Articles by Jack M. Germain

Regardless of how good they are, some Linux applications have very little appeal to all but users with specialized needs. That is not the case with Xournal. If you do not use a tablet for inputing notes, this app still lets you create with style. ...

One of my biggest problems in managing appointments, to-do tasks, notes and reminders is that I work on a variety of desktop and laptop computers in multiple locations. To bridge the access gaps, I rely on a tablet computer and a smartphone tapped into cloud storage. When I find a really good PIM (Personal Information Manager) app, frustration bui...

Canonical, the commercial developer of the Ubuntu Linux operating system, seems at times to be stuck between a rock and a hard place. Some testers and industry watchers alike have praised the company's innovative Unity desktop shell and the Heads Up Display (HUD) bolted on top of it in this month's release of Ubuntu 12.04, the Precise Pangolin But ...

Not all search tools are the same. Just like users have a variety of Linux distros that appeal to a wide range of needs, search apps do different tasks for different users....

I thought I had found image-manipulating Nirvana with GimpShop. But the wide world of open source software and the Linux community failed me this week. My quest for a better GIMP tool to give me a Photoshop-like Windows experience (as in Adobe's Photoshop) turned into a fool's folly. ...

The TEA Text Editor is a very handy writing tool that delivers a much different user interface. For most computer users cranking out words or program code for digital consumption, text editors are often preferable to feature-bloated word processors. TEA pours on features yet keeps from getting too steamy....

Windows 8 is on its way. In fact, it's already here, in a manner of speaking. Microsoft recently released what it called a "consumer preview" version of the OS. When the final versions arrive, it will finally give Microsoft a leg up in the tablet market. That might take a bite out of the market share Android has managed to scratch out in tablets.

Mirage is a fast and simple GTK+ image viewer for the GNOME desktop. Its lightweight structure includes just enough editing power to make it an ideal choice for everyday use....

The ultra-cheap Linux computer on a circuit board has its roots in the classroom. But the bare-bones computer, dubbed "Raspberry Pi," has potential to teach industrial embedded programmers some new tricks Raspberry Pi, a US$35 credit-card-sized computer sold without keyboard or monitor, runs several Linux distros and can hook up to a mouse, keyboar...

It's no wonder that the Linux desktop operating system is not attracting hordes of new users from Microsoft Windows and the Mac OS X platforms. Linux has almost too many desktop choices, and most of them are far from good One clear exception is the Lightweight X Desktop Environment, or LXDE. I am becoming increasingly enamored with it as the near i...

The Clementine Music Player is an up and coming application that could replace your default music app. It is a close cousin to Amarok with just enough of its own personality to make it stand apart from the crowd....

If you spend endless hours at a keyboard crunching words, avoiding distractions is essential. Sometimes, the worst offender in causing distractions comes from all the bells and whistles in the word processor itself. That is where WordGrinder comes to the rescue....

Canonical expects to start rolling out the first phase of Ubuntu's new heads-up display (HUD) in the April release of Ubuntu 12.04. But HUD will supplement Unity, Ubuntu's default desktop interface introduced last year, rather than fully replace it The move to radically change the desktop's default interface is being made out of necessity, accordin...

The concept of mobile connectivity in today's multi-device world is changing. Connectivity means more than connecting our laptop computers to WiFi or 3G carrier networks wherever we go. Today people work on more than one computer. Increasingly, workers and consumers alike rely on a growing collection of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs...

gThumb is one of the best image viewer and browser applications available for the GNOME Desktop. I particularly like its adeptness in handling both still photography and videos.

If you spend a lot of time at your keyboard, no doubt you dabble a lot in listening to Internet radio. Radio Tray is a relatively new Linux app that can make tuning in to your favorite radio stations a new experience.

When it comes to playing audio and video files in Linux, media players pretty much all work the same way and have a very similar user interface. It usually all comes down to features. With SMPlayer it depends on what you want to play....

Eye candy can be a great user experience sweetener, but tastes vary widely as to how much is just enough, and it's one differentiator among Linux desktops. ...

LiVES is an advanced video editor that can double as a video jockey (VJ) tool. It is surprisingly powerful. But its interface makes it rather simple to learn. In fact, it has so many feature levels that this app would be right at home as the video editor of choice in any professional film editing studio.

Asking a seasoned Linux user what music player you should use is akin to bringing up questions about religion or politics with your drinking buddies. A much safer strategy is, don't ask and don't tell. But if you insist, let me throw a suggestion into the fray....