TIME TO TO MOVE ON.
Ubuntu 11,10 codenamed Oneiric Ocelot has been released today 13 October 2011. Users can download the latest version of this free operating system from the Ubuntu project website or upgrade older versions of Ubuntu via the Update Manager. It’s always advisable to backup your documents and configuration files before carrying out any major shake-up of your OS.

The (Ubuntu) online demo exhibits some of the compelling front-end changes in Ubuntu 11.10 that less attentive users might need to know before upgrading.

With Google Earth 6, you can explore the streets in 3D like never before. Fly from outer space down to the streets with the new Street View and easily navigate your way around. Switch to ground-level view to see the same location in 3D.

Download Google Earth 6.0. Available for Linux, Windows and Mac platforms.

Mozilla has finally released the first beta for Firefox 4, you can now download and test this beta release, the very first of a series of betas that bring many improvements to the popular brown browser. As already reported, Firefox 4 that will be officially released at the end of the year is a major update, much of the Firefox of this browser depends on this release.

Some of the new features and the redesigned user interface have been presented here at kabatology, you should have seen them elsewhere too. Talking about the redesigned interface, Firefox beta for Linux and Firefox beta for Windows are slightly different on the surface. The Linux build as shown on the screenshot above doesn’t yet have the Opera-style menu button that reads ‘Firefox’. You can bring it up by hiding the Menu Bar; View -> Toolbars ->untick Menu Bar.
On both Windows and Linux you can can send “Tabs on Top” and even move the Navigation toolbar to the Tabbar.

Mozilla is particular interested in knowing what you thing of what is supposed to be their best browser so far, so they placed that big ‘Feedback’ button on the top right of the browser so you can tell them whats in Firefox 4 that makes you happy or sad.

What you (Firefox user) certainly expected in Firefox 4 is that it includes uninterrupted browsing, the Crash Protection technology (OOPP) now present in Firefox 3.6.6, native support for Google’s open WebM format for watching “hardware-accelerated, super-smooth, HD-quality HTML5 video on YouTube”.

Other features you should be testing in this beta include; new Add-Ons Manager (about:addons) that opens in a tab and not a window, it will soon be coming to Thunderbird email client. Do you expect a major release without performance improvements? Nay. This version also focuses “on improving responsiveness at start-up and during page loads”.

Web Developers aren’t left out; HTML5 Parser, WebSockets, IndexedDB, Web Console (experimental “Heads Up Display”) and Simpler Add-On Development via Jetpack are some of the goodies packed in Firefox 4 for you. Don’t forget to check-out the full list of Web technologies supported by Firefox 4 beta.

Mozilla via its blog reports that not all of what you find in this beta and in future betas (cause more is still to) is guaranteed to be in Firefox 4. If you want to join the testing community then download the very first beta at Mozilla.com. You can find more information on this release in the Release Notes. What do you think of the new features? Let us know in the comments.
via [Mozilla Blog]

The K3b team is proud to announce the release of version 2.0 of their popular open source CD and DVD authoring tool, K3b. Its a fully-featured CD/DVD burner that supports common tasks like burning audio CDs, disc images, data discs, disc copying and can rip your DVDs to your hard drive in the DivX or Xvid formats.

Code named “Komeback”, K3b 2.0 stable (final) has been available (for a while now) to the general public as a pre-release. It has been ported to the current KDE 4 platform but on the skin nothing has really changed, though it has gained modern widgets, and it takes advantage of Dolphin’s breadcrumb bar. Dolphin is the default file manager in KDE 4.

K3b 2.0 features support for DVD and Blu-ray writing via cdrecord, RTL languages and support for files bigger than 4GB (via mkisofs 2.01.01a32 and above). With over 250 bugs fixes during the pre-release period, the team hopes to have archived maximum stability in this release.

Other features in Komeback include;

• Always allow manual writing speed selection
• Use proper toolbars instead of the toolboxes -> nicer laying out with different styles
• Merged CD and DVD copy dialogs
• Merged CD and DVD image burning dialogs
• Merged CD-RW erasing and DVD formatting dialogs
• Merged Data CD and Data DVD projects into one plain data project with Blu-ray support
• Merged eMovix CD and eMovix DVD projects
• Removed CD copy option “prefer CD-Text”. K3b will now ask individually (there is no need to do this if no mounting is involved)
• Allow importing of arbitrary sessions into a data project, thus continuing other than the last session
• “Clear project” now only clears the added data but leaves the settings as they were (bug 147838)
• New audio ripping pattern %e which is replaced by the file extension

K3b alias Burn Baby Burn is a free download for Linux desktops. The last stable release, version 1.05 was out in May 27, 2008.

You can install it on your Ubuntu Lucid by via the Software Center. If you get this notice “MP3 Audio Decoder plugin not found”,

then close K3b, install libk3b6-extracodecs – sudo apt-get install libk3b6-extracodecs and relaunch K3b.

OpenDNS has launched an easy to setup service called FamilyShield that allows parents, administrators, users to filter web content and keep their computers free from adult web sites. This free service that needs no account to configure, no downloads or software to install works much like how OpenDNS Basic does.

You can setup FamilyShield’s IPs 208.67.222.123, 208.67.220.123 directly on your computer (Mac, Linux and Windows) or mobile phones and start filtering the web, better still, you can configure your router to use FamilyShield’s IPs and protect every device that shares that Internet connection, so users with Xbox, Wii, DS, iPad/iPhone and other smartphones also get protected.

Configure your router to use FamilyShield (Recommended)
First choose your router’s brand Here and a follow the straightforward instructions. If your router is not amongst those mentioned then follow the general router instructions. If you can’t get to configure your router then configure your computer.

Configure your computer to use FamilyShield

Instructions are available Here. Covered OS include Windows(XP, Vista, Windows 7) , Mac
(OS X Leopard, OS X Tiger, OS 9), Unix/Linux (SUSE, Ubuntu) and Wii.

FamilyShield web filter, powered by OpenDNS is constantly updated, 24hrs a day, it comes with built-in security that “automatically blocks phishing and virus-spreading malware websites.
via [OpenDNS Blog]

Mozilla developers have released Thunderbird 64-bit nightly builds for Linux desktops, builds that are experimental, and are based on Thunderbird’s latest source code. Thunderbird, Mozilla’s desktop email client is presently facing stiff competition from Google’s Gmail. Thunderbird 3.2 Pre-Alpha 64-bit builds for Linux machines do not have automatic updates, but should be forthcoming. Developers haven’t decided when they’ll start releasing 64-bit builds, they are currently trying to resolve “unexplained compilation issues” in Thunderbird 3.1, that was supposed to be released this week.

Download Thunderbird 64-bit Nightly Builds, 32bit builds are also present in Mozilla public FTP server.

The short demo below shows the new HTML5 interface on a touchscreen enabled Samsung NB30.

The developers of Jolicloud recently added to Jolicloud’s notification area an ‘updates icon’ that turns orange when updates are available, making it easy for users to keep their apps up-to-date. Jolicloud currently has over 600 web applications in its App Center, and more are on the way.