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So you downloaded all the X-Files seasons and every episode is packed in RAR. You can use unrarr to recursively unpack the contents of each archive by following these install steps.

Gedit is one of the most widely-used GUI text editors available in Linux. Every GNOME user resorts to using Gedit if not working in the command line because the editor is not only fast, but also extensible via a series of plugins. This article discusses some of the most useful such plugins and how they can make your text editing easier.

Slowly but steadily, Mozilla grew into more areas of interest than someone could have previously imagined. Firefox, Thunderbird, Instabird for instant messaging and... Songbird. The latter is a promising audio application some of you might have gotten yourselves accustomed to. The 1.0.0 release launched in the first days of December delivers an impressive arsenal ranging from themes to add-ons. Just like in Firefox's case, these add-ons extend the application's possibilities beyond the original intent. Here are ten such extensions you might find interesting.

Besides being a great video player, MPlayer also comes with a great utility for converting video files to different formats. You can use mencoder via the command line or in conjunction with one of the many user interfaces available for it, but CLI has obvious advantages over a predefined GUI because of the options it gives the user. I can't think of a single video filetype that mencoder couldn't convert for me when I needed it.

More than a year ago, the netbooks took the hardware world by assault. What at first looked like an innocent mini laptop, turned out to be the best thing that happened to hardware providers in the last five years. It all started with Asus and their EeePC, and now there isn't a big name in the industry that hasn't either already started a line of netbooks or planning to launch one soon. From Acer to Dell to more underground firms, companies try to offer the cheapest and smallest laptops, providing at the same time functionality needed by today's standards.

Say you want to share a folder for a friend. What better way than pointing him to an URL? Put this in your .bash_profile and login to your account.

I have been using Joomla! for more than four years now and build tens of web portals and minor sites with it. Nevertheless, I'm still amazed by the complexity of the CMS. With all the pluses Joomla! gets, there's however a big downside to it: the more third party modules and components you install, the more vulnerable it gets and the more time you have to spend checking it. The Joomla! Web Security book that Packt Publishing released at the end of 2008 came in handy. It discusses the vulnerability and security part of Joomla! and teaches you how to ensure a solid CMS installation.

Linux users enjoy various sets of tools that allow one to record the active desktop. From GUI applications to command line scripts. A simple way is to use just vncserver: vncserver -geometry 800×600 Open another Terminal window an type vncrec -record desktop.vncrec to start recording.

For those of you who have not heard of Joomla!, it is a content management system that allows one to build a complex web portal without the need of advanced web programming knowledge. You download it, install it, add a template then enrich the CMS with extensions. This way you can transform your site into a webshop, link directory, photo gallery and pretty much anything you set your mind to. But like any other CMS, Joomla! is not perfect.

Free software is sought by Internet users everywhere because it is accessible right away and doesn't cost a dime. But did you know there's something better? Try open-source software. Open-source software goes beyong being free. If from a freeware application you can expect no costs, from an open-source one you can expect the same, plus the ability to tweak it in ways you never thought developers would allow you to. And not only that.

When you spend one half of your life using Windows, switching to Linux can be a little bit confusing at first. Just like any other new thing in your life, it may need growing accustomed to it. While Linux may look similar at first, there are some things you need to know before you embark on your Linux journey.

Some videos you download might not have such a high audio volume, even with alsamixer set to 100%. There’s a trick for this. Start your video with mplayer -softvol -softvol-max 300 video_file.avi to boost your volume 300%. Substitute 300 with any number ranging from 10 to 10000. Be careful not to break your speakers.

If you manage to freeze your system in such a way that even Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn’t work anymore, the mouse is stuck on the screen any none of the key combinations will work, don’t think of the reset button just yet.

The iPhone and iPod Touch haven taken the mobile market by storm. Apple's AppStore is full of interesting applications that take advantage of the two devices's capabilities. But what's in there for Linux users? Sadly, GTKPod and Amarok cannot yet transfer files on an iPhone with the 2.x firmware upgrade, but there are other interesting ways your iPhone can interact with your Linux desktop and even servers.

Linux applications do not yet support the newest 2.x Apple firmware for the iPhone and iPod Touch. But if you want to copy images from the Pictures folder, all you need is SSH installed on the device

Tips4Linux.com is a new Linux Tips site that brings a new interesting small how-to every day. Learn how to add extra SWAP space on the fly or convert videos for PocketPC devices. Unmount stubborn devices or block IP's with IPTABLES by adding them to a simple text file.

One of these days I said, the perfect OS would be XP with more ram support (32 bit versions), the eyecandy from Leopard and the useful smart little features from Linux. Ubuntu is an african word meaning: if you want to run a usefull program you need to use wine (that in fact creates a virtual windows station with windows directories like windows / program files directly on your HDD).

Linux and UNIX-like operating systems in general are regarded as being more secure for the common user, in contrast with operating systems that have "Windows" as part of their name. Why is that? When entering a dispute on the subject with a Windows user, the most common argument he tries to feed me is that Windows is more widespread, and therefore, more vulnerable. Apart from amusing myths like "Linux is only for servers" or "does it have a word processor?", the issue of Linux desktop security is still seriously misunderstood.

HTB-Tools is one handy bandwidth management set of applications for Linux. Now, with WebHTB you can apply rules and do trafic shaping as you please, through a cool-looking AJAX-based web interface. Adding and deleting clients can be done in just a few clicks. Trafic shaping can be done with both public and private IP addresses.

I’ve been a KDE user for many years. Maybe it’s just me, maybe the UI world is changing, but the newest incarnation of KDE sucks big time. All was fine until the 4.x series, then suddenly, the switch was made and what do we have now? All glitter, all bloatware. And what’s with the desktop icons? Where’s the simplicity? Do you want to confuse new users to death?