Compiz Fusion and the Switch to Ubuntu

I have been inspired. I have been tickled with a magical video on YouTube showing me the splendors of:

-Efficient window management
-Clean, hardware-driven GUI(graphical user interface)
-Useful tools beyond cheap gimmicks, bells, and whistles

Compiz and Beryl(window management apps for Linux) are merging to create "Compiz Fusion" and the video was a brief preview of what to expect from the package.

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Fbk52Mk1w

Basically you can manipulate windows, applications, virtual desktops, and perform various graphical nuances that allow you to work better, easier, and more efficiently through these small features that some may think are just pretty effects. Why do I think they help productivity and make computer use more efficient and easier to use?

-Multiple Desktops: This tool has been available for a while on Linux and Windows, but is still worth mentioning. How would you like to have your web browsers on one desktop, music player and instant messenger on another, and your photo editor all on separate "virtual desktops" that you can flip to on the fly with one computer monitor? It not only helps separate work from play, but also allows you to keep things tidy, and help offset some of the strain your computer goes through having to render all those apps it's got stacked up on one another.

-Cube Rotation: A different way to visualize the multiple desktop concept. Same as before, but this way a different desktop is on a different side of a 3D cube generated on your screen. Not much use being a cube, but some prefer this over the standard way to view their desktops.

-Scaling: Ever have so many apps in use at once that you find yourself clicking through each to figure out what's what? With the scaling feature you can automatically "shrink" down all of these windows/apps so that you can see them all spread out on your desktop at once. Then grabbing the one your were looking for is just a simple click away.

-Ring Switching: Just another way to sift through multiple apps/windows running at the same time. Puts them in a nifty little loop you can cycle through. Vista users should be comfortable with this as it's really the same concept as the card shuffle feature.

-Focus Edge Dodge: This feature actually is just an interesting little animation to make working less boring. It doesn't actually offer any usefulness other than the stylish switching between windows. Instead of POPPING onto the screen when you click a window out of focus, all of the other windows actually shuffle around it, and move out of it's way as it comes to the foreground. A cool effect that if all else makes using Ubuntu more entertaining.

-Zoom Desktop: Got lots of cash and have been eying that 30inch wide screen Dell monitor? Don't worry about the small text when using the monitor in full resolution- the zoom tool allows you to zoom into the area you are having trouble seeing, and pan around. This is an important feature to graphic designers and similar jobs, as having a lot of room on your screen at once is more valuable than being able to read text.

-And plenty other features: This package has a lot going for it to spice up your Ubuntu installation and make productivity a lot less stressful and easy to manage. If all else, you will at least have a super slick Linux installation you can make your Mac buddies jealous with!

I will be experimenting with this package soon and updating this space with a progress report. I want to thank pbutta for the video and tutorial he sent me from http://puttabutta.blogspot.com/ , and hopefully everything will be going smoothly.

If you have any specific questions about the package or want me to test any features out while going through these plugins then please comment me here and I will try to answer in my next update.