One Dozen Applications

I thought I’d list the bits and bobs of software that I use every day. I’m not talking about my Desktop Envirnoment, KDE, coz you know yeah, I use that everyday. Neither am I talking about the little shell tools like cp or mv etc, most of which I use without thinking. No I mean the applications that get most use on my Gentoo Linux Box.

The Not So Dirty Dozen

1. Yakuake

Yakuake is a drop-down terminal emulator based on KDE Konsole technology. It’s been around for a while now and it’s the only terminal that I use on my desktop. So big deal it’s a shell on your desktop, so what? Well the thing is, it’s unobtrusive because it scrolls down from the top of your screen on a hot key, F12 by default. You want a shell, hit F12 and Bob’s your Uncle. Easy.

The Yakuake site lists its other features as:

• Smoothly rolls down from the top of your screen
• Tabbed interface
• Configurable dimensions and animation speed
• Skinnable
• Sophisticated DCOP / D-Bus interface

If you’re used to having a terminal window constantly sat on your desktop getting in the way, Yakuake is the answer, it’s a no-brainer.

2. Destroy Twitter

Destroy Twitter is an Adobe AIR application that’s, you guessed it, for use with the social networking site Twitter.

It’s unusual for me to use non GNU/Linux native applications but I quite like AIR applications and most of them are free to use. Destroy Twitter is the creation of Jonnie Hallman from Destroy Today.

Here’s what Jonnie has to say about his application:

DestroyTwitter is a compact though robust Twitter application built to run on Mac, Windows, and Linux using Adobe AIR. It consists of a series of canvases that constantly update to keep tweets up-to-date using notifications that appear when a new tweet arrives. DestroyTwitter uses a minimal amount of memory compared to its AIR-based alternatives without sacrificing functionality and performance. As a result, it can easily run in the background as an automated process.

I like Twitter a lot and I’ve accessed it via its Web Interface and by using other AIR applications such as Twhirl, Spaz and TweetDeck but I’ve settled on DestroyTwitter.

It rocks!

3. Firefox

Easy one this I suppose but Firefox is my default Web Browser. On my machine I also have Konqueror, Opera and Epiphany and I suppose I use those in equal amounts but Firefox is the default.

What does astound me is that people actually use Internet Explorer on their machines. It’s obviously not an option for me (well, sort of not an option – WINE) but why would you use something when there’s is a better, safer, more standards compliant web browser out there, free of charge. I just don’t get it.

4. Kate

Kate is a multi-document editor, it’s part of KDE and it’s what I use when I’m coding. To be honest it’s the nearest I could find to GoldED when I made the transition from Amiga to Linux all those years back. I’d sooner be using GoldED but Kate is a reasonable replacement.

Actually this doesn’t sound much of an endorsement but that’s not the purpose of this post. I use Kate every day, it’s as simple as that so that must be an endorsement in itself.

5. Krusader

Hey I’m going to mention the Amiga again. Ah sigh. Anyway, the most useful tool on the Amiga was Directory Opus. Initially a two panel file browser that eventually morphed into a virtual desktop environment. I still have the t-shirt! Anyway, version 5 was the DE but version 4.* was what we all broke our teeth on. Click file, hit copy, over it goes. Simples.

So Krusader is exactly that, I haven’t looked but I bet there’s some reference to Directory Opus in the Krusader help files or web site. In fact, I’m going to go look right now…

Ha! Would you believe it, it’s a replacement for a windows program:

Krusader was created because there was no good Total Commander (formerly Windows Commander) replacement for Linux. Shie and Rafi chose KDE/Qt because it offered the right tools for software development, as well as a rich and dependable framework.

I was convinced since GPSoftware released the older Amiga Directory Opus 4 source code in 2000 as open source under the GNU General Public License. Oh well. It still looks like Directory Opus 4.* to me, actually a bit prettier. If I want to move files around and I’m not in a shell, I use Krusader. I don’t particularly like drag-and-drop.

6. Amarok

I’ve probably used most music players available for Linux and I’ve settled on Amarok. I’m still on version 1.4 something since I’m yet to move to KDE 4.* For some reason I don’t fully trust it though but that probably goes back to when I was using Beta versions which are supposed to crash, right?

Anyway, it monitors my music file-base, lets me edit my mp3 tags, lets me transfer files to my iPod, downloads my subscribed podcasts, tells last.fm what I’m listening to. So, just what you want from your desktop music player. Sweet!

7. Skype For Linux

I’ve been using Skype off and on for years. It’s probably only in the past 12 months that I’ve become a regular user. I have Skype Out so that I can talk to people on normal telephones and I have Skype in so that those same people can call me on my computer using a local call rate.

It’s just one of those things that does what it says on the tin. It just works. Well, after a bit of fiddling around.

8. PSI

Instant Messaging seems to have taken a back seat to the not-so-instant messaging of tools like Twitter which is a bit of a backward step I suppose. Nevertheless I still have an Instant Message client running on my desktop and that client is PSI these days. Like most things, I’ve tried out and used a lot if not all the other instant messaging clients for Linux and indeed I used Kopete for a long time. A while back though Kopete stated acting up on me so I flipped to PSI.

The thing about PSI is that it’s predominantly an XMPP client with the added bonus of being able to connect to other IM services through gateways. It makes me feel a whole lot better that I don’t actually connect directly with MSN, it’s like wearing rubber gloves to do the washing up. You know you’ve got to do it but you feel protected by those marigolds.

Some of the PSI features from the PSI website are:

Psi is an instant messaging application for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X that connects to the free, open Jabber IM network (also known as XMPP)…

Whether you use Windows, Linux, or a Mac, Psi is right at home on your desktop. From the system tray icon on Windows to the dock badges on Mac OS X, Psi takes advantage of each operating system’s unique features and appearance to provide a first-class IM experience on almost any computer.

And since Psi is designed to be fast and lightweight from the ground up, you’re free to enjoy all of its features without slowing down the rest of your system.

Me, boat, rocks.

9. GIMP

So I suppose that the GNU Image Manipulation Program or GIMP is the alternative to Photoshop. It’s what I use 95% of the time when I’m doing anything with images. If you see something by me, it’s undoubtedly passed though GIMP.

I know that to newbies it’s a little bit tricky to come to terms with because it really is a powerful piece of software but there are kazillions of help sites out there. It’s worth it though to go looking for tutorials. Just Google GIMP + Tutorial and fill your boots.

Nuff said.

10. Wget

This one little shell tool is worth its weight in gold. Which wouldn’t be much gold now I think about it but you know what I mean. I pretty much use it every hour of the day if I’m fetching things from the web as I can just type it out, give it an URL and then bing, the file is sitting where I want it.

I think you can actually get it for Windows as an *.exe but whenever I try and get Windozy users to try it out they balk at it. They generally need to click things. Sigh.

Anyway, I’ll let the wget man page speak for itself.

GNU Wget is a free utility for non-interactive download of files from the Web. It supports HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP protocols, as well as retrieval through HTTP proxies.

Wget is non-interactive, meaning that it can work in the background, while the user is not logged on. This allows you to start a retrieval and disconnect from the system, letting Wget finish the work. By contrast, most of the Web browsers require constant user’s presence, which can be a great hindrance when transferring a lot of data.

Wget can follow links in HTML and XHTML pages and create local versions of remote websites, fully recreating the directory structure of the original site. This is sometimes referred to as “recursive downloading.” While doing that, Wget respects the Robot Exclusion Standard (/robots.txt). Wget can be instructed to convert the links in downloaded HTML files to the local files for offline viewing.
Wget has been designed for robustness over slow or unstable network connections; if a download fails due to a network problem, it will keep retrying until the whole file has been retrieved. If the server supports regetting, it will instruct the server to continue the download from where it left off.

Wow – even I’m impressed after reading that!

11. Firebug

Firebug is an add-on for Firefox and it’s just awesome. I probably don’t know half of its features but if I’m developing some form of HTML/CSS/Javascript/Whatever it’s sat on my desktop all day. It’s really that useful.

To be honest if you do any form of web development, even if it’s only farting around with your own self developed site, it’s a must have thing. It spots the bugs, lets you edit on the fly to see how things would look without committing and I find it a really good reference/learning tool as well.

From the Firebug website:

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

Get it installed now!

12. KMail

OK, this is just the email client that come with KDE and it’s a bit boring of me to use what’s in the bundle. Trouble is I like it. Again harking back to my Amiga days I was a user of YAM. It was great, super-cool ARexx interface and looked good too. KMail doesn’t have the Arexx (I wish) but nevertheless it feels like YAM to me.

I keep trying things like Thunderbird, Evolution, Sylpheed and even GMail’s Web Interface. I always crawl home to Momma; KMail.

So there we have it. A dozen tools that I really do use everyday. Out of that list I’ve just counted and I’ve used nine today already.

See!