It has been a while since my last update but I have been really busy with lots of stuff. Here is a quick update I have for now.

I will start with saying that the Ubuntu developers saw it fit to ask its users for good ideas to put into the operating system. The best way to do this of course is to put it online and let people come and suggest whatever they want. Well brainstorm.ubuntu.com was launched last week and let me tell you there are a lot of great ideas on there. I actually think I learned more by looking at the ideas that were posted and going through the comments to see what people said you can do right now to fix it than if I had just gone to the Ubuntu forums and searched for hours and hours.

That being said here are a couple of things I found that make Ubuntu a little better in my opinion.

First is the fix for when Ubuntu has to scan your hard drive at boot time (every 30th time a volume is mounted). This is very annoying to say the least. Especially if you have more than one hard drive in your computer. My computer is scanning itself once every eight times I turn on my machine. That not only slows down productivity but it also just makes me not want to use my desktop. Some people say you can easily turn off the scan but I am a bit too paranoid for that. So I found a couple quick fixes to make scanning more manageable. The first one, the one I am currently using, is called AutoFsck. All AutoFsck does is it warns you when you go to shut down your computer that Ubuntu will want to scan at next boot. It then prompts you if you want to restart now, have the scan run, and then have the computer shut itself off.  Or you can choose just to let the scan run as it normally would. While restarting and scanning seems to waste even more time than scanning at startup, it still makes it easier because if I am shutting down my computer, chances are I am done using it and it can stay on scanning as long as it needs to. The second tool is called Bonager. This one works a little different by letting you know how many mounts you have left before a scan will be forced and if you want to you can schedule the scan for the next boot.

The second thing I found is called Gnome Control Center. It is actually really old and as far as I know is installed by default but isn’t configured to show up in the menu. To enable it you can go to the Ubuntu preferences and find the main menu option. When it comes up select System on the left and then check the Control Center box. You can remove Administration and Preferences to make the menu smaller and more usable. The Gnome CC lets you manage everything that was in the other two lists in a single window. In my opinion this is far better and makes things easier to find. The find feature helps for that too.

That is all I got for right now. I have a few things I am working on but nothing to post here. I am looking forward to the April release of Ubuntu 8.04 and am excited to see what the Mythbuntu team does for that release.

Until I have some more news let me know if you find any other helpful tips from brainstorm.ubuntu.com