Enable Visual Effects in Ubuntu to Increase Performance

For a while now, I'd been running Ubuntu 8.04 on my Thinkpad T61 (work machine) with Visual Effects disabled. Why? There were weird bugs with compiz and xterm that caused corruption at times. So I shut it off and never thought about it again. But a few days ago, I upgraded to 8.10 despite the apparent increase in WiFi related lock-ups I can expect to see (apparently I don't have the Intel wireless in this machine... grumble). Switching virtual desktops, or "Workspaces" as they're called, seemed to be even slower than before--almost intolerable. Just for kicks I decided to go play with the settings. Imagine my surprise when switching that selection from "None" to "Normal" resulted in an dramatic increase in virtual desktop redraw perfomance. Yay! Counterintuitive, but yay anyway. (comments)
Publication date: 2009-03-25

More news from 2009-03-25

Enable Visual Effects in Ubuntu to Increase Performance

For a while now, I'd been running Ubuntu 8.04 on my Thinkpad T61 (work machine) with Visual Effects disabled. Why? There were weird bugs with compiz and xterm that caused corruption at times. So I shut it off and never thought about it again. But a few days ago, I upgraded to 8.10 despite the apparent increase in WiFi related lock-ups I can expect to see (apparently I don't have the Intel wireless in this machine... grumble). Switching virtual desktops, or "Workspaces" as they're called, seemed to be even slower than before--almost intolerable. Just for kicks I decided to go play with the settings. Imagine my surprise when switching that selection from "None" to "Normal" resulted in an dramatic increase in virtual desktop redraw perfomance. Yay! Counterintuitive, but yay anyway. (comments)
Publication date: 2009-03-25 more

Boxee delivers new web browser, API, and Pandora

During Boxee’s meetup tonight in NYC the company is unveiling some new features straight out of alpha. According to the company, it will be showing off a new Pandora app, built using a new boxee API. Basically, it was built using XML pages and Python scripts, and a host of other things. Bundled in this [...]
Publication date: 2009-03-25 more

Upgrade your iPod to 240GB

One of the biggest shockers of last year’s Apple iPod refresh announcement was the elimination of the iPod Video 5G’s 160GB model in favor of a 120GB model. My mouth was filled with gnashing teeth: it not only marked the first time Apple had not only failed to up the storage on its market-defining line [...]
Publication date: 2009-03-25 more