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Linux.com : Reviews
OpenOffice.org extension will add PDF editing
Easy PDF editing is coming to OpenOffice.org, but you'll have to be patient for a few months. Recently posted to the OpenOffice.org Extensions site, the Sun PDF Import extension (SPI) is only in beta, and only works with recent developer builds of OpenOffice.org 3.0, which is scheduled for September release. Right now, the quality of the final release is anybody's guess, but the beta's capabilities fall squarely in the middle of the available PDF import tools.
Banshee 1.0 is more than an audio player (video)
Banshee 1.0 is finally here, and the development team has added a truck load of new features; making it not only an audio player but a full blown media player and manager. This video discusses all of the new and improved features of version 1.
One live DVD, one ton of Linux games
LinuX-Gamers Live is a live DVD from Germany based on Arch Linux that includes nothing but games. Version 0.9.3 was released in June and provides an excellent means of sampling Linux games or setting up a home arcade, although a few of the games wouldn't run on my machine.
Win4Lin 5.0 makes big improvements
There is no dearth of software that can help you run that indispensable Windows app over Linux. Win4Lin has managed to survive through the years as an inexpensive tool for people who like to pay for support. The recently released Win4Lin 5, available for $30 a pop, has shrugged off the shortcomings of its predecessor and delivers on its "near native-performance" promise.
Synchronize directories with Komparator and KDiff3
If you work some of the time on your laptop and some of the time on your desktop box, making sure that your work is updated on both machines is a must. Many tools can help you accomplish this, from command-line tools such as scp and rsync to generic graphical applications like Konqueror or Krusader, to more specific tools like Unison. Komparator and KDiff3, a couple of KDE applications with interesting features, may offer better ways of syncing your work.
Free Locknote for Windows offers fast free file encryption
Steganos Locknote is a handy little GPL-licensed utility for Windows, built using the Crypto++ class library. It is designed to keep text files secure, so you can store your sensitive information and passwords without having to worry about the information falling into the wrong hands.
OpenLX and KalCulate pair Linux distro with proprietary accounting app
Most free-libre accounting applications that ship with GNU/Linux distributions are for personal accounting only: they manage one person's finances. Corporations and accounting firms need far greater functionality, however, such as the ability to maintain a complete sets of multi-company accounts, tally final accounts automatically, generate MIS reports, and function synchronously across multiple offices. Though there are some free-libre applications with such functionality, such as SQL Ledger and Ledger-SMB, the lay user may find their installation complicated, as it can involve manual configuration with the PostgreSQL database, possibly the programming language Perl, and the remote access software Samba. And these accounting apps are not installed by default in any distribution. But OpenLX is a distro with an accounting app.
Gizmo5 - a more open VoIP solution
With Gizmo5, not only can you use your PC to make or get phone calls on Linux, Windows, and Macintosh PCs. But unlike similar programs, such as Skype, Gizmo5 uses open standards like Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Jabber, which makes it interoperable with a variety of clients.
New media center OS is pleasing to the eye and ear
Acoustic Reality is a Danish company that sells speakers, amplifiers, storage devices, cables, and other products to build top-shelf home entertainment centers. It recently released eAR OS Free Edition, a free media center system built on top of Ubuntu that features a free version of the Acoustic Reality software technology used in the $100 eAR RT-OS Enterprise Edition and in the company's hardware Media 4 products. It provides a user-friendly media center along with a nice implementation of Ubuntu.
Opera 9.5 gives Firefox 3 a run for its money
Two of the most popular Linux browsers were unveiled this month after years of development -- the open source Firefox 3 and the proprietary Opera 9.5. Opera's launch a week before Firefox was like any other launch, unlike Firefox's much publicized world record attempt. But Opera 9.5 is no less revolutionary than Firefox, matching its open source rival feature for feature, from security-related enhancements to improved multilingual text rendering.
Streamlined Firefox 3 makes browsing safer, more productive
Desktop users, developers, and reviewers all had their download managers aimed at the Firefox Web site Monday to grab Firefox 3 as soon as it launched and also help Mozilla set a world record. World record or not, the latest Firefox release is a world-class Web browser. It looks impressive, renders text and images better than its predecessor, and helps you browse safely. But while it delivers pages faster by cutting down crucial milliseconds, its memory footprint (in unscientific tests) is still as big as a yeti.
Kudos to openSUSE 11.0
openSUSE 11.0 was one of the most anticipated Linux distro releases of 2008. Despite a few bugs in the final code, which was released yesterday, it was worth the wait. The openSUSE version of KDE 4 alone is worth the download, and the improvements to the software manager make customizing a pleasure.
Fresh Linux Mint is a mixed bag
Linux Mint is a heavily customized community-driven derivative built on top of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS. According to the creators, its purpose is "to produce an elegant, up-to-date, and comfortable GNU/Linux desktop distribution." The latest release, Linux Mint 5.0 "Elyssa", released this month, retains most of Ubuntu's stability and features, but distinguish itself with unique features and tweaks. Although Mint is a great desktop, a few problems keep it from perfection.
gPodder's no plodder when it comes to podcasts
Catch all of your podcasts in style with gPodder, a Python application designed to retrieve and organize your podcasts for easy playback.
Syncing multiple users' bookmarks with SiteBar
SiteBar is a Web browser bookmark synchronization solution. One feature that sets SiteBar apart from many others is the ability to set up your own bookmark server, which keeps the whole system under your control. You can also use SiteBar through a third-party server that offers membership levels ranging from a free, ad-supported "basic" level up to an "admin" level that costs 9.99 Euros (about $15.50) per month. While SiteBar is useful for individuals, it is even more useful for corporate or other groups because it allows you to have many trees of bookmarks and have a project group collectively modify bookmarks for their project. (NOTE: Other bookmark synchronization solutions have been covered recently on linux.com.)
Firefox extensions to bring back the dead
Don't you find it irritating when a Web page you bookmarked or favorited returns a 404 error on a subsequent visit? Or when a Web site is temporarily down? Firefox extensions Resurrect Pages and 404: Page is Not Found? Now it will be! can help in such scenarios. While Resurrect Pages relies on several popular page cache sites, 404: Page is Not Found uses the Wayback Machine at Internet Archive to serve the dead pages.
eBox unites platform networking services
eBox is a server framework and platform that allows administrators to set up network services such as Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) or a firewall from scratch relatively easily. eBox does not offer management of every option found in all service configuration files. Instead, it focuses on managing network-centric services and messaging applications easy by offering a single Web GUI portal. In addition, eBox can be extended by programmers who wish to add other services and management modules of their own.
Dimdim Open Source is a bright-bright solution for Web conferencing
Dimdim Web conferencing software, which competes with services like WebEx and GoToMeeting, provides almost all the important features you need for conducting a conference over the Web. It's available in three flavors -- a feature-limited but usable Web-based free version, a no-holds-barred fee-based Enterprise version, and an almost Enterprise clone Open Source Community Edition that you can host in your network. I tested the Open Source edition, using it to host conferences on an intranet and over the Internet, and it works fairly well for a beta release.
Puppy Linux 4.00 is barking up the right tree
With the recent release of Puppy Linux 4.00, developer Barry Kauler and his team have provided a lightweight but functional Linux operating system. To help reduce size and include more functionality over the previous binary-package-based Puppy 3.01, Puppy 4.00 has been compiled from a Slackware 12-based source. Yet despite its small size -- the ISO file is a meager 87.1MB -- Puppy has an abundance of applications, with more than enough for an average user.
Tuxpaint is fun for kids and adults
My granddaughter has been sitting on my lap at the computer since before she could even hold herself up. She was only a few months old when she became interested in the mouse and began learning to place the cursor on the screen. A friend of mine laughed at us and stated that I'd "have her compiling kernels by the time she was three." Well, she's three years old now, and though she's not compiling kernels yet, she is having hours of fun on her own thanks to Tuxpaint.
