Look for Launchpad GPG keys in more servers

Getting the GPG key for a Launchpad app can be a pain as the default server seems to be down a high percentage of the time.

Until I found this, I had just been trying over and over until eventually the key was received. Now, however, a choice of servers is available to facilitate this process. This is very welcome.

Is Grooveshark better than Last.fm?

Tried out the free version of Grooveshark today. Rather than selecting songs from “similar” artists to the on you chose as Last.fm does, Grooveshark allows you to search for exactly what you want. The you can make playlists that remain available (as long as you save them).

In addition, you can upload your own stuff from your computer to add to what’s in Grooveshark.  Haven’t apparently  yet found how much space is available to you on the free account. The VIP account, which costs US$3 per month (same as Last.fm) apparently allows to  you to store 50,000 songs which is about 300 GB and that’s a lot. Not sure though if this is just for your own stuff that you upload to Grooveshark or it includes all songs you’ve saved in playlists.

In any event, I’ve been using Grooveshark all day and I’m extremely impressed. Quite a chance I’ll end up paying for this.

Instant web-page creation for file-sharing (share other stuff too)

I used to love cl1p.net whose main feature, as far as I was concerned, was the ability to upload a file (up to 30MB) which I could then access from any other networked computer.

Then, suddenly,  the file sharing option was dropped. Nothing about this appeared on the homepage nor did I come across anybody else refer to this loss. Am I really the only one who found this useful? In any event, cl1p.net is now just useful as an online copy&paste facility. But I want more.

Well, now there’s a substitute, file2.ws, which does basically the same thing alhough the maximum file size is limited to 15MB. So, for example, I uploaded a 1MB photo and file2.ws provided me with a url. When I clicked on the url, the photo opened instantly an gave me an option to download it.

Unlike cl1p.net, however, seems to handle only one file at a time.

I found out about this in this article where a number of other similar tools are reported.

[Actually, I had forgotten about Postica which is a kind of online postit note system. It also allows you to "post" files up to 5MB in size that you can subsequently access from anywhere]

Wallpaper clocks for Ubuntu

Nice site with lots and lots of easily installable clocks to enhance your desktop. This article explains how to install. I just installed what you see in the screenshot on my EeePC 901.

New Ubuntu themes

See them in this article. Not sure I’d want to drop everything to install any of these on any of my Desktops, but they’re there if I ever change my mind.

Panel drop-down drawer for launchers

This could have been a very useful addition to a Gnome Panel if it hadn’t been for either AWN dock or Kiba-dock that I use in almost all of my OSes.

Nevertheless, I’ve included it in Ubuntu just to see how useful it might be but I have doubts, but let’s see.

Clean up your face with PicTreat

This is a nice, free online app that allows you to quickly provide enviably flawless skin on photo portraits.

Just upload your photo (which might be slow depending on your Internet speed and the size of the photo) and the improved version will come back shortly afterwards.

There are, however, no tweaking options so what-you-see-is-what-you-get. I’ve tried it just a few times, however, and it worked admirably.

Ear_Candy manages sounds when you’re messing around with multiple media sources

Yes, I find it annoying when I’m listening to music on VLC and a Skype call comes in and the computer doesn’t know to stop the music so I can take the call. Well, a new app called ear_candy is supposed to handle just this type of problem. Haven’t tried it yet but will very shortly.

Optical illusion shows how our brains can mislead us

This is an absolutely amazing illusion which I had trouble convincing myself it really was an illusion.

So, I went into Picasa with the shot shown here and cut out one of the towers and then made it a bit larger.  I then copied this to my Desktop and made an exact copy. One I called A and the other B.

With A and  B side-by-side, it looks like B is more inclined to the right (B is on the right). However, it’s very easy to move B to the left of A in which case A now looks more inclined. You can also place one directly above the other (on my Ubuntu Desktop, windows are slightly transparent) which can show to doubters that the two photos really are identical in every way.

Here’s the original article with some further explanation.

CLI command finds router External IP

Just run this in a terminal

wget -O – -q icanhazip.com

and in a few seconds your external IP should appear. Found this here.