Network booting via PXE can be a life-saver when you have a box that won't boot by any other means, or you want to roll out upgrades across a hundred machines without jamming a CD into them individually. Our PC Plus brethren have put up a tutorial for booting Linux via a network connection, explaining how to install a DNS server, configure DHCP and set up TFTP to transfer the boot image.
28.06.2009. 02:02
Songbird, the open-source, Mozilla-based music player, has a bunch of new features in version 1.2 that make it worth taking a look at. The most important addition is 2-way iTunes syncing, so you can import and export songs and playlists back and forth between Songbird and iTunes. If you thought the whole point of Songbird was to keep you from having to use iTunes, this feature won't make you happy, but if you have an iPod or iPhone that you want to put music on, this is the closest Songbird gets to letting you do that.
The other new features include an integrated Last.fm radio add-on. Songbird already supported Last.fm scrobbling, but now it supports Last.fm listening, too, so you may be able ditch your existing Last.fm client and just go with this. There's also automatic library organization, which is something you might be familiar with in iTunes. It can move all your music files to one location and sort them based on artist and album metadata. Last, but not least if you're an audiophile, is a 10-band equalizer.
22.06.2009. 03:00
You may not have read much about Lotus Symphony - OpenOffice.Org casts a pretty big shadow over other free Office competitors. Like OpenOffice, IBM's cross-platform office suite is based on the Open Document format and is a very capable alternative to Micorosoft Office.
Symphony doesn't provide the same number of tools as Office or OpenOffice, but it does handle word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation tasks. The latest release adds a much needed piece of functionality to Symphony - the ability to open files created using Microsoft Office 2007 (though files can only be saved in 2003 or 2000 formats). A Flash-based presentation of Symphony's features is available for viewing, and there's also a transcript available if you would rather read them yourself.
One I particularly like is the tabbed interface. As with the tabs in my browser, it keeps my workspace just as tidy whether I've got a single document or dozens open at the same time.
The suite is roughly a 200Mb download for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and is available from the IBM web site. There's also a large, online library of clipart for you to utilize in your documents.
[by Lee Mathews]18.06.2009. 16:57