Google has been making a lot of waves recently with it's announcement of a new desktop operating system. The name of this new OS, Google Chrome OS, reflects how Google sees the world, namely from the perspective of a web browser. As you may recall, Google Chrome is the web browser, developed by Google, that introduced a number of new concepts to the browser world. Concepts, such as tab isolation, that make the browser more versatile and the computer more Internet oriented. Read more...

Here is nice piece of software for creating tutorial or presentation movies. It is particularly well suited for creating tutorials for software and can capture screenshots. The user can add explanation boxes and record voice messages. Output formats include Flash, PDF, HTML and stand-alone executable. It runs on both Linux and Windows. It is free, but it is not Open Source. Read more about WINK on About.com's Graphics Software site.

The Gnome application Ekiga, version 3.2.5, with full support for the SIP and H.323 protocols has been released. It includes features like call forwarding, call transfer, call hold, instant messaging, and text chat. It uses advanced audio quality (Wideband codecs), including echo cancellation. Besides the capability of making voice and video calls to other computers, it is possible to make calls to regular telephones and receive calls from regular telephones.

Unlike Skype, Ekiga is a Linux native. It is free, released under the GPL license, and can be downloaded from the Ekiga web site.

While most software development, web page design, etc. nowadays is done using graphical user interfaces, experienced UNIX/Linux people appreciate the simplicity and efficiency of the powerful text-based tools available on those platforms. If you are familiar for example with one of the powerful text editors, such as Emacs or VI, it is very easy to work remotely (over the Internet or intranet) on other computers using Telnet or SSH connections. Read more...