Get A New Desktop Look With The Hope Theme [Linux]

Get A New Desktop Look With The Hope Theme [Linux]:
I simply love how customizable Linux really is. You can transform just about anything and get a completely different desktop while still running Linux. For a fanboy like me, it’s a thing of beauty.
Speaking of beauty, there are so many different Gnome Shell themes and GTK themes in existence, that it’s downright awesome. One of those themes is called Hope, an icy blue theme that is sure to make your boring desktop a lot more interesting.

Download & Installation

Ubuntu users can install it by adding a PPA repository and installing the package. Simply open a terminal window and run the following code:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kokoto-java/omgubuntu-stuff && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install hope-gtk-theme.
Everyone else can get the Hope GTK theme from here, and can be easily installed by extracting the contents of the download into your .themes folder inside your Home folder. If you use Nautilus, you can hit Ctrl + H inside your home folder and all hidden folders (those with a period in front of them, like .themes) will suddenly appear for you to see, making the extraction process a lot easier.
From there, you should probably use Gnome Tweak Tool to change your theme to Hope. That’s pretty much it! If you want, you can also choose to use a dark toolbar version, which will be appropriately named Hope-DT. This option should also show up in Gnome Tweak Tool.

Theme Features

This new feature brings a lot of nice changes when compared to the default Gnome 3 theme, named “Adwaita”. The title bars are now almost black, and give a nice contrast compared to the rest of the desktop. Hovering over the window control buttons will highlight them, so that there is emphasis on whichever button you’re hovering over. I’m not sure if this was a previous version of the GTK3 or if this originated in the GTK2 theme, but at one point the rest of the window control button turned into an icy blue.

Speaking of icy blue, other key areas are now that color. The buttons that follow the GTK styling are now softer and are surrounded by an icy blue glow. Anywhere you usually see orange in Ubuntu, you’ll see icy blue instead.

With the Dark Toolbar version, some toolbars will appear just as dark as the title bars. This may be a good change for some people, but not everyone. It really depends on your taste. This will be most notable in Nautilus and in a few other applications, but generally there won’t be much of a difference between the two for most applications.

Conclusion

Hope is a theme that I really like, and have liked since the Gnome 2 days. Its port for Gnome 3 is very well done, and has been my preferred theme for a few months now. Hopefully you well enjoy the clean look it brings as well. There is also a Hope Gnome Shell theme included within the download for this GTK3 theme that I may be reviewing soon, but until then, you can simply follow the instructions on the download page for proper extraction and enable it using Gnome Tweak Tool.
Do you like the Hope theme? What’s you’re favorite GTK3 theme? Let us know in the comments below!

Upload your audio files with Scup, a SoundCloud desktop uploader

Upload your audio files with Scup, a SoundCloud desktop uploader:

You may have heard of SoundCloud, a free ‘audio locker’ type service that will let you upload your audio files and then access them from anywhere. You may even have seen its distinctive player embedded in blogs and other sites, with it’s distinctive displayed waveform that users can insert comments into (see screenshot). If you would like to add your own audio files to SoundCloud, and specifically if you are looking for a quick and convenient way to upload said audio files via drag and drop right from your desktop, then check out free Adobe Air app Scup. (Multiplatoform: Windows, Mac, Linux).
This one is pretty self explanatory drag and drop. Two notable things, however:

1. SoundCloud Auto-detects copyrighted material. This is the message I got when I was attempting to  upload a random mp3 file to test this service, which was in fact a copyrighted song “Our automatic content protection system has detected that your upload “Rhubard Mustard” may contain content that is copyrighted. As a result, we have paused the upload of your audio for the time being.” This, of course, has nothing to do with Scup.
2. Scup is quite flexible when it comes to adding additional metadata : above and beyond the usual MP3 tags. Note that this is important insofar as placing your file, especially public files, in a way that makes them more readily identifiable and/or searchable (see screenshot below).

The verdict: if you use SoundCloud, you will love Scup.
[Thanks go to reader Panzer for tipping us off about this software].
Version tested: 1.1.0.2
Compatibility: Windows, Linux, Mac. Requires Adobe Air.
Go to the program home page to download the latest version (~2.3 megs).

Make Your Photos Into Fun Works Of Art With Pixel Mixer For Android

Make Your Photos Into Fun Works Of Art With Pixel Mixer For Android:

You know what’s really fun? Taking photos with your phone, applying effects on the go, and then sharing them with friends. Camera app makers know this, and many camera apps let you take a picture and then apply effects to it: Look at Camera360 and Vignette to see what I mean.
But sometimes separating the camera from the effects can be a good thing. An application that has a wonderful camera interface (Vignette) may not provide the most visual way to apply effects (Vignette, yet again). So, in the spirit of separation and specialization, I wanted to show you Pixel Mixer, a great (and free) application for visually applying effects and frames to your photos.

Picking An Image

The first thing Pixel Mixer asks you to do is pick an image, of course. The camera icon just launches your favorite camera app (in my case, I launched the one built into Resurrection Remix, the Ice Cream Sandwich ROM I’ve been using recently). I then did the obvious thing and took a picture of my cat:

And that’s what we’ll be using for applying effects.

Layering and Applying Effects

To apply an effect, just scroll to it on the horizontal list, and tap it. Pretty simple – but what’s cool is that you can apply up to three effects, or filters, at the same time. Above you can see my cat after I’ve applied Violet, Cartoon 3, and Mosaic 1, in that order. If I want to get rid of one of these, I just need to tap it:

That’s pretty neat, but I wish I could change the order of the filters by just dragging them around. Let’s say I deleted Cartoon 3 and then decide I did want it after all:

If you look closely, you will see that this image is different than the other one which had the exact same three filters, because their order is different. I hope future versions would let us rearrange filters by dragging, but still, even being possible to layer filters in the first place and selectively remove them from the stack is pretty powerful.
Not all filters are on/off affairs: Some filters can be applied with different levels of intensity:

Here you can see the Lomo 2 filter applied at intensity level 2 (out of three possible levels). The list of color effects is long, and applying effects is fun and fast.

Applying Texture Effects

The next tab is used for applying global texture effects, such as film grain, ink spots, and other types of retro-looking effects that can help make your photo feel a bit more organic, and not like it was taken with the cold and flawless gaze of a smartphone. Layering these effects doesn’t make much sense, and indeed, here you can pick just one effect. The list isn’t as long as the color effects, too, but then again – there are only so many texture effects.

Picking a Frame And Reviewing Your Image

Once you’re happy with the color effect and texture you picked, it’s time to pick a frame, which is exactly what you do in this next tab. There are about fifteen different frames from which you can pick and choose.
At any point when you want to see your work without all of the distracting interface elements, just tap the image once:

The interface will fall away, leaving you with just your image. Another tap will bring everything right back.

Randomizing

You may not always have the time to painstakingly go over effects and pick the combination that’s just right. Thankfully, you can always just tap the thunderbolt icon in the bottom-right corner, and Pixel Mixer would randomly apply one or two effects at random. Sometimes, the result may even be beautiful.

Saving Your Work

Once you’re done, tap the Plus icon on the top-right corner. A horizontal menu will pop open, and you can choose to save your work or share it. This is what the final image looks like after I’ve picked a random effect:

The image is not high-res, but it should be fine for most sharing needs.

Is It Too Much Hassle?

This is where I want to hear what you think: Do you prefer your photo effects baked into your camera app? Or is it better to use a dedicated camera app and a separate, dedicated effects app?

6 Coolest Free Skins For Your XBMC Media Center

6 Coolest Free Skins For Your XBMC Media Center:
If you’re after a powerful free media centre solution then look no further than XBMC, an open source solution that has recently reached version 11. The media centre comes in a variety of flavours including Windows, Linux and Mac OS X as well as iOS for jailbroken devices.
Over the years XBMC’s skins have evolved from being functional to beautiful and the latest release, codenamed “Eden”, adds even more polish. Downloading and installing these skins is all taken care of from within XBMC itself, so the hardest part of this process is deciding which skin is right for you.
Here are my personal favorites for this latest release.

Downloading & Switching Skins

As mentioned, alternate skins can be downloaded and applied from within XBMC. Choose Settings from the main menu followed by Appearance and then Skin. Any available skins that you have installed will be listed here and clicking Get More will list any others that are available for download.
Once a skin has been downloaded you will be asked if you would like to apply it or you can use the previous menu. If a skin has its own preferences then you will find the option in XBMC’s Settings menu.

Confluence (Default Skin)

Before you accuse me of cheating I must add that Confluence is a brand new skin for the latest release, XBMC 11 “Eden”. It might look strikingly similar to skins that have been featured in the past but now it’s been redesigned, optimized and tweaked to work like a charm.

Truth be told you might not even care that other themes are available once you’ve used it for a short while. The dark colour scheme fits the media centre persona exactly and it’s not too heavy on resources either, which is great for low-powered systems.

Regardless of what you think of the other skins here, I’d strongly recommend trialing the new and improved Confluence before you switch. The skin is also available in a classic vertical layout as “Confluence Vertical” (above) in the theme library.

Aeon Nox

This is a beautiful skin that would suit anyone looking to use XBMC with a remote control as mouse support has been omitted (though a wireless keyboard or game pad would do the job just fine). Aeon Nox depends on a very simple user interface that makes use of striking backgrounds for eye candy and is similar to that used by the Apple TV.

As well as a beautiful main menu (and weather information just by hovering over the Weather option) Aeon comes with a “Featured” screen that scrapes for new episodes of TV shows, recently added movies, unplayed music and so on. This undoubtedly simplifies the “what to watch” process if you’re indecisive by nature.

As you can see from the screenshots, Aeon is a sleek and beautiful solution for those who don’t like too much information on-screen at once, and much of it can be customized from the Settings menu.

Metropolis

What first appears to be a simple theme soon reveals itself to be so much more, Metropolis is in fact a highly customizable theme thanks to the customization menu in XBMC’s Settings area.

While it’s not quite as slick on first glance as a few of the other themes in this article, Metropolis suits any control scheme, has a big bold clock and current weather display and has recently been optimized to work well with the latest XBMC 11 release.

I’d recommend switching the home screen from “list” to “icon” mode for a gorgeous horizontal scrolling main menu.

Xeebo

Considering XBMC is the revving engine behind Boxee it was only a matter of time before somebody created a Boxee-style skin, and that’s exactly what Xeebo is. The theme is quite a bit different to the rest here, and this is definitely a skin that heavily depends on metadata from your library to look its best.

The main menu auto-hides and resides on the left-hand side of the screen, with content taking precedence in the middle. Lists and menu views look great with the Boxee-derived colour scheme and the theme isn’t too resource intensive which ensures it remains responsive.

This theme is particularly quick to navigate thanks to the fact that the main menu is always on the left-hand side, making it easy to switch from one source or add-on to the next.

Quartz

XBMC’s answer to the Apple TV, Quartz is a very faithful Apple TV clone that offers a lightweight and minimalist way of browsing and watching your media. If you’re actually running XBMC on an Apple TV then this theme will probably appeal as it handles almost identically to the real thing.

In true Apple style this theme keeps it stupidly simple, so if you’re sick of busy themes with too much going on then Quartz is the theme for you.

Much like the Apple TV itself, it’s so simple even your grandma could use it.

PM3.HD

PM3 stands for Project Mayhem 3, the third iteration of what was once the default skin for XBMC. The skin will seem familiar to those of you who remember converting your fat old Xbox into a media centre back in the day.

It has since been succeeded by Confluence but remains an attractive and simple skin that works just fine with the latest release of XBMC.

Those of you looking for a “classic” XBMC experience need look no further than PM3.HD, especially since it now supports high resolution displays!

Conclusion

XBMC is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to streaming your video, music or even online content via the many add-ons available. Don’t forget that nearly all of the skins featured here have their own settings that make them even more adaptable.
Do you use XBMC? What do you think of Eden? Which is your favourite theme and why? Give us your recommendations in the comments, below.