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Recently I purchased a MacBook Pro. Principally because I like the hardware, and can put Linux on it. However, it has also given me the opportunity to use OSX. In fact I’ve been using OSX quite a lot – given I’ve paid for it, I want to really see how it works. However, in the course of using it, I’ve come across a number of features of Linux and the KDE desktop that I greatly miss.

Recently, I wrote a post about the KDE 4.5 SC release candidate. In that post, I was a little bit critical about the discoverability of desktop activities. I wasn’t too sure of what the purpose of these were, and there was nothing in the interface for creating these activities that gave the user any hint of what they were. This article provides an update on desktop activities.

This is the third in a series of posts about the pre-releases of KDE SC 4.5. This one is about the first release candidate. In the previous posts about beta 1 and beta 2 I went over the new features in 4.5 – few as they are. I also pointed out that one of the focuses of this release is stability.

One thing that is always of concern when dealing with Apple is the extent to which Apple might break “unauthorised” access to “your” device with a new OS update. The recent 1.0 release of libimobiledevice allows access to iPhones and iPads on Linux. So does iOS4 break this newcomer to the iPhone scene?

Having given a quick overview of the first beta of the latest KDE SC release last week, a couple of days later, beta 2 was released. So dutifully, I have updated to KDE SC 4.5 beta 2 to see what’s changed.

The latest in the 4.x series of the KDE Software Compilation is due to be released in early August 2010. With the first beta of this release recently unleashed, I thought I’d download the openSuse packages and see what 4.5’s got in store for us.

In the last three years, Microsoft claims to have entered into over 600 licensing agreements with companies small and large over alleged patent violations in "Linux".

Yet again, with Lucid Lynx, Ubuntu has shunned a much better technology for no good reason other than what appears to be NIH syndrome. Ubuntu 10.04 came out last week, and included a movie editor in the default install for the first time. The movie editor they chose: PiTiVi.

Calcuverter is a calculator and unit converter in one. Furthermore, you can enter queries in plain English.

In this howto, I’ll show how to create and install ringtones on your iPhone. There are a bunch of howtos around the internets on how to do this using Windows, and possibly on Linux with jailbroken phones. However, I haven’t seen one showing how to do it using just Linux, without having to jailbreak your phone. So here goes.

For a long time, using an iPhone with Linux was a complete no go. With a jailbroken phone, you could mount it over a wireless connection using fuse, and then sync music your music that way – but syncing an entire music collection via wifi? No thanks. However, thanks to some rather clever folk, there’s a new solution that gives you access to a whole lot of your iPhone functions on Linux “natively”.

irtualisation is a bit of a buzz word at the moment. Virtualisation can be used for all sorts of different computing tasks from server consolidation to cross-platform software development, to running that one "must-have" app in that "I - wish - I - didn't - have - to - use - this - damned - OS" OS.

kdenlive is a video editor that doesn't have the same profile as other editors on linux. However, it is a credible application for consumer level video editing for linux. It has a nice intuitive interface, is stable and fast, incredibly versatile in terms of file formats, and has some great editing tools and effects. With a bit more polish, it could easily become the "iMovie" of linux. This article has a quick look at kdenlive, its installation, features and usage.

Following on from three earlier articles, linux howtos brings you two more articles highlighting usability features of beryl - the wheel window switcher and the "wall" for managing virtual desktops.

There are a lot of linux users who might be wondering why all the fuss over beryl. It's just eyecandy, so why would I want that chewing up processor cycles, which could be more productively used elsewhere? While I'm a bit of a slave to eyecandy myself, there are a whole bunch of plugins for beryl that not only look cool, but can enhance workflow and usability. This series of articles looks at a few of them.

One of the big challenges of linux that newbies face is compiling software. This howto could help you to compile the software successfully.

Following on from the well received article on consumer video editing on linux, linux howtos has another useful article giving an overview of the state of dvd authoring software available on the linux platform. Given the ubiquity of dvd burners on desktops and laptops, the ability to author a nice looking dvd menu is becoming more important.

With the advancement in digital video technology (with digital cameras that can create video, as well as video cameras that record direct to dvd), video editing is fast becoming a core function of the desktop. This is an overview of the state of consumer video editing software on linux.