• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

  • Home
  • About
  • People
    • Christina & Avinash Meetoo
    • Avinash Meetoo
    • Christina Meetoo
    • Anya Meetoo
    • Kyan Meetoo
  • General
    • News
    • Mauritius
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Business
    • Travel
  • Computing
    • Apple
    • Linux
    • LUGM
    • Programming
    • Web
    • Technology
    • Knowledge Seven
  • Entertainment
    • Music
    • Movies
    • Photography
    • Sports

Archives for April 2005

Some thoughts about GNOME 3.0…

22 April 2005 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

As you might know, I am a GNOME user even though I like some great KDE (or Qt) applications like AmaroK, K3B and LyX.

I’ve been reading a lot about GNOME’s future lately. In fact, according to Havoc Pennington, the lead developer of GNOME, as most users are rather satisfied with GNOME 2.x (which is a great environment to work in IMHO), most developers are busy correcting bugs in this version of GNOME instead of working towards a radically different GNOME 3.0.

As put by Havoc, “the GNOME 2 desktop, as shipped by most everyone, is the GNOME environment plus Firefox plus OpenOffice.org plus Evolution or Thunderbird”. Any radical change in the GNOME UI will require that those additional software also change their UI in the name of consistency. And I personally don’t see that happenning yet (especially OpenOffice.org which has a dreadful UI compared to the others).

Havoc concludes by saying that “GNOME 3 should be a fork [of GNOME 2]” because “the forces of existing userbase, the easiest-to-reach future userbase, cross-platform applications, and funded development efforts are strongly pulling GNOME 2 toward conservatism.”

“And I think this [inclination to maintain the existing or traditional order] makes a temporary (but probably multi-year) fork almost mandatory. Trying to do GNOME 3 “in place” will destabilize GNOME 2 while preventing the structural changes that would have value.”

Personally, I really feel we need a breakthrough in UI design. The whole Desktop metaphor has been used to the full. What will the next metaphor be ?

Filed Under: Linux

Renault Megane : an update

18 April 2005 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

We’ve had our Renault Megane for 8 months now and it’s time for me to tell you what I feel about the car.

I am pretty much satisfied… :-)

The car looks very nice, has a pretty powerful engine (1.4 litres but 98 British horsepower), is very secure (with a total of 6 airbags which I don’t intend to test :-)) and is very comfortable. In fact, Christina and I have bought two car seats for Anya and Kyan and, frankly, I feel so happy driving with my wife next to me and my two kids securely fastened in the rear seats. It sure beats our previous car, a Toyota Corolla, which had deficient seats belts which precluded the use of car seats…

The engine is really smooth and the car is easy to drive (if you check the tyre pressure regularly). Fuel consumption is about 10 litres for 100 km (we tend to drive a lot in Quatre-Bornes and Reduit) which is about 31 miles per gallon for our still archaic friends. The car has an onboard computer giving (among other infomation) the instantaneous fuel consumption which helps a lot in choosing a correct driving technique.

The CD player is OK but not spectacular. I guess I should have opted for the optional Cabasse system instead… Well, next time then :-)

We’ve had one problem though that has still not been resolved. The light sensor which is used by the automatic headlights and automatic wipers subsystems is defective. We’ve sent the car at Leal for repairs (and the car is still under warranty) but they didn’t have the missing component in stock. They assured us they’ll order one from France for us and call us when it is available but they haven’t done so… yet… in spite of more than 2 months having passed :-(

I have to put some pressure on them. I’ll do that this week. Promise :-)

Filed Under: Technology

We’re in the semi finals of the Champions League

14 April 2005 By Avinash Meetoo Leave a Comment

Liverpool is now where it belongs… among the top 4 teams of Europe. We have heroically beaten Juventus on aggregate in the quarter finals and our next opponent in the semis will be Chelsea FC.

Liverpool is fantastic. The players have responded wonderfully to Rafael Benitez’s tactics.

I’m so proud :-)

Filed Under: Sports

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Our Personal Websites

Avinash Meetoo
Christina Meetoo
Anya Meetoo
Kyan Meetoo

Random Posts

My favourite characters from Orange Is the New Black

Mauritian spammers

Teachers of RCC around 1989-1990

Recent Comments

  • Memento Mori by Depeche Mode on I have my dream HiFi setup: Audiolab and Elac
  • Avinash Meetoo on High-End Hi-Fi Audio Companies
  • Gerard Chavagnan on High-End Hi-Fi Audio Companies

Archives

  • March 2023 (5)
  • February 2023 (1)
  • December 2022 (1)
  • November 2022 (1)
  • October 2022 (4)
  • August 2022 (3)
  • July 2022 (3)
  • June 2022 (5)
  • May 2022 (5)
  • January 2022 (3)
  • December 2021 (2)
  • November 2021 (1)
  • October 2021 (1)
  • September 2021 (4)
  • August 2021 (2)
  • July 2021 (14)
  • May 2021 (2)
  • April 2021 (4)
  • March 2021 (9)
  • February 2021 (2)
  • January 2021 (1)
  • October 2020 (1)
  • September 2020 (1)
  • August 2020 (2)
  • July 2020 (5)
  • June 2020 (3)
  • May 2020 (5)
  • April 2020 (6)
  • March 2020 (2)
  • February 2020 (2)
  • January 2020 (2)
  • October 2019 (1)
  • September 2019 (2)
  • July 2019 (2)
  • June 2019 (1)
  • May 2019 (3)
  • April 2019 (2)
  • March 2019 (1)
  • February 2019 (1)
  • January 2019 (3)
  • December 2018 (1)
  • October 2018 (3)
  • August 2018 (2)
  • July 2018 (2)
  • June 2018 (1)
  • May 2018 (1)
  • April 2018 (1)
  • February 2018 (1)
  • December 2017 (1)
  • October 2017 (1)
  • September 2017 (1)
  • August 2017 (1)
  • July 2017 (1)
  • May 2017 (4)
  • April 2017 (3)
  • March 2017 (4)
  • February 2017 (5)
  • January 2017 (3)
  • October 2016 (1)
  • September 2016 (1)
  • August 2016 (4)
  • July 2016 (1)
  • June 2016 (1)
  • March 2016 (3)
  • February 2016 (3)
  • January 2016 (1)
  • December 2015 (1)
  • November 2015 (2)
  • September 2015 (1)
  • August 2015 (3)
  • March 2015 (1)
  • December 2014 (1)
  • November 2014 (4)
  • October 2014 (1)
  • March 2014 (2)
  • February 2014 (3)
  • December 2013 (1)
  • October 2013 (1)
  • September 2013 (1)
  • August 2013 (1)
  • July 2013 (1)
  • June 2013 (2)
  • May 2013 (1)
  • March 2013 (3)
  • January 2013 (2)
  • December 2012 (3)
  • November 2012 (4)
  • September 2012 (3)
  • August 2012 (2)
  • July 2012 (3)
  • June 2012 (2)
  • May 2012 (1)
  • April 2012 (2)
  • February 2012 (1)
  • January 2012 (4)
  • December 2011 (2)
  • November 2011 (1)
  • October 2011 (4)
  • September 2011 (2)
  • August 2011 (1)
  • July 2011 (2)
  • June 2011 (4)
  • April 2011 (7)
  • March 2011 (2)
  • February 2011 (1)
  • January 2011 (3)
  • November 2010 (3)
  • October 2010 (1)
  • September 2010 (2)
  • August 2010 (4)
  • July 2010 (2)
  • June 2010 (1)
  • May 2010 (3)
  • April 2010 (4)
  • March 2010 (3)
  • February 2010 (3)
  • January 2010 (5)
  • December 2009 (2)
  • November 2009 (3)
  • October 2009 (1)
  • September 2009 (5)
  • August 2009 (3)
  • July 2009 (1)
  • June 2009 (3)
  • May 2009 (2)
  • April 2009 (7)
  • March 2009 (12)
  • February 2009 (10)
  • January 2009 (5)
  • December 2008 (4)
  • November 2008 (11)
  • October 2008 (6)
  • September 2008 (7)
  • August 2008 (3)
  • July 2008 (8)
  • June 2008 (6)
  • May 2008 (5)
  • April 2008 (7)
  • March 2008 (6)
  • February 2008 (3)
  • January 2008 (6)
  • December 2007 (11)
  • November 2007 (10)
  • October 2007 (7)
  • September 2007 (9)
  • August 2007 (3)
  • July 2007 (7)
  • June 2007 (8)
  • May 2007 (14)
  • April 2007 (11)
  • March 2007 (18)
  • February 2007 (14)
  • January 2007 (15)
  • December 2006 (16)
  • November 2006 (10)
  • October 2006 (7)
  • September 2006 (8)
  • August 2006 (8)
  • July 2006 (6)
  • June 2006 (4)
  • May 2006 (13)
  • April 2006 (10)
  • March 2006 (11)
  • February 2006 (7)
  • January 2006 (14)
  • December 2005 (8)
  • November 2005 (6)
  • October 2005 (7)
  • September 2005 (2)
  • August 2005 (6)
  • July 2005 (2)
  • June 2005 (6)
  • May 2005 (15)
  • April 2005 (12)
  • March 2005 (3)
  • February 2005 (8)
  • January 2005 (3)
  • December 2004 (1)
  • November 2004 (2)
  • October 2004 (2)
  • September 2004 (3)
  • August 2004 (3)
  • July 2004 (3)
  • June 2004 (3)
  • May 2004 (6)
  • April 2004 (10)
  • March 2004 (12)
Creative Commons License This work is licensed by Avinash Meetoo under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License.