EASEUS Partition Master is a comprehensive Windows application for easily managing hard disk partitions. Its convenient user-interface simplifies your tasks by offering many functions to manage your partitions. The Professional Edition can let you enjoy all the powerful basic and advanced partition functions.

Windows default partition manager is very basic and doesn’t offer advanced partition options. EaseUS Partition Master with Partition Recovery Wizard integrated is a comprehensive toolkit for computer users. It covers a full range of features including Partition Manager, Partition Recovery Wizard and disk & partition copy and more.

EaseUS Partition Master also allows users to create bootable disk. Using this bootable disk, you can manage hard disk partitions when the Operating System crashes. You can also resize the primary drive to reinstall other Operating Systems or even manage partitions on a computer without Operating System.

We received a trial version of EASEUS Partition Master Professional Edition for review. It came along with Linux bootable disk option.

Key Advantages of EaseUS Partition Master:

• It is an ALL-IN-ONE partition solution and the easiest and most convenient hard disk partition manager toolkit including Partition Manager, Disk & Partition Copy Wizard and Partition Recovery Wizard.
• Its built-in Linux-based bootable disk enable you manage hard disk partitions when Operating System inaccessible.
• Copy Wizard to copy partition or migrate entire hard disk to another without Windows reinstallation.
• Partition Recovery Wizard to recover deleted or lost partitions.
• Stable partition management which will protect your data.

Interface and Usability

EaseUS Partition Manager comes enriched with a hefty set of functions. The Operations area will be handy when you want to do some disk management tasks. If you are are not happy with Windows built-in backup feature; you can use the wizard and do backup and recovery tasks. This can be accomplished by using the Copy disk wizard, Copy partition wizard and Partition recovery wizard. Using the software it’s very easy to create the Linux bootable disks. Using these disks, you can rebuild MBR and can also create/delete/format partitions before installing OS. You can make bootable USB disk, CD/DVD and can export ISO image as well. The program lets you resize other NTFS partitions excluding NTFS system partition without reboot. Before that you must make sure all applications in the partition are closed.

The Disk Copy is designed to copy your entire disk to a new hard drive. There was a time when upgrading to a new hard drive meant hours of downloading your data, applications, and operating systems to disks; then more hours of reinstalling everything to the new hard drive. With Disk and Partition Copy Wizard, you can quickly and easily create an exact copy of your hard disk, including the operating system, applications, preferences, settings, and data. Partition Copy is designed to back up your partitions before the partition operations applied to the hard disk to prevent any data lost from program error or some other accidental incidents. Disk and Partition Copy Wizard can also copy dynamic volume safely to basic disk and resize it indirectly.

Partition Recovery Wizard included into EaseUS Partition Master completely protects your partition, allowing you to recover deleted or lost partitions due to a hardware or software failure. Together with Partition Manager, Copy Wizard and other useful features, you can do mostly anything you want on hard disk with EaseUS Partition Master. You must have this Partition Recovery Wizard if you care for safety of your partition and wish to be fully armed and ready for any personal, hardware or software failure, virus attack, or hacker’s intrusive destruction partition loss. You can recover the deleted or lost partition with Partition Recovery Wizard – a reliable partition recovery tool.

Other Features

• Resize dynamic volume – resize dynamic volume without data loss.
• Support command line – for easier disk management and run a batch file with no need for program running.
• Repair RAID-5 volume – repair RAID-5 by reconstructing the data of the failed member on another disk.
• Convert FAT partition to NTFS – to use the advantages of NTFS.
• Wipe data on free space – to offer a safer space for the new data.
• Disk surface test – check or find bad sectors.
• Convert primary to logical and vice versa – convert a primary volume to logical to create a fifth volume on a disk with 4 existed primary volumes.
• Defragmentation – speed up your computer.

Conclusion

EASEUS Partition Master Professional Edition with built-in Linux bootable disk license retails at $19.95. It is definitely a good software which provides great value. If you want a comprehensive solution then we must recommend going for EASEUS Partition Master with WinPE bootable disk.

Download EaseUS Partition Master

For those who may have missed this giveaway, you all can get any EASEUS product at 30% discount. Simply visit EaseUS store at http://www.easeus.com/buynow.htm, select the product you want to buy and use the coupon code: CHEN-9SCN-GIVE

EASEUS Partition Master Professional Edition with built-in Linux bootable disk License Giveaway [Expired]

Thanks to EASEUS for sponsoring 10 EASEUS Partition Master Professional Edition with built-in Linux bootable disk licenses. Being a reader of My Technology Guide, you stand a chance to win one license. All you have to do is become a subscriber and comment below. We’ll announce the winners in one week from the date of publishing this contest. For increasing your chances, you can like us, follow us and share the word about the campaign using the share buttons below.

Update: Winners are announced here.

Airtime, developed by Sourcefabric, is a free, open-source radio broadcasting software for scheduling and remote station management. The radio software runs on Linux platform, and features easy management and automation. The Airtime server software runs on Ubuntu Linux, Debian, and Red hat and multiple users can use the software to schedule radio shows remotely through any web browser. After installed, the user can control it from anywhere using a modern web browser.

Recently, Sourcefabric has released Airtime 1.8.2 with 58 improvements and bug fixes. It now provides the users ability to download audio, cancel a show that’s being recorded, and watch the recording status of a show on the “Now Playing” screen. The latest version has also improved the installation and upgrade process. A new command-line program called “airtime-check-system” now verifies the environment in which the radio software is being installed and helps troubleshoot problems.

Overview

Airtime provides a one-stop solution for a range of broadcast projects: from community to public and commercial stations. It can play the commonly used MP3 format and the open Ogg Vorbis format.

The Liquidsoap stream generator is the heart of the software. Liquidsoap generates streams from files present in the Airtime media archive, indexed in a PostgreSQL database. Live shows are automatically recorded with Ecasound, using the soundcard line input. Editors and station controllers can use Airtime to build playlists and manage files (upload, add metadata, manage advertisements) inside the station or via the Internet, using a standard web browser such as Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer.

Combining Airtime, the Liquidsoap stream generator, the PostgreSQL database and file storage, you can supply a broadcast station with all the functionality needed for automation.

How to Automate Your Own Radio Broadcasting Station?

1. After installing, login to the Dashboard.

   

2. Add your files to the library using the “Add Media” button or drag and drop files to it.

   

3. Create a playlist in the Playlist Builder menu using your audio files.

   

4. Create a show by going to “Calendar” in the menu bar, and then clicking the “+ Show” icon. This can be either a one-time or repeating show. Only admins can add shows.

   

5. Add the playlist to the show by going to your show in the Schedule calendar, left-clicking on it and selecting “Add Content.”
6. Select your playlist and drag and drop it to the “Items in this show” area.

   

Example System Diagram

In the diagram below, the media files are stored on a separate machine which also includes a PostgreSQL database, accessible through the local network. Liquidsoap outputs streams to both the transmitter and a streaming media server. The machine running Airtime is behind a firewall because it is connected both to the local network, and to the Internet for remote access. This enables Airtime to offer password-protected access to the media database and scheduling from both inside and outside the studio building.

If you want to explore more, you can explore a full demo online or download it for free.

About Sourcefabric

Sourcefabric is a Czech non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting quality journalism through open source software and tools.

Oracle’s decision to give OpenOffice.org (OOo) assets to the Apache Software Foundation and not The Document Foundation (TDF) has not stopped TDF to roll out a major release of LibreOffice (LO), a fork of OpenOffice. LibreOffice is widely adopted now and is becoming very popular. Major Linux distros including Ubuntu, Fedora and Linux Mint has dropped OOo for LO.

LibreOffice 3.4.0 is the second major release of the suite since the announcement of TDF in September 2010. LO 3.4.0 is a major release of the open-source free office suite now incorporates the contributions of more than 120 developers (six times as many as the first beta released on the launch date).

LibreOffice was created as a fork of the OpenOffice.org productivity suite back in September, of course, due to uncertainty over the future of OOo after Oracle acquired the project.

“We care for our developers, and it shows,” noted Italo Vignoli, a steering committee member and The Document Foundation official. “Our core developers have invented the mechanism of the easy hacks, which makes it simple and enjoyable for volunteer contributors to get to know LibreOffice code, challenging their development skills with basic or elementary tasks.”

“Once they have completed the first easy hacks, contributors are ready to scale to more difficult tasks”, says Michael Meeks, a senior developer working for SuSE. “We spend quite a lot of time mentoring new contributors, in order to increase the number of people working on bug fixing, patches and features. This is soon going to be reflected in the quality of the software and the number of new features of future releases”.

Improved Features of LibreOffice

1. Updates to Calc
   Calc spreadsheet now boasts faster performance and an improved compatibility with Excel spreadsheets. Pivot Table — the new name of DataPilot — now offers support for unlimited numbers of fields and named ranges as data source.

2. UI Improvements
   The user interface of Writer, Impress and Draw has been improved with many new features, and several cosmetic changes have been applied to the Linux version, with a better text rendering engine and an improved GTK+ theme integration.

3. Support for Unity
   LibreOffice’s latest release adds initial support for Unity, the new user interface of Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal).

4. Linux Performance
   LibreOffice 3.4.0 now offers smoother startup on Linux with a splash screen before starting to read all the application’s data, giving a faster time to splash and cleaner code.

5. A Smaller Windows Installer
   Shrink LibreOffice Windows installer download by more than 30 Mb using better compression schemes.

6. Parallel Installations on Linux
   LibreOffice 3.4.0 can be installed in parallel with LibreOffice 3.3 on Linux. Note that the user configuration is shared and both versions cannot be started at the same time.

7. Better Code
   Code wise, several thousand lines of German comments have been translated into English, and over 5.000 lines of dead code have been removed from Writer, Calc and Impress.

Interested users can view a complete list of new features and fixes on the LibreOffice Website.

LibreOffice Version Naming Clarification

The first release of the 3.4 series, LibreOffice 3.4.0, is targeted to community members and power users, and should not be implemented in a corporate environment. The Document Foundation has explained that following its time based release schedule – the best strategy for a distributed and cooperative development environment – the best releases for such deployments start from x.x.1. Because of this, LibreOffice 3.3.x is going to be maintained for several months to come, until the end of calendar year 2011, for the most conservative users.

LibreOffice 3.4 can be downloaded from http://www.libreoffice.org/download.

Unity is “the completely new” user experience available in Ubuntu 11.04. It is available in two versions; Unity for the powerful machines with compatible graphics cards and Unity 2D, the less hardware resource hungry version. I prefer and use Unity 2D much more than Unity 3D on my Ubuntu 11.04 system.

If you’re still stuck with Ubuntu 10.10 for some reason or the other and you don’t want to miss out entirely on the “new” Unity user experience. You can now get it on your Ubuntu 10.10 “Maverick” by using the PPA‘s listed in this article.

When Unity 2D was in its early development, Ubuntu 10.10 users were able to install it, for development purposes obviously, via the “Unity 2D PPA.” But as the launch of Natty came closer and closer, understandably the back porting for Maverick stopped.

But now Ubuntu 10.10 users can install and enjoy Unity 2D again, thanks to Ubuntu developer Adi Roban. He picked up the development where the Unity 2D team left off, and packaged Unity 2D into a PPA for Ubuntu 10.10 users. He explains on his blog:

“So being stuck with Ubuntu 10.10 I started using the Unity 2D team PPA repository. It worked quite well, until the team decided to stop supporting Unity 2D on Maverick. With valuable help from Unity 2D team I was able to build the latest Unity 2D on Maverick.”

–Adi Roban

The result of his work is a Unity 2D PPA for Ubuntu 10.10 users, available at: ppa:adiroiban/unity-2d-maverick

The code is available at lp:~adiroiban/unity-2d/unity-2d-maverick

He continues on his blog:

“The global menu is not working it the current Maverick build. I will try to fix this since I like global menu. Feel free to suggest any improvements to the current build.

Please note that the Unity 2D on Maverick is not supported by the Unity 2D team. 
In the same time, I am a junior Ubuntu packager so the package might have some bugs.”

–Adi Roban

[Thanks to OMG! Ubuntu]

Gerry Carr of Canonical has announced on the official Canonical Blog that they will be discontinuing the free CD shipping service ShipIt and would be focusing on their CD distributor programme and shipping CDs directly to LoCos instead. Below is an excerpt of the official announcement:

It’s with some regret that we are announcing the end of the ShipIt Programme and the CD distributor programme. … Technology moves on and as we look at ways to spread Ubuntu further, a CD distribution programme, especially one of that size and delivered in that way, makes less sense. We have been slowly easing back the programme over the last two years to limit the number of CDs per person and the number of times a person could apply for a CD. But for Ubuntu 11.04 you will no longer be able to go to our website and apply for a free CD.

That’s not to say there won’t be CDs. We are going to make large numbers of CDs available to the Ubuntu Local Communities (LoCos) through a shipIt-lite program. We are asking the LoCos, who are much better placed than Canonical in many ways, to find creative ways to get CDs to those that need them. And of course, every single person reading this who has a CD is a potential distributor — it is after all free to copy, modify and redistribute. We will also continue to make the packs available through the store which are sold more or less at cost price (plus shipping).

For the late comer’s: What was Shipit?

Shipit was a service that Canonical used to distribute Ubuntu CDs free of cost to individuals around the globe. Shipit came into existence when broadband was non-existence and downloading a CD ISO image was a nightmare. Since then, Canonical’s Shipit service has shipped millions of CDs worldwide freely to people who weren’t able to download it themselves. This helped millions of people discover Ubuntu, Linux and the world of open-source.

What next then?

Now, starting with Ubuntu 11.04, Canonical has decided to stop the service and people would no longer be able to order the free CDs. But people who still don’t enjoy broadband connections should not feel left out as Canonical will continue to distribute Ubuntu through a Shipit like programme LoCos. And of course, you can still buy Ubuntu CDs from the Canonical store or burn your own ones and then duplicate and distribute them.

Gerry also hinted that Canonical would be launching cloud based free online trial service.

R.I.P Shipit, we all will miss you…

BleachBit is an open source cross-platform system clean-up and privacy application for Windows and Linux operating system. Windows users do have the option of CCleaner, which recently got updated to support Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4. But what about Linux users who need to clean their Linux machine? Well, that’s where BleachBit comes in to fill the void. And the good thing about it is, it’s also available for Windows users alike.

BleachBit has added several new features to its latest version that make it an even better utility for removing unneeded/unnecessary files from your computer. On Linux systems, BleachBit can now remove swap files (in addition to swap devices). The Windows version has added the option to remove Windows Update uninstaller including hot fixes and Internet Explorer patches. It’s well worth checking out the full list of features.

Latest features introduced are as follows:

• Add command line option --preset which selects all the cleaners previously selected in the GUI.
• Specific to Linux
  • Support Thunderbird on openSUSE 11.3 thanks to Manfred Schwarb (LP#668231)
  • Fix wrong button label when adding folders for overwrite disk space and for whitelist (pointed out by jtarin)
  • When cleaning localizations, show warning to point user to configuration
  • Packagers: BleachBit will try to use the built-in json module on Python 2.6+ instead of simplejson, which is still required on Python 2.5.
• Specific to Windows
  • Import winapp2.ini files: the CCleaner community maintains winapp2.ini files with about 450 cleaner definitions. Just download a winapp2.ini file and place it in one of the BleachBit cleaner directories.
  • Internet Explorer: delete autocomplete passwords
  • Support registry keys in the HKCR (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT) hive

Use BleachBit to:

• Free disk space
• Reduce the size of backups and the time to create them by removing unnecessary files
• Maintain privacy
• Improve system performance (by vacuuming the Firefox database, for example)
• Prepare whole disk images for compression (common for “ghost” backups and virtual machines) by wiping free disk space

How to use BleachBit to clean up the system?

Ubuntu users can simply click here to install it. Other Linux systems users can easily find BleachBit in their respective repostories, or download specific version made for your Linux distribution available at the official BleachBit’s website. Windows users can download standard installer version or portable version from here.

Ubuntu users will find it in their applications menu under “System“.

By default only the programs installed in the system will show up. You can now check the things you’re interested in deleting. BleachBit will inform you about the consequences of everything as you check items for cleanup. Once you’ve selected everything, click on “Preview” to see how much disk space you can save.

After being satisfied with the result, do check settings one last time before clicking on “Delete“.

So, in a sentence: read the descriptions, check the boxes you want, click preview, and click delete.

Advanced cleaning options provided are:

• Clear the memory and swap on Linux
• Delete broken shortcuts on Linux
• Delete the Firefox version 3 URL history without deleting the whole file–with optional shredding
• Delete Linux localizations: delete languages you don’t use.
• Clean APT for Debian, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and Linux Mint
• Find widely-scatted junk such as Thumbs.db and .DS_Store files.
• Execute yum clean for CentOS, Fedora, and Red Hat to remove cached package data
• Delete Windows registry keys–often where MRU (most recently used) lists are stored
• Delete the OpenOffice.org recent documents list without deleting the whole Common.xcu file
• Overwrite free disk space to hide previously files
• Vacuum Firefox, Google, Liferea, Thunderbird, and Yum databases: shrink files without removing data to save space and improve speed
• Surgically remove private information from .ini and JSON configuration files with deleting the whole file

BleachBit is a program that can save you a lot of hard disk space quickly, but be sure you know what you’re doing.

Do you have any tips for using this program more effectively or use any other app with similar or better functionality? Share them using comments below with us!

Canonical has introduced 17 new wallpapers that will be part of the final release of the upcoming Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) operating system. The default wallpaper for Ubuntu 11.04 has also been reveled. The default wallpaper (the last one) is very similar to the Ubuntu 10.10 wallpaper. These wallpapers are created by community members. As you will see, for the first time, illustrated designs are also offered alongside traditional photographic wallpapers. On April 28th, Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) will become the 14th release of the Ubuntu operating system.

Ubuntu is one of the most widely used and popular Linux distribution. It is available for normal desktops and server and is very fast. Easy installation procedure, regular releases, a tight selection of excellent packages installed by default, every other package you can imagine available from the network, and professional technical support from Canonical Ltd and hundreds of other companies around the world is the reason behind its continued success.

In order of appearance, the wallpaper titles are: Arboreal ballet, Aubergine Sea, Berries, Bird, Fabric, Green, Grey day, Holes, Ilunabarra Azkainetik, La no alto, Quandro, Signpost, Tiny Worlds, Touch the light, Tri Narwhal, Variations On Natty Narwhal and White flowers.

Writing on the reasoning behind the subtle changes Ubuntu’s Otto Greenslade says, “…as we move towards becoming more of a ‘household’ platform and with the great changes coming with Unity (launcher/dash) general users will get reassurance from the familiarity of the wallpaper and will also identify with it as part of our personality in new screenshots.”

Natty’s kernel packages will be based on Linux kernel 2.6.38, and will come with applications such as LibreOffice 3.3, Mozilla Firefox 4, Banshee 1.9, Transmission 2.13, Pidgin 2.7.9, Mozilla Thunderbird 3.1.9 and The GIMP 2.6.11. Natty Narwhal will also include the latest stable version of the GNOME 3.0 desktop environment, which brings many improvements in various areas, such as Nautilus, Empathy, Evolution, Tomboy, Totem, Brasero, and much more.

Ubuntu 11.04 Wallpaper Pack Download

You can download the package containing all the gorgeous wallpapers from the link below:

Official Ubuntu 11.04 Wallpaper Pack: ubuntu-wallpapers_0.31.9.tar.gz

via OMGUbuntu

Mozilla has made the release candidate of Firefox 4 for Windows, Mac and Linux available for download. The release candidate has been available for a few days in more than 70 languages. If you haven’t installed the beta, then try the latest RC version because of its new features, enhanced performance and stability and HTML5 capabilities. Firefox respects your privacy and safeguards your security with new features, like Do Not Track and Content Security Policy.

Changes have been made to Firefox 4′s overall appearance, specifically changing the tab location, to above the address bar, and Pin tabs very similar to Google Chrome. Tabs are given top visual priority for more efficient and intuitive browsing. You can now drag and drop your tabs into manageable groups that you can organize, name and arrange in a fun and visual way. More than 70 percent of Firefox Add-ons are now compatible with Firefox 4. If your favorite add-on isn’t marked as compatible, you can help test it using the Firefox Add-ons Compatibility Reporter. Mozilla Firefox 4 team has fixed more than 8,000 bugs since the first beta release of Firefox 4.

With a fresh new look and features like App Tabs and Panorama, Firefox makes it easier and more efficient to navigate the Web. With Panorama, you can drag and drop tabs into manageable groups to organize, name and arrange in a fun and visual way. You can easily group tabs for work, home, hobbies, research or whatever you like, to save you the time and frustration of navigating many open tabs. To get started with Panorama, right-click on any tab to Move to Group.

Firefox 4 Pin Tab feature called App Tabs

App Tabs helps take sites you always keep open like Web mail, music and social networking websites off your tab bar and give them a permanent home in your browser. App Tabs offer a better way to manage tabs that you use frequently to give a permanent home to the sites you always keep open. Right click on any tab to Pin as App Tab. Another feature is Switch to Tab that helps you navigate more easily by switching to open tabs from your Awesome Bar.

Firefox Sync is also improved in Firefox 4

Firefox Sync is integrated into Firefox, giving you access to your Awesome Bar history, bookmarks, open tabs and passwords across computers and mobile devices. The new Firefox Sync user interface also makes it even easier to set up, helping you go from work to home to mobile and back with ease. Set up your Sync account in the Options window.

Firefox 4 Add-on Manager is also revamped

The new revamped Add-on manager facilitates an easier way to manage your add-ons and discover new options for personalizing your browsing. You can easily browse descriptions, see screenshots, ratings and recommendations before you install. The Add-ons Manager also lets you view and manage third-party plugins and automatically updates all of your add-ons.

Firefox 4 also contains huge performance enhancements, including our brand new JägerMonkey JavaScript engine. From faster start-up times and graphics rendering to improved page load speed, you’ll notice the difference instantly. Firefox 4 also includes performance enhancements to make everything faster, from start-up time to page-load speed, and the performance of Web applications and games.

Firefox HTML5 support includes hardware accelerated,high-definition video (WebM), 3D graphics, offline data storage, professional typography, touchscreen interfaces, the Mozilla Audio API to help create visual experiences for sound and more.

If you want to give Firefox 4 RC a try, click here to download now.

Bleeding Edge is a Linux shell-script designed for the popular Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) operating system, both 32-bit and 64-bit version of Ubuntu are supported. With the help of Bleeding Edge, you can easily install all the multimedia codecs, system fonts, Flash Player, Mozilla Firefox 4, Ubuntu Tweak, Hulu, LibreOffice, VirtualBox 4 and more with just a click.

Bleeding Edge can also install additional software repositories, disable the annoying system beep, enable 5.1 sound support, install restricted extras and media players, move the window buttons to the right, install proprietary hardware drivers, and the “Open in Terminal” extension for GNOME/Nautilus.

Bleeding Edge can also clean your system. That means removing locales (language files), removing old kernels, removing apt cache, removing config files for unused .deb packages, and emptying the trash.

How To Install Bleeding Edge in Ubuntu?

The installation process is the same for both Ubuntu 32-bit and 64-bit operating system, and requires you to download a .sh (shell-script) file. Once you have .sh file you need to give execute permissions to the file, you can do this by two ways.

Right-click on the downloaded .sh file, select Properties.

Select the Permissions tab, check the Execute option and close the Properties dialog box.

Now, double-click the .sh file and choose the Run in terminal option, follow the on-screen instructions.

The second simple option which I like is using the terminal. Type the following command at the Terminal and press Enter:

sudo chmod +x BleedingEdge1_0_6.sh

You can then run this script using the following command at the Terminal:

sudo sh BleedingEdge1_0_6.sh

Now, simply select the applications that you want to install and let Bleeding Edge do the magic for you.

And also the cleaning:

NEWS is a free open source RSS ticker for Windows and Linux systems. It lets you stay up-to-date with the latest news from your favourite feeds directly on your desktop. With a single click, you get the latest headlines scrolling in a thin window on your desktop (similar to what can be seen on News TV channels).

News is light on resources and an extensive set of preferences lets you easily control the scrolling speed, update, fonts, bar size, transparency, colours, and a lot more options. The default feed is provided by BBC News but you can change it via ‘File > Open RSS feed’.

Simply tweak the settings of News to display it the way you want to on your desktop and you will love it.

After a few tweaks, below is what I got on my Ubuntu Desktop:

You can download News from the download links given below:

[ Download News RSS Ticker ] [ Mirror Download Link (only for Windows) ] [Source]

Here’s a quick update for all our Mozilla Firefox web browser users. Mozilla has updated its popular web browser Firefox incrementing the version to Firefox 3.6.11. This new version fixes several stability and security issues found in the earlier version Firefox 3.6.10.

Users who are already using Mozilla Firefox can update to the latest version by using clicking on the Help menu and selecting Check for Updates option. Firefox will also automatically let know users automatically about the update very soon.

Other users can download Firefox 3.6.11 using the following direct download links:

Download Firefox 3.6.11 (Windows)

Download Firefox 3.6.11 (Mac OS X)

Download Firefox 3.6.11 (Linux)

Interested users can go through the Release Notes of Firefox 3.6.11 to find out what is new and what bugs are squashed (fixed!).

The folks behind one of the World’s favorite media player VideoLAN Media Player (VLC) are developing a video editor called VideoLAN Movie Creator(VLMC). VLMC will be cross-platform just like VLC media player and will work on Windows, Linux, and Mac platform.

It is under development stage at this moment. If you are feeling adventurous and want to test it then you can download a pre-release version from the VideoLAN Movie Creator website. Please keep in mind that this is an early release, and that it has lots of bugs.

Watch the two demo videos of VLMC created by the vlmcteam:

What is run level?

If you are new to the Linux environment then the term runlevel may be new to you, so I will first try to clear what the term runlevel in Linux/Unix environment refers to. Runlevel in Linux or Unix refers to a mode of operation of the operating system, essentially dictating the system’s behavior. Conventionally, seven runlevels exist, numbered from zero to six, although users may use runlevel up to ten, from zero to nine. Each runlevel serves a specific purpose and remember that only one “runlevel” is executed on bootup and runlevel are not executed sequentially. For example, either runlevel 2 or 3 or 5 is executed, and not 2 then 3 then 5.

If I speak in more technical terms, the init process is the first non-kernel process that is started, and therefore you will find that it always gets the process ID number of 1. You can find it using the top command in the terminal. init reads its configuration file, /etc/inittab, and then determines the runlevel where it should start. A runlevel of initdefault is selected if it exists otherwise you are prompted to supply a runlevel value.

The different runlevel values are as follows:

• 0 = Halt the system
• 1 = Enter single-user mode (no networking is enabled)
• 2 = Multiuser mode, but without NFS
• 3 = Full multiuser mode (normal operation)
• 4 = Unused
• 5 = Same as runlevel 3, except that it uses the X Window System to login rather than the text-based login system
• 6 = Reboot the system

The exact setup of these configurations will vary from different operating system to operating system, and from one Linux distribution to another. When installing Linux, it is best to consult that distribution’s available user guides. In standard practice, when a computer enters runlevel zero, it halts, and when it enters runlevel six, it reboots. Default runlevels are typically 3 or 5.

How to determine the current run level?

There are different ways of finding the current runlevel in Linux. Two of them are as follows:

$ who -r

You can also use the option --runlevel instead of -r.

Linux has another command called runlevel which also prints the current runlevel.

$ runlevel

If you know about other commands that also prints the current runlevel, do share with us through comments below.

Opera Developers has released Opera 10.62, which is a recommended upgrade offering security and stability enhancements. It is highly recommends for all Opera web browser users to upgrade to the latest version to take advantage of the security and stability improvements.

Opera 10.62 is based on the brand new version of Presto, Opera’s rendering engine. It now uses Presto 2.6.30 that includes support for several new HTML5 features, such as GeoLocation, Web Workers and Offline applications.

The change log for Opera 10.62 can be found at the following links:

[box type="info" style="rounded" border="full"]Windows Users[/box]

[box type="info" style="rounded" border="full"]Mac Users[/box]

[box type="info" style="rounded" border="full"]Unix/Linux Users[/box]

You can download Opera 10.62 from the download link below:
[box type="download" style="rounded" border="full"]Download Opera Latest Version[/box]

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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.

[box type="note"]Interested users wishing to find out more should consult the official change-log.[/box]

[box type="info"]Release Notes 10.04.1[/box]

[box type="tick"]On a side-note, Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat), the next “standard” release, is due on October 10, 2010.[/box]

Thanks to OMG! Ubuntu for the update.

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.

The collection of portable Linux applications includes almost all the useful apps (see screenshot above) like media players, instant messaging clients, chat clients, graphics and drawing tools, compression utilities, note taking tools, console applications (Terminator, etc) audio editors, system tools and many more.

You just need to download your favorite apps from PortableLinuxApps.org and save them to your USB flash drive. Carry it around and run from any Linux machine you have access to!

According to PortableLinuxApps.org,

“These Apps have been tested on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) 32-bit, OpenSUSE 11.3 (GNOME) 32-bit , and Fedora 12 (GNOME) 32-bit. Just Download, Make Executable, and Run!“

What are your favorite portable Linux applications? Share below through your comments, I will love to hear about them!

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”.

Just like “Pin Tab” in Google Chrome, “App Tabs” reduces the normal tabs into the site’s favicon and places it to the leftmost side of the tabbar. Even though I couldn’t get App Tabs to re-appear when I relaunched Firefox, but Mozilla says they’ll stick, and show up in their own space.

Mozilla developers have also created a short video to show the new App Tab feature:

Whats new in Firefox 4 Beta 2?

• Firefox 4 Beta 2 is available in 24 languages.
• Tabs are now on top by default on Windows and OS X - Linux will be changing when the theme has been modified to support the change.
• You can turn any tab into an “App Tab” by right-clicking on it and selecting “Make into App Tab” from the context menu.
• Web developers can animate content using CSS Transitions.
• Responsiveness and scrolling improvements from the new retained layers layout system.
• JavaScript speed improvements due to engine optimizations.
• Changes to how XPCOM components are registered to help startup time and process separation.
• See the complete changelog from the earlier beta.

This Firefox 4 Beta is considered to be stable and safe to use for daily web browsing, though the features and content may change before the final product release. At this time many Add-ons may not yet have been tested by their authors to ensure that they are compatible with this release.

You can download it using following link:

[ Download Mozilla Firefox 4 Beta 2 ]

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.

Simply follow the steps below:

Run the following commands one by one in your terminal and you will have the equalizer presets of Winamp in your favorite Linux music player.

Step 1: Download the Winamp equalizer presets using the following command in your terminal:

wget http://www.beastwithin.org/users/wwwwolf/code/xmms/winamp_presets.gz

Step 2: Import the downloaded Winamp equalizer presets into Audacious, BMP, and XMMS respectively using the commands as follows:

gunzip -c winamp_presets.gz > ~/.config/audacious/eq.preset
gunzip -c winamp_presets.gz > ~/.bmp/eq.preset
gunzip -c winamp_presets.gz > ~/.xmms/eq.preset

In case you don’t need all of them or haven’t installed any of the above mentioned player then you don’t have to run the command for that player. For example, if you don’t have BMP installed in your machine, then you don’t have to execute the command gunzip -c winamp_presets.gz > ~/.bmp/eq.preset into your terminal.

Enjoy your music and don’t forget to tell us about your experience using equalizer presets in Linux music players!

Mozilla developers have recently released the first beta of Firefox 4.0 web browser. Many new changes can be seen in Firefox 4.0. The most significant change in this version is the new user interface. Browser tabs are now located on top of the address bar by default (on Windows only – OS X and Linux will be changing when the theme has been modified to support the change) just like in Google Chrome web browser. But users do have the option to revert the user interface to the old Firefox design.

A second major change that cannot go undetected is the addition of the Firefox button on Windows Vista and Windows 7 that replaces the menu bar, and looks very similar to the One button present in Opera web browser. It will be shown if the user decides to hide the menu bar in the browser.

Other notable changes are as follows:

• You can search for and switch to already open tabs in the Smart Location Bar
• New Addons Manager and extension management API (UI will be changed before final release)
• Significant API improvements are available for JS-ctypes, a foreign function interface for extensions.
• The stop and reload buttons have been merged into a single button on Windows, Mac and Linux.
• The Bookmarks Toolbar has been replaced with a Bookmarks Button by default (you can switch it back if you’d like).
• Crash protection for Windows, Linux, and Mac when there is a crash in the Adobe Flash, Apple Quicktime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins.
• CSS Transitions are partially supported.
• Full WebGL support is included but disabled by default at this time.
• Core Animation rendering model for plugins on Mac OS X. Plugins which also support this rendering model can now draw faster and more efficiently.
• Native support for the HD HTML5 WebM video format.
• An experimental Direct2D rendering backend is available on Windows, turned off by default.
• Web developers can use Websockets for a low complexity, low latency, bidirectional communications API.
• Web developers can update the URL field without reloading the page using HTML History APIs.
• More responsive page rendering using lazy frame construction.
• Link history lookup is done asynchronously to provide better responsiveness during pageload.
• CSS :visited selectors have been changed to block websites from being able to check a user’s browsing history.
• New HTML5 parser.
• Support for more HTML5 form controls.

Users can views a WebM video about the new release here. Interested users can read about the release notes of Firefox 4.0 beta 1 here.

[ Download Firefox 4.0 beta 1 for Mac, Windows and Linux , Multi-language for all platforms ]

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.

Universal USB Installer at this moments supports a huge number of Linux distributions, including both the 32 and 64-bit versions of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu and sysadmin or technicians favorites like Backtrack, GParted, DBAN, Clonezilla, OphCrack, and System Rescue CD. It even supports Dr.Web Live CD Scanner, SliTaZ Cooking, Ultimate Boot CD, and more. The updated full list of supported distribution is available at the developer’s page.

The Universal USB Installer is very easy to use. Simply choose any one of the Live Linux distribution ISO file that is now supported by it, grab your USB flash drive and, click on Install. If you run Universal USB Installer from the same directory containing an installable ISO, the script will auto-detect the ISO and install it on your flash drive.

Universal USB Installer at this moment does not support installing and booting from multiple Linux Distributions, but the developer’s are promising addition of this feature soon.

[ Download Universal USB Installer ]