TechBlog

Archive for the ‘Open Source Software’ Category

Came with a portable audio application program, you would be able to play your music anyplace, anytime; be it at house, at work, or even at your grandma’s place. The audio application program that can be put on your USB stick without mucking around. Some of these are adjusted to run on portable media, others merely function.

CoolPlayer+ Portable

Founded on the original CoolPlayer, PortableApps has changed the practical application and repackaged it as a portable app. On 1.5 MB and over two million downloads up to now, CoolPlayer+ Portable has established itself both a lightweight and a set nominee. Obscure from audio playback, CoolPlayer+ Portable keeps going with MP3 to WAV conversion, online audio streaming, and even regular Winamp connects. With CoolPlayer+ Portable, you have got crafty looking music playback, but also a completely team’s worth of extra horsepower if, and while you require it.

1by1

Who said we do not listen to our readers? This application program was advocated in the comments part of the portable Winamp articles.

1by1 is an audio directory role player. This signifies that rather than holding a music program library, 1by1 just surfs your music folders. On the left side of the screen, you are able to browse through with the another folders on your USB stick. For the interest of usability, it is best to drop all your MP3’s in one folder,or differently set up by artist. 1by1 is still an implausibly clean application program and will absorb near to no memory resources. Even so, it is as versatile as one may hope for. Add up the retro, high dividing line look, and we are all adjust to go.

Songbird Portable

Songbird is an audio frequency role player by Mozilla, the guys that have been toying with us with Firefox. Although held bonkers in some its earlier relinquishes, Songbird has developed to an unbelievable media player. At long last, you will have to choose what you are searching for. If you wish a voluminous media management suite with a lot of bells and whistles, you may deem it worth the additional blank space.

Linux is all about flexibility. There are a number of distributions designed for a number of purposes. There are larger full-fledged distributions and then, there are also many small distributions. SliTaz is one such lightweight yet full-fledged distribution. If you have older hardware or just want to get a taste of Linux, SliTaz is the way to go.

SliTaz is a Linux distribution that provides a complete desktop environment in just 30 MB. The OS is very simple to use and at the same time fast and stable as well.

You can make SliTaz run completely in the RAM from media such as a CD or a USB pen drive. If you wish to install it on your hard drive, you can do that as well. The OS is very light on system resources and very fast.

SliTaz is available in the form of a Live CD. All you have to do is to download the image, burn it in a CD and boot from it. Once the system starts, you can remove the CD drive and use it for other CDs. The Live CD environment is full-fledged and quite intuitive to use.

SliTaz has a number of dedicated developers and supporters behind it. If you need technical support, all you have to do is post in the forum or join the mailing list. As with most other open source projects, people are always there to help.

Here are some of the key features offered by SliTaz Linux:

- Small ISO file size (30 MB). You will need only 100 MB of disk space to install the OS to the disk.

- SliTaz comes with a Web server powered by LightTPD with CGI and PHP support.

- The OS also comes with chat, mail, FTP clients, software tools to create, edit or burn CD or DVD images.

- Clean, easy to use desktop with Openbox

- 1400 packages easily installable from the mirror.

To download SliTaz visit www.slitaz.org

Presence in the market

Even though it is an open source software it has no major pie in the office suite market, Microsoft Office controls lions share in the segment of office suite. But it is used in some Government projects and offices in the countries like UK, India, France, and Singapore, owing to the sturdy security features. Besides the computers that run on Linux platform uses OpenOffice, because of its compatibility with the software. Sun and Google have partnered, for free distribution in the market, Google has bundled StarOffice in its download package.

Reviews for OpenOffice:

Many magazines and newspapers have given the A+ for the OpenOffice for its simple and elegant feature s, extensions, and easy to use functions. OpenOffice lacks the lustre not because of its application, it is because of the presence and popularity of the Microsoft Office, even though OpenOffice has a positive edge compared to the former.

Usage

OpenOffice can be used in private and Federal institutions and organisations, since this is an open source software which is freely distributed to the public for use. Besides, the developers gave away the rights to users to develop extensions for use.

OpenOffice open source software may lag in market presence, but the features that comes with it beckons the users for trial. Besides, this is free software that promises better features, and control over the application to the users. Once the user gets adapted to the applications of the OpenOffice then hardly, he thinks of using other Office suite, and there are no limitations as such to this product, except in the human mind. Instead of coffing much money on other office suite, it’s worth giving a shot to the OpenOffice for its versatility and durability. So download OpenOffice from the official website using the given link, to explore unknown waters of Office suite.

OpenOffice download link:

http://download.openoffice.org/

OpenOffice Impress:

This works similar to Microsoft PowerPoint, this application is compatible with .ppt; users can save the Impress document using .ppt extensions. Besides it can be exported to PDF and to SWF for presentations using flash player. Impress has large collections of images and drawings for embedding in presentations, which is contributed by Linux. It has a simple to use drawing tool that helps to draw or edit drawing, and adding it to your presentation.

OpenOffice Base:

Base is a powerful database management application that supports single users having personal database, and multiple users that connect and work on the same database. Base is similar to Microsoft Access, it acts as a front end for database systems, and it supports ODBC and JDBC standard drivers for connecting any available database. Base Wizard helps the new users to design their database, by creating tables, queries, forms and reports. Base can be used to create, maintain and manipulate the database at ease. It can also be used as a tool, to generate reports on your computer sales, or for maintenance of inventory or for listing the number of computer accessories based on the product.    

OpenOffice Draw:

Draw is a vector graphics editor that allows creating graphics image out of the diagram; this has similar characteristics to Microsoft Publisher, the connectors between shapes in the Draw helps in creating drawings. It can serve the same purpose as a desktop publisher. You can design and draw objects at ease with connectors, further options like group, regroup and ungroup helps you to create photorealistic images. Users can import diagrams or images from different formats like BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and WMF for editing in Draw.

OpenOffice Math:

It is used for calculating mathematical equations; it assists as equation editor in writer, and in other text documents. It is treated as object, when used in text documents, it is also compatible with other OpenOffice applications like Impress and Calc. You can enter the formula in the document by inserting markup in equation editor or you can chose from the context menu, by right clicking the equation editor. It can be exported to portable document format (PDF) , directly from the Math.

Features of OpenOffice

OpenOffice allows running of old version of Microsoft office files, which cannot be opened in the newer versions of the Microsoft Office. It can run on quite a number of platforms, which is restricted in Microsoft Office, besides it provides many number of extensions, there are approximately 390 extensions available in Opeoffice.org. Users can also create their own extensions using openOffice.org.

Continues on Next post. So, see you later.

Google Chrome – Is it a browser or OS:

Chrome is the open source web browser from the house of Google, Google launched its web browser to bestow unmatched browsing experience to the users, Google chrome promises the users stability, security, simplicity and speed, unlike other web browsers. It is an all out visual retreat for the users, most of the queries and the functions are explained using visuals for simple and easy interpretation.

The comic book released by the Google explaining the features and process of the Google Chrome, will tell you how far the Google is dedicated to provide users a friendly and revolutionary web-based applications and services.

How chrome greets the user:

When you click the Google Chrome browser icon, you are greeted with the nine thumbnails of most visited sites unlike other browsers that open up with a home page or a blank page. The users can stroll through the thumbnails of their choice for websites at their convenience instead of entering the URL every time in the address bar.  Besides it has the bookmark lists, search box to enable search into the history of visited sites, and recently used tabs.

Google chrome has simplified the browser interface, they have restricted with fewer options that are necessary, unlike redundant multiple options in the interface of other browsers. When we look in to the window of other browsers, they have a menu bar, navigation bar and a title bar, but in Chrome they have completely vanquished this interface. Google Chrome has cut down lot of extra option to make it simple and fast compared to other browsers; it has just used five intrinsic right click options.

It looks like Google has made it a point to give the same stripped-down appearance like the Google home page. The browser gives a full screen appearance that gives a comprehensive browsing experience to the users, without the hassles of clouded interface that occupy 30 percent of the browser.

The Omni box the term Google uses for the address bar does a double it acts as a search bar and the address bar, when you insert a word it assume it as search and when you enter a URL it does hunt for you in the internet. It lists web pages as soon as you enter the first letter of the URL with respect to the website popularity and previously visited sites.

More on Google chrome on the next post.

Private browsing mode

When you select Start Private Browsing, Firefox add the text “(Private Browsing)” to its window title bar. In the private browsing mode, your existing tabs closed, but they reappear when you turn off the private browsing mode or close the private browsing window. In a Private Browsing session, Firefox won’t keep any browser history, search history, download history, web form history, cookies, or temporary internet files.  However, the download files and bookmarks you make will be kept.

You can make the Firefox forget any site in your history. When you want to perform Clear Recent History, Firefox allows you to clear the past hour, two hours, four hours, or whole day, or every thing. It also allows you to selectively clear browsing and download history, cache, cookies, logins, and site preference. Thus you have more control over cleaning the History.

Personas or themes

Firefox offers a variety of personas or themes for changing its appearance. Many personas can be downloaded from the Mozilla Update web site.

Extensions

Firefox has wealth of extensions. Extensions allow the addition of new features through the installation of small software modules. Mozilla Foundation provides a lot of extensions for download on the Mozilla Update site. Most extensions are small in size (only few kilobytes). There have been some security issues in using extensions. There is a possibility for a user to download a malicious extension. Firefox must be restarted after extensions are installed, uninstalled or disabled. You can upgraded all themes and extensions downloaded from the Mozilla Update site through the browser interface itself. The extensions help the user to do things in a convenient way. This is one of the main strengths of Firefox.

Security

Firefox is the browser of choice in the matter of security. You can easily access information about the validity of any site by clicking on the small icon to the left of the URL. Sites with valid identity information the icon area turns green and you can find the site owner information and encryption status by clicking the icon. They are listed under a green cop image. You can check this by visiting Paypal site.

Conclusion

The Firefox has few disadvantages also. Still the performance, convenience and security made it choice of power users.

Abiword–Open source alternative to MS Word

Abiword is a free/open source word processor application. It looks very similar to MS Word and comes with a plethora of features like spell checking, interactive rulers and tabs, styles, fine and replace and image support. It is also compatible to some extent with MS Word and can open RTF and .doc files. The software is very lean and has low memory footprint.

Abiword is definitely an alternative to costly products such as the MS Office suite. It is also a good alternative to OpenOffice which requires better hardware to run. Abiword can be installed on all Linux distributions.

When it comes to the interface, the software is very simple and straightforward. The learning curve is very low and the user can become very well versed with the software is just a few hours of using it. Additional functionalities can be added to the software by using plugins.

Abiword supports multiple languages. It can also check spellings and grammar in these languages–required foreign language dictionaries can be installed during software installation.

Abiword is available for Windows, Linux and FreeBSD. Since the software is open source, it is also be compile and install the software from source on all these platforms.

The latest version of Abiword features several improvements. It now integrates with AbiCollab Web service which allows users to share documents easily.

[Download Abiword: http://www.abisource.com/]

Firefox is the most popular open source web browser. The latest release is version 3.6. It is available in more than 70 languages for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Features that made Firefox popular
Some of the new features in the latest version include: personas, or themes that help users to personalize the appearance of Firefox; a plug-in updater that will detect out-of-date plug-ins; stability improvements and performance tuning. Now, we will see some features that made the user prefer Firefox over other browsers.

Fine Tunings in Tabbed browsing
Firefox supports tabbed browsing. This allows users to open multiple pages in the same window. There has been lot of fine tuning in this feature. You can rearrange your tags by dragging them. When you open a new tab in Firefox 3.5, the existing ones slide to the left. Firefox also permits multiple homepages. It may be your current pages, or a group of Bookmarks. They are automatically opened in separate tabs. You can drag a tab into a new Firefox window by dragging it to the desktop—or drag a window back into the open browser to make it a tab. Firefox offer a blank white page on new tabs. If you have multiple tabs opened and you are attempting to close the browser, it will ask whether you want to save the open tabs for your next session or just quit. If you save them, you will get all your tabs and sites when you reopen Firefox next time. Firefox had an “Open recently closed tabs” and reopen recently closed windows option. So even if you’ve closed a tab or a whole browser window unintentionally you won’t lose them.

Awesome Bar
One of the special features of Firefox is the address bar. The address bar is officially called the location bar. When you start typing in it, it suggests a list of Web destinations based on your browsing history. The search bar is resizable now. You can divide the space between the location and search bars to your taste.

There is a star in the right side of the Location bar. It gives you a simple way to mark a page as a favorite, the difference between starring and bookmarking is this. Firefox’s star saves the page as a bookmark. That means the page doesn’t show up in the top-menu Bookmarks item, but it does show up in Recently Bookmarked.

Download manager
The download manager in the Firefox has the ability to pause and resume downloads and you can search the previous downloads. Once the Download is completed it is automatically scanned for viruses. You can change the default location where downloads are saved.

Some more features of firefox on later posts. Stay close.

As the webmaster or blogger, we are so familiar with the imaging tools. If you feel that the Adobe Photoshop was too expensive to buy then this kinds of tools could be the good alternative. This good tools called Paint.NET and popular as the photo and image manipulating software for computers or laptop that run Windows platform, you can get it at no cost a.k.a free. Even it was freeware and shareware, this tools has great features that intuitive and innovative user interface with support for many layers, unlimited undo editing, special effects added, and a various variety of useful and powerful tools. But, the best part of this tools is it has an active with members growing online community. They work together and provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins for the users in the world at no cost.

Actually, this useful tools was develop at the first time by the undergraduate college of senior design project that tech and mentored by Microsoft, and now it was already maintained by some of the alumni of the college of senior design that originally worked on it. For your information, this tools was intended for the free replacement of the Microsoft Paint software that comes with Windows right now. So, you will get it as the free package when you install the Microsoft Windows at your computer. This tools was begun and grown into the powerful, affordable but yet simple image and photo editor tool for the users. Now this tools was already compared to the other paid or non paid digital photo editing software packages in the world such as Adobe® Photoshop®, Corel® Paint Shop Pro®, Microsoft Photo Editor, and The GIMP.

So, here this the simple introduction for this useful imaging tools. You can simply download it at no cost through their site at Paint.Net or through this direct Paint.NET download link. At the articles we will post about the features and the performance test for this tools. So, enjoy your weekend buddy,

If you are like the average computer user, you will have very limited idea about Linux. For most average computer users, a computer is all about the various flavors of  Windows. However, there is more to computers than Windows alone. If you are curious, Linux may just be the operating system for you to tinker, play and learn with. However, Linux is a bit difficult to use at first. And this is what stops most people from opting for this free, versatile and flexible operating system.

Linux (pronounced LI-nuks or LI-nooks) is a free computer operating system. Actually, Linux is just the kernel i.e. the core of the operating system. Most Linux distros contain thousands of free software applications. Linux is open source software. This means that the underlying code is freely available for everyone to view, modify and distribute (even sell!). You may be aware that computer applications are developed using a programming language. Operating systems are no exceptions.

Migrating from Windows to Linux can be a bit daunting. If you are used to the user interface provided by Windows, you will have to put in some effort to get used to the new interface. Linux distributions commonly contain more than one user interface. For example, you can install KDE, GNOME, FluxBox, XFCE, etc. on most Linux distributions. Some of these look similar to Windows. However, some can be quite different and you may find them a bit difficult to use.

Most software that is available for Windows has open source alternatives on Linux. For example, for Internet Explorer, you have Mozilla Firefox, Photoshop has GIMP and so on. However, the main issue here is that in some cases, the free software do tend to lag behind. For example, there is no real alternative to Photoshop. GIMP works but it lags behind Photoshop in many features.

When it comes to Linux, it is not all about money. It is about a unique intellectual culture. And this culture relies on sharing on information and helping others. You can readily get a taste of this by posting your doubts and queries to Linux forums such as http://www.linuxquestions.org. There are always people to help and you will find help. However, you have to try to find your own answers first. Remember, there is no guru elsewhere! You have to find your own guru inside you!

To get started with Linux, check out www.Ubuntu.com. Ubuntu is one of the most popular distributions today. It is also very user friendly. See www.distrowatch.com for more Linux distros.