All articles by Benjamin Humphrey

Interface Designer, OMG! Ubuntu! tech journalist and co-founder, Google and Ubuntu fanboy, part time musician, private pilot, geek. @humphreybc on Twitter.

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How to maximize battery life on your Android smartphone

One of the criticisms Android has received plenty of flak for is its comparatively low battery life compared with other smartphones. Google blames it on third party applications, but I've found many other ways to improve your battery life without having to uninstall everything.

6 December 2010
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Tomdroid on your Android phone syncs Tomboy notes through Ubuntu One

If you're one of the many people who use Tomboy notes to keep your life organized and under control, and you also have an Android phone to boot, you may enjoy Tomdroid - a free app available in the Android Market which syncs and displays your notes on your phone using Ubuntu One or Tomboy's Web Sync service.

26 November 2010
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Please help support Amber and Pete Graner after some devastating news

Last week while Amber and Pete Graner were attending the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Orlando, Florida, they received some very bad news. Lightning had struck their home and it had caught fire, burning to the ground.

31 October 2010
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LCA 2011 Announces Google Vice President Vint Cerf as Keynote speaker

LCA 2011 has announced that Google Vice President and chief Internet evangelist Vint Cerf will be a Keynote Speaker for the conference to be held in Brisbane, in January next year.

30 October 2010
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Ubuntu Forums to get new design before Natty

Ubuntu Forums administrator and long time contributor Mike Basinger (Technoviking) posted a sneaky preview of the upcoming Ubuntu Forums redesign on Twitter yesterday.

30 October 2010
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Ubuntu 11.04 to ship Unity as default desktop?

A blueprint suggesting a that a variant of the Unity netbook interface should be used on the desktop edition for Natty Narwhal has been approved by Mark Shuttleworth for discussion at the Ubuntu Developer Summit this week.

24 October 2010
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Linux Conference Australia 2011 announces registrations now open

Linux.conf.au 2011 has opened registrations for the largest open source conference in the Southern Hemisphere. Linux.conf.au will be held in Brisbane, Australia at the idyllic waterside Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Gardens Point Campus from 24 - 29 January 2011.

14 October 2010
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Linux Action Show review 10.10, talk with OMG! editor Benjamin

Just a quick heads up - The guys over at Jupiter Broadcasting have released a new episode of their very popular video podcast The Linux Action Show featuring a full review of Ubuntu 10.10 as well as a 10 minute interview with yours truly! Catch the video after the jump.

12 October 2010
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Customizing Ubuntu 10.10 with a dock, new icon theme, effects, global menu and more

Quite often we'll post screenshots in articles and no doubt we will always get a comment asking what theme we're using, our font settings, or what dock that is. Today I'm going to share with you my setup - everything from my compiz settings to the icon theme!

10 October 2010
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Taking a look at Canonical’s Ubuntu system management service, Landscape

Canonical Landscape is a service designed to simplify management of many Ubuntu installations, be they physical computers (usually servers) or cloud based. It's aimed at commercial deployment where system administrators need to keep an eye on dozens, if not hundreds of installations - keeping them all running smoothly, bug free, cool and up to date.

10 October 2010
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“Ask Ubuntu” Stack Exchange site out of beta, new awesome domain

The Ubuntu Stack Exchange site which we previously covered is now out of beta in time for the release of Ubuntu 10.10.

10 October 2010
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Google Earth plays nice with Compiz and Ubuntu 10.10

The last time I tried Google Earth on Ubuntu was late last year and I remember I couldn't get it working with Compiz enabled - OpenGL was slow and flickered so much it was unusable when effects were enabled. When they were disabled, it wasn't much better. I installed Google Earth on Maverick and I was blown away by how awesome it was. Click through for videos and install instructions.

9 October 2010