Full Circle - The Independent Ubuntu Community Magazine is proud to announce the release of issue eight. It contains:

With the help of community members who slogged over writing, reviewing, editing, proof reading and fixing the layout, the Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop Course is finally available. The 400 page book provides a thorough overview of the Ubuntu Desktop and is a great resource for Linux and Ubuntu newcomers.

"I can't live without my radio," LL Cool J once declaimed. Me, I can't live without my music library: there isn't a day that goes by when I don't have Miles Davis or Brian Eno (or, when I'm feeling more ruminative, Merzbow) on the speakers. To that end I tried out Songbird, a Mozilla-derive open source music player and web-sharing platform. In time it could be to WMP and even Winamp what Firefox is to IE -- but, again, in time.

One of the programs that, when I first saw it in Kubuntu, I thought that I would never have any use for. After using it for a bit I now miss it on systems that don't have it. That program is called Katapult and it does more than just Katapult you into a program launch.

Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha 2 is due out tomorrow, and while we'll have more extensive testing as the Hardy Heron release nears in April, today we are publishing our first -- very initial -- benchmarks of Ubuntu 8.04 using the 12-19-2007 daily build and comparing these results to Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon. These tests are focused upon OpenGL gaming, encoding, disk, and memory performance.

Mozilla has released the Firefox 3 Beta 2. As expected, this release is more about polishing the long list of features and improvements introduced during the previous nine milestones (eight alphas and a beta). But, as usual, there’s room for some noticeable changes.

This document describes how to set up, configure and use Timevault on Ubuntu 7.10. The resulting system provides a powerful backup system for desktop usage. TimeVault is a simple front-end for making snapshots of a set of directories.

Mozilla has announced the official release of Firefox 3 beta 2, the tenth major developer milestone in the Firefox 3 development timeline. The new beta, which is available for download from Mozilla's web site, includes interface improvements and a lot of extra polish.

It has been quite some time since I updated this blog. Frankly, I’ve been swamped at my day job. But I’m still using Ubuntu on my Dell PC at home. And I expect big things from Ubuntu and Canonical’s backers in 2008. Here are three Ubuntu trends worth watching in 2008.

After more than 11 years of development, Flightgear 1.0 has arrived. Flightgear can be played on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, as well as other *nix platforms including FreeBSD, Solaris, and IRIX. Distributed under the GPL, Flightgear is one of the first major Free Software games and has become a flight simulator that rivals it's commercial counterparts. It is a stellar example of enthusiasts coming together to create something for the community.

When it comes to playing music in Linux, Amarok is one of the best audio players out there. It offers almost everything you need, from a clean, intuitive interface to a range of useful scripts. You can even put it on a server and give it a Web interface.

I've just downloaded and had a casual fool around with Firefox 3 Beta 2 and I'm told that it has approximately 900 improvements over the previous beta, including fixes for stability, performance, memory usage, platform enhancements and user interface improvements. However, what it boils down to is that it's even faster than the Beta 1 version and it is even easier to navigate.

Firefox 3 Beta 2 is now available for download. This is the tenth developer milestone focused on testing the core functionality provided by many new features and changes to the platform scheduled for Firefox 3. Ongoing planning for Firefox 3 can be followed at the Firefox 3 Planning Center, as well as in mozilla.dev.planning and on irc.mozilla.org in #granparadiso.

Now that we have shared that Ubuntu 7.10 is available for sale on select Dell systems, I'd like to take the opportunity to give an update on what customers can expect with this offering. Most of the Ubuntu 7.04 technical details are still valid for this release, but there are a number of changes that I'd like to point out:

Even people who don't live and die by their mobile phones sometimes need to send SMS messages. Did you know you can do that from your computer? Likewise, it's easier to clean your mobile phone of all the numbers you've not been dialing in the last few years using a mouse, rather than navigating repeatedly through the phone's menu system. Here are some Linux tools that can help you manage your cell phone.

I recently discovered Liferea, an RSS reader/aggregator that uses Mozilla’s xulrunner as its web browsing engine. Its interface resembles that of a mail client such as Mozilla Thunderbird (a.k.a. icedove), and it works in much the same way, marking items as read when you click on them. Here’s a screen shot of Liferea in action:

High-end project management tools and low-end to-do utilities are a dime a dozen these days. But what if you need something less complicated than a full-blown project management application, but more flexible than a simple to-do list? In that case, give jWorkSheet (JWS) a try.

I was unable to attend the KDE release party at Google headquarters. I was thrilled to get the invite, but I just couldn't make it. And to be honest, that's a shame because the latest release has impressed me, despite me being seen as a crusty GNOME fan. I guess in the end we are all Linux users at heart.

If you want to make the most out of your Java-enabled handheld device, you can write Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) applications (also called midlets) on Linux and run them on your mobile platform. Here's how easy it is to get started; we'll write a HelloWorld application you can run on your cell phone.

Live CDs and virtual machines are easy ways to try out the new KDE 4. But I have been wanting to try out the new 3d effects, which makes running an installed version necessary.

It’s possible to run KDE 4 in Ubuntu along with the normal GNOME desktop. This post is about installing KDE 4 RC 2 along with Ubuntu 7.10. If you already have Kubuntu installed, see these instructions instead.

The good folks at Dell have added DVD playback capability to the image that they preinstall for folks who buy Dell computers with Ubuntu.

Today I have mainly been attempting to create a very light installation of Ubuntu on an old Pentium III. I started by installing a base system with the Ubuntu alternative install disk. After the base system was installed I then tried to configure my wireless card from the command line.

One of the key requests from customers interested in Linux is the ability to watch their favorite DVD movies. (See idea Preinstalled  Linux must play commercial DVDs from IdeaStorm user jonmca... but we ended up taking some advice from jmxz to use LinDVD.). We totally agree and that's why we now include built-in DVD movie playback with all Ubuntu 7.10 systems.

Everybody likes to know when they have mail. It’s become a routine to get up in the morning and check before you go to work or school. Later throughout the day, most people don’t check it as often. This is where mail notifiers come in. Linux has many notification applications, and many of them work very well.

MAC OS has been traditionally known for their impressive graphical interface and stability . Now even though i have been an avid Linux follower over the past 9 years I have been using Linux , still i find myself attracted to MAC OS .
So well other alternative to using MAC OS is either to purchase MAC hardware(which would be naturally expensive) and run full fledged MAC OS or you could tweak and customize your Ubuntu desktop to look more like MAC OS X.