HTC Rider Leak Leaves Much to the Imagination

A fresh off the press photo leak of possibly one of HTC newest devices dubbed the “HTC Rider” has just surfaced on the net, unfortunately the leaker decided to take the picture using an ancient digital camera and the picture leaves much to the imagination.What do you think this device is?Source: [911Sniper via AndroidCentral]View the original article h...

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Some of the Best Android Apps Available Today

Can you still recall the time when T-Mobile unveiled the first ever Android smartphone way back in 2008? It was also during that time when Google’s app library was in high demand. Since then, Android apps have increased in number substantially over the years.  The latest cutting-edge smartphones from HTC, Motorola, Samsung and LG have made Android apps even more popular. At this present moment, Android has reached over 250,000 apps and that will continue to grow for as long as Android exists. Google’s Android Market offers so many apps for just about anything and  it makes it confusing for users to decide which apps are the best.So,...

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Cover Thumbnailer - How to install in Ubuntu Linux

Cover Thumbnailer is a small Python script which displays music/video album covers in Nautilus in place of ordinary icons of folders, preview of pictures in a folder and more. It is similar to what you see in Microsoft Windows 7 where the folder shows a preview of the pictures contained in it.This is for Ubuntu users running v 9.10 Karmic, v 10.04 Lucid and v 10.10 Maverick . Open your terminal and enter the following set of commands :$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:flozz/flozz$ sudo apt-get update$ sudo apt-get install cover-thumbnailerOnce Cover Thumbnailer has been installed, you will have to restart Nautilus by running the following command....

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1 Second Linux Boot - And It Is No Gimmick !

It is said a picture is worth a 1000 words. In this case, instead of a picture, the following video demonstrates Linux booting to a GUI in a mere 1 second. And this is what the people who implemented this awesome feat have to say about this exercise (and I quote).Many people see a demo like this and assume there are ’smoke and mirrors’ or that we’ve implemented a suspend to disk solution. This is genuinely a cold boot including UBoot (2009-01), Linux kernel (2.6.31-rc7) and Qt Embedded Open Source 4.6.2. We’ve not applied any specific intellectual property but instead spent time analysing where boot delays are coming from and simply optimising them away. The majority of the modifications we make usually fall into the category of ‘removing things that aren’t required’, ‘optimising things that...

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Ubuntu Might Ship With Qt Libraries

In future iterations of Ubuntu (Natty and onwards), Ubuntu CD might ship with Qt libraries - Mark Shuttleworth noted in one of his blog post. The basic premise behind this announcement is that it is the quality and usability of the application (to be included) that is important; the choice of toolkit should be irrelevant.Ubuntu till date have shown a bias towards applications built on Gtk toolkit. Currently, almost all applications that are shipped with Ubuntu are GNOME centric. And if a user needs a Qt based application the recourse is to manually install it from the Ubuntu repository.However, this is going to change in the future.Mark Shuttleworth...

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HTML5 will henceforth be known as just HTML

HTML5 is the next major version of HTML and is widely considered future of the Web. In particular, HTML5 adds many new syntax features. These include , and elements as well as integration of SVG content, which are designed to improve the inclusion and handling of multimedia and graphic content on the web without recourse to proprietary plugins and their APIs [Source : Wikipedia].The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) is a community founded by individuals of Apple, the Mozilla Foundation, and Opera Software in 2004. It's main focus is the development of HTML standard and APIs needed for Web applications. In a blog post,...

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Switching To Linux - Tale Of A Former Mac User Who Is Also A Musician

Switching to Linux is easy for most of us. You just have to download and burn a Linux distribution and boot your computer with it. If the Linux distribution you have chosen is a modern one, then you can finish installing it on your machine in 6 steps or less. However, if you rely on your computer for a living, then you need to do some preparations prior to making the switch. Kim Cascone, an experienced and gifted musician and composer had been using an Apple PowerBook to compose music. When his PowerBook G4 exhibited signs of age, he did a quick fact check and found that he could save as much as $3000 (which includes the machine and the software...

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Pinguy OS - An Ubuntu Based Linux Distribution on Steroids

Ubuntu has helped spawn umpteen Linux distributions. Pinguy OS is yet another Linux distribution based on Ubuntu (version 10.10 to be exact). Pinguy OS is targeted at lay persons - people who are going to use Linux for the first time, or those who want an out-of-box working OS.It is currently available to download as a DVD ISO (~1.3 GB size) for the 32 and 64 bit architecture PCs.I was visibly impressed with the screenshots of Pinguy OS desktop I chanced at various places on the Net that, I decided to download this Linux distribution (essentially built from Ubuntu Minimal CD) and take it for a spin.I tried out Pinguy OS on my two year old PC...

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How To Create A Screencast In GNOME 3

GNOME 3 has an inbuilt software that allows you to record your desktop. This makes it very easy to create a screencast in GNOME 3. Here is how you do it ...You can start/stop recording your GNOME 3 Desktop by pressing the Ctrl+Shift+Alt+R key combination. The first time when you press this key combination, GNOME 3 will start recording your Desktop and any movements that happen on it. A red circle is displayed in the bottom right corner of the screen when the recording is in progress. Pressing the same key combination a second time will stop the recording. After the recording is finished, a file named 'shell-%d%u-%c.webm' is saved in the home directory. In the filename, %d is the date, %u is a string that makes the filename unique, and %c is a counter that is incremented each time a recording...

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GNOME 3 Won't Have Minimize And Maximize Buttons

GNOME 3 is doing away with minimize and Maximize buttons for applications in its user interface. The basic premise being they don't make sense within the current shell design. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't minimize or maximize your applications' window in GNOME 3. If you want the same functionality as what minimize does, then you should group your applications in different Workspaces or use the Activities overview. And if you need to Maximize your applications, you can double-click on the title bar of the application or you can use the drag-to-snap functionality.Either way, it is going to be a unique experience for all GNOME 3 users....

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GNUCash 2.4.0 has been released

GNUCash - for those in the dark - is a Free accounting package which you can use to keep track of your net worth, your income, and expenses. It operates under the double entry accounting principle. If you are not aware of double entry accounting, let me direct you to a wonderful article called "A day in the life of Dave the Dollar" which explains this concept in simple layman terms. In fact, a few years back, it was this very article which persuaded me to start using GNUCash in the first place.GNUCash team recently released the latest iteration of its flagship product aka version 2.4. GNUCash is a stable and mature product fit to be used not...

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Is Nokia Committing Harakiri By Aligning With Microsoft ?

The big news today - as far as cellular world should be concerned, is the strategic partnership between Nokia and Microsoft to produce smart phones running Windows 7. Nokia says it will adopt Windows Phone as its primary smart phone strategy. Meaning, Symbian OS is going to be relegated to history. And MeeGo project on Nokia smart phones would be in limbo. Thinking back, my first cell phone was a Nokia. At that time, Nokia was a dominant player in the Indian cell phone market. However, in the years that followed, Samsung and many other players have succeeded in grabbing a share of the pie (obviously at Nokia's expense).So much so that, in India...

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Emacs Editor - 11 Tips For The Road To Mastery

Emacs is a very powerful text editor used by geeks the world over. Now I am not trying to fuel a Emacs vs Vi war but mastering Emacs editor will definitely make you more productive and save time, compared to doing the same tasks using a more common text editor. What is more, Emacs is available cross platform which means, no matter which operating system you use, a native version of Emacs is available for your OS. However, mastering the use of Emacs involves a learning curve. At the least, you need to be aware of a few terminologies used, and must be prepared to change your mind set as far as text editing is concerned. Ben Simon has put together a nice compilation of the 11 things a potential Emacs user should be aware of before he starts using the editor.So without further ado, the following...

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KDE Version 4.6.0 Released - Integrates Support For Mobile Devices

KDE team has released version 4.6.0 of its flagship product - The KDE Desktop. This is a major release that  brings lots of improvements, and  which promises a far better user experience. The notable enhancements you will find in KDE 4.6.0 are as follows -A new Activities system has been introduced in the KDE Plasma Workspaces. This helps you to demarcate your activities on computer into different categories like Work, Home, Recreation, Web browsing, etc.Dolphin file manager gets Faceted Browsing - This allows Dolphin to give you better search results by reading the meta data of files.KDE games have been spruced up. Gwenview (The...

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Debian Is No Longer Just A Linux Distribution

Debian stable version 6.0 code named "Squeeze" has been released. After 24 months of arduous testing, the Debian team has finally released v 6.0 which brings many firsts among its features. They are -Technical previews of two new ports which runs on the FreeBSD kernel instead of the Linux kernel. This means FreeBSD will be powering the operating system while the users still get to use all the great tools in the Debian user-land.The Linux kernel has been scrubbed free of all the closed sourse firmware files. In other words, you get a completely Free as in Freedom Linux distribution in Debian 6.0 if you opt to download the package with Linux kernel instead of the FreeBSD kernel. Richard Stallman should definitely be pleased with this one.Boot times have improved drastically because of parallel...

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Firefox 4 Downloaded Over 7 Million Times And Counting

Mozilla team has released the latest version of its flagship product - Firefox 4. Firefox 4 has been downloaded over 7 million times since its official release. This new avatar of the popular web browser from Mozilla stables makes extensive use of HTML 5 to render web pages. It also uses hardware acceleration when displaying HTML 5 pages - drawing on the power of a computer's graphics processor to improve the speed of complex visuals.Speed of rendering graphics, loading web pages faster, and better start up times. Less clutter - Firefox 4 has been re-designed to make it less intrusive, allowing for a much richer web browsing experience.Panorama...

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Qt Goes To School - Free Training Course Material For Teachers

Nokia's Qt team has unveiled a new initiative - namely to build awareness about Qt - the library that is the building block of KDE - among students and academia. Choosing an appropriate library for your software is a significant first step to developing your product.And Qt is a good choice for the simple reason that it is a cross-platform application and UI framework for developing once, and deploying across Windows, Mac, Linux/X11, embedded Linux, Windows CE, Symbian and Maemo without rewriting the source code.Currently, Qt in Education Course Material page has around around 10 lectures that cover the basics of Qt in addition to some special...

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Linux Foundation Is Celebrating 20 Years Of Linux - Are you ?

Linux is turning 20. And to commemorate this happy occasion, the Linux Foundation is celebrating 20 years of Linux with a slew of special events which includes Gala dinner, Video contest,a T-Shirt contest, Linux Scholarships et al. The Linux Foundation has also released this nice infographic which depicts the major milestones of Linux development. Also watch this cool YouTube video that explains the History of Linux in caricature. Assuming you are passionate about Linux, why not pledge your support for Linux by featuring the following web badge on your website? img alt="I'll be celebrating 20 years of Linux withThe Linux Foundation!" border="0"...

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5 Linux Tutorials For Beginners

Here are 5 useful Linux tutorials for beginners / resources which will help newbies get their feet wet in Linux.Complete, concise history of Linux.Learn BASH shell scripting in 10 Seconds.Free technical books to learn Linux.Package management for new Debian users - A concise guide.Package management for Red Hat users (a bit aged)Hope you like these 5 useful tutorials / resources on Linux. View the original article h...

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XFCE 4.8 has been released

XFCE is a lightweight desktop environment that aims to be fast and low on system resources. Nearly after a 2 years hiatus, XFCE has released version 4.8. A number of new features have made their way into XFCE ver 4.8. Some of them being the ability to browse remote shares using a variety of protocols, a redesign of the XFCE panel thus improving positioning, transparency, item and launcher management, a new menu plugin to view directories, improved keyboard layout selection, and more. The XFCE 4.8 development cycle also saw a serious release strategy formed after the "Xfce Release and Development Model" developed at the Ubuntu Desktop Summit...

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GNOME 3.0 Has Been Officially Released

GNOME 3.0 has been officially released. Ushering in a radical desktop experience, GNOME 3.0 is all about usability, and it promises a distraction free computing experience for end users. GNOME 3.0 desktop is designed in such a way that it can run on a variety of modern computing devices including PCs, tablets, cell phones, and what not. The defining technology for GNOME 3.0 user experience is the GNOME Shell.GNOME Shell takes advantage of the capabilities of modern graphics hardware and introduces a unique user interface that makes computing simple for the lay person. For example, try moving your mouse pointer to the top left corner of your...

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First Look At GNOME 3 Prior To Its Release

GNOME 3, due for release in April 2011, is going to be revolutionary. The Desktop is designed to reduce distraction and interruption and to put the user in control. Messaging has been seamlessly integrated into the desktop. An improved file manager, redesigned work spaces, and better accessibility are some of the notable improvements. The GNOME Project has published a new website Gnome3.org showcasing the GNOME 3 Desktop environment.If you are really interested in trying out GNOME 3 just now,you can do so by compiling it yourself using GNOME's JHBuild sandboxing tool. View the original article h...

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Jolicloud Renames Itself 'Joli OS'

Jolicloud is an internet based operating system similar to Google Chrome OS. The company (by the same name) also markets a laptop (Netbook) called Jolibook which runs Jolicloud OS. Underneath, Jolicloud OS is powered by a Linux kernel. Now the company has drawn out a plan of making its apps accessible to a broader set of computer users. The idea is to synchronize the Jolicloud user interface to the cloud so your desktop would be accessible from anywhere, just by using a Web browser.With that in mind, and to avoid confusion, the company has renamed its OS from Jolicloud to 'Joli OS'. More over, the Jolicloud web app will be made available on...

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MeeGo - A Compendium Of Facts

This is a concise guide that provides some details about a possible Android and IOS contender - MeeGo. Notwithstanding the recent setbacks it faced in relation to Nokia, MeeGo project is moving forward at a steady pace. And it might just be possible that we could,in the near future, start seeing increasing number of devices (not just cell phones) powered by MeeGo. MeeGo is an open source operating system project for mobile devices, hosted by the Linux Foundation - a non-profit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. MeeGo will run on multiple types of devices ranging from cell phones, tablets, netbooks, in-vehicle infotainment, TVs, and so on. It is powered by Linux. The following Youtube video provides a glimpse of the MeeGo user interface. If you are a developer and wish...

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Two Classic Games Developed Using Sed

Sed is a command line tool used for pattern recognition and substitution in one or more text files. Sed is also called a stream editor. It is a very powerful tool which when mastered can help you in near-magic modifications to your files - all with just a few tap of your fingers. One of the frequent uses of Sed is in text substitution. For example, if you want to change all the occurrences of the word "train" with the word "car" in your file "myfile.txt", you can do it easily using sed as follows.$ cat myfile.txt | sed 's/train/car/g' -For a comprehensive tutorial on sed, check out the Introduction and Tutorial of sed by Bruce Barnett. But teaching sed to netizens is not what this post is about. Rather, it is to present two all time classic games that have been developed entirely using Sed....

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Book - Configuring IPCop Firewalls

IPCop is a powerful, open source, Linux based firewall distribution for primarily Small Office Or Home (SOHO) networks, although it can be used in larger networks. It provides most of the features that you would expect a modern firewall to have, and what is most important is that it sets this all up for you in a highly automated and simplified way. This book is an easy introduction to this popular application.View the original article h...

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Gimp

Gimp The GIMP is an image manipulation program suitable for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. Many people find it extremely useful in creating logos and other graphics for web pages. The GIMP has many of the tools and filters you would expect to find in similar commercial offerings, and some interesting extras as well. The GIMP provides a large image manipulation toolbox, including channel operations and layers, effects, sub-pixel imaging and anti-aliasing, and conversions, all with multi-level undo. http://www.gimp.o...

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