Free Office Suite - LibreOffice 3.3 Final Released

LibreOffice is a productivity suite that is compatible with other major office suites, and available on a variety of platforms. The goal is to produce a vendor-independent office suite with ODF support and without any copyright assignment requirements. As free software, users are free to download, modify, use and distribute LibreOffice. 

A Free DVD Video Transcoder For Windows, Mac OS X And Linux

HandBrake is an open-source video transcoder designed to convert MPEG video (including DVD-Video) into an MPEG-4 video file (.mp4) or .mkv containers.

This software is used to convert DVDs into other forms so they can be viewed on iPods, iPhones. It is available for Mac, Windows and Linux.

•  Home page: http://handbrake.fr/

Prey - Anti-theft Software For Windows, Mac, Linux & Android Phones

Prey is a free and open-source software, it helps you keep track of your phone or laptop at all times, and will help you find it if it ever gets lost or stolen.

Latest Prey features include wifi autoconnect, an alarm system, screenshot grabbing, hardware scanning and webcam capturing, etc. All of these functions are managed as modules, which can be activated on demand by the user, and new functions can be added by adding new modules.

Xonotic 0.1 preview - Free & Open-source First Person Shooter

Xonotic is a fast paced free, open-source first person shooter licensed under GPL. It is a fork of Nexuiz, and a successor of the Nexuiz Project. Xonotic works on Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. To find out why Nexuiz was forked into a new project, you can view my previous post <Nexuiz - a free opensource FPS game>

The latest 0.1 preview version has been released on December 23,2010. Find screenshots, Xonotic Videos at http://www.xonotic.org/

Free And Open-Source 3D Kart Racing Game

SuperTuxKart is a cross-platform and open source Kart game featuring the Linux mascot Tux. It supports Linux, Windows, Mac, FreeBSD, and some other platforms.

This is a TuxKart enhanced version of its free software feature is the use of the mascot as a racing driver. You can use various tricks on the track, including the use of props (banana peel, etc) the way interfere with the opponent's actions. The latest SuperTuxKart 0.7 RC1 (with new graphics engine ) has just been released. 

OpenTTD 1.0.5 Just Released

Image via WikipediaOpenTTD is an open source simulation game based upon the popular Microprose game "Transport Tycoon Deluxe". It attempts to mimic the original game as closely as possible while extending it with new features. OpenTTD is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2.0 .

The biggest difference between OpenTTD and the original game is that OpenTTD offers LAN and Internet play via public and worldwide servers for up to 255 players.

Top 10 Cross-Platform BitTorrent Clients

Here is a list of top 10 free and cross-platform BitTorrent softwares, each of them is popular and worth a try. Apart from BitTorrent and µTorrent, other clients are open source softwares.

 1. BitTorrent (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)

BitTorrent was the first client written for BitTorrent protocol.
BitTorrent, Inc's software client allows you to quickly download high-quality digital content such as video, music, and games. Available in over 20 languages, it leverages our community of over 70 million users to securely deliver files to your PC faster than anything else out there. BitTorrent was written in Python. Since version 6.0 the BitTorrent client has been a rebranded version of µTorrent. And now it is no longer open source.

There's no special description needed for this old BitTorrent client.


2. µTorrent (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)

µTorrent (or uTorrent) is the second most popular BitTorrent client (after the Chinese Xunlei).

µTorrent is a freeware, closed source BitTorrent client by BitTorrent, Inc. It is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. All versions are written in C++. Very tiny, efficient and full-featured.

 A variety of skins and languages. At the same time, µTorrent has an  App Studio.


3. Vuze (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)

Vuze (previously Azureus) is a BitTorrent client written in Java, and uses the Azureus Engine. In addition to downloading data linked to by .torrent files, Azureus allows users to view, publish and share original DVD and HD quality video content.

Azureus offers multiple torrent downloads, queuing/priority systems (on torrents and files), start/stop seeding options and instant access to numerous pieces of information about your torrents. Azureus now features an embedded tracker easily set up and ready to use. Azureus also offers a range of plugins.


4. Transmission (Mac OS X, Linux)

Transmission is Ubuntu's default BitTorrent manager. It features a very simple, intuitive interface on top on an efficient, cross-platform back-end.

It has native Mac, GTK+ and Qt GUI clients, and it can be remote controlled by Web and Terminal clients. It supports add-ons.

Simple interface and Low resource usage are its best features.


5. BitTornado (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)

BitTornado is a bittorrent client built on the original BitTorrent
client from BitTorrent Inc. This client features a console and curses mode, and is one of the original bittorrent clients created. It is programmed using Python, the interface is very simple and even a bit ugly.

But it's rather lightweight and easy to use.



6. Miro (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)

Miro is an Internet television application, a wonderful video player and torrent downloader. You can search, download, and save videos from YouTube, Google Video, Blip, and more.

The program supports most known video files and offers sound and video, some in HD quality. Miro should be the most special one of these 10 softwares, it is a video player, BitTorrent manage is just one of its function.

It also supports RSS BitTorrent. When a new video is available, the program will notify and download if possible. 



7. MLDonkey (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)

MLDonkey is an open source, multi-protocol, p2p file sharing application that runs as a back-end server application on many platforms. It can be controlled through a user interface provided by one of many separate front-ends, including a Web interface, telnet interface and over a dozen native client programs.

Like Miro, BitTorrent isn't its only function. It supports the following network protocols, either partially or completely:
          o Ed2k
          o Overnet
          o BitTorrent
          o Kad Network
          o Direct Connect
          o HTTP/FTP


8. Deluge (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)

Deluge is a full-featured, multi-platform, multi-interface BitTorrent client.
Meantime,


Deluge is a lightweight, Free Software, cross-platform BitTorrent client. It aims to be a lightweight, secure, and feature-rich client with Plugin System.

Portable version is available at  PortableApps.



9. qBittorrent (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)

BitTorrent client written in C++ and based on libtorrent-rasterbar with a Qt4
user interface. qBittorrent is a feature rich but lightweight client that is
very similar to uTorrent.

The qBittorrent project aims to provide a Free Software alternative to µtorrent. Additionally, qBittorrent runs and provides the same features on all major platforms (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD).


10. KTorrent (Windows, Linux)

KTorrent is a BitTorrent client written in C++ for KDE using the Qt user interface toolkit. It is maintained in the KDE Extragear.

Obviously, KTorrent supports such basic features
as downloading, uploading and seeding files on the BitTorrent network.
However, lots of other additional features and intuitive GUI should make
KTorrent a good choice for everyone. Some features are available as plugins
hence you should make sure you have the ones you need enabled. It takes very little system resources.


Personally, I'm using Transmission & MLDonkey under Ubuntu, both of them have a low resource usage, especially MLDonkey, if you control it just via web, You can hardly feel its presence. Although µTorrent is not an open-source software, I still like it and hope for the improvement of its Linux client.

Related articles

• VLC - Open-source Multimedia Player
• A List Of Commercial Software's Open Source Equivalents
• A Simple YouTube Desktop Client - Minitube
• A Free & Cross-Platform Image Viewer - XnViewMP
• Clementine: A versatile cross-platform music player

Open Sonic ：Open Source Sonic Game

Open Sonic is an open-source & non-profit fan-game based on the popular  "Sonic the Hedgehog" universe.  It introduces a different style of gameplay called cooperative play, in which it's possible to control 3 characters simultaneously.
It works on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. The latest release is 0.1.4 (September 19th, 2010). 

BleachBit - Cleanup Junk Files For Windows And LInux

BleachBit is a tiny cleaner which quickly frees disk space, removes hidden junk. Erase cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, remove unused localizations, shred logs, and delete temporary files. Designed for Linux and Windows systems, it wipes clean a lot of popular apps. It's always a necessary software on my Ubuntu.

VLC - Open-source Multimedia Player

VLC (a project of VideoLAN) is a free and open source cross-platform  (It works on Linux, Windows, Mac and iOS! ) multimedia player. It's a player that fulfills all your needs. It handles various audio and video formats, including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, MP3, and OGG, as well as for DVDs, VCDs, TV cards, streaming protocols and much more.
It is simple to use, yet very powerful, portable and extendable.

screenshot of VLC, find more here.

Top Free Open Source Disk Encryption Software - TrueCrypt

Toady  is another disk encryption software, it's open source and cross-platform, it could work on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

I've introduced some security softwares, they have different characteristics. You could hide  your files easily with Easy File Locker, and TrueCrypt likes Comodo Disk Encryption, it gives you more sense of security, but TrueCrypt is more attractive in features. It is an absolute ultimate free encryption software.

TrueCrypt could create a virtual encrypted volumes and mount it as a real disk, you can hide it or not. Just like virtual drive software such as Daemon, it could change the disc image file ". iso " into a CD-ROM partition. TrueCrypt could Encrypt an entire hard disk partition or a device, such as USB flash drive and all of these are automatically and transparently in real time. Its principle is very simple and easy to understand, but some advanced features are not easy to use, like hide operating system.

A List Of Commercial Software's Open Source Equivalents

You purchased licenses for all the softwares you're using? If so, you're really great!

However, let's be honest, unauthorized copying of software is very common for most windows users. For example, WinRAR is a widely used software, you could try it before you buy, but after its free trial, it still could be used. How can that be legal? And you can download the copy of Adobe Photoshop from the Internet, but do you feel relieved? You can't be sure that you won't get trouble forever. So don't take software makers for fools, they'll find more and more ways to track down illegal owners all the time.


If you start to contact with linux, you can always find a free replacement for most commercial softwares, and most of them run on Windows and Mac OS too. Some of them might lack the advanced functionality, but they'll be more than enough for most people, some of them are as good as commercial softwares. Here is a list of some common commercial softwares and their open Source Equivalents.  

Commercial	Open source	Support Windows?
3ds Max, Maya	Blender	Yes
Adobe Audition	Audacity	Yes
Adobe Dreamweaver	Bluefish	Yes
Adobe Illustrator	Inkscape	Yes
Adobe InDesign	Scribus	Yes
Adobe Photoshop	GIMP	Yes
Adobe Premiere	Kino, Cinelerra	No
Adobe Reader	Evince, Kpdf	Yes
iTunes, Winamp	Amarok, Rhythmbox, aTunes	No
Kazaa	aMule, MLDonkey	Yes
Microsoft Internet Explorer	Firefox, Chromium	Yes
Microsoft Office	OpenOffice, LibreOffice，KOffice	Yes
Microsoft Windows Mail	Thunderbird, Evolution	Yes
Microsoft Windows Media Player， QuickTime Player	Mplayer, VLC	Yes
Microsoft Windows Messenger	Pidgin, Kopete, aMSN	Yes
Nero Burning Rom	K3b, Brasero	No
Windows Movie Maker	PiTiVi, Open Movie Editor	Yes
winzip, winrar	7-zip	Yes

Related articles

• Knocking On Linux's Door
• Clementine: A versatile cross-platform music player
• Nexuiz - a free open source FPS game

Knocking On Linux's Door

I have used ubuntu linux for more than two years, it's a very nice operating system that is totally different from windows. Linux is friendly enough now, all the job could be done in it easily, there are plenty of free and open source softwares and distributions to choose from. I write this post because I want to let more people know about Linux, it is not the operating system only for hackers, but for all human beings!

Linux was created in 1991 by a Finnish student named Linus Torvalds (He is now a US citizen). At the time, it was essentially a clone of the UNIX kernel. But nowadays, thanks to a substantial amount of development effort by people all around the world, Linux runs on virtually every modern computer architecture. More description can refer to wikipedia. For me, Linux is a kernel's name, kernel of different Linux based system and the general term for all Linux distributions.

Sintel - Blender Foundation's Latest Free And Open Source Film

Blender is an open source, cross platform 3D creation suite, just like 3ds Max and Maya, the two most obvious and popular packages but blender is a freeware. "Sintel" is an independently produced short film, initiated by the Blender Foundation as a means to further improve and validate this 3D creation suite.

Sintel means a dragon land in this short animation. It is a fantastic epic movie, a story that tells about a gril and a dragon. Below is several screenshots.

Keep Your Password Safe With KeePass

KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way and you can put all your passwords in lightweight, simple-to-use & encrypted database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database.

KeePass Password Safe stores all your passwords in groups, so that it's easy to find the one you want quickly. And the program does more than just store the passwords; it also lets you easily copy them onto a Web page or an application. You can drag and drop them, copy them to the clipboard, and copy them using a hot key. You can also easily search for passwords, and print and export them in a variety of formats, including TXT, HTML, XML and CSV files. You can import them as well.

Nexuiz - a free opensource FPS game

Nexuiz is a fast paced 3d deathmatch game(FPS). It's open-source, you can play it on windows, linux and mac freely.

Nexuiz is primarily multiplayer (though it includes a full single-player campaign, which allows one to play through the various multiplayer game types and maps with bots), and allows for hosting and joining of games. It can also support new gametypes, or whole conversions quickly applied to it (much like Quake). Nexuiz supports most Quake modifications (although with varying functionality). Currently there are a few custom mods and maps used.（via wikipedia）

The latest version is 2.5.2, it includes 33 official maps(of course, you can download hundreds of community created maps), you can play many mods with bots or join a online game easily.
Nexuiz has a very active development team, and it's very open, you can contact them by email, or their IRC channel #alientrap on irc.anynet.org, if you would like to help with development. New release can be seen every year, and you can see many new Features like maps, weapons, etc.