[141000160010] |<title>Hydrogen Review</title>
[141000160020] |<img/>Sometimes I like to play with software designed to create music.
[141000160030] |At a first glimpse, Hydrogen can do that.
[141000160040] |After going a little further in the internals of the program, I thought it can't really do much.
[141000160050] |After playing an hour with it I saw I was wrong.
[141000160060] |In fact hydrogen is a drum machine.
[141000160070] |A very good one too.
[141000160080] |You don't have to be a skilled drummer to be able to play cool beats.
[141000160090] |The interface is very user friendly and intuitive.
[141000160100] |When I first fired the program, I was a little surprised because the frames of the windows looked just like in Win 98.
[141000160110] |I suspected the program is ported from Windows.
[141000160120] |Thank God I was wrong again.
[141000160130] |The graphical interface is based on QT3.
[141000160140] |Actually the program takes a very small amount of system resources.
[141000160150] |I didn't manage to get the processor usage to more than 10% and the RAM amount to more than 5 MB.
[141000160160] |I have an Athlon XP 2200 MHz CPU.
[141000160170] |I guess this program will have no problem running on a Pentium II.
[141000160180] |<b>How can I use Hydrogen?</b>
[141000160190] |Well, it's easy.
[141000160200] |Mostly you will work with three windows: The Pattern Editor, The Song Editor and The Mixer.
[141000160210] |From time to time, you might like to use the advanced Instrument Editor.
[141000160220] |Before dissecting these frames we'll have to take a quick look at the main toolbar.
[141000160230] |In the toolbar there are the main controls used for playback (with space you start the playback), a button to set what you want to play (either a pattern or a song), buttons to set the BPM and a button for Jack.
[141000160240] |The Beats Per Minute range is between 30 and 400.
[141000160250] |I guess at 30 BPM you can make the beat line for a slow love song and at 400 you can make some nasty, brain washing, music for ravers that accessories with neon and "mineral water".
[141000160260] |<b>The Pattern Editor</b> <img/>
[141000160270] |<img/>In this window we can create or modify the pattern which is being played, by adding and removing different instruments.
[141000160280] |We can also modify the intensity of each instrument.
[141000160290] |This is very suggestive and in a few seconds you can accommodate with it.
[141000160300] |In the first part of the program you will see several LCD like controls and displays.
[141000160310] |From the first one you can select the pattern that you want to edit and near it is displayed the name of the pattern.
[141000160320] |The size of the pattern can be changed from the next button.
[141000160330] |It supports values between 1 and 32.
[141000160340] |A unit is made of two beats.
[141000160350] |The next button allows you to set the resolution of the pattern using two different systems for measuring it.
[141000160360] |When you add a new note in the pattern, it is played by default.
[141000160370] |If you want you can turn this off using the button with the note icon.
[141000160380] |A cool feature of this program is that you can actually use a midi device, like a midi keyboard, to record notes.
[141000160390] |Each instrument has its own set of features accessible right-clicking on it.
[141000160400] |If you want to preview the sound of an instrument or just to have fun trying to play some live music, remember that the keys from the left side of your keyboard correspond to different instruments and pushing those plays that instrument.
[141000160410] |<b>The Song Editor</b> <img/>
[141000160420] |<img/>This is also some sort of a pattern editor.
[141000160430] |The difference is that in this one you take the different patterns created and you combine which of them are played at a certain moment.
[141000160440] |The advantage of this is that you can have several song patterns and combine them in different ways.
[141000160450] |The buttons in this window allow us to easily create new patterns, move them up and down and switch back and forth between draw mode and select mode.
[141000160460] |In select mode you can select several blue boxes and move them all together, and in draw mode you add and remove them individually.
[141000160470] |Right-clicking on a pattern presents several options.
[141000160480] |You should take a look at them.
[141000160490] |<b>The Mixer</b> <img/>
[141000160500] |<img/>With the mixer you can tune the global or single volume of a drumkit.
[141000160510] |Near the global volume slider you also have three effects.
[141000160520] |Swing shifts a few notes back or forward, not randomly, timing modifies timings of the notes and humanize effect randomizes the velocity.
[141000160530] |Clicking the FX button shows a panel for four special effects.
[141000160540] |To be able to use them you need the LADSPA plugin library.
[141000160550] |With each volume slider for individual drums you can modify other attributes like pan and I think also the amount of each special effect.
[141000160560] |You then have options to mute a drum or to play it solo.
[141000160570] |By double clicking an instrument in a mixer you bring up an instrument editor.
[141000160580] |<b>The Instrument Editor</b> <img/>
[141000160590] |<img/>In the first tab of the instrument you can adjust Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release, Cutoff and Resonance or even add a random pitch.
[141000160600] |Pitch has the greatest impact on a tune and this random pitch can add a little bit of a twist to the song.
[141000160610] |In the second tab you can add up to 16 layers of wav, aiff, flac and au samples.
[141000160620] |Here you also have the option to change the gain and the pitch.
[141000160630] |I tried as a little experiment to change the pitch of an instrument while I was doing playback.
[141000160640] |I was pleasantly surprised by the cool sound that got out of my speakers.
[141000160650] |It would have been nice if I had the option to record a live act, without using Jack, when you consider that you can play using the computer's keyboard.
[141000160660] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000160670] |The simple and intuitive interface, combined with the versatility and the small resources that it consumes makes this program an example for all the developers that want to make of the computer a tool that really makes their life easier.
[141000160680] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000160690] |I would like in a future version to be put a little bit more accent on the ability to play and record live acts. 
[141000160700] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000160710] |Taking into account that this is the only drum machine I've ever used in my life, all I can say is that I got used to it right away.
[141000160720] |I can't compare it to anything, but I can tell you that it's really a very good program and with the occasion of this review I would like to salute the work of Alessandro Comino and the contributors of this projects.
[141000160730] |Some screenshots:
[141000670010] |<title>Sylpheed Review</title>
[141000670020] |<img/>E-Mail is essential these days, so I guess it's important to figure out which e-mail client is best for each of us.
[141000670030] |Even though most e-mail is read from web based mail interfaces (webmail), it's a good practice to also use one installed on the hard drive.
[141000670040] |After installing a new Linux system, I thought it would be nice to test drive a client that I've never tried before.
[141000670050] |Thunderbird, Evolution and KMail are well known clients that do the job just fine but I had heard about Sylpheed on several occasions, so I wanted to check it out.
[141000670060] |I fired up a browser, I misspelled the name of this client in Google and found little results :) I realized something was wrong and, in a couple of minutes I found out that there isn't only a Sylpheed, but there are two of them.
[141000670070] |Now I guess some of you might wonder how that is possible.
[141000670080] |First, there was Sylpheed e-mail, written by Hiroyuki Yamamoto, and then appeared Sylpheed-Claws that was supposed to be a testbed for the new features in Sylpheed.
[141000670090] |At some point the codebases stopped syncing and Sylpheed-Claws emerged entirely on its own.
[141000670100] |I decided to write a review for both applications to see which one is better.
[141000670110] |I'll start with Sylpheed because most of the code from Sylpheed-Claws comes from here and without it there wouldn't be any Sylpheed-Claws.
[141000670120] |The first thing I noticed about it is that it uses the GTK2 GUI toolkit so it looks nice and in the same time it's lightweight.
[141000670130] |GTK also allows Sylpheed to be cross-platform.
[141000670140] |Secondly, I noticed that it has a tray icon.
[141000670150] |Unfortunately, this tray icon doesn't seem to be of any help since it disappears when I close the program.
[141000670160] |It should be something lets it stay in the tray after the program is closed but I didn't manage to find it.
[141000670170] |One thing that Sylpheed can be praised for is support for the Japanese language.
[141000670180] |Since the author is from Japan, he did a very good job at supporting this language.
[141000670190] |I haven't actually tested this, since I'm European, but that's the word on the program's forums.
[141000670200] |Support for i18n internationalization is also taken into account as well as m17n multilingualization.
[141000670210] |Sylpheed is translated in more than 30 languages so I guess it's out of discussion to consider it as a client for Japanese people only.
[141000670220] |At first, the interface looks simple and very straight forward so it seems easy to use.
[141000670230] |It adopts the display with three panes that we are used to see in any modern client.
[141000670240] |It shouldn't create any problems to anyone since it's a mail client and everybody should be using e-mail nowadays.
[141000670250] |The truth is that I didn't actually feel it as warm as the other clients I used before.
[141000670260] |As soon as I went through the tools and the configuration options I felt that perhaps things are a bit complicated.
[141000670270] |Anyway, after using it a little I got used with it and I realized that Sylpheed has a fair amount of features.
[141000670280] |Unfortunately, I think that Sylpheed has poor support for filtering junk mail.
[141000670290] |It has pre-made settings for bogofilter, which uses the popular Bayesian technique which was explained in the <a>Evolution review</a>.
[141000670300] |Average users will not be able to do much with the junk mail filtering feature but the advanced ones will be able to squeeze the most of it because external commands to any program can be used.
[141000670310] |You should decide if this is a good or a bad thing.
[141000670320] |On the other hand, advanced users will be disappointed by the security features.
[141000670330] |I find it very hard to make any settings related to security.
[141000670340] |The supported security features are GnuPG and SSL/TLSv1 and this should be enough for most of us that even want security.
[141000670350] |Settings related to junk mail control can be found in the Common preferences window and the ones related to the security can be set from the account preferences.
[141000670360] |In Sylpheed, the filtering is very powerful and versatile but maybe a little complicated.
[141000670370] |Considering that this software is designed to be able to handle tens of thousands of e-mails easily, advanced filters are essential.
[141000670380] |The ones used here are definitely up to the job.
[141000670390] |The integrated search function also utilizes the filters.
[141000670400] |A quick search is also available and it can be used to quickly narrow down the message list.
[141000670410] |The flexibility of Sylpheed comes from the fact that external commands can be used in various circumstances.
[141000670420] |For example, you can define a custom command for selecting an external editor, for printing, for an external web browser, even for receiving mail with something like fetchmail and many more.
[141000670430] |Last but not least, you should know that Sylpheed can be handled fast, easy and efficient with the keyboard.
[141000670440] |The mouse can be used with no problem but I still prefer using the keyboard.
[141000670450] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000670460] |The fact that GTK2 is used as a GUI toolkit is very good because it makes the interface beautiful, nice and easy to port on different platforms.
[141000670470] |Flexibility is excellent and advanced users can do a lot with it.
[141000670480] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000670490] |I think I'm fair when I say that it is hard to configure.
[141000670500] |The average user will be scared of all the configuration options and to be honest I'm not sure how many of them are required.
[141000670510] |I think it would have been a lot better if there where two modes of the configuration options: a basic one and an advanced one.
[141000670520] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000670530] |The truth is that Sylpheed is a good e-mail client with a lot of features and configuration options but when it comes to just using it efficiently out of the box, you might have a problem.
[141000670540] |Some time is necessary for adjusting with it and if e-mail is very important in your daily activities you should give it a try.
[141000670550] |If e-mail is just something you use from time to time and you are not very confident with your computer skills, perhaps you shouldn't go with Sylpheed.
[141000670560] |I send very few e-mails every day and I will not use Sylpheed for this task.
[141000670570] |The screenshots below show Sylpheed in action:
[141000900010] |<title>KNotes Review</title>
[141000900020] |<img/>About six months ago I started to seriously consider doing something about my notes.
[141000900030] |I had notes all over my desk, written on different pieces of paper, on post-its, on magazines and many in new text documents.
[141000900040] |You can't imagine but it was a mess and even in that mess I was able to locate my notes when they where not considered garbage by other and thrown away.
[141000900050] |At some point, I decided to get more organized and the best solution at that time seamed to be a notes application for my Linux desktops.
[141000900060] |I started to use frequently either KNotes in KDE or Sticky Notes in GNOME.
[141000900070] |My favorite is Sticky Notes, but I'm going to review KNotes because it has a lot more features which might really come in handy to some and I don't think that, with the current set of features, Sticky Notes deserves a review. 
[141000900080] |Development for KNotes started about a decade ago and I'm thinking that most of you who used KDE PIM saw it there.
[141000900090] |I'm also thinking that most of you never gave it any attention because it seemed to be just a useless application.
[141000900100] |It's not useless at all, and, even if it doesn't attract crowds, it can really help at keeping some things within reach.
[141000900110] |KNotes is an integrated component of Kontact, but it can be used independently just fine.
[141000900120] |Once you started KNotes, it will automatically start itself each time you log into KDE.
[141000900130] |It helps you by allowing fast and easy access to your sticky notes, which now don't have to be all over the place.
[141000900140] |An interesting set of features allows notes to be easily mailed, sent to another KNotes application over the network or pasted in the application you work with.
[141000900150] |KNotes even supports formatting and the best way of using it is to get to know the shortcuts, because using the mouse is not very efficient.
[141000900160] |Once you've created a new note, a nicely skinned notes window will appear.
[141000900170] |By default you'll use basic text editing, but the cool thing in KNotes is that you can also go in the preferences window and enable rich text editing.
[141000900180] |In rich text mode you'll also have a small toolbar at the bottom of your note and all the common shortcuts you're used to for editing rich text will also work.
[141000900190] |This is very good, because it allows you to easily emphasize some key words.
[141000900200] |Right-clicking the upper border of a note will display a menu with some pretty interesting options.
[141000900210] |Some of them are the options to set an alarm for a note, to send it to another computer that uses KNotes and that is setup to accept incoming notes, to e-mail that note and to save it as HTML or plain text.
[141000900220] |Another nice feature is the possibility to keep it below others or above.
[141000900230] |Considering all this great features, I can say that KNotes is a little over-engineered, but I like this a lot.
[141000900240] |I use most of these features, especially when working together with some friends on a project, for sending notes over the network.
[141000900250] |The default settings associated to KNotes work pretty good for most of you, but it is better if you take a look here because you might like to change some things.
[141000900260] |In the settings window you are able to select default colors that should be used for the text and the background, a default width or height, or configure your default font.
[141000900270] |Rich text is disabled by default, but it can easily be enabled.
[141000900280] |The program is set to send mail with kmail and to add the title as a subject and the text of the note as a body.
[141000900290] |From the actions screen you can change all this.
[141000900300] |As a fun fact, you should know that the actions are, actually, only one action.
[141000900310] |In the network section you can choose to accept incoming notes, select a sender ID for the outgoing notes and change the default port that KNotes uses.
[141000900320] |You even have a style section with two available styles.
[141000900330] |One is the default "fancy" style and the other is not actually a style.
[141000900340] |It just removes all the graphics from KNotes.
[141000900350] |It would have been really nice if I was able to select from more styles, because this feature has a lot of potential in terms of eye candy.
[141000900360] |There are also some things I really don't like about KNotes.
[141000900370] |When I click the KNotes tray icon I see a list of available notes and I have to select one of the many I usually have there.
[141000900380] |Since I rarely waste time modifying the title, I usually see many dates that tell me nothing about what I've written in there.
[141000900390] |Opening them individually takes a lot of valuable time and one of the main reasons I use KNotes is that I want to save time.
[141000900400] |Here, I would've liked to see all the notes popping on the screen when I click the tray icon.
[141000900410] |Then, when I click outside a note, I would like to see them all hide.
[141000900420] |Animations would be nice too.
[141000900430] |This is the behavior of GNOME's Sticky Notes and even though that software has almost no feature, I like it more, just because of this.
[141000900440] |In KNotes, shortcuts are assigned for this scope, but there is a bug that limits the functionality of these shortcuts.
[141000900450] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000900460] |Rich text editing, support for sending notes via network, saving them in HTML, setting an alarm for each of them are some of the greatest things about KNotes.
[141000900470] |Those features definitely make it the most advanced software for using sticky notes on your desktop.
[141000900480] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000900490] |The most important thing for a software like this is to be very well optimized both for the use with the mouse and the keyboard.
[141000900500] |It should provide fast and easy access all the time to the notes and, unfortunately, it doesn't excel in that.
[141000900510] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000900520] |KNotes will not make the classical notes outdated because you can't put your computer in a pocket but, in most cases, will improve your desktop experience.
[141000900530] |The battle between KDE and GNOME is extended through those very simple but somehow important small applications.
[141000900540] |Even though KNotes is the most full featured software, I can't say it is the best.
[141000900550] |That is for you to decide.
[141000900560] |My belief is that with a little more work on the user's experience, KNotes can be the best.
[141000900570] |Check out some screenshots below:
[141001160010] |<title>Gajim Review</title>
[141001160020] |<img/>There are plenty Jabber clients for Linux and other platforms but there is always room for strong clients with big feature sets.
[141001160030] |Gajim is a Jabber client written in PyGTK and released under the GNU General Public License, which means it is a free application.
[141001160040] |Even if it has been around since mid 2004, Gajim hasn't reached a 1.0 version yet but this doesn't mean, however, that it won't impress you with its features and stability.
[141001160050] |Gajim has installation packages for most important distros such as Slackware, Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, SuSE and FreeBSD.
[141001160060] |It's also available in the packages repositories for some distros and of course, the source code is available as well.
[141001160070] |I'm running Fedora Core so I've used Yum to install Gajim:
[141001160080] |<b># yum install gajim</b>
[141001160090] |and in a few seconds, version 0.10.1 arrived, was installed and ready for launch.
[141001160100] |The reason it took so little time is that I had already installed its dependencies: python2.3 python2.3-gtk2 and python2.3-glade2.
[141001160110] |<b>Using Gajim</b>
[141001160120] |I have been using Gajim for a few months now as my IM client for Jabber, MSN and Yahoo and have been very pleased with it, mainly because it allows me to use multiple IDs on different networks with one single application.
[141001160130] |Gajim, however, is focused only on Jabber protocol.
[141001160140] |Yes, I could communicate with users on other networks but only if my current Jabber server allows me to (very unlikely).
[141001160150] |So this was the main reason why I decided to stick with Gajim for now.
[141001160160] |On the other hand, even if Gajim supports only Jabber, it does a pretty good job.
[141001160170] |I've tried it on several Jabber servers and Gajim acted very well.
[141001160180] |I was quite impressed with its stability and features.
[141001160190] |<b>Interface</b>
[141001160200] |Gajim has a simple interface but its functions are rather scattered.
[141001160210] |The main window has three buttons in the upper section: "Actions", "Edit" and "Help".
[141001160220] |In the middle section are listed the accounts and contacts and at the bottom, there's a selector for setting the user's status.
[141001160230] |This will set the chosen status to all accounts, feature that can sometimes be annoying, for example, if you want to set a certain status on the first account and another status on the second.
[141001160240] |For this, you will have to use the right-click menu because the selector at the bottom doesn't work like this.
[141001160250] |The chat window is also quite minimalist.
[141001160260] |It includes a border at the top with the other user's ID and status message, three buttons at the bottom for smileys, actions menu and send.
[141001160270] |Of course, the conversation section and a text field for typing messages, in the middle section.
[141001160280] |The chat window also has a compact mode, which once activated, it removes the bottom section with the three buttons.
[141001160290] |This is pretty useless as the user gains very little free space.
[141001160300] |Moreover, the chat window offers an interesting feature: when a user right-clicks on a selected word, he can then choose to look-up the word on google, wikipedia or wiktionary.
[141001160310] |The chat window notifications are pretty annoying.
[141001160320] |Gajim has the ability to track whether the other's conversation window is focused or not and when it's closed.
[141001160330] |The messages are shown in the upper level, next to the other user's ID account and can be "The other person is paying attention to the conversation", "The other person is doing something else" or "The other person has closed the chat window or tab".
[141001160340] |The color and smileys schemes and status icons can be changed from the preferences window.
[141001160350] |If you don't like the default ones, you can easily edit or create new ones.
[141001160360] |Gajim also supports file transfer which can be initiated from the chat window (under the Actions menu) or from the Gajim main window, by right-clicking on the user name and selecting "Send File".
[141001160370] |<b>Security</b>
[141001160380] |Gajim supports Jabber connections over SSL.
[141001160390] |For users who need even more security, it's possible to encrypt the messages using GnuPG.
[141001160400] |This is a useful feature when sending sensitive information over the network.
[141001160410] |Enabling this feature is, however, rather difficult for beginners.
[141001160420] |One thing to be aware of, Gajim stores the user account password in the $HOME/.gajim/config clear text file.
[141001160430] |This is a bad thing because on a multi user system, the file could be read by other users.
[141001160440] |However, the passwords are not saved by default but I guess this option is enabled by most users out of comfort.
[141001160450] |<b>Advanced features</b>
[141001160460] |The first thing that I've noticed is the XML console for the current Jabber server.
[141001160470] |This shows the current XML traffic between other users.
[141001160480] |Also, users can send XML input directly from the console, which is a useful feature for server administrators.
[141001160490] |Gajim also allows server administrators to edit, update or delete the current MOTD on the server.
[141001160500] |Several additional services can also be found using Gajim's Discover Services feature.
[141001160510] |It could be used for discovering public chat rooms.
[141001160520] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001160530] |Overall, Gajim had made a good impression.
[141001160540] |It provides all the necessary features for a good Jabber experience.
[141001160550] |Despite the fact it hasn't yet reached a 1.0 version, Gajim is surprisingly stable and has an active developer community.
[141001160560] |Moreover, it offers enough documentation so both beginners and advanced users could easily utilize all Gajim's features.
[141001160570] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001160580] |For starters, Gajim doesn't support multiple protocols; it's only a Jabber client.
[141001160590] |When a user selects the "Remember password" option, the account password is stored in a plain text file, under the $HOME/.gajim directory which could lead to a privacy leak on multi user systems.
[141001160600] |Also, it could have a friendlier interface, not that the current one isn't, but there's always room for improvement.
[141001160610] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001160620] |Gajim is a free, full-featured, multi-platform, Jabber client available in 16 languages.
[141001160630] |It offers all the features needed for a great Jabber experience, even if Jabber is the only protocol Gajim supports.
[141001160640] |It is, however, under active development and I'm sure the small annoyances will disappear in a very soon version.
[141001160650] |Check out some screenshots below:
[141001430010] |<title>transKode Review</title>
[141001430020] |<img/>I'm sure everybody has encountered problems related to file formats at least once in their lifetime.
[141001430030] |Just how many times have you found yourself not being able to use a file just because it wasn't in the right format?
[141001430040] |And I'm not referring only to files played on a PC.
[141001430050] |Think about those mp3 music files, for example, that just won't play on your cell phone, because it's an old model and it only supports midi or wav.
[141001430060] |Of course, there is a large number of audio converting software, available in different colors, types and price ranges.
[141001430070] |While some people are willing to pay big bucks for software that will convert their audio files with as few clicks as possible, others will settle with free programs, only if they offer the broadest set of options and the highest customization level related to the conversion process.
[141001430080] |transKode is a program that will certainly be appreciated by the second category of people.
[141001430090] |It's basically a free, KDE/Qt based front-end for various audio transcoding tools.
[141001430100] |To install it, you'll need to have TagLib installed, as well as Amarok, if you want to convert the audio files while listening to them with this great media player.
[141001430110] |There are two versions of transKode available: the stand-alone version which can be downloaded, compiled from source and installed, and the Amarok script version, which is loaded through Amarok's script manager and used through it.
[141001430120] |Depending on your tastes and needs, you decide which one to install.
[141001430130] |transKode doesn't really have too much of a GUI: it's just the main window and preferences dialog.
[141001430140] |The main window is divided in two sections: the toolbar and the file list.
[141001430150] |The toolbar consists of several buttons, linked to various actions.
[141001430160] |There's a button for adding and removing files from the list, a button for clearing the list.
[141001430170] |Also, there's a button for refreshing the file list, one for selecting all and one for clearing the finished files.
[141001430180] |The last buttons allow you to start, stop and pause the converting process.
[141001430190] |The file list will show all the media files that either wait to be processed or are done processing. 
[141001430200] |The list is divided into several columns: source path, source directory, source filename, destination path, destination directory, destination filename, profile, status and queue position.
[141001430210] |The user can choose which columns, as well as which toolbar buttons, the window will display.
[141001430220] |The configuration dialog can be found in the Settings menu from the main window.
[141001430230] |This dialog is divided into several tabs as well.
[141001430240] |The General tab contains general related settings, such as whether to: allow file overwriting, case insensitive filename comparisons or replace special characters with underscores.
[141001430250] |From the General tab, the user can also set the priority of the processes, as well as the temporary directory, whether to log events and show a system tray icon.
[141001430260] |The Profiles tab contains more advanced options, such as what naming scheme to use, the encoding type and its switches, as well as the output extension.
[141001430270] |The naming scheme is explained in a popup window but that's about all the documentation you'll get with this program.
[141001430280] |Unfortunately, the configuration dialog for each encoding type contains rather advanced options which aren't explained anywhere in the program.
[141001430290] |But on the other hand, each encoding type uses a different tool which probably has it's own documentation.
[141001430300] |The next tab, Programs, lists all the encoding tools that transKode supports and their paths.
[141001430310] |You don't have to install all of these programs, just the ones you'll use.
[141001430320] |The last tab, Tags, allows you to configure the values used for filename generation.
[141001430330] |Here, you can configure whether the output files will be named as something very simple, or their names will consist of artist and title.
[141001430340] |To start using transKode, you must set at least one profile in the preferences dialog.
[141001430350] |Choose a naming scheme, an encoding type (with its eventual switches) and a profile name, then press the save button next to the profile name and click ok.
[141001430360] |If everything is set up correctly, you'll see the message "Profile settings are valid" in the profile status from the preferences dialog.
[141001430370] |Now you can load an audio file into transKode, select a profile for it and press the encode button.
[141001430380] |The output file will be saved in the home directory, unless transKode is ran from a different directory.
[141001430390] |Here is the list of the supported output formats:• ape/mac (needs mac)• bonk (needs bonk)• flac (needs flac)• la (needs la)• mp3 (needs lame)• mp4/m4a (needs faac)• mpc/mpp/mp+ (needs mppenc)• ofr (needs ofr)• ogg (needs oggenc)• pac (needs lpac)• shn (needs shorten)• spx (needs speexenc)• tta (needs ttaenc)• wav• wv (needs wavpack)• ...plus output formats for which you have gstreamer encoding plugins (needs gst-launch with wavparse plugin).
[141001430400] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001430410] |transKode is free, it's relatively simple to install and use (if you're satisfied with the default encoding options).
[141001430420] |It supports a large number of input and output formats and can also be used from within Amarok.
[141001430430] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001430440] |For starters, it doesn't offer almost any documentation at all.
[141001430450] |Besides those naming scheme examples, you won't find any documentation related on how to configure and use it. 
[141001430460] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001430470] |transKode is a small and reliable tool which can quickly convert from one audio format to another in a short while and without spoiling the quality.
[141001430480] |Unfortunately, it lacks documentation so you might want to try it only if you have used audio conversion programs before.
[141001430490] |Check out some screenshots below:
[141001500010] |<title>VirtualBox Review</title>
[141001500020] |<img/>Virtualization is the method by which 'guest' operating systems are run under another 'host' operating system, with little or no modification of the guest OS. Until recently, it was very difficult to implement a general virtual machine on an x86 processor because its architecture did not meet the virtualization requirements introduced by Gerald J. Popek and Robert P. Goldberg in 1974.
[141001500030] |Fortunately, in 2005 and 2006, Intel and AMD added extensions to their respective x86 architectures which resolved this and other virtualization difficulties.
[141001500040] |Nowadays, virtualization is easily provided by various programs, but unfortunately, several obstacles such as proprietary licenses and a different method of operation are keeping end-users to use such software.
[141001500050] |However, on Jan 15, 2007, the InnoTek company has reached an important milestone in the development of PC virtualization software by releasing VirtualBox, the first professional PC virtualization solution product as open source, under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
[141001500060] |VirtualBox is a virtual machine product targeting desktop computers, enterprise servers and embedded systems.
[141001500070] |Due to its modular architecture, VirtualBox can be deployed in any environment where x86 systems are to be virtualized on systems with the same architecture.
[141001500080] |The x86 term is referred to 32bit CPUs made by Intel and AMD, other compatible CPUs from various vendors, as well as 64bit CPUs running in 32bit mode. 
[141001500090] |VirtualBox allows users to run an unmodified operating systems, including the software embedded on them, directly in a special environment on top of the currently running operating system by forcing the guest OS to 'think' it's running on a real machine.
[141001500100] |Currently, VirtualBox supports the following host operating systems: Fedora Core 4/5, Gentoo, Redhat Enterprise 3/4, SuSE 9/10, Ubuntu 5.10/6.06/6.10, Windows 2000/XP/Server2003 and the following guest operating systems: FreeBSD, Linux 2.4/2.6, OpenBSD, OS/2 Warp, Windows NT/2000/XP/Server2003/Vista. 
[141001500110] |Before installing VirtualBox, your Linux OS has to satisfy some software requirements: in particular, you will need libxalan-c, libxerces-s and version 5 of libstdc++.
[141001500120] |Unfortunately, these packages are found under different names in the repositories of various Linux distributions so installing them will most likely cause problems, not the VirtualBox installation itself.
[141001500130] |On my Ubuntu Edgy system, the packages are called libxalan110 and libxerces27. I already had libstdc++5 installed so I only had to install the first two with apt-get.
[141001500140] |After that, I've downloaded the .deb package of VirtualBox for Ubuntu Edgy and installed it with dpkg -i.
[141001500150] |The whole installation process took less than two minutes and no head ache at all.
[141001500160] |Big plus here.
[141001500170] |Once installed, I found the VirtualBox shortcut under 'System' in Kmenu.
[141001500180] |It started almost instantly after clicking on it and showed-up a window which, at first sight, was divided into two sections: in the left part, it's supposed to list the operating systems available for virtualization, while the right part is reserved for details regarding each OS and a tab designed to list the available snapshots for each OS. We'll talk about this later on.
[141001500190] |The toolbar had 5 nice buttons: New, Settings, Delete, Start and Discard.
[141001500200] |There are three menus available also: File and VM which provide most of the options found in the taskbar and Help, which unfortunately doesn't contain documentation.
[141001500210] |Under Help, you'll find a link to the VirtualBox homepage, an about screen and the ability to reset all warning.
[141001500220] |Yes, missing help is a bad thing but once you see how nicely the documentation is arranged and displayed on its website, you won't be all that disappointed.
[141001500230] |You will however need an Internet connection to view the documentation.
[141001500240] |As a first impression, its interface is quite pretty, clean and very, very easy to understand.
[141001500250] |After a quick look around the menus, I've decided it's time to start a new virtualization so off I go to click the "New" button.
[141001500260] |Unsurprisingly, the 'easy to understand' interface continues to impress me by displaying a well documented wizard for creating my new virtual machine.
[141001500270] |On the first step, I was asked to name the VM and to select the OS type.
[141001500280] |I had to choose from Other/Unknown, DOS, a list of Windows versions, OS/2 Warp 3/4/4.5, Linux 2.2/2.4/2.6, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Netware, Solaris and L4. I thought to myself, this list covers just about every operating system ever used by more than 10 people.
[141001500290] |Before starting this wizard, I've downloaded the SLAX 5.1 ISO, which is a LiveCD distro based on Slackware and kernel 2.6 so I knew which option I had to choose. 
[141001500300] |The next step was about setting an amount of RAM to be allocated to the virtual machine.
[141001500310] |Keep in mind that the memory you give to the VM will not be available to your machine while the VM is running so don't specify more than you can spare.
[141001500320] |So, always be sure your computer will have 256-512 RAM left at all times, otherwise it will excessively swap out memory to your hard disk, bringing it to a standstill.
[141001500330] |Next, I had to specify a virtual hard disk for the VM.
[141001500340] |There are several ways I could provide disk space to a VM but I've chosen the most common one, by creating a virtual disk image (.VDI file) on my real disk, whose contents VirtualBox presents to the VM as a complete hard disk.
[141001500350] |To create a new disk image, I was presented with another wizard, just as clean and easy to follow as the main one.
[141001500360] |I've chosen a fixed-size image with a size of 1.0 GB (should be enough for a 700mb LiveCD), which was saved in my home directory, under .VirtualBox. 
[141001500370] |After that last step, the first wizard was done as well and the new SLAX OS showed-up in the left part of the VirtualBox main window.
[141001500380] |However, at this time, the VM is empty and I have to open the Settings dialog for this VM and select a CD/DVD-ROM in order to install the guest operating system.
[141001500390] |In the Settings dialog, I've noticed a lot more options that just the CD image related ones.
[141001500400] |From the General tab, I could increase or decrease the RAM or video memory size provided to the Virtual Machine and I could define the boot order, enable extended features (ACPI and IO APIC) and choose the patch were snapshots of this VM will be stored.
[141001500410] |In the Hard Disks tab, I could choose from several Primary master devices (if I had created more than one hard drive), and I could select a primary and secondary slave.
[141001500420] |All these operations could easily be performed thanks to the tips box at the bottom of the window.
[141001500430] |The next tab, Floppy, allowed me to choose a floppy disk device from my host machine or an image file which will be emulated as a floppy disk.
[141001500440] |Wow!
[141001500450] |Finally, I've reached the CD/DVD-ROM tab, which allowed me to choose where the installation medium is found.
[141001500460] |I could either select one of my CD drives, or an ISO image file on my hard drive.
[141001500470] |I've chosen the last because I've just downloaded the SLAX iso and VirtualBox has the ability to present an iso file to the VM, just my CDROM drive would present an installation CD to my operating system.
[141001500480] |The next tabs allowed me to select various options regarding the Audio, Network, USB and Remote Display of the Virtual Machine.
[141001500490] |Every option in these tabs is, as well, explained in the tips box at the bottom of the dialog.
[141001500500] |Once I've selected the iso file to be booted, VirtualBox was ready to boot the virtualized SLAX.
[141001500510] |Clicking on Start button would open a new window which will act as a virtual monitor to the virtualized OS.
[141001500520] |But before the booting process was started, I was presented with a notification that warns me about the auto capture keyboard option being turned on.
[141001500530] |This option will automatically capture the keyboard and mouse cursor every time the VM window is activated (clicked inside it).
[141001500540] |Since the virtualized OS doesn't know it's running on a real computer, it expects to have exclusive control over the keyboard and mouse.
[141001500550] |This will cause the mouse to be able to move confined to the limits of the VM window.
[141001500560] |The keyboard will work as well inside the window along with system keys such as alt+tab and so on.
[141001500570] |So the only way to get your keyboard and mouse back to the host OS is by pressing the host key, which is by default bound to the right CTRL key. 
[141001500580] |The host key (right CTRL) can also be used in combination with other keys which lead to various actions performed on the guest OS.
[141001500590] |These actions can also be found within the new window's VM menu.
[141001500600] |You can switch to full-screen, take a screenshot, close VM and so on.
[141001500610] |What's interesting here is the Close feature which once activated, will ask whether to save the machine state or power it off.
[141001500620] |The difference between them is crucial.
[141001500630] |The first will completely save its state to the local disk and will resume it when it's later started.
[141001500640] |When I've used this feature, I've found SLAX to be running the same programs it ran when I've closed it.
[141001500650] |The power off function, however, will stop the running VM without saving its state.
[141001500660] |This is equivalent with plugging the power plug off a real computer without properly shutting down.
[141001500670] |You will lose all your unsaved data and possibly, the system will begin a disk check on a next boot. 
[141001500680] |Also from this window's menus, you can mount or unmount a floppy disk or a CD-ROM image, either by using the machine's devices, or by selecting an image file (iso).
[141001500690] |You can also share an USB device or enable/disable remote desktop connections to the virtual machine.
[141001500700] |The last option is the most interesting one: Install Guest Additions.
[141001500710] |This feature will provide seamless mouse support, removing the need to 'free' the mouse from being captured by the guest OS.
[141001500720] |Other features include better video support, time synchronization, share folders and so on.
[141001500730] |The bad news about this feature is that it's only supported by Windows (or at least it only worked in Windows for me).
[141001500740] |There are, however, guest additions available for Linux but they are rather difficult to install (your system has to build external kernel modules) and it only offers video acceleration and high resolution graphic modes.
[141001500750] |Yes, it's something better than nothing but you'll be the judge of if it's worth the while. 
[141001500760] |As for performance, the guest host running inside the Virtual Machine runs almost if it's on a real computer, with no problems whatsoever.
[141001500770] |VirtualBox can easily be compared with the proprietary VMWare and the difference in the end will be the last one's price and a few other small features that nobody uses anyway.
[141001500780] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001500790] |VirtualBox is a very fast and easy to use virtualization software which provides a clean interface and advanced features found in other proprietary programs.
[141001500800] |VirtualBox is also released under the GPL license, which makes it a free program.
[141001500810] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001500820] |Too bad the guest additions for Linux don't provide the same useful features as the ones for Windows.
[141001500830] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001500840] |VirtualBox is an impressive piece of software.
[141001500850] |It allows you to boot and manage various operating systems within a Windows or Linux system, fast, easy and at a high performance level.
[141001500860] |All this at no cost whatsoever.
[141001500870] |Sure, there are some functions you gain once you purchase a specific license, but the most needed functions are free.
[141001500880] |VirtualBox has made a huge step towards virtualized desktops and naturally, it can only become a normal and popular thing to have on your PC. 
[141001500890] |Check out some screenshots below:
[141001650010] |<title>PeaZip Review</title>
[141001650020] |File compression support is present in every operating system, either by default or by installing additional packages once the OS was set-up.
[141001650030] |Archived files are used for various reasons, from keeping one's hard drive clean, to facilitating multiple file transfers by gathering many files under the same package file.
[141001650040] |You can also keep your sensitive files secure by compressing them into an archive and applying a password to it.
[141001650050] |Whereas many of you think or heard about archiving in Linux being a console process only, those times are long gone.
[141001650060] |Nowadays, you can install a single graphical application which supports most of the archive formats and allows you to extract or compress files with a few mouse clicks.
[141001650070] |One of those applications and possibly the best, is called PeaZip.
[141001650080] |Peazip is a free archiving application available for both Linux and Windows operating systems, which has been developed as a standalone, self-contained application and released under the LGPL license.
[141001650090] |Basically, this means that PeaZip doesn't need to be installed and doesn't require any dependencies, except libgdk_pixbuf, which is available on most graphical Linux systems.
[141001650100] |Moreover, PeaZip can be easily integrated into the KDE desktop by following a couple of instructions.
[141001650110] |This will provide full support for 7Z, 7Z-sfx, BZip2, GZip/TGZ, PAQ8F, PAQ8JD, PAQ8L, PEA, QUAD, split (.001), TAR and ZIP formats, browse/extract support for ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, ISO, Java archives (JAR, EAR, WAR), Linux installers (DEB, PET/PUP, RPM), LHA, LZH, PK3/PK4, Open Office file types, RAR, Windows installers (NSIS, some MSI) and Z formats and compression only support for Strip/UPX executable.
[141001650120] |Once successfully integrated into KDE, you'll be able to compress and extract archives easily by right-clicking a file or archive and selecting the proper PeaZip-related action.
[141001650130] |To run PeaZip, you can either click the PeaZip shortcut under K Main menu / Utilities, or press Alt+F2 for the run dialog, type peazip and press enter.
[141001650140] |You will be presented with the PeaZip main window, which displays the supported actions and formats, a short description and two menus: File and Options.
[141001650150] |Moreover, in the upper-right corner, you'll notice the About button which displays a long description about PeaZip.
[141001650160] |The File menu allows you to create a new archive, open an existing one or return to the main screen, while the Options menu provides access to the program's preferences dialog.
[141001650170] |Once you select an action from the File menu, the interface will slightly change.
[141001650180] |When you click Create archive, PeaZip will switch the short description section with a toolbar which consists of buttons for various actions.
[141001650190] |From this toolbar, you will be able to choose the archive format and its options and which files and folders to add to the archive.
[141001650200] |Optionally, you can load, save or clear the current layout.
[141001650210] |The toolbar also provides a button for creating a keyfile for .PEA archives, but for some reason, the text in this dialog appears joined.
[141001650220] |The Open archive menu option will open a dialog that allows you to browse to the archive.
[141001650230] |Once an archive has been selected, PeaZip will start browsing the files inside it.
[141001650240] |In open archive mode, the toolbar allows you to choose the action for the first button (extract, list, test etc) and the input and output options.
[141001650250] |There's also a password field where you will need to enter a correct paraphrase before starting the extract process.
[141001650260] |It will also provide a context menu for each right-clicked file in the archive.
[141001650270] |The context menu provides actions like extract, add/delete files/folders and more.
[141001650280] |The Options menu opens the PeaZip general preferences dialog, which is divided into four tabs.
[141001650290] |The PeaZip tab provides general application and compression options, the PEA tab includes settings for PEA archives, the Theming tab allows you to change the current colors used by PeaZip, and finally, the Localization tab will provide localization-related options (not yet available).
[141001650300] |When creating a new archive, you will be able to change its type and options.
[141001650310] |The archive type drop-down menu lists all supported formats for archiving.
[141001650320] |When selecting a type, you will notice an information bar which displays a short description about the format you've chosen.
[141001650330] |This will enable you to choose the format that suits your needs (compression, speed and security level).
[141001650340] |For most formats, you will be able to choose a volume size.
[141001650350] |This option is useful when you want your archive to be split into multiple parts.
[141001650360] |Moreover, depending on the selected format, you will be presented with options such as compression level, method, dictionary, word, passes and whether to encrypt the archive with a password or not.
[141001650370] |Finally, clicking the first button on the toolbar while creating an archive, a dialog will pop-up asking you for a file name and location to save the archive, as well as a dialog which displays various info about the archiving process currently taking place.
[141001650380] |Overall, PeaZip is quite an impressive application which makes beginner's life a lot easier.
[141001650390] |Unfortunately, as far as I'm concerned, I'll continue to use a specific console-based tool for each format as it provides more control over the archives.
[141001650400] |I've added a large file under a bzip2 archive using PeaZip and its interface froze through the whole process.
[141001650410] |If I needed to stop the process, the only way was by killing it.
[141001650420] |Moreover, I didn't know if it was still running or had completely frozen until its job was finished and I was presented with an "Everything is Ok" message.
[141001650430] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001650440] |PeaZip is a graphical archive tool for both Linux and Windows which supports quite an impressive number of formats.
[141001650450] |Its interface looks great and it provides instructions on how to integrate it with KDE.
[141001650460] |Moreover, it doesn't have to be installed to run, thus providing a high level of mobility.
[141001650470] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001650480] |Besides the About button, there's no help available.
[141001650490] |Moreover, extracting a password-protected archive through Konqueror will pop-up a dialog saying it couldn't complete the job because the password was wrong.
[141001650500] |Instead, it would have been nice to pop-up a dialog requesting the password itself.
[141001650510] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001650520] |PeaZip is a great archiving application but I think it's more suited for beginner Linux users.
[141001650530] |Advanced users will always prefer a specific command-line tool for each format as it's faster, it offers much more control over the archives and it displays a detailed output.
[141001650540] |Check out some screenshots below:
[141001710010] |<title>KNemo Review</title>
[141001710020] |In the first couple of days after the switch to Linux, I kept searching for native applications that were going to substitute the ones I was using in Windows.
[141001710030] |This was taking place about four years ago, but still, it wasn't long until for each program I was using in Windows, I found its alternative for Linux, with features that resembled it more or less.
[141001710040] |Unfortunately, there were a few things I couldn't find a Linux variant for, such as the network connection tray icon with those two screens that blink whenever there's network activity.
[141001710050] |But over the years, things have changed in the Linux stratosphere.
[141001710060] |More and more applications got released, each better than the other and so, I bumped into KNemo, the KDE network monitor.
[141001710070] |I was looking for that blinking icon sitting in the system tray and KNemo gave me that.
[141001710080] |And a whole lot more.
[141001710090] |KNemo provides a network monitor similar to the one found in Windows: it displays an animated icon in the systray for every network interface.
[141001710100] |Besides, it provides a few other interesting functions, such as a traffic plotter, daily, monthly and yearly traffic statistics for each interface, the ability to add custom commands as entries in the context menu and so on.
[141001710110] |First of all, let's see how to get it installed and running.
[141001710120] |Because it's quite a popular application, you will be able to install it on most distributions using their package manager.
[141001710130] |For instance, Fedora users should open-up a console and simply type yum install KNemo.
[141001710140] |For Ubuntu users it's pretty much the same: apt-get install KNemo.
[141001710150] |Unfortunately, for some reason, the Ubuntu repository provides version 0.4.6 of KNemo, while 0.4.7 is the latest at the time of this review.
[141001710160] |Fedora doesn't have this little problem.
[141001710170] |However, if you can't install it through your package manager, you won't have many alternatives left.
[141001710180] |The last thing you can do is download the source package, compile and install it locally.
[141001710190] |You won't be able to use it right after the installation.
[141001710200] |First, you must open the KDE Control Center, go to Internet & Networking and select Network Monitor. Here, there's a check box at the top saying 'Use KNemo to monitor your interfaces'.
[141001710210] |Activate that check box and reload KDE.
[141001710220] |KNemo should now start automatically.
[141001710230] |On its first run, KNemo will display a systray icon for each discovered network interface, either connected or not.
[141001710240] |Holding the mouse over the icon will pop-up a tooltip with general details about the interface: status, ip address, netmask and gateway.
[141001710250] |If you want more details, click the systray icon and you'll see the device interface status, providing you with the name of the interface, alias, status, uptime, broadcast address, HW address and the same details provided by the tooltip.
[141001710260] |Moreover, the dialog also has a second tab, Traffic, which displays the sent and received packages, bytes and speed for the current interface, as well as its statistics: the sent, received and total traffic for today, last month and this year.
[141001710270] |You can also view the traffic plotter by middle-clicking the systray icon.
[141001710280] |Everything displayed can be customized through the configure dialog.
[141001710290] |To open it, either go to KDE Control Center / Internet & Network, or right click the icon in systray and choose 'Configure KNemo...".
[141001710300] |The configure dialog is divided in four tabs.
[141001710310] |The Interfaces tab allows you to add, modify or remove the pre-configured interfaces (eth0, eth1, wlan0, wlan1, ra0, ra1).
[141001710320] |For each interface, there will be a separate icon in systray, therefore allowing you to choose different preferences for each of them.
[141001710330] |You can enter a custom alias for each interface, choose whether to display it in systray when it's not connected or when not existing.
[141001710340] |You can also choose whether to activate the statistics or not, pick an iconset and enter a value for the traffic activity threshold.
[141001710350] |What's really interesting is the ability to insert custom entries in the context menu (right-click on the icon in systray).
[141001710360] |Here, you have to select whether the command needs root access, a name that will be displayed in the menu and the actual command.
[141001710370] |You can add anything here, from 'Configure Interface' which will open the KDE Control Center network configuration module, to 'Traceroute' which will open a konsole with the traceroute or mtr command to a host.
[141001710380] |Something I've also seen used is a 'Ping host' entry that will also open konsole and run the ping command to a host like yahoo or google.
[141001710390] |This is useful when the connection seems to have failed and you will like to run some testing commands.
[141001710400] |Basically, you can add an infinite number of functions to KNemo, accessible from the right-click menu.
[141001710410] |Well done.
[141001710420] |The next tab, ToolTip displays two columns: available information and display information.
[141001710430] |Here, you can add as many available entries as you want to the display column and they will be displayed as a tooltip the next time you hover your mouse over the device icon.
[141001710440] |You can add entries such as alias, uptime, bytes received, download speed, ESSID, mode, link quality and more.
[141001710450] |Keep in mind, however, that the specific information for wireless devices won't show-up except for standard interfaces (Access Point, Encryption etc).
[141001710460] |This again is a proof that KNemo is a program very well done.
[141001710470] |The Misc tab allows you to configure sounds and actions for three events: interface does not exist/has been connected/disconnected.
[141001710480] |The notification settings dialog is the same you'll see in all KDE applications: for each event you can set a sound to be played, the event to be logged to a file, a program to be executed, a message to be displayed and so on.
[141001710490] |Also in the Misc tab, you can set KNemo to update the interface information every x seconds and the path for logging the statistics.
[141001710500] |These two last options won't be available unless the 'Activate statistics' checkbox in first tab is activated.
[141001710510] |The last preference in Misc tab is the Backend. here you can choose how KNemo gathers its data: from the sys filesystem available in 2.6 kernels (low CPU usage but possibly unstable) or from Nettools package tools: ifconfig, iwconfig and route (stable but causes a relatively high CPU load).
[141001710520] |The last tab, Traffic Plotter, allows you to configure the look and feel of the traffic plotter dialog.
[141001710530] |You can choose whether to show incoming or outgoing traffic, set the range detection, the lines and the colors used by it.
[141001710540] |You can also select a custom font size and whether to display the label and top bar (current download and upload speed).
[141001710550] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001710560] |KNemo is a Network Monitor for the KDE desktop, somewhat similar to the one found in Windows.
[141001710570] |It displays a separate icon (two monitors that light-up on traffic activity) for each detected interface.
[141001710580] |This allows you to set different preferences for each interface.
[141001710590] |It also provides a traffic plotter and daily/monthly/yearly traffic statistics.
[141001710600] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001710610] |If you take a look at the comments on the application's home page, you'll see a lot of people with different problems and bad comments about KNemo.
[141001710620] |But I've tried several versions of KNemo on several distributions and never, ever had any problem.
[141001710630] |So I tend to think that you're only gonna bump into a problem while using exotic hardware or distributions.
[141001710640] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001710650] |Very good network monitor.
[141001710660] |Optionally, you can use its context menu to run various GUI/CLI commands which allows adding an infinite number of functions to it.
[141001710670] |Check out some screenshots below:
[141001720010] |<title>SMPlayer Review</title>
[141001720020] |It is well-known that the hardest choice is made when you deal with a varied offer, in which every item is said to be the best.
[141001720030] |This situation is familiar to most computer users who nowadays have plenty of solutions to any of their needs or desires.
[141001720040] |Supposing that you want to surf the web, Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror and others are waiting for you to make a choice; same goes if you want to edit some documents, where applications such as AbiWord Text Processor, OpenOffice Word Processor or Kword compete in becoming your favorite editor.
[141001720050] |How do you think things work when it comes to media players?
[141001720060] |Yes, you're right, exactly the same.
[141001720070] |If you're a more pretentious user, such as I am when it comes about players, then you just cannot limit yourself to your Linux distribution's suggestion.
[141001720080] |I am sure that these are good too and they offer almost the same functionalities as the others (after all, they all are media players) but, there are some that just do it better, or I just like better the way they do it.
[141001720090] |So, in my search for the one player that would best satisfy all my needs I've bumped into a wide pallet of such applications: Amarok (only audio) , Beep Media Player, MPlayer, SMPlayer, VLC player (my old "friend" that I was using also on Windows, really good for movies, very simple and predictable in the sense that I can easily figure out what I have to do without getting dizzy by the sophisticated functionalities names), Audacious, KMPlayer RealPlayer and so on.
[141001720100] |And the winner was: SMPlayer. 
[141001720110] |What can I say?
[141001720120] |I was charmed by its modern design, addressed to the users for whom also the looks matter.
[141001720130] |At a first glance, it seems quite simple, but that does not mean that it cannot serve you well or that it lacks major functionalities.
[141001720140] |I can assure you it provides the exact tools for you to play back media content.
[141001720150] |One thing I've first noticed and liked about it was the fact that it acted exactly as I expected for some default shortcuts.
[141001720160] |For example, you can go forward or backwards using the mouse wheel, or, you can go in and out of the Fullscreen mode through a double click on the playing back area, or by pressing the F key.
[141001720170] |Another thing I've liked was the Compact mode.
[141001720180] |So, when you get bored of all those buttons and you have in mind all their shortcuts you can simply press the Compact button (or the Ctrl+C key combination) and enjoy a clear image, with a black frame instead of the buttons and menu toolbars.
[141001720190] |I've looked for this Compact mode in KMPlayer too, but I couldn't find any and the Ctrl+C shortcut did not work.
[141001720200] |I have then discovered in the View menu list that there was a similar view mode (called minimal here), but it had no shortcut by default and I had to edit it.
[141001720210] |I know this isn't a very important aspect, but sometimes I can be very lazy and I want my player to come with some default common used shortcuts so I shouldn’t be forced to make some of my own. 
[141001720220] |I’m not saying that SMPlayer is perfect and configured by default to perfectly satisfy all of my needs.
[141001720230] |For example, it cannot automatically detect the cdrom or dvd devices, which means that you, the user, will have to go to the Options->Preferences panel, and then to the Drives section and here select your drives.
[141001720240] |KMPlayer, on the other hand, comes with the Auto play option and the cdrom and dvd devices already selected.
[141001720250] |Among the better automatical detection of the cdrom and dvd drives it also supports as input source the TV tunner capture card, if you have any and offers you the possibility to record your favorite TV show. 
[141001720260] |Coming back to SMPlayer, I must say that I found that little palylist it offers (Ctrl+L keys combination shortcut) really cute.
[141001720270] |It is very compact and has the exact buttons a playlist would ever need: open, save, add, delete, repeat and shuffle, plus the previous/next and move up/down.
[141001720280] |An interesting function provided by this player would be that it can start playing your song or movie back from the point where it remained the previous time with the same settings: audio track, subtitles, volume etc.
[141001720290] |I do not know exactly how useful this function is. Besides, for video content it might not work very properly if you've pressed the Pause button, which is the Space key of course, just before closing.
[141001720300] |It might be an implementation bug or something; when I have re-opened a file after pressing pause just before closing it my player just started to act crazy and play the file as if it had only one nano-second, or less.
[141001720310] |This happens only because of the Pause before closing.
[141001720320] |Without this, it works as intended: the player starts the file back from the last point before a previous close.
[141001720330] |If repeated mode is on, the second time it plays back, it starts from the same very position, and not from the beginning as it would be normal, or as it seems normal to me.
[141001720340] |For example, if I have only one song I want to listen over and over again and I accidentally close it, I think it's cute that SMPlayer takes it from the last known position when I re-open it, but I definitely don't want to do this every time the song begins again.
[141001720350] |I can solve this easily by double clicking on the song in the playlist, though I don't think it was too much to expect from my player to do it automatically. 
[141001720360] |I will give credit to SMPlayer also for the fast and clean way it opens my files.
[141001720370] |I do not have to wait ages staring to an "opening file" dialog until my movie is played back and I do not receive any pop-up message regarding God knows what news or products.
[141001720380] |SMPlayer also benefits from a wide range of translations, from Italian or French to Simplified-Chinese. 
[141001720390] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001720400] |SMPlayer is a new multimedia player based on the famous Mplayer, and thus it is able to play back the best-known audio and video formats without asking you to add external codecs.
[141001720410] |Another feature I must definitely count here would be the multiple speed playback, 2x, 4x or in slow motion if you want.
[141001720420] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001720430] |I haven't found any major lacks in this program's functionalities, or any serious malfunctions.
[141001720440] |There are some minor things that I’d like to change, but these are too little to count much.
[141001720450] |For example, I would like the timer to provide me more showing options than the default one.
[141001720460] |I would like, for example to show a song's length rather than going backwards.
[141001720470] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001720480] |SMPlayer is under the GPL license, meaning that its source code is available for everyone to download and modify or redistribute it without any charge.
[141001720490] |Please enjoy some screenshots of SMPlayer:
[141001760010] |<title>Democracy Player Review</title>
[141001760020] |Along with the intense development in the Internet area, the products and services increased and diversified allowing a better interference with other spheres and domains.
[141001760030] |One of these domains that took heavily advantage of the Internet's wide power of dispersion was the television.
[141001760040] |After it managed to cross the cable, satellite or terrestrial borders, the television conquered the Internet area too.
[141001760050] |Traditional TV content, but also new Internet-only television content, available freely and legally on different websites, have now become customary for everyone.
[141001760060] |So, don't tell me you never took a break while at work to watch some funny clip on <a>Youtube.com</a>, cause I won't buy it.
[141001760070] |Besides Youtube, there are also a lot of websites providing video sharing, where users can upload, view and share all kind of video clips, interesting, funny, famous, horrifying, etc.
[141001760080] |From amateur videos up to notable movie, TV or music clips, everything is shared and free to watch for anyone interested.
[141001760090] |Almost all of the hosting websites also provide incorporated players to display the video content, based on different technologies.
[141001760100] |One day, while I was wandering on couple of these websites, I found that it would be nice to have a way of managing them, so that I won't get dizzy between all those browser tabs I had to keep count of.
[141001760110] |But the solution for this problem already existed and it was just a few clicks away.
[141001760120] |The guys from the Participatory Culture Foundation (PCF) set up in 2005 the Democracy Internet TV platform that takes in a Democracy Player, <a>Video Bomb</a> website, Broadcast Machine software for publishing channels and a Channel Guide also incorporated in the player.
[141001760130] |I declare that Democracy Player is one of the best Internet television applications ever.
[141001760140] |It can automatically download videos from RSS-based channels and play them back, and also has a nice way of managing them.
[141001760150] |It is free and open-source and integrates an RSS aggregator, a Xine Media Player and a BitTorrent client.
[141001760160] |Introductions aside, I can go ahead now and tell you about the amazing features I found inside this cute little player.
[141001760170] |I don't even know what to start with: the lovely UI, the extraordinary way of managing the channels and videos, the miraculously simple configuring process, the excellence proved in accomplishing all tasks a common player should, and the list can go on.
[141001760180] |I'll start with the beginning, the Channel Guide.
[141001760190] |The Channel Guide is something like an open list of more than 1,000 internet TV channels from different categories, that you will first see when the player is started.
[141001760200] |It provides the possibility of submitting your own channels to the Guide.
[141001760210] |To do that, you'll only need to log in, using an account, which can be easily opened and is free.
[141001760220] |Along with this channel guide, Democracy Player also comes with some default channels already added, which you can simply remove or you can add new ones.
[141001760230] |Adding a channel is very simply, following the Channels -> Add Channel path, where you'd be asked only for the URL of the channel you want to add.
[141001760240] |In the same way you can add a search channel, Channels -> New Search Channel that would contain the clips that match a search term on a specific channel, search engine or URL.
[141001760250] |The channels are set by default to update every hour, but you can also do it automatically with a right-click on the channel where a context menu will appear with update, remove or rename options.
[141001760260] |In order to watch a video on a specific channel, you'd have to download it first.
[141001760270] |The downloaded videos are kept for a 6 days default period and then they are erased.
[141001760280] |You can set this period to smaller amounts of time, like 3 hours or larger, maximum one month from the Settings button that appears in the small menu on the upper-right side of every channel.
[141001760290] |The small menu also provides a Recommend option, in case you see something you like and want to show it to your friends too.
[141001760300] |Democracy Player gives you the possibility to group all your channels in folders so you can keep a better count of them.
[141001760310] |Just go to Channels -> New Channels Folder and type in the folder name you want to create in the small dialog box that appears.
[141001760320] |Then just drag and drop channels into the folder.
[141001760330] |I must admit the player's creators have had in mind anything I could ever want from it.
[141001760340] |For example, if I want to keep a clip after downloading it, and not to be deleted after a specified period, the player provides me the Save option.
[141001760350] |The Search tool is equipped with 6 of the most powerful video search engines: YouTube, Yahoo! Video, Google Video, Blogdigger, Revver and DailyMotion.
[141001760360] |Unfortunately, this default list cannot be edited and those are the only search engines you'll have, but for me, they are more than enough. 
[141001760370] |I was talking earlier of a nice and simple way of managing your videos.
[141001760380] |I think it's time to give some details about it.
[141001760390] |I have already told you about the clean way of handling the downloads and their expiring period.
[141001760400] |Now I will tell you about the My Collection and Downloading places on the left side menu where you will find all downloaded videos as well as the current running downloads which you can cancel anytime you want.
[141001760410] |One thing I did not like here was the fact that I am not provided a "Pause download" option.
[141001760420] |One thing I appreciated was that it resumes all downloads when the player is restarted.
[141001760430] |Another fact that is worth mentioning would be the way it manages your disk space.
[141001760440] |Thus you can configure the player not to start another download if your free space on disk drops below a certain value or you can set the maximum downloads number that can run at once.
[141001760450] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001760460] |Democracy Player is a free application working as an Internet TV video player.
[141001760470] |With a fine look'n'feel, it provides a very intuitive interface and currently supports a lot of video formats, to which others are added continuously, thus the user should not mind about them at all.
[141001760480] |As any serious player, it also offers the Fullscreen view mode.
[141001760490] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001760500] |I can go on saying this player is great, wonderful, gorgeous, lovely a.s.o., though, it is not perfect.
[141001760510] |While playing with it, I've noticed that the Send this channel to a friend actually does nothing or that the Pause download option does not exist.
[141001760520] |I have also experimented some ugly crashes with certain videos, but they were not that many to make a big deal out of this.
[141001760530] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001760540] |Democracy Player, also known as Democracy or DTV for short, is an Internet television client that can automatically download videos, manage them and play them back.
[141001760550] |It is part of the Democracy TV Platform and it is built on the open-source standards.
[141001760560] |Please enjoy some nice screenshots of Democracy Player below:
[141001830010] |<title>Vim Review</title>
[141001830020] |When it comes to text editors, one cannot complain s/he hasn't enough options to choose from.
[141001830030] |A quick search on <a>Wikipedia</a> would lead you to an impressive number of currently 34 such editors.
[141001830040] |From the terminal-based Joe or Nano up to more sophisticated stuff such as Emacs or gPHPedit, you'll find a large suite of editors, each of them designed to better suite one's needs.
[141001830050] |A more special case among these editors would be <b>Vim</b>.
[141001830060] |Vim can be a very powerful tool in the hands of a skilled programmer.
[141001830070] |I said it right…it's 'programmer', since Vim addresses mostly this class of users also being called "programmers' editor".
[141001830080] |This is not a strict rule though.
[141001830090] |A common user could try dealing with Vim, but he would have to do a little study before and I'm not sure up to what extent someone would start learning how to use a complicated tool for mastering ordinary things when simpler solutions are available.
[141001830100] |However, for those interested in Vim, its creators also released a manual to help them a bit.
[141001830110] |I could also count here the Vim tutorial for beginners, which can be opened by typing vimtutor on the Unix command line.
[141001830120] |If in the beginning the learning process is slow, once the user gets the basics, progress should come very quickly and one's editing becomes significantly more efficient.
[141001830130] |With a special and individualized GUI, Vim does not match the patterns of other common editors.
[141001830140] |It can be compared with its ancestor, <b>vi</b>, up to one point; after that, the features offered by Vim are harder to find in others. <b>vi</b> editor was originally written by Bill Joy in 1976 for an early BSD release. vi benefits of more editing modes, therefore it's a modal editor and it would then assign different meanings to buttons or keystrokes, depending on the active editing mode.
[141001830150] |The fact that it is able to start up much faster than versions of Emacs and uses less memory made vi popular among many Unix users.
[141001830160] |According to a poll from 1991, half the people in question answered they use vi, which is a really high percentage.
[141001830170] |Now Vim, as derived from vi, has inherited all of these vi functionalities but also came with new features.
[141001830180] |Standing for <b>Vi Improved</b>, Vim includes, among many others, features such as command history and editing, filename completions, multiple edit buffers, syntax highlighting, mouse support, graphical versions, visual mode, split window (both horizontal and vertical) and many new editing commands and it has become the standard version of vi on most Linux systems.
[141001830190] |Many of Vim's features are very helpful in editing program source code, fact that makes it highly beloved among programmers and developers.
[141001830200] |Here I could take as a small example the syntax highlighting, which is available for a very wide range of file types.
[141001830210] |An aspect that is worth mentioning would be that, even though Vim is a powerful text editor, it is not a word processor too.
[141001830220] |As I've said before, Vim is a modal editor.
[141001830230] |Therefore, it has several modes which differ in their functionality.
[141001830240] |The default mode is the Normal one, where the user can type in editor commands such as cursor movement, text deletion a.s.o.
[141001830250] |Another aspect I've found interesting about Vim would be the fact that all things can be easily done by making use of the keyboard only, saving a lot of time and providing a faster way for accomplishing different tasks.
[141001830260] |The Visual mode looks like the Normal one, but the movement commands extend highlighted text.
[141001830270] |The highlighting can be set by characters, lines, or a block of text.
[141001830280] |The .Insert mode is used for typing text in.
[141001830290] |A mode similar to this one is also the Replace mode.
[141001830300] |The difference between the two modes is that in Replaceeach character typed overwrites an existing character in the buffer.
[141001830310] |In the Select mode you can highlight text.
[141001830320] |The highlighted area will be automatically replaced with a character if it's typed, which will cause Vim to enter insert mode.
[141001830330] |Besides these "standard" modes there are also some hybrid ones such as the Insert Visual, Insert Selector Insert Normal.
[141001830340] |And if you think these should be enough, well, they aren't.
[141001830350] |To complete the set, Vim's creators added the Command-line, the Ex and the Evim modes.
[141001830360] |Another feature Vim is famous for would be its highly customization power.
[141001830370] |The user has the possibility of customizing the basic interface or define their own key mappings or even call internal or user defined functions.
[141001830380] |As it benefits of its own scripting language, there are also many plugins written in this language available for extending/personalizing vim.
[141001830390] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001830400] |Vim is a professional text editor targeting mainly programmers, but it can be also used by any other type of user.
[141001830410] |It received the best text editor award from readers of the Linux Journal magazine in 2001, 2002, 2003 , 2004 and 2005, which I think tells a lot about its efficiency. 
[141001830420] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001830430] |The bad and ugly part about Vim would be for most users the fact that they must do the study first in order to be able to use it.
[141001830440] |However, once you've managed that, the benefits are enormous and I think it's definitely worth all the effort.
[141001830450] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001830460] |Vim is a multi-platform text editor, which means you can use it regardless of the operating system that powers your machine.
[141001830470] |Fully compatible too <b>vi</b>, Vim provides all the functionality of a regular text editor, such as spell checking, Unicode support, possibility of undo/redo the most recent actions, integrated help but it has also some features of its own which make it a powerful and reliable tool.
[141001830480] |To get a better idea on what Vim is, you can also check out the pictures below.
[141001930010] |<title>XMIND 2008 Pro Review</title>
[141001930020] |Do you have ideas?
[141001930030] |"Of course I have!" will be the answer of everyone to this question.
[141001930040] |We have so many ideas that they keep wondering around in our heads, trying to find a way out and express themselves.
[141001930050] |XMIND will help you – and your ideas – to communicate your intentions, dreams, hopes in a way that everyone can understand.
[141001930060] |Images and sounds are there to complete your expressions, because words alone cannot do that.
[141001930070] |I'll try to define a mind map, in order to clear up some things.
[141001930080] |A mind map is a diagram that presents connections between portions of information in a non-linear graphical manner, encouraging a brainstorming approach to any organizational task.
[141001930090] |It is made up from words, ideas, or any other items linked and arranged radially around a main concept, keyword or idea.
[141001930100] |A mind map can be best used for generating, visualizing, structuring and classifying ideas; this can be useful in studying, organization, problem solving, writing and more.
[141001930110] |Everything in XMIND can be structured, letting the user choose from six widely used types of topics, like mind map, logic chart, org chart, 2D chart, tree chart and fishbone chart.
[141001930120] |Also, all the branches of a map can have different structures.
[141001930130] |The program comes as a binary for Linux, so the only three things you will have to do is to download the package and uncompress it somewhere in your home folder.
[141001930140] |Afterwards, you should open up a terminal in the respective folder and type "chmod +x xmind".
[141001930150] |That's the last step before you can run the application.
[141001930160] |Just double click the executable in your file browser and XMIND will be ready to roll.
[141001930170] |After you start the program, in a few seconds a window telling you that there is an updated version of XMIND will appear.
[141001930180] |If you select to update your software, you will notice there is no new version for Linux - at least at this moment - but just for Windows and Mac OS X. The current release for Linux is 2.0.3, while for the other two platforms is 2.1.
[141001930190] |It seems the application doesn't recognize the operating system (although in the error logs appears the OS, platform architecture, etc.) and that's why it reports the availability of an updated edition.
[141001930200] |You will be greeted by an Welcome Screen, where you can go through an overview explaining what is mind mapping, offering tips for brainstorming and telling you more about XMIND and its uses.
[141001930210] |Another section of the Welcome Screen is "What's New", made up of info related to the changes in this version, from features, news and updates, to joining the XMIND community.
[141001930220] |"Tutorials" is part of this screen, too.
[141001930230] |This part of XMIND takes you from the basics to the more advanced notions of the application.
[141001930240] |If you go through all the tutorials and read the "How To"'s, you will become a true master of XMIND!
[141001930250] |If you want to see already-made mind maps, organization charts, and more, then you should take a look at the samples.
[141001930260] |Too bad they don't work from the Welcome Screen, where is already a menu with them...
[141001930270] |I tried to open every one of them, from Agenda to Resume, and none worked.
[141001930280] |Although, if you want to open up a sample file, you should try an alternative way: go to File -> Open... and go to the folder where you have XMIND.
[141001930290] |In it, you will find a directory called "samples", containing the examples from the Welcome Screen.
[141001930300] |The developers created two skins for the Welcome Screen, one is called Purple Mesh – which you will encounter first when you start XMIND – and the other bears the name Circles.
[141001930310] |I like the first better, because Circles' elements do not look too well.
[141001930320] |The only thing that looks better is the Overview button, whereas the others seem to have been dropped on the interface randomly.
[141001930330] |To begin creating maps, go to File -> New -> Default Template, or just press CTRL+N and a fresh workbook will be created, with only one element, "Central Topic".
[141001930340] |It can be renamed in whatever you like.
[141001930350] |From this topic you can create branches and sub-branches, or topics and sub-topics, as the program calls them.
[141001930360] |You have the option to take a screen shot of your mind map ("mapshot") by pressing F7 or going in Map -> Map Shot.
[141001930370] |After you do this, you can select and resize the portion you want to save as a screen shot.
[141001930380] |When you decide how much of your workbook you want to be saved, you will have to double click the area and the program saves it on your desktop.
[141001930390] |Unfortunately, it didn't work for me.
[141001930400] |I could say it functioned, but partially.
[141001930410] |Why?
[141001930420] |Because it creates a file, but not a PNG file... an empty text document appears on my desktop, called "Mapshot.png".
[141001930430] |Maybe this could be a problem that happens only to me, because it is possible that I don't have all the necessary libraries.
[141001930440] |You can add a legend to a mind map, so everyone can understand it.
[141001930450] |At first, I didn't realize what was with that legend, because it was just a yellow, round-cornered rectangle which appeared in the workbench.
[141001930460] |I moved it all around the screen and I left it somewhere where it could not bother me.
[141001930470] |I took a look in the right pane, where I found some interesting markers.
[141001930480] |So, I started putting them to the topics.
[141001930490] |Suddenly, the legend changed and had all the markers I added, with a small description next to the icons.
[141001930500] |In the lower part of your screen, you will have some tabs like "Properties", "Notes", etc.
[141001930510] |Be careful when you try to switch between them, because you might close the one you're trying to move on, without knowing.
[141001930520] |You should wait 2-3 seconds first.
[141001930530] |I don't know why this is happening, maybe the program creates a cache of its elements, and before this cache is made, everything works a little bit slower.
[141001930540] |If a mind map is heavily loaded with images, text, sound etc., the program's working speed will decrease, e.g. when you try to zoom in or zoom out the mind map.
[141001930550] |If you have a powerful computer, this issue might be nonexistent.
[141001930560] |I wanted to see how the program worked when you added a hyperlink to a topic.
[141001930570] |I added one and a sort of pop-up appeared next to the cursor when I hovered with it over the URL.
[141001930580] |The pop-up explained that I should hold ALT and click on the link to access the website.
[141001930590] |I did what it advised me, but nothing happened.
[141001930600] |I thought I could fix this from XMIND, so I looked over in "Preferences" for an option to choose the default web browser or at least to add a command, for launching this type of software.
[141001930610] |Since I was in the Preferences menu, I thought I should change the look of XMIND.
[141001930620] |I moved to "Appearance" and I selected Modern 2007.
[141001930630] |After I hit the Apply button, a notification appeared, not once but twice!
[141001930640] |The same thing happened when I switched to the "Classic" theme.
[141001930650] |When I went back to the default "Modern", the notification was shown only once.
[141001930660] |I hope this little bug will be fixed in the next release, just like the one with the updated version.
[141001930670] |Even the workbooks have themes.
[141001930680] |Although there is a set already made, you can create your own personal ones.
[141001930690] |How can you do that?
[141001930700] |By starting a new mind map and changing the look of everything in it.
[141001930710] |Or, at least those things you don't like...
[141001930720] |You can modify the background, the borders, the relationship arrows, the topics, the fonts, everything!
[141001930730] |I really like this aspect of XMIND and besides this, I also like the effects applied to the extending and collapsing of topics.
[141001930740] |When you finish a mind map, you can export it as PDF, image (BMP, GIF, JPEG and PNG types supported), RTF (Microsoft Word compatible) or simple text file.
[141001930750] |In PDF, the final product (if I could say so) will be looking much better than in XMIND's preview window.
[141001930760] |In the preview, you will notice the title unaligned, the images looking a little bit pixellated, but as I've said earlier, the final product is what counts the most.
[141001930770] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001930780] |XMIND, from my point of view, is the best mind mapping solution because it offers such a large number of features and it is very customizable.
[141001930790] |It is very easy to use and if you've never encountered this type of application, you will surely learn how things work in the mind mapping world.
[141001930800] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001930810] |I don't like the fact that the edition for Linux was left behind.
[141001930820] |For Mac and Windows there is already a newer version, but for Linux we still have 2.0.3...
[141001930830] |The help files have some typos and I could find expressions that didn't look like they were coming from the English language.
[141001930840] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001930850] |I know in the Linux world everyone is used to free (as without charging for something) software, but in this application a lot of work, time and money were invested.
[141001930860] |You can try it for free for almost a month, and then you must pay for it.
[141001930870] |Although, the developers should think of another release which is for free, so everyone can enjoy at least some of the features included in XMIND.
[141001930880] |Here are some screenshots with XMIND 2008 Pro in action:
[141002060010] |<title>EnvyNG Review</title>
[141002060020] |We all know that searching for drivers is somewhat annoying and boring, but we have to do it in order to have our computers working properly.
[141002060030] |It's not a pleasure to start surfing the web in search for the best and last updated driver for a particular device of yours.
[141002060040] |Not anyone has the time and the nerve to closely analyze the content of a producer's website for a match between one of the drivers listed there and the complete name of their device.
[141002060050] |Well, you don't have to do this anymore because a very useful application designed specially for this problem is now available.
[141002060060] |Envy or, with its latest version, EnvyNG (Envy Next Generation) offers a most sought after solution to this tedious driver quest by getting the job done for you.
[141002060070] |Developed by Alberto Milone, EnvyNG is a tool for Ubuntu and Debian, written in Python and PyGTK, which gets and installs the latest drivers for Nvidia or ATI video cards.
[141002060080] |In other, simpler words, EnvyNG downloads the installer from either of the two card producers' website and packages it using the OS' packaging scripts, followed by the actual installation and the configuration of the Xserver. 
[141002060090] |EnvyNG has three ways you can work with, textual (if you're in text mode or want to work from a root terminal) and two graphical alternatives, for GTK/GNOME or QT/KDE environments.
[141002060100] |The last two are more intuitive and obviously more user-friendly, and also don't require to open a terminal to run, although it's certainly possible if you so choose. 
[141002060110] |After installation, when you begin to actually use the program, you have to set the way in which you want the drivers to be fetched.
[141002060120] |One convenient way would be to choose the automatic detection, hit the Apply button, and just let the program take care of the rest of the installation process.
[141002060130] |It's a good way to eliminate the stress of having to indicate yourself the exact name of the driver, so if you're new at this and don't want to complicate your life, you should probably let EnvyNG handle it.
[141002060140] |The alternative is called Manual Selection of the Driver and, like the name says, it gives you the possibility of choosing an appropriate driver yourself.
[141002060150] |Both these options, Automatic and Manual, are available for either ATI or Nvidia cards. 
[141002060160] |A possible downfall to this application is that it doesn't automatically update the drivers when newer ones are released, so this chore falls on the user alone.
[141002060170] |However, it shouldn't be too hard to run EnvyNG from time to time and, by selecting Automatic Hardware Detection, let it do a check to see if there are updated drivers on the net.
[141002060180] |Speaking of updates, there is one rather nasty issue here and it is related to the OS' personal upgrades.
[141002060190] |If you want to do a distro-upgrade of your system, you have to uninstall the driver fetched by EnvyNG first to eliminate possible errors and file mismatches.
[141002060200] |This can be really bugging if you have a distribution that updates frequently, because there is no other way to do it but to uninstall the drivers and then reinstall them after the distro-upgrade.
[141002060210] |EnvyNG is a good alternative to classic search-download-install routine of setting up various drivers, because it takes an unpleasant job off the user's shoulders, while also making sure the installation is done correctly, thus eliminating future problems.
[141002060220] |If improved to be more flexible and to eliminate certain bad aspects, such as version conflicts, it could set the standard for this kind of operation. 
[141002060230] |The demand for this kind of software is substantial, given the fact that drivers for Linux distributions do not come in the same box with the devices, as they do for Windows OS.
[141002060240] |And, with the ever-growing popularity of Linux, it would be nice if the open-source community made an effort to provide reliable and easy-to-use tools to set up the computer to its maximum potential, and to keep it updated at all times.
[141002060250] |EnvyNG aims precisely at that and, with good feedback from the community, it has all the chances to be a top priority for many users.
[141002060260] |<b>The Good:</b>
[141002060270] |It's a very useful application, simple to use and user-friendly, and may turn out to be the perfect solution for you.
[141002060280] |It saves time and makes sure the appropriate driver for your system is in place.
[141002060290] |Another perk of this application is that it works very well with new video cards, such as Nvidia 9600 GT.
[141002060300] |<b>The Bad:</b>
[141002060310] |The version conflicts and the necessary uninstallation before a distro-upgrade definitely have to be dealt with before EnvyNG is used on a larger scale.
[141002060320] |Also it would be a good thing to at least notify the users when new drivers are available, so that it's easier to know when to do an update, rather than have to check for it themselves. 
[141002060330] |<b>The Truth:</b>
[141002060340] |Certainly, many users would be more than happy if software of this type were further developed and improved, because it's a must have after a fresh install of the OS.
[141002060350] |The appearance and quality of the GUI is very important, so a correct selection and installation of the video card driver is crucial.
[141002060360] |EnvyNG is just the tool for that, even if, for now, it has some minor flaws.
[141002210010] |<title>CrossOver Linux Review</title>
[141002210020] |One of the main reasons people have to stick with Windows is because certain applications that they use on a daily basis don't have (quality) alternatives on Linux.
[141002210030] |Some can't live without Microsoft Office, others think Internet Explorer is the best browser and, of course, graphics professionals or photographers won't change Photoshop with anything the open-source world has to offer. 
[141002210040] |To address all of these, a project was born, Wine, offering a free and relatively easy way to install and use a large number of Windows-only applications under Linux.
[141002210050] |Of course, performance isn't as good as on a Windows platform and various incompatibilities can cause certain components to not function properly, but it's still an amazing feat. 
[141002210060] |You probably noticed the above "relatively" addition I had to make; especially for newbies, using Wine can prove to be a little hard.
[141002210070] |For that, CodeWeavers comes with a commercial solution built on top of Wine called CrossOver, which I'm going to review today.
[141002210080] |First of all, you should know that a full, free 30-day Trial is available so you can assess the application's qualities before spending any money. 
[141002210090] |I've tested CrossOver Linux 8.0 on a Ubuntu 9.04 machine; installing the app is quick and easy thanks to prepackaged downloads for DEB- and RPM-based distributions.
[141002210100] |There is also the alternative of downloading a Loki installer (.sh) in case you're using any other Linux operating system.
[141002210110] |On Jaunty, after the installation was complete, a new "CrossOver" entry appeared in the main "Applications" menu.
[141002210120] |From there, you can configure the program, access online documentation, install Windows software, run Windows commands, terminate currently running Windows applications or fully uninstall CrossOver. 
[141002210130] |The first thing I went for was, of course, the "Install Windows Software" button.
[141002210140] |A few moments later, a window containing a list of 52 applications popped up.
[141002210150] |But before talking about functionality and features, I have to point out the downright ugly interface; for $39 I think they could've done a better job with making it not look as from the last decade.
[141002210160] |Anyway, that's the least important factor, so let's move on.
[141002210170] |Of the 52 applications available, I will point out only some of the more important ones: Adobe Photoshop (up to CS2), Internet Explorer 6/7, Microsoft Office (up to the latest 2007 version), Excel/Word/PowerPoint Viewer, Quicken 2009 personal finance software, QuickTime 7.5, ShockWave Player and Windows Media Player 9. 
[141002210180] |Simply select what you wish, click next and CrossOver will ask you to insert the CD or, if the case, select other installer files.
[141002210190] |What I would've loved to see is an integrated ISO mounter, in case you have your software collection backed-up on the HDD.
[141002210200] |However, if the application is free and can be downloaded from the Internet, CrossOver conveniently downloads it for you.
[141002210210] |Some examples are the Office Viewers, Internet Explorer, QuickTime or Flash Player. 
[141002210220] |On the next screen, you will be asked to select the "bottle" in which you want the program to be installed.
[141002210230] |Bottles are containers that host the "fake" Windows environment and are configured for different versions of the operating system, from Windows 98 up to Windows Vista.
[141002210240] |Every time you install a new program, CrossOver will recommend you one of these bottles for the best support. 
[141002210250] |After installing a program, you will notice that yet another entry stretches the "Applications" menu.
[141002210260] |"Windows Applications," as it is called, gives you quick access to all the currently installed apps.
[141002210270] |If you don't need all the various shortcuts for each program, this menu can be modified in whatever way you wish by clicking "Configure" and going to the "Menus" tab at the bottle/application selection screen.
[141002210280] |In addition to that, shortcuts are also automatically placed on the desktop. 
[141002210290] |The first program I tried to install from the "Supported" ones was Internet Explorer 7, which gave an error saying that it couldn't install "Core Fonts" and asked if I wanted to continue with the installation.
[141002210300] |I clicked yes and a few moments later I was "happily" running IE7 in Linux; even the Flash plugin was working.
[141002210310] |Unfortunately, a freeze occurred when I clicked the "About" menu in the help Section, but worked after restarting IE.
[141002210320] |Also, the interface seems to be glitchy, with buttons not showing the way they should. 
[141002210330] |Of course, you are not limited to only the 52 "supported" applications, as you can try and install just about any Windows-only software.
[141002210340] |Whether it works or not you will have to find out yourselves.
[141002210350] |Uninstalling is done through the application's own components or by simply deleting the bottle the application is in. 
[141002210360] |Another program that I wanted to try from the list and, of course, see if it did what it should do best, namely playing .mov files, was QuickTime.
[141002210370] |It installed nicely, it started nicely but when I loaded a sample .mov from Apple's webpage it wouldn't work at all, as you can see in the screenshot below. 
[141002210380] |Microsoft Office was the next item that caught my attention and I wanted to see how it could handle Microsoft's own download manager instead of using a CD.
[141002210390] |I selected the .exe and, to my surprise, the download started immediately.
[141002210400] |On the way, CrossOver also installed several other components that were needed, such as .NET Framework or Visual Basic.
[141002210410] |There were also a few errors during the process, but they didn't seem to affect the installation.
[141002210420] |Five minutes later and I could run all the Office apps, from Word to Access.
[141002210430] |Of course, you should expect some more visual glitches, for example when making a rectangle selection in PowerPoint, but nothing too serious.
[141002210440] |All in all, it runs perfectly well and feels very snappy. 
[141002210450] |When you have Wine installed on your Linux machine, double clicking an .exe file will, obviously, open it with Wine.
[141002210460] |I expected the same functionality in CrossOver but I got a "Fatal Error" saying that it couldn't find the "default" bottle.
[141002210470] |As it turns out, you have to manually set one of the created bottles to be default and, after that, all double-clicked .exe files will be installed in that bottle. 
[141002210480] |<em><strong>The Good</strong></em> 
[141002210490] |CrossOver is recommended for those who don't want to tinker with Wine, as it provides a quicker, more convenient way of installing popular Windows software.
[141002210500] |Also, the fact that you can set separate, isolated environments for each application is a great thing, allowing for a better management of your Windows applications. 
[141002210510] |<strong><em>The Bad</em></strong> 
[141002210520] |For someone who has at least some basic Linux knowledge, paying for something that they can do themselves with only a bit more work in Wine is pointless.
[141002210530] |Plus, some of the "supported" applications don't work as they should and the interface needs a lot more attention. 
[141002210540] |<em><strong>The Truth</strong></em> 
[141002210550] |As a 30-day trial is easily accessible and fully functional, it's best to try both CrossOver and Wine and see if the extra features are worth your money.
[141002210560] |Me, I'm perfectly fine with Wine. 
[141002290010] |<title>BleachBit Review</title>
[141002290020] |We all know that computers tend to gather all kind of stale files that pile up in different temporary or cache folders, ultimately slowing down the system and occupying valuable disk space.
[141002290030] |Any self-respecting geek takes on the job of manually cleaning those files every once in a while, but no matter how through you are, you certainly won't be able to purge them all. 
[141002290040] |Various programs were created with the purpose of cleaning up the system; even Ubuntu has Computer Janitor included in the default system.
[141002290050] |When I saw the changes that were made to Computer Janitor during the Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) alpha builds, I remembered that I previously used another application of this kind that had a similar look.
[141002290060] |It's called BleachBit, and it will scrub off your system much more thoroughly than Computer Janitor. 
[141002290070] |The main BleachBit window is quite simple-looking –you have a list of applications and categories on the left, a couple of buttons on the toolbar and that's all.
[141002290080] |By manipulating the categories on the left you will get to see, checkbox by checkbox, just how powerful BleachBit is.
[141002290090] |If you're wondering what one of the options does, just click it and a short description of it will appear on the application's main pane.
[141002290100] |The descriptions may be a little bit sparse for some of the cleaning profiles, and BleachBit isn't a very safe tool in the hands of novice computer users, that's why I think it could be expanded.
[141002290110] |A nice feature is the way warnings appear when selecting slow or potentially dangerous options. 
[141002290120] |When you're happy with the options that you have checked, you need to click the Preview button.
[141002290130] |BleachBit will then go through all the folders and cleaning methods, and check out the stuff that can be removed and how much space that will clear.
[141002290140] |However, no actual modifications will be made.
[141002290150] |You can review the list and, if there aren't any sensitive files on that list, you just need to click the Delete button.
[141002290160] |The files will be removed but, be aware, there is no way to get them back afterwards. 
[141002290170] |The deleted files will be listed in the application's main pane and, if any of them were left untouched because of improper permissions or other causes, they will be marked with a red font color and an error number for that particular problem will be displayed.
[141002290180] |At the end of the log is the total size of the cleared disk space, and I found it quite rewarding to see how much useless stuff was removed from my system. 
[141002290190] |Just like the bleach you might use to whiten your clothes, BleachBit can be dangerous when handled improperly.
[141002290200] |That's why, at least on Ubuntu, it gives you two icons to start it up: one of them runs the program as the current user, and the cleaning/possible damage is limited to the home folder of that particular user.
[141002290210] |The other menu entry starts BleachBit up with root permissions, which is the most efficient way to run it, but also the most dangerous.
[141002290220] |Although it will warn you when selecting options that may end up with data loss, there still is a possibility of overlooking something and cleaning files that you needed. 
[141002290230] |BleachBit's options window is simple, allowing you to configure whether cleaner options that aren't applicable to the current system are displayed and if deleted files are to be overwritten so they can't be recovered anymore.
[141002290240] |The second tab gives you the ability to choose the folder in which files will be created when you select the option to overwrite free space, because that feat is accomplished by actually filling up the drive then removing the files that were created during this process.
[141002290250] |The third tab gives you the options to select what locales (resources for the localization of most of the software on your operating system) you want to keep –those that aren't selected here will be cleaned up when checking the "System -  Localizations" option.
[141002290260] |This feature works very much in the same way that localepurge operates, but it is deemed to be more powerful. 
[141002290270] |Another security-related feature of BleachBit is the "Shred Files" option.
[141002290280] |It deletes files securely so that their recovery by adversary forces (and even by yourself, if you need to do that) will be impossible or at least immensely more complicated. 
[141002290290] |The program's documentation is only available on-line.
[141002290300] |It isn't very complex and there aren't any screenshots to explain the available options.
[141002290310] |You can also watch a screencast that showcases the installation methods and gives the user a quick overview of BleachBit's use.
[141002290320] |Overall, it gives me the same feeling that the cleaning option descriptions did: every feature should be documented, and the ones that have greater system-level implications should be more thoroughly described. 
[141002290330] |Another hitch that I have with BleachBit is the lack of a backup option for the stuff that is removed.
[141002290340] |In my opinion, every program that deals with the automatic removal of files should be able to reverse the changes should something go wrong.
[141002290350] |The minimal requirement would be to back up all the removed files, and, for a more complete set of features, the user should be able to select which category of files to be copied in a safe place, or even archived since one of BleachBit's aims is to reclaim used disk space. 
[141002290360] |<em><strong>The Good</strong></em> 
[141002290370] |The performance is very good.
[141002290380] |BleachBit was able to remove more than 400MB of files on the test computer without any hitches.
[141002290390] |There are many cleaning options and there is the option to optimize the internal databases of some programs. 
[141002290400] |<em><strong>The Bad</strong></em> 
[141002290410] |The documentation is lacking in some areas.
[141002290420] |Furthermore, there aren't any safeguards should something go wrong. 
[141002290430] |<em><strong>The Truth</strong></em> 
[141002290440] |BleachBit is a very nimble tool in the hands of a computer-savvy user.
[141002290450] |It can be dangerous when used by novices, but even the worst case scenario should only result in nothing more than an inconvenience and the need to reset some options. 
[141002290460] |<strong>Edit:</strong> BleachBit 0.6.4 was just released, and it adds support for Opera 10.
[141002290470] |Other enhancements include a command line interface for automation scripts, many small bugfixes, better summary display, toolbar aspect corrections, a Malay translation was added and the others were updated, NetBSD is better supported and the file shredding function is more consistent in operation.
[141002370010] |<title>Google Chrome Review</title>
[141002370020] |There's hardly a piece of software more important for a desktop operating system these days than the web browser.
[141002370030] |Even the most casual of users will end up employing one several times per day.
[141002370040] |You could argue that Linux has always had a wide variety of browsers to choose from and, if you just look at the numbers you're definitely right.
[141002370050] |But, with the risk of getting a lot of people aggravated, I'll say that there has been only one real option for Linux users and that is Mozilla Firefox.
[141002370060] |Everything else, from Konqueror to Opera, just doesn't stack up and not for lack of trying. 
[141002370070] |So how would a newcomer to Linux and to web browsers in general, like Google, manage?
[141002370080] |Remarkably well, it turns out.
[141002370090] |Jumping ahead a bit, Google Chrome probably won't replace Firefox for most people and it's not going to become the default web browser in a mainstream Linux distro anytime soon, but it does so many things different and/or better than anyone else that there's no doubt Chrome is going to find a lot of fans in the Linux crowd. 
[141002370100] |<strong>Installation and first load</strong> 
[141002370110] |First things first, in order to try it out you're going to need to get a hold of it.
[141002370120] |You can grab Google Chrome from the download link above, or go to the official Google page, and the entire process is pretty straightforward.
[141002370130] |You can download the Google Chrome dev channel build (currently Google Chrome 5.0.342.3) if you're feeling a bit adventurous and positively <em>need</em> to be on the cutting edge but for this review we'll be sticking to the relatively stable Google Chrome 5.0.307.11 Beta. 
[141002370140] |Beta builds have been coming out for about three months now for Linux but a stable release hasn't been made available yet.
[141002370150] |It should be coming in the next few months but for most purposes the Google Chrome 5 Beta is solid enough to be run on a production machine.
[141002370160] |We'll be testing Google Chrome 5 Beta on the latest Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 3 with all the up-to-date packages and the delicious, new Ubuntu theme, but the underlying distribution doesn't really matter that much.
[141002370170] |After getting a hold of the .deb package you can either open it directly from your browser's downloads window or save it and open it from your computer.
[141002370180] |The GDebi package installer should spring into action and with just a couple of clicks Google Chrome is ready to be put through its paces. 
[141002370190] |A very nice touch is that the installer also adds the Google Chrome repositories to your 'sources.list' file so the browser will get automatically updated every time a new build is out (which will be very soon at the pace at which Google developers are working).
[141002370200] |Now that everything is set, it's time to take this thing for a spin.
[141002370210] |If you've never used Google Chrome, get ready to be more than a bit surprised and maybe a little lost, you haven't seen anything like this before.
[141002370220] |A bright blue window welcomes you at first and, though everything is recognizable, it certainly doesn't look like your standard cookie-cutter Linux application. 
[141002370230] |<strong>The look</strong> 
[141002370240] |There is no title bar, in the traditional sense, there is no menu bar, there isn't even a status bar. Everything has been stripped to the bare minimum, not surprising, knowing that this thing comes from Google.
[141002370250] |There is a small number of buttons in the main toolbar, back, forward, reload and home, the last of which can be removed from the options menu if you feel it clutters up the interface.
[141002370260] |Then comes one of Google Chrome's most interesting features, the Omnibox, designed to be part address box, part search box.
[141002370270] |Finally there are a couple of menu buttons that house the other common tools you'd expect to find in a web browser.
[141002370280] |The browser tabs are integrated with the title bar in Google Chrome and the status bar only pops up when it is needed. 
[141002370290] |It may take a bit of getting used to at first but after a while you realize that less is better when it comes to good software UI design.
[141002370300] |After all, what you're interested in is the actual content and the browser should do as little as possible to get in the way of that.
[141002370310] |And if you're not convinced that this is the way to go maybe the fact that both Opera and Firefox are now 'borrowing' some of Google Chrome's best UI elements should be proof enough.
[141002370320] |Opera 10.50, which isn't available yet on Linux, does away with the antiquated menu bar and the upcoming Firefox 4.0 will take a very similar approach. 
[141002370330] |<strong>The feel</strong> 
[141002370340] |The first thing you notice about Google Chrome, after you manage to get past the initial visual 'shock,' is the speed.
[141002370350] |It's a subjective measure for sure, without doing any actual benchmarking, but the speed with which Google Chrome loads is hard not to notice.
[141002370360] |Frankly, this is how all software on a modern computer should behave, you click the icon and the window should load up before you've even had time to move away the mouse.
[141002370370] |The swiftness of Google Chrome is apparent after the first load too, moving from one tab to the other is very fast as is everything having to do with the interface.
[141002370380] |Everything having to do with the UI is fast and intuitive and there's little to impute Google for here. 
[141002370390] |<strong>Rendering (HTML and JavaScript)</strong> 
[141002370400] |The speed translates to how Google Chrome renders the actual web pages as well.
[141002370410] |Google Chrome uses the <a><strong>Webkit rendering engine</strong></a>, developed by Apple for Safari and based intially on the KHTML open-source libraries.
[141002370420] |Apple managed to create quite a powerful engine and thanks to the open-source nature of the project it has been adopted and integrated by plenty of web browsers out there, especially on the mobile front. 
[141002370430] |Google went with the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' philosophy and rather than coming up with its own rendering engine, which would have meant a lot of time and resources spent, took Webkit and built on top of it.
[141002370440] |So, in this respect, Google Chrome comes with one of the best web page rendering engines out there, if not the best certainly the most popular. 
[141002370450] |One of the main bragging points of Google Chrome when it first launched and to this day has been the underlying V8 JavaScript engine.
[141002370460] |It was the fastest JavaScript engine in the world when it came out, blowing away the competition, and, even though things are much closer these days, it is still a very capable beast having only recently been overtaken by the latest Opera 10.50 in benchmarks.
[141002370470] |As for rendering accuracy, Google Chrome also performs rather well.
[141002370480] |Google is a strong believer in open web standards and the fact that it is using Webkit only helps.
[141002370490] |HTLM5 support is on par with everything else out there and there's nothing to criticize in this area.
[141002370500] |It's the same story with JavaScript, <a><strong>Google Chrome came in third</strong></a> in Google's own compliance tests. 
[141002370510] |<strong>Main Features</strong> 
[141002370520] |<strong>The Omnibox</strong>.
[141002370530] |Google Chromes' most defining feature, the address box - search box hybrid, is one of its strong points but also one of its weaknesses.
[141002370540] |It may take a little to get used to it but after a while you begin to wonder why everyone else hasn't done this before and why in the world would you have two features doing pretty much the same thing and taking up precious space in the process. 
[141002370550] |After all, people rarely know exactly where they want to go and most of the time they start off with a search.
[141002370560] |With the Omnibox, they get redirected to their preferred search engine for every query they type.
[141002370570] |However, the tool also serves as a suggestion box, like Firefox's Awesome bar, which integrates history and bookmark search, but taking things further by integrating web search as well in the suggestions. 
[141002370580] |Still, at times it can be a bit annoying.
[141002370590] |For example, typing 'reader' in the Firefox Awesome bar will load Google Reader for me.
[141002370600] |Doing the same in Google Chrome will lead me to a search page for the word 'reader' where Google Reader will be the first result.
[141002370610] |This may not sound like too much of a hassle but it still adds a couple of, unnecessary, steps to the process.
[141002370620] |You could argue that this doesn't have to happen as typing in Chrome will obviously suggest Google Reader so, in the end, it would take just one additional click to get there but it means moving your hand from the keyboard to the mouse and, frankly, it's one click I'd rather not have to make. 
[141002370630] |<strong>Bookmarks and History</strong>.
[141002370640] |These tools work pretty much like in any other browser and there's nothing spectacular or very wrong with them in Google Chrome.
[141002370650] |History loads in a full new tab and you can see the timeline and search through with the integrated search feature. 
[141002370660] |There is a dedicated Bookmark Manager, which opens up in a new page, but it's standard nuts-and-bolts stuff, nothing too exciting.
[141002370670] |However, the bookmarks toolbar, or rather the way Google Chrome handles the feature, is exciting or at least interesting.
[141002370680] |By default the bookmarks toolbar isn't visible to save up space in the minimalistic UI.
[141002370690] |However, you can press Ctlr+B to activate it if you need quick access to a page and then press the same keyboard shortcut to tuck it away until you need it again.
[141002370700] |The bookmarks toolbar is also available when opening up a new tab.
[141002370710] |<strong>The New Tab Page</strong>.
[141002370720] |The feature is one of the more useful of Google Chrome though it's not exactly original.
[141002370730] |The concept was pioneered by Opera but with Chrome Google took things one step forward.
[141002370740] |There is a thumbnail view of the most visited web sites, but this can double as a Speed Dial-style feature as pages can be pinned to the section.
[141002370750] |It also features the aforementioned Bookmark Toolbar and lists the most recently visited web sites. 
[141002370760] |<strong>Customization and integration</strong> 
[141002370770] |One of the main draws of Linux and Linux software is the endless customization possibilities.
[141002370780] |Linux users want things to look and feel exactly as they like them and take pride in getting everything working to their satisfaction.
[141002370790] |Luckily Google Chrome comes with some compelling options in this department as well though it probably won't satisfy the most demanding of users. 
[141002370800] |For those wanting a uniform look across all of their apps, Google Chrome also comes with a native GTK-based interface, available in the Options dialog under the Personal Stuff tab.
[141002370810] |Choose this option and Chrome will use the default icons and colors from the system-wide GTK theme selected.
[141002370820] |However, the browser's (few) interface elements will still retain their default look.
[141002370830] |You can take things even further by enabling the "Use system title bar and borders" options. 
[141002370840] |On the other hand, if you're bored with the stale looks of either the default theme or the GTK-based one you can check out the online theme gallery Google has provided.
[141002370850] |There are plenty of themes to choose from, both from Google and from various artists, but, truth be told, most of them are on the ugly and/or cheesy side.
[141002370860] |If bright colors and flashy graphics are your thing then there's certainly something in there for you.
[141002370870] |Most people will end up going back to the default themes though. 
[141002370880] |<strong>Extensions</strong> 
[141002370890] |Idealists may want to believe that it's the open-source nature of the project and the great community that helped Mozilla Firefox become the most popular alternative web browser in the world and spark a veritable browser revolution.
[141002370900] |But the fact is, most people are a lot more concerned about the practical side of things and likely the single biggest thing that pushed Firefox adoption is its add-on platform.
[141002370910] |Thousands of developers have created extensions for Firefox that satisfy even the most obscure needs and niches.
[141002370920] |In fact, it's the one thing that would keep most people from switching browsers, for fear of losing all of their precious add-ons. 
[141002370930] |Luckily, Google Chrome also has <a><strong>its own extensions gallery</strong></a>, even if only since a few months ago, and there are almost 3,500 extensions in there at the time of writing.
[141002370940] |It's nowhere near the <a><strong>number of add-ons available for Firefox</strong></a> but it's growing steadily.
[141002370950] |All the most popular add-ons have been ported to Google Chrome or have alternatives and the extensions platform has a few clear avantages over Firefox's, the biggest of which is not having to restart the browser every time you install a new one.
[141002370960] |In fact, Mozilla is now working on a very similar <a><strong>add-on platform with Jetpack</strong></a>.
[141002370970] |You can check out some <a><strong>Google Chrome extensions here</strong></a>. 
[141002370980] |<strong>Usability and stability</strong> 
[141002370990] |Google Chrome, for all its innovations, is just a browser.
[141002371000] |It does a few things differently and some might find that, once they get used to it, it helps them get the job done faster or easier than Firefox or other browsers but don't expect anything revolutionary. 
[141002371010] |Don't be fooled by the beta label, Google Chrome is more than suited for serious work.
[141002371020] |Google has a knack for keeping products in beta for extended periods of time, Gmail was in beta for five years, so the concept means something a bit different for Google developers than for the rest of the world.
[141002371030] |That being said, it's still not on par with Firefox and there are a couple of glitches and annoying minor flaws.
[141002371040] |They're far from a deal breaker but after you've spent enough time using Google Chrome it's hard not to notice them. 
[141002371050] |<strong>Google Chrome and open source</strong> 
[141002371060] |This issue is a bit tricky.
[141002371070] |Google Chrome is not, in fact, open source by itself.
[141002371080] |It's free and available to anyone but it comes with a pretty clear license agreement, well, as clear as license agreements can get anyway, that specifically forbids people from trying to reverse-engineer the code in order to copy, modify or distribute it. 
[141002371090] |However, it is very closely based on the Chromium open-source project, where the active development for Google Chrome is being done.
[141002371100] |For all intents and purposes, Chromium is Google Chrome without the branding and with more experimental code.
[141002371110] |Any Free GNU/Linux distribution that would want to bundle Chrome would choose Chromium but there's little reason besides 'principles' to do so for the average user.
[141002371120] |<strong>Conclusion</strong> 
[141002371130] |Google Chrome is one of those things that you either love or hate.
[141002371140] |In fact, it will probably be a mixture of the two but one thing's for sure: there's little about it that you'd call boring or ignorable.
[141002371150] |There's plenty to like about Google Chrome and it gets a lot of things right, which is why plenty of other browser makers are taking more than a few cues from Google's browser.
[141002371160] |Chrome has been out for a year and a half on Windows and more than half a year on Linux.
[141002371170] |Google has been pushing betas for Linux since December but even so, at this point, Chrome has a well-rounded set of features and stability isn't an issue. 
[141002371180] |However, if you're looking for a Firefox replacement, Google Chrome isn't it.
[141002371190] |For one thing, there are still some features missing.
[141002371200] |It's nothing crucial but some of the omissions are by choice so they're not going to change anytime soon.
[141002371210] |Secondly, it does quite a few things differently from Firefox, some for the better, some for the worse, but in most cases it's up to the individual user to judge.
[141002371220] |But this, in fact, it's how it should be.
[141002371230] |Google Chrome shouldn't be just another Firefox, even a better one.
[141002371240] |Real choice is when people can have a great browser that caters to their own needs rather than trying to satisfy everyone and that's the one thing that Google Chrome does provide, a real choice, a viable web-browser alternative to the established ones.
[141002450010] |<title> Review</title>
[141002450020] |<strong>Emails are a major part of our day to day life.
[141002450030] |Dare I say it, they're probably even more important than letter writing was years ago.
[141002450040] |Finding the right e-mail client for you, that's also able to provide a safe environment for your messages is essential.
[141002450050] |We're reviewing Balsa so that you can know what to expect from this client and maybe help you decide whether this is the e-mail client you're looking for.</strong>
[141002450060] |Once installed, the initial setup wizard couldn't be configured to the screen size of my 701 Eee PC.
[141002450070] |As its only a matter of a few slides for the configuration wizard, holding the ALT key and dragging the window works just fine if you come across the same problem.
[141002450080] |Fortunately, once Balsa started, the sizing of the windows had no problems whatsoever.
[141002450090] |<strong>Configuring Balsa</strong>
[141002450100] |Balsa can handle multiple POP and IMAP protocols.
[141002450110] |Once installed, if you're not pleased with the wizard configuration, you can configure it by going to Edit and selecting Preferences.
[141002450120] |IMAP support is not fully integrated but it does a decent job.
[141002450130] |I've managed to configure a personal e-mail address by inserting the SMTP configuration details in the <em>Edit -  Preferences</em> menu.
[141002450140] |I really liked that Balsa's warning windows are really descriptive: it warned me that deleting a folder or mail while using the IMAP protocol to access them will delete them from the server as well.
[141002450150] |Now, most of us know the difference between IMAP and POP, but having the client actually warn you of what's going to happen does give a user much more confidence about using the software.
[141002450160] |Unfortunately, outgoing e-mail configuration using IMAP didn't work for our GMail account, even though Balsa supposedly handles GMail since version 2.3.24 onward.
[141002450170] |Another aspect that we would have enjoyed having in Balsa would be a spam filtering option.
[141002450180] |Standard mailing options such as Delete, Compose, Reply, Reply All, Forward, etc are available from the main window toolbar.
[141002450190] |<strong>Organizing e-mails</strong>
[141002450200] |The Mailbox menu entry permits you to sort your messages based on whether or not they are Read/Flagged/Answered or Deleted.
[141002450210] |To do this, just select the Hide menu entry and choose one of the available options.
[141002450220] |Personally, I found the  Answered/Unanswered option a potentially useful feature of Balsa's. Creating new sub-folders (for either POP or IMAP accounts) is done by right clicking on a folder and selecting the New option from the pop-up menu.
[141002450230] |Balsa supports drag and drop for e-mails or folders, so you can easily move items around.
[141002450240] |<strong>Address book</strong>
[141002450250] |In order to save an e-mail address, you can manually add it in the Address book (available in the File menu, or by pressing the B button) or by selecting an e-mail with the address(es) you wish to add and selecting "Store Address" from the pop-up menu.
[141002450260] |Balsa's flexibility is even more obvious here, as it lists contact details for all the addresses available in the selected message(es) and lets you choose which to add which to not.
[141002450270] |Balsa's search within the Address book is rather limited.
[141002450280] |You've got the option of choosing between the local Address book and the imported one from the drop down menu, but the search is only done for names.
[141002450290] |Also, if the person has more names than one, be sure to search for the person's first name if you plan on finding it.
[141002450300] |The Re-Import button is very useful for updating the address book list after a search.
[141002450310] |<strong>Composing</strong>
[141002450320] |Balsa's e-mail composing editor is friendly, but rather rudimentary.
[141002450330] |As it doesn't support HTML, it acts like a simple text editor.
[141002450340] |Other than this, Balsa is fully featured for various e-mailing operations.
[141002450350] |It supports Cc and Bcc, suggests e-mail addresses as you type them (from the Address book, of course) and takes care of your spelling.
[141002450360] |When viewing attachments, Balsa uses the standard software attributed to specific file types.
[141002450370] |<strong>Importing</strong>
[141002450380] |Importing a Vcard file is done from the Address Book Editor.
[141002450390] |To open it, press the "Run Editor" button from the File entry and then select <em>File -  New Vcard address book</em>.
[141002450400] |Browse for the right file, give the new list a name, select how you want Balsa to behave when suggesting an address (either as you type, when you hit the ESC key or never) and click on Add.
[141002450410] |The address book will be loaded as a second list of addresses.
[141002450420] |You can toggle between the two from the File menu inside the Address Book Editor.
[141002450430] |<strong>Conclusions</strong>
[141002450440] |Ultimately, Balsa seems effortless to deal with and a stable e-mail client that doesn't use up a lot of memory resources.
[141002450450] |It's interface is GNOME friendly, with icons and fonts that fit alright with the desktop environment.
[141002450460] |Its ability to be easily configured makes it a decent option for an e-mail client, particularly for those of you out there restricted to text only e-mailing.