While the official release date for Open Office 2.3 is still September 17th it can already be downloaded using various official Open Office mirror sites. It seems that the releases get spread throughout the mirror sites first to be ready when the announcement is made on the official Open Office website.

There have been so many changes to the new Open Office 2.3 version that it is impossible to list them all. Be assured that the new release contains hundreds of bugfixes and enhancements. I added the link to the release notes at the end of this article if you want to take a look at all the changes which is probably only interesting if you experienced a bug and want to know if it has been fixed.

Open Office 2.3 downloads are not yet available for all supported operating systems and languages. A working download is for instance the Windows en-US download. I suppose many others will be added in the coming hours and probably days to be ready to serve them all on September 17th.

continue reading "Download Open Office 2.3 early"

Retroshare is a secure Instant Messenger with File Sharing options. It uses a 2048-bit RSA encryption keys in combination with trust style authentication to ensure maximum security. Connections are only established to friends who received your Retroshare certificate which is of course a little bit more complicated but it is well worth it.

Once the certificate has been added your friend is verified and it’s possible to chat, group chat and share files with them. Everything is encrypted using 2048-bit RSA keys which means that it is not possible for your Internet Provider or someone else to snoop on the data that is send and received.

Turtle Hopping, also known as Turtle F2F, is being used to download files from users that are not in your friends list. This is done by creating a link between your computer, one of your friends, one of this friends and so on until the computer is reached that is offering the file.

continue reading "Retroshare secure Instant Messenger"

The first release candidate of the upcoming Open Office 2.3 has been released today and is available on the Open Office development website. The release notes show a huge list of changes, as far as I can tell there have been a lot of fixes and improvements in this version and it should be worth the download if you are an early adopter.

the new version has a size between 106 and 150 Megabyte depending on the operating system that you download it for. Make sure you check out my tips on how to speed up Open Office loading times to make the most out of it.

continue reading "Open Office 2.3 Release Candidate 1"

Many novice users fear the technical process that has do be done before or during the installation of a Linux distribution. Partitioning is something that most are not familiar with and the fear to do something wrong and wreck their standard operating system is probably one of the main reasons why many users do not install a Linux distribution.

Wubi is a sweet little program that lets us install Ubuntu - or Kubuntu, Xubuntu and UbuntuStudio - without partitioning your hard disks at all. “Wubi adds an entry to the Windows boot menu which allows you to run Linux. Ubuntu is installed within a file in the windows file system (c:\wubi\disks\system.virtual.disk), this file is seen by Linux as a real hard disk.”

So, the main difference is that Ubuntu is installed into a file instead of its own partition which is a great way to test the Linux distribution without having to partition your hard drives. Ubuntu is not running in a virtual environment at all, this is a real installation. The Windows boot manager will give you the choice to either boot Windows or Ubuntu at every startup from then on.

continue reading "Install Ubuntu without partitioning with Wubi"

I have been trying several newsreaders for the Usenet until I finally found the one and only newsreader Newsbin. I purchased it years ago and can only recommend it to everyone else who is serious about the Usenet. I do know however that some users prefer free software and that is why I took a look at the Pan newsreader which is available for Windows, Mac and Unix.

Pan Newsreader is offering a lot of features that commercial Usenet readers such as Newsbin are offering as well. It does support download binaries of course offering single-click encoding, multiple connections and simultaneous downloads and image previews of downloaded images.

I have to admit that Newsbin is not the perfect newsreader for reading and writing news. Pan seems to be able to handle this task better which is definitely a good thing. It does however lack a few essential features that I do not want to miss. The most important feature in my opinion is the SSL encryption.

continue reading "Pan Newsreader"