Kontact

Kontact is an all in one personal information manager and groupware software suite for KDE with support for calendars, contacts, notes, to-do lists, news, and email. The screenshots below captures each section.

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Kontact embeds the following

• Summary Page: Shows unread email, upcoming appointments, the latest news and weather
• Mail: KMail – The KDE email client.
• Contacts: KAddressBook – The KDE Address Book
• Calendar: KOrganizer – A Personal Organizer for KDE
• To-dos: KOrganizer
• Journal: KOrganizer
• Notes: KNotes – KDE Notes Management
• Feeds: Akregator – A KDE news aggregator
• News (Usenet): KNode
• News Ticker: KNewsTicker
• Weather: KWeather

Related Link:
Kontact at Wikipedia: Link

Yakuake

I realized I hadn’t posted about Yakuake, which have come to completely replace the standard Terminal on my computer. What is it? A drop-down terminal emulator based on KDE Konsole technology that smoothly rolls down from the top of your screen with the command of a key. It closes just as simply. It uses a tabbed interface and has configurable dimensions (width, height) and animation speed as well as it is skinnable.

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Yakuake at getdeb: Link

Dual/Multi boot or Virtualbox?

When deciding to use more than one OS on one computer it can be of value to know that there is more than one option. This article is based on personal preferences of typist of this weblog.

Personally I do not feel particularly comfortable messing around with partitions but I have despite this managed multi boots in the past and this through gParted (a Partition Editor application). I found that handling the partitions on my computer was both discouraging and confusing and not all too simple either. The program I am about to present handles multi operating systems with a sense of alleviation since it does not include managing of partitions. Instead it runs on the desktop (Windows and Linux), it is installed inside the Windows or Linux installation and runs like any other program on your computer.

VirtualBox is one option to dual/multi boot: VirtualBox is a commercial and proprietary X86 virtualization software package produced by German software company innotek GmbH. VirtualBox supports Linux, Mac OS X, OS/2 Warp (experimental OSE builds), Windows, and OpenSolaris hosts. Supported guest operating systems include FreeBSD, Linux, OpenBSD, OS/2 Warp, Windows and Solaris. In January 2007, after several years of development, VirtualBox OSE (Open source edition), a limited, open-source version, was released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). — Continue to read about VirtualBox on Wikipedia: Link or on the VirtualBox Home Page where VirtualBox also can be downloaded from: Link

The pros I find in this arrangement:

1. (The great) Option to use dynamically expanding disc space for the virtual OS.
2. No handling of partitions.
3. (Using WindowsXP) I am still logged on my favorite OS (Kubuntu Gutsy + KDE4) while having the unlimited benifits from WindowsXP contary to Wine & Wine-Doors which are much limited.

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Tip:
To change the size of your virtualbox; change the screen resolution within the virtual OS.

amarokFS (Full Screen)

amarokFS is an Amarok script serving as a screensaver that display the song that is currently playing in Amarok, in a simple & clean style.

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1600 x 1200 Wallpapers

This is another none Kubuntu related post. A while back I reinstalled my Kubuntu installation & I was going to use the Internet to store as much as I could – instead of burning CD’s – so I created a folder dedicated 1600 x 1200 wallpapers and decided to share it with the visitors of my weblog (not this blog). I have today added more wallpapers to this folder and thought there may be more that can enjoy these hence this post, linking to them. I want to bring attention to that the absolute credit shall go to the creators.

Displaying a few from the collection:

You find the whole collection here: Link
(the collection is updated irregularly so check back)

Musicovery : interactive webRadio

This is nothing Kubuntu-related but I thought I would inform you about this website since it is a personal favorite & I think it is cool:

Musicovery is the website and through it you discover new music based on your mood, this free webradio let you browse music styles and epochs.

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Last.Fm + Kubuntu = True

This Last.Fm player lets you tune in to stations/the type of music of your choice. With Last.fm on your computer you can scrobble(?) your tracks, share your music taste, listen to personalised radio streams, and discover new music and people.

Requires a Last.Fm account.

Last.Fm Download Page: Link
(Note: The Last.Fm player is also available to install through “Add/Remove Programs” in your K-menu)

Last.Fm is a social music community that keeps track of what music you listen to, and then produces a large number of features personalised to you. You can use Last.fm to listen to music, find out about artists you may like, other people with similar music taste, gigs in your local area, charts and quilts for your personal site, as well as much more. Last.Fm is totally free to sign up and use.

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Sweet Darkness Login Theme

Finding a Login Theme that one like that can be difficult but this one certainly do work for me. I am using this one & wanted to give it extra attention hence sharing it’s existence here. The theme is titled Sweet Darkness and is downloadable from Kde-Look.org, more precisely here: Link.

Available logos:
debian, fedora, gentoo, kubuntu, slackware, suse, tux, ubuntu

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Hint:

If your Kubuntu Gutsy won’t let you change the login theme this is an alternative way that works:

1. Alt + F2, type in kdesu konqueror and hit Run.
2. Search your way to this path: /usr/share/apps/kdm/themes.
3. Backup the folder Kubuntu by renaming it to for example kubuntubackup.
4. Unzip the theme, name the folder Kubuntu and place it in /usr/share/apps/kdm/themes.

Personas for Firefox – simple and lightweight theme switcher

If you are a Firefox (Also works with Flock) user, regardless of the OS, I want to tip you about a lightweight theming to your browser. You can select a Persona from the dynamic menus and see results instantly (in real time) without having to discover, select, download or install a separate bit of software or code. Below features captures of one of the many themes from the selection (Developer Kit):

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Howto: KDE4.1 on Kubuntu Gutsy

KDE4 is an entirely different desktop that is accessed through the Login Manager under sessions. It works very differently from Kubuntu Gutsy with a version of KDE3. (I had planned to post several captures over the many different areas of KDE4 but found that kde.org have an excellent visual guide right here: http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.0/guide.php.)

The most noticeable changes for users are the new icons, theme and sounds provided by the Oxygen Project. These represent a break from previous KDE icons and graphics, which had a cartoonish look. Instead Oxygen icons will opt for a more photo realistic style. The Oxygen Project builds on the freedesktop.org Icon Naming Specification and Icon Theme Specification, allowing consistency across applications. The Oxygen team will be using community help for better visuals in KDE 4, with both alternate icon sets and the winners of a wallpaper contest held by the Oxygen project being included in KDE 4.^[5] There will also be a new set of human interface guidelines for a more standardized layout.

Plasma is a rewrite of several core KDE applications, like the desktop drawing and most notably the widget engine. Plasma will allow for a more customizable desktop and more versatile widgets.

KWin, the KDE Window Manager from KDE 3, now provides its own compositing effects, similar to Compiz. Compositing is disabled by default in 4.0.

– Quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_4

A note of observation ( I know that many of you have had this question, including myself):
I have been working on the KDE 4.1 desktop for a couple of days now and have not noticed any problem with applications (software) that I used in KDE 3. To mention a few of these: Amarok, Manslide, Mozilla Thunderbird, Indywiki, Flock, Songbird, Yakuake, FotoWall, Firefox, Last.Fm, Kitty, GIMP, Google Earth, ManDVD, Kirocker, LMMS.

Here is how to install KDE 4.1 on Kubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (it it very simple, no big process):

1. Remove previous KDE 4 packages, they are not compatible:

• apt-get remove kdelibs5 kde4base-data kde4libs-data

2. Add deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu gutsy main to your /etc/apt/sources.list. Open up a terminal, paste the folowing line and hit enter:

• sudo kate /etc/apt/sources.list

Paste the following line at the bottom of the list:

• deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-members-kde4/ubuntu gutsy main

• Save

( if you do not have permission to the sources.list, paste the following command into a terminal: sudo chown yourusername /etc/apt/sources.list and then save it)

• Close.

3. Install kde4-core, note that PPAs aren’t authenticated so you will likely get a warning when installing, ignore the warning. Install through the Synapic Package Manager for example. Just enter a search for it and mark for installation and Apply.

4. Logout your session and select to login on the KDE4 session.