XChat 2.8.5

Homepage: http://xchat.org
Download: XChat 2.8.5

XChat is an IRC chat program for both Linux and Windows. It allows you to join multiple IRC channels (chat rooms) at the same time, talk publicly, private one-on-one conversations etc. Even file transfers are possible.

Here is the changelog:

* The userlist and treeview can now be placed on the same side, with a resize handle in between them. They can also be dragged and dropped into place.

* The resize handles between two panes are now smaller (3 pixels) and invisible.

* Scrollbars are now placed inside the frame they scroll (more Windows like).

* If you have a tree on one side and userlist on the other, they'll both now have a resize handle, previously the tree's size was fixed.

* The userlist can be hidden and shown with CTRL+F7.

* Added a feature that reloads conversations from last time you used XChat (/set text_replay 0 to disable it).

* /MENU now supports a $CHAN root aswell (see plugin20.html).

* Fixed a problem some people were having with minimize to tray (the feature added in 2.8.3e).

* Fixed /LastLog printing everything twice if you had Indented Nicks off.

* Added /set gui_tweaks for GUI fine tunning.

* A better quit dialog which warns you if you're connected to IRC or have active file transfers.

* The Channel List's minimum users spin-button can now be set downward even on networks that sent a list of channels of only a larger size. In this case the Download button will flash to indicate you need to download a new list.

* Fixed bug: [1737249] Doesn't recognize nicks with halfop mode on hovering.

Sonata Media Player

Sonata media player is GTK+ based client for the Music Player Daemon (MPD). It has been forked from the unmaintained Pygmy project in order to fix bugs, introduce new features, and proceed down a different path.

Features:

• Expanded and collapsed views
• Automatic remote or local album art
• Automatic fetching of lyrics
• Playlist and stream support
• Support for editing tags
• System tray icon with tooltip
• Popup notification
• Library searching and playlist filtering
• Keyboard friendly
• Support for multimedia keys
• Commandline control

Have a nice day :)

Xfce4-cddrive-plugin

Homepage / Download

It`s been a while since my last post. That's because I have been preparing for the exam I failed a few hours ago :( Now back on topic.
This plugin for XFCE4 puts small icon in your system tray, that indicates if there is a disc in the drive, the type of the disc (Cd, DVD ... etc.) and is it mounted. This applications allows you to mount or unmount the disk without opening the console :) The system tray icon appears only if there is mountable disc in the drive. Here is a screenshot:

Yoper 3.0 - "TITANIUM"

Homepage: http://yoper.com/
Download: Yoper 3.0 Titanium

Yoper is a high-performance operating system which has been optimized for i686 or higher processor types. All packages that come with the distribution have been built from scratch. Yoper is desktop OS for multimedia and office usage.
The default package manager now is Smart. A roadmap for a 3.1 release will be published in about 4 weeks.
Here is the list with the updated software:

• Linux Kernel 2.6.21.1
• Xorg 7.2
• KDE 3.5.7
• Koffice 1.6.3
• Firefox 2.0.0.4
• and many more ....
  

Battle for Wesnoth 1.2.5

Homepage: http://wesnoth.org/
Download: Battle for Wesnoth


The Battle for Wesnoth is a free, turn-based strategy game with a fantasy theme. Fight a desperate battle to reclaim the throne of Wesnoth, or take hand in any number of other adventures. It is available for Linux, Windows, MaxOSX, Solaris, BSD.

The Kingdom of Wesnoth lies in the center of the land. Its borders are the Great River to the north, the Lower Hills in the east and south, the Green Swamp to the southwest, and the Ocean to the west. Elensefar, a once-province of Wesnoth, is bordered by the Great River to the north, a loosely defined line with Wesnoth to the east, the Bay of Pearls to the south, and the ocean to the west. There is no government of the Northlands. Various groups of orcs, dwarves, barbarians and even elves populate the region. The northern and eastern borders are not defined, the southern border is the Great River, and the western border is the Ocean.

Version 1.2.5 fixes small bugs and updates some translations. Here is the new stuff:

• New and updated manual - Serbian
• Updated translations - Afrikaans, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish
• Revised maps: Den of Onis, Hamlets, Meteor Lake, Sablestone Delta, Silverhead Crossing, Blue Water Province, Wilderlands
• User Interface - ability to view a list of MP servers with the Join Game dialog
• Corrected all wrong image references found via macroscope
  

Pidgin 2.0.2

Homepage | Download

Pidgin is a multi-protocol chat client, also known as Gaim. This update fixes more than 100 bugs and adds suppor for Bonjour for Windows.

Thunderbird 2.0.0.4

Homepage: Mozilla Thunderbird
Download: Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.4

Thunderbird is an e-mail client developed by Mozilla. It supports thr following protocols IMAP/POP, SMTP and NNTP (newsgroups). Thunderbird can be used as RSS reader too.

What's New in Thunderbird 2

• Message Tags: Create your own tags for organizing email. Messages can be assigned any number of tags. Tags can be combined with saved searches and mail views to make it easier to organize email.
• Visual Theme: Thunderbird 2's theme and user interface have been updated to improve usability and maximize screen real estate.
• Session History Navigation: Back and Forward buttons allow navigation through message history.
• Advanced Folder Views: Customize the folder pane to show favorite, unread or recent folders.
• Easy Access to Popular Web Mail Services: Gmail and .Mac users can access their accounts in Thunderbird by simply providing their user names and passwords.
• Improved Support For Extensions: Extensions can now add custom columns to the message list pane in addition to storing custom message data in the mail database.
• Improved New Mail Notification Alerts: New mail alerts include information such as the subject, sender and message preview text.
• Folder Summary Popups: Mouse over a folder with new messages to see a summary of the new messages in that folder.
• Saved Search Folder Performance: Search results for saved search folders are now cached, improving folder loading performance.
• Find As You Type: Finds and highlights message text as you type.
• Improved Filing Tools: Recent folder menu items for moving and copying messages to recently used folders. Move / Copy again functionality.
• Updates to the Extension System: The extension system has been updated to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions.

Songbird 0.3pre

Homepage: http://songbirdnest.com/
Download: Stable / Unstable

Songbird is a nice multiplatform media player and jukebox. This is the first pre release of the upcoming 0.3 version. Here is the list with the updates and new features:

• Tabbed Browsing
• Because the Media Web is better that way.
• New Library API
• Better performance on larger libraries.
• Multiple metadata values per field.
• Easier transfer of media.
• Objects! Objects! Objects!
• New Feathers API
• Register entirely new XUL Layouts as Feathers.
• Better CSS file set for inheriting or overriding styles.
• Make new UI for Songbird without scripting.
• Extensions overlay into XBL to not care about different Feathers.
• New Webpage API
• Control or interact with a visiting Songbird directly from your website without having to write or install any add-ons.
• Only with the user's permission, of course!
• New Search API
• Load 3rd party web search add-ons.
• Compatible with Firefox search API.
• Create custom library search add-ons.
• New Sidebar API
• Rearrange Playlists and Bookmarks as you see fit.
• Drag and drop between items.
• Tons of behind the scenes stuff that nobody cares about
• No really, you're better off not knowing.

Note: There are still some bugs and items that are not yet finished or working as intended.

Weeee :)

I just got the results from the exam I had about a few days ago. I have passed it with the highest score - 6.00 :D. This means that I can now go to study "Informatics" at the University of Plovdiv. Now I am studying "Mathematics" there but I think programming is the better option, for me at least. Have a nice day :)

Geany 0.11

Homepage / Download / Screenshots
I am using Geany almost every day but I didn`t know there is a new version. This update adds some new features and many bugfixes, new translations...etc. Here is a screenshot of Geany I made a few days ago:


For those of you who don`t know what Geany is, it is a lightweight text editor and has some basic features of an integrated development environment. It was developed to be small and fast IDE and that`s why it is based on the GTK2 toolkit.

Linux For The Gamers

Homepage: http://linux-gamers.net/
Download: linuX-gamers


This is the first public release of this distribution. It is aimed at the gamers among the linux community. LinuX-gamers is based on Arch Linux and includes the ATI and NVIDIA drivers. The Live DVD is only 2.4 GB and comes with a few games:

• BzFLag
• Enemy Territory
• Glest
• Nexuiz
• Sauerbraten (a.k.a. Cube 2)
• Torcs
• Tremulous
• True Combat: Elite
• Warsow
• World of Padman

These games are preinstalled on the live dvd. So you can directly play them right after booting from the dvd.

Ubuntu Tribe 1

Homepage: http://ubuntu.com/
Download: Ubuntu Tribe 1
- Ubuntu / Edubuntu
- Kubuntu
- Xubuntu

This is the first alpha release of Ubuntu Tribe 1. It is quite unstable so don`t try it if you want stable system. The primary changes from Feisty have been the re-merging of changes from Debian and Kernel 2.6.22.

KOffice 1.6.3

Homepage: http://koffice.org/
Download: KOffice 1.6.3


After about four months of development here is the new shiny version of the KDE office suite. This is maintenance release and is the last one of the 1.6 series. It includes mostly bugfixes. This release introduces three new translations: Low Saxon, Nepali and Bulgarian, making KOffice available in 39 languages. The complete changelog is quite big and I will not post it here this time.

ImageMagick

Homepage: http://imagemagick.org/
Download: ImageMagick

ImageMagick® is a software suite to create, edit, and compose bitmap images. It can read, convert and write images in a variety of formats (about 100) including DPX, EXR, GIF, JPEG, JPEG-2000, PDF, PhotoCD, PNG, Postscript, SVG, and TIFF. Use ImageMagick to translate, flip, mirror, rotate, scale, shear and transform images, adjust image colors, apply various special effects, or draw text, lines, polygons, ellipses and Bezier curves.
Lets see what we can do with ImageMagick:

• Format conversion: convert an image from one format to another (e.g. PNG to JPEG)
• Transform: resize, rotate, crop, flip or trim an image
• Transparency: render portions of an image invisible
• Draw: add shapes or text to an image
• Decorate: add a border or frame to an image
• Special effects: blur, sharpen, threshold, or tint an image
• Image calculator: apply a mathematical expression to an image or image channels
• Text & comments: insert descriptive or artistic text in an image
• Image identification: describe the format and attributes of an image
• Animation: create a GIF animation sequence from a group of images
• Composite: overlap one image over another
• Montage: juxtapose image thumbnails on an image canvas
• High dynamic-range imaging: accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from the brightest direct sunlight to the deepest darkest shadows
• Large image support: read, process, or write mega- and giga-pixel image sizes

Here you can find some more examples of the real ImageMagick power :D
It is written in C and interfaces to the X library, therefore does not require any other GUI toolkits. ImageMagick is also ported for Windows and Mac OS X.

VariCAD - 2D/3D CAD system for mechanical engineering

Homepage: http://varicad.com/
Download: VariCAD

I found this program just five minutes ago and I think it is very interesting, especially for those of you who like CAD design. If you are interested you can watch the on-line demonstration here.



This program is not free but there is a 30-day trial version. The new version brings many useful improvements: completely new tools for 3D shells, 3D pipelines and 3D wires, a substantially improved 3D editing function allowing more complex editing, significantly improved STEP file import, new 3D checking functions, an extended tutorial and quick demonstration with new Flash examples. - etc.

The Eric IDE

Homepage: Eric IDE 4.0
Download: Eric IDE 4.0

Eric is a full featured Python end Ruby editor and IDE written in python. It is based on the Qt gui toolkit and the newest version uses Qt 4. It is useful as an everyday "quick and dirty" editor or as a project management tool.

Some nice features:

• Configurable window layout
• Configurable syntax highlighting
• Source code auto completion
• Error highlighting
• Integrated class browser
• Makro recordings
• Integrated version control interface for Cvs and Subversion repositories
• Integrated task (todo items) management
• Advanced search functionality including project wide search and replace
• and many man more ...
  

I don`t have enough time to test it now but as soon as I have free time and Qt based DE :) I will try it ;]

Fedora 7 "Moonshine"

Homepage: http://fedoraproject.org/
Download: Fedora 7 Moonshine


This version of the Fedora Linux distribution comes with a number of new features. Here is the summary:

• Gnome 2.18
• KDE 3.5.6
• New SELinux troubleshooting tool
• "spins" - variations of Fedora built from a specific set of software packages
• GCC 4.1
• Kernel 2.6.21
• the full release announcement ....