Welcome to the first in a series of posts about awesome apps you can install on ubermix to make it your own!

If you are like me, you try to keep tabs on a number of news feeds from a variety of sources, using Feedly or some other RSS feed aggregator. And while Feedly's web reader is fine, it's far from spectacular, especially when used on a touchscreen device, like the excellent Acer Switch Alpha 12 or Spin 7 (both great choices for ubermix).

Enter FeedReader.

FeedReader is a standalone RSS reader app for Linux desktops that does a nice job of fetching and organizing feed content. It performs all of the functions you would expect, including marking items as read, starred, tagging, and the like, and will even share articles to your Instapaper or Pocket account. And best of all, it caches content, so you can read offline, should you find yourself without an internet connection.



To check it out, open a terminal (ctrl-alt-t is the fastest way to get to one) and copy and paste the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:eviltwin1/feedreader-stable sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install feedreader

Enjoy!

One of the best things about ubermix is its flexibility, both on and off the web. Yet there are times when a Linux plugin simply isn't available for a particular site. But have no fear, Pipelight is here!

Pipelight is a combination of WINE and a browser plugin that enables using web plugins designed for Windows directly in Firefox on ubermix. Thought you couldn't run Netflix because you can't run Silverlight? Think again! As of this writing, Pipelight supports the following plugins:

Supported standard plugins:

•   silverlight5.1
•   silverlight5.0
•   silverlight4
•   flash
•   unity3d
•   widevine

Additional plugins (experimental):

•   shockwave
•   foxitpdf
•   grandstream
•   adobereader
•   hikvision
•   npactivex
•   roblox
•   vizzedrgr
•   viewright-caiway
•   triangleplayer
•   x64-unity3d
•   x64-flash

Installing Pipelight on ubermix is easy. Simply open a terminal (ctrl-alt-t) and type the following commands to install:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:pipelight/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends pipelight-multi
sudo pipelight-plugin --update

Once complete, Pipelight will be ready to install the plugins of your choosing. To find out which plugins it supports, type:

pipelight-plugin --help

Once you know the name of the plugin you want, simply type a command similar to the following to install it:

pipelight-plugin --enable silverlight

...replacing "silverlight" with the name of the plugin you wish to install, of course, if you want to install one of the others.

A few websites, like Netflix, still need one more step to work, because they check to see what operating system you are running before sending the appropriate video. To fake them out into thinking you are running Windows, install install the UAControl or User Agent Overrider extensions and use one of the following user agents:

• Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:15.0) Gecko/20120427 Firefox/15.0a1
• Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:22.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/22.0
• Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:23.0) Gecko/20131011 Firefox/23.0

Viola! Instant access to even more content on your favorite OS!

You may have noticed I said Firefox and not Chrome. It would be nice if plugin support was still available in Chrome, but Google in their infinite wisdom decided to disable external plugins as of version 35. Hopefully, they will come to their senses very soon.

Photo Credit: Bill Selak via Compfight cc

Evernote is an awesome note service that makes it easy to remember things big and small, with an awesome web client and apps available for just about every kind of device. Everything you save to Evernote is stored in the cloud and the service keeps all of your devices in sync automagically, so your notes are always up-to-date and available to you, no matter where you are.

While the web client is an awesome option on ubermix, an even better experience can be had with the new Evernote client: Everpad. Everpad offers easy access to your notes/clips/checklists/etc from within any application and - best of all - it works offline, syncing up with the Evernote servers the next time your device gets connected.

Setting up Everpad on ubermix is easy. First, open a terminal (either by selecting "Terminal" from the "Accessories" category or pressing ctrl-alt-t) and enter the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jklein/ubermix
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install everpad

 Once installed, you will find a new "Everpad" icon under the "Internet" category.


Click on "Everpad" and you will notice that a new Evernote "elephant" indicator appears in the top right status area. Click on the elephant indicator to bring up the options menu, and choose "Settings and Management".


From here, we'll select "Authorisation" (the European spelling) and either enter our Evernote credentials, or create an account. Once authorized, you might also want to check the "Start with system" checkbox in "Settings and Management" to make sure that Everpad starts automatically when your device is turned on.


Once complete, select "Please perform your first sync" from the Everpad indicator, and your notes will sync in and the app will be ready to use. You'll notice that your 10 most recent notes automatically appear under the indicator, making quick access while working on a project even easier. Choose "All Notes" to see all of your notes/notebooks, and "Create Note" to create a note from within any ubermix application


Access it from anywhere to create and edit notes, clips, and checklists. The app even supports drag-and-drop of images and text. Enjoy!