[141000210010] |<title>Gentoo Linux LiveCD Installer Review</title>
[141000210020] |<img/>Gentoo is a very cool distro, but because it didn't have an equally cool installer, a lot of Linux users kept their distance from it.
[141000210030] |Yesterday things changed, as Gentoo announced the release of Gentoo Linux 2006.0 which comes with a graphical installer.
[141000210040] |As soon as I heard this news, I downloaded the LiveCD ISO image that includes the new installer. 
[141000210050] |I must say that a lot of improvements are brought by this version, but they all fade away when you think of the new installer.
[141000210060] |Some highlights are KDE 3.4.3, GNOME 2.12.2, XFCE 4.2.2, GCC 3.4.4 and the latest 2.6.15 kernel.
[141000210070] |I don't know why the developers didn't include KDE 3.5.1 and GCC 4 but I hope that in a future release they will be available alongside the new GNOME 2.14 that will be released in a couple of weeks.
[141000210080] |That's going to be a happy day for me!
[141000210090] |But, let's get back to our original subject!
[141000210100] |<b>The Installer</b>
[141000210110] |I downloaded, burned and booted into Gentoo Linux 2006.0.
[141000210120] |First thing I noticed after Gnome loaded was an icon a little out of order.
[141000210130] |It was the icon of the front-end used by the installer.
[141000210140] |If you login as root it will be available in Applications >Other.
[141000210150] |One of the first things I noticed is that you can Save/Load an install session.
[141000210160] |This is pretty cool because you can save your install settings the way you like it and when you will want to install Gentoo again you will not have to go through all this process one more time.
[141000210170] |This feature makes me think of some kind of mass deployment.
[141000210180] |You make an XML file to use over and over again and if you have several computers you will definitely save some time.
[141000210190] |Maybe in the future we will have a simpler method to do a mass deployment of Gentoo. 
[141000210200] |In this first screen of the installer, the Gentoo people say that its purpose is to make the install process faster.
[141000210210] |I guarantee you that it's also easier.
[141000210220] |Even the text mode installer is easier.
[141000210230] |The next screen is where you make some pre-install configurations.
[141000210240] |There are options related to networking and some other misc settings.
[141000210250] |If you get your Internet connection to work in the Live CD you will not have to setup the network.
[141000210260] |In misc are settings related to the chroot directory, log file, ssh and some others.
[141000210270] |I like that in the right side there's a list of loaded modules.
[141000210280] |You don't really have to set anything here so you can just skip to the next screen.
[141000210290] |Partitioning is very important.
[141000210300] |Now it can be done easier and if you don't know how to do it you also have an option to use a recommended layout.
[141000210310] |If you are new to all this, read the Help because there you will find all the necessary info.
[141000210320] |Another thing that I like is that you can choose between the most common filesystems for installing Gentoo.
[141000210330] |With Fedora I have to use a special "cheat code" to be able to install on XFS.
[141000210340] |One of the things that can be improved her is the ability to select the mount point from a drop down box.
[141000210350] |Some newbies don't know what the common mount points are.
[141000210360] |Anyway, this is of great value to the installer as well.
[141000210370] |In the next screen you can mount NFS shares.
[141000210380] |This is good because from here you can easily mount remote shares easier and you will not have to do it later.
[141000210390] |Another cool thing is that you don't have to "emerge sync" and this will not store the portage tree locally.
[141000210400] |Unfortunately, NFS servers are not that common and for every passing day samba is becoming more and more popular.
[141000210410] |I hope that some day the installer will support SMB too.
[141000210420] |Next follows a screen where you select the stage you would like to start the installation from.
[141000210430] |Stage one is for those that really have a special feeling inside when a compilation occurs.
[141000210440] |At this stage, the downloaded packets are smaller but time required for compilation is quite long.
[141000210450] |To be honest with you, I'm not sure what is the use of stage two.
[141000210460] |I can't imagine a real use for this one.
[141000210470] |In theory, most of the packets are compiled from source.
[141000210480] |Stage three is the default stage.
[141000210490] |This one is used when you install from the CD.
[141000210500] |All the packages are precompiled so this one is the fastest.
[141000210510] |Note that when you install from the CD you have to tick GRP Install and Dynamic.
[141000210520] |You can also install precompiled packages from a folder, http or ftp.
[141000210530] |Very nice stuff!
[141000210540] |This next screen is related to the Portage tree.
[141000210550] |If you are installing from the Live CD you will not be able to choose anything here because the installer automatically takes the portage from the CD.
[141000210560] |If you are a little patient you can choose to install from the Internet and you will have the most updated packages.
[141000210570] |A very cool thing is that the portage tree is obtained via rsync and this means the synchronization is very fast.
[141000210580] |If you choose to install Gentoo from the Live CD you will not change anything in this screen.
[141000210590] |For any other install option this screen allows you to select the packages and other different flags.
[141000210600] |In the help you will find all the information you need related to this part of the install.
[141000210610] |It is very cool that the installer allows you to try to optimize applications for your CPU. 
[141000210620] |What is more important then the heart of your Linux distro (the kernel) ?
[141000210630] |Well, for some it might be the graphical interface, but for me is the kernel.
[141000210640] |Gentoo has the latest version at the moment of this writing.
[141000210650] |My advice is to choose either a the Live CD kernel if you are a beginner and if you are an advance user you can choose one for yourself.
[141000210660] |I will use the Gentoo sources with bootsplash support enabled.
[141000210670] |If you want your OS to boot you would definitely want to use a bootloader.
[141000210680] |This section is nothing spectacular.
[141000210690] |Actually, it could use some improvement.
[141000210700] |If you have more than one OS on the hard disk you will have to use lilo because only it can detect your windows partition.
[141000210710] |That's too bad because I prefer grub.
[141000210720] |The only lilo I like is the animated one, it's very cool.
[141000210730] |Because the step where we set the timezone is self explanatory we are going to go straight to the Networking setup.
[141000210740] |In theory, if you set up the network interface in the pre-install configuration it should appear preconfigured here.
[141000210750] |I trust the Gentoo people on this one because I haven't tested it (I use DHCP).
[141000210760] |Don't forget to setup the hostname and DNS.
[141000210770] |Gentoo's installer gives you the option to choose what daemons you want to use.
[141000210780] |Before I got to this screen I thought it relates to all the daemons available on your system, but in fact it is only about cron and logger.
[141000210790] |I will not use a cron daemon and as a system logger I prefer metalog.
[141000210800] |We now get to my favorite part: selecting extra packages.
[141000210810] |You will see that in this list are displayed only the best of the best programs available for Linux.
[141000210820] |If you want to add extra packages, enter their name in the text field.
[141000210830] |As I understand, some of the packages are precompiled and others are not.
[141000210840] |This makes things a little fuzzy.
[141000210850] |Maybe they should say somewhere which ones are not precompiled.
[141000210860] |I like the approach of not putting in the list all the packages because it makes installing safer.
[141000210870] |Dependencies are easier to satisfy this way.
[141000210880] |Next is a screen where you should select the services that you would like to start-up at boot.
[141000210890] |All I have to say here is that you should take care to tick alsasound and xdm.
[141000210900] |Other possible settings are related to the display manager you want to use, console fonts, the desired keymap, etc.
[141000210910] |Even though settings like console font, the possibility to use windowkeys and the availability of all three display managers enchanted me, the fact that I can't start in KDE by default made me a little sad.
[141000210920] |I know Gentoo people prefer Gnome but KDE is good too and definitely deserves a place on that list.
[141000210930] |Also, why not Enlightenment and XFCE?!
[141000210940] |A crucial step is the one where you set up a password for root and where you add and delete users.
[141000210950] |It's self explanatory and you most certainly will not have any problems here.
[141000210960] |Believe it or not, this last screen I found to be the most mysterious of all.
[141000210970] |At first it didn't do anything and I wondered how can I use it.
[141000210980] |I clicked on the help button and it all made sense.
[141000210990] |This one it is still a work in progress.
[141000211000] |Well, I can't wait for the final product.
[141000211010] |I have a feeling that this installer will benefit from a lot of feedback.
[141000211020] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000211030] |Everything is good now because we have a real installer.
[141000211040] |It is both highly configurable and easy to use.
[141000211050] |The help provided is excellent.
[141000211060] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000211070] |The installer is good but is not perfect.
[141000211080] |However, let's give these people a break.
[141000211090] |It's still in development.
[141000211100] |I only want to remind that extra packages should have something that tells us which ones should be compiled and that they should include the possibility to start KDE and other GUIs automatically.
[141000211110] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000211120] |This installer is great but it still needs development.
[141000211130] |I really am happy for this release.
[141000211140] |I used Gentoo before and I liked it a lot, but because there wasn't a relaxed way to install it I must confess in shame that I went for another distro.
[141000211150] |Now, Gentoo is replacing my other distro.
[141000211160] |I think the availability of this installer will make Gentoo a lot more popular.
[141000211170] |Good job on this one!
[141000211180] |<b>Don't forget to check out this screenshots!</b>
[141000220010] |<title>Nmap Review</title>
[141000220020] |<img/>Nmap is a well known tool for security auditing.
[141000220030] |I am choosing to present this software because it installs very easy, it also has a frontend and with minimum effort gives the best result.
[141000220040] |Using Nmap in a black console with green fonts can make you look smart even though it is one of the easiest software available.
[141000220050] |Now let's see what it does!
[141000220060] |Nmap was designed to rapidly scan large networks and for this reasons it is commonly used for security audits and for network inventory.
[141000220070] |Most of the time I use it on a single host.
[141000220080] |It allows me to see what types of services a host is using.
[141000220090] |You can imagine that when scanning a large network it is pretty impressive when all the host appear and for each one information like the OS that is running, services and the version of that service, what firewall is used, etc.
[141000220100] |Knowing this stuff is very important because some older services might have known security holes and bad crackers could harm that machine.
[141000220110] |Knowing this you can update to the latest version and the danger will decrees a lot.
[141000220120] |This is also applies to the OS version and the firewall type.
[141000220130] |I'm not going to explain what ports are because if you read this review you should already know this.
[141000220140] |It's common sense Internet knowledge, similar to knowing why cars have wheels.
[141000220150] |In my opinion, the most interesting info is about ports.
[141000220160] |Detected ports are displayed in a table.
[141000220170] |For every detected port is listed the port number, the protocol, its state, the name of that service and its version.
[141000220180] |Let's talk a little about the state.
[141000220190] |It can be open, closed, filtered or unfiltered.
[141000220200] |Open means that the service on the server is listening for connections or packets on that port.
[141000220210] |Closed ports don't have a service that listens.
[141000220220] |Filtered means that on that machine there is a firewall that blocks Nmap and it can't decide if the port is opened or closed.
[141000220230] |Nmap classifies ports as unfiltered when they are responsive to Nmap's probes, it cannot determine whether they are open or closed.
[141000220240] |I have never encountered this in a real live situation.
[141000220250] |Usually the state of ports is opened or closed and sometimes filtered.
[141000220260] |On the website it is stated that Nmap can provide further information on targets, including reverse DNS names, operating system guesses, device types, and MAC addresses.
[141000220270] |I like that I can use it to find a MAC address and reverse DNS is really useful to me.
[141000220280] |When it comes to OS guesses all I can say is that it is as trustworthy as a gypsy that 'sees' in a globe.
[141000220290] |It's not just a problem of Nmap.
[141000220300] |Even expensive enterprise class software can't do it very good.
[141000220310] |<b>The console Nmap</b> <img/>
[141000220320] |<img/>Here is where all the magic happens.
[141000220330] |To first have a list of parameters just type nmap in a console.
[141000220340] |At the bottom of the mini-help there are some examples.
[141000220350] |If basic Nmap functionality is enough for you, type nmap followed by the name or IP of the host you want to scan.
[141000220360] |As I said before this software makes you look smart and the console interesting.
[141000220370] |<b>The Frontend</b>The frontend is useful if you are new with Nmap and if you don't like the console.
[141000220380] |You can easily use it to pass different pre-configured parameters to Nmap without remembering any command.
[141000220390] |The frontend really comes in help to newbies and it actually provides a very comprehensive set of options.
[141000220400] |One of the best things is that it highlights some of the info in colors to be read easier.
[141000220410] |If you don't like the default frontend, go to the insecure.org website and at projects related to Nmap are also some alternative frontends and some other cool stuff.
[141000220420] |A very different frontend is Knmap.
[141000220430] |What more can you ask for?!
[141000220440] |I guess in console nothing else can be displayed.... but in the frontend a link to vulnerabilities available on that version would be nice!
[141000220450] |Expensive software has this feature, but hey, Nmap is free and small.
[141000220460] |I like good, free and small software.
[141000220470] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000220480] |I like Nmap because of many reasons.
[141000220490] |First of all it is powerful enough to satisfy most people's needs.
[141000220500] |It is easy to install and easy to use.
[141000220510] |I also like that it is one of the smallest software of its kind (0.6 MB) and can be easily deployed in mini distributions.
[141000220520] |Nmap is one of the best software for security auditing and it can definitely be a good starting point for people who want to dig a little into security.
[141000220530] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000220540] |I really can't think of something bad about Nmap.
[141000220550] |It is not bad.
[141000220560] |It is good, very good.
[141000220570] |It's Nmap.
[141000220580] |Maybe it lacks a very cool frontend to show its value. 
[141000220590] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000220600] |The truth is that sometimes Nmap can really prevent disasters, but most of the time is just plain fun software to use.
[141000220610] |I guess you already realized that this is also one of the favorite tools of crackers.
[141000220620] |I hope you will also realize that is better to fight for the good side.
[141000230010] |<title>KFTPGrabber Review</title>
[141000230020] |<img/>For some, transferring files trough FTP is part of a daily routine.
[141000230030] |For me I can definitely tell you this is the case.
[141000230040] |Sometimes I upload files through FTP, sometimes through SFTP but most of the time I browse FTP servers looking for something interesting to download.
[141000230050] |Until today I mostly used Kasablanca and the old fashion method of browsing using Konqueror.
[141000230060] |Today things changed a little because as I was browsing the Internet, I encountered a very cool FTP client called KFTPGrabber.
[141000230070] |I heard of it before but I didn't bother to install it.
[141000230080] |My loss!
[141000230090] |The first thing that attracted me to it was the support for FXP.
[141000230100] |This allows you to copy files from one FTP server to another.
[141000230110] |Advantages are many.
[141000230120] |First of all the speed of your Internet connection doesn't matter anymore.
[141000230130] |It is important only the speed between the two hosts.
[141000230140] |You can synchronize large files using dial-up with several MB/s if the two FTP servers have a broadband connection.
[141000230150] |Even if you are transferring several small files FXP can come in handy because you don't have to copy them from a FTP site to your computer and from your computer to another FTP site.
[141000230160] |Saves you from unnecessary complication.
[141000230170] |The FTP servers only have to support PASV mode and have to allow PORT commands to foreign hosts.
[141000230180] |As far as I know PASV is generally supported, but PORT to foreign connection is not always supported.
[141000230190] |Because of this I wasn't able to transfer through FXP on any of the sites I tried.
[141000230200] |It was a big disappointment for me.
[141000230210] |Another cool thing is the support for tabs.
[141000230220] |In this way I can open multiple FTP sessions and browse all of them in the same time.
[141000230230] |Imagine how FXP will shine in this case.
[141000230240] |In each tab you open are available some very useful buttons.
[141000230250] |The first one is for connecting.
[141000230260] |It's actually a drop down button that allows you to make a quick connection, to connect to bookmarked sites and, most interesting, to do offline browsing through the cached directory tree.
[141000230270] |Are also available some buttons needed for navigation, one that allows you to switch the tree view on and off and then another drop down button for more advanced actions.
[141000230280] |If your transfers require a secure connection you should know that KFTPGrabber has support for TLS and SSL encrypted connections.
[141000230290] |For this it uses some features present in KDE.
[141000230300] |When SSL secured connection is available, a small closed lock is displayed at the bottom of a panel.
[141000230310] |You can click it to do some settings and see more details.
[141000230320] |Actually you will configure global SSL encryption.
[141000230330] |The SFTP protocol is also supported.
[141000230340] |The interface is very user friendly and would successfully be appreciated by both beginners and advanced users.
[141000230350] |It provides a lot of functionality and in the same time it looks good.
[141000230360] |In the left side of the screen you have three tabs for bookmarks, the sites near me and for server management.
[141000230370] |In the first one, as we all suspected, are displayed bookmarks.
[141000230380] |Bookmarks are very useful because they can be configured pretty nice and I would also like to add that they can be imported from other clients.
[141000230390] |Kassablanca is not yet supported.
[141000230400] |In the second one I expected to see a list with some FTP servers that are in my vicinity because I wanted to download some files with the speed of light.
[141000230410] |Unfortunately in the beta version I don't think is implemented this feature yet.
[141000230420] |It says that no sites are published.
[141000230430] |Hmmm....
[141000230440] |Server management is interesting if the server you want to use it on has the site commands configured.
[141000230450] |Almost off all them have site help.
[141000230460] |I will try to implement on my test server several site commands just to use them with KFTPGrabber.
[141000230470] |At the bottom of the program's window is another set of tabs, generally useful to display more info about what happens when you transfer files.
[141000230480] |All of them are very useful and the information is displayed very nicely.
[141000230490] |The only small problem is in the Log tab.
[141000230500] |Sometimes test overlaps and it is a little harder to read.
[141000230510] |On the other hand, the log is easy to read because it highlights different commands and actions. <img/>
[141000230520] |<img/>When it comes to configuring I must say that KFTPGrabber has everything I wish for.
[141000230530] |This program can show a balloon that notifies you when transfer completes and when a connection retry succeeds.
[141000230540] |If you want you can turn all this notifications off.
[141000230550] |This can be set from the general configuration.
[141000230560] |In here you can also set a default local directory, the number of retries and the retry delay.
[141000230570] |It is interesting that passwords from bookmarks can be encrypted in KWallet.
[141000230580] |The most useful settings from transfers are related to setting a speed limit for upload and download, setting a minimum space on the disk to be considered and the number of threads per session.
[141000230590] |If you remember, before I said that the log has the text highlighted and now I have even more good news.
[141000230600] |You can personalize the colors used in the log and the output can be dumped in a file.
[141000230610] |In the Display sections are available some settings related to the way things are displayed in the file browser.
[141000230620] |Actions related to Download, Upload and FXP events are all set to Ask.
[141000230630] |You can modify them individually to actions like skip, overwrite, resume and rename.
[141000230640] |You have also the option to configure some filters, but to be honest I really don't know what this can be useful for. 
[141000230650] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000230660] |The graphical interface looks good; the program is easy and also full featured.
[141000230670] |I like that I can edit my bookmarks and also that the log is color encoded.
[141000230680] |Files in Queue can be paused and a speed limit can be set.
[141000230690] |For whatever reason I also like the traffic display a lot.
[141000230700] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000230710] |It would have been cool if the program could do scheduled uploads and downloads but at this moment it can't.
[141000230720] |On the website the developers say they will bring new features to KFTPGrabber and I hope this is one of them.
[141000230730] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000230740] |The truth is that from this day on this is my new favorite FTP client.
[141000230750] |I advise all the people that use FTP to try this software.
[141000230760] |I'm just waiting for the 0.7 stable!
[141000230770] |<b>Don't forget to check out these screenshots!</b>
[141000240010] |<title>Skype Review</title>
[141000240020] |<img/>The phone is a very useful tool; it helps people communicate one with another.
[141000240030] |But, every minute on the phone costs money, it's not a free service and, if you call someone that lives in another state or outside the country, expect to pay even more.
[141000240040] |Isn't there something that allows talking for free for as long as you wish?There is Skype.
[141000240050] |<b>Skype and Linux</b>
[141000240060] |Depending on your Linux distribution, Skype can run in a few seconds after you finish the download from the official website.
[141000240070] |RPM packages are available for SuSE 9 and newer versions, for Fedora Core and for Mandriva 10.1 and newer.
[141000240080] |Debian wasn't forgotten, there is a .deb package for Debian and other distros based on it.
[141000240090] |Users that have another distro weren't forgotten, there are two packages: a dynamic one that requires QT 3.2 and onethat includes the QT library.
[141000240100] |Using Skype on OpenSuSE 10.0 wasn't a complicated thing, you can download it from the official website and then issue a simple console command: rpm -i skype-1.2.0.18-suse.i586.rpm.
[141000240110] |After the installation has been successfully performed, you can immediately start the program; depending on the window manager that you're using, you can find it in the main menu and start it by just clicking its icon.
[141000240120] |KDE was running on that particular OpenSuSE system and Skype showed up in the "other" sub-category of Internet applications in the K menu.
[141000240130] |When Skype started, it showed a little two-paged wizard: Create a new account (for new users) and Log into Skype (for existing users).
[141000240140] |You create a new account if you never used Skype before, or you Log into Skype if you used Skype before and you already have an account.
[141000240150] |Creating a new account is a very short process, you don't have to wait a lot of time or go through a complex sign up procedure, just choose the account name, a password and tell Skype an email address where your password can be sent in case you forget it and you're ready to talk with other users.
[141000240160] |If you were wondering if a friend has a Skype account, you can search for Skype users (the Tools menu, Search for Skype users option) and find out.
[141000240170] |In case you found that person, you can add your friend to your contact list and wait for the other person to accept your request. <img/>
[141000240180] |<img/>Making a call is very easy, you just have to type into that little box above the green call button the skype name or, in case you bought credits, a phone number that's outside of the Skype network and then press the green call icon.
[141000240190] |If the person that you want to call is already on your contacts list, things get even easier, you just have to select that contact in your list and press the green call icon.
[141000240200] |Obviously, the red icon hangs up "the phone".
[141000240210] |If there's a need for a short period of silence, the hold button from the call menu can be used to temporarily interrupt the voice chat session.
[141000240220] |You might have a small surprise when the person that you wanted to talk with says "I can't hear you at all!!", if that's the case, you might want to check if the microphone is muted or if it is at minimum volume.
[141000240230] |You can do this by using one of the mixer control software that come with KDE, in case you're using OpenSuSE with KDE, or adjust the volume by using a different mixer that you might have on your distro.
[141000240240] |Skype allows more than just talking via voice chat, it also has a classic instant messaging part, the user can send text messages, even smileys are supported and can be used in text chat.
[141000240250] |Privacy is enforced by options like voice chat calls and text chat filtering which prevents uwanted calls and text messages, either by accepting calls and text chat only from contacts or from authorized users.
[141000240260] |<b>The Good:</b>
[141000240270] |It's a freeware application which is available for multiple platforms and the fact that you can make cheap phone calls to phone numbers that aren't part of Skype by using the SkypeOut service.
[141000240280] |Calling to phone numbers outside of Skype is just a half of the story, you can also have a real phone number for your Skype account by using the SkyeIn service.
[141000240290] |The interface of the software isn't complicated and it is pretty obvious what each setting does, if it isn't there are the online help and F.A.Q. .
[141000240300] |<b>The Bad:</b>
[141000240310] |On this tested version of Skype for Linux, the Hold function couldn't be used.
[141000240320] |Obviously, this is a bug, which should have been fixed.
[141000240330] |The latest version of Skype for Windows is 2.0, which also allows video chat, while the latest Linux version is still 1.2.
[141000240340] |The Linux version seems to be less feature rich and lacks certain options that can be found in the Skype for Windows.
[141000240350] |The graphical interface isn't as polished as the MAC OS version.
[141000240360] |<b>The truth:</b>
[141000240370] |It is a very useful piece of software that has many features while being easy to install and use.
[141000240380] |Being able to have many phone numbers for many cities/states/countries when using the SkypeIn service and being able to make very cheap phone calls world wide represent two important advantages.
[141000240390] |Being able to make free phone calls of any duration and the fact that the users of the most popular operating systems and devices can use this service are two greater advantages.
[141000240400] |<b>Follow the editor on Twitter <a>@mariusnestor</a></b>
[141000260010] |<title>Valknut Review</title>
[141000260020] |<img/>Downloading and sharing files is useful.
[141000260030] |File sharing software applications are very popular.
[141000260040] |You can find many things on the net.
[141000260050] |The Internet brings people together and makes the world smaller. 
[141000260060] |<b>“What's Valknut?” - you wonder</b>
[141000260070] |Valknut is an open source file sharing program based on the Direct Connect protocol.
[141000260080] |It is written in C++ and uses the cross-platform Qt library for its GUI.
[141000260090] |It is licensed under the GNU GPL, so you can modify it if you want to.
[141000260100] |You can lunch it just by typing “Valknut” in the command-line or you can make a shortcut to it on the desktop.
[141000260110] |The very first time you run it you will be presented with an options screen before the program starts.
[141000260120] |You need to set the usual settings before continuing: your nickname, your search nick (the name Valknut will use when it is searching multiple hubs, such as all Public hubs or Bookmarked hubs), your Internet connection speed, the download folder and the shared folders.
[141000260130] |You must be careful when choosing the connection mode.
[141000260140] |There are two options: Active and Passive.
[141000260150] |If you are directly reachable via the Internet, meaning that other computers running DC clients can connect directly to you, you should use Active mode.
[141000260160] |This mode is preferable because it lets you search and download from every user in a hub.
[141000260170] |If you are behind a firewall or your LAN is based on NAT (Network Address Translation), you should use Passive mode.
[141000260180] |This mode lets you connect only to Active users, and multi-hub search isn't possible.
[141000260190] |If you are not sure of your situation, start in active mode and if you can't get any search results or file lists, switch to passive.
[141000260200] |Once you finished the initial configuration, it's time to connect to one or more hubs.
[141000260210] |Press Ctrl+U or go to the Action menu and click Hub List.
[141000260220] |You can type in the address of some hub you know or you can get a public hublist by clicking the swirly arrow icon.
[141000260230] |Because a hublist can be quite large, you can filter it.
[141000260240] |You can add or modify a filter so it displays only hubs with a minimum number of users or hubs that have a certain word in their description.
[141000260250] |The bigger the number of users the better because chances are that you will find what you want.
[141000260260] |We assume now you're connected to at least one hub and you’re thinking about what you want to download.
[141000260270] |Once you figured that out you can search files by typing Ctrl+S or by clicking the "Action" menu, and choosing „Hub Search”.
[141000260280] |In the space below the word "Search", type in whatever you want then click "Start".
[141000260290] |To download a file from the Results list, just double click it.
[141000260300] |If you get a message about multi-download, say yes.
[141000260310] |Now you've done your part and must wait for your downloads to finish.
[141000260320] |If you leave Valknut running unattended and go to bed or go out with you friends, the Auto-search for new sources setting will help you get your downloads finished.
[141000260330] |Under certain conditions, Valknut will automatically search for new download locations for files in your queue.
[141000260340] |If it finds any, they will be added to the transfer list.
[141000260350] |However, to prevent this putting excessive load on hubs, the following criteria must be met before an auto-search will happen: no downloads are currently running, 20 minutes have passed since the last auto-search, it is a multi download, the files found must be of equal size and a hash exists for that file. 
[141000260360] |Valknut has a user friendly and intuitive interface.
[141000260370] |If English is not your native or preferred language, you can configure the program to display the text in some other language.
[141000260380] |There are a lot of languages you can choose from.
[141000260390] |It has translations in Bosnian, Swedish, Greek, Dutch, Italian and Romanian, among others.
[141000260400] |You will need to restart Valknut for these changes to take effect.
[141000260410] |Valknut supports themes.
[141000260420] |If you get bored of its looks you can change the appearance of the buttons, dialogs and windows all at once by choosing a different theme.
[141000260430] |To see how a theme looks like, click the Test button.
[141000260440] |You can also change the fonts in which the text is shown.
[141000260450] |Numeric values are used in Valknut for things like file sizes and transfer rates.
[141000260460] |When the Units option is set on Auto, these numbers will be shown in whatever unit is most appropriate.
[141000260470] |If you prefer to have all values in the same unit (Byte, KiB, MiB, GiB), choose that instead.
[141000260480] |You can use Profiles to specify options on a per-hub basis.
[141000260490] |You can make Valknut connect automatically to certain hubs when it starts running.
[141000260500] |Profiles are managed in the Bookmarks tab in the Hub List window.
[141000260510] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000260520] |Valknut is easy to use and install.
[141000260530] |The time from installing the program to actively using it is short.
[141000260540] |You will certainly like the multi-chunk download feature which will reduce the amount of time necessary for getting your files.
[141000260550] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000260560] |Valknut is a good program, I didn't find something wrong with it.
[141000260570] |You can use it with successfor sharing your files and getting new ones.
[141000260580] |<b>The truth</b>
[141000260590] |If you want to share and download files fast and easy, use Valknut.
[141000260600] |I'm sure you will like it.
[141000270010] |<title>Ethereal Review</title>
[141000270020] |<img/>Network protocol analyzers, also known as packet sniffers, are programs that capture network traffic.
[141000270030] |They are very useful for network administrators, software developers or for people who want to know how network protocols work.
[141000270040] |As data travels back and forth over the network, the sniffer captures packets and eventually decodes, analyzes and displays them. 
[141000270050] |Ethereal is one of the best protocol analyzers available.
[141000270060] |You can compile the source code or install from a precompiled package.
[141000270070] |Ethereal doesn't have its own code to capture packets; it uses libcap or WinPCap for this task, so it can only capture on networks supported by these libraries.
[141000270080] |<b>The Interface</b>
[141000270090] |Ethereal has a simple and easy to use interface.
[141000270100] |The main window is divided in three panes that show the user a great deal of information.
[141000270110] |The panes appear only if you have captured data to display.
[141000270120] |The first pane shown gives a summary of each captured packet, displaying the packet number, its source and destination addresses, the type of the upper layer protocol contained in the packet, and some additional information about the packet.
[141000270130] |By clicking on packets in this pane you control what is displayed in the other two.
[141000270140] |The second pane gives detailed information about a selected packet; it shows the headers of all the protocols contained in it.
[141000270150] |For example, if you have captured an HTTP packet, you will be shown the Ethernet, IP, TCP and HTTP headers.
[141000270160] |The third pane displays the actual bytes that form the packet in a hex dump style.
[141000270170] |The left side shows the offset in the packet data, in the middle the bytes are shown in hexadecimal and on the right the data is shown in the ASCII format.
[141000270180] |If a value is not a valid ASCII code it will be represented by a dot.
[141000270190] |You can tell Ethereal to colorize the captured packet list to help you better see the packets.
[141000270200] |<b>Capturing data</b>
[141000270210] |Ethereal understands many protocols from RIP, OSPF to STP and Token Ring.
[141000270220] |You will certainly find all the protocols you want.
[141000270230] |You can capture packets only intended for you or you can capture packets in promiscuous mode.
[141000270240] |For example, if you are connected to a hub you will see all the traffic that the hub handles because hubs are made to transmit a packet on all ports regardless of what the destination is.
[141000270250] |If you are connected to a switch you will see only broadcast packets and packets that have you as their destination.
[141000270260] |Switches are smarter then hubs because they use the destination MAC address contained in the packet to make forwarding decisions.
[141000270270] |First of all you need to have root privileges to start a live capture (remember that!).
[141000270280] |To capture packets use the Ctrl+K shortcut or select Start from the Capture menu.
[141000270290] |The Capture options window will appear.
[141000270300] |Here you can set a few things.
[141000270310] |First you must choose the NIC (network interface card) you want to use for capturing packets. 
[141000270320] |One very useful feature of Ethereal is the fact that you can use filters.
[141000270330] |When capturing network data with Ethereal, you will probably want to filter out some packets and concentrate on the packets that are of interest to you.
[141000270340] |You can create one or more filters and you can save them, but you can only apply one filter at a time to a capture.
[141000270350] |For example you can create a filter to capture only ARP or UDP packets.
[141000270360] |Ethereal also uses display filters, to sort through captured packets, but these filters do not alter the saved traffic. 
[141000270370] |If you want to analyze the data later, you can save the capture to a file.
[141000270380] |You can read in a previously saved capture file by selecting Open from the File menu.
[141000270390] |If you have captured simultaneously from multiple interfaces at once using multiple instances of Ethereal, you can merge several capture files into one.
[141000270400] |<b>Statistics</b>
[141000270410] |The statistical tools are available from the Statistics menu.
[141000270420] |There are some really useful tools.
[141000270430] |If you want to see a summary of the captured packets, Ethereal provides a summary that includes, among others, the length of the capture, elapsed time between packets and average bytes per second.
[141000270440] |Ethereal can even generate throughput graphs and has the capability to follow a TCP stream.
[141000270450] |It creates a readable representation of a conversation contained in your packet capture.
[141000270460] |There are many more options here, but you will get used to them after a few packet captures.
[141000270470] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000270480] |Ethereal can recognize all the protocols you might think of and has an easy to use interface.
[141000270490] |The possibility to create filters and the statistical tools are also a big plus.
[141000270500] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000270510] |Nothing bad here.
[141000270520] |Ethereal works fine and has great functionality.
[141000270530] |It's one of my favorites.
[141000270540] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000270550] |If you want a software tool to use for network troubleshooting or education, use Ethereal.
[141000270560] |It's one of the best packet sniffers around.
[141000280010] |<title>Kasablanca Review</title>
[141000280020] |<img/>One of the easiest ways to transfer files is by using the FTP protocol.
[141000280030] |There are many clients available out there, some good, some bad. 
[141000280040] |Kasablanca is a very fast and user friendly ftp client written in the C++ language, utilizing the KDE libraries.
[141000280050] |In order to use it, you need a new version of OpenSSL and, of course, KDE, at least the 3.2 version.
[141000280060] |Kasablanca's name may remind you of a famous movie starring the American actor Humphrey Bogart and the Swedish beauty Ingrid Bergman.
[141000280070] |<b>The Interface</b>
[141000280080] |Kasablanca has a simple graphical interface.
[141000280090] |There is a menu bar with File, Bookmarks, connect, Action, Settings and Help.
[141000280100] |The main window is divided in three sections.
[141000280110] |To access Kasablanca's configuration window, choose “Configure Kasablanca” from the Settings menu.
[141000280120] |There aren’t many settings but there is everything you need to configure this program and connect to a ftp server.
[141000280130] |The configure window contains three main sections: General, Colors and User Interface.
[141000280140] |The settings found here affect the behavior of the entire application.
[141000280150] |If you enter a regular expression and enable the Skiplist, files with names that match this regular expression are skipped.
[141000280160] |To exclude files that start with a dot - for example hidden files - you can type in the string "^."
[141000280170] |To tell Kasablanca what to do when it wants to transfer a file and this file already exists on the server, you can enable the “On file exist” feature.
[141000280180] |There are three radio buttons: overwrite, resume(if possible) and skip.
[141000280190] |Click the one you prefer and Kasablanca will not ask you anymore how to proceed when a file to be transfered already exists on the ftp server you are connected to.
[141000280200] |You can also enable the Priority list option and type in a regular expression.
[141000280210] |Files that match this expression are queued before files which don't.
[141000280220] |For example, using ".tar.gz" would make archive files with this extension to be transferred first.
[141000280230] |To speed up browsing, you should activate the Directory caching option.
[141000280240] |If you have already browsed some folder on a ftp server, its content will be cached and when you access it again it will be loaded from cache.
[141000280250] |To obtain a fresh listing of the directory, you should press the refresh button.
[141000280260] |If you want your computer to perform some action after it finishes uploading the files to the ftp server, enable the “On queue finished” option and type into the field a command which will be run when the last item in queue is transferred. 
[141000280270] |There are options to change the colors used for background and text.
[141000280280] |If you want Kasablanca to perform a specific action when you use a combination of keys, you can set your own shortcuts by selecting Configure shortcuts from the Setting menu.
[141000280290] |The bookmarks are very useful.
[141000280300] |To create or edit a bookmark, you must set the ftp server’s name, its IP address, the username and password.
[141000280310] |On many public ftp servers can you login using the username "anonymous".
[141000280320] |If you want to go to some folder automatically after a successful login, you should set this directory as a default directory.
[141000280330] |This will save time when you often connect to a server and need to work with the same directory every time.
[141000280340] |To increase security you can choose from four encryption levels: unencrypted and levels 1 to 3.
[141000280350] |The Unencrypted level does not offer protection because it leaves all traffic in clear-text and without encryption.
[141000280360] |Most ftp servers allow only this mode.
[141000280370] |Level 1 encryption means that the traffic on the control connection is encrypted while data transfer remains clear.
[141000280380] |Level 2 is basically the same with the exception of directory information which is transferred on the data channel, but is encrypted too.
[141000280390] |To encrypt all the data traffic, choose level 3.
[141000280400] |You also must select the connection mode.
[141000280410] |There are two connection modes available: active and passive.
[141000280420] |If you are behind a firewall, use passive mode.
[141000280430] |Some ftp servers have problems with either active or passive mode, which is needed for FXP.
[141000280440] |Enabling the Alternative fxp option might help in such cases.
[141000280450] |You can connect to two servers and transfer files between them.
[141000280460] |This is useful when you have to move a file from one server to another.
[141000280470] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000280480] |It's fast, simple to use and has all the features necessary for file transfers.
[141000280490] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000280500] |Kasablanca has some problems with the keyboard.
[141000280510] |For example, if you want to delete a file, you normally press the Delete key but this does not work in Kasablanca.
[141000280520] |To delete the file, you must right click it and choose delete.
[141000280530] |The same goes for renaming.
[141000280540] |When you press F2, nothing happens.
[141000280550] |<b>The Truth </b>
[141000280560] |Kasablanca works fine as a ftp client, but the fact that you can't delete with the Delete key gets you frustrated after a while.
[141000290010] |<title>Kopete Review</title>
[141000290020] |<img/>If you are connected to the Internet, you will certainly want to communicate with the other people.
[141000290030] |IM should sound very familiar to you.
[141000290040] |Instant messaging is everywhere, from home LANs to corporate networks.
[141000290050] |KDE comes with an instant messaging client named Kopete.
[141000290060] |The strange name derives from the Chilean word Copete, a word referring to alcoholic drinks.
[141000290070] |Although it can run in various environments, Kopete was designed to integrate well with KDE desktop, so it’s immediately familiar.
[141000290080] |If you use KDE probably Kopete is already installed on your system.
[141000290090] |Kopete allows users to communicate using many protocols including AIM, ICQ, IRC, Gadu-Gadu, Jabber, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN Messenger.
[141000290100] |Because it knows so many protocols it is very convenient for people who use more then one IM service.
[141000290110] |The program is intended for all levels of users.
[141000290120] |It has an easy to use and simple interface.
[141000290130] |The first thing you need to do is create an account for the instant messaging service you use at the moment.
[141000290140] |Kopete is free software and it works best with protocols based on open IM standards like Jabber and Internet Relay Chat.
[141000290150] |Proprietary IM protocols are often changed, and are changed without notice so it's difficult for open source applications to support.
[141000290160] |You would have to wait for a new version of the program or a patch that makes communication possible.
[141000290170] |If you have to deploy IM in a new environment it's best to choose open standard protocols.
[141000290180] |They are flexible, extensible and stable.
[141000290190] |To create or modify an account you must access the Configure window using the Settings menu.
[141000290200] |Click the Account icon on the left column and after that click the New button in the account management panel.
[141000290210] |The Account Wizard makes things really easy for you.
[141000290220] |You will be asked to choose the IM protocol you want to use.
[141000290230] |Chances are that you will find the desired protocol because Kopete supports many.
[141000290240] |On the following window you will enter registration details and account preferences depending on the IM service you selected earlier.
[141000290250] |Once you created an account go online and start chatting with your friends.
[141000290260] |You can configure Kopete to remember your password, so you don't have to type it in every time you want to connect.
[141000290270] |You can also set it to connect automatically when it starts up.
[141000290280] |The Contact list occupies the most part of Kopete's window.
[141000290290] |Here you can see who is online.
[141000290300] |You can organize your contacts into groups.
[141000290310] |To open or close groups click the + or – symbol on its left.
[141000290320] |If you have a large number of contacts and you want to chat with one of them you can use the Search bar on top of the contacts list.
[141000290330] |This is faster then manually scrolling the list until you find that person.
[141000290340] |A contact can be in more than one group.
[141000290350] |Where possible, groupings are saved on server side so if you use other IM programs, group memberships are kept in sync.
[141000290360] |However, if you change groups in another IM program, Kopete will not know this; it is up to you to make the necessary modifications by hand. 
[141000290370] |Kopete wants to be an all in one instant messaging client, so it introduces the concept of a Metacontact.
[141000290380] |A Metacontact represents one person, containing all the different IM IDs this person may have, making it easy to see whether he/she is available, regardless of which IM system he/she is using right now.
[141000290390] |The Add Contact Wizard creates a new Metacontact with one or more IM systems.
[141000290400] |If the IM service use supports file transfer, you can send files to people in your contact list using the context menu of the person you want to send to or you can drag a file in KDE onto their name to start the transfer.
[141000290410] |You might wonder if Kopete has emoticons.
[141000290420] |Of course it does, and it also has themes for emoticons, meaning there is a wide variety to choose from.
[141000290430] |There are more then ten types of emoticons available and you can install even more.
[141000290440] |If you use Kopete for a while and get bored of its looks you can change the style of the chat window, its colors and fonts.
[141000290450] |The style of the chat view can be altered to look like other clients.
[141000290460] |If you’re still not satisfied you can create your own style by editing an XLS (Extensible Stylesheet Language) file.
[141000290470] |Kopete supports translucent chat views.
[141000290480] |The translucency option is present but seems it doesn't work.
[141000290490] |There were no changes in the translucency and I've tried it on different computers.
[141000290500] |If you have a webcam and want to show yourself to the person you communicate with you can use it.
[141000290510] |Kopete has webcam support for MSN
[141000290520] |'t want to see a message in a pop-up window or hear a sound every time someone goes online can configure the Notification settings.
[141000290530] |To provide additional functionality, Kopete has a few plugins.
[141000290540] |Users may find these plugins useful.
[141000290550] |The History plugin when activated records conversations using any IM system and allows you to view old conversations later.
[141000290560] |A History item appears in each Metacontact's context menu so you can view the message history for that metacontact.
[141000290570] |Users who lack confidence in their spelling ability will also appreciate the Auto replace plugin, which permits you to correct frequently misspelled words or save typing certain words using abbreviations.
[141000290580] |Security freaks will want to use the Cryptography plugin to encrypt conversations using a PGP key. 
[141000290590] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000290600] |Kopete is a very interesting IM client.
[141000290610] |It is well-integrated with the rest of KDE, it has support for all the popular protocols and works just fine with them. 
[141000290620] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000290630] |No support for microphones and audio conferences. 
[141000290640] |Kopete has a few quirks but no fatal flaws.
[141000290650] |<b>The Truth </b>
[141000290660] |If you're using KDE, Kopete's integration with the rest of the desktop is a huge plus, not only for setup but for day-to-day operation.
[141000290670] |If you like KDE, you certainly will like Kopete.
[141000300010] |<title>VLC Review</title>
[141000300020] |<img/>VLC is a media player that can handle a variety of files, from MPEG-1 to DivX, mp3 and audio CDs.
[141000300030] |It is open source off course and multi - platform.
[141000300040] |It also supports various streaming protocols. 
[141000300050] |VLC was formerly known as the VideoLan Client.
[141000300060] |<b>Installation and Usage</b>
[141000300070] |There are precompiled binaries for various operating systems like Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and even Windows CE.
[141000300080] |For other less popular operating systems (Solaris, FreeBSD , NetBSD or QNX ) there are no precompiled binaries.
[141000300090] |You must get the source code and the necessary libraries and compile it yourself. 
[141000300100] |Installing VLC on Fedora was very easy with YUM, just a few mouse clicks.
[141000300110] |After installation, to start the player type VLC in the command-line or use the shortcut in the K Menu, if you use KDE that is.
[141000300120] |The first visual impression is that it's very simple, without any of the clutter of other players.
[141000300130] |VLC has several interfaces: a cross platform interface for Linux and Windows called wxWidgets, an interface that supports skins for Windows and Linux and a MacOS X native interface.
[141000300140] |On Linux the default interface is wxWidgets, which is simple and intuitive.
[141000300150] |There are the Open, Play, Stop, Play Faster, Play slower, Next play list item, Previous play list item buttons, the menu of the program where you can access various setting and the volume bar.
[141000300160] |If you have used other media players (and you certainly have used at least one) the interface will be familiar.
[141000300170] |To play a file use Ctrl+O or open the File menu and click the Quick Open File item.
[141000300180] |You can also Drag&Drop your file on the VLC window. The result is the same. If you have  the stream.
[141000300190] |Check the Stream output option and click the Settings button near it.
[141000300200] |The window with the transcoding setting and encapsulation method appears.
[141000300210] |You can set the settings as you wish here.
[141000300220] |If you have an acquisition card VLC has the possibility to play from it.
[141000300230] |Use the Ctrl+A shortcut to get to the setting window.
[141000300240] |To choose the device for video and audio capture use the Video device name and Audio device name selectors.
[141000300250] |The Advanced options button will give you access to more setting, such as frame rate, the sample rate, the hue, brightness and color level. 
[141000300260] |VLC supports many kinds of subtitles.
[141000300270] |By default subtitles are disabled.
[141000300280] |The player can read subtitles for DVDs, SVCDs, OGM files and MKV files.
[141000300290] |It also supports the following types of subtitles: SSA, Vobsub, Sami, SubRip, MicroDVD but it does not support srt ones.
[141000300300] |Like all the other media players, VLC has a playlist.
[141000300310] |You can access it by clicking the playlist button on the main window.
[141000300320] |You can add files, directories and URLs to it.
[141000300330] |Also you can sort the play list or shuffle it.
[141000300340] |The playlist supports several playback modes: random play, repeat one item and repeat all the items.
[141000300350] |If you want to play some file you can search your playlist for it.
[141000300360] |If you right-click an item in the list, a new menu with four options will appear: Play, Preparse, Delete and Info.
[141000300370] |If you click info you will be shown various details about the file.
[141000300380] |Ctrl+G will activate the Extended GUI.
[141000300390] |This will give you access to the image options (hue contrast, gamma, saturation and brightness), the 10 band equalizer and the audio filters.
[141000300400] |VLC has two audio filters.
[141000300410] |The Volume normalization filter prevents the audio output power from going over a defined value while the Headphone virtualization filter provides sound spatialization, giving the feeling of a 5.1 speaker set when using a headphone. 
[141000300420] |The Preferences window is the equivalent of a control panel.
[141000300430] |It gives you access to a lot of setting from video codecs, demuxers to hotkeys and subtitles.
[141000300440] |But beware, you must know what you are doing when you modify some of these settings, especially the video codecs setting, which will affect the image quality.
[141000300450] |These settings are best left to more experienced users.
[141000300460] |VLC is robust; it does not skip frames like some other players out there and offers great quality and many features.
[141000300470] |Users will be satisfied.
[141000300480] |<b>The Good</B>
[141000300490] |VLC is a good player and it can play about any audio and video format you can think at.
[141000300500] |It can handle High Definition content very well and also works great as a streaming server and video transcoder.
[141000300510] |<b>The Bad</b> 
[141000300520] |It doesn't support real media; it's the only major media it can't play right now, but still… It also has problems with srt subtitles. 
[141000300530] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000300540] |VLC is surely one of the best players out there that can play almost all the media formats, record streams and encode different types of video.
[141000300550] |You might want to check it out if you’re ok with ‘The Bad’ part. 
[141000330010] |<title>aMSN Review</title>
[141000330020] |Many people use Microsoft's instant messaging service, but there are many more IM clients out there.
[141000330030] |Some of them implement all the popular protocols (Jabber, IRC, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, AIM and others).
[141000330040] |If you only have an MSN account, there's no need to use a multi protocol client because you will not communicate using other IM protocols beside MSN.
[141000330050] |Alvaro's Messenger, aMSN, is an open source Microsoft Messenger clone.
[141000330060] |MSN messenger is only available for Windows and Apple's operating systems.
[141000330070] |Alvaro's Messenger runs on Linux, attempts to emulate the look and feel of MSN Messenger and supports many of its features.
[141000330080] |To run aMSN you will need Tcl/Tk 8.4 or above.
[141000330090] |There are advantages to using aMSN because it's very customizable.
[141000330100] |It has many pretty cool skins and alarms; users are able to open many profiles at once and to see others who have removed them from their contact list. 
[141000330110] |It also has internationalization support; there are lots of languages to choose from: Russian, Greek, Chinese and so on.
[141000330120] |A restart of the application id needed in order to apply the language change.
[141000330130] |You can change the behavior of aMSN by selecting Preferences from the Tools menu.
[141000330140] |It has all the settings you need. aMSN can be further tweaked with the use of the freely available plugins.
[141000330150] |The programs works fine, looks nice and has great functionality.
[141000330160] |It supports file transfer and webcams.
[141000330170] |The webcam wizard is an easy way to configure and fine-tune your webcam.
[141000330180] |The wizard can be started from within a chat window by clicking 'Actions' and choosing Configure Webcam.
[141000330190] |As I didn't have one around, I couldn't test how it behaves, but the quality should be the same as for the official MSN client.
[141000330200] |If the image is of a poor quality, it's probably because the other user's webcam is low end.
[141000330210] |One of the features that I like is that it uses only one window for chatting, with tabs for each conversation.
[141000330220] |This keeps your taskbar and desktop from becoming cluttered.
[141000330230] |When you chat with many friends at the same time there will not be separate windows for each chat.
[141000330240] |You can arrange your contacts into groups and sort them by name.
[141000330250] |If you want to save conversations, you can log them to a file.
[141000330260] |If someone which you don't know bothers you, add him to the block list and you won't see messages from him/her again.
[141000330270] |You can log on to your mail account automatically by using aMSN, but it didn't work when I tried this with the Mozilla Firefox browser.
[141000330280] |It went to the Hotmail page but it didn't log in so I had to enter the username and password manually.
[141000330290] |Ok, you can send files, show yourself to your friends with a webcam but what about hearing and actually speaking with your friends?
[141000330300] |I didn't find any microphone settings.
[141000330310] |For now, aMSN does not have audio support.
[141000330320] |This did not bother me because I rarely do audio conferences, but it may bother some people.
[141000330330] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000330340] |A very nice MSN compatible Instant Messenger application.
[141000330350] |Works pretty much like its Windows based counterpart.
[141000330360] |You can use it as substitute of the official MSN messenger.
[141000330370] |There are a lot of nice themes available for download so you'll never get bored of it. 
[141000330380] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000330390] |Users might be disappointed with the lack of audio support and the fact that you can't play any of the MSN games.
[141000330400] |Besides this, there are no problems.
[141000330410] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000330420] |aMSN was intended to be only a client for MSN.
[141000330430] |If you don't have other IM accounts use aMSN; if not, there are many multi-protocol open source clients that you can use, for example Gaim or Kopete.
[141000330440] |<b>Follow the editor on Twitter <a>@mariusnestor</a></b>
[141000350010] |<title>Smb4k Review</title>
[141000350020] |<img/>The Samba server and the smb client represent two things that are meant to be used as means of integration with the operating system from Microsoft, Windows.
[141000350030] |While the smb client allows mounting and browsing through Windows shares, the Samba server allows the creation of shares from *NIX operating systems like Linux.
[141000350040] |The reason why Samba exists is a quite obvious one, Linux workstations couldn't work with Windows workstations; one couldn't provide file and print services both to Windows and Linux workstations if Samba didn't exist.
[141000350050] |The client allows you to work with the Windows shares.
[141000350060] |The samba server enables you to offer file and printing services, this way you can have both Windows and Linux workstations in an environment. 
[141000350070] |Smb4k is a client for "classic" SMB and the improved SMB protocol from Microsoft, CIFS.
[141000350080] |SMB stands for "server message block"; CIFS stands for Common Internet File System.
[141000350090] |The name of this application stands for "SMB for KDE".
[141000350100] |There's a good reason why it says "for KDE" - it's heavily integrated into KDE, as you will learn from this article. 
[141000350110] |How does this piece of software work and how does it make your life easier in a mixed Windows and Linux environment?
[141000350120] |Smb4k is a tool which can be used to manage and mount SMB and CIFS shares.
[141000350130] |It makes things easier because it can manage users and passwords for those shares by using KWallet.
[141000350140] |It can automatically detect Windows shares and display them in a tree structure, which can be expanded.
[141000350150] |In order to view the hosts on a particular workgroup, you expand the workgroup, then you expand the desired host and then you get to see the shares on that host.
[141000350160] |The next thing is clicking on those shares, which will open an authentication dialog box.
[141000350170] |After filling in the user name and the password, the share is mounted to the default location, to a directory named after the name of the share, inside the directory of the user that is currently logged in.
[141000350180] |This is the default behavior, which can be easily changed from the options menu by specifying a different location.
[141000350190] |The shares can be automatically mounted when the user starts Smb4k and unmounted when the user closes the application; all of these options can be found in the menus.
[141000350200] |There are many things that can be changed from the settings dialog, things like showing hidden shares, the NetBIOS name and the workgroup which Smb4k uses when accessing the shares and many options that are related to the way shares are mounted.
[141000350210] |Smb4k is a piece of software which can be used for browsing and mounting Windows shares.
[141000350220] |While it accomplishes this task, it does so without asking the user to do any kind of complex configuration; there's no need for any kind of special operation in order to view those shares.
[141000350230] |You just click the refresh button and you can see the shares of a computer that has just booted, no need to open or close the application for a refresh.
[141000350240] |If you don't want to have to start and close Smb4k each time you need it, it can easily be minimized and the application remains active.
[141000350250] |This is useful especially if you choose to automatically mount the shares at start up and unmount them when you exit the program.
[141000350260] |Smb4k can make your life a lot easier if you need to work with Windows shares.
[141000350270] |You can use it to mount and unmount shares, bringing a share to your computer as if it were a regular folder.
[141000350280] |The only things that you have to know are the user name, the password and the share name. 
[141000350290] |<b>The good:</b>
[141000350300] |It's an easy to use piece of software which helps you integrate Windows with Linux in your LAN.
[141000350310] |The good thing is that there's no need for a Windows server, Samba can be used for this purpose. 
[141000350320] |<b>The bad:</b>
[141000350330] |The hardest thing about it is installing it, other than that, there's nothing wrong with Smb4k.
[141000350340] |Those who use Fedora Core 5 can find it in the extras repository.
[141000350350] |<b>The truth:</b>
[141000350360] |No matter if you plan to use Smb4k at home, at office or in a big enterprise, it's useful, it's one of those apps that make you think "this little tool is great, I wonder why I wasted time before doing things the old way".
[141000350370] |Those who migrated from Windows to Linux and those who work in an environment were windows machine represent the majority, it can be quite a relief when it comes to making transfers between computers that run Linux and those which run Windows.
[141000350380] |<b>Follow the editor on Twitter <a>@mariusnestor</a></b>
[141000380010] |<title>Ark Linux Review</title>
[141000380020] |<img/>A writer is using the typewriter to create his next literature masterpiece.
[141000380030] |He knows exactly what the function of each button and every handle is and when he needs to use it. 
[141000380040] |Because he is familiar with the typewriter, he is concentrating on the content of his book, thus allowing him to be creative without any concerns regarding the way equipment is used. 
[141000380050] |Similarly, computer software shouldn't be hard to use and shouldn't get into one's way while he or she uses it.
[141000380060] |What does "easy to use" mean when it is joined to the term "software"?
[141000380070] |That would mean easy to install, easy to configure, easy to learn and an easy process that helps one get the job done. 
[141000380080] |Linux was, for quite some time, very hard to use and wasn't user friendly, nor the operating system that someone would wish to use on a desktop computer.
[141000380090] |As time passed, it evolved, getting support for more and more hardware; advanced desktop environments were developed and pieces of software that had a Graphical User Interface (or, the short form, GUI) were released. 
[141000380100] |Nowadays, Linux has become very popular, even as a desktop computer operating system.
[141000380110] |The fact that a certain piece of software doesn't have a version for the Linux OS doesn't mean that one cannot accomplish that program's task at all, there are numerous open source software packages that accomplish the same task, and sometimes they perform better than some commercial software packages. 
[141000380120] |As the 2005.2 version tag says, Ark 2005.2 is a Linux distribution based on Gentoo Linux.
[141000380130] |For those that do not know, Gentoo is one of the distributions that are called meta-distributions, which means that all or some packages that make up the distro are built from source at install time in order to achieve a greater performance and allow the creation of specialized Linux distributions. 
[141000380140] |Let's see how easy to use and desktop-oriented is Ark 2005.2...
[141000380150] |<b>Pour some Ark onto my hard disk</b> 
[141000380160] |Installing an operating system on a computer should be a task that's easy to perform, even for the less experienced.
[141000380170] |Even those who have never installed an operating system before should be able to do it. 
[141000380180] |An individual who wants to install the OS should be taken through the installation procedure by the means of an easy step-by-step graphical installer, while offering some "advanced/expert" options for those who wish to take control over certain settings. 
[141000380190] |Installing Ark on your computer is a task that's easy to fulfill, thanks to its graphical installer; those who are afraid of making the step and installing Linux can relax, it's very easy. 
[141000380200] |Right after the installer has started, it asks the user to choose the language; some assumptions on some of the next settings are made based on this initial selection (e.g. if you select English (US) the installer will propose the US keyboard layout and the America/New_York Time zone), which can be easily modified before pressing the "Continue" button. 
[141000380210] |The following page is very important and the user should pay a lot of attention to it; this is where you tell to the Ark installer how to take care of the installation process: System install, Express install, Parallel install and Expert mode represent ways of space allocation to the Ark Linux install, more details about each install mode can be found below.
[141000380220] |(1)<u>System install</u> - this mode uses all hard disks, erasing anything that might be stored on them.(e.g. : 2x60GB HDDs with another OS on one of them and a single partition on the other one, there is no unpartitioned space, the entire space is used by the existent partitions, in this mode, Ark will delete everything it might find and format both hard disks and use those partitions for itself)
[141000380230] |(2)<u>Express install</u> - this mode uses all available non-partitioned space on all hard disks(e.g. : 2x60 GB HDDs with another OS and 15GB of unpartitioned space, the other hard disk has 30 GB of unpartitioned space, in this mode, Ark will use the 15GB of unpartitioned space for itself and the other 30GB from the second hard disk)
[141000380240] |(3)<u>Parallel install</u> - this mode allows one to modify a Windows or DOS partition and install Ark by creating its necessary partitions that use this space(e.g. : 60GB HDD with one single , large partition, 24.5GB is the free space amount; the installer will resize the Windows or DOS partition and create partitions which will occupy the storage space that was previously unpartitioned)<u>WARNING:</u> resizing partitions can lead to loss of data!
[141000380250] |(4)<u>Expert mode</u> -allows one to create partitions manually with QtParted; please use this mode only when you're sure you know what you're doing, deleting your partitions and loosing all of your data can be an unhappy scenario for a beginner (remember that all of the modifications that you make to your hard disk aren't really executed until you press "commit button" and the fact that you can "undo" a step, if you made a modification that you wouldn't like to commit to the hard disk or exit without pressing "commit" and ignoring all modifications).
[141000380260] |After making a choice and pressing the corresponding button, Ark Linux is being transferred to your hard disk.
[141000380270] |Wait, there's something strange, there is a New Game, Pause Game, three text boxes that are named "Score", "Level" and Lines and a big box on the right side, yes, it's a GAME, you can play Tetrix while the packages are being installed! 
[141000380280] |Although the developers considered introducing this game into the installer, in order to prevent the user from getting bored, the install process is quite fast on modern computers and there is no need to play Tetrix to keep the user busy.
[141000380290] |I must admit, a Linux user doesn't get to see something like this everyday.
[141000380300] |After the installer does its job, the user has to choose: press "OK" and continue playing or press "I'm done" and the computer reboots and starts Ark Linux.
[141000380310] |<b>Desktop visions</b>
[141000380320] |After the install process is completed, the computer restarts, starts loading the Ark Linux kernel and a nice boot splash screen will greet the user and will clear things up: Ark Linux is loading and a progress bar is shown. 
[141000380330] |After the desktop environment has started, a wizard will help the user set up the KDE interface; the way it behaves and other such preferences can be set now and modified later.
[141000380340] |What does this Ark Linux have that most Linux distributions don't?
[141000380350] |That would be the "Mission Control", a control panel that helps the user find his way through various GUI, software and hardware settings. 
[141000380360] |Although such a tool is a great addition to this distro, it has limited "control", for example, it doesn't allow advanced hardware configuration, like YAST, which can be found in SuSE.
[141000380370] |The main cause is that Mission Control is, mostly, a wrapper for various configuration dialog boxes that can be found in the KDE Control Center. 
[141000380380] |Mission Control helps the new Linux user find the most used settings and modify them easily, that means that you can easily configure your network adapters, change the appearance of the desktop, change the keyboard layout, change the sound volume, and other such configuration tasks without seeking them in the KDE Control Center.
[141000380390] |A person that is new to Linux won't, in some cases, enter KDE Control Center directly and even if that person runs the KDE Control Center, it might be confusing and might not realize where a certain setting is.
[141000380400] |This system configuration tool is useful, but it is quite limited, if you wish to reconfigure the X.org X11 server to allow higher resolutions than those that are detected, you have to use the console and run a configuration program, such as xorgconfig, because Mission Control doesn't allow you to set a higher resolution ( e.g. my monitor was detected as a 1024x768 monitor, but, it can go up to 1600x1200).
[141000380410] |However, you can use Mission Control to setup your digital camera or your printer.
[141000380420] |I hope this kind of hardware configuration will be extended to support other types of hardware components, such as TV tuners and scanners. 
[141000380430] |I think this tool can become a lot more powerful, more robust, while maintaining its ease of use, if the developers intend to improve it further.
[141000380440] |Together with the Ark installer, Mission Control can be considered to be a greeting message for the beginners.
[141000380450] |After you have installed the system from the first disc, arklinux-2005.2.iso, you have a working Linux system with a desktop environment and a set of software packages with graphical user interface, such as the standard KDE accessories, a collection of games, some utilities for graphics and so on, including a PDF viewer. 
[141000380460] |The Internet section of graphical utilities contains the tools that are required to configure an Internet connection, an IRC client, the Kopete Instant Messenger, a news reader, a download manager and many other tools. 
[141000380470] |Only Konqueror is shipped with Ark Linux 2005.2, the base OS; those who wish to use Firefox must download the package from the Kynaptic repository or install it from the extra software disc.
[141000380480] |When the "Play a DVD" test was about to start, Kaffeine complained that dvdcss libraries were missing, thus the library had to be downloaded from the Internet. 
[141000380490] |Please note that Kaffeine isn't part of the Ark base (arklinux-2005.2.iso), it's part of the extra software CD.
[141000380500] |That's what makes me think that I would need to carry with me a fifth CD, if I decided to install it on a PC without an Internet connection (the other four discs are arklinux-2005.2, ark server software 2005.2, ark extra software 2005.2 and ark development suite) with some additional packages that give back to the multimedia players what the lack of libraries has taken from them. 
[141000380510] |How well does this Ark Linux handle office related work?
[141000380520] |Well, it has OpenOffice.org 2.0 in the base install, KAlarm, Kontact, KOrganizer and many other office and productivity related packages on the extra software CD. 
[141000380530] |The root account is locked by default and the user has to change the password in order to use it with su when root rights might be required, by entering a console in super user mode (K>System>Command Line Interpreter (super user mode) ) and entering passwd and the desired password for the root account or by running Kuser from Mission Control and setting a password for root. 
[141000380540] |After the installation of all the software from the "Ark Extra Software 2005.2 " disc, one has tools from many categories, multimedia, edutainment, image manipulation software, games, office tools, internet related software, text editors and others. 
[141000380550] |There is also an additional languages CD that allows one to convince Ark to speak other languages.
[141000380560] |<b>Ark Linux, the server OS ?</b> 
[141000380570] |All those who have used at least one service on the "great network" have had something to do with at least one server.
[141000380580] |It doesn't matter if they browsed the Internet, chatted on IRC, sent an email or used a different web service, all of these are made possible by computers known under the name of "servers". 
[141000380590] |New types of online services appear almost daily, a new instant messaging network, a new online RPG and so on; there's no wonder that people get to hear others saying more often than in the past "I need a server".
[141000380600] |Some want to have a web site, some want to have a small gallery of photos which can be seen by the relatives who are abroad, others want to have a blog and sometimes it can be a server for their favorite game.
[141000380610] |All of them need, in a way or another, a mean of turning this into a reality and they need a server. 
[141000380620] |They can choose: pay some company to take care of this (e.g. for hosting a web page or a blog and other such services) or take care of this by using a server which they administer.
[141000380630] |There is another option, getting professional help, a paid admin; while this may represent an option for someone that earns money from the said service, it's not generally applicable, and there are persons who don't want to pay someone to do this.
[141000380640] |They need to take care of this by themselves. 
[141000380650] |Ark Linux also has a "Server Software" disc which can prove to be helpful.
[141000380660] |There's a gap left unfilled between the easy installation and the ease of usage, getting all those software packages installed on the hard disk and getting Apache web server running.
[141000380670] |I wanted to start Apache web server and test the server capabilities of the server set of packages that were installed and thought that I should try to find a method that even a beginner might be able to follow and start this web server service, by using KSysV.
[141000380680] |An attempt that should lead to a running web server ended with an error from Apache: the python module was missing. 
[141000380690] |As a distro that has as a main target the beginner, Ark Linux doesn't provide those tools that are meant to be front ends to server software such as Apache, an ftp server and others such software and leaves the user somewhat "floating" in the void between the easy installation of the distro and the knowledge that is required to configure these software packages.
[141000380700] |Should I add the fact that some packages got broken right after the install process of the add-on software discs and this without any additional configuration or package installation via Kynaptic? 
[141000380710] |There are many alternatives; I'd say there are better server OS alternatives to Ark when it comes to server role.
[141000380720] |Some of these alternatives are a lot easier to use and a beginner might have a lot more luck at getting the job done with one of those.
[141000380730] |<b>Dodge the bug!</b> 
[141000380740] |When I sought a way of getting the "httpd" service (Apache web server) running without going to the console for some help, a proof of the "easy to use" concept, starting KSysV seemed to be the first step.
[141000380750] |The attempt to get "httpd" running followed and ended with Apache complaining about the so called python module, disappointed by the error, I tried to close KSysV, that didn't work as expected, one might think that pressing a close button makes that particular piece of software exit or the window close, well, it didn't, it seemed that it wanted to stick around some more.
[141000380760] |I thought that it just got stuck this way, a bug that doesn't always manifest itself, so, I ended the task by opening a console in super user mode and doing "killall ksysv" and started it again, the same story, it would do anything, but, not going away.
[141000380770] |What followed?
[141000380780] |Another "killall ksysv" is what followed, of course! 
[141000380790] |What about the broken packages?
[141000380800] |As most people realize, having broken packages isn't a positive thing.
[141000380810] |It can "hurt" other packages, too, drag them into the "non-working packages" area and cause further problems with the system libraries.
[141000380820] |Standard packages which are "delivered" with the base distro, official packages, are expected to work in this particular set without being broken. <img/>
[141000380830] |<img/><b>To Ark or not to Ark?</b> 
[141000380840] |Taking the bus to office, for example, doesn't mean one knows how does the bus work, how is that engine put into motion, how is that fuel able to make the engine work and make those wheels spin. 
[141000380850] |Using a proprietary system, an operating system that's developed by some company that doesn't keep the sources open means one will have to be that man who travels by bus, not a man that travels by bus and knows how this bus works.
[141000380860] |If he knew how it worked, he could have realised that something could be improved (that it could be modified to lower its fuel consumption, for example).
[141000380870] |A person that knew very well how an operating system works and many things related to it would be able to improve it or make it more suitable for the personal requirements.
[141000380880] |A proprietary system cannot be modified as much as an open source operating system. 
[141000380890] |The developers of Ark Linux have spent a lot of time to put all of this together and there's something that everyone should know.
[141000380900] |Developing an operating system which can be viewed from most angles and considered to be a complete system, a system which tends to be as bug free as it can possibly be which can satisfy beginners, advanced users and experts at the same time isn't something easy, and it's something that can be achieved by doing a lot of hard work. 
[141000380910] |Ark Linux is far from being perfect, I don't recommend it as a server operating system for the time being, nor would I say that it's the operating system that one would wish to count on when it comes to development. 
[141000380920] |Broken packages, bugs and other such minor or major problems will be fixed at some point during the development of Ark Linux.
[141000380930] |This is its current state, these are problems that might be soon fixed and these issues could go away just by doing a simple update with Kynaptic after the developers put new packages in the package repository. 
[141000380940] |It doesn't baby sit the user as much as other distros do, but that's a positive thing, from a certain point of view.
[141000380950] |Linux is powerful and a great amount of its power is revealed when a terminal emulator or the text mode is used. 
[141000380960] |A home user who wants to enter the world of Linux can consider Ark Linux as an option because it's easy to install and configure.
[141000380970] |Those who are afraid of using Linux should know that they have two friends along when installing Ark Linux: the Ark Linux installer, which brings Ark to your hard disk, and Mission Control, which gets you started with setting up and customizing your very own installation of Ark.
[141000380980] |<b>Distro target:</b> Desktop computers<b>Supported platforms:</b> x86<b>Recommended to:</b> home users, Linux beginners<b>Operating system features:</b> Average<b>Performance:</b> Good<b>Hardware support:</b> Good<b>Operating System configuration:</b> Good<b>Documentation:</b> Average
[141000380990] |<b>Follow the editor on Twitter <a>@mariusnestor</a></b>
[141000390010] |<title>Audacity Review</title>
[141000390020] |<img/>The concept that Linux is only for network administrators and small groups of users is contradicted every day with a handful of software that covers almost any area in the IT industry.
[141000390030] |I found a lot of good Linux software designed for sound related tasks.
[141000390040] |An audio editing solution is Audacity, a cross-platform software which doesn't impress at first sight, but is in fact a complex program, very good at editing sounds.
[141000390050] |You can also use it for multi track mixing but it doesn't exactly shine at this because it lacks indicators for track levels and record levels.
[141000390060] |Because of this, proper level strength will have to be established with care using your own ears, and of course, the waveform display.
[141000390070] |<b>First Things First – Configuration</b>
[141000390080] |Audacity should run very well out of the box but I still want to take a look at the configuration.
[141000390090] |The audio I/O tab allows to set up devices for playback and recording.
[141000390100] |By default, the program records to only one track, which is good if you intend to record from the microphone, but if you are going to use a stereo source for Line in, it is recommended to set it to use two tracks.
[141000390110] |The Quality tab allows setting the sample rate and bit depth of the project.
[141000390120] |This is a very common feature, but what most of the people don't know is that setting the sample format to 32-bit float takes a great deal of RAM, disk space and processing power.
[141000390130] |If you have an above average PC you shouldn't worry because it will not be a problem, but for older PCs that don't need CD quality, a 16-bit float setting might be the answer.
[141000390140] |In the File Formats tab you can set the uncompressed export format (for this I chose 32 bit float), the OGG Export quality and, if you have the mp3lame library, you can also set how the program exports in mp3. I think it is very cool that it allows exporting in OGG and MP3 formats.
[141000390150] |The rest of the tabs are self explanatory and I don't think there is anything there that could create problems.
[141000390160] |If you will start to use Audacity on a daily basis, the possibility of setting custom shortcuts will definitely help a lot.
[141000390170] |<u><b>The Interface</b></u>
[141000390180] |The first thing you notice is that the interface doesn't look very good.
[141000390190] |It is not ugly, but it looks legacy.
[141000390200] |You will have to deal with it because this software has a lot to offer and this shouldn't be drawback.
[141000390210] |<b>Editing tools</b> are almost standard.
[141000390220] |The first tool is the selector tool.
[141000390230] |It allows to “select” a range of audio to work with it.
[141000390240] |The edge of the selected area can be grabbed to precisely position the margins.
[141000390250] |Pressing Shift+Spacebar plays the selected sound in a loop.
[141000390260] |You can apply a lot of effect on a selected sound and all the effects can be very nice customized to produce the desired effect.
[141000390270] |The envelope tool is a very good addition to this software because it helps automate a mix.
[141000390280] |Clicking in the track area with the envelope tool selected adds nodes that allow adjusting the level.
[141000390290] |Using the envelope tool in combination with effects produces very good results.
[141000390300] |The draw tool allows to redraw the waveform for eliminating distortions.
[141000390310] |To use this tool you will have to zoom very much in the waveform.
[141000390320] |It can be pretty painful, because the draw tool is not as smooth as the one in GIMP.
[141000390330] |It is slow and editing a piece of waveform can take a long time.
[141000390340] |The zoom tool has two modes.
[141000390350] |Clicking it produces an instant zoom but also selects this tool.
[141000390360] |Dragging the tool over an area zooms that area.
[141000390370] |You can also configure mouse buttons for zooming.
[141000390380] |Other buttons useful for zooming are “Fit selection in window” and “Fit project in window”
[141000390390] |Time shift moves audio clips in the timeline.
[141000390400] |In other editing software this would have been a hand that can also move sound clips from a track to another.
[141000390410] |In this software it is done differently.
[141000390420] |The multi-tool mode is the most interesting one of all.
[141000390430] |If you practice a little you will love this one.
[141000390440] |It is a combination of the tools above that change functions depending on where the cursor is located.
[141000390450] |This will not replace the functionality of the others but it can help you a lot.
[141000390460] |Using a shortcut with this one is a very good idea.
[141000390470] |More buttons are available for Cut, Copy, Paste, Trim outside selection and Silence selection but I'm not going to explain them because their name says it all.
[141000390480] |It is very important to keep in mind that there is an undo history.
[141000390490] |History can be located in the View menu.
[141000390500] |The history is not kept after saving and you should think well in what moments you want to save.
[141000390510] |History is a very good feature because sometimes things might not be what you want them to be and this allows you to see visually which steps you took.
[141000390520] |Audacity can display sound clips using two types of waveform a Spectrum and an EAC mode.
[141000390530] |In fact only the waveform displays are practical.
[141000390540] |The other two are at most fun to watch.
[141000390550] |In the left part of the waveform display is a button that can easily mute a track, another one that can make it play solo and a drop down button that allows to move a track up and down, to change the name, set the sample format, set the rate, and also some other features. 
[141000390560] |The only way to add a new track is to record something.
[141000390570] |The track is created automatically and recording starts.
[141000390580] |You can record from several different sources.
[141000390590] |When recording from line in or microphone, the track might have noise.
[141000390600] |Audacity has plugins for noise removal but they aren't really that good.
[141000390610] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000390620] |The tools are very easy to use.
[141000390630] |The audio file is loaded fast enough and the waveform zooms in and out almost instantly.
[141000390640] |If you know what you are doing, good quality sounds can be obtained with Audacity.
[141000390650] |The envelope tool is a very fast end efficient method for editing the gain.
[141000390660] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000390670] |Multi track mixing is not very usable and still needs some features.
[141000390680] |Some plugins just distort the sound it you are not very careful with them.
[141000390690] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000390700] |The task of editing sound clips can be done easily with Audacity.
[141000390710] |It is a great program that offers just the stuff you need to do simple tasks like cutting a sequence from a sound and also allows you to do semi-professional work to that sound for maximizing the quality.
[141000390720] |It's not the best program out there but it's free and it's easy to use so it definitely deserves our appreciation.
[141000400010] |<title>KPDF Review</title>
[141000400020] |<img/>Everybody that uses a computer has to deal from time to time with PDF documents.
[141000400030] |If it's not the case for creating ones, at least you have to open them for viewing.
[141000400040] |Most of the people that work with a computer need to open PDF documents on a daily basis.
[141000400050] |PDF stands for Portable File Document.
[141000400060] |They are portable because they are able to retain in that file the fonts, layouts, graphics and all the stuff required to view the document.
[141000400070] |For other types of documents the fonts are stored in a separate file in the computer and if the person doesn't have that specific font all the text will not be viewable.
[141000400080] |PDF tries to solve all these problems and also addresses the issue of security.
[141000400090] |Adobe invented the PDF format in the early 90s but for many years there wasn't support for Linux.
[141000400100] |They only offered support for Windows and Mac.
[141000400110] |Fortunately, in the Linux world we had Xpdf and based on it, KPDF was developed, which I intend to review now.
[141000400120] |Xpdf is a pretty good PDF viewer but I find it way too simple.
[141000400130] |KPDF looks better and also has some extra features which are really useful.
[141000400140] |<b>The Features</b>
[141000400150] |The feature I find most interesting is the presentation mode.
[141000400160] |It can be a good practice to export your Open Office presentation also in PDF because the PDF format is much more popular than all the presentation formats.
[141000400170] |Some people don't have presentation software installed on the PC.
[141000400180] |Pressing the Ctr+Shift+P combo in KPDF gets you in the presentation mode.
[141000400190] |Everything behaves exactly like it should.
[141000400200] |No borders are displayed, the mouse hides automatically, pressing spacebar shows the next page and backspace the previous.
[141000400210] |You even have a nice indicator in the upper right corner that appears when you change the page.
[141000400220] |Several transitions are also available and you can also set an automatic advance for the pages.
[141000400230] |I must say all these features really give the impression of a presentation software even though is intended to be just a PDF viewing application.
[141000400240] |Another neat feature is that on the left side of the screen you have a navigation panel that enables two ways of navigation through a document.
[141000400250] |Where a table of contents is available, the program displays it and clicking on an item will scroll the document to the page linked to that item.
[141000400260] |The other way of navigation is through page thumbnails.
[141000400270] |At the top of the navigation panel is a search box that works very well.
[141000400280] |You can enter a word or several words and the program automatically highlights them in the document and also in the thumbnails.
[141000400290] |You would be amazed how easier it is to find something in a long document using this feature.
[141000400300] |Copying text and pictures from a PDF file is extremely easy.
[141000400310] |You just make a rectangular selection with the select tool around the object that you want to copy and a dialog box will appear asking what to do.
[141000400320] |If text is available you will be able to copy it to clipboard or to “speak” it but you will also be able to copy to clipboard as a picture or to save as a PNG or JPEG image directly from the program.
[141000400330] |It is possible that the possibility to “speak” text from KPDF caught your attention.
[141000400340] |I know it caught mine because I'm lazy but unfortunately it is not usable because it reads letters one by one very fast and, trust me, it’s not very understandable.
[141000400350] |Even if this program is designed to be a PDF reader, we sometimes have to print those PDF documents because it might be more comfortable to read them away from the computer or because sometimes we have to sign them or who knows what other reason might be out there.
[141000400360] |Our luck is that PDF is designed to be very printer friendly because PDFs come from Postscript files.
[141000400370] |Postscript is a mature page description language also designed by Adobe who is generally supported by printers.
[141000400380] |I don't really think that you can find a printer these days that doesn't support Postscript.
[141000400390] |In plain English, this means that you shouldn't encounter problems when you are printing from any PDF reader program.
[141000400400] |Unfortunately, if the document is very complex, small problems may appear.
[141000400410] |Anyway, this program shines when it comes to printing options and if you take a little time you can make your printer do the exact thing you want.
[141000400420] |I printed a small handbook with KPDF much easier than I could have done it in Adobe Reader.
[141000400430] |The last thing I want to mention is the possibility to turn off the DRM protection.
[141000400440] |In the general tab of KPDF configuration dialog is set by default to obey the DRM limitations.
[141000400450] |Just untick this option and you will be able to copy text and print from any PDF even if it is encrypted or not.
[141000400460] |Anyway, you should know that sometimes it is better to respect the author's wishes especially when you think that the file might be protected by copyright.
[141000400470] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000400480] |The interface is very nicely optimized for usability.
[141000400490] |Printing support is very good and the navigation bar with the search box makes this program a must-have.
[141000400500] |Presentation mode is also a big plus.
[141000400510] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000400520] |Sometimes when printing sophisticated PDF documents, the conversion to Postscript might get a little scrambled so the printer doesn't really print on the paper what is displayed on the screen.
[141000400530] |The text to speech feature is useless because it can't really read sentences.
[141000400540] |It only reads letters.
[141000400550] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000400560] |The truth is that there are many programs for viewing PDF documents in Linux but for the average user of KDE I recommend KPDF because it does the job very well and uses a very intuitive interface.
[141000400570] |It doesn't support all the latest specs of Adobe PDF but most of these programs don't and you have to be a rocket scientist to create PDF documents with this level of complexity.
[141000400580] |For this reason it is very unlikely to find a PDF that KPDF will not be able to open.
[141000400590] |I recommend it to everyone who doesn't know what PDF reader to use in Linux.
[141000400600] |Check out the screenshots below:
[141000410010] |<title>gFTP Review</title>
[141000410020] |<img/>We talked about two FTP clients for KDE so I think it's time to bring in the spotlight one that's popular in GNOME world.
[141000410030] |(If you have the required libraries you can use it in any graphical environment).
[141000410040] |The standard FTP client in GNOME is gFTP, which uses the gtk2 library.
[141000410050] |It has an old school interface that, at the same time, looks smooth.
[141000410060] |It has all the features you expect from a FTP client and even a little extra.
[141000410070] |It supports FTP, FTPS, HTTP, HTTPS, SSH2 and FSP.
[141000410080] |There is nothing special about the support for the first protocols, but the last two and especially the last one caught my attention.
[141000410090] |<b>The Special Features</b>
[141000410100] |I used to do secur transfers through SSH, in the command line.
[141000410110] |To be honest, I haven't really thought about doing this in a graphical client, but now I'm reconsidering things.
[141000410120] |It can be relaxing and easier to transfer files this way.
[141000410130] |But the FSP protocol really aroused my curiosity because I didn't know what in the world is *that*.
[141000410140] |A quick search on the Internet explained that FSP stands for File Service Protocol and that this one is a very lightweight UDP based protocol that is good mainly for running anonymous archives.
[141000410150] |It is supposed to be bandwidth friendly and at the same time sufficiently fault tolerant.
[141000410160] |I located a FSP server and used gFTP to connect to it.
[141000410170] |It was interesting because I had a feeling that it connected very quickly and that the browsing of files was fast.
[141000410180] |I tried to download a file to see how fast can this be and maybe compare with the classical FTP and HTTP, and... surprise! gFTP skipped the transfer of the file several times.
[141000410190] |I tried two more FSP servers and this happened again.
[141000410200] |I guess this feature might be broken and it's a shame because, as far as I know, it is unique.
[141000410210] |<b>The Others</b>
[141000410220] |Other interesting features include support for FXP and Bookmarks.
[141000410230] |As a reminder, FXP is a method of transfer from a FTP server to another.
[141000410240] |A great advantage is that the speed is limited by the bandwidth between the two remote machines.
[141000410250] |These two features are very common with GUI FTP clients and are supposed to greatly increase the usability of the program.
[141000410260] |I'm ashamed to admit this, but initiating a FXP transfer took me more time than downloading the data on the HDD and then upload it on the other server.
[141000410270] |This is because I hardly find out how to connect to two FTP servers in the same time.
[141000410280] |I'm not saying this program has a bad interface because is not the case but sometimes maybe some very simple tasks require too much effort.
[141000410290] |For example, I am used to press the first letter of the name of a directory or file in the navigation pane and then the select function to jump at that point.
[141000410300] |This doesn't happen in gFTP and I find it a little frustrating.
[141000410310] |Another frustrating thing it that the stop button that should disconnect me, is never active.
[141000410320] |While you can still use Ctrl+D to disconnect, some users might just assume their session expired and can still remain connected.
[141000410330] |I hope this bug will be fixed in the near future.
[141000410340] |I guess that if you use this program a little you will get used to it and I'm sure it will satisfy all your the needs.
[141000410350] |Adding bookmarks is very easy, useful and it also has some interesting feats out of the box.
[141000410360] |A feature that can be very useful when you use FTP transfers a lot and still need the bandwidth for other tasks is bandwidth limiting. 
[141000410370] |gFTP has an internal program for viewing files.
[141000410380] |From the options window you can choose to use another one and even one for editing files.
[141000410390] |This is a nice feature to have and is appreciated especially by web designers and network administrators that connect through SSH.
[141000410400] |Last but not least I would like to point out the “Compare Windows” feature from the Tools menu.
[141000410410] |It can really come in handy sometimes, so don't forget about it.
[141000410420] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000410430] |Support for multiple protocols is a considerable plus.
[141000410440] |I like that editing and viewing files is possible.
[141000410450] |Limiting bandwidth can be crucial sometimes and the support for bookmarks is very nice.
[141000410460] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000410470] |Sometimes the interface is not very usable.
[141000410480] |Some bugs are present, which occasionally crash the program.
[141000410490] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000410500] |While it is not as good as KFTPGrabber, it’s better than Kasablaca.
[141000410510] |If you just want to transfer files every once in a while you can safely use gFTP, but if you want the best of the best you'll have to move on.
[141000420010] |<title>Kalzium Review</title>
[141000420020] |<img/>We talked about a lot of types of applications useful for most of the Linux users.
[141000420030] |It is now time to say something for people that are into science or maybe even better, into scientific academic activities.
[141000420040] |The truth is that for these people good, specialized applications are very rare and also very expensive.
[141000420050] |Support for Linux is almost inexistent.
[141000420060] |Anyway, the application that is reviewed today is very good for several domains.
[141000420070] |All the objects that surround us are built of atoms that are bonded together.
[141000420080] |At the base of any material are the elements of the periodic table.
[141000420090] |To understand basic concepts about the world, you would definitely need to have basic knowledge of physics and chemistry.
[141000420100] |Let's take a simple example - the light bulb.
[141000420110] |It is one of the most common objects around and still more than 90% of the people don't know the basics about how it works.
[141000420120] |Believe it or not, there's a lot of science behind building the common cheap light bulb, but the functioning principle of how it works is very simple.
[141000420130] |To understand a lot more about the world that surrounds us you will have to know the periodic table very well so you can be able to start with quantum mechanics.
[141000420140] |Maybe I got a little carried away - or maybe not - but in Linux there is a great application which will show a host of information about the periodic system of elements: Kalzium.
[141000420150] |It has been improved a lot lately and it can evolve into an even better program. 
[141000420160] |<b>Let's see what it has to offer</b>
[141000420170] |When you open Kalzium, the first thing you see is the periodic table.
[141000420180] |Actually, this is where everything begins.
[141000420190] |The periodic table can be viewed using colors for better expressing things like groups, family, the chemical character, the structure and also several gradients.
[141000420200] |All these viewing modes are very useful and allow a better understanding of chemistry.
[141000420210] |All the colors can be easily customized from the configure window.
[141000420220] |Other settings control what units are used for temperatures or energies.
[141000420230] |Even if this feature may not seem much, it will really come in handy if you are used to work in Celsius.
[141000420240] |The way groups are enumerated can be also changed using the IUPAC, CAS or the old IUPAC systems. <img/>
[141000420250] |<img/>In the left side of the periodic table there are several tabs used for different tasks.
[141000420260] |The first tab shows an overview for each substance.
[141000420270] |Generally, here isn't displayed much; it is almost the same info that can be seen in the PSE.
[141000420280] |You can see, in addition, the name of the element in the upper left corner, sometimes more decimals regarding the atomic mass and the most important, oxidation stages. <img/>
[141000420290] |<img/>The second tab shows a simple calculator that computes the molecular mass of a simple substance.
[141000420300] |At the top of the widget where the empirical formula of what you want to calculate is displayed, a tooltip may appear showing the cumulative mass of each element.
[141000420310] |The result of the computation is at the bottom of the widget. <img/>
[141000420320] |<img/>The next tab is Timeline.
[141000420330] |It displays a history of elements.
[141000420340] |It is fun to see how the periodic table evolved over time.
[141000420350] |The timeline starts with the year 1650 and shows that the first element discovered is phosphorus, in 1669.
[141000420360] |Well, I'm not 100% sure but as far as I know it was discovered in 1649.
[141000420370] |More important is to know that at that point there wasn't a periodic table.
[141000420380] |It appeared in the late 19th century and it is considered that the father of the table is Dmitri Mendeleev.
[141000420390] |He demonstrated the periodic nature of the elements, but scientists of the 20th century explained why the proprieties recur periodically.
[141000420400] |A lot of scientists have contributed to this table so I guess they also deserve some recognition.
[141000420410] |I think it is appropriate to have their names in the remaining space of the timeline widget.
[141000420420] |Currently, there is a slider that when you move it left and right elements appear and disappear.
[141000420430] |It is enough space left for displaying the element(s) that was discovered and who did the discovery.
[141000420440] |Anyway I like the timeline and I think it is a great addition to Kalzium. <img/>
[141000420450] |<img/>The last tab displays the State of Matter.
[141000420460] |This is one of my favorite features of Kalzium, because it displays, in a nice graphical manner, what is the state of each element at a certain temperature.
[141000420470] |Kalzium has a very cool feature: being able to plot data from the periodic table.
[141000420480] |It can plot several aspects on the Y-axis, like the mass or the boiling point, and it also lets you choose what is the first element and which is the last that gets plotted.
[141000420490] |If it had a text box where you can add the name or the number of the elements you would like to get plotted this would have been a really useful feature. <img/>
[141000420500] |<img/><b>Information regarding each element.</b>
[141000420510] |Clicking each element opens an impressive information box.
[141000420520] |On the left side are displayed the types of data available and on the right side is shown the data that corresponds to what you select.
[141000420530] |First is the overview.
[141000420540] |This is the same overview that we have in the main window.
[141000420550] |I like to think of it as the cover.
[141000420560] |The second is a picture of the element.
[141000420570] |I'd like to think of this as a neat feature.
[141000420580] |It arouses curiosity in the minds of some people, maybe even in mine.
[141000420590] |It can't be practical because the looks of a chemical is influenced by its structure.
[141000420600] |For example, the graphite and the diamond are bots states of carbon. <img/>
[141000420610] |<img/>The atomic model is a nice display of how elements are arranged.
[141000420620] |It would also be nice here to have the electronic configuration written underneath the picture. <img/>
[141000420630] |<img/>The electronic configuration is the first thing that comes up in the section for chemical data.
[141000420640] |This is the most scientific data the program has to offer, and for kids this might be too much, for high school students is more than enough but for people that know what chemistry is all about only the isotope table just doesn't cut it.
[141000420650] |There should be more information here. <img/>
[141000420660] |<img/>Information related to different energies is displayed after the chemical data.
[141000420670] |Some of this information I would put in the sector for chemical data and I would rename this reaction to Physical Data for what is left.
[141000420680] |In this configuration it is still interesting but then, again, more things need to be added.
[141000420690] |The miscellaneous data are interesting.
[141000420700] |The first thing that is displayed is the history of the element.
[141000420710] |As I was saying earlier, this would be nice to get displayed also in the timeline.
[141000420720] |Next is the abundance in rocks.
[141000420730] |At the present time is a bug here, because all the elements have the same abundance of 12 parts per million.
[141000420740] |Another thing that I like is that the original name is also shown here and it specifies what its origin is.
[141000420750] |If an element is artificial the program shows one last line specifying this aspect. <img/>
[141000420760] |<img/>Last but definitely not least is the spectrum.
[141000420770] |Some of the elements have information about the emission-spectrum.
[141000420780] |This feature is implemented very nicely because it's not just a picture scanned from a book.
[141000420790] |The spectral lines are colored accordingly to their value and the spectrum can be zoomed in and also exported as a picture.
[141000420800] |Exporting is nice if you want to attach this info in a document.
[141000420810] |Excellent job on this one.
[141000420820] |I'm just hoping for a complete database.
[141000420830] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000420840] |The way this software is designed is great.
[141000420850] |It just screams expandability.
[141000420860] |Even if it has much more than an average person needs, I feel that it can be expanded to something very useful to professionals as well.
[141000420870] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000420880] |The information included is sometimes (rarely) inaccurate, but I'm not sure this can be blamed on the developers, because even the best books out there have slightly different values from one author to another.
[141000420890] |It still has some minor bugs but I'm sure this is not a big problem.
[141000420900] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000420910] |The absolute truth is that in this review I have criticized this software a lot, but only because I think it can be a lot more with it.
[141000420920] |The truth is that it is a great tool for students and also a nice one for enthusiasts.
[141000420930] |Check out the screenshots below: