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Brackets 1.0 Open Source Text Editor Debuts

Free, Open Source Comments Off

Nov 052014

After three years of development, the Adobe-sponsored open source text editor Brackets recently hit Release 1.0.

Hailing it as a milestone, Brackets’ developers say Release 1.0 comes with several performance improvements over Release 0.44 and is now ready for every day use by developers.

A cross-platform lightweight text editor built in JavaScript, HTML and CSS, Brackets runs on Ubuntu Linux 12.04 or newer, Debian Linux 8 or newer, Mac OSX 10.6.8 or newer and Windows Vista, 7, or 8/8.1 (x32 and x64).

Highlights of Brackets include inline editing, a Live Preview mode that lets developers see HTML and CSS code changes instantly in the browser and tons of extensions (439 extensions and 75 themes at last count). Continue reading »

Kupfer – Handy Linux Tool

Free, Products Comments Off

Nov 032014

The beauty of Linux is the plentiful availability of useful tools.

And magically they’re all free.

Quick App Launcher

In this post, we’ll take a look at Kupfer, a quick application and document launcher.

This is an useful tool since there are only so many icons you can place on your panel or in the favorites section (in Linux Mint).

You can download Kupfer via the terminal or through the Software Manager for Linux Mint. If you’re on Ubuntu, head to the Software Center to get this handy application.

Once you install Kupfer, you can open the lightweight application by pressing Ctrl + spacebar. From there, you can open any application or file on your computer by typing in just a few letters of the folder or file name. Press the spacebar and you’ll see a drop-down box if you have multiple folders or files starting with, for example, Linux.

You can even open any of the folders on your computer or search directly on your preferred search engine (Google, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo etc). There are a bunch of plugins too adding more value to the app.

I recommend you right click on the Kupfer icon on your PC, click ‘Preferences’ and check the box for ‘start automatically on login’ so that the tool is always available to you.

Kupfer is available for several Linux distributions including Debian, Arch Linux, Linux Mint and Ubuntu. Keep in mind that Kupfer requires Python 2.6 or later, and Python modules gtk, dbus, and xdg.

The latest release of Kupfer is v208, which came out in June 2012.

Check out Kupfer and use it to complete your tasks faster via the keyboard.

How To Snag Discounts on Software

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Sep 102013

Good software (or apps as they’re fashionably referred to these days) is not cheap.

Whether you’re buying directly from the vendors or from AppStores like Mac, good quality software often runs upwards of $10 and can go up to even a hundred dollars. The majority of apps on Apple’s AppStore are below $80.

Unless there is an app that you must have right now, I recommend you wait until the app developer offers a deal.

Believe me, most of them do.

Software and App Deal Sites

There are several web sites that frequently provide deals where you can buy decent software or apps for discounts of up to 50%.

Here are a few of the software deals sites you should check out before buying your next app:

BitsDujour.com – Offers a variety of software for both PCs and Mac. Discounts range from free to 50%.

MacLife Deals – This site provides deeply discounted bundles of software.

Two Dollar Tuesdays – Mac apps at $2 on Tuesdays.

Appy Fridays – Nice discounts on Mac apps on Fridays.

DealMac – A deals aggregator that highlights discounts on a variety of Apple products, cameras, iPad cases, networking gear like the TimeCapsule router cum backup device etc.

Linux Distros

I know that Linux can be a difficult proposition to tackle for the majority of Windows and Mac users.

The initial difficulty is in the downloading of the software, burning it on a DVD and installing it on a PC.

Fortunately, there are a bunch of stores that sell Linux DVDs of various distributions on the cheap. Prices range from $3-$5 for Fedora, Ubuntu, Linux Mint or any of the other flavors of Linux.

OSDisc.com – Linux discs for easy installation.
ShopLinuxOnline – Linux DVDs for different distributions.

How to Find Details on Every Apple Product

Apple, Free Comments Off

Aug 052013

There are several hundred thousand apps in Apple’s App store.

But there are few real, must have gems.

I’m glad to inform you that Mactracker is one of those rare gems.

Mactracker app Provides Details on All Apple Products

Free App

Mactracker is a great free app on the Mac App Store that provides details on everything you wanted to know about almost every Mac that’s Apple has launched over the last three decades.

The app provides details on processor, memory, storage, display, graphics, model introduction and discontinuation dates, original prices, a brief history of the product and more on Mac computers dating back to January 1984.

Macintosh, iMac, iBook, PowerBook, MacBook, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, Mac Pro Server and MacMini, yes, the Mactracker app covers all of them.

It also has a feature called This Mac that provides key details about the Mac on which the app is installed.

Besides computers, Mactracker provides a wealth of information on new Apple products like iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV, TimeCapsule and long obsolete devices like Newton PDAs, LaserWriter printers, QuickTake cameras and OneScanner.

If you’re a Mac fan like me, you’ll love to dig into the brief biographies of the various Apple products from years past.

I strongly recommend the free Mactracker app.

By the way, Mactracker is also available for the iPhone but I’ve checked it out only on my iMac.

One More Reason to Visit Starbucks

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Aug 012013

In a world of mostly disappointing retail coffee shops, I’ve always found Starbucks to be a reliable haven, consistently maintaining good standards.

Plus, the coffee chain’s restrooms are a big relief on cold days. 😉

But I have one more reason to visit Starbucks now – their free WiFi is gonna get 10-times faster thanks to the coffee chain’s partnership with Google.

Starbucks Coffee A Starbucks Store in NYC

Starbucks stores will start offering the faster WiFi this month and complete the upgrade in its 7,000 U.S. stores in 18 months.

WiFi is a big draw at Starbucks. Continue reading »

Freeloaders Can Smile Today

Apple, Free Comments Off

Jul 082013

Monday looks like a good day for freeloaders owning pricey iPads and iPhones.

A bunch of previously priced apps at Apple’s App Store are available for free today.

These are iOS apps, which means you can use them on iPhones, iPads or the iPod touch devices but not on the Macs.

Some of the free apps like the Traktor DJ software for DJs require iOS 6 to be installed on your device but others like Badland work on iOS 5.x too.

We couldn’t find any new free apps for the OS X platform (the operating system running on iMacs and MacBook notebooks).