Clementine Music Player & ProjectM

    Out of all the great music players out the Clementine is a personal favorite. On Linux we have quite a few options for a top notch music player and library manager, there is Banshee which is written with mono which is a cross-platform programming language that takes minimal code changes to target multiple platforms.  While Banshee used to be the default on some systems it isn't the default on many nowadays as allot of the Linux distros have have decided to shy away from packaging the mono framework with their installation. Instead you'll most likely be Rythmbox if you using a GNOME based install or Amarok if your using a KDE base install. All of the music players with the exception of Rythmbox can be installed on Winows as well. If I wasn't using Clementine I'd definitely be using Amarok, there are a ton of cool features that aren't necessary but really nice, like the wikipedia article about the track that's playing for example.

KDE Connect - Mobile Integration

    The 2013 Google Summer of Code project has allot going in the KDE desktop environment. Just look at the list of ideas here http://community.kde.org/GSoC/2013/Ideas, one that sparks particular interest to Android users is the KDE Connect project. The KDE Connect project's goal is to provide better integration with the Android platform.

Some of the features now available are:

• Call & SMS Notifications
• App Notification & Alerts
• Battery Status Support
• Clipboard Syncing
• Media Player Controls
• File Transfer

Low Ram Linux Desktop

    Linux is well known to run on all kinds of hardware from the oldest machines to the worlds super computers, and am always coming across friends that have older machines with only half a gig of RAM but most modern desktops recommend at least one gig of RAM. While it might not cost much to upgrade, I still think that a PC can still be comfortably usable without upgrading.

Podcasts with gPodder

    gPodder downloads free audio and video content (podcasts) for you Listen directly on your computer or on your mobile devices. If you have an android device you can follow my guide at Android Relish on Podax Podcasting & gPodder. In the guide it mentions the gPodder.net service and Podcast Directory, the desktop and mobile version can both be synced with the free gPodder.net service. The website has been unreachable once but aside from that there isn't a better place to discover and manage good podcasts.

 gPodder is available for Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, Mac OS X and mobile devices like the Nokia N810, N900 and N9. Some of the highlights are that it has support for RSS, Atom, YouTube, Soundcloud, Vimeo and XSPF feeds, as well as exporting to OPML which can then be imported on an Android device. Easily synchronize between devices with full gpodder.net API support. gPodder is also easy customization with its' choice of supporting Python as it's extension language.

Homepage: http://gpodder.org/
Download: http://gpodder.org/downloads
Documentation: http://gpodder.org/documentation
Source Code: http://gpodder.org/wiki/Git
Wiki: http://wiki.gpodder.org/

Tutorial for using the gPodder.net for syncing multiple devices.

Android Relish - Podax Podcasts & gPodder

Concrete5 a concrete CMS

    Heard about Concrete5 in a podcast from twit.tv called Floss Weekly [ FLOSS Weekly 239 ]. Am currently using Podax on Android to retrieve and listen to my podcasts and gPodder on my desktop to manage the shows I want. That's a hole other topic though so let's get back to how awesome Concrete5 is, and how they have successfully utilized Open Source and Creative Commons as the basis for their business model.

    Concrete5 is a content management system that is free and open source, made for marketing but built for geeks. Concrete5 was designed for ease of use, for users with minimum technical skill can still make beautiful pages. It enables users to edit site content directly from the page. It provides version management for every page, similar to wiki software, so any edits can be viewed and reverted back to, also allows users to edit images through an embedded editor on the page.

Synergy - Share Your Mouse

    Imagine there are three computers monitors at the desk (not really hard to imagine though) and they are each running on a separate machine with different operating systems. Now picture dragging the mouse across all three seamlessly. Well stop imagining and go download Synergy.

    This is a really useful Open Source project, but it's not gonna be able to replace a KVM switch (keyboard, video, mouse) because if I'm running different machines on my monitors, it is to fix another computer and don't wan't to install anything unnecessary to get it fixed. Could Picture the scenario where after getting back from work, the laptop gets setup on the desk, and then use Synergy to have the desktop mouse and keyboard  to control the laptop without having to plug anything in or enable bluetooth.

Website: http://synergy-foss.org/    Download    [ User Guide ]
Issue Tracker: http://synergy-foss.org/issues/
Source Code: http://synergy-foss.org/code/

VirtualBox

    So there is that unstable, or just released program that you have just got to try and don't got a spare machine to try it out on, or don't want to risk damaging your main system. Well why not try that program out in a VirtualBox.

    VirtualBox lets users install operating systems inside their current OS. The main OS is the Host, and the other OS's are called the Guest. Users can run many systems at one time with VirtualBox, in fact allot of servers run hundreds of VirtualBox images at one time, all day everyday.

    To get started using VirtualBox Windows can go to VirtualBox Downloads and install the right package for their system. Linux users can install VirtualBox-OSE (Open Source Edition) from their respective package manager.

To add the oracle maintained repository and install VirtualBox using a Debian based Linux distro (Ubuntu, Mint), copy paste this command into a terminal:

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian '$(lsb_release -cs)' contrib non-free' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/virtualbox.list" && wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.1 dkms

    After installing VirtualBox you'll want to install an OS (operating system) to it. I recommend a lightweight Linux distro such as Xbuntu or Lubuntu. Download either of those ISOs and then launch VirtualBox, click new and point it to the ISO. After that it's just a matter of following all the on screen prompts to get the system up and running.

    When testing out software in the VirtualBox you'll probably want to open it up to the internet. Was having an issue with this, as every time it was tested to see if it was broadcasting on the internet there was an error, which ended up being a loop back error in the router ( trying to go out to the net and back in).

    What did work for me was changing the adapter setting on the machine to Bridged Adapter  then go into the setting of the guest OS and change the IP to a static IP. Open up the ports on the router and the VM should be broadcasting. Again I had an issue and couldn't test that it was working from home, had to actually leave and go to another location to verify it worked (router loopback error).

    It's kinda hard to remember the IP addresses, that and they are constantly changing unless it is a static IP, so to access the VM use NO-IP. They provide 3 free host names for your IP addressing needs, making it much easier to share your VM on the internet.

ownCloud - Your Own Personal Cloud

    There are tons of free cloud web services out there such as Google Drive, Ubuntu One, and iCloud from apple all offering 5 gigabytes of space which is perfect for keeping those really important files backed up. What about pricing though, how much is it for 50 gigabytes or 100 gigabytes?

    Google Drive is asking $2.50 a month for 25 gigabytes, $5.00 a month for 100 gigabytes, and $50 a month for 1 terabyte. Ubuntu One works a little differently if you buy 1 song from the music store they give you 20 gigabytes for free for 6 months then charge you $4.00 a month. Apple's iCloud is charging $3.25 for 10 gigabytes of storage.

Real Time Strategy Game 0 AD

    0 A.D (pronounced “zero-ey-dee”) is a historical Real Time Strategy (RTS) game under development by Wildfire Games, a global group of volunteer game developers. As the leader of an ancient civilization, you must gather the resources you need to raise a military force and dominate your enemies. Have never played a RPG or RTS for more then 15 minutes, but look forward to getting deep into this game.