Doing a basic screencast in Linux is pretty easy. The package recordMyDesktop can be found easily on the repository of many Linux distros (including Ubuntu 9.04 that I use).

With this package you’re actually getting the backend recordMyDesktop which is written in C and the frontend developed in Python (gtk-recordMyDesktop or qt-recordMyDesktop).

The feature list is simple but that is all I needed for a quick screencast demo I had to prepare this afternoon:

The eco-system around Pidgin is fantastic, below is yet another cool plug-in tip for it.

Pidgin-Twitter plug-in works with Linux and Windows for you to get back into posting to and receiving notes from Twitter (also works well with Identi.ca too!). Steps to get it working:

1. download and install the plug-in the plug-in;
2. go to Pidgin menu under Tools > Plug-ins you’ll find Pidgin-Twitter to activate and configure;
3. place your username / password and define a couple of other options (such as show users’ avatars)
4. Add a buddy to your GTalk account called [email protected] and choose to display it even when it is offline.

You’re good to go! Open the chat window for the buddy you just created and instantly it’ll display your messages.

After a recent exchange of ideas about Abiword on identi.ca, I decided to take a closer look at it again. Although OpenOffice is currently my office suite of choice, it is a bit bloated and slow. So, what does Abiword have to offer?

• It is blazing fast;
• works in Windows and Linux;
• has all the main text editing and formatting functions one needs;
• saves and imports documents in multiple formats (Abiword’s own formats, .doc, .odf, .html, .rtf, .pdf, .docx, LaTeX, Kword and xml);
• has revision control;
• has spell checker and thesaurus built-in;
• and, has a plug-in architecture to improve its list of features even more!

The newest version of our beloved Linux distro Ubuntu was released on April 21st. Code named Jaunty Jackalope, Ubuntu 9.04 desktop edition brings some nice features:

• finally OpenOffice 3.0.1 installed;
• Gnome 2.26 with some improvements for multiple monitors setups, Empathy (multi-protocol instant messenger), Evolution (email client now with MS Exchange support), Volume manager (now integrated with PulseAudio);
• X.Org server 1.6 to improve support for some 3D video cards;
• new notification alert system specially designed for Ubuntu;
• Linux kernel 2.6.28 with ext4 file system support;

I’ve been using Ubuntu almost exclusively for about 2 years now. The improvements made since that time have been enormous and this release although not ground breaking has brought some very nice improvements.

Sharing with you my list of Linux and Open Source podcasts and vidcasts I subscribe to:

• FLOSS Weekly (podcast) – part of the Twit.tv world, excellent interviews with leaders of different FLOSS projects;
• Linux Outlaws (podcast) – this show is quite informal but has very nice comments on what’s new on the Linux and FLOSS world;
• Stack Overflow (podcast) – more geared towards programming and software development;
• The Linux Journal (vidcast) – short but very nice Linux tips;
• Category 5 (vidcast) – a lot of good information for those starting in the world of Linux with live Q&A session;
• The Source (vidcast) – just started following it and so far I’ve seen some very nice interviews with important community members of the open source world.

Any suggestions from our readers?

If you’re using Linux with Gnome, do a mouseover the music file and you’ll start hearing the song immediately.

You don’t even need to double-click to open the file in a media player, not even a mouse click is needed. Nice little hidden secrets of an awesome desktop file manager.

GanttProject is currently what I’m using for my project management duties. Why?

• it is multi-platform (works on Windows, Linux, and MacOS X);
• simple to use;
• open source;
• allows me to manage well dependencies, resources and milestones.

The main drawback is that it is Java based so a bit slower to run than other native programs.

Throughout my blogging years and web experiences Filezilla has been of great use. The Filezilla client allows transfering of files through FTP, FTPS, and SFTP. Actually, you can also delete files on your server or rename them.

It runs nicely on Windows, Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, and you can run it through a USB drive with Portable Apps.

If you prefer to run something similar on your Firefox, you may also try out FireFTP.

FreeCol is an open source clone of the Colonization game. I admit, during college I was a bit addicted to this game, my style of strategy gaming.

For those who are not familiar, this is a strategy game where your objective is to Colonize the entire world with your nationality. So, you build your cities, grow them, build an army and expand your borders. Sounds pretty simple but for people like me, fun stuff to do for hours and hours.

Launchy, our favorite application launcher which we’ve reviewed before has now been made to work with Linux!

The list of plug-ins has increased a lot since our last review making Launchy an even cooler application.

Download the application for Windows or Linux here.