14 DAY TRIAL // It's difficult for some people to work without some background noise, and this is where ANoise comes into action. It's a small application that can provide the background noise that's so needed.
We are used to doing reviews for much more complex applications and that's fine, but from time to time, we get to test something that is extremely simple and very interesting at the same time. At first glance, ANoise might not seem like much, but after writing this review with the sound of a thunderstorm constantly playing, I found that I quite like it.
I, for one, can't work with music in the headphones or in speakers. I find it too distracting and I'm going way beyond just tapping along with the rhythm. Other colleagues of mine don't seem to have any problem with it and I find it to be a little bit of a mystery. ANoise, on the other hand, is just there and it's not inconveniencing me in the least.
There is also a third category of colleagues, who need absolute silence to work and who suck the fun of everything, but we won't mention them here. We'll just suppose everyone is in the above categories.
Installation
The application is developed by Marcos Costales and some of you might remember his name. He's quite a proficient developer and he has a few applications out there already. He's been very active on the Ubuntu Touch front, but he's also responsible for a few desktop apps, like this one.
The application is developed for Ubuntu systems, but other distros might have it as well. I installed ANoise in Ubuntu 15.04 (Vivid Vervet) and it worked like a charm. There is no fancy GUI, so you won't have too much control, but you also don't have a lot to install. Being an Ubuntu developer, he also set up a PPA, with all the relevant packages. All you need to do is enter these commands in a terminal near you.
sudo apt-get update sudo
apt-get install anoise
sudo apt-get install anoise-community-extension1
sudo apt-get install anoise-community-extension2
sudo apt-get install anoise-community-extension3
Usage
As I said just above, there isn't much to review. You just open the Sound indicator and you start it from there. You can change the type of sounds you're listening to with the arrows, just like you would for songs.
If you open the Preferences, you will notice an extra option to put a time on the sounds and to make the application start with the operating system. It's also worth mentioning that, among the ones who submitted sounds to ANoise, there are probably a few parents as well. You'll find sounds like a vacuum cleaner, diesel engine, old air conditioning, and a few others.
