Tsikbal: from my perspective

My favorite Linux distro has been Ubuntu , with Linux Mint a close second. For a while, my favorite desktop was Ubuntu's Unity , which has been sadly discontinued in favor of GNOME . Ever since I heard that Unity was being replaced for GNOME around February, I jumped to Linux Mint. Linux Mint desktop, Cinnamon was my second favorite for quite some time. Yet, when I came back to using with its 3.2 version it quickly became my favorite desktop. I come to love how you can customize almost every aspect of it, and it integrates rather nicely with all my favorite apps. I've found it to be even faster and more responsive than Unity was for me. And to be honest, Cinnamon feels like a modern desktop should work and aesthetically it simply looks better for me with a few relative tweaks. Personally, I just change some of the typography and use Numix icons. When Ubuntu released the 17.10 Artful Aardvark, I decided to give GNOME 3 a try. Though the experience was not all...

Firefox has always been my favorite browser, with Chrome a close second, ever since it was released. I've found that Firefox is the better fit for both my needs and my tastes, its the browser where I feel more comfortable at. Now, with the release of Firefox Quantum (aka 57) it has cemented its position. Not only I've found it actually a big step forward in terms of performance, I found that the user interface looks a lot better. While the performance enhancements are really nice, and welcome, the new user interface is what I enjoy the most. One of my favorite tweaks is now I can get rid of the search box altogether, since I stopped using much once I was able to use the navigation box for internet addresses input and for search. There is also the fact that now there are more options to personalization options to make Firefox look even more like you want it too. With this release, Firefox has become a truly modern browser and a worthy contender.

When I read the news last year that Nokia was coming back, I felt really happy since Nokia was my favorite mobile phone brand. What made things better, was that it was making a come back using Android , which is my favorite mobile OS, made it all that better. To be honest, the Nokia/Android combination is one I wanted to see a long time ago. Nokia had been one of the top smartphone manufacturer, and Android seem to be the best choice to keep on top of their game. But, it didn't happen that way and we know how that went. For me it was a sad thing to see Microsoft Mobile being abandoned. So, when it was announced that Nokia was to make a comeback I felt quite hopeful. Specially since it was making a comeback using Android, I felt that it has a fighting chance depending on the quality of the devices they released. Then, last weekend I had the chance to get some hands on experience with Nokia 3 device. I didn't want to get my hopes all that high, yet the device managed to ...

A couple of months ago I decided to subscribe to Spotify Premium , and I've really pleased with the choice. The have been several things that I've really liked about Premium account over the Free one. The main one is the ability to listen to my playlists offline, which it's really nice since I don't have to use my mobile data if I don't want to and maintain access to my favorite music. For me it's quite a big deal, since I tend to use the app on my smartphone most of the time. I mainly use the desktop app at home, where I do use the online features to discover new artists and their music. Spotify has been where I have discovered new music the most for a while now, and while I like the mobile app, the desktop app is the one I feel most comfortable in for music discovery. Another feature I like, and I've come to really a bit on the mobile app, is the ability to choose with what song I want to begin with and then shuffle the rest of the playlist I...

I've been using Evie Launcher on my Android device for a month now, and it has my go to launcher. I favorite set of icon pack is Numix Circle , and combined with Evie lets me configure my smartphone just the way I like it. I tried some other Launchers before I got to Evie, but none really gave what I wanted in any way. And Numix icons didn't go along with most of them either, so I ended up jumping back to the launcher my device had and using the icons that came with it. Yet, since I wasn't satisfied with the look and feel of the Launcher of my current device I decided to look for a launcher I hadn't used before. After some research, I came across to Evie and I had a initial good impression. So, I looked into some reviews and I got convinced to give it a try and installed it. And I haven't looked back since then, and I haven't enjoyed using my device as much as I do now. Now I feel like it's mine, and it does things how I want it to. What cement...

It has been three months since I came back to Linux Mint, and I've really enjoyed coming back. I've always had a soft spot for Linux Mint, the distro is one of the best out there and Cinnamon is just really good looking. Cinnamon has gotten better with time, and with the 3.4 version it has become my favorite desktop. In general, Linux Mint in general worked great for me. But, Ubuntu with Unity did a slightly better job and work a bit better for me. It seemed that Cinnamon just had to mature a bit more to surpass Unity, and become the better fit for me. It truly just works from the onset, and the design of Cinnamon makes it one of the most elegant desktops out there. There are many ways to configure the way Cinnamon looks, and works, to make it your own. I know there are other distros out there that give the user more options on how to configure it, but Linux Mint gives more then enough options for the average user. And there are ways for advance users to change th...

As a geek , one of the things that personally I find most annoying is that often people tell me I'm not because I don't fit the stereotype of how geeks are supposed to look, or act. Most often this comes from people who don't know me that much, since most of those who do really do see me as one. It seems that most people don't realize how big the spectrum of interests and passions that geekdom cover, that they might not realize how many geeks they know and are close to. Most often than not, geeks have several interest that we follow with various degrees of interest. Also, being a geek doesn't equate to social awkwardness. Yes, some geeks are somewhat awkward around people, but many of us can socialize quite easily with several kinds of people. Many actually are quite adept, and they love to, socialize since they pursuits mean they have to interact with people often. While sometimes they are just people persons, and socialize because they actually enjoy doi...

After a couple of years I decided to come back to Linux Mint . I was prompted to make the jump back after learning Ubuntu is going back to use GNOME 3 as its desktop environment by the 18.04 LTS. Though I somewhat like GNOME 3, it doesn't really fit my needs or expectations. And while there are ways to make it work like Unity , personally I rather not do so if I can use another desktop environment that works and feels from the start. Linux Mint has been, along with Ubuntu, one of my favorite operating systems. I usually elected Ubuntu because Unity had a slight advantage over Linux Mint Cinnamon desktop environment. The main reason for this was that Unity was a better fit for me, and that I simply liked it a bit more. I've always found Linux Mint to be a solid Linux distro, I just felt that Cinnamon had to mature a bit more. The version of Linux Mint I'm using now is the 18.1 Serena, using Cinnamon 3.2.7. So far, I really would recommend it to anyone who wan...

Most people seem oblivious to that a fact that the smartphone they carry around everyday in their pocket, is in fact a mobile computer. As such, smartphones give us a whole new way on how we can interact with other people and the world in general. Smartphones allow us to keep in contact with people and share with them, both in real time and asynchronously , in ways that were unimaginable even a few years ago. Now the real question is what, with who, and how much should we share. Oversharing has become a real problem, as has sharing things with people we never intended in the first place. The fact that we can share any aspect of our lives, and our opinions, so easily makes it harder to make the choice. As such, our privacy can be compromised if we don't give proper attention to what, and how, we share what we do. As such, one can't be to careful on these two aspects, since the negative effects of not being careful can have a huge impact in our lives. The fact t...

I've been an Android fan for some time now, yet until recently I have used the launcher that came installed on the Mobo device I got. About 3 weeks ago I decided to try out some new launchers on the Mobo MB405 (link in Spanish) I got , since the one it has by default didn't really make it for me. After looking around a bit, I decided to give the Evie Launcher a try. Ever since I started using it, I fell in love with it. It's design, and just how it works, its very intuitive for me. From the start, it has been the best launcher app for how I use my smartphone. When I decided to give Evie a try, I did have some reservations about it. Yet, after 3 weeks of using it on a daily basis I just feel in love with it. I've been using Android for at least a couple of years now, and Evie is the first launcher that has made my devices feel as truly mine.

Since I heard the news that Ubuntu is switching back to GNOME by Ubuntu 18.04 LTS next year, I must admit I've some mixed feeling about it. I do understand the move, yet Unity has become my favorite user interface. Unity just works for me, and though you can make GNOME look like Unity I still would prefer not having to do that. Back when Ubuntu used GNOME 2, I loved it. It simply it was a joy to use, and it was one of the main reasons why I want for Ubuntu as my distro of choice. Then GNOME 3 came along, and while I do like it, I made the jump to Linux Mint to try it's Cinnamon user interface. At this time, it was a new piece of software and for whatever reason I hit a lot of bugs that interfered with my user experience. It has come a long way since then, and it became my 2nd favorite user interface. At the time, I heard a lot of bad things about Unity. But, I decided to come back to Ubuntu and at least give it a try. I just fell in love with it, since it ...