Category Archives: Software News

How to protect your profile and emails on Thunderbird 3 (Ubuntu and Windows instructions)

On Thunderbird, the only way to be 99% sure nobody will read your emails is to save your profile on an encrypted folder (or disk partition) using e.g. TrueCrypt but if you are not concerned that you are under surveillance, you can simply use a quick and useful trick that allows Thunderbird to ask for the Master password every time you launch it.

In Ubuntu you have to follow two different steps. First of all, go to Edit —> Preferences —> Security —> Passwords and create your Master Password. Secondly, go to Edit —> Preferences —> Advanced —> Config Editor (click on “I’ll be careful, I promise”). Then in the filter bar, type password and change the parameter for mail.password_protect_local_cache to True. The next time you will launch Thunderbird nothing will be displayed (old and new emails) before you insert the correct Master Password.

If you are using Thunderbird on Windows you have to modify mail.password_protect_local_cache going to Tools —> Options —> Advanced —> Config Editor (click on “I’ll be careful, I promise”). Then, as for Ubuntu, in the filter bar type password and change the parameter for mail.password_protect_local_cache to True.

How to uninstall software on Ubuntu

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Installing software on Ubuntu is really easy but sometimes we can have problems to uninstall it if we have not used the Package Manager (Synaptic till Ubuntu 9.04 and later through the Software Center) or a .deb package. To fastly uninstall all the software you do not need or you are not fond of, you can type in the Terminal:

sudo dpkg -r your_file

An alternative and powerful way is typing:

sudo apt-get remove your_file

(where your_file it is the name of the software you want to remove)

or, if you want to completely cancel also the configuration files:

sudo apt-get --purge remove your_file

If you want to check what software is installed on you Ubuntu you can use:

dpkg --list

and you will obtain a complete list of software and a very short summary for each package.

CLI Companion: una ayuda concreta para utilizar la Consola añadiendo una lista automatizada de comandos

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Hace unos días he encontrado esta nueva aplicación para Linux, se llama CLI Companion. Aunque Linux ha evolucionado muchísimo y hay que reconocer que ya casi no hace falta hacer uso de la Consola para ejecutar programas y tareas varias, pero también hay veces que gracias al uso de la Consola se puede solucionar pequeños problema que de otra forma seria bastante mas complicado. En esos casos CliCompanion nos hecha una mano añadiendo una lista con diferentes comandos junto a nuestro terminal. La lista de los comando no es infinita, viene con unos cuantos; para cada comando hay una referencia donde se explica la función, también es posible añadir comandos y los parámetros correspondientes. Además CliCompanion tiene un apartado de búsqueda donde es posible encontrar el comando que mas nos interese en cada momento. Desde cuando lo instalé en mi Kubuntu 10.04, tengo que confirmar que es una muy buena aplicación y puede ser instalada con lo repositorios correspondientes y tener futuras actualizaciones o directamente através el paquete .DEB. Os dejo el enlace de la Web: http://okiebuntu.homelinux.com/okwiki/clicompanion

How to easily install programs on your Windows or Ubuntu computers: allmyapps.com

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This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish), we have added a brief post about allmyapps.com a useful website which allow you to easily install software on Ubuntu (8.04, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10) and Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7). After a simple registration you can choose the free software you prefere to install and in few clicks and some minutes you are ready to use your new programs. Allmyapps.com, automatically recognizes the OS you have installed on your PC. On allmyapps we found many useful softwares and every month more programs are submitted by readers and added to the website for the installation. For Windows we also positively tested another website ninite.com where we found many free softwares ready to be dowloaded and automatically installed. Easy to use and useful!

How to create free different local telephone numbers linked to your Skype identity: Ring2Skype

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This week, in our Linux Page (in Spanish), we posted a brief post about Ring2Skype. Ring2Skype is a new free service which allows you to create local telephone numbers linked to your Skype user-id. After filling in few datas you get a telephone number in 31 different countries. In your email you will find a welcome letter with a summary of all the data of your new Ring2Skype account, your new telephone number and an extension to share with your local contacts. In this way, a person located in a different country could call you spending just for a local call. On the other hand it is possible to create more local telephone numbers so all your contacts in different countries could be in contact with you as if you are living in their same city. Recommended if it will remain free also in the future!

Three interesting extensions to enjoy a real Web 2.0 experience with OpenOffice 3.0

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After more or less a month from its release, the new OpenOffice 3.0 is receiving tons of positive comments. Anyway, this week, in our Freeware page, we have posted some brief notes abut three different extensions which are able to improve your effectivenss in office routines. First of all we have ooo2gd a simple menu bar which allows you to directly upload or download all kind of documents from Google Documents and Zoho. The second one is the Sun PDF Import Extension which has been created to allow minimal but useful changes to PDF documents. After few minutes we were able to make some interesting changes to a complex PDF documents with just a couple of clicks and export the result “into a hybrid PDF file, which is a PDF with the embedded source file asODF “. Last but not least we tested Sun Presentation Minimizer: an effective extensions which cuts the size of presentations reducing, for example, the image sizes. Using Sun Presentation Minimizer you will be able to simply and freely decide what kind of changes you want to make to your multimedia files contained in the presentations. To conclude it is necessary to focus your attention on the feature that also allows Sun Presentation Minimizer to work on Microsoft PowerPoint presentations. In few words we think that these extensions are guaranteed to be 100% satisfactory!!

LinTube.com: a video mine for Linux videos and tutorials!

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LinTube is a new website whose purpose is to find and collect videos about Linux and all its distributions. LinTube webpage is very essential and full of Google Ads but it is very well structured and with just few clicks is possible to find the topics you are looking for and the related videos. At the moment, the main categories are: Commercials,Compiz, Distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, Slackware), Fun Stuff, GNOME, HowTo, KDE, Linux Events, Linux Gadgets, Mediacenter, Misc, Security. LinTube is always updated and on the video linked are very well selected, the majority of them are very interesting and you will discover yourself spending much time on this website. For more, brief information, please, feel free to visit our Linux Page (in Spanish).

Stixy: a collaborative online application to easily share ideas and more..

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In many collaborative projects it is often necessary to share ideas, images, documents, ect.. but, as everyone could testify: ideas fastly flight away; it is not easy to remember video and photographs and so on… In a traditional office a common board could effectively help to coordinate trends and share photos but when working in internet it is high the possibility that many of this stuff will be lost before next meeting with colleagues. Moreover, now it is possible to use Stixy, a simple intuitive but powerful online application which allows you to display and share all you want (notes, photos, documents, to-do lists and also music) on the web. We tried Stixy (better its Beta version) and we enjoyed it a lot: clean, easy to share and positively influenced the mood in our team. For some more information you can read a brief review in our Freeware Page. Something to try!

Skype 2.0 and Google Earth 4.2: two new (finally) updated versions for Linux!

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In our Linux Page (in Spanish) we have posted a brief but complete review (with all the links for the downloads) about the new Linux version of Skype and Google Earth. Finally, in Skype 2.0, not only we could use the audio and chat features but also the video option using our favorite webcam also in the Linux version. The new Google Earth 4.2 has been implemented with new options as Clouds, Radar, Conditions & Forecast and Information. This new Google Earth version seem to be very complete and the 50,000 (not bad !) cities now covered will be more during the next months. I personally think that this new versions of Skype and Google Earth cancel the gap between Windows and Linux we all have stood till now. Well done!

How to install Ubuntu 7.10 on a USB Key!

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After only few days from the release of Ubuntu 7.10, the pendrivelinux.com has released the new manual to install this new version of the famous Linux distro on a USB key and we have posted a short but effective review about this new manual on our Linux Page (in Spanish). As usual the instruction contained on the site are very clear and simple to follow. We have been able to create our Ubuntu 7.10 Key in less than 40 minutes and without any particular problem. Unfortunately, we were not able to save the changes we had made to personalize our USB key but we really enjoy the possibilities offered by a so powerful OS as Ubuntu (if someone knows how to save the changes, please, post a comment – Thanks). Strongly recommended!