Category Archives: Multiplatform software

Calibre: el mas versátil gestor, conversor y visualizador de eBooks

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Los E-books están ganando cada vez mas espacio a los libro de papel y seguramente en un futuro no muy lejano llagaran a tener el mismo mercado que los libros de papel. Entre las varias aplicaciones para gestionar vuestra biblioteca digital y vuestros E-reader, he encontrado Calibre, que me parece una de las aplicaciones mejores al momento y es disponible para diferentes SO (Windows, Linux y Mac). Yo la he instalada en mi Kubuntu y tengo que decir que funciona a la perfección; tiene una interfaz gráfica muy intuitiva y aunque sea la primera vez que uso un gestor de E-book no le encuentro ninguna dificultad en moverme en las diferentes opciones que ofrece. Con Calibre es posible administrar nuestros libros en diferentes categorías: Fecha, Autor, Titulo, Editor, Tamaño… y también permite la conversión a diferentes formatos: ePub, PDF, MOBI, oeb, pdb y mas. Es posible también la sincronización con diferentes dispositivos: Kindle, Nook, Papyre, Sony. En el caso que algún libro tenga mas de un formato disponible, el mismo Calibre elige cual el mejor formato para nuestro lector. Calibre es disponible también para Iphone, Ipad e Android. Otra preciosa opción que ofrece es la configuración como lector de noticias y RRS pasándolas a formato de libro electrónico, Para concluir, os aconsejo de probar esta aplicación porque seguro que os puede ayudar mucho en gestionar vuestra Biblioteca Digital. AddThis mp3 link

How to listen online, legally free, music: Pandora.com

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Today, in our Freeware Page we posted a review about Pandora.com: an online free website which offers free music listening based on your preferences. Once on Pandora.com you can decide to try it or to register for free (just an email and a new Pandora password are required). After this you can start creating new radio stations based on your favorite artists. In just few clicks, you can even listen your Pandora stations directly on your Blackberry, iPhone, PalmPre or Windows Mobile device. Using the QuickMix feature you can melt different stations in just an unique selection to share (if you want) with your friends. Pandora is legal and free but sometimes (not very often for my experience) some commercial ads are broadcasted. Anyway, in a couple of hours I was able to refine my new station options & variety and till now I am really satisfied by this service. Recommended! AddThis mp3 link

Firefox add-ons: use Foxmarks to keep your bookmarks safe and synchronized!

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This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish), we posted a brief review about Foxmarks, a simple but effective add-on for Firefox which can seriously help you to manage, save and restore your bookmarks. In the past, we wrote some reviews about Online Bookmark Manager, Febe and Cleo but, at the moment, we truly believe that Foxmarks is the most flexible between all of them. It is cross-platform (or multiplatform if you prefer), easy to use and very intuitive thanks to its interactive wizards. Foxmarks can be used to simply sharing your bookmarks with your friends or as a professional tool to sync profiles via web between all your PCs. Last but not least, I would like to focus your attenyion on mobile.foxmarks.com which allows you to access bookmarks on all your web-enabled devices. Recommended! AddThis mp3 link

How to easily check HD health using a cross platform software: GSmartControl 0.8.3

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GSmartControl is a multiplatform (Windows, OS X, Linux) freeware drive health inspection tool which is very useful in all that case when you think something is not working perfectly on your HD. Today, in our Linux Page (in Spanish) we have posted a brief comment about this software which basically is the graphical user interface for smartct. The program is very intuitive and easy to use; it automatically detects all your internal HDs (with some external USB disks we had some problems because they were detected as unknown) and let you decide if you want to activate the SMART feature. This particular feature let you “predict certain kinds of failures with certain chance of success” so you have a better chance to avoid HD crashes and all the consequent data loss. If you prefer, clicking on the “Enable Auto Offline Data Collection” the HDs will be tested every four hours without impacting your CPU performance. I would like to focus your attention that GSmartControl is very well developed and it is possible to download many “personalized” versions for all the main Linux distributions, OS X and Windows. Last but not least, do not forget that SMART could predict some HD crashes but it is not 100% safe; for this reason we strongly recommend you to backup your PCs, at least every week! AddThis mp3 link

Instantbird: the best cross platform and multi-protocol instant messaging client on the market now!

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This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish) we have posted a brief post about Instantbird which could be actually considered as the most complete and flexible software to manage all your instant messenger client you normally use (IRC, ICQ, AIM, SIMPLE, SILC, YAHOO, MySpaceIM, XMPP, Sametime, Google, etc..). Moreover Instantbird is completely free, open source and cross platform so you can use it on every PC you have (also at work). We have tested Istantbird for a couple of weeks, without stressing it too much, and we really did not find any bugs so we are really satisfied from the results. Frankly speaking, this software does not contain any “revolutionary” new feature but it can be considered as the state of the art software in its category; something everyone has to benchmark if he (or she) is planning to develop a new instant messaging client! Recommended! AddThis mp3 link

How to install XBMC on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex

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This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish), we posted a brief tutorial about installing XBMC on Ubuntu 8.10. As you certainly know, XBCM is a complete Media Center based on Ubuntu. This program is multiplatform (Linux, Windows, OS X and also XBOX – not officially supported-) and, in our opinion, is the most efficient and complete open source media center you can find today on the Internet. Moreover, XBMC has developed a special version that could be installed on a USB Key on a Live CD to freely test the application before installing on your PC. The post is brief but contains all the complete instructions to quickly install XBMC without problems. Please, be sure to digit sudo apt-get update in Terminal after you install the new repositories. Recommended!! AddThis mp3 link

XBMC: the best multiplatform, open source media-player on the web.

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Today, in our Linux Page (in Spanish) we added a brief post about XBMC, the best open source (GPL), free entertainment hub you can find on internet. XBMC is really easy to install (for Linux users, especially in Ubuntu) and its features are very intuitive and simple to configure. Moreover the graphics themes are very attractive and it is able to manage many multimedia formats, “playlists, audio visualizations, slideshow and weather forecast functions”. It is also possible to add many interesting third-party plugins that you can find through a simple google query (XBMC plugin). Last, but not least, XBMC is a multiplatform software, in fact the download page contains four different versions for Windows, XBox, Linux and MAC OSX. When we compared XBMC to the Windows Media Center we did not notice any loss in this open-source media center and, honestly, we were positively impressed by all the XBMC featured we tested. Recommended! AddThis mp3 link

The best way to always have your favourite mind-mapping with you: FreeMind and WiseMapping!

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FreeMind Logo WiseMapping LogoDuring the past two years I have tested some different solutions for mind-mapping (VYM, for example, is one of my favourite because it has a very enjoyable graphics) but the most efficient formula I have discovered is composed by the addition of FreeMind – a multiplatform (Windows -also portable -, Linux and MAC OS X)- mind mapping java software for desktop and WiseMapping -an online free service to create-store-share my mind-maps. For this reason, this week, in our Freeware Page we have posted a brief manual about FreeMind and WiseMapping. FreeMind is a very intuitive software which allows you to create complex mind -maps after just few clicks. Its side menu contains all the graphics elements you need to create your maps and all the main commands can be easily activated with the mouse right button. On the other hand,WiseMapping contains a very simple but efficient menu bar which allows its user also to import FreeMind Files and to export mind-maps to SVG, PDF, FreeMind or PNG formats. This last PNG option, for example, is very useful if you want to insert a mind-map into a website. Try them and you will be very satisfied with the results you get! AddThis mp3 link

FLAC: our favourite multiplatform (Linux, Windows, MAC OS X) Free Lossless Audio Codec!

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FLACIt is true! MP3 format is the most common format we normally use in our everyday applications but MP3 is a lossy compression algorithm and it is not comparable with the quality of uncompressed audio formats as Monkey’s Audio, ALAC, WMA. This week, in our Freeware page, we posted a brief review about some particular features of FLAC: a multiplatform (Linux, Windows, MAC OS X) Free Lossless Audio Codec. Nowadays, FLAC is well and constantly supported by many music player producer. We compared FLAC and MP3 formats using the “Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major – Allegro” by Bach and the results were very interesting. For common listeners (as us) the audio quality was, more or less, the same but when we asked to a couple of friends (authentic music “hooligans”) to describe the difference between the two music files (FLAC and MP3) they spent more than 15 minutes of their (and our) time talking about “tones”, “pizzicato” and something else that I really do not remember at the moment! After the listening, when we compared the file extensions, we discovered that the FLAC file was five times bigger than the MP3 (25.6MB vs 5.1MB)… To conclude, we really think that FLAC represents a fantastic (and the best) lossless format for home stereo systems. On the other side, if you are not a music purist, MP3 could be the best choice for listening music on portable audio devices. AddThis mp3 link

How to create free tutorials and presentations: the multiplatform Wink

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WinkThis week in our Freeware Page we have posted a brief but complete tutorial about Wink: the best free “tutorial and Presentation creation software” for Windows. We installed Wink with just few clicks and after a reboot (recommended) we were ready to try its features. Wink is easy to use, includes audio features and it is possible to add notes directly to every single frame. Anyway Winks has many output formats as Macromedia Flash, EXE, PDF, PostScript and HTML so you can decide if you prefer to create a video, a standalone .exe for pc users, a printable manual or a webpage. Moreover, Wink allows you to choose your best ratio between performance and video quality. Unfortunately its Linux version runs only with x86 computers and we have to wait next release to completely enjoy Wink’s features. Recommended! AddThis mp3 link