Category: Linux

With external hard drives being as cheap as they are, directory synchronization programs have become my preferred archiving method. DirSync Pro offers a fully-featured solution that is both open source and cross-platform. The app is coded in Java, so as long as your machine can handle .jar files you'll be able to run DirSync. While it's got plenty of advanced settings that can be used to modify ...

First of all, I've read the Times nearly my whole life. I grew up in a NY-suburban Times household. I have fond memories of my father spreading out the Sunday edition on the floor, sitting on the carpet in his pajamas. He read that paper every day until he died. (No evidence that the Times hastened his death.) But that's not reason enough to fork over $15 bucks a month for the latest digital ...

TimesReader is a desktop application for reading the New York Times without a web browser. While this may not sound like a service you need, since you can read most Times articles online, the latest version of TimesReader provides a pretty compelling interface for reading the paper. TimesReader 2.0 also happens to be built on Adobe AIR, which mean that unlike earlier versions of the program, it ...

You'd never know it from looking at your RSS reader right now, but there are operating systems other than Windows 7 pushing out new releases. One of my favorite Linux distributions, Linux Mint, has just made a release candidate of their seventh version available for download. Not familiar with the distro? It's based on Ubuntu - the Mint v7 core is Jaunty Jackalope, which Canonical recently freed ...

At first glance, Statuzer looks like just another Twitter client built on Adobe AIR. But it has a few awesome features that set it apart from competitors like Twhirl and Tweetdeck. First, Statuzer comes with a built in music player that lets you stream MP3s shared through song.ly and tra.kz. But you can also use Statuzer as a search engine for Jamendo to find and play free and legal music. In ...

BitLet, whose client-free torrent downloader we first mentioned on DownloadSquad two years ago, have been hard at work on a new project. Their torrent-powered streaming video service is now available for a public preview. There's no standalone download required to use Bitlet, all you need is a browser with the Java plugin installed. As with any other torrent, your playback experience has a lot ...

A few months back, Adobe announced the availability of a 64-bit version of the Flash plugin on Labs - for Linux only. Now they've released a 64-bit alpha version of Air, and once again it's just for Linux users. If you're running a 64-bit Linux distribution on your system and can pitch in with bug reports and devote some serious time to testing you can email Adobe with your particulars. While I ...

The MarketShare numbers are in for April 2009, and there's a little bit of good news for Linux. While there's still a long way to go before catching up to Mac, Linux has finally claimed more than a 1% share of client devices. With some serious buzz behind Linux already this year like HP's stunning Ubuntu remix for netbooks and their decision to offer OpenSUSE on business notebooks, as well as ...

Linux advocates had a lot of fun recently taking shots at Windows 7 Starter version, which Microsoft has positioned as an option for low-cost netbooks. What could Microsoft possibly offer in response to the "Starter is a comically bad attempt at an operating system" comments? They could announce the continued availability of Windows XP for netbook manufacturers for a full year after the release ...

Open source media player and online video aggregator Miro is taking a cue from the highway service and asking patrons to "adopt" a line of code to help pay the bills much the same way as you can "adopt" a stretch of highway. Here's how it works. You visit the Miro Adoption Center and pony up $4 per month and you get your name associated with a line in the Miro code base. Your name will also ...

The Opera web browser may not have the name recognition of more popular software like Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari. But you know what it does have? History. The first line of code for the Opera web browser was written 15 years ago today. Back in 1994, Firefox wasn't even a twinkle in the eyes of the team working on the popular Netscape browser. And Microsoft didn't release Internet ...

GKrellM is a system monitor utility that was originally designed for Linux, but which now runs on a number of operating systems including OS X, Linux, and Windows. Out of the box, the utility includes modules for monitoring your CPU, memory, and network use as well as running processes and several other items. Each module can be customized to look different or display different information. And ...

Like many sites offering icon design services, Visual Pharm generously provides a few dozen free downloads for users to enjoy. As an added bonus, the icon sets they offer are free to use in both personal and commercial settings, provided you supply a link to their web site. The Must Have pack includes all the OS essentials like disks, users, folders, arrows, gears, and clipboard actions. For a ...

In case you aren't familiar with the ReactOS project in a nutshell, the aim is to produce an open source operating system that is fully Windows compatible. I've been intrigued by the project for years, and as the developers push toward the release of version 0.4, there's every reason to get excited. The latest version, 0.3.9, sports reduced memory requirements and major speed improvements, as ...

Right on schedule, the folks at Canonical released the latest version of Ubuntu Linux this morning. Ubuntu 9.04 adds a number of new features including a revamped notification system, support for the Ext4 file system, and updated applications like Firefox 3 and OpenOffice.org 3.0. Canonical also worked hard on system performance, and Ubuntu 9.04 should boot up faster and feature more efficient ...