Reviews

We've been seeing applications that allow you to remotely access desktop PCs for years. They have tended to function on a PC-to-PC connection basis over the Internet -- like Symantec's pcAnywhere software, which is often used for remote PC troubleshooting. More recently, we've been seeing tools that...

The TEA Text Editor is a very handy writing tool that delivers a much different user interface. For most computer users cranking out words or program code for digital consumption, text editors are often preferable to feature-bloated word processors. TEA pours on features yet keeps from getting too s...

Mirage is a fast and simple GTK+ image viewer for the GNOME desktop. Its lightweight structure includes just enough editing power to make it an ideal choice for everyday use. Image viewers come in all sizes and shapes. They can be packed full of editing features and can come with little or no photo ...

It's no wonder that the Linux desktop operating system is not attracting hordes of new users from Microsoft Windows and the Mac OS X platforms. Linux has almost too many desktop choices, and most of them are far from good. One clear exception is the Lightweight X Desktop Environment, or LXDE. I am b...

I was looking for an app that would substitute for the dedicated and expensive rangefinder device that's used for judging long distances while hunting and golfing, when I came across Android Boy's remarkable all-in-one $2.50 Smart Tools. This product has taken the smartphone-as-tool concept to th...

The Clementine Music Player is an up and coming application that could replace your default music app. It is a close cousin to Amarok with just enough of its own personality to make it stand apart from the crowd. On any computing platform today, users have ample choices of music players. Most of the...

We all know that the 20th century predictions of a paperless office were a pipe dream, maybe never to happen now. Digital media appear to have created more paper swirling around us, rather than less. If you've been holding out for the paperless dream, forget it. Give up now, because there's currentl...

If you spend endless hours at a keyboard crunching words, avoiding distractions is essential. Sometimes, the worst offender in causing distractions comes from all the bells and whistles in the word processor itself. That is where WordGrinder comes to the rescue. In today's Linux world of GUI-filled ...

gThumb is one of the best image viewer and browser applications available for the GNOME Desktop. I particularly like its adeptness in handling both still photography and videos. That is an unusual pairing for an image viewer on any platform. You are not likely to find this combination, or at least ...

Has anyone else noticed that you rarely receive a copy of hotel room-service receipts? Why is that? It hadn't really bothered me that much over the years -- despite a niggling feeling it should -- until an incident recently where the dollar amount I had signed for clearly didn't match the checkout b...

If you spend a lot of time at your keyboard, no doubt you dabble a lot in listening to Internet radio. Radio Tray is a relatively new Linux app that can make tuning in to your favorite radio stations a new experience. Radio Tray is a streaming player for online radio that sits on the Linux desktop ...

When it comes to playing audio and video files in Linux, media players pretty much all work the same way and have a very similar user interface. It usually all comes down to features. With SMPlayer it depends on what you want to play. Unfortunately, this bug of sorts is something its developer Ricar...

Vignette differentiates itself from other Android-based camera apps by adding cross-process, tilt-shift, double exposure and other sophisticated effects like infrared, as opposed to the general toy camera and retro effects commonly found. The paid version of Vignette adds full resolution to the mix....

Eye candy can be a great user experience sweetener, but tastes vary widely as to how much is just enough, and it's one differentiator among Linux desktops. Fotowall is a handy app that can spice up your desktop as well as create personalized print and wallpaper displays. Fotowall is a really clever ...

LiVES is an advanced video editor that can double as a video jockey tool. It is surprisingly powerful. But its interface makes it rather simple to learn. In fact, it has so many feature levels that this app would be right at home as the video editor of choice in any professional film editing studio....