My Technology Guide: Windows, Mac, Linux, Internet, Software, Review

Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx), is a LTS (Long Term Support) release and will be receiving performance, bug and security fixes until April 2013. The very first major "maintenance" update to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS is out now and is available for download. With the release of first update 10.04.1, the second version of the update Ubuntu 10.04.2 is scheduled to be released in January 2011.

Mozilla Messaging has released the new update of the most popular email client Mozilla Thunderbird and now the version is 3.1.2. This releases fixes some stability issues and several user experience concerns.

Thunderbird 3.1.2 fixes the following issues in Thunderbird 3.1.1:

• Several fixes to improve stability.
• Several fixes to the user interface.

My regular readers knows how much I am fond of portable applications. After all why I will not? See, there are many advantages of portable apps. You can easily carry them around in your USB flash drive or portable hard drive and use them even if the computer does not have them installed. Till now, I have mostly talked about Windows compatible portable apps.

Thankfully, I have found a website known as "Portable Linux Apps" or PortableLinuxApps.org for satisfying my thirst for Linux platform compatible portable apps. Portable Linux Apps is a free web service that hosts a collection of many useful Linux applications.

Mozilla has released the second beta version of its improved and redesigned Firefox 4 web browser. The new version can be downloaded from the release notes or official beta download page. It available for all supported operating systems (Linux, Mac, Windows) and now available in 24 languages. This second beta release also gives Apple Mac's the same tabs-on-top look as in Windows. The one orange main button is still isn't there in the Mac version, but the new toolbar formations are available now.

The most "talked about" new feature in Firefox 4 Beta 2 is "App Tabs", which looks like Google Chrome's "Pin Tab" feature. This "App Tabs" mode lets you keep an eye on sites you want to. Now, every tab in Firefox 4 has this new option "Make into App Tab," on right-click to convert it into an "App Tab".

Linux users always miss out on one feature that their Windows counterparts enjoy while listening to music. Most of the time, while listening to music using music players like Audacious, BMP, XMMS, etc in Linux, users misses out the equalizer presets that is present in most of the Windows music players like of Winamp, iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc.

For any die-hard music-aficionado who loves to listen to music and cannot compromise with quality, can never forgive a player that doesn't comes with an equalizer preset. If you are a music lover who don't likes to compromise with music and likes to have equalizer presets for fine tuning his music, there's a simple trick to import the Winamp equalizer presets into your Audacious, BMP, XMMS, etc Linux music players.

I triple boot my system with Windows XP, Windows 7 and Ubuntu but I also like to test other Linux distributions. Most of the time, to test the other operating system and distributions, I use VirtualBox or VMware to virtualize them. But for those Linux distributions that offers Live CD/DVD option, I use my USB flash drive to test them live. This saves me time as I don't have to first configure the virtual machine and install the Linux distro to test it. In my previous articles, I covered two softwares, UNetbootin and Multiboot USB Menu that helps me to make the distros ready to be booted directly off my USB flash device.

Another, very good utility that helps me create persistent storage on my flash drive is Pendrive Linux's Universal USB Installer. What I meant when I said "persistent storage"? It means that you'll actually have some permanent storage space in your flash drive to save things like your files and preferences, instead of having a clone of your disc image in your flash drive.