Whatever you do with your Galaxy Nexus, just make sure you don't crack the screen glass; or you'll have to pay a lot.

Last week I succeeded in cracking the screen (glass) on my GSM Galaxy Nexus but I really didn't care very much about that when it happened because I was sure I would be able to repair it at a quite decent price, as I knew how much this job usually costs for iPhones. However, I got quite fast to the reality, and everything I was able to find on the internet indicated a price of $170 for this repair alone. OK, don't get me wrong, I am not stressed about this, because the screen is fully functional and I can use it like it is without any problems, but paying that money for just a screen isn't worth at all!

The problem is the following: the glass, which is basically what we touch when we use the screen, is simply fused to the LCD, so they can't be separated, resulting in something stupid. If you need to replace the glass, you have to replace the entire screen, including the LCD, for which you must pay that price ($170).

Of course that you can only buy the glass from eBay, but it is very har to detach the two parts because the screen is fused at an extremely high temperature to the LCD. And all the repair shops refuse to do it, so you can only do it yourself... but the chances of succeeding are very reduced. I wouldn't even try if the touch is still functional and cracks don't bother me, because if you break the LCD, you just paid around $20 for the glass and you'll have to pay another $170 for the entire screen to get the phone functional again. (and no, CDMA screens won't fit correctly of GSM and otherwise).

So, the entire screen is at least $170 (cheapest price) on the internet. The phone is currently available at $350 in the US, which means that the screen is almost a half of that. Much overpriced, in my opinion. Not to mention that the phone shops asked for at least $270 just for the screen, here, in Romania. Comparing it to other phones, it is still overpriced. The same thing for the Galaxy S2 is $130 (but the quality is also lower, so it's obvious it is cheaper). But the same thing costs only $30 for the iPhone 4S, which means Samsung is definitely overpricing things (a lot) but I can't tell why. Yes, you heard me right, the screen (glass + touch + LCD + whatever else is related to the screen): iPhone 4S - $30 vs Galaxy Nexus - $170.

You probably think I'm furious now...but I am not at all. It could happen to anyone. And I would definitely buy the next Nexus (I love these phones), even if it will still be manufactured by Samsung. The only difference will be that if I go somewhere (I was at a restaurant and I dropped the phone with the face down on a brick walkway), I would definitely keep it in a case to protect it. 

If you haven't got the new Twitter interface (yet), you don't have to worry, you will be getting it soon.

You probably heard about the Twitter's new interface which has been released on Tuesday night (September 14th). I didn't write anything about it because I didn't have time for almost anything on the last few days. So, this is one of the most important changes Twitter did to its official website until now.

However, there are some users who don't see the change even two days after the change has been released (I also don't have it). The change is rolling out progressively, so there might be a few more days to wait for some users to get it. As it writes on its official blog, the update started rolling out on that night for a very small number of accounts, and it's probably still rolling out for some accounts.

What's changed, as I've told you, is the interface which has been redesigned, maintaining its simplicity. Twitter also got more user friendly. It's now possible to view embedded photos and videos from DailyBooth, deviantART, Flickr, Justin.TV, TwitPic, USTREAM, yfrog, YouTube and others. You can now see related content, meaning you can see replies to a tweet, other tweets by a user, the location from where a tweet has been sent, and more. Moreover, you now have "mini profiles", which allows you to view quick information about someones account, without having to leave the page you're on.

Over the following few weeks, both versions of Twitter will be available. The possibility of changing between interfaces allows you to accommodate easier with the new one. We'll see how the users will reaction when the old one won't be available anymore (because there are people who don't like the progress and the change).

AMD officially killed the ATI brand.

AMD decided to kill the ATI brand after they made some studies which showed that people don't care too much about it. In case you didn't know, ATI has been bought a few years ago by AMD, because it wanted to enter on the market of graphic cards (and AMD considered that buying ATI and starting a fight directly against NVIDIA was the best option).

Starting from now, every new card which will be released by ATI AMD is no longer going to be called ATI. This is a bad news for some people who really liked the ATI brand, as they might now consider of turning to NVIDIA. Or....not. But, anyways, I don't see this as a quite intelligent move made by AMD. First graphic cards to be named AMD are going to be launched later this year.

OK, this is going to be really weird. How can you say AMD Radeon 5870? 

Ubuntu 10.10 Alpha changes its look, I hope you like orange....

Ubuntu 10.10 gets, while still in Alpha 3, a quite big change at its interface. The default wallpaper has been updated a little (this isn't that big change), but there were new, much cooler wallpapers added from which to choose. Its theme has also been updated, and even if the older one was changing with every update, it has been removed and newer Ambiance and Radiance themes were added.

Ambiance looks really good, nice finished, not like the older one, which seemed so unfinished. Regarding to the new Radiance, it looks so...white. It isn't currently very pleasant for the eyes (it's 9:30 P.M. right now and it's completely dark outside, maybe because of that), and, most probably, changing the brightness of the monitor to a (much) lower value would make it pleasant (or trying it while there's sunny outside).

Anyway, you will feel with these new themes like you are returning a little bit in the past. They are bringing back some of that orange I liked very much at Ubuntu, but now it is much more vibrant than before. Window buttons, which are still on the left side (and I hope they'll remain there), look quite strange now. They are a little bigger than before, but they are interesting.

I can't take screenshots (I don't know why, Ubuntu simply doesn't want to take them), and that's why I am sending you to my friend from WebUpd8, which has made a few screenshots of everything which is new in Ubuntu 10.10 Beta.

I want to remember you that on September 2nd the Beta version of Ubuntu 10.10 is going to be released, the Release Candidate comes on September 30th (it represents around 95% of the final product), and the Final Release is expected on October 10th.

Ubuntu 10.04.1 released, if you used Update Manager regularly, you already got it.

Ubuntu 10.04.1 has been released, WebUpd8 announced yesterday. Like usually, this version puts together all the updates that Ubuntu 10.04 had until now. So, if you used the update manager regularly, you already have it. It has been released just for those two want to make a fresh install of Ubuntu 10.04 (because this version has all the updates until now and they don't have to wait to download and install them).

This is what is called a maintenance update, and it's available for both desktop and server versions, and for both i386 and amd64 architectures.

It's available for download at the known, official download page, here.

Ubuntu: the change is coming - April 29th.

The new version of Ubuntu, 10.04, is almost near the corner. On April 22nd the last step before the final release in coming, the Release Candidate. This represents usually about 90-95% of the final release, and soon after, on 29th, the final release is going to be available.

This is a LTS update, or Long Term Support. This means that this version will be supported for 3 years on Desktop version, and it is launched every two years (while normal releases are supported for 18 months and are launched every 6 months). Thousands of updates are coming daily for those who are using Beta 2 at this moment, so this is an evidence that the community is seriously working for 10.04 LTS.

This is a list of the most important updates that Ubuntu 10.04 has so far and what is supposed to come in the final release:

• Much better hardware support
• Improved speed
• 2 new default themes
• By default, Ubuntu has windows buttons on the left
• Splash and login screens are now modified
• Gwibber is installed by default (social client - Twitter is included)
• Boot time under 10 seconds (for the final release)

Regarding the themes, an article can be found by clicking here. However, articles about Ubuntu can be found on the entire blog. You must only find them by typing "Ubuntu" in the search box.

Ubuntu is still under full development, so the many applications and even the system can get serious errors, so if you need a stable system it is not recommended to update yet.

The stable version (9.10) and 10.04 beta 2 are both available from the official site: http://www.ubuntu.com/ .

Put Google Chrome buttons on the left (for Ubuntu 10.04).

Even Ubuntu changed its theme and putted the windows buttons on the left, Chrome is still using its own buttons designed by Google, which are on the right. This might create a lot of confusion for the users who updated to 10.04, because sometimes they have to work with the windows on the left (for almost everything) and sometimes with them on the right (for Chrome), and it's not pleasant at all, trust me.

So, if you need to change the buttons from Google Chrome from right to left, all you have to do, is to go on Chrome's settings (click on the tool icon from the right and click options). Here, go on the "Personal Staff" tab and check "Use system title bar and borders". This is all. Google Chrome should now be looking like this:

It is 99% sure. Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx will have the buttons on left.

Since Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 3 came out, nobody knew for sure what was going to happen regarding the location of the buttons for closing, maximizing and minimizing windows.

Somebody put on the internet a photo in which the buttons were on left, then a developer put a photo in which the buttons were on right. Now, if you have Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 3 up-to-date, the buttons are on left. So, this is official now. The developers are trying to change the identity of Ubuntu from a normal OS (Windows like), to a Mac OS X like OS.

Many Ubuntu users declared that they don't like the new location of the buttons. I think that Windows users are now indirectly targeted with this new version of Ubuntu. If they were only once curious how is the experience on Mac OS X, they might now try Ubuntu (and most of them will like it, for sure). And the Mac OS X users are targeted directly, because they can now have a pretty similar experience on Ubuntu. And for those who don't agree with this change, they can put the buttons back on right, because Ubuntu is very customizable.

What seems quite weird is that the buttons are in the following order: maximize-minimize-close, while Mac OS X has maximize and close buttons inverted. This will cause confusion and had already caused for some users, and for unexperienced users will represent a real problem.

I really hope that the developers will let the buttons like they are now, because I like them like this. What do you think about this? Do you prefer the buttons on left or on right?

Twitter is under a phishing attack.

In this period an attack is developing on Twitter. It consists into receiving direct messages containing "lol, is that you" or "lol, this is funny, followed by a link. When you enter the link, you will be asked to enter your user and password, and, after this procedure, your account will start sending the same messages. If you got the message, you shouldn't worry, but if your account starts sending these types of messages by its own, change your password immediately.

The messages will take you to a page from allinonecontracting.com, which links after to bzpharma.net. Anything you're doing, do NOT click on these links.

DNS. What it does and why it's important.

DNS - domain name system - represents, in the most simple terms, a system on the internet which will automatically attributes to the internet address you're trying to view, the correct ip address. For example, if you type in the address bar of the browser "www.google.com", your DNS will correlate it with "74.125.43.103". Without the DNS, browsing the internet would be very difficult, because we should have to know millions of ip addresses.

There are many DNS services available. Most users are browsing the internet with default settings provided by ISP (internet service provider), so they're using the domain name systems provided by the ISP. Here come's the problem. These domain name systems might not work very fast, and they can be even not synchronized with some of the webpages on the internet, or they can even redirect some webpages (which is completely unpleasant).

There are a few DNS providers on the internet, that can offer you better internet experience than your ISP can. OpenDNS offers fast DNS services, for free or not, depending on the quality of services you want to have. If you make an account at OpenDNS (free), you can view detailed informations about what you're doing on the internet, and you can activate if you want, different filters, for blocking access to websites that contains pornography, hacking tutorials, mail services, messenger services, and many others. You can even have protection against phishing, botnet, and if you pay, against malware.

Google launched recently their own DNS services, and they actually offer the fastest internet on most of the regions on the globe. On my network (ClickNet Romania) they're the fastest. They're offering automatically protection against malware, but I don't know how efficient it is.

Now you probably want to know how to change domain name systems. If you're connected to the internet through a router or a modem, you should firstly try to change DNS addresses there (router/modem). If you connect to the internet directly (your computer makes the connection) or if your router or modem is set to bridge the connection or has automatically settings, try to change DNS addresses from your connection properties on your computer. Here is a guide from Google which will tell you how to do that: http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using.html.

Official Google DNS site: http://code.google.com/speed/public-dns/

Official OpenDNS site: http://www.opendns.com/

Google DNS addresses are:

• 8.8.8.8
• 8.8.4.4

OpenDNS adresses are:

• 208.67.222.222
• 208.67.220.220

! You can follow that tutorial from Google even if you want to use OpenDNS, but be sure to put 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 instead of 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 .

For any problems, you can leave a comment to this post.