GNOME Do - An intelligent launcher tool for GNOME

GNOME Do is an intelligent launcher tool which makes all your default menus and panels in GNOME redundant. Since last time I had written about GNOME Do, it has gotten only better. Just a glance through the numerous plugins available for GNOME Do will be enough for any sceptic to fall in love with it.

Just to give you a feel of what can be achieved with this marvellous tool, do yourself a favour. After installing GNOME Do in your Linux distribution within GNOME, start it and open the GNOME Do preferences dialog box. Click on the plugins tab and glance through the diverse plugins available for GNOME Do - right from Twitter, to Google tools and more.



Another neat trick is to use GNOME Do as a dock, like in Apple's Mac OS X. To achieve this, the prerequisite is -

Your GNOME desktop needs to run using a composite window manager. You can enable it by opening the System > Preferences > Appearance GUI tool. Then click Visual Effects tab and enable the special effects.

Once you have enabled visual effects, you can use GNOME Do as a dock by simply changing it's theme to "Docky" in the "Appearances" tab of GNOME Do preferences dialog.



The blog I'Been To Ubuntu has a fabulous article on how you can use GNOME Do and a few other packages available in Ubuntu Launchpad repository to transform GNOME into a Mac OS X like Desktop. Really inspiring.

Of course, in Linux, we have another option for a dock such as Avant Window Navigator. Or you can transform your traditional KDE desktop into a Mac OS X.

Sun Microsystems merges with Oracle

Sun Microsystems gets acquired by Oracle. This is the hot news making rounds on the net. This is a news which could have wide ramifications for the Open Source crowd. Why? Because Sun Microsystems creates some of the most well received, robust open source software around. Just to put it in perspective, let me list some of them which come to my mind.

MySQL - The most widely used database online.
Java - Was released under an Open source license.
OpenSolaris - The free as in beer and freedom UNIX operating system.
OpenOffice.org - The robust office suite which is a part and parcel of any Linux distribution.
VirtualBox - The virtualization software that most open source enthusiasts have grown to love.
Netbeans - The Java IDE
Sun xVM Server - The open source virtualization software for data centers.
Sun Microsystems is no doubt a pro open source company. Will it stay that way under its new master namely Oracle ? Only time will tell.

The following is the official press release from Oracle. And read the press release from Sun Microsystems. The transaction is valued at approximately $7.4 billion.

An indepth look at OpenOffice.org Office Suite

OpenOffice.org is arguably the finest office suites available in the public domain. It is a direct competitor of Microsoft Office. It includes a Word processor (OpenOffice.org Writer), a Spreadsheet (OpenOffice.org Calc),a Presentation program (OpenOffice.org Impress), a Drawing program (OpenOffice.org Draw) and a Database (OpenOffice.org Base).



While it might seem ironic to blog about this fabulous piece of open source software now, especially owing to the recent developments of Oracle taking over Sun Microsystems, fact remains that this is one office suite that has stood its ground against Microsoft Office - and even posed a threat to it.

But for a first timer, like any software, there is a learning curve involved in mastering OpenOffice.org. It involves getting to know the interface, knowing the equivalent functions of the suite vis-a-vis Microsoft Office, and being productive. This is where a well balanced tutorial gains importance.

WorldLabels.com blog has posted an in-depth article explaining the various features of OpenOffice.org and also comparing OpenOffice.org Writer with Microsoft Word (2003 & 2007). But that is not all, the article elucidates on the 6 step process involved in shifting from using Microsoft Office to using OpenOffice.org in an organization, which is really enlightening to say the least. While the article is essentially Windows centric, the functions and tips explained in it are applicable to even Linux users as OpenOffice.org is a truly cross platform software. The article is dotted with a vagary of links to very useful plug-ins and templates. For instance, do you know how to reduce the size of your presentation in OpenOffice.org ? This article teaches you that.

Linux eventually garners a 1% market share

Linux has garnered the magical 1% global market share of computer users. As of April 2009, it is exactly 1.02 %. It is an understood fact that we have a long way to go to catch up with the market leader Windows which is still way ahead at 87.90%. But 1.02% of the total computer users the world over is by no means a small amount.



If this trend is to be believed, people are waking up to the various alternatives they have over Windows. If you take a closer look at the chart below, you will find that the Windows share has been decreasing across subsequent months - October 2008 being an exception. And the market share of all other Operating systems have seen an increase during these periods.

Linux Market Share

Let's hope the Linux share increase rapidly in the coming years to form a viable force in the desktop computing arena. All the power to Linux!!
[source

Wine untuk linux

Wine merupakan sebuah proyek yang bertujuan untuk membuat agar sistem operasi bertipe Unix (Unix-like) dan sistem X-Windows yang berjalan pada suatu komputer pribadi dapat menjalankan program yang khusus dibuat untuk Microsoft Windows. Alternatifnya, mereka yang ingin melakukan pemangkalan (porting) suatu aplikasi Windows ke sistem Unix-like dapat melakukan kompilasi melalui pustaka Wine dalam bentuk Winelib.

Nama "Wine" merupakan akronim dari Wine Is Not An Emulator (Wine bukanlah emulator) dan kadang disebut juga sebagai Windows Emulator. Walaupun nama ini juga muncul dalam bentuk "WINE" dan "wine", pengembang proyek ini telah menyepakati untuk melakukan standardisasi nama dan menyebutnya sebagai "Wine".

Wine adalah perangkat lunak bebas yang dirilis di bawah lisensi GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). Proyek Wine pada mulanya merilis Wine di bawah lisensi MIT sama seperti sistem X-Windows, tetapi pada Maret 2002 menggunakan LGPL sebagai lisensinya.

Pengembang Wine merilis versi beta yang pertama (Wine versi 0.9) pada 25 Oktober 2005 setelah 12 tahun pengembangan

sumber : wikipedia

World of warcraft : Wrath of the lich king memecahkan rekor penjualan game

Pada 20 November 2008, Blizzard Entertainment sebagai pengembang game terkemuka di dunia ini mengumumkan penjualan ekspansi game online terbarunya, World of warcraft : wrath of the licth king berhasil memecahkan rekor sebagai game yang paling banyak terjual pada 24 jam setelahdirilis. Game tersebut tercatat telah berhasil terjual sebanyak 2,8 juta kopi memecahkan rekor sebelumnya yang juga dipegang oleh World of warcraft dengan ekspansi pertamanya , The burning crusade, dengan jumlah penjualan pada hari pertama sebanyak 2,4 juta kopi pada bulan januari 2007. Game wrath of the lich king dirilis secara bersamaan di beberapa negara, seperti Amerika Utara, Eropa, Chili,Argentina, dan Rusia pada 13 November ,Australia, Selandia baru, Singapore, Malaysia dan Thailand pada 14 November ;serta Korea Selatan, Taiwan, Hongkong, Macau pada 18 November 2008.


Untuk meramaikan peluncuran game tersebut, sebanyak lebih dari 15 ribu toko yang tersebar diseluruh dunia telah merelakan diri untuk buka hingga tengah malam guna melayani ribuan gamer yang rela mengantri.Bahkan pihak Blizzard sendiri member dukungan dengan menempatkan perwakilannya dibeberapa toko untuk berinteraksi dengan pembeli dan menandatangani boks game yang mereka beli.
Menjelang peluncuran ekspansi baru dari World of warcraft tersebut, jumlah pelanggan dari game online tersebut telah meningkat tinggi hingga lebih dari 11 juta pelanggan . Hal ini tentunya semakin memperkuat posisi World of warcraft sebagai Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game terpopuler di dunia saat ini.

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