Tag: Free-Software

It is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction or with minimal restrictions… “Free Software” does not stand for “free of charge”.

XBMC 11 (aka Eden) stable release download available

XBMC Media Center (formerly Xbox Media Center) is a free and open source cross-platform media centre and HTPC application. I have been using it for just a few months but I never tried any media centre as good and configurable as this one.

Version 11, codenamed “Eden”, was a significant release. It introduced a new skin engine that made it easier for designers to create custom interfaces. Library management was overhauled — scraping metadata for movies and TV shows became more accurate and faster. Hardware acceleration was improved, making HD playback smoother on a wider range of hardware.

Eden also added support for more audio formats, better UPnP streaming, and an improved add-on system. The PVR (live TV) integration, while still marked as a beta feature, was a promising addition for those looking to replace their set-top box entirely.

If you have a home theatre PC or even just a computer connected to your TV, XBMC turns it into a proper media centre — movies, TV shows, music, pictures, all with a beautiful interface designed for a remote control. It supports almost every file format you can throw at it and runs on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and even the original Xbox.

Download your free version and give it a try!

Download the free version and give it a try!

Give it a try!

Accelerate downloads with lftp

lftp is a versatile command-line file transfer tool. What makes it stand out is its ability to open multiple connections for a single download, which can significantly improve transfer speeds on servers that limit bandwidth per connection.

Parallel downloads with pget

The command I use most is pget with the -n option for parallel connections:

lftp -e 'pget -n 3 http://example.com/file.zip'

If the server limits each connection to 100KB/s, three connections will give you roughly 300KB/s.

Resuming interrupted downloads

If a download fails halfway through, pget continues from where it left off when you run the same command again:

lftp -e 'pget -c -n 3 http://example.com/file.zip'

Mirroring directories

lftp can mirror entire directory structures:

lftp -e 'mirror --parallel=3 /remote/path /local/path'

Queue management

lftp http://example.com
queue pget file1.zip
queue pget file2.zip
run

Enjoy!

How to install Miro 3.5 on Ubuntu 10.04

Miro 3.5 has been released. The major improvement, in my opinion, is the ability to convert video and audio files for other devices — Android OS for example.

Ubuntu 10.04 is bundled with Miro 3.0. To upgrade, add the repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pcf/miro-releases
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install miro

Miro 3.5 screenshot

Enjoy the file conversion! :-)

How to install the latest version of Shotwell under Ubuntu Lucid (10.04)

From Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat), Shotwell is the new default photo manager. I tried it under Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) but the latest version was not available in the standard repositories.

To install the latest version on Lucid, add the Shotwell PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:shotwell/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install shotwell

Shotwell screenshot

Give it a try and see if it suits your needs!