Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on January 11, 2008 by CyberNet.

I can’t believe it’s finally here, but KDE 4 has been pushed out the door! After about 8-months of rigorous testing of pre-release versions they have managed to get a stable edition of KDE 4 assembled and made available to the public.

I read a lot of information this morning in regards to KDE 4, and from what I can tell the general consensus is that anyone wanting to be on the bleeding edge of software will be running it. However, some people have been noticing that it’s a little slower than KDE 3.5, and for that reason a majority of the audience will hold off until KDE 4.1 is released. It’s kind of like waiting for Service Pack 1 to be released for Windows before you make the upgrade. Even Kubuntu 8.04, scheduled for release in April, is expected to have KDE 3.5 enabled by default, but it will include the KDE 4 packages so that users can make the switch.

Below you’ll find all kinds of information in regards to the new KDE 4. First off we take you through a rundown of the features. Then we give you step-by-step instructions on how to get KDE 4 setup in your existing Kubuntu installation, and finally we wrap things up with what the plans are for several different Linux distrubutions in regards to KDE 4. To get the ball rolling let’s flip through some of the cool new features offered in KDE 4:

–Features–

• Dolphin has replaced Konqueror as the default file manager, and initially I would have to say that it looks pretty nice. It almost reminds me of a Mac at first glance.

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• Plasma breathes new life into the KDE widgets.

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• Application launcher fans rejoice! KRunner will let you run applications, open websites, and even do simple calculations.

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• KWin brings some more advanced window previews, which is useful for things like tiling all of your open windows. It can also be useful for managing your virtual desktops:

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• The Kickoff Start Menu is a drastic redesign from what you’re probably used to in KDE. It has a tabbed interface for quick access to your favorite applications, files on your computer, and more. Generally I think people will like it.

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–Kubuntu & KDE 4–

The Kubuntu team wanted to make it easy for anyone to try out the new KDE 4, and to do so they released a Live CD of Kubuntu 7.10 that is packaged with it. For those of you wanting to do this on your existing installation here are the steps you need to follow:

1. Remove previous KDE 4 packages, they are not compatible (apt-get remove kdelibs5 kde4base-data kde4libs-data)
2. Add deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu gutsy main to your /etc/apt/sources.list
3. Install kde4-core, note that PPAs aren’t authenticated so you will likely get a warning when installing
4. KDE 4 apps should appear in your KDE 3 K-menu or you can run a full session by selecting “KDE 4″ from your login manager.
5. To avoid having to start a second X server for a full session install xserver-xephyr and run Xephyr :1 then and run /usr/lib/kde4/bin/startkde in the Xerphyr xterm.

–Distribution Status–

• An alpha version of KDE4-based Arklinux 2008.1 is expected shortly after this release, with an expected final release within 3 or 4 weeks.
• Debian KDE 4.0 packages are available in the experimental branch. The KDE Development Platform will even make it into Lenny. Watch for announcements by the Debian KDE Team. Rumours are that a Live CD is planned as well.
• Fedora will feature KDE 4.0 in Fedora 9, to be released in April, with Alpha releases being available from 24th of January. KDE 4.0 packages are in the pre-alpha Rawhide repository.
• Gentoo Linux provides KDE 4.0 builds on http://kde.gentoo.org.
• Kubuntu packages are included in the upcoming “Hardy Heron” (8.04) and also made available as updates for the stable “Gutsy Gibbon” (7.10). A Live CD is available for trying out KDE 4.0. More details can be found in the announcement on Kubuntu.org.
• Mandriva will provide packages for 2008.0 and aims at producing a Live CD with the latest snapshot of 2008.1.
• openSUSE packages are available for openSUSE 10.3 (one-click install), openSUSE Factory (one-click install) and openSUSE 10.2. A KDE Four Live CD with these packages is also available. KDE 4.0 will be part of the upcoming openSUSE 11.0 release.

KDE 4 Announcement
Thanks for the tip Mohan!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on January 03, 2008 by CyberNet.

We’ve previously raved about the excellent Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI). It provides up-to-date information on over 5,500 applications, and since the Beta stage back in July 2007 they have revamped the interface to make it more user friendly.

This is the first Release Candidate of Secunia PSI, and I have to say that they are providing an incredible service at no cost. The new version, in addition the the updated interface, will let you track how well you’ve been keeping up with patches from week to week.

Some of you might be familiar with the web-based Secunia Software Inspector, and are probably wondering why it’s worth installing this program. As I mentioned earlier the Secunia PSI is able to monitor over 5,500 apps for updates, but the web-based version only checks 40 different programs. Naturally you can see the benefit of using the application.

Now it’s time for you to join the 200,000+ users that are already using Secunia PSI, which has monitored over 16 million programs. It can run discretely in your Windows System Tray, and only notifies you when your attention is needed. Looks like it is time to get your computer up-to-date!

Secunia PSI (Windows 2000/XP SP2/2003/Vista)
Thanks for the tip “S”!

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

This article was written on April 12, 2011 by CyberNet.

If you’ve been looking for a light desktop email application I’d give EmailTray a high recommendation. This isn’t something that is designed to replace those full-fledged programs such as Outlook or Thunderbird, but when it comes to a simple mail manager and notifier it does quite well. Plus this will monitor multiple webmail accounts, POP or IMAP, for free.

Looking at the screenshot above you can probably tell that EmailTray does its best to categorize the emails you receive based on what it thinks are important. This reminds me of Gmail’s Priority Inbox, but the nice thing is that it all works locally on your machine. There is no information being sent to their servers, which I’m sure makes users feel more comfortable trying it out. Having used this app for a few weeks I’d say that it does a decent job of assigning priorities, and in the event it gets something wrong you can always manually change the priority of a particular email.

Here are some of the features they highlight:

• Monitors all email accounts, including those based on Webmail, POP3 and IMAP.
• View and reply to messages.
• Analyzes your read/respond/delete/forward actions, as well as interconnections between email senders, to rank incoming emails by importance.
• Get notified about new important emails with a pop-up ticker and sound.
• Scans the Spam boxes of all your accounts (webmail and Outlook) to recover important messages mistakenly trapped by spam filters.
• Never sends the subject lines nor texts of your emails to its servers. Our smart algorithm will help analyze your email behavior locally on your computer.

It should be noted that in the settings you can configure how notifications work, and whether you only get prompted for one or all of the priority levels. Also, the most frequently you can have it check for new mail is every 5-minutes, which is something that may disappoint those of you that prefer that 1-minute interval that some other apps offer.

EmailTray Homepage (Windows only; Freeware)

Copyright © 2013 CyberNetNews.com

Windows users rejoice: the days of only being able to install apps on five different devices will soon be over. Starting October 9th, apps purchased with a single Windows Store account will be sharable among up to 81 devices. If you recall, we learned back at Build that Microsoft would be increasing the app roaming limit, but today’s announcement clarifies some key details nonetheless. Says the company in a blog post: “The change we’re introducing will reduce the friction that most active customers have in being able to access their favorite apps from any device, and will give developers additional opportunities to monetize.” This of course means one other thing: you’re going to need a bigger backpack.

Filed under: Software, Microsoft

Comments

Source: Windows App Builder Blog

This article was written on March 26, 2007 by CyberNet.

Zimbra has launched their Desktop Web 2.0 Application for download, and what’s special about it is that it offers both online and offline functionality which means you can work no matter where you are.

For starters, Zimbra Desktop is available for Windows, Apple, and Linux operating systems, and can be used with Firefox, IE, or Safari web browsers. It provides users offline access to their selection of Ajax applications.  Currently their big feature is that you’ll have full email support, as well as access to your contacts both online and offline.

In the near future, they also plan on adding support for calendar, documents, and zimlets as well as the option to choose the folders that you want to synchronize. Zimbra Desktop is in the Alpha stage for people to evaluate it, test it, and report bugs that they come across.

Because you can use their services both online and offline, you can work no matter where you are; on the plane, in the car, wherever you might be. Many online services are going offline recently.  It’s becoming the new trend which will help those who use these services to be more productive.  There’s a whole list of them, but one you might be familiar with that we’ve mentioned before is called Scrybe.  It works similarly, and offers support both online and offline for a Calendar and Task Manager.

While Firefox 3 is still in the works, it is also said to offer offline support for web applications like Google Calendar. This is a big deal because it would give people free offline access to some of their favorite online services.

When these Web 2.0 applications can work just as well offline as online, it’s a good deal for everyone involved.  Zimbra says that they haven’t set prices yet for this Desktop application but eventually, there will be a price. The download links are found here (you’ll need at least 256 MB of free memory to run it), and they also have a Quick Start Guide with instructions to help you get started.

Source: TechCrunch

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