Flickr Free: Flickr Client for Android

Oct 13, 2010 GMT

While Flickr features a slick and highly functional mobile interface, it can't replace a native Android client. Especially a client like Flickr Free which boasts a few clever features that make this nifty app a must-have tool for all shutterbugs. As you would expect, Flickr Free allows you to access and browse your photostream, sets, collections, and favorites. You can also view individual photos and perform different actions on them. To do this, long-tap on the currently viewed photos to evoke the context menu. You can then use the available commands to add the photo to favorites, download it to your device, view detailed information...

Hotot: A Stylish Twitter Client That Packs Power

Oct 07, 2010 GMT

Here is a question: Why would you want to try Hotot when there is a plethora of other Twitter clients out there? The answer is simple: Hotot offers a perfect mix of style and useful features. A pleasant interface gives you quick access to essential features and it sports slick transitions between screens. For each item in the timeline, Hotot provides shortcuts which you can use to retweet (Hotot supports both classic and new retweets) the tweet, mark it as favorite, and reply to it. Like any Twitter clients worth its salt, Hotot supports link shortening, although it can only use the default Bit.ly service. Hotot's default functionality can...

LibreOffice: OpenOffice.org Liberated

Sep 28, 2010 GMT

It has been a long time coming, but finally it happened: OpenOffice.org has been forked under the name of LibreOffice. The Document Foundation will oversee the development of LibreOffice. According to the press release, "The Document Foundation is the result of a collective effort by leading independent members of the former OpenOffice.org community, including several project leads and key members of the Community Council." Red Hat, Canonical, Google, and Novell are among the backers of The Document Foundation and the new fork. The idea of creating an OpenOffice.org fork and creating an independent foundation is not new and it...

Add Instant Word Count Feature to OpenOffice.org Writer

Sep 23, 2010 GMT

While the Writer's Tools extension for OpenOffice.org is developed and maintained by your truly includes the Visual Word Count tool, it does have one serious drawback: it uses a modal window, i.e., you can't do anything until you close the Visual Word Count window. Fortunately, there is an alternative solution that solves that problem. The Live Word Count macro for OpenOffice.org is written in Python, so it uses a non-modal window which can be opened alongside the current document. To install the macro, create a folder called python in the /home/USER/.openoffice.org/3/user/Scripts directory (where USER is your actual user name), grab the latest version of the script and put it in the...

Stream Internet Radio with Radiotray

Sep 20, 2010 GMT

Since popular music players like Rhythmbox and Amarok support Internet radio streaming, why would anyone need a tool like Radiotray? For two reasons: 1) It's light on resources, 2) It doesn't stand in your way. Radiotray sits in the Gnome panel and lets you quickly switch between your favorite radio stations. Radiotray supports notifications, so it displays the name of the currently played song. In addition to that, Radiotray supports most popular playlist formats, including PLS, M3U, ASX, WAX, and WVX. You can add as many radio stations as you like, and you can use the available tools to organize and sort the entries. The application is...

Save Any Web Page in the EPUB Format with dotEPUB

Sep 14, 2010 GMT

dotEPUB is a simple yet genuinely useful Chrome Extension and browser bookmarklet that lets you save the currently viewed Web page in the EPUB format. That's pretty much all it does: there are no other features or options to tweak. Hit the button (or click on the bookmarklet), and dotEPUB saves the current Web page as a nicely formatted EPUB document. You can then read it on any device using a reader that supports the EPUB format. dotEPUB provides a perfect "read it later" solution which you can use to save interesting articles and pages and peruse them later on any device at hand. dotEPUB is also available as a widget, so you...

Send Notifications from an Android Device to Linux Desktop

Sep 13, 2010 GMT

There are many situations where you can easily miss an important call or text message because you can't hear your phone while working on your computer. Fortunately, there is a neat solution to this problem: the Android Notifier tool enables your Android phone to automatically push notifications on incoming calls and text messages to the desktop.The solution consists of two pieces: the Android Notifier app that pushes notifications, and the Android Notifier Desktop client which receives them. So the first order of business is to install both of them.Android Notifier can send notifications either via a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection. So the next step is to select the desired notification...