The Pangolin Has Been Released

Precise pangolin, or Ubuntu 12.04, to be exact. The newest version of Ubuntu was released yesterday (actually a day early) and, of course, I installed it. Here are some things I’ve noticed about the changes made along with some screen-shots.  The first thing I noticed was that when you open the dash (Unity‘s start menu), the home page no longer consists of shortcuts, but is now just your recent files, recently used programs, and your downloads folder. Not too big of a deal, but still an inconvenience. Secondly, when you maximize a window the launcher no longer auto-hides. I can see the reason, but it does get in the way now and is a little distracting. (Edit: you can turn on auto-hide in Appearance. However, this will hide it even with no windows maximized.) Only one more negative; the scroll function on my trackpad no longer works in file manager windows although it works in other programs. OK, now for the positives: the launcher now changes colors to reflect the predominant color of your background image, just like Windows 8. Rythmbox is now the default music player. The default from 11.10, Banshee, always crashed on my computer. Other than those two things, it’s pretty much the same as the last version (as far as I have seen, at least), which I really liked. I suppose with time I will get used to these changes that bother me and enjoy it just as much as 11.10.

Here’s the old home lens (from Ubuntu Vibes)

A little annoying and distracting. (the launcher, not the website :))

Not a 12.04 wallpaper, just in here to show how the launcher changes color.

Same as preceding image

This is a provided wallpaper.

Related articles:

• Ubuntu 12.04 ‘Precise Pangolin’ Released, Changes and Screenshot Tour (ubuntuvibes.com)

Very thought-provoking. I’ll admit that I was just a fan for many years until God showed me it was not enough.

Rending Your Clothes

King Josiah by Julius Schnoor von Carolsfeld (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sorry it’s been so long; I’ve been busy with special meetings at church and have had problems with Wi-Fi. Anyways, I just want to share something from my Bible reading today. I was reading in 2 Kings 22, and I noticed something in verse 11: “And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law[the part of the Bible that they had], that he rent his clothes.” So why did the king rend his clothes? In Bible times, you would rend your clothes to show great sorrow and/or consternation. It was also a sign of repentance. King Josiah rent his clothes because he was shocked at what the Bible said and how well it applied to his people. He realized it was an indictment against his kingdom for the sins of the people and was saddened at what their punishment was to be. He wanted to show God that he was sorry for the way the Israelites were acting and asked for forgiveness and deliverance. Then I thought about myself; what do I do when a hear a sermon or read a verse that convicts me? Do I do as King Josiah? Do I just ignore it, or even worse, pretend that I am sorry to try and fool God into forgiving me(tip: it doesn’t work)? God forgive me if I ever do anything other than truly repent and get right; that is the only way I will hear something like what God tells the king in verses 19 and 20: “Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the LORD, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and hast rent thy clothes, and wept before me; I also have heard thee, saith the LORD.
Behold therefore, I will gather thee unto thy fathers, and thou shalt be gathered into thy grave in peace; and thine eyes shall not see all the evil which I will bring upon this place.”

Codeacademy

I’ve been using Codeacademy for a while now to learn Javascript, but just recently they released an overview on HTML and CSS. As of now it is just the basics of HTML but the rest will be released soon. It’s fairly easy, I managed to complete it in a day, but it teaches you all you need to know to build a simple webpage in HTML (which is actually the way I wrote this page, now that I know how). If you’ve wanted to learn HTML, give Codeacademy a try.