The Clockwork Man

The Ubuntu Software Center has been filling up with new games recently, and I’d like to highlight another one of those this week.
Meet ‘The Clockwork Man’.
The Clockwork Man is an artistic, hidden object game set in the Victorian Era with a strong Steampunk vibe.

Hidden Object Game

In The Clockwork Man, you travel the world searching for the parts necessary to construct the world’s greatest invention.  To reach this goal, however, you must first find collections of items to gain information from in-game characters, fix devices, or solve puzzles to journey on.

If you run into trouble finding a particular piece of a collection, don’t worry, your faithful sidekick Sprocket will help.  Use him wisely though, as he must recharge from time to time.

The artwork in the game is amazing, and it is easy to get lost in it;  The game boast literally hundreds of hand-painted items.  The background music used is also soothing and very well done, which is a pleasant surprise not found in many Linux offerings.

The Clockwork Man is available in both Ubuntu Maverick and Natty for $14.99USD. For more information, you may visit the game’s official site. 

all credit to Brian Thomason, Published June 6, 2011 OMG Ubuntu

Trash Indicator for Ubuntu

Ever felt that emptying the trash can in Ubuntu required too many clicks or too much effort?
If so you might be lazy, but the following Trash Can indicator might just prove more in keeping with your workflow…

Trash indicator shows how many items are currently in the trash can, along with a menu item to quickly ‘empty’ the trash, too.
The developer of the applet, Michael J, told us: -
“I’ve never been fond of the big desktop trash icons or one taking up space in a dock, so I have tucked the trash into a nice and tidy indicator. Kind of surprised no-one else has done this already.”

Download

An easy-to-install .DEB package of Trash Indicator can be downloaded on the official project home @ code.google.com/p/trashindicator/

The applet works with Ubuntu 10.04, 10.10 and Ubuntu 11.04.

And all credit to Joey Sneddon, Published June 10, 2011 OMG Ubuntu

Enable DVD Playback in Ubuntu 11.04

Playback of DVDs in Ubuntu 11.04 is not enabled out of the box. Thankfully setting it up takes no time at all.
Have you enabled it? If not you can find out by inserting a DVD into your disc drive/slot and choosing to ‘Play’ it with Ubuntu’s default media player. The following error will greet you: -

Ways to enable DVD playback in Ubuntu

Fluendo

Enabling DVD playback in Ubuntu is simple enough, and there are various ways to do it. Some might say the easiest – as well as the most legally unquestionable- is to purchase the Fluendo DVD Playback software from the Ubuntu Software Centre.

Libdvdcss

If you’d prefer to spend the Fluendo costs on physical DVDs rather than DVD software, you can enable DVD playback in your faovurite application by installing a package called ‘libdvdcss’.

‘libdvdcss’ is a small library file that accesses DVDs “…like a block device, without having to bother about the decryption.”

Hit the buttons below to download a .DEB package of libdvdcss from the medibuntu repositories.

Once the .deb file has downloaded just double-click on it to begin installation.

After installation has finished you can open your favourite media player and DVD playback will be supported.


the credit goes to..

By Joey Sneddon, Published June 21, 2011 OMG Ubuntu

Turn The Google Menu Bar Into An Ubuntu-themed Panel

Google began rolling out a darker menu bar across its sites and services yesterday.
This minor similarity has led one developer to create a userstyle that replaces Google’s choice of menu bar with an Ubuntu Ambiance-themed ‘Panel’ style – even through to the highlight colour used in menus

Download

The userstyle is available to download from gnome-look.org.
Once fully download head to your Downloads folder and extract the .zip archive.
Next open your ‘Home’ folder and press ‘CTRL+H’ to reveal hidden files and folders.
Google Chrome/ium users need to move the css file to:

• ~/.config/chromium/Default/User StyleSheets/

Firefox users need to move the css file to:

• ~/.mozilla/firefox/yourProfile/chrome/

Going Further in Chrome

For an even greater Ambiance-themed Chrome you can also install: -

• Ubuntu-style scrollbars
• Ubuntu coloured hover/highlight text  

The credit goes to...

By Joey Sneddon, Published June 29, 2011 OMG Ubuntu

Neverputt

Neverputt is a 3D miniature golf game for 1-4 players.  You are in the first-person hot-seat and must control the direction and velocity of the ball in order to be successful.

Neverputt

Whether you’d like to just relax and play a little putt-putt in peace, or challenge yourself with a bizarre combination of holes, Neverputt will not disappoint.  It ships with seven different courses by default, ranging from easy to insanely difficult.

Many of the holes are similar to those you would see at a real miniature golf course, but some of the more complex holes provide pitfalls such as moving tiles and teleportation.

Neverputt is free software available for all currently supported versions of Ubuntu. For more information, please visit the project’s website on icculus. Please note that most of the information you find there will pertain to Neverputt’s better known big brother, Neverball. 
 

By Brian Thomason, Published July 19, 2011 in OMG Ubuntu

I do not qualify for credit.