[141000250010] |<title>BitTorrent Review</title>
[141000250020] |<img/>A new version of a linux distro you want was just released.
[141000250030] |You want to download it, you read what's new and what has been fixed in this new release.
[141000250040] |A few seconds later you decide to start downloading it, but, when that download starts, it doesn't download anything or displays a message that tells you "the servers are busy at the moment, please try again later".
[141000250050] |This means that you have to wait and try again later.
[141000250060] |When someone talks about "bittorrent", some may be confused and ask "what are you talking about?
[141000250070] |Isn't bittorrent the name of the file sharing protocol?".
[141000250080] |That is correct, but the name of the file sharing protocol is also the name of the official bittorrent client, Bittorrent, the application that is written in Python.
[141000250090] |Bittorrent is getting more and more popular, even some of those who don't know what it is have seen its name on a website.
[141000250100] |When someone downloads a file with a bittorrent client, the bittorrent client downloads from other users in the same way as others download from that person.
[141000250110] |That means that while you're downloading that new Linux distro, you help others by uploading to them what you have already downloaded.
[141000250120] |This process is completely transparent to the user, the only thing that the user does is to download the .torrent file from the server, load it in a bittorrent client, for example Bittorrent and all the "magic" happens.
[141000250130] |Let's say that someone wants to download the latest beta version of Fedora Core 5, our fellow goes to linuxtracker.org, finds "Fedora Core 5 Test3 DVD (i386)", then he sees the link to the .torrent file on the page that describes that torrent, grabs the file FC5-test3-DVD-i386.torrent and loads it up into Bittorrent.
[141000250140] |Bittorrent starts downloading the FC5-test3-DVD-i386.iso DVD image and if he has a fast internet connection, he will download that file very fast.
[141000250150] |Wait, there's more, while he downloads it, another person started downloading the same file, and that person will download this file from the other guy who started downloading earlier.
[141000250160] |A big happy family.
[141000250170] |<b>Installation and Usage</b>
[141000250180] |Bittorrent, the official client for the bittorrent file sharing protocol, has a graphical interface and is very easy to use.
[141000250190] |Depending on your Linux distribution, you download a package and install it; you might also want to check if you can find it in your distro's package repository before installing a generic package.
[141000250200] |Those happy users that can find the package in the repository of their distro might find a new shortcut somewhere in their desktop environment's menu system after the package was installed and launch it by using that link.
[141000250210] |Those who don't have a shortcut can launch it by simply writing "bittorrent" in a console.
[141000250220] |Once the application was launched, a very clean and simple interface appears - this is Bittorrent's interface.
[141000250230] |There's a pause/play button that pauses and resumes all active download tasks, a slider that allows the user to set the maximum upload speed, a search box, which can be used to search for torrents, and a network activity indicator.
[141000250240] |Below all the above mentioned interface elements, the download tasks appear.
[141000250250] |Statistics, current download and upload speeds are shown for each download task; even more, it also estimates how long it's going to take to finish the download at the current download speed and the percentage.
[141000250260] |When the user wants to add a download task, there are two choices: load a .torrent file from the hard drive or just type in a link to .torrent on the Internet and the download starts.
[141000250270] |Bittorrent makes only one single download at a given time; when another task is started manually by the user, the previous one is paused until the current one is finished.
[141000250280] |This is the default behavior that can be easily changed just by modifying the value for the setting "When starting a new torrent" to "Don't stop other running torrents", a setting that can be found in the "Downloading" tab of the Settings dialog.
[141000250290] |Bittorrent's default download location can be easily changed in the "Saving" tab of the Settings dialog.
[141000250300] |If you would like to "convince" Bittorrent to "talk" to you in a different language, you can change the language in the "Language" tab, in the Settings window.
[141000250310] |Even if you don't plan to change the language, you can still check if a particular language is supported.
[141000250320] |Some advanced users might wonder if there's a way to create torrents, which they plan to upload to a tracker, in Bittorrent, this is just another thing that bittorrent knows how to do.
[141000250330] |<b>The Good:</b>
[141000250340] |Bittorrent has a very efficient interface, the app's window isn't crowded and beginners won't be frightened by the complexity of this piece of software.
[141000250350] |There's no complex install procedure, the default settings work in most cases without any change.
[141000250360] |In case you have any questions, the answer might be found in the F.A.Q. on the official website.
[141000250370] |<b>The Bad:</b>
[141000250380] |Bittorrent is written in Python, which is an interpreted language; such languages aren't as fast as some of the compiled languages.
[141000250390] |Because this application is written in such a language, memory usage and CPU usage increase as the number of torrents grows.
[141000250400] |The same thing happens if your hard drive is slow and you're downloading very fast.
[141000250410] |<b>The Truth:</b>Bittorrent is a great way to download new Linux distros from LinuxTracker and software from other sources that have chosen to distribute their products through torrents.
[141000250420] |Because it reduces the processing speed, storage and bandwidth requirements of the servers, the Bittorrent file sharing network is a very good way to distribute software.
[141000250430] |Those who don't want to check on a server each 15 minutes if it's not busy anymore and if it can download their favorite Linux distro can go to linuxtracker.org and make the same download through bittorrent sooner and, hopefully, faster.
[141000250440] |<b>Follow the editor on Twitter <a>@mariusnestor</a></b>
[141000370010] |<title>openSUSE Linux Review</title>
[141000370020] |<img/>One guy's laptop got broken and he took it back to the shop for service.
[141000370030] |While he was waiting there to be given a temporary replacement laptop, he saw an MP3 player and thought he could listen to music during long flights, therefore he bought it.
[141000370040] |He remembered about his son's birthday and he also bought a miniDV video camera, in order to record this event on tape.
[141000370050] |He thought that there's no problem if these two devices can only be connected to firewire ports, since his laptop had a firewire port, he could easily transfer songs to the mp3 player and easily transfer the video data to the computer.
[141000370060] |When he got his laptop back from service, it was a different model because the old model was discontinued.
[141000370070] |This one didn't have a firewire port and that meant two hardware components had become incompatible with his computer: the MP3 player and the miniDV video camera.
[141000370080] |This is an example of hardware incompatibility; there is another kind of incompatibility.
[141000370090] |An incompatibility between an operating system and a certain computer device, a device like a printer, a scanner or a modem is not an uncommon thing.
[141000370100] |Why does it occur?
[141000370110] |Well, there are lots of hardware manufacturers and some of them provide software only for the most used operating systems.
[141000370120] |The reason why this happens is that they don't believe this investment would increase their sales significantly.
[141000370130] |What about SUSE?
[141000370140] |How much hardware does this Linux distribution support?
[141000370150] |Is it the right thing for multimedia?
[141000370160] |Do you have to be a computer expert in order to install SUSE 10 OSS on your computer?
[141000370170] |Does SUSE 10 OSS help you setup your hardware easily?
[141000370180] |Well, some of your questions will get an answer in the following review.
[141000370190] |<b>A safe landing on the hard drive</b>
[141000370200] |You can install SUSE from a kit that is made up of 5 CDs or from a DVD disc.
[141000370210] |Writing a single a DVD and avoiding the disc switching operation during the install process makes sense, that’s why those that have a DVD unit should go for the DVD install kit.
[141000370220] |Those who don’t have such an optical unit can write 5 CDs or perform a network install.
[141000370230] |In case you want to download only the packages that you are going to install on your computer, you can download the boot.iso, which is only 65MB and fits even to a MiniCD, and perform the network install.
[141000370240] |The image is called “Internet Installation Image” on the official OpenSuSE website.
[141000370250] |I chose to install SUSE 10.0 OSS from a DVD; I’ve put together the .iso file together by using jigdo.
[141000370260] |Jigdo is a tool that downloads very large files by getting smaller parts and putting them together.
[141000370270] |But how does this apply to Linux distros and .iso images?
[141000370280] |Well, Linux distros consist of lots of software packages, which can be considered smaller pieces, and the .iso file contains those packages.
[141000370290] |Simply put, the ISO image is assembled like a puzzle on your hard drive.
[141000370300] |After obtaining the installation disc by burning the DVD image to a blank media, SUSE displayed a nice “Welcome” message in many languages and, after that, the boot menu appeared.
[141000370310] |The boot menu displays several options, regular “installation” which is a normal install, install with ACPI disabled and a safe settings install; the last two install options are useful if you encounter any errors or if your hardware is old or buggy.
[141000370320] |You can also choose to perform rescue operations on “dead” systems or test the RAM memory.
[141000370330] |I chose a normal installation and SUSE’s installer started; a few moments later it asked me to choose the language, then I agreed with the license agreement; the time zone selection followed and right after that, I had to make a choice, KDE desktop or Gnome desktop?
[141000370340] |Personally, I chose KDE, some may prefer Gnome or an alternative window manager such as Window maker or Enlightenment (E16), or even to install a minimal graphical system or just the required stuff for a text mode install (no graphical mode whatsoever).
[141000370350] |Depending on this initial choice, the required packages are installed, but the list of packages that are going to be installed can be modified in the next section.
[141000370360] |Install settings section - this is the section where you choose what to add or what to remove from the list of software packages that are going to be installed, change partitioning options, choose where the boot loader should be installed and other settings and tweaks.
[141000370370] |This section of the installer is very important and it has two display modes “Overview” and “Expert”, Overview shows info about Partitioning, Software and Language options.
[141000370380] |The expert mode displays and allows changes to the same areas that the Preview mode allows, plus a few more details about the machine: Keyboard layout, Booting and Primary runlevel.
[141000370390] |SUSE’s installer comes up with a partitioning scheme; if you have existing Linux partitions, it chooses to use those partitions for itself and leave alone other non-Linux partitions.
[141000370400] |However, one doesn’t have to stick to that partitioning scheme; the one proposed by the installer can be customized.
[141000370410] |How do you get to that partitioning dialog?
[141000370420] |Well, you just have to click on the “Partitioning” label of that section and you’re in and you can choose use the proposed partitioning scheme as a base or create a custom one.
[141000370430] |The two choices have different purposes; the first one, “Base partition setup on this proposal” allows you to make adjustments to the proposed partitioning scheme ( e.g. you can choose to change your root partition type to a different filesystem (SUSE defaults to reiserfs for the root filesystem; XFS is recommended if you would like to use a filesystem that doesn’t fragment a lot) or tweak certain settings such as the priority of the swap partition, which is useful when you have many swap partitions on many hard drives, some faster than others.
[141000370440] |The other customized partitioning scheme choice, “create custom partition setup”, allows the creation of a custom scheme starting from the current state of the partitions.
[141000370450] |There are two interesting options available in this partitioning module, the creation of software RAID partitions and encryption.
[141000370460] |The advantages of software RAID depend on the type of RAID you choose, if you go with a RAID 0 setup, two or more partitions will be used as a single, larger partition.
[141000370470] |The purpose of RAID 0 is increasing performance, which can be significant (depending on the number of hard drives and their read/write performance) .
[141000370480] |RAID 1 offers redundancy - you don’t loose any data if one hard drive fails, you still have the data on the other hard drive.
[141000370490] |Now, for the encryption part.
[141000370500] |This is a security feature, which allows the encryption of entire partitions.
[141000370510] |Even if encrypted, the existence of that partition is obvious, one cannot deny its existence.
[141000370520] |This means that the partition doesn’t become “invisible”, it is just encrypted.
[141000370530] |By default, SUSE uses GRUB as a boot loader, but LILO is available too (please note that it is necessary to run the “lilo” command in a terminal or terminal emulator such as Konsole after you upgrade the kernel, this is not required if you use GRUB).
[141000370540] |In the same section - boot loader settings - one can set the default choice that gets booted if no other is chosen in a definable period of time.
[141000370550] |It is possible to add other boot options (e.g. external hard drive, etc) and you don’t necessarily have to install the boot loader in its default location (the MBR - Master Boot Record), you can install it to a floppy disk or to a different device.
[141000370560] |This ability can be useful in certain cases, for example, if you want to leave the MBR untouched.
[141000370570] |Next, you can modify the list of packages that are going to be installed.
[141000370580] |If you need an office suite, you might want to check what software from the “Office software” category is on the list, after you add or remove a package and you accept the changes, the package manager will check if the dependencies are satisfied.
[141000370590] |Spending too much time during the install for the package choosing phase isn’t absolutely necessary, install the proposed packages and you will be able to add or remove packages after you finish the install process from YAST, inside one of your chosen window managers or from the terminal.
[141000370600] |After you finish choosing packages, the install process begins.
[141000370610] |When this is over, a root password has to be defined and at least one additional user should be created, because it’s not recommended to use the system logged on as root (not a good security practice, you can easily damage your system by mistake).
[141000370620] |What’s next?
[141000370630] |Network Configuration is where you configure the firewall, network interfaces, DSL connections, modems, VNC remote administration and the proxy.
[141000370640] |Some may ask how they can use SUSE a NAT gateway, which allows sharing an Internet connection in a LAN.
[141000370650] |Well, it can be found inside the Firewall configuration; at least two network interfaces are required, an external and an internal one.
[141000370660] |When the network has been configured, the process continues, a proposal for internet connection test is made, and the user authentication method follows.
[141000370670] |If you don’t know what method you should choose, you probably need the “Local (/etc/passwd/)” method. 
[141000370680] |Hardware configuration, the last phase of the install process, is where one can configure various hardware components.
[141000370690] |A positive thing about this installer is that you don’t have to configure everything; it proposes a default configuration which can be modified if desired. 
[141000370700] |The installation is over once the hardware detection and configuration is done; you don’t have to configure everything now, you can adjust settings later, by using YAST. <img/>
[141000370710] |<img/><b>It’s….green and it’s the desktop!</b>
[141000370720] |SUSE comes with a variety of software; however, you might want to add some packages as you notice they are required.
[141000370730] |They can be installed from the same install media that was used to install the OS.
[141000370740] |A desktop computer user can do many things with the PC, brows the internet, watch a film, play games, listen to music, use an office suite and so on.
[141000370750] |But, what happens when one can’t watch a DVD film or listen to an MP3 file because the multimedia libraries are crippled?
[141000370760] |That’s right; you cannot watch a DVD film, listen to MP3 songs or watch a video file that uses some non-free codec.
[141000370770] |In order to bring back this functionality, some packages must be removed and replaced. 
[141000370780] |Even if it doesn’t play WMA files and doesn’t let you listen to MP3s and watch DVDs by default, SUSE’s desktop gives an impression of a whole.
[141000370790] |You don’t have just a Linux kernel, a boot loader, a boot splash screen, a login screen and a window manager; you have something that is called SUSE and it feels like it is something that comes in one piece, a whole, not just a package collection. 
[141000370800] |Everything is customized: the boot loader, the boot splash, the login prompt and the desktop environment.
[141000370810] |There are many distros that come with many different window managers but don’t have a customized desktop for any of them. <img/>
[141000370820] |<img/><b>Add some GCC 4.02</b> 
[141000370830] |For those that haven’t found out yet, GCC is the Gnu Compiler Collection.
[141000370840] |The previous meaning was Gnu C Compiler, which was changed because support for other programming languages, such as Fortran, Java, C++ and Ada was added..
[141000370850] |The compiler that is used in the compilation process of an entire operating system should generate very good code.
[141000370860] |By the word “good”, I mean fast, stable and small.
[141000370870] |The quality of the compiler will influence the stability, performance and the size of the resulting code.
[141000370880] |Simply put, you don’t want to test the latest GCC version in mission critical areas, you would use an older version, some still use 2.95, others like 3.3x series and some chose the 3.4x series for production.
[141000370890] |The instability, the slowness or the size of the generated code don’t represent the only possible problems of a new version, non mature version of GCC, there are also the compatibility issues, some packages that could be compiled with GCC 2.95 now require a compatibility mode for GCC 3.4.x.
[141000370900] |GCC 4 follows the trend and it has many problems when it comes to compiling certain packages. 
[141000370910] |You can find a lot of posts on various forums, with people complaining that various packages don’t compile on SUSE 10 OSS because it only has GCC 4.
[141000370920] |One example is Qemu.
[141000370930] |GCC 4 refuses to compile this package on certain platforms, while on others it can be compiled after some small adjustments to the source code.
[141000370940] |<b>Y.A.S.T...perhaps Yet Another Serious Tool?</b>
[141000370950] |You find a software package that is very useful, then you want to install it on your Linux distro, afterwards you learn that some settings inside your OS have to be changed in order to make it work.
[141000370960] |Wait, your distro doesn’t have a graphical tool to accomplish that quickly and perhaps you don’t know how to do it from a console.
[141000370970] |If you’re a beginner in the Linux world or if you’re a very busy person, then you need to get things done easily and quickly, without much hassle.
[141000370980] |YAST is the tool that gets many things done for you.
[141000370990] |From within YAST you can update the system, remove packages, modify boot entries and perform other operations; a more complex description follows.
[141000371000] |YAST is divided in categories: Software, Hardware, System, Network Devices, Network Services, Security and Users and Miscellaneous.
[141000371010] |In the Software section you can update your system online, add or remove an installation source (CDs, DVD or network), perform software management, which allows the addition or removal of packages.
[141000371020] |Some options that might be considered very interesting are “Installation into a Directory” and the “Virtual Machine Installation (XEN)”.
[141000371030] |The first one allows one to install an entire system to a directory, this can come in handy, for example, you can create custom installs, install on a remote file system that is mounted on a local directory, install into a loopback device that is formatted with a compressed file system or another special purpose customized installation. 
[141000371040] |What about XEN?
[141000371050] |What is this virtual machine installation thing that you can find here?
[141000371060] |Well, think about this situation: you've got some new software packages that you would like to test but you don't want to install them on your computer, you want to have an environment where you can test it without any worries like “I might actually destroy my OS”.
[141000371070] |Basically, it is like having another computer without the required hardware.
[141000371080] |Not all operating systems are supported, but, it is compatible with Linux and some BSD flavors.
[141000371090] |It can be used for many things (e.g. develop your client-server application while using a single computer, take a live CD for a test drive without actually rebooting your computer and so on), it is a powerful feature that should be remembered when one will need to run another operating system just like any other piece of software.
[141000371100] |In the same section of YAST, one can check the integrity of the installation media, patch the installed system by using an update CD or update the entire system with System Update. 
[141000371110] |The hardware section is the place where you can set-up your devices.
[141000371120] |If one adds new hardware to the computer, it doesn't matter if it's a phone connected through infrared or Bluetooth (or any other Bluetooth device), a joystick, mouse, scanner , printer, keyboard, sound or TV card (also known as TV tuner cards), it can be connected and used together with SUSE, as long as it is supported. <img/>
[141000371130] |<img/>The other things that can be found in this category are: Disk Controller, IDE DMA Mode, Hardware Information and Graphics Card and Monitor.
[141000371140] |Disk Controller is a little utility that allows one to choose a different kernel module for the disk controllers that are currently installed in the computer.
[141000371150] |There's one thing about Disk Controller that can be considered at least odd, it proposed a SATA module for an IDE (Parallel ATA) controller as an alternative to the one that it was already using.
[141000371160] |I don't know what some may think, but using a SATA module for an IDE controller isn't very likely to work and it cannot be considered to be a sane “proposition”.
[141000371170] |I knew what I shouldn't choose, but would a beginner user, that might want to optimize his system for a little extra performance, know that he shouldn't choose that module? 
[141000371180] |Speaking of a little extra performance, some may want to manually tweak their hard drives; this can be done by using the “IDE DMA Mode” tool that can be found in the same section.
[141000371190] |This tool allows changing the DMA mode for DVD/CD units and for hard drives.
[141000371200] |That's it, that's all that this tool does, it isn't an elaborate graphical front end for hdparm, it just allows one to change the DMA mode in case it wasn't set to the maximum supported value or for compatibility with some hardware that is being detected incorrectly (e.g.: a hard drive should be capable to work in DMA 100, but the hardware is a bit buggy and has to be used in DMA 66 mode in order to work without errors).
[141000371210] |Hardware Information, as the name it bears tells you, gathers information about the hardware which makes up the computer.
[141000371220] |If it only gathered information, it wouldn't have been very useful, but it also presents it in a tree structure which can be easily explored.
[141000371230] |This is a great tool which allows one to find out more about the computer and even save that information to a file, which can be useful in many different situations(e.g. checking if a hardware device was detected on a particular computer, compare two or many different computers and so on).
[141000371240] |Bluetooth and Infrared Device offers connectivity with said devices; setting them up is quite easy, but a small package may be needed for infrared, if isn’t already installed.
[141000371250] |Keyboard Layout allows the user to change the layout of the keyboard to a different language and specify additional languages.
[141000371260] |Mouse model, the main tasks that can be accomplished with it is setting up the mouse, you can specify the exact model of the mouse or choose a generic one and so on.
[141000371270] |Going on with the same category, input, we talk about Joysticks.
[141000371280] |This category is a bit poor, the list of supported joystick models is quite short and, if you consider the fact that this category also sets up a game pad, it appears to be even smaller.
[141000371290] |I thought that OpenSUSE supported more models than that.
[141000371300] |Because the joystick category is the same section where you can set up your game pad, it should have been called Joystick
[141000371310] |<img/>The following tool allows setting up the monitor and the display adapter, a very useful module which easily changes the resolution and the refresh rate to the desired values.
[141000371320] |It also asks for a little test before making the modifications.
[141000371330] |In the same section, VNC and a touchscreen can be set up.
[141000371340] |The following YAST section is System.
[141000371350] |Here you can create a boot or rescue floppy or change many other settings related to the boot loader configuratio, LVM and RAID matrices.
[141000371360] |In the same category you can also change the language of the operating system, configure power management, backup the system, manage profiles, restore the system from a back-up, edit the configuration, tweak the system or edit the run levels.
[141000371370] |The next section, network devices, has network setup related tools.
[141000371380] |Here you can set up a fax, a DSL, ISDN or dialup modem internet connection.
[141000371390] |Regular Ethernet networks can be set up with Network Card.
[141000371400] |One interesting thing can be the Phone answering machine mode.
[141000371410] |The Network Services section has tools that allow one to set up a web server, a NFS server, remote administration, a Samba server, routing, a DHCP server, a DNS server, a NIS server and a TFTP server.
[141000371420] |Things like the LDAP client, NFS client, NIS client, NTP client represent the clients for the respective services.
[141000371430] |Before even setting up network clients or services, basic network configuration should be performed, that is setting up the network devices and then configuring the DNS and hostname in this category.
[141000371440] |The network services available here can be used to serve a web page, have a NFS server share files that you want to be accessible from NFS capable machines or make a windows share with the Samba server.
[141000371450] |A mail server can also be set up and the same is applicable to routing by using the Routing tool.
[141000371460] |The following section is security and users, which exposes the configuration options for the firewall, group management and user management.
[141000371470] |The firewall can be set up for Internet connection sharing. 
[141000371480] |The last category is Miscellaneous, this is where you can configure an automatic installation configuration, view the start-up log, the system log or post a support query.
[141000371490] |<b>Who’s OpenSUSE?</b>
[141000371500] |OpenSUSE is an easy to use operating system, an operating system that makes you think that it is a whole, not just a bunch of packages thrown together on some discs.
[141000371510] |You don’t have to manually modify configuration files in order to get something to work.
[141000371520] |This means it has easy to use graphical tools for the installation, configuration and general usage.
[141000371530] |Beginners without any prior Linux knowledge or experience should be able to install and use this operating system without problems, but it shouldn’t be used in mission critical points, where having the highest uptime is required.
[141000371540] |<b>Distro target:</b> Desktop computers, small home server<b>Supported platforms:</b> x86, x86_64, PowerPC(PPC)<b>Recommended to:</b> Home users, Linux beginners<b>Operating system features:</b> Good<b>Performance:</b> Very Good<b>Hardware support:</b> Very Good<b>Operating System configuration:</b> Very Good<b>Documentation:</b> Good
[141000371550] |<b>Follow the editor on Twitter <a>@mariusnestor</a></b>
[141000520010] |<title>Banshee Review</title>
[141000520020] |<img/>We all need music in our lives.
[141000520030] |Since most of the music we like is commonly stored on the PC we need a music player that will allow us to play it.
[141000520040] |If your music collection is fairly large, it would be great if the software application can also do music management.
[141000520050] |This type of applications is very common these days and we need to figure out which fits your needs best.
[141000520060] |The subject of this review will be Banshee.
[141000520070] |Banshee is a music management and playback application built for the GNOME desktop environment.
[141000520080] |Banshee is designed with simplicity in mind.
[141000520090] |With it you should be able to easily import, manage and play your songs.
[141000520100] |Some extended features include support for ripping and burning.
[141000520110] |Now we should take a look at Banshee's interface and see what it has to offer.
[141000520120] |The GUI is very simple and at the same time functional.
[141000520130] |It doesn't do a lot of things but it doesn't get in your way either. 
[141000520140] |You can create several playlists and they will be shown in the left pane of the program.
[141000520150] |I never create many playlists because I'm lazy and having all the music in one place is ok for me.
[141000520160] |Because I will not use this feature, I'll hide this pane and make some more room for data related to songs.
[141000520170] |The right side of the pane that displays playlists shows the tracks that are imported in each playlist - a library of sorts.
[141000520180] |For each track you can see information like the artist name, the title of the track, the name of the album abut also some statistics like how many times the song was played and when was it last played.
[141000520190] |For each song you can assign a rating and the cool thing about it is that you can use them as a sorting criterion, allowing you to listen at some point only the highest rated songs.
[141000520200] |In the upper right part of the library pane is a search box, a must-have for any respectable music player.
[141000520210] |This one has it and it works just like it should.
[141000520220] |Banshee features a multi-track metadata editor.
[141000520230] |It can be used to set all the fields in a group to the same value.
[141000520240] |This is particularly good when you have albums and want to edit them so all the music is nicely ordered in playlists.
[141000520250] |The fields can, of course, be edited for individual tracks.
[141000520260] |As an engine for audio playback you can use either Helix, which is the backbone of RealPlayer, or the GStreamer engine.
[141000520270] |By default, Banshee uses Helix and therefore it should be able to play all the audio files RealPlayer can play.
[141000520280] |I saw some clues that Banshee can communicate with an iPod.
[141000520290] |I don't have one, but if everything works like it should this is a big advantage because this would be the first Linux software I've seen that is able to do this without the external help of plugins and scripts.
[141000520300] |Banshee should be able to do importing and exporting out of the box.
[141000520310] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000520320] |In a way I like the fact that Banshee is very simple and it does most of the things that you expect from it.
[141000520330] |Functionality like ripping and burning on disk is very nice to have in music management software.
[141000520340] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000520350] |On the other hand I don't like the fact that the interface is so simple.
[141000520360] |I want to have more features in the software I use.
[141000520370] |It has no visualizations and no equalizer.
[141000520380] |Another thing that I miss badly is the cue list.
[141000520390] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000520400] |All I have to say is that this player hasn't convinced me to use it.
[141000520410] |Maybe it would be a good alternative for iPod users since the developers claim that it's supported, but since I don't own an iPod I can't really say.
[141000520420] |Check out some screenshots below:
[141000540010] |<title>KTTS Review</title>
[141000540020] |<img/>Did you ever fantasized about vocally interacting with your PC… that you would be able to speak to it and it would respond?
[141000540030] |Well, I know I did and I am waiting for that moment for many years now.
[141000540040] |This will definitely not happen in the near future because voice recognition software is far from being useful in real life situations.
[141000540050] |But what about the speech synthesizing software?
[141000540060] |This should be the voice of a PC.
[141000540070] |In this review we will see how useful it can be.
[141000540080] |The application chosen for reviewing is KTTS and all the rendering will be done by festival, which is one of the most popular engines for speech synthesis.
[141000540090] |The name KTTS comes from KDE Text-to-Speech.
[141000540100] |This suggests that this application will be used for reading text in a somehow natural voice.
[141000540110] |This is actually a very complicated task but we are not going to get into details.
[141000540120] |<b>What's it good for?</b> 
[141000540130] |To be as objective as possible and to play a little, I used KTTS to speak to my friends.
[141000540140] |When I was saying something in other language than English, they weren't able to understand anything.
[141000540150] |This is understandable, because the language supported by festival is English.
[141000540160] |Support for other languages is very poor or not present at all.
[141000540170] |When I used KTTS to speak in English they could understand most of the words.
[141000540180] |Actually some words where pronounced very well.
[141000540190] |The problem is that some bad apples really mess things up.
[141000540200] |KTTS is an excellent subsystem for converting text to speech because the text is sent to it via DCOP.
[141000540210] |This means that it will use a daemon, KTTSD, which will take care of queuing the speech job and sending the text to the speech synthesis engine.
[141000540220] |Because of this design, virtually any application can be easily designed to use text to speech. 
[141000540230] |Using the KDE Text-to-Speech Manager (KTTSMgr) you can easily enable the daemon and make it speak notifications provided by KNotify. 
[141000540240] |A cool example of how you can use KTTS in other applications is the Kopete KTTS Plugin.
[141000540250] |This one can be used to announce Kopete's messages, read them and several other actions can be also configured.
[141000540260] |The best feature of KTTSMgr is that it can be used to speak text from the KDE clipboard.
[141000540270] |With this feature you can speak text from virtually any document or website.
[141000540280] |All you have to do is select the text, use Ctrl+C and then open the speech manager and click the Speak Clipboard button from the jobs tab.
[141000540290] |As you can see, near it there is a Speak File button.
[141000540300] |You can try reading any file you wish.
[141000540310] |It is cool that you can also add jobs in KTTSMgr and that it is possible to put a job on hold, to delete it or to change the order of the cue.
[141000540320] |A very common practice can be to read long text.
[141000540330] |In this case, the manager knows to group it in sentences and paragraphs so you can backup by one of this two criteria.
[141000540340] |This is very useful because some sentences will not be understandable and replaying just that one is a lot more practical than replaying all the text.
[141000540350] |KTTS supports several filters that can be used to make this program work better when it is really used.
[141000540360] |Built-in filters include a talk chooser, a string replacer and a XML transformer.
[141000540370] |Because I brought it up about the talk chooser you should know that several talkers can be used, but at the moment the only use of alternate talkers is to use different voices for different applications.
[141000540380] |For example, you can make KTTS read Kopete messages with a female voice, read system notifications with an English male voice and read everything else with an American male voice.
[141000540390] |The audio can be outputted using aRts or using the Gstreamer sound engines.
[141000540400] |The speed can also be set from the audio tab and, if you like, the audio files can be saved in a folder.
[141000540410] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000540420] |KTTS is an excellent backend for different text to speech engines.
[141000540430] |It integrates very well in KDE and its functionality is limited by the speech synthesis.
[141000540440] |The way jobs are handled and support for several talkers, each one supporting any synthesis engine you want, are some excellent things this program has to offer.
[141000540450] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000540460] |First of all, I didn't manage to read PDF documents with KTTS.
[141000540470] |Secondly, I think a little more functionality is still needed.
[141000540480] |Currently I believe that blind people can't really take advantage of it.
[141000540490] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000540500] |KTTS can be a real help for handicapped persons perhaps with the help of KMouth.
[141000540510] |There are plans to make it better and when KDE4 will be available, a better KTTS should also be ready.
[141000540520] |Unfortunately, my dream of having a PC that speaks to me will have to wait some more years because the speech synthesis engines can't really generate a somehow natural voice.
[141000540530] |The conclusion is that if you really need it you should use it, otherwise just cool down.
[141000540540] |Check out the screenshots below:
[141000570010] |<title>F-Spot Review</title>
[141000570020] |<img/>Lately, I reviewed several applications that are appropriate for managing the photos stored in the computer.
[141000570030] |Hoping that you'll not be bored by this type of applications, today I'm going to do the same thing and this time it will be F-Spot in the spotlight. 
[141000570040] |F-Spot was designed for GNOME and its purpose is to allow an easier management of your photos.
[141000570050] |Probably, now you want to know what it does and maybe what's special about it.
[141000570060] |I think that F-Spot is special because of its interface and not because of its features.
[141000570070] |The interface is very nice, and in the same time it is very functional.
[141000570080] |It has few buttons and this is just about what you need in a day to day situation.
[141000570090] |F-Spot supports 16 file formats for your images, so I guess you'll be able to open all the pictures which a digital camera can take, or a web browser can display.
[141000570100] |F-Spot supports importing from the hard drive, from a digital camera or from an iPod photo.
[141000570110] |I guess the iPod community must be proud because this MP3 gets supported by more and more programs.
[141000570120] |Even by ones that have nothing to do with music.
[141000570130] |Now let's concentrate a little on the F-Spot's interface.
[141000570140] |It is split in two panes.
[141000570150] |One is for displaying the tags, and the other one is for browsing the pictures.
[141000570160] |This software puts all the photos that you import in only one view.
[141000570170] |Physically, they are stored in a folder on the hard drive and there are grouped in folders depending on the year in which the pictures where last modified.
[141000570180] |Months are automatically stored in years, and then days are stored in months.
[141000570190] |You can see all this in your home directory.
[141000570200] |As I said before, the program shows all the pictures in a thumbnail format in a pane.
[141000570210] |You can easily go to a certain date using the timeline that is displayed above the pane used for browsing.
[141000570220] |Even though this is not a new thing, the approach used by this software is a little different.
[141000570230] |However, it has the disadvantage - importing pictures in it takes a little longer and a lot of space is consumed, but on the other hand it can be helpful for organizing them in folders.
[141000570240] |The way thumbnails get displayed is one of the coolest things about this software.
[141000570250] |Their size can be changed using a small slider that is located in the bottom right part of the window.
[141000570260] |As you drag the slider from left to right, you'll see that the thumbs will zoom in smoothly.
[141000570270] |Double clicking a picture gets you in edit mode.
[141000570280] |This edit mode will be mostly used for viewing the picture.
[141000570290] |The editing features include rotation and crop tools and also some filters for playing with colors.
[141000570300] |Some of the filters like the one for removing red eyes are useless, because you can't select a round area, so the eye can't be precisely selected.
[141000570310] |The filter for adjusting the colors is great, and can really make something out of a messed picture.
[141000570320] |This software supports versioning, so you can have several edited versions of the same picture.
[141000570330] |Last, but not least, you should know that pictures can be also viewed in fullscreen mode or in a slideshow.
[141000570340] |In the slideshow mode, a nice fade effect is supported.
[141000570350] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000570360] |Things like the way pictures are managed and the way thumbnails are generated are strong points for this software.
[141000570370] |The fact that the interface is so easy to use is part of the main advantages of F-Spot.
[141000570380] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000570390] |I don't like the fact that I can't prevent it to copy all my photos in its own folder.
[141000570400] |If it just used a data base or some other method, a lot of hard drive space could be saved.
[141000570410] |Creating this folder with pictures, should be a separate option.
[141000570420] |An undo feature should be available in edit mode.
[141000570430] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000570440] |Because of its simplicity, I recommend it to users who don't want to get confused with something more advanced.
[141000570450] |Don't forget that, if you have a large collection of pictures, F-Spot will copy them in a different location and the space on your hard drive will have to suffer.
[141000570460] |I think that you'll have to figure out on your own if F-Spot is the best software for you.
[141000570470] |Check out some screenshots:
[141000690010] |<title>Inkscape Review</title>
[141000690020] |<img/>I've known about Inkscape for some time now, but for a reason I can't figure out I haven't used it.
[141000690030] |Perhaps the reason is that I was afraid of it, because I'm not much of an artist.
[141000690040] |Actually I'm a newbie regarding vector graphics so maybe this is another part of the problem.
[141000690050] |I have pretty good knowledge of photo-editing but this is a different thing so I guess I had to start from scrap.
[141000690060] |For this task I had to choose from a variety of software and the winner was Inkscape, because my guess is this one is the best in open source. <img/>
[141000690070] |<img/>Let's start with what is SVG, because this is why we should use Inkscape.
[141000690080] |SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphics.
[141000690090] |It is a language for describing two dimensional graphics in XML.
[141000690100] |For the sake of completeness, I should also say that XML is an open standard for describing a document.
[141000690110] |This means that a drawing saved in a version of SVG will most probably be visible in other versions.
[141000690120] |SVG is expanding fast and will be a very common format that will be used in the near future in a lot of applications, on-line media and portable devices.
[141000690130] |SVG is an excellent format for creating graphics that can be scaled to any size without loosing quality.
[141000690140] |This is a great format for designing logos, banners and whatever media has to be scaled of modified in vector mode.
[141000690150] |Unfortunately not everything is cool about SVG.
[141000690160] |It consumes a fair amount of processing power for rendering, which usually is not a big problem for modern computers.
[141000690170] |Currently SVG is supported in Firefox 1.5 and Opera 9 and a lot more browsers have the SVG support in the to-do list.
[141000690180] |For embedded devices there is available SVG Basic and SVG Tiny and I'll not be surprised if I'll see those in smart phones.
[141000690190] |If you haven't heard of Inkscape before perhaps names like Illustrator of CorelDraw ring a bell.
[141000690200] |Inkscape has similar capabilities but there is also a big difference.
[141000690210] |This one is free.
[141000690220] |In vector graphics generally you work with nodes, curves, lines and shapes to create the desired result.
[141000690230] |For me this was a new territory and I was skeptical.
[141000690240] |I wasn't sure if I would manage to do anything.
[141000690250] |Fortunately Inkscape has several tutorials that will help you get started fast.
[141000690260] |The tutorials where amazingly efficient in my case and they helped me to get familiar most of the tools and some of the techniques.
[141000690270] |Because most tools included in Inkscape are industry standard and the SVG format is also a standard, switching back and forth between Inkscape and other application shouldn't be a problem.
[141000690280] |Since Inkscape is a young application it has to follow the example of the ones that set the industry standard.
[141000690290] |Anyway, original features are present and one of the coolest is the direct access to the SVG source code.
[141000690300] |<b>The Interface</b> <img/>
[141000690310] |<img/>At first sight the interface looks very simple.
[141000690320] |It's nothing fancy, but it has the basics.
[141000690330] |After using it a little you realize that it has most of the things you need.
[141000690340] |Tool tips are present for every button and for some tools very useful information is displayed in the bottom of the screen in a notification area, after you select a tool.
[141000690350] |Double clicking on a tool brings up the preferences dialog at the menu related to that tool.
[141000690360] |For each tool there you can see specific tool controls just under the command bar. 
[141000690370] |Since Inkscape is oriented on usability you can use keyboard shortcuts for most of the tools and tool related actions.
[141000690380] |Usually keyboard shortcuts are chosen in a smart way so they are easy to remember.
[141000690390] |The interface is very consistent and apparently very stable.
[141000690400] |The canvas may be extended outside the visible area.
[141000690410] |You'll notice that in the center of the canvas there is an area that corresponds to a printed page.
[141000690420] |That area is the outputted region when printing and exporting as a bitmap image.
[141000690430] |The best way to learn the tools available in the interface is to try reading and exercising on the available tutorials.
[141000690440] |They are available in SVG format and you can practice as you read.
[141000690450] |Importing art in Inkscape is very easy and many formats are supported.
[141000690460] |Unfortunately there is a big problem when it comes to exporting bitmap images.
[141000690470] |It only supports PNG and even that is poorly supported.
[141000690480] |You can't set anything related to the exported picture.
[141000690490] |I think the best way to obtain a bitmap from something you created in Inkscape is to export that with Gimp.
[141000690500] |Considering I managed to obtain much better result than I expected and that learning Inkscape was a lot easier than I thought, I warmly recommend this software to anyone.
[141000690510] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000690520] |The clean and intuitive interface and the powerful editing features make this software good even for users that don't know what a vector is. Tutorials are great for learning a thing or two.
[141000690530] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000690540] |Exporting as a bitmap is lame.
[141000690550] |The existence of the tutorials should be more obvious.
[141000690560] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000690570] |Even if now the software is excellent at what it does, considering that the development is done at a very fast rate, I expect that one day Inkscape will be the best.
[141000690580] |For achieving this goal we should consider contributing, at least by spreading the word.
[141000690590] |The screenshots below show Inkscape in action:Check out some samples from different users:
[141000790010] |<title>InspIRCd Review</title>
[141000790020] |<img/>I've been thinking for a very long time about writing a review for an IRC software package.
[141000790030] |Because I haven't used IRC in ages I just ignored that thought.
[141000790040] |You might find it odd, but I'll start considering IRC by reviewing InspIRCd, which is actually a daemon (server) and not by reviewing a popular IRC client.
[141000790050] |<b>A brief history</b>
[141000790060] |First of all, you should know that IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat.
[141000790070] |It was designed for group communication in chat rooms, called channels, but it also supports user-to-user communication and other features like file transfer.
[141000790080] |I think that IRC was the first Internet chat network and it became notorious and connected people all over the world.
[141000790090] |IRC was born in 1988 and grew a lot in the 90s, connecting more and more computers all over the world.
[141000790100] |In the summer of 1996, IRC was split in two parts, separating the US from the Europe.
[141000790110] |Long story short Europe wanted rules, US wanted power, so they split into two separate networks.
[141000790120] |I've used IRC in 1999 and a little in 2000.
[141000790130] |In my country, IRC was about the information in 1999 (there were just a few users) and in 2000 there was an explosion of people that started to chat about anything and at some point started to offend each other.
[141000790140] |Unfortunately, I didn't know much about Linux, perhaps nothing about networking and daemons and kernels.
[141000790150] |I was just a kid.
[141000790160] |<b>Our software.
[141000790170] |InspIRCd</b>
[141000790180] |This is the first time I used an ircd and I was quite relaxed with installing it and with the configuration file..
[141000790190] |I encountered no problems compiling it; a pleasant surprise was the original configure script which provided many questions that help the users.
[141000790200] |Good job with this one.
[141000790210] |InspIRCd uses a very nice technique to approach the security problem when using IRC.
[141000790220] |The daemon doesn't have a working config file so you'll have to configure it yourself and go through all options.
[141000790230] |At some point there are two lines that have to be uncommented so you can start inspIRCd.
[141000790240] |I strongly recommend that you read carefully all the configuration file.
[141000790250] |It provides many options and enough comments so you can get the job done.
[141000790260] |From place to place are portions of text tagged "Read This Bit!" that are considered to be very important.
[141000790270] |Personally I think almost every line is important and you should carefully read everything if you want to do the job properly.
[141000790280] |There are more than 1200 lines in the config file but don't get discouraged because it's not an unpleasant "literature".
[141000790290] |One of the developers told me that they are considering building a web interface and I think this is an excellent idea since it could provide a much better alternative to configure the server.
[141000790300] |By default, inspIRCd is compliant to the RFC standards so it's about all the rules that changed IRC in the first place but it also offers great versatility with the use of some of the many available modules.
[141000790310] |<b>The Modules</b>
[141000790320] |The modules are absolutely great for inspIRCd.
[141000790330] |They allow adding and removing features on the fly so you'll not have to shutdown the server.
[141000790340] |There are a lot of implications because the modules extend the servers functionality outside the RFC and provide many more features, but in the same time they can bring chaos where order was installed. 
[141000790350] |More than half of the configuration file is about modules.
[141000790360] |A good thing is that by default all the modules are commented out so at least in this stage the server is RFC compliant.
[141000790370] |Another thing is that some modules are useful for restricting different actions from users.
[141000790380] |Some useful modules provide security, which was bad a few years ago in IRC networks.
[141000790390] |With some of the modules loaded, inspIRCd looks more like the US IRC or like ircu which is not necessary a bad thing.
[141000790400] |It has its advantages.
[141000790410] |A very important module is m_spanningtree.so because with it you can link servers to InsIRCd, for creating a network.
[141000790420] |The conclusion is that with no modules InspIRC is just like the original ircd that hasn't been updated since '98, but when adding modules it becomes a very powerful IRC daemon that opens possibilities to virtually any functionality you can imagine.
[141000790430] |<b>Closing Thoughts</b>
[141000790440] |For the purpose of this review I created an IRC server on my computer and then I used X-Chat, irssi and mIRC to connect from other computers.
[141000790450] |I created five channels and connected four users in them.
[141000790460] |Then I stopped the server (that wasn't necessary but I didn't know at that point) and did the same thing with several modules loaded.
[141000790470] |My thirst thought was about the resources consumed by this daemon.
[141000790480] |They are insignificant and I'm sure a very old Pentium computer can easily serve thousands of users with thousands of channels.
[141000790490] |Perhaps some sophisticated modules can increase the load but I wouldn't be too worried about that.
[141000790500] |I did some research on the net and I discovered an enemy - UnrealIRCd.
[141000790510] |It seems pretty full featured and enjoys very positive feedback from the users.
[141000790520] |I've found several IRC daemons but this one is actively maintained and poses a threat to InspIRCd.
[141000790530] |Currently, I prefer instant messaging over IRC but I have great confidence that VoIP will change the way we communicate forever.
[141000790540] |I haven't noticed any problem in the stability of InspIRCd, but if I'd have to make an IRC server I'd look a little more carefully at UnrealIRCd before making the choice.
[141000790550] |Since InspIRCd is very well documented it would probably win this battle.
[141000790560] |<b>The Good</b>
[141000790570] |The fact that is RFC compliant by default is great and the support for modules that extend its functionality is even better.
[141000790580] |The configuration file is well documented and a lot more documentation can be found on the website.
[141000790590] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141000790600] |A nice GUI, perhaps a webGUI, would be great for this software, but currently one isn't available.
[141000790610] |It would be better if the configure script would be extended so it can write most of the required options in the config file.
[141000790620] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141000790630] |InspIRCd is a great piece of software with excellent support offered online.
[141000790640] |Even though at first sight IRC might seem to be something trivial and maybe sometimes not very useful, if you dig enough into it you'll see that some things are quite interesting.
[141001200010] |<title>Gimmix Review</title>
[141001200020] |<img/>Audio players for Linux have come a long way since graphical desktop environments were made available.
[141001200030] |Over the years, more and more audio players were released, while the old ones were constantly being updated.
[141001200040] |Now, it's pretty hard to choose from a very large number of players, each with its own features, advantages and disadvantages.
[141001200050] |Gimmix, however, is not an ordinary audio player.
[141001200060] |It requires a lot more than running it and pressing the play button to listen to music.
[141001200070] |Gimmix is just a front-end to MPD (music player daemon), which will require to be installed, configured and started in order for Gimmix to run properly.
[141001200080] |MPD is basically a server which allows remote access for playing audio files, streams and managing playlists.
[141001200090] |What's really impressive about this design is that the client used for controlling the server doesn't need to run on the same machine MPD runs on.
[141001200100] |This enables you to play the music files on your home server from work, a friend's house or wherever, as long as you have Gimmix with you.
[141001200110] |Gimmix is a quite new player, it was first released in October this year and in about a month, has reached a development level most players don't touch for another year.
[141001200120] |Installing Gimmix is a very simple process, just enter its directory, type <b>make</b> and <b>make install</b>.
[141001200130] |Unfortunately, installing its dependencies could cause severe head aches for most Linux beginners, probably forcing them to drop the whole process. 
[141001200140] |Gimmix requires Gtk+-2.10.x, libglade-2.6.0 or higher, libmpd-0.12.0 or higher, libnotify-0.4.x, libconfuse-2.5 and, of course, a working MPD.
[141001200150] |I'm running Fedora and unfortunately, couldn't find libmpd on any repositories, so I had to compile it from source.
[141001200160] |This was a pretty bad idea because the files needed for pkg-config were copied to a directory they shouldn't be in.
[141001200170] |So I had to manually copy <b>libmpd.pc</b> from <b>/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/</b> to <b>/usr/lib/pkgconfig/</b>.
[141001200180] |Next, I had to create a symlink from <b>/usr/local/lib/libmpd.so.0</b> to <b>/usr/lib/libmpd.so.0</b> just to get Gimmix running.
[141001200190] |Now, in order to have Gimmix also playing some music, I needed MPD installed and running so I've started searching for it in the repositories, found available on Livna and installed it.
[141001200200] |By default, the music files will need to be manually added to <b>/var/lib/mpd/music</b>.
[141001200210] |To create the initial MPD database, I typed <b>mpd --create-db</b> in a terminal as root.
[141001200220] |Finally, I ran it with <b>service mpd start</b>.
[141001200230] |It was now time to run Gimmix by typing <b>gimmix</b> in a terminal.
[141001200240] |Because it was its first time running on this machine, I was asked for the MPD server host, port and password.
[141001200250] |I haven't touched mpd.conf so, by default, the server runs on port 6600 with no password.
[141001200260] |As for the host, I've entered the IP address of the machine MPD was installed on.
[141001200270] |The main window was pretty small but had all the functions needed for playing audio and managing the playlist.
[141001200280] |The upper part of the window had printed "Gimmix", its version (0.2 was the last version) and underneath was the player's web address.
[141001200290] |In the middle was a progress bar and finally, the lower part of the window had the play buttons: previous, play (which turns into pause while playing), stop, next, file info, repeat all, shuffle and preferences.
[141001200300] |The last button would open the preferences window which has two tabs: Options and Other settings.
[141001200310] |The first tab contains the server related options which I was asked about the first time I've opened Gimmix: host, port and password, while the second tab had two check boxes, whether to enable system tray icon and system tray notifications.
[141001200320] |Also, there was a volume bar in the far right part of the main window. 
[141001200330] |Underneath the play buttons was the Playlist toggle button, which would show or hide it.
[141001200340] |The playlist is also divided into two tabs: Playlist and Library.
[141001200350] |The Playlist contains the list of the currently scheduled for playing, while the Library tab contains the list with all the available audio files (all the files in the /var/lib/mpd/music directory).
[141001200360] |File names from Library can be added to Playlist with a simple double click or selecting it and pressing enter, while removing them from Playlist require a right click on the file name and clicking Remove.
[141001200370] |The Library tab has an update function found in the right-click menu and also a quick search feature (similar to Winamp's Jump to File function) which allows you to quickly find files in a long list.
[141001200380] |At the bottom of the playlist, there were three buttons: add, remove or clear items to/from playlist.
[141001200390] |The same functions could be reached if the playlist section was right-clicked.
[141001200400] |My playlist was empty so I clicked the Add button, which opened a new window containing the audio files I've added earlier to /var/lib/mpd/music.
[141001200410] |To add a file to the playlist, I simply had to double click it.
[141001200420] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001200430] |Gimmix has a simple, yet nice user interface which is very intuitive and easy to use.
[141001200440] |Because it's based on MPD, you can listen to your files from any computer, as long as you have Gimmix and its requirements installed.
[141001200450] |Moreover, it has a system tray icon which enables quick and easy access to the player's controls.
[141001200460] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001200470] |Because it's based on MPD, it also has disadvantages, the biggest one being that you can't add files to playlist from the computer you currently use.
[141001200480] |Also, listening to music files from another machine requires that you have an external IP address as the port isn't firewalled.
[141001200490] |Also, if you plan on listening only to high quality audio files such as 320kbps mp3 files or, even worse, FLAC audio files, you will need a pretty large connection bandwidth on both server and current PC.
[141001200500] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001200510] |Overall, Gimmix is a great audio player but only for listening to music on your home Linux PC.
[141001200520] |It's small, requires very low resources and even supports systray icon integration.
[141001200530] |Unfortunately, installing its dependencies could take some time and listening to high quality audio files will require you to have large connection bandwidth.
[141001200540] |However, if you just want to listen to music already on the current PC, I'd recommend you use a normal audio player because Gimmix (more exactly MPD) only allows you to play files from the MPD music directory.
[141001200550] |Check out some screenshots below:
[141001290010] |<title>Kexi Review</title>
[141001290020] |<img/>The three main components, KWord, KSpread and KPresenter are all that most people need to use for any typical office-related task but KOffice has a lot more programs to offer.
[141001290030] |Often referred to as the open-source competitor to Microsoft Access, Kexi provides a fast and powerful application development tool for database systems.
[141001290040] |Although under Linux, the obvious choice for building desktop database applications would have been OpenOffice's Base, things are most likely about to change.
[141001290050] |Kexi is a relatively new member of the KOffice family but has developed quite rapidly into a mature application which allows users to create simple databases without learning all the complicated and complex notions about database development.
[141001290060] |Even though Kexi is a rather easy to use application, you must have some basic knowledge about how databases work, as this will help you to build better applications and will save you from wasting hours fixing poorly developed databases.
[141001290070] |So, if your knowledge level about databases is close to nothing, it's better if you ask for professional assistance, rather than trying to create them yourself.
[141001290080] |Just like any other database front-end, Kexi has three important components: tables, queries and forms.
[141001290090] |Data from a database is stored into tables, each table contains rows and columns and each row contains data known as record.
[141001290100] |Queries however, are used for extracting, viewing and manipulating data.
[141001290110] |Therefore, they're able to draw data from many tables, but also can have forms and reports based on the data they produce.
[141001290120] |Finally, forms allow users to view and edit the data contained by a table.
[141001290130] |These actions are performed through an easy to use GUI and therefore, don't require any database knowledge at all to manage the data stored in tables.
[141001290140] |As you have probably gotten used to, Linux offers several ways in which you can install a piece of software.
[141001290150] |That's the case with Kexi as well.
[141001290160] |You can either use the package manager for your system and install the <b>koffice-kexi</b> package through Yum, apt-get or other manager.
[141001290170] |Alternatively, you can download the source code package and compile it on your machine.
[141001290180] |When Kexi is launched for the first time, it will ask you to choose whether the new project will be saved in a file on the disk, or in a database server.
[141001290190] |The first option will create a new .kexi file on your disk, while the second option will create a new database on a SQL server, either remote or local.
[141001290200] |I don't know if that's the case for every Linux distribution, but on Fedora using Yum, I had to install separate packages to have Kexi working properly.
[141001290210] |First, I had to install the <b>koffice-kexi-driver-mysql</b> package just to be able to store my new project into a MySQL remote database server.
[141001290220] |There's also a separate package for PostgreSQL database as well.
[141001290230] |If you haven't used any KOffice application at all, you'll also have to install the <b>koffice-filters</b> package just so Kexi will be able to read other database project filetypes, excluding its own.
[141001290240] |When a new project has been started, you'll see that the main Kexi window is divided into three main sections: to the left there's the Project Navigator pane which contains the database components (tables, queries, forms and scripts) and has them sorted into a tree view; to the right, there's the Proprieties pane which allows you to define different proprieties regarding the currently selected element.
[141001290250] |And finally, in the middle, there's the working area where you actually create and manage the database.
[141001290260] |A useful feature about Kexi's interface is that you have the ability to undock the left and right panes and making them movable windows, while the work area will gather the space from the panes, giving you more space to work with complex databases.
[141001290270] |Building a database can be referred to as a simple process, as long as you have some knowledge about them.
[141001290280] |Using Kexi, the database build process gets even more simplified, allowing almost anyone to use it.
[141001290290] |To create a database with Kexi, you'll first need to insert a table (or more) from the Menubar.
[141001290300] |The table can also be inserted by right-clicking Tables in the Project Navigator and selecting Create Object: Table.
[141001290310] |Once a table has been created, the Table Designer window will appear and the new table has been auto-named.
[141001290320] |Because the table is not saved, it won't yet appear in the Project Navigator.
[141001290330] |The Table Designer window consists of four columns: Primary Key, Field Caption, Data Type and Comments.
[141001290340] |The first column will show a small key symbol if the current row contains a primary key, while the Field Caption column contains a caption of the field which will be displayed during data editing.
[141001290350] |The Data Type column contains a list of data types, from which the user can choose through a drop-down menu.
[141001290360] |The data type can be either plain text or integer number, date/time, etc and defines a rule for the entered data in a field.
[141001290370] |For example, if the Data Type is set to "Text", you will be able to insert just about any (Unicode) character, while if the Data Type is set to "Integer number", the cell will only accept numbers.
[141001290380] |After all the needed tables have been designed, you can now start to enter data into each table.
[141001290390] |First, you'll have to switch to "Data View" so you can see and edit each table's cells.
[141001290400] |To navigate through table cells, you can use Page Down, Page Up, Home and End keys, as well as using the mouse cursor to select the cell you want to edit.
[141001290410] |To add some data to a cell, you can either select the cell and start typing (as soon as you enter the first character, the current row is being edited), double click on the cell or select it and press Enter or F2.
[141001290420] |The ESC key will cancel all changes made to the selected cell, while pressing ESC twice will cancel all changes made to the entire row.
[141001290430] |The Shift+Enter keys will accept the changes made to all cells in the currently edited row.
[141001290440] |You can also click the OK button on the toolbar.
[141001290450] |Kexi can also be used for designing database queries.
[141001290460] |A databases' main purpose is to store data and easily extract and show information someone is looking for.
[141001290470] |Kexi databases allow you to specify more search criteria, while the results are returned faster, even for large data sets.
[141001290480] |However, in order to perform effective queries in your database, you'll need to learn how to tell it what you're looking for.
[141001290490] |Queries designed with Kexi allow you to limit the data coming from a table to a predefined set of rows and columns, as well as dynamically join data coming from multiple tables.
[141001290500] |To create a new query, you can either go to Insert menu and click on Query, or you can right-click Queries in the Project Navigator and select Create Object: Query… The design window will appear, it is split into two sections: query relationships at the top and query columns at the bottom.
[141001290510] |Next, you'll have to select each table from the Table: drop down list and click Add for each of them.
[141001290520] |A query relationship can easily be added using drag & drop technique, by clicking a field from a table and dragging & dropping it into the field you want it to be linked to. Finally, to add fields as a query column, simply double click on the field's name.
[141001290530] |To view the data provided as query results, simply click on the Switch to data view button on the toolbar.
[141001290540] |Kexi also allows you to create forms, which will act as the user interface or GUI for the database.
[141001290550] |To create a form, simply right-click on the Forms item in the Project Navigator pane and select Create Object: Form, or go to Insert menu and select Form.
[141001290560] |This will open a new form in design view mode, which allows you to edit the form so it will fit your needs.
[141001290570] |The form will first need to be linked to a table, so the data from that particular table can be easily viewed, added or modified.
[141001290580] |When in design mode for a form, you'll notice that the toolbar has some additional buttons.
[141001290590] |These buttons allow you to add so-called widgets in the form.
[141001290600] |These widgets include text boxes, radio buttons and several other design elements.
[141001290610] |Text boxes are used for displaying the contents of a table field.
[141001290620] |Other design elements include labels, headers, images and so on.
[141001290630] |There's also a piece of beta technology in Kex: scripting support.
[141001290640] |A script can either be manually edited through the script editor window, or you can choose from an already-made script which comes by default with Kexi.
[141001290650] |So far, there're only a few available scripts which only offer basic features such as project documentation generator or exporting data to XHTML file.
[141001290660] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001290670] |Although Kexi is a rather new project, it has developed quite rapidly into a powerful and easy to use application development tool for database systems.
[141001290680] |It has all the features needed for creating databases and comes with a comprehensive help document.
[141001290690] |Kexi is also a highly portable product as it's available for Microsoft Windows as well, with paid support.
[141001290700] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001290710] |I have to be honest, I'm not such a database guru so I really can't know if it's missing some features or others are misimplemented.
[141001290720] |This doesn't mean that this application is perfect as there's always room for improvement.
[141001290730] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001290740] |The truth is that if you're managing databases from Linux for a living and haven't yet tried Kexi, you should definitely take it for a spin.
[141001290750] |Moreover, I've heard that Kexi is a lot better than OpenOffice's Base, but then again, I couldn't know for sure.
[141001290760] |Check out some screenshots below:
[141001330010] |<title>Kid3 Review</title>
[141001330020] |<img/>Most of music collection managers rely on ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags in each music file to organize them.
[141001330030] |Although these tags can be edited by most MP3 players, not many offer a comfortable and efficient way to do so.
[141001330040] |Moreover, tags in Ogg/Vorbis, FLAC and MPC aren't supported.
[141001330050] |So if you're looking for an application that can easily edit media files tags in a comfortable way, Kid3 may be what you're looking for.
[141001330060] |Kid3 doesn't grab, encode or play MP3 files but it's rather targeted to edit the ID3 tags of all files of an album with as few mouse clicks and key strokes as possible.
[141001330070] |It can also set the tags from the file names or set the file names according to the tags found in the file in arbitrary formats.
[141001330080] |The editing task is further supported by automatic replacement of substrings in order to remove illegal characters from filenames.
[141001330090] |It also offers automatic control of upper and lower case characters to make it easy to use a consisted naming scheme in all tags.
[141001330100] |Tag information for full albums are fetched from freedb.org, MusicBrainz, Discogs or other sources of track lists.
[141001330110] |Kid3 is very easy to install thanks to the binary packages available in rpm format for Fedora/RedHat and in deb format for Debian Sarge, Ubuntu Dapper and Eggy.
[141001330120] |It can also be installed through Fedora's yum or Ubuntu's apt-get package manager.
[141001330130] |For other distributions, there's a source code package that can be compiled and installed on any Unix-like system.
[141001330140] |Kid3 requires the following dependencies: Qt, id3lib, libogg, libvorbis, libvorbisfile, libFLAC++, libFLAC, TagLib, libtunepimp.
[141001330150] |It also can be run in MS Windows.
[141001330160] |I've used yum to install Kid3.
[141001330170] |It took a few seconds and it was immediately available for using.
[141001330180] |To start it, I could either run "kid3" in a terminal or click the Kid3 shortcut found in KMenu / Multimedia.
[141001330190] |Using it is pretty straightforward as you only need to select the directory with the music you want to tag.
[141001330200] |Kid3 will automatically import all the files in that directory and try to attribute the right information to the ID tag.
[141001330210] |If it doesn't work, then it's possible to check the various web databases.
[141001330220] |The process is very easy and most of the time, it is required to just insert the Album name and all the info is imported and put in the right place.
[141001330230] |It's also possible to edit the same field on all files in one step and save the file with a new generated name from the updated information.
[141001330240] |Kid3's interface is divided into five sections: at the left are the file and directory listboxes, the right side contains the Filename, Tag 1 and Tag 2 sections.
[141001330250] |The file list contains the names of all the files in the opened directory which matched the filter, which is tipically *.mp3, *.ogg, *.flac, *.mpc.
[141001330260] |To the left of the file names, two icons can be displayed: a disc to show that the file has been modified and icons presenting which tags are present (V1, V2, V1V2 or NOTAG).
[141001330270] |If no icon has been displayed, it means that the file hasn't been read yet.
[141001330280] |The directory list contains the names of the directories in the current path, as well as the current (.) and parent (..) directory.
[141001330290] |It allows to quickly change the directory just like a basic file browser.
[141001330300] |Using the directory list enables you to quickly change the directory without using the Open command or drag and drop.
[141001330310] |The filename section contains the name of the file (if only a single file has been selected).
[141001330320] |If the name is changed, the file will be renamed when the save command is issued.
[141001330330] |Also, in the Filename section, there's the format box which contains the format to be used when the filename is generated from the first or second tag.
[141001330340] |To insert tag values into a filename, the following special codes are used: %s Title (Song), %a Artist, %l Album, %c Comment, %y Year, %t Track, %g Genre.
[141001330350] |This format is also used to generate the tags from the filename and if the format doesn't match this pattern, a few other commonly used formats are tried.
[141001330360] |At the bottom of this section, there is an Info line that shows information about the encoding, bitrate, sample rate, channels and the length of the file.
[141001330370] |The Tag 1 section allows you to edit widgets for Title, Artist, Album, Comment, Year, Track and Genre.
[141001330380] |The values will be changed when the file selection is altered or before operations like Save and Quit and when the corresponding check box at the left of the field name is checked.
[141001330390] |The Tag 2 section offers the same functions to control media file tags, just that the size of the strings is not limited.
[141001330400] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001330410] |Kid3 can edit the ID3v1 tags and all ID3V2 frames in MP3 files and the tags in Ogg/Vorbis and FLAC files in an easy, comfortable and efficient way.
[141001330420] |To make things even easier, for untagged albums, Kid3 will fetch the ID tags from online music encyclopedias such as MusicBrainz or freedb.org and automatically assign the right id tags to each media file.
[141001330430] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001330440] |Kid3's interface is rather simple and there are a lot of free spaces that don't look that good but can be either used for various buttons, functions or captions.
[141001330450] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001330460] |Kid3 is only useful if you have a scattered, unorganized collection and want to arrange it using a media organizer application that relies on ID tag info.
[141001330470] |Anyhow, it will save you a lot of time if you use it to adjust your music collection rather than using your MP3 player.
[141001330480] |Check out some screenshots below:
[141001450010] |<title>Deluge Review</title>
[141001450020] |<img/>Nowadays, most of the people that spend time on-line have at least heard of the Bittorrent protocol and have a pretty clear idea about how to use it.
[141001450030] |For the rest of the people that haven't heard of it, here's a short description: Bittorrent is a protocol for distributing files over TCP/IP networks.
[141001450040] |Simply put, it's a rather new and innovative Peer to Peer file sharing method.
[141001450050] |It has gained so much popularity and appreciation from users because of the download speeds, which are huge compared to a normal HTTP download.
[141001450060] |The reason for such high speeds is the way Bittorrent was built: as soon as you download a part of a file, Bittorrent uploads it to other users (peers), so the file is spread at high speeds.
[141001450070] |The more people downloading the file and the more available the source to download from, the faster it goes.
[141001450080] |The main aim of Bittorrent is to reduce the load on the server distributing the file; this is achieved by allowing the clients downloading the file to also distribute the data they have already received with each other.
[141001450090] |There is a central server (called a tracker) which coordinates the action of all such peers.
[141001450100] |The tracker only manages connections, it does not have any knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed, and therefore a large number of users can be supported with relatively limited tracker bandwidth.
[141001450110] |To be able to download files through the Bittorrent protocol, you'll need a Bittorrent client.
[141001450120] |Because this protocol is so popular, there's a large number of clients available for all platforms.
[141001450130] |Modern clients come in different sizes and shapes and the differences between them are quite notable so you'll need to choose a client that best fits your needs. 
[141001450140] |Deluge is a new Bittorrent client written in Python and GTK+.
[141001450150] |It runs best on Linux GTK desktop environments such as Gnome or XFCE but will also run flawlessly on KDE and others.
[141001450160] |This was one of the reasons for the client's name change from gTorrent, which implied that it's a Gnome-only client.
[141001450170] |Besides these two dependencies, Deluge also requires litorrent and python-libtorrent.
[141001450180] |To install Deluge, either download the source code package, uncompress it, compile and install it, or use your distribution package manager to download it and its eventual requirements (which are selected automatically by the package manager).
[141001450190] |There have been packages built for modern distributions, such as Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora and Gentoo.
[141001450200] |Deluge is a simple Bittorrent client, with just a few basic but useful features.
[141001450210] |Its interface follows the common look of many Bittorrent clients: the main window is split it two sections; in the upper section, you'll see a list with currently downloading torrents, while the lower section consists of various details regarding the selected torrent.
[141001450220] |The torrents list is divided into columns which show the name of the torrent, its size and status, the number of available peers and seeders, the download and upload port, the ETA and share percent.
[141001450230] |You can also access a context menu if you right click on a torrent, which allows you to forte pause, resume, remote torrent and update tracker.
[141001450240] |The lower section is also divided into categories, accessible through tabs.
[141001450250] |The first tab shows detailed info about the torrent, such as total size, total downloaded, tracker address and its response, total uploaded, share ratio and few others.
[141001450260] |The next tab shows the files being downloaded by the selected torrent.
[141001450270] |It has a context menu accessible by right click on certain file, which allows you to set which files to download and which not.
[141001450280] |Next is the peers tab, which will list the peer's ip address, client, percent completed, his download and upload speed.
[141001450290] |No context menu here.
[141001450300] |And finally, the last tab will show any eventual warnings received over a download session.
[141001450310] |Additional functions can be added to Deluge through its plugin system.
[141001450320] |By default, there are a few plugins available: CPU monitor, network activity graph and network health monitor, popup notifier and torrent search bar.
[141001450330] |The last mentioned plugin doesn't have any search engines added, so you'll have to manually do it yourself. 
[141001450340] |Deluge can be configured through the Preferences dialog window, which can be found under the Edit menu.
[141001450350] |This dialog is divided into four tabs: the Downloads tab, which enables you to choose a default download directory or whether to ask you for a download location each time a torrent is loaded.
[141001450360] |In the Bandwidth tab you can set the maximum upload and download rate, as well as the maximum number of downloads and uploads.
[141001450370] |The network tab allows you to choose a port range used for incoming connections and maximum number of allowed connections.
[141001450380] |Finally, Other, the last tab, only has two options at the moment: either to automatically stop seeding when a ration reaches a value you chose and whether to use compact storage allocation. 
[141001450390] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001450400] |Deluge is a small Bittorrent client with a self-explanatory interface.
[141001450410] |It supports multiple downloads and a few other features that offer a pleasant download session.
[141001450420] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001450430] |Unfortunately, it doesn't support creating torrents and several other Bittorrent functions are missing.
[141001450440] |However, Deluge is actively being developed so you'll newer know what will be added in the near future.
[141001450450] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001450460] |Deluge is suitable for inexperienced users that download files through Bittorrent very rarely.
[141001450470] |It only offers a few functions, which makes it easier to use for beginners.
[141001450480] |However, if you need more power and advanced functions, go for another client.
[141001450490] |Check out some screenshots below:
[141001550010] |<title>Traverso Review</title>
[141001550020] |<img/>For a long time, multimedia support in Linux was either totally missing or weakly implemented.
[141001550030] |Nowadays, audio and video decoding has been fully implemented and using one of the many good audio and video players, you can play just about any media format available out there.
[141001550040] |I'm not saying multimedia support in Linux is now complete and flawless but its development is going on the right track and I truly believe, someday, we will be able to watch movies, play games and listen to music just as easily as on a Windows machine.
[141001550050] |Until then, let's see what's new in the multimedia section.
[141001550060] |For a long time, I was looking for an audio recording and editing tool for Linux that's easy to install and use.
[141001550070] |I've found several such applications but one won't start, another doesn't come with any kind of documentation and I've kinda lost hope.
[141001550080] |But last night, I found an application that seems to turn things around.
[141001550090] |It's called Traverso. 
[141001550100] |Traverso is a lightweight multitrack audio recording and editing tool, written in C++, using the new Qt 4.1 toolkit, which has to be installed on your system as well to have a successful compilation (using an older version of Qt will result in a failure).
[141001550110] |Because it's using the Qt toolkit, Traverso is a lightweight and fast program which is also light on system resources.
[141001550120] |It uses libsoundfile and libsamplerate libraries to read/write from/to audio files. 
[141001550130] |The authors have provided several ways to install this application just to make sure anyone, using any distribution, will be able to use it.
[141001550140] |The most convenient way to install Traverso is to use the precompiled packages available for Ubuntu Dapper or the Gentoo ebuild.
[141001550150] |If you're not using any of these distributions, you have a second best option to compile the source package.
[141001550160] |However, installing from sources isn't as easy and you will need to follow some extra steps if your system has both Qt3 and 4 installed.
[141001550170] |Your system will also have to meet some requirements in order to make a successful compilation.
[141001550180] |Fortunately, all these steps are explained in detail on the application's home page so no worries.
[141001550190] |And that's not all.
[141001550200] |If everything else fails, you can at any time download the precompiled binary and run it without installing anything else (except the required libraries, of course). 
[141001550210] |Traverso can use either ALSA to access your sound card, or it can act as a jack client. 
[141001550220] |Either way, you should deactivate other sound servers like aRts provided by KDE before starting this application.
[141001550230] |You shouldn't run into any problems regarding the audio hardware device, especially if you're using Ubuntu, thanks to its excellent hardware detection system.
[141001550240] |However, if you want to use jack, it's clear you know what you're doing and that you don't need anyone's assistance.
[141001550250] |Running Traverso is as easy as opening a terminal or pressing Alt + F2 and typing traverso followed by an Enter.
[141001550260] |The first time Travers starts, it will prompt you for a project directory.
[141001550270] |All projects created by Traverso will be saved in this directory and since editing audio files requires a lot of disk free space, make sure you choose a directory on a partition where you have a few free gigabytes of free space.
[141001550280] |When you're done with this, the main window will appear.
[141001550290] |The main window displays a lot of information regarding the project, sound and audio driver in the upper part, and a track view showing 6 empty tracks in the main area. 
[141001550300] |Traverso uses a contextual interaction interface.
[141001550310] |This means that instead of using the mouse to operate on certain objects such as buttons, menus or sliders, the mouse and keyboard are used together to control the program.
[141001550320] |This results in a higher flexibility to control the program compared to the 2 or 3 mouse buttons available if the mouse were used alone.
[141001550330] |With the actual interface, the mouse only has to move on an object and all functions become available by pressing a key on the keyboard.
[141001550340] |Although this is more efficient and requires less interaction than selecting the object and choosing the function from a menu, it's a bit harder to get used to it, especially for the new users in this field.
[141001550350] |Fortunately, for new users, Traverso offers contextual menus, a detailed help file and a tutorial on the web site. 
[141001550360] |To start editing audio files, you will need to add some wav files into the audiosources directory, inside the project directory you chose when Traverso first started.
[141001550370] |Once the files have been copied to that directory, focus the program and press the I key to import an audio file.
[141001550380] |Select one of the wav files you copied in the audiosource directory to insert the track.
[141001550390] |You can also Drag'n'Drop the file.
[141001550400] |To start working with the audio file, hold the mouse cursor above it and press Q to open the context menu.
[141001550410] |There's a different context menu available for the upper part of the window, for the empty or loaded tracks, for the capture and playback boxes, as well as in the middle section.
[141001550420] |The green line moving along with the cursor can be used as a positioning guide and while playback, it acts as the play head.
[141001550430] |Starting a playback can easily be done by pressing the Space button.
[141001550440] |You can try the actions and effects from the context menu to arrange something by splitting (X key), dragging clips (D Key), create fade-ins (F G keys) and fade-outs (H G). You can also change the Gain (G key).
[141001550450] |Pressing Tab and moving the mouse in the track view will scroll horizontally.
[141001550460] |A lot more functions can be performed through the context menu (Q key) until you learn them well enough to stop using it. 
[141001550470] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001550480] |Traverso is a Linux application which creates an easy, fast to control and workflow based audio recording and editing application.
[141001550490] |The application is controlled using a soft selection concept which results in a higher flexibility and better control over the program. 
[141001550500] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001550510] |Even if the soft selection concept offers a higher flexibility, at first you will find it rather difficult to memorize what each key-mouse combination does.
[141001550520] |Also, overall, it still lacks a number of features that will make it comparable with professional and proprietary audio editing tool.
[141001550530] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001550540] |Traverso most definitely isn't comparable with Audacity or Amarok so don't expect to find a very easy to use music player.
[141001550550] |However, if your work or hobbies require a sound recorder and editing tool, but every time you needed one you just rebooted your dual-boot machine and loaded Windows, those times might be over for you.
[141001550560] |You now have an easy to use and powerful tool available for Linux.
[141001550570] |And that's not all.
[141001550580] |Traverso is an actively developed project which means that there will be bigger and better versions of Traverso with every new release.
[141001550590] |Check out some screenshots below:
[141001750010] |<title>Pidgin Review</title>
[141001750020] |There once was a pidgin, a strange kind of pidgin...
[141001750030] |I am talking about that latest instant messaging client from the Gaim series, called Pidgin 2.0.0, which came after a long period of waiting and broke the download tops.
[141001750040] |Why Pidgin 2.0.0 and not Gaim 2.0.0 is an old <a>story</a>, of which I'm pretty sure you all are aware; the story begins a long time ago, when AOL used to complain about Gaim's original name, GTK+ AOL Instant Messenger.
[141001750050] |Now, when AOL trademarked the AIM acronym too, Gaim had nothing left to do than change its name again.
[141001750060] |Pidgin came as the most suitable alternative, as it best describes this application's purpose and usage.
[141001750070] |The word pidgin defines a second language used as a means of communication between groups of individuals who do not share a common language.
[141001750080] |Even though it was designed for the Unix-like operating systems, Pidgin can now run on platforms such as Windows, Solaris, SkyOS and Qtopia, beside FreeBSD and Linux of course.
[141001750090] |The most popular feature provided by Pidgin would be the support for multiple protocols.
[141001750100] |Protocols like Yahoo! Messenger, Jabber, IRC, OSCAR (AIM, ICQ), Gadu-Gadu, .NET Messenger Service, Zephyr and others are working just fine with the stable Pidgin 2.0.0 version.
[141001750110] |Even though it does not offer exotic features, such as webcam support, voice messaging or built-in games, Pidgin gained enough popularity and through this version it has now become the download of the day on many freeware websites. 
[141001750120] |In order to have Pidgin running on your computer, you must first go through an ordinary manual installation, where you should be asked for some more or less, depending on your system, additional packages.
[141001750130] |Once you got through with the installation, things become very simple and intuitive.
[141001750140] |Simple and intuitive are actually the words I also chose to describe this application's interface.
[141001750150] |With a rather ordinary and not very friendly look, this interface provides a pretty good management and easy access to all of its functions and I must also admit it looks a bit better than the previous version.
[141001750160] |At a first run, you will be asked to set up an account, where you will provide all related information, such as protocol, screen name, password, server a.s.o .You can then add (or edit the already existing ones) as many accounts as you want, from the Accounts place on the menu toolbar.
[141001750170] |You will not need any buddy list import as this is done automatically.
[141001750180] |It also benefits from a long plug-ins list that should provide you features such as auto-accept file transfer or the possibility to autoreply for all used protocols.
[141001750190] |Another thing one could find useful would be, in my opinion, the way it handles the user's privacy.
[141001750200] |The privacy tool provides a well-defined list from where you can select which users are allowed to contact you and which of them are not.
[141001750210] |Any change will take place immediately.
[141001750220] |If you take a look at the Tools you will find also other exciting features provided by Pidgin.
[141001750230] |The one I liked the most was the Buddy Pounces.
[141001750240] |This option allows you to set alerts for whenever one or more of your buddies you select signs on/off, becomes idle or goes out of idle, goes away a.s.o.
[141001750250] |The alert you can set is either a notification or a sound or even a command that would be executed anytime the pounced buddy performs one of the selected actions.
[141001750260] |Pidgin also provides an easy way of accessing the configuring panel for your preferences.
[141001750270] |The Tools -> Preferences path opens a dialog where you can define your own preferences regarding the interface, sounds, network connection or check options such as chats logging or the way according to which your status is turned to idle.
[141001750280] |This dialog also provides options related to the text formatting, such as font type, size or color.
[141001750290] |The themes list does not offer you many options by default; you can select the none option which will disable graphical emoticons or the default Hylke Bons, which is pretty simplistic and neither does it come with sophisticated pallet of graphical features.
[141001750300] |But you can install new themes very easily by simply dragging and then dropping them onto the themes list.
[141001750310] |Contact aliasing and grouping multiple buddies into a single contact can also be counted among the enhancements Pidgins enjoys.
[141001750320] |I could also give it some credit here for the interesting way it manages the conversations using tabbed message windows and to the clever options of hiding/showing the empty groups or the offline users.
[141001750330] |<b>The Good</b>
[141001750340] |With an impressive power of customization, Pidgin 2.0 comes with all the good stuff provided by the former Gaim.
[141001750350] |The text-only version, here called Finch (which was formerly known as gaim-text), allows you to chat with your buddies from a command line in the same way as if you were in a graphical environment.
[141001750360] |The default configuration is worth mentioning too, as I find it very useful.
[141001750370] |For example when you close it, Pidgin goes to the system tray; in older versions I had to make this happen by myself.
[141001750380] |<b>The Bad</b>
[141001750390] |What I don't like about this version is that, the same as with the previous ones, it lacks themes, and the user interface is quite simplistic, not to say too standardized to a much too common model.
[141001750400] |I would also like to mention here the lack of support for webcam or voice messaging.
[141001750410] |<b>The Truth</b>
[141001750420] |Pidgin is an instant messaging client compatible with a variety of platforms, supporting a wide range of protocols and offering the possibility to log in to multiple accounts simultaneously.
[141001750430] |It comes with many popular features, such as file transfer and typing notifications but it also brings up unique ones, and a pretty large plug-ins collection.
[141001750440] |Curious about Pidgin?
[141001750450] |You can take a look at the screenshots below:
[141002180010] |<title>Tomboy Review</title>
[141002180020] |Don't you just love those sticky notes that keep piling up onto your desk to a point where you have to dig through them to find your mouse?
[141002180030] |Even worse, there will come a time when you'll need that really important note from last month's conference.
[141002180040] |And what do you do?
[141002180050] |You spend half a day sorting through all the doodles you artistically created during a boring meeting just to realize it was stuck on the back of your monitor. 
[141002180060] |Since my ideal work/home environment is a paperless one, I am not a really big fan of sticky notes and I rarely use them.
[141002180070] |If I need to jot something down, I fire up Gedit or take out my mobile phone and type away.
[141002180080] |For an occasional note-taker like me, that is perfectly fine, but for someone who can't function properly without writing everything, a better solution must be found.
[141002180090] |So, if you had enough of those pesky paper sticky notes, I present you a great virtual alternative: Tomboy! 
[141002180100] |I've tested the 0.14.0 version on an Ubuntu 9.04 RC machine.
[141002180110] |As you probably found out yourselves, the application comes pre-installed on Ubuntu and resides in the <em>Applications --  Accessories</em> menu.
[141002180120] |When you first open Tomboy, the main window and a "Start Here" note will pop up.
[141002180130] |That note is basically a quick tutorial to get you started with the basic functions.
[141002180140] |The main window consists of three sections: the top hosts the Search bar, the left pane holds your Notebooks, and the main section will display all the notes in the selected notebook.
[141002180150] |You will already have two notes created so you'll get a general feel of the interface right from the beginning.
[141002180160] |The notification icon in GNOME's panel also has some nice functionalities as left-clicking on it will reveal the most recent notes (older notes can be "pinned" to the menu) and options for creating new ones. 
[141002180170] |Creating notes is, as expected, an easy task.
[141002180180] |You can either do it through the "File" menu by selecting "New," pressing the Ctrl+N shortcut, or choosing the corresponding option from the notification icon.
[141002180190] |But the most convenient way is to manually set a global hotkey in the "Preferences" window and press it whenever you want, regardless of what application has focus.
[141002180200] |Notes will be automatically saved and you won't have to press an extra button whenever you change the contents of a note. 
[141002180210] |Creating a new note will open a predefined template containing the note title and some text.
[141002180220] |The title has a big, blue font and is underlined so you can better separate it from the contents.
[141002180230] |Modifying the title here will also have effect in Tomboy's main window, so you won't have to go there and rename your notes.
[141002180240] |The note window's top panel has 6 buttons: Search, Link, Text, Tools, Delete and Notebook.
[141002180250] |The first will take you to the main interface from where you can search through all the existing notes. 
[141002180260] |The "Link" function is really interesting and could prove to be quite useful: select some portion of the text, click the Link button and a new note will automatically be created and named as your selection.
[141002180270] |Even more, a link will be created for the new note so you can easily access it.
[141002180280] |With an increasing note collection, having this local Wikipedia-like function is great.
[141002180290] |Speaking of links, you can drag any icon from your desktop directly inside a note and a link to that folder/file will be created.
[141002180300] |Of course, typing a website address will also generate a link.
[141002180310] |A really neat feature that I'd love to see implemented in the next versions is the automatic creation of a thumbnail in your note whenever dropping an image file onto it. 
[141002180320] |The "Text" button will reveal a menu from where you can undo or redo actions, change fonts, add bullets or search inside the note.
[141002180330] |Options like Bold, Italic, Strikeout, Highlights or even Fixed Width are sure to let you add a high level of customization to your notes. 
[141002180340] |From "Tools" you can Print, Export to HTML, Synchronize your notes and display all the links that were created inside the note.
[141002180350] |Synchronizing notes can be done either with a local folder or through Internet services like WebDav or SSH.
[141002180360] |That way, not only that your notes are much safer, but you can access them from anywhere.
[141002180370] |Exporting to HTML is also a great tool as it will transform all your formatted text into a complete HTML file. 
[141002180380] |The last two buttons are Delete (that does exactly what it says) and Notebook; from the "Notebook" menu you will be able to choose in which Notebook the active note should be saved.
[141002180390] |Notebooks are basically folders, so you can organize your notes more efficiently.
[141002180400] |There are two permanent, predefined Notebooks: "All Notes" and "Unfiled Notes."
[141002180410] |While the first will display all the notes from all notebooks, the second will only display those that you didn't place in a custom notebook.
[141002180420] |Adding notes to your notebooks can be done either as described above, from the note window, or simply by dragging and dropping from the interface. 
[141002180430] |Your notes can be sorted alphabetically or by the last modified date.
[141002180440] |A third sorting option, by creation date, is missing, unfortunately.
[141002180450] |The note counter at the bottom-left of the interface will give you an idea about the level of your note-taking addiction. 
[141002180460] |More options are available in the Edit --  Preferences menu, containing four tabs: Editing, Hotkeys, Synchronization and Add-ins.
[141002180470] |In the Editing section you can enable or disable spell check (very useful when speed typing), use WikiWords, enable auto-bulleted lists, change the font type or modify the new note template.
[141002180480] |WikiWords is yet another exciting feature: if you enable it, every time you type several words with no spaces between them and their first letters capitalized (e.g. TomboyNotesReview), that whole construction will be turned into a link that can be clicked on to create a new note. 
[141002180490] |Modifying the new note template (default title and text) is also a function I was quite interested in.
[141002180500] |But this time around, Tomboy decided to act up when I pressed the button and popped up an error: "Bad key or directory name: "/desktop/gnome/url-handlers/": Key/directory may not end with a slash '/'".
[141002180510] |I really hope this gets fixed in the near future.
[141002180520] |Moving on, the "Hotkeys" tab will let you set keyboard shortcuts for different functions: show the notes menu from the notification area, open the "Start Here" tutorial note, create a new note and open the search window. 
[141002180530] |Searching will not only yield results based on the title, but it will also look through the note contents.
[141002180540] |The "Synchronization" section allows you to configure your sync options, be they local or web based.
[141002180550] |From the last tab you can enable and disable available add-ins.
[141002180560] |There aren't a lot in the default installation, nor in the third-party collection, but you'll certainly find some useful ones: "Note of the Day," "Insert Timestamp" or "Sticky Notes Importer" are a few examples. 
[141002180570] |<em><strong>The Good</strong></em> 
[141002180580] |There are a lot of features that make this particular note-taking application stand out from the crowd.
[141002180590] |With Tomboy you will be able to efficiently organize your information and maximize your productivity.
[141002180600] |Moreover, its "cloud" synchronization capabilities will make many consider using Tomboy as their day-to-day jotter. 
[141002180610] |<em><strong>The Bad</strong></em> 
[141002180620] |The main issue with Tomboy is that it seems to suffer from some memory leaks as its RAM consumption will grow whenever you create a new note and will maintain that high level until you restart it.
[141002180630] |As I’m writing this, Tomboy occupies no less than 80 MB of RAM, though it started with only 11. 
[141002180640] |<em><strong>The Truth</strong></em> 
[141002180650] |There's no doubt that Tomboy is a truly powerful application.
[141002180660] |Rather than a simple sticky note replacement, Tomboy is a great way to centralize your otherwise scattered pieces of information.
[141002180670] |But if you just want to remind yourself to buy milk, GNOME's "Sticky Notes" applet is a better choice. 
[141002200010] |<title>Mandriva Review</title>
[141002200020] |Mandriva is one of the most mature Linux distributions out there and, in time, a very loyal community was created around it.
[141002200030] |Innovation and ease of use have always been the top priorities for Mandriva, and this can be seen in the team's effort to bring exciting new features with every release.
[141002200040] |Coming six months after the previous version, Mandriva 2009 Spring is a great treat for any Linux geek. 
[141002200050] |Before diving deeper into our review, take a few moments to go through the hardware configuration upon which we've tested Mandriva Linux 2009.1 One for a period of two weeks: 
[141002200060] |<strong>Installation</strong> 
[141002200070] |Mandriva 2009.1 is available in multiple formats: you can download the so-called "One" editions with either the KDE or GNOME desktops, on regular-sized CD ISOs, and you can also opt for the "Free" edition that comes on a DVD.
[141002200080] |You should know that "Free" refers to the fact that only free/open-source software will be installed by default, so codecs and proprietary drivers will have to be manually installed.
[141002200090] |We've decided to go with the "One" edition, in order to have an out-of-the-box experience.
[141002200100] |Moreover, "One" is offered by default for download on Mandriva's homepage. 
[141002200110] |Loading the Live environment from the CD is not what we can call a lightning fast process, but it's no slouch either, so no complaints here.
[141002200120] |What we really liked was the fact that the Nvidia drivers were automatically installed and enabled so we had a 3D-enabled desktop before even installing the system.
[141002200130] |The thing that we appreciated was the smoothness of said effects, much more noticeable than on any other Linux distributions: no tearing, no choppiness, just fluid animations. 
[141002200140] |Before reaching the desktop in the Live CD, we were asked to select the timezone from an inconveniently huge list, making us miss the graphical map from other Linux distros.
[141002200150] |After selecting the Live Install option, we were asked to choose the way we wanted to partition our HDD.
[141002200160] |On the machines that had a Microsoft Windows OS already installed, we had the additional option of using the free space on that partition.
[141002200170] |Unfortunately, Mandriva failed to detect other Linux distributions and offer a dual booting option for them too. 
[141002200180] |As expected, Mandriva has EXT4 support implemented, but it is not used by default, so you will have to choose the "Custom disk partitioning" option and specify your preferences.
[141002200190] |Of course, if necessary, partitions are already available, one can choose to use them by selecting "Use existing partitions."
[141002200200] |We were very curious to see how Mandriva configured the HDD through the "Erase and use entire disk" option.
[141002200210] |After being a bit disappointed with Ubuntu's single partition setup, we are happy to report that Mandriva creates a separate home partition, so your data and settings will be safe in case of serious problems. 
[141002200220] |A new feature that was added to the installer is an integrated file manager that will allow you to browse existing partitions.
[141002200230] |This is, of course, very useful in case you install from the DVD and you have no Live environment from where you can look through files, just in case you need to make a last-minute backup. 
[141002200240] |Though most users will have no problems installing the system, there is quite an annoying issue that really bothered us.
[141002200250] |There are some steps from where an additional "Advanced" button is available, so maybe out of curiosity, a user will click on that; obviously, a new window will open with said options and separate window controls.
[141002200260] |Here's where the problem occurs: closing the window with the X (instead of clicking OK) will not only close that window, but will cancel the whole installation process.
[141002200270] |Extremely frustrating, especially if that happens at the Bootloader configuration, which is after the whole system is installed. 
[141002200280] |The next step is to choose whether you want to remove unused hardware support from the operating system.
[141002200290] |Moreover, the "Free" DVD will let you install multiple desktop environments and also provides the option of downloading and applying updates as an additional step in the install process. 
[141002200300] |<strong>First impressions</strong> 
[141002200310] |<strong>GNOME</strong> 
[141002200320] |After the installation finished and the system was restarted, we were greeted with a beautifully designed GRUB menu from where we selected the default option.
[141002200330] |Right before given access to the GNOME desktop, Mandriva connected to the Internet to update its mirrors and the user setup window prompted us for our credentials, including the root password.
[141002200340] |A few moments later, we were finally ready to use the new Mandriva distribution.
[141002200350] |We have to add that the speed of the boot process was much improved since previous releases, thanks to many tweaks and the implementation of the Speedboot technology. 
[141002200360] |Though the artwork is very nice, we weren't expecting the same old and boring default GNOME icons, so that was a bit of a disappointment.
[141002200370] |Also, the new "Ia Ora" themes are beautiful, but not impressive.
[141002200380] |Oh, a really cool thing is that the default wallpaper changes depending on the hour of day.
[141002200390] |If in the morning a bright blue will enlighten your day, the afternoon and evening ones will gradually turn darker and darker –a nice touch if you ask us. 
[141002200400] |During the time we spent on the Live environment, we also decided to take some snapshots of the desktop and store them in the "Pictures" folder until copying them to a USB stick.
[141002200410] |We were quite surprised that, after installing the system and removing the Live CD, those snapshots were still there, a sign that Mandriva "migrates" all the changes you've done in the Live environment into the persistent install.
[141002200420] |Seeing that, we wanted to find out if this applied to the whole system so we formatted the HDD, went back to the Live CD, made a bunch of changes (theme, Firefox default search engine, bookmarks, etc.) and installed the system again.
[141002200430] |Indeed, when first logging in, all those changes were there.
[141002200440] |Cool! 
[141002200450] |On all of our computers, the resolution was set at the optimum value, except for one, where it was set at 1024x768 rather than the 1280x1024 recommended one.
[141002200460] |After opening the "Display" control panel, we realized that this was the highest option possible, despite the fact that the Nvidia drivers were installed and Compiz was working perfectly.
[141002200470] |Fortunately, this was quickly fixed from the "Set up graphical server" in Mandriva Control Center and, after a logout, we could enjoy the desktop even more. 
[141002200480] |<strong>KDE</strong> 
[141002200490] |Though highly customized for a better transition from the old 3.5 version of the K Desktop Environment, there are still a bunch of annoying bugs and glitches.
[141002200500] |But more importantly, the whole system felt much slower than the GNOME edition.
[141002200510] |Of course, this was only true for our lower-end systems, the more powerful ones handling KDE's eye candy significantly better.
[141002200520] |Moreover, on the 512 MB of RAM machine, the Live environment was so painfully slow that we couldn't even start the installation. 
[141002200530] |On another system, an unexpected glitch showed itself after enabling the Compiz 3D effects: maximizing any window would make their decorations (titlebars) become transparent.
[141002200540] |Also, there seemed to be a problem with the IM notifications coming from Kopete: though a "view" button was available on each bubble, clicking on them didn't yield any results.
[141002200550] |All in all, if KDE behaves well on your machine, you should definitely try it out, as Mandriva 2009.1 makes it a lot more efficient than other distros. 
[141002200560] |<strong>Ease of use</strong> 
[141002200570] |Mandriva 2009.1 has the latest and greatest in the desktop environment "market": GNOME 2.26.1, KDE 4.2.2 and Xfce 4.6.
[141002200580] |If you are familiar with GNOME, you won't have any problems finding your way through the system, as Mandriva uses its default layout. 
[141002200590] |One of Mandriva's strong points is the great Control Center, a "portal" to every setting that you can modify in order to customize your system in whatever way suits you best.
[141002200600] |If the interface didn't change since previous releases, the dedicated Security control panel was greatly improved.
[141002200610] |MSEC: System Security and Audit allows you to tweak, in detail, just about every permission or restriction for important files and also lets you enable periodic checks or specify if and how outside parties can interact with your network. 
[141002200620] |Going back to the Control Center itself, you can configure your networks, import documents and settings from Windows partitions, create Samba shares or make modifications in the boot process.
[141002200630] |Moreover, if you don't want to type the root/user password every time you want to install an application, perform updates or even set the system time, you can enter "Configure authentication for Mandriva tools" and modify the type of authentication required for various categories.
[141002200640] |Concerned parents will be very happy with the simple and intuitive "Parental Controls" from where domains can be blocked and allowed connection time-frames can be set. 
[141002200650] |When we tried to create a shared folder for Windows users (through the corresponding entry in the Control Center) in our network to access, Mandriva kindly informed us that the samba-server was not installed and prompted us to do just that.
[141002200660] |A few seconds later, the package was installed and the first-run wizard started. 
[141002200670] |As you know, GNOME 2.26 has a new default sound server in the form of PulseAudio.
[141002200680] |And with it, the volume control applet was also redesigned.
[141002200690] |One of its coolest features has to be the "Applications" tab that basically provides users with individual controls for each sound-emitting application.
[141002200700] |And if you think that's useless, think of the last time you opened a Flash webpage or game that offered no volume control.
[141002200710] |Well, now you can enjoy your favorite tune in Rhythmbox while muting Firefox to get rid of the "intruding" sound. 
[141002200720] |Another welcomed change in Mandriva 2009.1 is Nautilus' default behavior, which now finally opens windows in browser mode, so you'll have access to the side pane, the tabbed interface and other useful controls.
[141002200730] |Moreover, folders won't open in individual windows so if you go deep inside a directory tree, your desktop won't get "flooded." 
[141002200740] |Also auto-configured by Mandriva is the Compiz "Scale" option, a feature we are very fond of.
[141002200750] |How it works?
[141002200760] |Moving your mouse pointer to the top-right of the screen will activate an overlay with all your open windows scaled (hence the name) to fit on the desktop.
[141002200770] |From here, you can select any window to make it gain focus; a really good ALT+TAB replacement.
[141002200780] |As for workspace handling, Mandriva defaults Compiz with the 3D Cube plugin, instead of Desktop Wall, so, if you're used to switching desktops with the mouse wheel, you will have to configure that yourself.
[141002200790] |But that's easy to do, as the CompizConfig Settings Manager is installed right from the beginning. 
[141002200800] |An aspect that falls in this "Ease of use" category has to be the ability to read and write Windows' NTFS partitions.
[141002200810] |Though a quick look into the "Computer" window displaying all of our NTFS partitions gave us the impression that there should be no problem doing that, when we first tried to open one of said partitions an error popped up.
[141002200820] |As it turns out, mounting and accessing NTFS partitions is a tedious task.
[141002200830] |First, we had to open the Control Center, go to "Local Disks," select "Manage disk partitions," toggle to expert mode, set the mount point, mount the partitions and only after that could we browse our NTFS drives through the /mount folder.
[141002200840] |Ugh! 
[141002200850] |<strong>Testing of various hardware</strong> 
[141002200860] |Our Nvidia cards, ranging from the low-end GeForce FX5200 up to the 7300 GT one, work great with Mandriva 2009.1.
[141002200870] |Moreover, the drivers are automatically installed, without asking for user input, so that's definitely a plus. 
[141002200880] |The HP Deskjet 3845 printer suffers from the same issue as in other Linux distros.
[141002200890] |If we don't have brand new cartridges installed, the only way to print is by selecting the lower, "Draft" setting; otherwise, when using recharged ones, the cartridges move on the paper but they leave no ink, even though they have plenty of it. 
[141002200900] |The Trust TB-4200 graphical tablet is functional, but far from being usable; again, this is most likely a Linux kernel issue, rather than the distribution's fault.
[141002200910] |Our Canon A550 point-and-shoot camera was quickly recognized by Mandriva and we were offered different options for handling the pictures on it.
[141002200920] |Icons for USB sticks are placed on the desktop moments after plugging one in, so they work just fine. 
[141002200930] |The Canon Selphy CP-740 photo printer was not recognized by Mandriva and the "Add Printer" wizard does not even offer an option for USB printers.
[141002200940] |Of course, there is the "Other" option where the user must know the URI of the printer, but you need another distro, such as Ubuntu 9.04, that recognizes the printer and take the URI from there. 
[141002200950] |<strong>Testing of various applications</strong> 
[141002200960] |Mandriva 2009.1 comes with a good collection of software already installed for home and office use: OpenOffice.org 3.0.1, Mozilla Firefox 3.0.8 (3.0.10 after the first set of updates), Pidgin 2.5.5 instant messaging client, GIMP 2.6.6 and even a Television Viewer and an FM-Radio Tuner.
[141002200970] |Those who need to edit videos will be happy to hear that Mandriva 2009.1 comes with the popular Kino editor by default; for vector graphics creation, Inkscape is another welcomed addition to the software suite.
[141002200980] |Pan, a highly configurable Newsreader client awaits you in the Internet category.
[141002200990] |For improved accessibility, Mandriva 2009.1 also provides two applications for users with disabilities: the Orca screen reader / magnifier and an On-Screen Keyboard. 
[141002201000] |An entry in the Administration menu really caught our attention: Phone Manager, an application that, in theory, lets you connect to your mobile phone and even be alerted when SMSes arrive.
[141002201010] |So, we dug up our USB Bluetooth dongle, plugged it in and the Bluetooth icon immediately appeared in the notification area.
[141002201020] |A few clicks later and the phone was paired with the PC ready to transfer files.
[141002201030] |Of course, we wanted the expanded functionality of the Phone Manager and tried to synchronize it with our Sony Ericsson K750i. Unfortunately, the program failed to detect it through Bluetooth so we tried the alternative: connecting it with the original USB data cable.
[141002201040] |Again, though Mandriva detected the memory card, we had no luck with Phone Manager. 
[141002201050] |For those of you who love having a different screensaver every day, you should know that Mandriva only comes with a few of them.
[141002201060] |The default one shows various serene places around the world; very beautiful, no doubt about it, but some of us will miss the "Flying Toasters" or "Endgame" ones. 
[141002201070] |The great Rpmdrake Software Management tool offers access to a lot of other useful applications.
[141002201080] |Moreover, almost all open-source projects provide their software in pre-packaged RPMs that are a breeze to install. 
[141002201090] |After plugging in a USB stick, a message popped up in the top-right corner, letting us know that "USB discs are available for backup."
[141002201100] |Yes, you can easily create snapshots of your system with the help of "DrakSnapshot."
[141002201110] |There is either the option of backing up the whole system or you can specify which folders to include/exclude.
[141002201120] |A more advanced configuration can be done through the "Backup" entry, which also provides a very user-friendly wizard that will guide you step by step through the process. 
[141002201130] |Mandriva 2009.1 surprised us with a Firefox Web Browser that came pre-installed with all the available languages for "Europe and Americas" (also the ISO version we've tested).
[141002201140] |Though it could be considered a good idea, updating Firefox to a new version will also re-install all those languages, which takes extra time.
[141002201150] |The network indicator applet is an awesome resource for various information regarding traffic statistics as well as a lot of other configuration options for VPN, Interactive Firewall or available networks. 
[141002201160] |Going back to the Software Management tool, all available programs are neatly arranged in categories and subcategories.
[141002201170] |Mandriva also offers a very nice selection of documentation for different system components and even some literature. 
[141002201180] |A unique feature of Mandriva is Metisse, the alternative to Compiz's effects.
[141002201190] |It is still in development and it does feel a bit sluggish but provides some interesting ways of manipulating the workspace.
[141002201200] |Windows can be easily rotated in a 3D plane and transparency levels can be set for each of them.
[141002201210] |There are now nine separate desktops for which a large grid is displayed in the bottom-right corner of the screen (different than the switcher in the GNOME panel).
[141002201220] |But the UI interaction goes further with the help of "Façades."
[141002201230] |How these work?
[141002201240] |Hold the Super key, draw a rectangle, right click on it and you will get three options: Create Facade, Create All Facade or Create Hole.
[141002201250] |If you choose to create a "Facade" a separate window containing your selection will be generated.
[141002201260] |Creating a "hole" will cut out the selected part from the window and you will have access to what's underneath that "hole."
[141002201270] |Very nice indeed.
[141002201280] |There are a few other cool functionalities to Metisse, so definitely check it out. 
[141002201290] |Speaking of 3D effects, it's quite sad that turning them on/off requires you to logout before seeing any changes. 
[141002201300] |<strong>Multimedia (Audio/Video)</strong> 
[141002201310] |When we tried playing an mp4 video, a window appeared informing us that Totem required a couple of codecs for it.
[141002201320] |They installed fine from the default Mandriva repositories, the video started playing but there was no sound.
[141002201330] |After a restart of Totem, another window popped up to tell us that the MPEG 4 AAC decoder was also missing.
[141002201340] |Unfortunately, this time around, the only option Mandriva provided us with was buying a set of playback plugins from Fluendo through Codeina Web Shop.
[141002201350] |Going through the official repositories in search for another solution was in vain; clearly, the only (free of charge) way to properly play that format was to add the third-party PLF repositories to our system.
[141002201360] |Having done that, Totem offered a second option for resolving our playback issues and quickly installed the needed codecs.
[141002201370] |Overall, this can be quite a big drawback for newcomers, especially when they are recommended a 28 Euro purchase to play an mp4 file. 
[141002201380] |Neither did MP3s play out of the box, but the plugins needed were available in the repositories and we were ready to listen to our favorite tunes in no time. 
[141002201390] |Moreover, video files such as WMV, MKV or AVI played very well in Mandriva, after the necessary codecs were automatically installed by Totem, when opening the file(s) for the first time. 
[141002201400] |The latest version of Adobe's Flash player was fortunately already installed and active.
[141002201410] |Still, Flash for Linux has a lot to improve in terms of performance, especially for fullscreen playback, and this can be seen in Mandriva too. 
[141002201420] |<strong>Games</strong> 
[141002201430] |What's missing from the default Mandriva 2009.1 One installation is a suite of games to help pass the time.
[141002201440] |But, if you install the system from the "Free" DVD you will have an extra "game station" entry that will provide you with hours of open-source gaming fun.
[141002201450] |Otherwise, simply open the package manager and surely you'll find something you like.
[141002201460] |We installed two games just to check if everything worked properly: OpenArena and Vegastrike, which performed flawlessly even on our slowest machine. 
[141002201470] |For Windows-only games, the latest version of Wine is one-click away in the repositories.
[141002201480] |Though you shouldn't expect the same performance as on the platform the games were designed for, it's certainly the perfect way to not let your gaming addiction suffer. 
[141002201490] |<strong>Bugs</strong> 
[141002201500] |If you're using the "Trash" folder on a daily basis, you will notice that, in the KDE 4 edition, you won't be able to delete folders by dragging them on top of the Trash icon, but only through the "Send to Trash" option in the context menu.
[141002201510] |A fix for this minor annoyance is expected to be pushed in future updates. 
[141002201520] |Serious display issues affecting Intel’s graphics card plague Mandriva 2009.1 too.
[141002201530] |Though we couldn't test it ourselves, many users reported such problems and Mandriva's Errata documents it too.
[141002201540] |Unfortunately, the only viable solution is to disable any 3D effects and wait for a fix to arrive.
[141002201550] |An update from Mandriva was released since 2009.1 came out, but apparently didn't resolve all existing problems. 
[141002201560] |The bootsplash, otherwise very nicely designed, is not continuous, as there are two sections in which the verbose mode replaces the graphical loading screen for a few seconds.
[141002201570] |Though definitely not a major problem, it could've been avoided and new Linux users might think that's a problem. 
[141002201580] |Remember the much-talked Ubuntu bug that generated some very annoying PC speaker beeps whenever you restarted/shut down your system?
[141002201590] |Well, Mandriva has it too in the GNOME edition.
[141002201600] |As the KDE edition is not affected, this is most likely a problem with the latest release of the GNOME desktop environment, as there were some changes made in how it handles sound events. 
[141002201610] |<strong>Conclusions</strong> 
[141002201620] |Mandriva 2009 Spring is a very solid release.
[141002201630] |Regardless of your Linux skills, if you prefer RPM-based distributions, we can't think of a better option.
[141002201640] |Easy backup, powerful control center, an impressive, up-to-date software collection and a snappy desktop are some of Mandriva's strong points that make it a great solution for both home and work environments.
[141002201650] |What it needs is a bit more polish, easier access to Windows partitions and more alternatives to multimedia playback.