For years Flash has been one of the limiters that prevented many people from completely switching to Linux. Fully featured development tools weren't available and many distros don't even ship with the ability to view Flash due to it being non-free. And even when a Flash plug-in was added by the user there were still some sites that would not load because they required version 8 or higher. Adobe recently announced the Flash 9 for Linux beta to address the latter issue, but you might be surprised to know that a common application that may already be installed is capable of creating Flash presentations. I'm talking about OpenOffice.org Impress.

Ubuntu has a program installation problem. To be fair, nearly all Linux distributions have the same issue, but I'll pick on Ubuntu because its popular and is the choice for many users switching from Windows. The problem I am referring to is the missing menu link after many graphical apps are installed. If you spend any time browsing Ubuntu Forums it won't take long to run across the post of a frustrated user who doesn't know how to launch the application they just installed. While Ubuntu can't control what isn't in the repositories, I'd like to see them put a greater focus on getting all programs in the repositories to include menu entries.

Updated the program versions in the database and added the new applications listed below.

Backup & Recovery Recoverjpeg Business & Finance LedgerSMB Development Drivel Games Armagetron GnomerMind rRootage Sear Search and Rescue XQF Graphics FreeCAD K-3D Terraform Webilder

Internet & Networking Aria2 Gmail Notifier Multimedia GNUMP3d Syncropated! Office KnowledgeRoot Scientific & Engineering K3DSurf linSmith SALOME SeaView

System aptitude GSynaptics KSynaptics Utilities DVIPDFMx GnomePilot Notebook PDFjam recordMyDesktop Viewers BooKreader Comix Gpdf

Searching in Linux starts those venerable command line favorites: find, grep, and locate. These tools are very powerful and can easily be integrated into scripts, but for many users, this usefulness is also one of their key weaknesses. These users require a graphical interface in order to be comfortable with a program. They don't want to have to remember syntax and drop out of another app to type commands. The new breed of Linux desktop search is all about bringing the functionality of the tried and true originals into the graphical world.

Cleversafe has just announced the Cleversafe Desktop project, a graphical client for interacting with dispersed storage grids. DSGrid, a command line version, has available for a while now, but this is Cleversafe's first attempt to bring it to the masses.

Updated the program versions in the database and added the new applications listed below.

Backup & Recovery QSync Communications Kiax Databases sql-editor Development Hobix Education KEWL.NextGen Games Dirk Dashing: Secret Agent Finity Flight II Hexen II: Hammer of Thyrion Star Voyager Graphics Kim

Internet & Networking Deluge fnord NetworkManager xvnc4viewer Multimedia AudioLink Breakage Gneutronica KGuitar PulseAudio Office KBarcode System 3DFM APTonCD beaglefs fsv kio-apt XCruiser

System Management BixData Cacti Utilities kio-beagle kio-clucene kio-locate Kio-Sword Metar PyMETAR QBrew SearchMonkey Strigi Viewers Gnochm KchmViewer xCHM

For all of you (K)Ubuntu users out there, the Feisty Fawn repository has now been added. Additions have also been made recently to include the Kiperpipa repository that contains Cinelerra, as well as Edgy backports and Edgy commercial.

Amarok just announced version 1.4.4, and while a point release usually doesn't spur much interest, this one had a little something extra. The Magnatune music store has been integrated with Amarok and features DRM-free downloads and full length previews.

Updated the program versions in the database and added the new applications listed below.

Communications Jabbin Development Arkrpg Worlded Editors flpsed Education DebianEdu Chemistry Applications Games Arkhart Darkworld Enigma Liquid War Starfighter

Graphics AC3D Internet & Networking Yahoo! Messenger Multimedia FoxyTunes LightScribe Host Software LightScribe Labeler Office activeCollab GnoTime Scientific & Engineering Chemtool GPeriodic

System loadwatch System Management GOsa Utilities Epos eSpeak Flite KSayIt Viewers DjVu Viewer DjVuLibre Plug-in

Earlier this year I saw a question on the Ubuntu Forums looking for a way to use LightScribe on Linux. Unfortunately, no software was available for LightScribe drives on Linux at that time, only Windows. Fortunately, that is no longer true. LaCie has recently released the LaCie LightScribe Labeler for Linux, also called 4L. For those who are unfamiliar with it, LightScribe is a method to write a label directly onto a CD or DVD.