Lets just get right to it and install which is very easy with a PPA in the terminal. Cut and paste each line into a terminal and press enter…

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:eviltwin1/feedreader-stable

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install feedreader

The only caveat is this is not a true RSS manager but more of an RSS client. You will need to create an external account on one of the RSS web services (usually free) like InoReader, Feedly, or Tiny Tiny RSS. The beauty of this is that your blog feeds will all by synced up.

FeedReader has some nice features such as sharing an article to your Pocket, Instapaper or Readability accounts, as well as desktop notifications of new articles, keyboard shortcuts, and tagging of articles. As seen in my FeedReader image above, we list our subscribed blogs in one area on the left side, however if you have a lot of blogs you read you can make and group them into categories. Linux blogs, home improvement blogs, science blogs, whatever your desires.

Another bonus is you can even add YouTube pages to your feed! Example of a feed would be to go to their YouTube page and click onto the pages “Videos” feed and thats what you would plug into FeedReader. Heres an example of a YouTube link…

https://www.youtube.com/user/StarTrekContinues/videos

(thats a fan created Star Trek series in the aura of the original Star Trek TV show)

There have been several instances where it would be more comfortable to run an Android app on my computer than to use my smart phone. I have tried running Android in a VirtualBox and it does work, however, Android is its own OS that you still need to boot into. But what if you could run an Android APK directly in Ubuntu? Well…. you can!*

Google released a Chrome app named ARC Welder, which allows you to run Android apps if you’re on the Chrome OS or using the Chrome web browser. Grab the ARC Welder Chrome app here (200MB)…

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/arc-welder/emfinbmielocnlhgmfkkmkngdoccbadn

Just open the link in Google Chrome or search for ARC Welder in the Chrome app store and install it.

Installing Android apps take a little bit of extra steps, but not a big deal. First, find the Android app you want in the Google Play Store…

https://play.google.com/store/apps

Copy the weblink of the app and paste it in the APK-DL website…

http://apk-dl.com/

This will generate an APK download link for the app. Once you have downloaded an APK file, open the ARC Welder app in your Chrome browser (thru the browser apps link). The first time you run ARC Welder it will ask you where to store files for the apps. Create a folder wherever you like before installing an APK. I created a folder in my HOME directory. Once you do that, simply add your APK file now.

You’ll also be asked about the size of your app such as tablet or phone, landscape or portrait. Put them to your liking and then install!

* Here is the caveat. Not ALL Android apps are going to work. Some do, some dont. There’s no guarantee the apps you try will work or that they’ll be usable.

I originally did this so I can run an investment app called “Robinhood” (pictured at the top of this post) to buy and sell stocks without paying any commission fees. The app is nice, but its much easier to use it on a desktop computer. Other apps I have tried that work are basic programs like “Bitcoin Checker” and “Coin Pirates” and “Backgammon Free”. Programs that require heavy graphics like car racing games probably wont work. Hulu DID work for me, Netflix did NOT. Your mileage may very. Have fun and Good Luck!

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openshot openshot-doc

Now that OpenShot is installed, you should be able to launch it from your Applications menu, or from the terminal ($ openshot-qt). Every time OpenShot has an update, you will be prompted to update to the newest version. It’s a great way to test our latest features.

Smoother Animation
Animations are now silky smooth because of improved anti-aliasing support in the libopenshot compositing engine. Zooming, panning, and rotation all benefit from this change.

Audio Quality Improvements
Audio support in this new version is vastly superior to previous versions. Popping, crackling, and other related audio issues have been fixed.

Autosave
A new autosave engine has been built for OpenShot 2.0, and it’s fast, simple to configure, and will automatically save your project at a specific interval (if it needs saving). Check the Preferences to be sure it’s enabled (it will default to enabled for new users).

Automatic Backup and Recovery
Along with our new autosave engine, a new automatic backup and recovery feature has also been integrated into the autosave flow. If your project is not yet saved… have no fear, the autosave engine will make a backup of your unsaved project (as often as autosave is configured for), and if OpenShot crashes, it will recover your most recent backup on launch.

Project File Improvements
Many improvements have been made to project file handling, including relative paths for built-in transitions and improvements to temp files being copied to project folders (i.e. animated titles). Projects should be completely portable now, between different versions of OpenShot and on different Operating Systems. This was a key design goal of OpenShot 2.0, and it works really well now.

Improved Exception Handling
Integration between libopenshot (our video editing library) and openshot-qt (our PyQt5 user interface) has been improved. Exceptions generated by libopenshot are now passed to the user interface, and no longer crash the application. Users are now presented with a friendly error message with some details of what happened. Of course, there is still the occasional “hard crash” which kills everything, but many, many crashes will now be avoided, and users more informed on what has happened.

Preferences Improvements
There are more preferences available now (audio preview settings – sample rate, channel layout, debug mode, etc…), including a new feature to prompt users when the application will “require a restart” for an option to take effect.

Improved Stability on Windows
A couple of pretty nasty bugs were fixed for Windows, although in theory they should have crashed on other platforms as well. But for whatever reason, certain types of crashes relating to threading only seem to happen on Windows, and many of those are now fixed.

New Version Detection
OpenShot will now check the most recent released version on launch (from the openshot.org website) and descretely prompt the user by showing an icon in the top right of the main window. This has been a requested feature for a really long time, and it’s finally here. It will also quietly give up if no Internet connection is available, and it runs in a separate thread, so it doesn’t slow down anything.

Metrics and Anonymous Error Reporting
A new anonymous metric and error reporting module has been added to OpenShot. It can be enabled / disabled in the Preferences, and it will occasionally send out anonymous metrics and error reports, which will help me identify where crashes are happening. It’s very basic data, such as “WEBM encoding error – Windows 8, version 2.0.6, libopenshot-version: 0.1.0”, and all IP addresses are anonymized, but will be critical to help improve OpenShot over time.

Improved Precision when Dragging
Dragging multiple clips around the timeline has been improved. There were many small issues that would sometimes occur, such as extra spacing being added between clips, or transitions being slightly out of place. These issues have been fixed, and moving multiple clips now works very well.

Debug Mode
In the preferences, one of the new options is “Debug Mode”, which outputs a ton of extra info into the logs. This might only work on Linux at the moment, because it requires the capturing of standard output, which is blocked in the Windows and Mac versions (due to cx_Freeze). I hope to enable this feature for all OSes soon, or at least to provide a “Debug” version for Windows and Mac, that would also pop open a terminal/command prompt with the standard output visible.

Updated Translations
Updates to 78 supported languages have been made. A huge thanks to the translators who have been hard at work helping with OpenShot translations. There are over 1000 phrases which require translation, and seeing OpenShot run so seamlessly in different languages is just awesome! I love it!

Lots of Bug fixes

• In addition to all the above improvements and fixes, here are many other smaller bugs and issues that have been addressed in this version.
• Prompt before overwriting a video on export
• Fixed regression while previewing videos (causing playhead to hop around)
• Default export format set to MP4 (regardless of language)
• Fixed regression with Cutting / Split video dialog
• Fixed Undo / Redo bug with new project
• Backspace key now deletes clips (useful with certain keyboards and laptop keyboards)
• Fixed bug on Animated Title dialog not updating progress while rendering
• Added multi-line and unicode support to Animated Titles
• Improved launcher to use distutils entry_points

Get Involved
Please report bugs and suggestions here: https://github.com/OpenShot/openshot-qt/issues. Please contribute language translations here (if you are a non-English speaking user): https://translations.launchpad.net/openshot/2.0/+translations.

Brendan Eich, one of the co-founders of the Mozilla project (Firefox browser) is developing a new web browser promising to block intrusive ads and 3rd party trackers. Enter BRAVE built for Linux, Windows, OSX, iOS and Android…

https://brave.com/

Brave’s browser, still in early development, speeds up web pages by stripping out not just ads but also other page elements that track online behavior and web elements used to deliver ads. By removing advertisements and trackers, Braves browser will speed up page loading considerably. It loads pages 2x to 4x faster than other smart phone browsers & up to 2x faster than other browsers for personal computers.

Blocking ads however could be a challenge for the Brave team as advertising helps fund websites and bloggers content. The browsers work around is to eventually display new ads from their own pool of advertisers and connect Bitcoin as a method for users to pay website owners directly for the content users are viewing for free. Its a new way of doing things for sure and could disrupt Googles ad network which is Googles biggest source of revenue.

Brave has been built out of the open source Chromium browser, which is the foundation for Google’s Chrome browser. An interesting choice considering Brave is essentially trying to take market cap away from Google. Has Eich and his Brave team averted the ad blocking war or created a new style war?

All of Braves source packages have been made available on GitHub. We managed to compile it on Ubuntu 16.04, but ran into problems. The GitHub page includes a readme file for installation however its really incomplete right now as of 1/22/16. We also ran into problems with the newest version of Node.js 5.xx not being supported by our newest version of Ubuntu. However, installation of Node.js 5.xx may work fine on Ubuntu 15.10 or older, thus getting the Brave browser installed on Ubuntu.

Keep your eyes open on their GitHub for updated installation information such as DEB files or PPAs for an easier way to install Brave.

https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/blob/master/docs/linuxInstall.md

More info here…

http://www.openshotvideo.com/2016/01/openshot-20-beta-released.html

For anyone who has looked for a video editor in Ubuntu, Openshot is really really nice. I have personally used it on several family occasions (weddings, birthdays, and a 50th anniversary) and it has produced great results.

One relative who was a film director in the 70s, moving on to live stage show productions in the 80s and 90s was really impressed with the work I did with OpenShot.

Definitely give OpenShot a try for your video editing needs!

If you really want to test the current version 1.1.3, there is a DEB installer here…

http://www.openshot.org/download/

..and OpenShot is in the Ubuntu Software Center as well with version 1.4.1. Or wait for further instructions for the newest OpenShot 2.0

For those of you who are concerned about three letter agencies or anyone else… CryptKeeper works great. You can install it by finding it in the Ubuntu Software Center or via the terminal window using:

sudo apt-get install cryptkeeper

To launch CryptKeeper, find it by clicking the Ubuntu icon at the top left and searching for it. Once you open the app it will put a little key symbol on your top panel.

To create an encrypted protected folder, click on the Cryptkeeper key applet and select “New Encrypted Folder”

Input a folder name and where to save the folder (maybe in your Home folder? or on your Desktop?) and then click the “Forward” button.

The next screen will ask you to input the password you will use to unlock the folder each time you mount it. Then, click the “Forward” button.

Your new encrypted folder will be created and will be ready to use!

SUPER EASY!

Any time you want to access your encrypted folder, click on the CryptKeeper key applet on the top panel and select the folder you want.

It will ask you to type your password to mount it.

THATS IT!

You can unmount the folder also by going to thr key applet and unchecking the folder.

Theres also a few options in the applet such as deleting the folder all together or changing its password.

The program is a little tricky in that your encrypted folder will auto unmount after a few minutes. Once it does, the folder will still look mounted, but appear blank if you go into it. It might be confusing at first but you’ll get used to it. Personally, I like to go into the CryptKeeper preferences and change the “unmount after idle” setting to 60 minutes. This forces me to mount or unmount manually.

This is a great program if you dont like to encrypt your entire /home folder when installing Ubuntu.

If you are ever concerned about private messaging, BitMessage offers an easy solution. Bitmessage is a P2P communications protocol used to send encrypted messages to another person or to many subscribers. It is decentralized and trustless, meaning that you need-not inherently trust any entities like root certificate authorities. It uses strong authentication which means that the sender of a message cannot be spoofed, and it aims to hide “non-content” data, like the sender and receiver of messages, from passive eavesdroppers like those running warrantless wiretapping programs. If Bitmessage is completely new to you, you may wish to start by reading the whitepaper:

https://bitmessage.org/bitmessage.pdf

Windows, Mac and Source Code available here:

https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page

A community-based forum for questions, feedback, and discussion is also available on the subreddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/bitmessage/

To install BitMessage on Ubuntu (and other linux distros) go to your terminal and type:

git clone git://github.com/Bitmessage/PyBitmessage.git

Once its finished, run this…

python2.7 PyBitmessage/src/bitmessagemain.py

BitMessage should now be installed with a link your menu or dash or by running that last line in your terminal window again.

* You may need to install git and python for the codes to work.

Give it a try and good luck!

When I first started using Ubuntu back in early 2007 (Ubuntu 6.10) I fell in love with a pre-installed app called Tomboy. I had used Tomboy for several years until Ubuntu One notified users it would stop syncing Tomboy a couple years ago, and then the finality of Ubuntu One shutting down earlier this year. I had rushed to find alternatives like Evernote, Gnotes, etc but none of them were simple and easily integrated.

The Tomboy description is as follows… “Tomboy is a simple & easy to use desktop note-taking application for Linux, Unix, Windows, and Mac OS X. Tomboy can help you organize the ideas and information you deal with every day.”

Some of Tomboys notable features are highlighting text, inline spell checking, auto-linking web & email addresses, undo/redo, font styling & sizing and bulleted lists.

I am creating new notes as well as manually importing a few of my old notes from a couple years ago. Tomboy used to sync easily with Ubuntu One. Since that is no longer an option, you can do it with your Dropbox folder or your Google Drive folder (I’m using Insync).

Tomboy hasnt been updated in a while, but it installs and works great on Ubuntu 14.04 using:

sudo apt-get install tomboy

When you start Tomboy there will be a little square note icon with pen up on your top bar. Clicking the icon will show you the Tomboy menu options. To sync your notes across your computers you would go to the Tomboy preferences, clicking the Syncronization tab, and pick a local folder in your Dropbox or Google Drive. Thats pretty much it! Start writing those notes! On your other computers that you want to sync your notes, you would select the same sync folder you chose on your first computer.

A few quick points. When you sync your notes, it will create a folder titled “0” in whatever folder you have chosen to sync your notes in.

If you want to launch Tomboy with your system startup (in Ubuntu 14.04) in Unity search for “Startup Applications” and run it. Add a new app titled “Tomboy” with the command “tomboy”, save and close. Next time you log on, your Tomboy notes will be ready to use.

Tomboy also works with Windows and Mac OS X and installation instructions can be found here:

Windows … https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Tomboy/Installing/Windows
Mac … https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Tomboy/Installing/Mac

– – – – –

If you are still looking for syncing options, this comes in from Christian….

You can self-host your note sync server with either Rainy or Grauphel…

Learn more here…

http://dynalon.github.io/Rainy/

http://apps.owncloud.com/content/show.php?action=content&content=166654

You can contact us at:

info [at] iheartubuntu [dot] com