Windows 7 will become the best OS by the time it is available in retail? Tell us your views in comments below.

I wanted to restore those profile as it is in Firefox on Ubuntu. Here’s what i did to achieve this:

1. Fire up Terminal and start Firefox profile manager using command:

firefox -ProfileManager

2. Now there are two solutions, either you want to keep both Windows and Ubuntu Firefox profiles in sync or just want your add-ons back with no future synchronization.I’ll discuss both these methods though i used the sync method.

a) Keeping Windows and Ubuntu Firefox Profiles in Sync

To do this when you create a new profile for Firefox with Profile Manager, select the profile folder to be same as that used by Windows Firefox Profile.

The Windows Firefox Profiles are located in

[Windows Drive]:\Documents and Settings\[User]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

for Windows XP and for Windows Vista

[Windows Drive]:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

Use the same folder that Firefox on Windows uses for your profile and your Firefox profile on both Windows and Ubuntu will be synchronized. Once you select the folder click Finish to add the profile.

b) One Time Restore

If you just need your bookmarks and plugins from Windows profile with no future synchronization, then select the default folder and create the profile.

Now you need to copy each and every file from your Windows Firefox Profile folder using path mentioned above to your Ubuntu Firefox Profile Folder.

Ubuntu Firefox profile folder is located in your home directory under .mozilla/firefox/ It might require showing hidden files. Use Ctrl+H to show hidden files to get to your profile folder.

3. After setting up profiles, now i wanted to create launchers for various profiles in Top Bar. To do this simply right click on empty space in topbar and select Add to Panel and then click on Custom Application Launcher.

Type in a Descriptive Name for your Firefox Profile and use command as

firefox -p [profilename] -no-remote

Using -no-remote allows you to run multiple profiles simulatenously. You may skip it if you need to run only single Firefox profile at a time.

With these steps, you can keep both Windows and Ubuntu Firefox Profiles in synchronization and use anyone anytime without losing settings, bookmarks or add-ons.

Ubuntu

Recently, Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex was released and i must say this version of Ubuntu has improved a lot over earlier versions. If you haven’t tried Ubuntu ever, then this is the time you should give ubuntu a try.

Here goes the shortcuts list.

Window Management

Note: Some shortcuts might require Compiz enabled on your Ubuntu system.

Switch Workspaces in Ubuntu (win + E)

1. Win+E - Shows all workspaces in a nifty way and lets you switch between workspaces easily.

2. Alt+Ctrl+Left/Right Arrow – Move to Workspace on Left/Right

3. Alt+Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right Arrow – Move current window to another workspace

4. Alt + Shift+ Up Arrow – This initiates a cool looking window switcher interface with which you can switch between windows using Arrow keys while holding Alt + Shift

Ubuntu Window Switcher (Alt + Shift+ Up Arrow)

5. Alt+F9/F10 – Minimize/ Maximize current window

6. Alt+F5 – UnMaximizes Current Window

7. Alt+F7 – This shortcut activates the move window option that lets you move current window using arrow keys. You can even move window to other workspace, try moving it to extreme right.

8. Alt+F8 – Resize current window with arrow keys

9. Ctrl + Alt + D – Show Desktop/ Restore open windows if show desktop used earlier

10. Alt+Shift+Tab – Switch Windows in Reverse Direction as done using Alt+Tab

Nautilus

11. Shift+Ctrl+N – Create New Folder, Very useful shortcut

12. Alt + Enter – Show properties of a selected file/folder without requiring to right click on it and select Properties.

13. Ctrl + 1/2 – Change folder view to icon/list.

14. Ctrl + W – close current Nautilus Window

15. Ctrl + Shift + W – close all open Nautilus Windows

16. Ctrl+T – Open a new tab in Nautilus

17. Alt + Up/Down Arrow – Move to Parent Folder/ Selected folder

18. Alt + Left/Right Arrow – Move Back/forward in Nautilus

19. Alt + Home – Move directly to your Home Folder

20. F9 – Toggle display of Nautilus Sidepane

21. Ctrl + H – Toggle Display of hidden files and folders

Miscellaneous

22. Ctrl + Alt + L - Quick shortcut to Lock Screen if you need to be away from your desktop for few moments and don’t want others to see your desktop.

23. Alt + F1 – Open Applications Menu

24. Alt + F2 – Open the Run Application dialog Box

25. Win + Mousewheel – Zoom in / Zoom out Desktop. This one’s pretty useful if  you are having a wireless keyboard/mouse.

I hope these shortcuts will make your life easier doing routine repetitive tasks and make you more productive using your Ubuntu System.

If you know of some other useful Ubuntu shortcuts, feel free to share them in comments below.

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