Using diff for group text editing
The diff command is generally used for applying code patches. However, it can be almost as useful for comparing and merging two versions of the same text file.
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Poisoned Apple: Microsoft’s Visual Code Studio for Linux
Microsoft announced yesterday they were publishing an IDE dubbed Visual Studio Code that works on MacOS X and, surprise, Linux. It would seem Linus Torvald’s “I won” is now past due. Not so fast.
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Cinnamon’s applets and desklets
GNOME and Unity may have banished applets from the panel, but Linux Mint has chosen the opposite approach for Cinnamon. Instead of removing clutter from the panel, Cinnamon encourages it, offering over 165 small utilities. And as if that were not enough, for the last few releases, it has also offered 18 desklets — applets…
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Give me Support or Give me Death
I guess I’m insecure like that, but I often find myself trying to rationalise my affinity for Free Software. How I do this is by arguing in my head with imaginary detractors. As I understand it, putting your ideas into words and then bombarding them with “Yes, buts” and “What ifs” is the base of…
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10 + 1 Things you can do with VLC
VLC is an amazing piece of software. Apart from an all-round media player that plays every kind of video and audio format imaginable, you can use it to stream to you network, capture clips from your webcam, and even use it to build a motion detection system.
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LibreOffice Tip: To-Do Lists with Style
Lists are one of the least known types of styles in LibreOffice Writer. If people use list styles at all, they attach them to paragraph styles to create automatic bullet or numbered lists. However, list styles have far more versatility than such uses imply, including the method shown here for creating a To-Do list for…
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Beyond the Classical Desktop
A couple of weeks ago, I added two Activities to the three already on my KDE desktop. The added convenience and efficiency were immediately obvious, and I found myself wondering, as I often do, why so many avoid even trying Activities.
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VLC – The World’s Media Player
VLC is arguably the most popular of all media players. Downloaded over 1.3 billion times (yes, that’s “billion” with a “b”), this free and open source player not only has excellent support for nearly every video and audio formats out there, but also let’s you convert from one format to another, and stream (and receive…
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LibreOffice goes Online
Fresh off the presses: LibreOffice reveals the project that will go head to head with Microsoft’s 365 online suite: LibreOffice Online (LOOL).
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Q&A with Inkscape’s Lead Developer, Bryce Harrington
We finally managed to catch up with Bryce Harrington, one of the original founders of Inkscape and the current Lead Developer. Bryce had been a bit under the weather, but he was game to doing the interview live over IRC. We met up on the #inkscape channel on Freenode at 5 pm. Pacific Time (Bryce),…
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Inkscape Tutorial Videos
Following up from our piece on the new Inkscape 0.91, we have just posted two videos explaining basic usage of Inkscape to our YouTube channel. Our first video teaches you how to start using Inkscape, drawing shapes, modifying them by manipulating nodes, and colouring them in, with an example in which we draw a cow.…
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New Inkscape 0.91 – Cool Graphic Designer
The team that develop Inkscape, the open source vector drawing software for Linux, Windows and Mac, has recently brought out their version 0.91. Apart from many bug fixes and improved stability, it includes new functionalities and changes to the interface that make it easier and more powerful to use.
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