Listen Music Player

Listen is an awesome music player developed for Gnome. It has got some really cool features that lack from almost all players, such as:

• Automatic lyric fetching;
• Artist and album information from wikipedia or Last.fm;
• Very good podcast and internet radio integration;
• Excellent library management.
  

The project home page show us some nice screenshots from the application. It has been all written in python, and, despites it's early development stage, only at version 0.5, it is already fully stable and usable. The installation can be done through the Ubuntu repository by installing the listen package or, in any other distro, if the package is not available, the source can be downloaded here.

Ubuntu bugs

As it is know, Ubuntu has got an excellent bug report/support system, through launchpad. Now, you can see the stats on how many bugs are open, how many are unassigned, unconfirmed and critical. Thank you carthik

OpenMoko

OpenMoko calls itself:

The world's first integrated open source mobile comunications platform

Specifically, they are developing a phone in order to compete with Apple's Iphone and Nokia's best mobile phones. In order to this, and this is the innovative part, they are building the software, based in Open-source software only. In order to do this, according to their mailing list, they will put together the OpenMoko Linux distribution, that will be based on:

• Hardware:
• 120.7 x 62 x 18.5 (mm)
  

• 2.8" VGA (480x640) TFT Screen

• Samsung s3c2410 SoC @ 266 MHz

• Global Locate AGPS chip

• Ti GPRS (2.5G not EDGE)

• Unpowered USB 1.1

• Touchscreen

• micro-sd slot

• 2.5mm audio jack

• 2 additional buttons

• 1200 mAh battery (charged over USB)

• 128 MB SDRAM

• 64 MB NAND Flash

• Bluetooth (2.0)

• Software:

• Linux 2.6.17.14

• gcc 4.1.1

• binutils 2.17.50.0.5

• glibc 2.4

• Xorg 7.1

• glib 2.6.4

• gtk 2.6.10

• dbus 0.9

• eds

• (more)

This powerfull tool, in it's early stage, will be given to some developers who want to help, so that bugs can be found. Its release is scheduled to March of this year in the U.S., and it will probably cost $350 US Dollars, plus shipping, which let us guess that it won't be for sale in ordinary shops, but only through the website.

(In)Secure Magazine

(In)Secure magazine number 10 is out. This is a security magazine, reporting everything important there is to know, with sugestions to open-source security. It is freely distributed, and this month edition covers the following aspects:

• Microsoft Windows Vista: significant security improvement?


• Review: GFI Endpoint Security 3


• Interview with Edward Gibson, Chief Security Advisor at Microsoft UK


• Top 10 spyware of 2006


• The spam problem and open source filtering solutions


• Office 2007: new format and new protection/security policy


• Wardriving in Paris


• Interview with Joanna Rutkowska, security researcher


• Climbing the security career mountain: how to get more than just a job


• RSA Conference 2007 report


• ROT13 is used in Windows? You're joking!


• Data security beyond PCI compliance - protecting sensitive data in a distributed environment

It can be download at http://www.insecuremag.com/.

Mirror blogs

It is really sad to see how many bloggers are online just in order to steal content from another, some even removing the credits, others by leaving a small unnoticed 'via' word, linked to the blog. This has happened to me in my last post, IM Clients for Linux. I've found several blogs with exactly the same text, the same hyperlinks, well, a copy of my post. Here are two examples:

• http://linux.wordpress.com/2007/02/14/im-clients-for-linux/
• http://www.tuxme.com/content/view/3569/
  

I wonder, if you bloggers want to spread a message, that as been already written by someone, and are going to copy it, why won't you just create a link to that entry, from the original blogger, in a post were you talk about what you think of the original text? Are there any reasons to copy the content!? The worst cases, are those who don't even add a comment to what they have copied! Just copy+paste. What do we call this blogs? Mirrors?

IM Clients for Linux

If you use Linux, there are a lot of Instant Messaging clients for you to choose from. And this is not an easy choice at all. There is the features vs stability problem all the time. In order to simplify your choice, I've decided to come up with the most know.

• Gaim
• Gaim is the number one client in the open source community. It is being widely developed, and it's awesome due to it's stability and supported protocol diversity. The version in SVN already supports web cam and a lot more.
  
• Kopete
• Kopete, I would say, is to Gaim, as KDE is to Gnome. It has some extra feature, but complete useless. While the main window is simple, the chat window has way too much garbage.
• Emenese
• Emenese is still in it's early development, but is already being talked. It is being written in python, which gives it a promising future, with lots of extensions and a fast development, common for everything that comes the python language.
• Mercury
• Mercury messenger is for all of those who are used to Windows Messenger. Supporting almost everything that the Microsoft client supports, it's only disadvantage is that it is written in java, and it consumes a lot of memory!
• Amsn
• Amsn is just ugly. It was an attempt to copy Windows Messenger, but, in my opinion, it went completely wrong and I just can't like it!
• Kmess
• Despite I haven't ever tried Kmess out, it seems to be a real simples messenger client for KDE, with all the basic needs and really usable.

I am now using Gaim 2.0.0beta6, from the Ubuntu Feisty repositories, and I'm really getting along with it. Still, my favorite one, since I've had Microsoft's MSN Messenger for some years, is Mercury Messenger. The only reason I'm not using it right now is that it was giving me some problems, probably because of the java integration. I've taken the opportunity to see how Gaim was going and decided to keep it.

Have I missed any really good one? What's the best for you?