Tech News

Lenovo’s 27-Inch Table PC Is Fun, Versatile

News Updater — Sun, 12 May 2013 21:57:29 +0000

It's your standard all-in-one consumer-oriented desktop computer: The guts of the system are behind a 27-inch touch-screen. Microsoft's tile-based Windows 8 operating system inhabits that screen.

Except it is anything but standard. Lay it flat, and something funny happens. Windows 8 disappears, and a touch overlay called Aura takes over.

You have entered Lenovo's world of tabletop computing, a social environment for playing games, sharing photos and listening to music. I'm testing the new IdeaCentre Horizon, a dual-purpose system, one of the coolest things I saw at the CES electronics show in January.

While I'm not ready to predict that table computing will catch on in a major way, Lenovo's machine promises to keep you engaged and (literally) in touch with friends and family.

As a table PC, it's fun: Two or more people can simultaneously interact, competing in virtual air hockey, Monopoly or spinning a roulette wheel. Lenovo supports "10-point multitouch," so a bunch of you can get your paws on it at once.

It's also an all-in-one that functions like a Windows 8 desktop PC.

Whatever you think of Microsoft's latest operating system, there have been some innovative, if not always compelling, hardware designs meant to take advantage of Windows 8's flexibility. We've seen laptop designs that fold or twist or have components that can be detached to transform into a keyboard-less tablet.

A different transformation takes place on the IdeaCentre Horizon. It's not a laptop and won't ever be a tablet. You're not removing parts or twisting or folding anything; you're changing the way you position the computer. In desktop mode, it can be propped up at various angles via a stand. Lay it horizontally, and Windows 8 retreats in the background while Aura takes center stage. (You still have the option to run Windows 8 while the machine is flat or Aura when...

Tool Helps Flexible Fliers Find Cheap Flights — Eventually

News Updater — Sun, 12 May 2013 21:56:43 +0000

How often have you searched for a flight, walked away from your computer or put down your smartphone, and seen a few hours later that the airfare has changed?

It can be frustrating to watch the fluctuations, which seem to follow no logical pattern.

Now, Momondo, a travel-comparison site based in Denmark, has launched a Flight Insight tool that analyzes the factors that play havoc with airfares on individual routes. It essentially serves as a guide for purchasing cheaper flights.

Momondo, which made its debut in 2006 and provides search capabilities for flights, hotels, vacation rentals and cars, says Flight Insight currently covers 400 routes.

The service analyzes more than a million previous fare searches on each route, and specifies the lowest and highest fares by airline, airport, season, days to departure, day of week and time of day.

Despite presentation shortcomings, Flight Insight provides valuable information and opens a curtain on airline pricing secrets -- especially for travelers who are flexible about when and on which airline they fly.

Flight Insight is less useful for the business traveler who must be in Denver next week for a meeting and is required to fly a particular airline.

If you use Momondo to search for a New York to San Francisco flight, for example, you'll find a Flight Insight tab above the search results. (It's not on the mobile apps yet.)

Click on the Flight Insight tab, and you'll learn that Sun Country Airlines offers the cheapest New York-San Francisco fares ($445 on average), while JetBlue is the most expensive ($516 on average).

I especially like Flight Insight's take on airports. How many times have you searched repeatedly to find which airports give you the lowest fares? For the New York to San Francisco route, Momondo's Flight Insight determined that La Guardia-San Francisco is the cheapest airport combination, at $462...

Interview: How Mighty Mint became one of the most popular Linux distros

News Updater — Sun, 12 May 2013 15:00:00 +0000

What makes Linux Mint so awesome? That, in itself, is quite a question. After all, why do we use Linux? It's one of those questions that can only be answered from the point of view of an individual's personal approach to their experiences with the operating system itself.

For many, Linux Mint is the last bastion of non-commercialised Linux; an environment whereby they can still enjoy the pleasures of the desktop, without having to follow the trend of living in a tabletised world.

For others, Mint has become the very best example of what a Linux desktop should be: fast, easy, pleasing to the eye, useful and productive. Others, still, see Mint as the ideal desktop for Windows refugees, or those who are trying out Linux for the first time, and want an operating system that essentially works 'out of the box', playing any number of media files from a variety of sources.

Whatever the reason, we can be sure that Linux Mint has evolved into something more than just another Linux distribution, and that its popularity has fuelled its own style and usefulness.

In the beginning

It started with a review…

The surprising thing is that Mint was originally just a sideshow to some reviews its creator had written online. Clem Lefebvre explains:

"I was writing for LinuxForums.org at the time, and eventually decided to try and host my own website, so I created LinuxMint.com. Version 1.0 (of the distribution) was a quick experiment to see how some of the ideas I wrote about in my reviews could be implemented. I was surprised to see people were more interested in it than in my articles."

After a while, Clem started to get a flavour for what the people wanted, and he started to get the idea of how he would construct, and create, a distribution himself. Clem then went on to post more articles and tutorials. He saw the innovations of the time, and improved on them, adding his own ideas.

"With version 2 onwards, there was an audience on LinuxMint.com which didn't really care about the articles at all and just wanted to see another release," says Clem. "Bianca (2.2) was the first release which was released with the ambition to establish a new Linux distribution and to compete with the very best."

Linux Mint was being developed during a time that marked the end of the standard operating system desktop, and the beginning of a new-look desktop. Windows XP was starting to look its age, even in 2006, after just five years of life. It was riddled with security flaws, and its drain on system resources was starting to show, even after the launch of service pack two.

Windows Vista appeared early in 2007, and with it came the final nail in the coffin for many disgruntled Microsoft users. Having an operating system that would only run perfectly on a very small population of computers was ridiculous. The hardware requirements for the full set of Vista features catered for roughly 5% of the machines, and users abandoned Windows in their droves.

Linux Mint fitted in nicely, attracting Vista mutineers with an already-packaged Compiz 3D environment, along with media codecs and satisfying visual effects. Existing Linux users saw a desktop that combined all they wanted, without the headache of package installations, dependency woes and outdated control centres.

However, the most significant impression that Linux Mint made was the fact that it listened to its community.

To fill a need

The Mint team took into account all that was said, and religiously took heed of the Mint forums and suggestions. They accepted the contributions of the community, and improved their product based on the feedback from those who were using it in the many ways that only the public can. Can you imagine Steve Ballmer, or Tim Cook altering their systems based on user feedback?

The vibrant Linux community knows what it wants, and even the developers of the more popular distributions of the time, Canonical and Novell OpenSUSE for instance, were settled in their ways, and discouraged the adoption of improvements based on feedback from the user base. This is what formed the rock-solid foundation that Linux Mint was built on.

Its ability to listen, learn and develop around the needs and suggestions of the users created an experience that left a positive mark on those who installed Mint. In fact, of the many who parted ways with their previous operating systems at that time, many have remained faithful to Linux Mint, and even now sing the praises of what can only be described as 'their' operating system. It's one thing to encourage a user to install and use a product, but something else entirely to have that user present six years later, still enjoying it.

Mint: the new Ubuntu?

Common origins but different paths

Clem knew what he was doing when he chose Ubuntu as the basis for Mint. He says:

"Ubuntu was chosen for its package base. It was excellent as a distribution, easy to build upon, it had a frozen cycle… there was no question there, it simply was the best base available, so if I was to base my efforts on an existing package base, it had to be Ubuntu. Other distributions were faster, snappier, or allowed multiple versions of the same software to be installed, but from an overall point of view, Ubuntu was by far the best distribution."

In the years that followed, however, Ubuntu and Mint's paths started to diverge. Ubuntu, for all of its 'Linux for Human Beings' rhetoric, decided to opt for a radical-at-the-time desktop environment. Of course, we are referring to the much maligned Unity; it's remarkable how much animosity can be generated toward the visual interpretation of a few lines of code.

In a community that tolerates almost any eccentricity, Unity was hated as much as any release by the likes of Microsoft. The other offerings from and related to Ubuntu: Kubuntu, Xubuntu, and so on, have kept their theme, and as a result have managed to retain their fan base, but it was the core Ubuntu direction, and its alleged flagrant disregard for heeding the views and opinions of those using the software that forced a number of stalwarts to jump ship.

Many of the refugees of Ubuntu found solace in Linux Mint, which at the time was still operating with a classic Gnome 2 desktop environment; but the world was changing, and the Gnome development team was taking things in one direction, while Ubuntu was taking another.

Mint, finding itself between a rock and hard place, was loath to adopt either the true form of the newly-released Gnome 3, an environment that caused as much controversy as Unity had, or the Ubuntu-implemented Unity. Instead, it employed an eclectic mix of desktops for the user to choose between during installation.

"Many people switched from Ubuntu to Linux Mint in the last two years. According to the feedback we gathered, the main reasons were related to desktop environments," says Clem. "Canonical is a great company, they have talented developers, strong leadership and a clear vision of where they want to go. I'm sure they studied the different markets, and their plan to switch audience certainly makes sense. Do we want to follow them towards touch-interfaces, cloud computing and mobile environments? No. Does it makes sense for them to go there? Probably."

Shared roots

Looking at the previous releases of Mint - from Linux Mint 12: Lisa, based on Ubuntu Oneiric; to Mint number 13: Maya, based on the Precise Pangolin, we see a Linux distribution that offers the advanced and casual user alike an experience that retains the classic look and feel of the desktop, without the commercialisation or look-alike branding that has become the norm.

In particular, we got to enjoy the pleasures of Mate and Cinnamon - considered the true Linux user's desktop environments. In the end, however, after the desktop comparisons, we are left with the available software and the ease of using the operating system. In both cases, the software is similar, as both Mint and Ubuntu share their basic package parentage.

The obvious difference is the Mint-developed, specific additions and innovations, which when combined within the whole package of the operating system, make for a better experience. "I don't like comparing Linux Mint to other distributions, especially as competitors, and especially Ubuntu," says Clem. "They're not just another distribution, they're also an upstream component, which is used in about half of our releases."

"I've often heard people describe Linux Mint as 'Ubuntu done right', or 'what Ubuntu should be'. Although I appreciate when people like what we do, our goal was never to 'improve' Ubuntu or to produce a 'better' Ubuntu. Linux Mint is a different project altogether, with its own goals, its own direction and its own idea of what it should be. Whether you run a Debian-based, an Ubuntu-based, or tomorrow an RPM-based Mint, or a Mint with its own base, it will always feel and run like Mint."

Desktop design

Is the Mint vs Ubuntu debate really only about the look and feel of the desktop? To many that answer is yes; but to those who have used Linux for many years, the answer isn't quite so black and white.

Firstly, there's the political angle: the Linux community has been furrowing its collective brow over Canonical's and Ubuntu's choices in recent years.

With the release of Ubuntu 12.10, the community has finally rolled up its shirt sleeves and prepared to do battle over a number of issues relating to features such as the Amazon shopping lens, which allegedly transmits data to unsecure servers; the ever increasing tablet-centric environment; the lack of ability to customise the operating system; the increasing need for a more powerful computer just to run the basic OS layer; the sudden appearance of a 'how much would you pay for Ubuntu' voluntary (at the moment) donation page; and the overbearing feeling that Valve's interest in Linux, in the form of the closed-source Steam for Linux client, is going to consume the freedom Linux and open source was built on.

"I think [Ubuntu's Amazon advertising tie-up] is clumsy and lacks elegance," says Clem. "That said, we don't ship Google by default, so they're not the only ones creating income sources and trying to make their distribution viable in the long term. I have no idea how much their development costs and how much these Amazon ads generate. Developers cost money and users hate to be taken hostage, so it's important to gather funds but equally as important to do so without hurting the user experience."

Yes, advertising, sponsorship and community donations have fuelled the finances of Linux Mint projects, but it has never been shoved down the throat of the users. And the commercial aspect of any advertising has never appeared in the functioning of the operating system itself.

Mint has also managed to avoid the tablet-esque desktops that its brethren have so readily adopted. We imagine that Mint will offer such elements when the time comes, but on the whole it is a desktop operating system that has, pleasantly surprisingly, catered for the desktop user.

To finalise the argument, the latest version of Linux Mint can run just as effectively on a vintage dual core laptop, with a mere helping of RAM, as it does on an eye-watering Core i7 with gigabytes going spare.

One distro, two desktops

The birth of Cinnamon and Mate

Linux Mint 13 was the first Mint release that didn't have Gnome as a standard environment; it gave users the choice of versions based on Mate and Cinnamon.

Mate has rapidly become the users' favoured choice, and is perceived as being the true successor to Gnome 2; the fact that it is a direct fork of Gnome 2 helps, but in the eyes of users who consider Gnome 2 as the last great desktop environment, Mate offers a sensible return to function and order.

Introduced in Mint 12, Mate was fast and responsive, and combined with Mint's serene colour schemes, themes, fonts and window decorations, the user got a working desktop that didn't require the re-learning of how to search for simple applications. Mate may not be that popular at the moment, but given time we could see the pendulum swing in favour of functionality.

As Clem says: "Mate 'is' the new Gnome 2. Whichever way you look at it, Gnome 2 was 'renamed' and its new name is Mate. There is no other project as active as Mate, which continues where Gnome 2 left off. With version 1.4, Mate goes beyond Gnome 2; it fixes bugs which were in Gnome for years and adds new features."

The other Mint desktop, Cinnamon, is the replacement for Gnome 3, and the spiritual successor to MGSE (Mint Gnome Shell Extensions). With Gnome Shell going in a direction that offended the majority of the community, a compromise was needed. Consequently, the direction of Gnome was something that weighed heavily on the development of Mint, therefore the forking and creation of the Cinnamon project brought about a better-developed and more acceptable desktop environment.

"Cinnamon is primarily developed by and for Linux Mint," says Clem. "We make sure that it works with all distributions, but it is the implementation of our own vision of the desktop. In Cinnamon 1.6, this vision extends to file management and desktop handling with the addition of Nemo."

Cinnamon on toast

Cinnamon started with a fork of the Gnome 3.2.1 shell, and included the previously designed features from MGSE. It was designed to be innovative and fresh, and to appeal to most Linux users. Cinnamon held its arms open to those who weren't convinced with the new, and still believed that the traditional desktop had considerable life left in it.

As the Cinnamon slogan states: "Love your Linux, feel at home, get things done!". Clearly a slogan that reflects the radical changes that have taken place over the last few years, with many users stating that it feels more like using Gnome 2.x, but with a more modern approach. Users could now shut down and restart their computers without the headache-inducing shenanigans of Gnome 3; and they could benefit from the latest goodies that Gnome 3 included.

Cinnamon also included a return to customising the desktop, something which is possible with the likes of Gnome 3, but isn't quite as forthcoming as one would have liked. Being able to move the menu bar around the screen, fiddling with the desktop effects, adding themes, applets and extensions was a breeze; customisation was back on the menu, and the users savoured it.

As with Mate, though, there were niggles that cropped up from one user to another; but it's still very young, and rather than creating a Frankenstein environment, cobbled from the body parts of Gnome 3 or Unity, Cinnamon represented a brave new world.

"I don't think either desktop will rule supreme", says Clem. "Cinnamon certainly has a lot of fans, but so does Mate. We love both. Mate is the continuation of what Mint was built on. It's the desktop we used to enhance the user experience year after year, it's what mintMenu, mintDesktop were designed for. There's nothing more mature than Mate, and it's extremely important to us. Cinnamon, on the other hand, is our own implementation of the desktop, so any idea, any concept can be implemented there and on top of brand new and exciting technology."

Here comes Muffin

"We forked parts of Gnome 3 because we couldn't use them as they were (they didn't do what we wanted) and because the Gnome developers had no interest in implementing what we needed. As an example, the Linux Mint desktop has had a bottom panel since 2006. Gnome 3 has a top panel. Not only is the location of that panel non-configurable, it is on top 'by design'. Gnome 3 was 'adjusted' and 'hacked' with a collection of 'extensions' for a while, and when the time came to build something solid and functional, the Gnome 3 extensions weren't a valid solution. So the Shell was forked into Cinnamon, and then the window manager was forked into Muffin."

Mint hardware store

Meet the MintBox

As well as the abundant following that Linux Mint has accumulated over the last few years, we're beginning to see a rise in the number of PCs being sold with Mint as their primary operating system. For starters, if you go to the Linux Mint home page, then browse to the Project section, followed by Store, you will be greeted with Live DVDs and USB sticks, T-shirts, stickers, badges and, more importantly, computers, laptops and the MintBox.

Looking first at the Computers and Laptops section, we see a number of computers with Mint pre-installed from the ThinkPenguin catalogue, including an all-in-one setup, a standard desktop, a couple of mini-PCs and a home theatre setup. The Laptop area forwards us again to ThinkPenguin, with a number of laptops pre-installed with our favourite operating system.

Although these offerings are all fine and well, almost any reasonably priced PC can be manipulated into becoming a Linux Mint machine. The real star of the show, in this particular case, is the MintBox.

MintBox

Working in partnership with CompuLab over the last year or so, the Mint team are now the proud parents of a very versatile, and reasonably powerful little unit that comes in two distinct flavours: a standard unit that comprises of 4GB RAM, an APU G-T405N 1GHz dual core CPU with a Radeon HD6290 and a flat, black metal case; and a Pro unit that houses 8GB RAM, an APU G-T56N 1.65GHz CPU with a Radeon HD 6320 and sports a fetching black metal ribbed case.

Both these units are fanless, with standard features shared between the two that include a 250GB HDD, dual-head HDMI 1.3/DisplayPort, gigabit Ethernet, S/PDIF 7.1 channel audio, 2X USB 3.0 ports and 2X USB 2.0 ports; 2X eSATA ports, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n (with dual antennae), a bay to house a 2.5-inch SATA HDD, 2 mini PCIe sockets with a single mSATA and a Serial RS232 port.

Amazingly, CompuLab has managed to squeeze all of this into a unit that's 6.3x6.3x1 inches for the standard, and 7.5x6.3x1.6 for the pro; with an emphasis on the units being easy to open up and upgrade.

The applications for such a tiny unit are wide and varied; everything from an industrial, or shop-based work unit, to educational and the home lounge-based media centre can be catered for, especially since these Mint-powered boxes are also VESA mountable and come with an incredibly low power consumption (9W for the standard and 18W for the pro).

Clem and the team are proud of the MintBox, and rightly so, although it does run to $476 plus VAT and shipping (roughly £297) for the standard, and $549 (£343) for the professional model. They aren't the cheapest units to grace the market, but they are terrifically well built, CompuLab being a world leader when it comes to designing and manufacturing industrial hardware.

Obviously, this endeavour has opened the gates to a more lucrative option for Linux Mint as a company; however, it's worth noting that Mint will receive a 10% cut from the sale of each device. And although the MintBox is far from being the first Linux distro, or even the first Ubuntu-based distro, to be sold pre-installed on a PC, it's certainly unique in its design, connectivity and appeal.

We have already seen many PCs sold with a Linux distro on board, specifically Dell's contribution with Ubuntu pre-installed. However, they aren't Linux Mint. Here, we have a unit that can be plugged in and played. As well we know, and have already mentioned, with Mint's inclusion of media specific codecs and libraries, you could quite easily order a brace of MintBoxes, hook them up to a reasonably-sized TV and start streaming media from around the network. In terms of ease of use, therefore, they require very little effort to set up.

New model ARMy

But what of the future of the MintBox, or the next generation of Mint-installed units? As Clem stated in his recent blog regarding the MintBox: "The partnership with CompuLab is likely to extend to the IntensePC in the future (which features the Intel i7)".

Certainly the added power behind Intel's flagship processors would be an incredible asset to the end user, particularly if the user's needs extend to video editing or the playing of games. But the future of the Linux-based PC seems to be heading down the path of the ARM CPU, at least for the moment. Could we possibly see a future where ARM and Mint, excuse the pun, go hand-in-hand?

It's certainly food for thought, and makes an interesting topic of conversation; after all, we've seen how popular the Raspberry Pi has been since its launch; could Mint partner with the Pi Foundation, perhaps?

Top of the pops?

Lies, damn lies and statistics

If you browse on over to the Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report for Operating Systems, you will find an "overview of page requests by operating system, based on the user agent information that accompanies the server requests," as the site so eloquently explains. The numbers shown there are not to be considered as the final word in who is more popular than whom; but in the grand scale of things, we can see some indications of how popular Linux Mint is becoming.

The breakdown from a snapshot from 19 October to 31 October 2011 shows us that 17.3 million requests were sent from Linux Mint PCs, which comes to just 0.01% of the total, below Ubuntu, Mandriva, Debian, Fedora and OpenSUSE. In addition to these numbers, the results for this year are 11.2 million for Linux Mint, and 1,100 million for Ubuntu; with Debian, SUSE and Fedora now above Mint in the rank.

The Distrowatch story

For an enlightening contrast, visit Distrowatch.com. Scroll down the page and, as most of you will no doubt be aware, you will come across a Page Hit Ranking. At the very top of this list, leading by quite a margin, you will see Mint; but what does this mean?

The Distrowatch page rankings are, as Distrowatch itself states: "a light-hearted way of measuring the popularity of Linux distributions and other free operating systems among the visitors of this website. They correlate neither to usage nor to quality, and should not be used to measure the market share of distributions. They simply show the number of times a distribution page on DistroWatch.com was accessed each day, nothing more."

So, while Linux Mint is storming ahead of the competition, as it were (although as we know, there is no competition in Linux, right?), this is purely the number of times that the Mint link has been hit - be that by accident or just casual browsing.

Whatever metric you choose to measure the rise of Mint, it's clear that it's doing a grand job, and we can expect to see even more of it in the near future. Cheers Clem: keep up the good work.

Roundup: 10 best history apps for iPhone and iPad

News Updater — Sun, 12 May 2013 13:01:00 +0000

The days when history was considered a lifeless, irrelevant subject are long gone. Today, people understand the importance of history, both from a global perspective and in terms of our everyday lives. History is about who we are and where we came from, and when it comes to bringing the past alive, your iPhone and iPad are the perfect tools for the job.

History apps allow you to combine the best of all worlds, giving you access to all the key details of a past period while allowing you to explore it through photos, video and even interactive 3D. If television made history popular again, your iPad allows it to express itself fully.

Despite the fact that apps were made for showcasing history, there aren't that many historical apps out there. Thankfully, the emphasis has been on quality rather than quantity, as the ten apps in this roundup demonstrate.

20 best iPhone 5 apps and games 2013

Some allow you to explore the period with the aid of text, photos and videos, neatly arranged in a logical, temporal order. There are also apps that invite you to re-visit the past and explore historic locations, whether it's the Giza Plateau in Egypt with its collection of tombs, pyramids and the Sphinx, or the city of Rome, all in breathtaking, interactive 3D.

Throw in some useful reference apps covering everything from the British monarchy to a list of museum and archaeological sites worth visiting, and you have a collection that will appear to every type of historian, from academics to hobbyists.

We've got slices of history for every one of you to enjoy!

1. Timeline World War 2 with Dan Snow

A complete and detailed multimedia guide to the tragic world conflict

Price: £6.99 / $9.99
Works: with iPad

Dan Snow's TV series covering all of World War II was a ratings smash, and this app, although developed in conjunction with it, is far more than a simple companion app. The app might not yield the same amount of detail as a history book would, but it's certainly more engaging, and easier to dip in and out of. And despite the lack of depth compared to an academic book, Timeline World War II does more than simply provide an overview of the subject.

As its name implies, all of the events are organised by date, accessible through a timeline view that can be enlarged for more daily detail, or shrunk for more of an overview. You can also switch to a map view, which makes it easy to see how the war first spread and then developed at any point during the conflict. And thanks to a handy - and surprisingly comprehensive - set of filters, you can focus on specific places or aspects of the war, too.

The actual facts aren't too heavy on detail - short, telegram-like missives in some cases, longer typewritten notes in others - and many come accompanied with both photos and video clips (over 100 of the latter). Some video clips even offer you the choice of listening to the original soundtrack or choosing to hear Dan Snow's analysis instead.

Like many of the apps in this roundup, the app requires an awful lot of space on your iPad - 750MB in fact - but this helps demonstrates its sheer depth and breadth. An iPhone version is in development, as is Timeline Battle Castles.

2. Virtual History - Roma

An interactive tour of ancient the Roman Empire's ancient capital city

Price: £5.99 / $8.99
Works with: iPad

This takes you on an tour of ancient Rome through the medium of an interactive magazine. Rather than present its wealth of information about Rome as a series of dry facts, static images and the odd bit of video, Virtual History - Roma throws in some groundbreaking interactive tools such as the bubble viewer, which lets you explore the ancient city in 3D by moving around and tilting your iPad. You'll also find 3D objects to manipulate and overlays allowing you to see how parts of Rome changed over time.

The app is split into sections, from major public works and the army to globalisation and the fall of the empire; tap one, and then move between pages by swiping your finger. Each page is self-contained, packed with text and imagery giving you plenty of history to work your way through, with the interactive elements dotted around. It's beautifully presented and laid out, although it would be nice to be able to magnify the text on certain pages.

However, if you're looking for an immersive way to re-examine the history of this powerful civilisation, then Virtual History - Roma is a must-have. Other Virtual History guides have also been released, covering Leonardo's Last Supper painting and the Italian city of Florence.

3. Building Titanic

Avoid that sinking feeling with this incredible look back at RMS Titanic's construction

Price: Free
Works with: iPad

Building Titanic concentrates on the ship's construction, and what the engineering feats involved represented at the time. Backed by the National Geographic Channel and James Cameron, the app's success comes as no surprise, superbly capturing the detail of Titanic's genesis from plans to completion.

There's a timeline covering key points during Titanic's construction, from approval of the ship's design and laying of the keel to the completion of the building and fitting-out process. A representative model of the ship as it takes shape appears at each point, and moving backwards and forwards through the timeline sees it rising up or disappearing back depending on the direction of travel.

As you move between each key event, you'll see + symbols appear over various parts of the screen - tap one to learn more about specific parts of the ship's construction, including design choices that would ultimately cost lives. The text doesn't go into any great depth, but provides a good summary of that part of the ship-building process, and is accompanied by images, or in some cases, video footage.

4. NHM: Evolution

Compressing 600 millions years of natural history into one app

Price: £9.99 / $13.99
Works with: iPad

It seems like a daunting task, but when you've got the Natural History Museum behind you, you've every chance of success. This app gives you everything you could want to know about the earth's history, and provides you with a number of different ways of accessing it.

Timeline gives you an overview of the major periods covered - including eons and eras, while Timeglobe lets you view the changing face of the Earth's mass using a 3D globe.

The most impressive section is, however, the Timeband, which stitches together 100 artworks depicting the earth's evolution through species and landscapes. Tap on any part of the screen to reveal pop-up details and access to great swathes of information and illustrations. Throw in an interactive 3D fossil exhibition, tutorial videos and library containing potted biographies of evolutionary pioneers, and you could easily lose yourself in this app for an epoch or two.

5. Pyramids 3D

Take a virtual 3D tour of famous Egyptian pyramids and tombs

Price: £9.99 / $13.99
Works with: iPad

If you're a fan of Egyptian history then this is a must-have, providing an interactive 3D tour of the world-famous Giza Plateau, home to the Great Pyramid, Great Sphinx and numerous tombs. The app allows you to view many of these in interactive 3D, providing an expert's audio introduction to each landmark before allowing you to explore.

You can manually move between chambers, but a number of shortcuts exist to help you quickly jump to the areas of most interest. The app also comes with two additional sections: a gallery of virtual objects you can tilt, rotate and zoom into as you read their descriptions, plus a traditional book outlining a brief history of Egypt before focussing on Giza.

It's an atmospheric, comprehensive guide to this renowned landmark, but there's a price to be paid: the app weighs in at a gargantuan 1.4GB, making it the largest app here.

6. Streetmuseum: Londinium

Take a trek around London and discover its Roman origins

Price: Free
Works with: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad

This is the second 'Streetmuseum' app from the Museum of London, designed to act as an interactive guide to accompany a walking tour around central London. As its names implies, this app focuses on the city's Roman origins.

Londinium's fate was tied in with Rome's occupation of Britain - it flourished during the occupation before fading into obscurity when the Romans left - and an introductory series of slides provides an overview of its entire timeline. Then it's off to an interactive map where ancient landmarks, including the border of the old city walls, are overlaid on London's modernday streets.

Tap on points of interest - represented by purple and red pins - to uncover artefacts or check out landmarks with the help of photos, sounds and even video clips courtesy of the History Channel. Overall, it's a well-presented app, simple to navigate and, of course, a great advert for the Museum of London.

7. Today in History

Find out key historic events, births and deaths on any day

Price: Free
Works with: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad

The problem with many 'today in history' apps on the store is that they tend to be Anglo-centric, so of little use to those of with a wider interest. There's no danger of that with this app, which spreads around 100,000 historic events worldwide across the year, plus has room for notable births, deaths and holidays for good measure.

The presentation is basic, but easy to read and follow. By default the current day is selected, but you can easily switch to any day of the year, with the selected date's events listed in chronological order, most recent first. Births, deaths and holidays are accessible from their own buttons, where you'll also find a search tool, allowing you to tie specific events to the day they occurred.

The events aren't covered in much depth - a sentence or two typically - but tap one and you'll be given a list of related search terms. Tap one to view its corresponding Wikipedia entry. The app also has options for commenting on events and adding your own events. There is a separate iPhone version.

8. The British Monarchy

Your one-stop guide to the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland

Price: 69p / 99¢
Works with: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad

This app provides a comprehensive guide to each of the monarchs who've reigned over England and Scotland since the 8th Century. You can browse (or search) by name or view a chronological list, and tapping a monarch reveals key details and a lengthy biography taken from Wikipedia.

From here you can add the monarch to a list of favourites for easy access later, plus attach your own notes. Tap the thumbnail image in the top right-hand corner to view more images and web links through Google searches. It's a handy reference guide to anyone who loves their political history - the biographies are detailed, and will keep you occupied for hours, although it's a shame they don't include all the citations found in the original Wikipedia articles. Hopefully the lack of Welsh representation here might be rectified in a future update.

9. Armchair Archaeologist

A guide to the major archaeological sites and museums in Britain

Price: £2.99 / $4.99
Works with: iPad

Even the best apps can't be a substitute for the real thing, which is where Armchair Archaeologist comes in. This - inspired by Channel 4's Time Team - lists major sites of historical and archaeological significance stretching back from modern times to the Palaeolithic era, using Google Maps to help you locate them ahead of a visit.

The app allows you to browse by place - TV sites, monuments or museums - or eras. Choosing an era lists all places from that period - tap one to see it on the map. Each era also comes with Info and Timeline tabs to give you a more rounded view.

If you're looking for detailed information about each site you'll be disappointed - a sentence or two summary is as good as it gets, but Armchair Archaeologist works without an internet connection, so can be used on the road, and acts as a handy launching pad.

10. MFA Coins

View ancient coins in exquisite detail on your iPad

Price: Free
Works with: iPad

Coins are a valuable historic resource, particularly with older civilisations when other evidence is thin on the ground. Boston's Museum of Fine Arts has an impressive collection of ancient coins and this app does a first-class job of displaying them, providing a template for other virtual exhibitions to follow.

The collection contains hundreds of coins, divided into two categories. Grecian covers all pre-Roman civilisations, so organises its coins geographically; Roman coins are displayed chronologically. Tap one to view it up close - both sides of each coin have been photographed in high resolution, allowing you to zoom in to appreciate their beauty and fine detail. You can also view an information panel providing key details and some historical context. There's also a timeline view available for reading up a quick history of coins.

One AppleCare subscription may soon cover all devices in service overhaul

News Updater — Sun, 12 May 2013 11:59:00 +0000

Apple is reportedly planning big changes in the way it handles warranties and repairs through AppleCare, according to details leaked from an employee briefing last week.

AppleInsider brings word Apple will soon be moving to a single subscription model, which would cover all of the customer's Apple devices, replacing or sitting alongside the current one-warranty-per-device system.

Under the proposed system, Apple would offer exclusive 24/7 support for customers, while extending the option for One to One in-store training, to other devices beyond the purchase of Mac computers.

The changes, which may arrive this autumn in the US, before a worldwide roll-out, would also extend free after-purchase phone support, which currently stands at 90 days after purchase, for at least a year.

No more easy iPhone swaps?

Another intriguing item to leak from the Town Hall-style were purported plans for the company to fix more iPhones in Apple Store locations rather than replace them.

Currently iPhone users can return their busted handsets to the Apple Store and usually receive a straight swap for a device in similar condition.

Currently, technicians at Apple Stores can replace speakers, receivers, home buttons, the vibrator motor and the iPhone's battery. From this summer cameras, sleep/wake buttons and logic boards will also be replaced in-store.

The Apple employee who leaked the info to AppleInsider said: "The biggest announcement, was the way repairs for iPhones will be handled soon.

"The way it is now, if almost anything is wrong with an iPhone, iPod, or iPad, the entire device is exchanged for a like-new re manufactured (sic) device, whether brought into an apple store or sent in for mail in repair. Now we are starting to actually repair the products and return the same device to the customer."

Microsoft fights back, says Windows 8 changes aren’t admitting failure

News Updater — Sun, 12 May 2013 11:14:00 +0000

Microsoft has defended the forthcoming changes to its Windows 8, following scathing criticism that the company would be admitting failure if it brought back features the fabled Start button.

In the past week articles in the news media, suggested that bowing to pressure to reinstate features axed from Windows 7 would be backtracking on its bold new experiment, after just six months.

The FT even suggested the rethink would mark "one of the most prominent admissions of failure for a new mass-market consumer product since Coca-Cola's New Coke fiasco nearly 30 years ago."

However, Microsoft's chief PR guy Frank X. Shaw called for reason, stating any changes will seek to improve upon its Windows 8 vision and listening to user feedback should be considered a good thing.

In a post on the official Microsoft blog Shaw, the company's Corporate Vice President of Corporate Communications accused the media of sensationalism and hyperbole in name of page views and called for a more 'centred' viewpoint.

'Windows 8 isn't a can of soda'

He wrote: "Let's pause for a moment and consider the center. In the center, selling 100 million copies of a product is a good thing. In the center, listening to feedback and improving a product is a good thing. Heck, there was even a time when acknowledging that you were listening to feedback and acting on it was considered a good thing."

"Windows 8 is a good product, and it's getting better every day. Unlike a can of soda, a computer operating system offers different experiences to different customers to meet different needs, while still moving the entire industry toward an exciting future of touch, mobility, and seamless, cross-device experiences."

Microsoft is scheduled to launch Windows 8.1 (or Windows Blue as it named internally) at its Build developers' conference next month.

Among the expected chances, or enhancements as Microsoft would call them, are the aforementioned return for the Start button, a new version of Internet Explorer, greater SkyDrive intergation and a new SnapView that allows your screen to be shared 50/50 between apps.

For all the latest check out our Windows 8.1 Blue release date, news and rumours round up.

Tutorial: How to create a virtual machine in Windows

News Updater — Sun, 12 May 2013 09:00:00 +0000

The release of any new operating system is always exciting, but upgrades bring with them the potential for problems and software incompatibilities.

If you have a computer that you're planning to upgrade to the latest version of Windows, or you're thinking about investing in a new machine with Windows 8 pre-installed, you need to think about the applications and data you have been working with up until now.

Using a combination of VMware vCenter Converter and VMware Player, you can convert your computer in to a virtual machine, retaining all of your settings, applications and data, which you can then use in Windows 8.

The same can be done with other versions of Windows if you like, but here we're looking at creating a virtual machine from a laptop running Windows 7, which can then be run from within Windows 8 and used just like a regular computer.

Step-by-step: Create a virtual machine

Keep all your Windows 7 settings and data secure

1. Install the converter

Start by paying a visit to www.vmware.com/uk. Once on the website, hover your mouse over the 'Products' button in the navigation bar and click the 'vCenter Converter' link in the lower right, under the heading 'Free products'. Click 'Download' and then follow the instructions to either create a new VMware account. You can then download the VMware vCenter Converter software.

2. Installation options

Begin the program installation. You may see a security warning dialog, in which case you should click 'Run'. Click 'Next' twice and agree to the terms of the licence. Keep clicking 'Next to move through the wizard, then choose the option labelled 'Local installation'. Click the 'Next' button one more time, then select 'Install'. Once installation is complete, click 'Finish' and launch the program.

3. Starting machine conversion

You're now ready to begin the conversion process, so click the 'Convert machine' button in the program toolbar. Click the 'Select source type' drop-down menu and make sure that the 'Powered-on machine' option is selected. Beneath this, select the radio button marked 'This local machine' to convert your PC into a virtual machine, then click the 'Next' button on the lower right of the dialog.

4. Choose conversion type

The conversion tool will briefly analyse your PC before displaying the next screen. Select 'VMware Workstation or other VMware virtual machine' from the first drop-down menu and then select 'VMware Workstation 8.0.x' from the second one. Type a name for the virtual machine and click 'Browse' to choose where it should be saved - ideally on an external USB drive - before clicking 'Next'.

5. Configure hard drives

You can now choose which of your drives and partitions should be included in the virtual machine by clicking the 'Data to copy' link to the left. You may well want to include all of them, but you can untick the box next to any you would like to exclude. Tick the boxes labelled 'Ignore page file and hibernation file' and 'Create optimized partition layout', then click 'Next'.

6. Set up memory

Click the 'Device' link to the left of the dialog and make sure that you are on the Memory tab to the right. You can now use the up and down arrow buttons to change the amount of memory that will be assigned to the virtual machine. Try to get this figure as close to the amount of genuine memory you have installed as possible. Once you're satisfied, click 'Next' to continue.

7. Check and convert

WMware vCenter Converter will now display a full summary of the settings that have been chosen, and you can use the 'Back' button to change any that you're not happy with. Click 'Finish' if you're satisfied with all the settings and the conversion process will begin. You can now leave your computer for a while, as the VM conversion process could take a few hours to complete.

8. Install VMware Player

While the conversion is taking place, you could install VMware Player on your other computer. Grab it by returning to the VMware website, hovering over the 'Products' button and clicking the 'Player' link. This time there's no need to worry about being signed into your account. When the download is complete, start the installer and run through the setup process by clicking 'Next'.

9. Copy virtual machine

When the virtual machine has been created on your first computer, you'll need to transfer the VMX file that's been created on your other machine. This is where your network connection or USB drive will come in useful. The converted file is going to be large, so it may take a little while to complete the transfer. Once it's done, click the 'Open a virtual machine' link in VMware Player.

10. Launch your machine

Select the VMX file that you have copied and VMware Player will add the virtual machine to the list that appears on the left-hand side of the program window. When you want to use the virtual version of your computer, simply select it from the list and click the 'Play virtual machine' link. You can now continue to enjoy using your old system on your new computer!

Common Windows 8 Gripes and Possible Solutions

News Updater — Sat, 11 May 2013 14:37:47 +0000

Microsoft is preparing an update to Windows 8 for release later this year. It says the changes are designed to address complaints and confusion with the new operating system.

Windows 8 is the most radical overhaul of Microsoft's operating system since Windows 95 came out nearly two decades ago. It was revamped to embrace the types of touch-screen controls popular on smartphones and tablet computers, devices that are siphoning sales from the desktop and laptop PCs that have been Microsoft's traditional stronghold. Windows 8 was released with much fanfare in October, but got a lukewarm reception from consumers.

Part of the problem is that Windows 8 tries to be all things to all people. It's designed to respond to touch-screen controls, but it also works with traditional mouse and keyboard commands. It offers a new layout that resembles tablet computers, but it also has a desktop mode that looks like previous versions of Windows. What results is confusion.

In addition, many of the controls to launch programs and change settings have been tucked away. That gives Windows 8 a cleaner look, but it also requires people to do more work finding all the controls.

Microsoft Corp. isn't saying much about what the new Windows 8 will have. Nor will it say whether it will charge for the upgrade. What the Redmond, Wash., company will say is that it's responding to customer feedback in developing the update.

Here's a look at some of that feedback and possible solutions in the coming update:

The problem: There's no central place for launching programs and changing settings.

Windows 8 features a new start page that takes over the entire screen. The page is filled with boxes, or tiles, for accessing your favorite programs. But to get to programs you use less often, you need to slide up a menu from the...

YouTube’s New Pay Channels Go from Campy to Kids

News Updater — Sat, 11 May 2013 14:37:21 +0000

Roger Corman's campy B movies, children's shows like "Sesame Street" and "Inspector Gadget," and inspirational monologues by celebrities -- these are among the offerings on 30 channels that will soon require a paid monthly subscription on YouTube.

Although the world's largest video site has rented and sold movies and TV shows from major studios since late 2008, most people watch videos on YouTube for free.

It's the first time YouTube is introducing all-you-can-watch channels that require a monthly fee. The least expensive of the channels will cost 99 cents a month but the average price is around $2.99.

In the field of paid video content online, YouTube is playing catch up to services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon, all of which have millions of paying customers.

But with a billion monthly visitors from around the globe, the Google-owned video service hopes to quickly add subscribers and add to the money it already makes from online advertising.

"This is just the beginning," said Malik Ducard, YouTube's director of content partnerships. The site plans to roll out a way for a broad number of partners to also launch pay channels on their own soon.

Corman, a producer and director whose influential cult classics like "Deathrace 2000" and "Piranha" earned him an honorary Oscar in 2009, said he's kept his 400-film library off of video streaming sites until now.

In an interview with The Associated Press, he said he turned down an offer from Hulu for about $5,000 to $6,000 per film several years ago, but sees promise in the YouTube offering. His channel, "Corman's Drive-in," will cost subscribers $3.99 per month for a rotating selection of 30 movies, refreshed with new interviews and clips from films that are in production. It is set to launch in June.

"I believed for many years that the future of motion picture distribution, particularly...

Not Just a Mom, Now She’s Your ‘Friend’

News Updater — Sat, 11 May 2013 14:35:53 +0000

Josh Knoller, a young professional in New York City, spent years refusing his mother's "Friend Request" on Facebook before, eventually, "caving in." Today they have an agreement: she'll try not to make embarrassing comments, and he can delete them if she does.

"We actually got into some pretty big fights over this," says Knoller, 29. "I love my Mom to death but she's a crazy, sweet Jewish mother and I was a little worried about what she might post in front of my closest friends."

As Mother's Day approaches, 1 in 3 mothers are connected with their teens over Facebook, according to the social networking giant's review of how users self-identify.

With more than 1 billion Facebook users, that's a lot of mothers and kids keeping in touch through social media, says Fordham University communications professor Paul Levinson, author of "New New Media." "Facebook has been a boon to family relationships," said Levinson.

Kelly McBride, an assistant professor of communications at LaSalle University in Philadelphia, says her students who "friend" their mothers keep their Facebook pages benign, using other social media like Instagram or Twitter for the racy stuff.

"They may be willing to 'friend' their mother, but when they do, they take down the drinking or partying or suggestive photographs," she says.

McBride says she'd like to get her own mother, who is 77, onto Facebook. "I've offered repeatedly to make her a Facebook page so I could friend her, but she just won't do it," she says.

Parenting expert Susan Newman recommends that mothers wait until their children are independent adults before friending them.

"Being a friend with your son or daughter on Facebook, to me is synonymous with reading your teenager's diary," she says. "Adolescents are trying to develop an identity and they have so much hovering and helicopter parenting going on, Facebook adds another layer that...

Pet Ownership? Yep, There’s an App for That

News Updater — Sat, 11 May 2013 14:22:56 +0000

Apps for a pet? You bet. Smartphone applications will help you choose the right sort, find one for you to buy, and then coach you on feeding and training.

What kind of dog would suit your lifestyle? Try Perfect Dog: Ultimate Breed Guide to Dogs, for iPhone and Android.

The Perfect Dog app opens to an alphabetical listing of breeds, but tap "Group" and you see the breeds listed under categories such as "companion," "herding," and "designer."

To get more specific, tap "Match" and begin choosing the canine characteristics you think you are looking for: size, living space, need for exercise, behavior type, and so on. Then tap "Go." The results I got ranged from "Pretty good matches" to "So-so" to "Probably not for you."

If you see a dog while you are out and about and are baffled about its breed, you could ask the owner. Or you could fire up Perfect Dog and tap "Identify." The feature goes through a checklist to determine whether the dog is large or skinny, pointy-nosed, bigheaded, fluffy or smooth. Press "Go" to see the narrowed breed list.

The toughest thing about Perfect Dog is the relentless stream of advertising, including full-screen pop-ups. Yuck. The free iPhone version of this app (upgrade for 99 cents) is listed as coming from Preposterous Media LLC; the free Android version credits Dog Tag LLC.

To shop for a pet, try the free eBay Classified Pets app for Apple devices and search locally for cats, dogs, pythons, chinchillas or anything else.

If you already have a pet and an iPhone, get the free Pet Nanny by Quigy LLC. Use this app to save details on your pet's health and diet; you also can keep a diary whose entries you can send along to Facebook friends, Twitter followers or email contacts.

The health section on the...

Tutorial: Learn to program your Raspberry Pi

News Updater — Sat, 11 May 2013 09:00:00 +0000

Introduction

In this tutorial, we're going back to the original idea behind the Raspberry Pi: teaching people about technology. Over the next four pages, you'll get a whistle-stop tour of two programming languages that are included in Raspbian, the recommended distribution for the Pi.

If you don't have a Pi, then you can still follow along - you'll just need to install the programming languages through your distro's package manager. Don't worry if you haven't programmed anything before. We're going to start, quite literally, from scratch.

Scratch is a great language for learning the basics of programming without having to worry about getting the text perfect. Since everything's done by dragging and dropping program blocks into your script, you don't need to remember any commands.

Raspberry Pi operating systems: 5 reviewed and rated

We're going to make a simple drawing program that lets you use the arrow keys to trace lines onto the screen. The first thing we need to do is create the code that lets us move the cat around the screen.

We'll use three separate blocks, each of which is executed when a key is pressed. Click on Control, then drag and drop When Space Key Pressed into the scripts. This creates a script that runs whenever the user presses the space key. Use the dropdown to change Space to Right Arrow, and drag Move 10 steps under it. This will let you move the cat forward by pressing the right arrow.

Next, create similar scripts that turn clockwise when the down key is pressed, and anti-clockwise when up is pressed. See figure 1 to see how it should look.

Now we can move around, we need to add a block that lets us draw. We don't want to draw all the time, so we will use Scratch's pen up and pen down actions. When the pen is down, the cat leaves a line behind it when it moves; when it's up, it doesn't.

Using variables

In order to let us toggle between having the pen up and down, we need the code to remember which state it's in. Programs use variables to do this.

A variable is a chunk of memory that you can put data in, and read data from. Before you can use a variable, you have to tell the computer to assign memory to it. We also give it a name that we can use to refer to it in commands.

Go to Variables, click on Make a Variable and give it a name. Once this is done, you will see a selection of commands that alter or use the variable. Now we have a way of storing data, we need to tell the computer to vary its behaviour depending on what the variable is.

We do this using an If… Else block. This asks if a statement is true. If it is, it executes the first block of code, otherwise it executes the second.

In our program, we'll take our variable, pen. If it's 0, we'll put the pen down, then set it to be 1, otherwise, we'll lift the pen up and set it to be 0. In this way, we can toggle between the two states, using the space bar. Take a look at figure 3 to see how this should be set up.

Note the use of the operator = in the if statement. This means the first block of code is run only if the variable pen contains (equals) 0 otherwise (else) it runs the second block.

Introducing loops

You can now move the cat around and draw a picture, but wouldn't it be nice if you could insert pre-defined items, for example circles? We'll add these next. Well, technically we'll add a 24-sided shape that looks pretty close to a circle.

The method to do this is move forward 10, then rotate 15 degrees, then move forward 10, then rotate 15 degrees, and keep doing this until you've completed the circle. You could put in the same two lines 24 times, and it would work, but it wouldn't be very good. It would look ugly, take a while to do, and if you decided you wanted to change the size of the circle, you'd have to do it 24 times.

Instead, we'll use a loop. This is a block that repeats itself. There are different types of loop; some keep going until some statement becomes false (a bit like an if command that gets repeated over and over again), but the one we'll use executes a set number of times.

Inside the loop, we just need the two commands: move forward 10 and rotate 15. Take a look at figure 4 for details. You've just completed your first Scratch program! The project file is on the DVD, and available from www.linuxformat.com/archives

Programming isn't an end in itself, but a method for getting computers to do your bidding; and now you've got started with Scratch, the only limit is your imagination. You could create the next killer game, a new productivity app or something so futuristic we don't even have a name for it yet.

To get your mind started dreaming up projects, here are a few of our favourites from around the web (if you've got Flash installed, you can run them in your web browser):

Super Mario Galaxy

Run around the world, picking up stars. http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/Dolfus555/162167

Wipeout

Based on the TV show. The graphics are dubious, but the gameplay is fun. http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/awesomestickdude/1149306

Space War 4

Old-fashioned vertical scrolling space ship shooter. http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/illusionist/879463

Snake Chamber

Learn about genetics and breed snakes! http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/DewleafWolf/2758178

Day Dream

Scratch is also a great tool for creating animations. http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/cremeglace/40150

Python

Scratch is great for learning the basics of programming, but sooner or later you're going to run into its limitations. Now we're going to take a look at a popular general-purpose language, Python.

The first thing you need to know about Python is that, unlike Scratch, it's entirely text-based. This doesn't mean that it can't create graphics, but that the program code is text rather than drag-and-drop blocks.

To create a program, then, we just need to open up a text editor. Any text editor will work; Leafpad is included by default on the Raspberry Pi, so we'll use this, but if you continue to program, it's well worth experimenting with a few different ones to see which works best for you (Geany is quite popular with new Python programmers). Nb, word processors such as LibreOffice Write or Abiword won't work, because they will mess up the formatting.

Open a new file in Leafpad and, on the first line, add:

#!/usr/bin/python

This line, rather cryptically called a shebang, tells the system to use the program python, in the folder /usr/bin/ to run the file. You'll need to add it to the start of all your Python programs. We can now get onto the guts of programming.

There's a long-standing computing tradition of having your first program output "Hello World!", and we're not going to break it here. Leave the second line blank (not strictly necessary, but it makes your code easier to read), and on the third type: print "Hello World!" and save your work in a file called hello.py.

To run the program, you need to open a terminal and navigate to where you saved the file. Run chmod a+x hello.py to tell the system that the file is executable, and enter ./hello.py to run it. You should see Hello World! appear on the screen. This shows us that the system is running properly, but it's not a very useful program.

As with the Scratch project, we'll add some user input. However, with Python we'll need to add a variable to store what the user types. Delete the Hello World line (leaving just the shebang), and add the line:

name = raw_input('what is your name? ')

This line creates the variable name, displays the prompt 'What is your name? ', and stores what the user types in name. We have to enclose this in inverted commas so that the computer knows it's a single chunk of text. We can then use this variable to make our print statement a little more personal with the line:

print 'Hello', name

Since the computer will run the commands in order, this one needs to be below the previous one. If they are the other way round, the program will throw an error because we are using a variable before we have created it. You can now save the file, and enter ./hello.py at the command line to run the program.

Decisions decisions

This makes the program a little more functional, but it's still pretty lifeless. It just follows the same two steps, then finishes. To make it useful, we need to add a decision step, where the computer looks at the input, and performs different actions depending on what it finds.

Remember the if block in Scratch? Well, we can use the same thing here. The basic structure of the block is:

if <expression> :
<indent> code block

<expression> must be replaced with anything that can be true or false. For example, 1 > 2, or more usefully, num > 2 where num is a variable. In our case, we'll check if the name entered is a particular value:

if name == 'Ben' :

Why ==? Well, computers (and programmers for that matter) don't deal well with ambiguity. Each symbol or word we use should have precisely one meaning, otherwise things get confusing. = is used to assign a value to a variable, so we need to use something else to check equality. Again, we have to enclose Ben in inverted commas so the computer knows it's text. The colon tells it that we've finished our expression and we're about to tell it what to do.

We may want this if command to run more than one line of code, so we need a way to group code into blocks. In Python, this is done using indents (Python is more-or-less unique in this respect, and this method is a bone of contention to Python-haters). Indents can be a space or a tab, but it's really important that you always use the same throughout your project, otherwise it can get horribly confusing, since it doesn't go on the amount of indentation, but the number of indents. Personally, I use two spaces for each indent, because that's the way I was taught, and I'm too stubborn to change.

So, what do we want the computer to do if name == 'Ben'? Well, obviously, we want it to greet him in the appropriate manner:

if name == 'Ben' :
print "Ben, you're awesome"

Note the two spaces at the start of the second line. Note how we use double speech marks. This is because the text we're enclosing has an apostrophe in it. We don't want to be rude to other people, so we'll add an else block that runs whenever the if expression is false:

else :
print 'Hello', name

One last feature we'll add to our program is a loop. This will work much like the one we added to our Scratch program, except that it won't only run 24 times, it'll keep running until we tell it to stop.

We do this using a while loop and the syntax:

while <expression> :
<indent>code block

We can tell the program to stop by entering the name quit. So, our while loop will be:

while name != 'quit' :

Solving problems

Don't ask us why, but exclamation marks are often used to mean not in programming. But this still leaves us with a bit of a problem. If we put it before name = raw_input… then it will throw an error, saying it doesn't know what name is. If we put it after, it will only ask us to enter a name once, then keep spitting out its greeting indefinitely.

To solve this, we can simply assign the empty string to name before while. This stops it erroring, and will always trigger the while expression. So, our little program now looks like this:

#!/usr/bin/python

name = ''

while name != 'quit' :
name = raw_input('What is your name? ')

if name == 'Ben' :
print "Ben, you're awesome"
else :
print 'Hello', name

Note the four spaces before each print line. This is because they're indented twice: once for the while loop and once for the if statement. You can save this as hello.py, as before, and run it with ./hello.py.

Where to go now?

If you've followed this tutorial and enjoyed writing your first programs, then you may be wondering what to do next. Well, both Scratch and Python are great languages to get started with, so first you have to pick the one that appealed to you.

If it was Scratch, the best place to start is at http://scratch.mit.edu. Here, you'll find loads of projects that other people have done that you can take a look at, and video tutorials and tours to help you learn the environment.

Raspberry Pi tutorial: how to do more

Python is a far more popular language in the real world, so you'll find many more resources to help you learn. The official website has a tutorial, which explains the language well, but can be a bit dry. There are a number of excellent books on the subject (such as Dive into Python, which is included on the DVD, or can been read for free at www.diveintopython.net).

Print subscribers to Linux Format can access all of our previous Python tutorials via the archives on www.linuxformat.com, and our Code Concepts series, which helps introduce the key ideas behind programming.

FCC Plan Seeks More and Better Airline Wi-Fi Connections

News Updater — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:36:40 +0000

In the next phase of its seemingly never-ending quest to ensure better Internet access for all Americans, the Federal Communications Commission is calling on airlines to put faster Wi-Fi on planes, with spectrum licenses to be sold at auction.

The federal agency on Friday proposed establishing an "air-ground mobile broadband service" that would share spectrum among users.

"Expanded availability of in-flight Wi-Fi will help meet demand from travelers to connect to a full range of communications services while flying in the contiguous United States," said the agency in a statement, noting that greater competition for access will lead to better quality and lower prices -- the same argument the FCC makes in pushing for greater high-speed broadband access on the ground, including in rural areas that are under-served or unserved.

How To Divvy Up Spectrum

The commission is proposing this new service as "a secondary allocation in the 14.0-14.5 GHz band, the same band used by satellite companies for Fixed-Satellite Service uplinks on a primary basis and by certain Federal services on a secondary basis."

The FCC has filed a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for technical rules to assure that the service's operations will not cause harmful interference, as well as comment on how to divide up the licenses: In two 250-megahertz blocks, one 500-megahertz block, or some other spectrum block size.

"Wi-Fi has been available in the air for a few years now," said technology consultant Jeff Kagan. "This is the latest attempt to speed up the connection. Think of it like moving from the old fashioned and slow dial-up connection when we used phone lines to the new broadband lines we have today.

"Both connect to the Web, but one is must faster and lets you do much more because of the speed."

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Internet connection through cellular networks or Wi-Fi is already available...

3D-Printer Gun Plans Ordered Taken Down by State Dept.

News Updater — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:08:13 +0000

Is a 3D-printable gun a genuine threat? The U.S. State Department believes so, and on Thursday it ordered that blueprints for a 3D-printable and undetectable plastic handgun be taken down from the Web.

On Monday, an organization called Defense Distributed posted online blueprints for using a 3D plastics printer to create a handgun it called "Liberator," as well as information on nine other firearms components, including silencers and sights. The organization said it received on Thursday a letter from the State Department demanding that the documents be taken down, so they may first be reviewed for compliance with the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

Undetectable

The federal agency's concern is that the document violates export controls on weapons. The letter said that, until the State Department determines if the documents violates the law, "Defense Distributed should treat the above technical data as ITAR-controlled." The 3D-printed gun blueprints were reportedly downloaded about 100,000 times in the first two days they were online.

Earlier this month, Defense Distributed demonstrated what it said was the firing of the first workable, printed gun. The issue of plastic guns confronts not only any form of domestic gun control, such as the ability to conduct background checks, but also anti-terrorist screenings as passengers board airliners.

An all-plastic gun is undetectable under current Transportation Safety Administration technology, which is why a law signed by President Reagan outlawed them. To get around that law, Defense Distributed utilized a firing pin made from a metal nail, and inserted a non-functional piece of metal.

Although several bills to outlaw printed, plastic guns have been introduced in California and in Congress, some gun-control advocates believe alarm about such weapons is overblown.

A representative of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, for instance, has told news media that it is unlikely any terrorists or...

Sophisticated Bank Hack Leads to $45 Million ATM Theft

News Updater — Fri, 10 May 2013 18:34:53 +0000

It only took a few hours for thieves to rob $45 million from ATM machines -- and it seems like it wasn't all that hard to pull off. Law enforcement agencies from more than a dozen nations organized to catch the thieves. That effort led to the arrest of seven people in the U.S., accused of operating the New York group of what prosecutors say was a criminal network spanning 27 countries.

According to the Associated Press, hackers got into bank databases, eliminating withdrawal limits on prepaid debit cards and creating access codes. Others, the AP reported, loaded that data onto any plastic card with a magnetic stripe -- an old hotel key card or an expired credit card worked fine as long as it carried the account data and correct access codes.

Time to Switch Readers?

Ken Pickering, development manager for security intelligence at CORE Security, told us the actual methodology is not yet known. He said the cyber theft was straightforward, but sophisticated.

"This is not some waiter who cloned your card at a restaurant and bought beer with it. This group was organized enough to steal $45 million in $20 dollar bills from ATMs in a coordinated way, in a very short amount of time. It's not opportunistic theft, but a sophisticated and coordinated theft that was planned over a long period of time," Pickering said.

"The attack reveals some significant flaws in ATMs. The fact that ATMs have a single point of failure -- the authorization system -- that allowed these guys to seize so much cash is evident. It's also clear that card technology is behind, because magnetic stripe cards can be easily cloned without any precaution."

Who is going to be caught? There were people who withdrew cash from the ATMs, and the ATMs took photos of them, but...

Updated: Mother’s Day: 12 tech gifts for mom

News Updater — Fri, 10 May 2013 18:06:00 +0000

Mother's Day is the the time to show your mom how grateful you are that she's put up with all your crap for so long, but it's not easy to find a good Mother's Day gift.

Everyone's mom is different, and while some might be satisfied with a card and brunch, others will want more. After all, she carried you for nine whole months - the least you can do is spend a couple hundred bucks on a thoughtful gift.

And while some moms are tech-savvy, some may have no clue. But that doesn't mean you can't make her day with the right gadget. You've just got to discover the perfect Mother's Day tech for her.

No matter what tech your mom is already into, there's bound to be a technologically advanced Mother's Day gift here that she'll appreciate. And even if she doesn't, at least it's the thought that counts.

1. Fitbit Flex wristband and Aria smart scale

Get it at: Fitbit.com (scale $129.99)

Taglines: "Outsmart your weight with Aria" / "Never stop moving with Fitbit Flex"

If your mom doesn't already have a Nike FuelBand, you might want to clue her in to this fitness gift combo from Fitbit. The scale will track her weight, body fat, and BMI, all the while connecting to her computer via Wi-Fi and uploading her stats and progress.

Whether your mom's obsessed with fitness or she's been trying to get into it, the Aria smart scale could be a great Mother Day tech gift.

And the Flex wristband, much like the popular Nike FuelBand, is much more than a pedometer that will count your mom's footsteps. In addition to steps taken, it tracks calories burned, distance traveled, active minutes, and - get this - both hours slept and quality of sleep. It even acts as a silent alarm clock so she won't wake up your dad when she gets up early to go running. And naturally the two gadgets will work together.

Unfortunately, the Flex isn't out yet, though Fitbit is currently promising a Spring 2013 release date that should arrive any day.

2. BabyPing video baby monitor

Get it at: BabyPing ($199.99)

Tagline: "Whether home or away BabyPing keeps you connected to your baby"

New moms have always relied on baby monitors in this modern age, but the technology has come a long way. Static-filled walkie-talkies are a thing of the past, and now it's all about the video.

There are plenty of different choices when it comes to video baby monitors, but the BabyPing is one of the best - and more importantly, it's one of the easiest to set up, so even non-techy moms should be able to get into it.

It's full of features, too, including night vision, audio filtering to keep background hiss down, two-way audio, built-in nursery rhymes and Wi-Fi connectivity to PCs and iOS devices (no Android, unfortunately, though there are plenty of alternative baby monitors for non-iOS-using moms).

3. Kindle Paperwhite

Get it at: Amazon ($119)

Tagline: "The world's most advanced e-reader"

Plenty of moms out there already have an e-reader, but there are plenty more who probably don't yet know what they've been missing.

There are several reasons a Kindle Paperwhite will make a perfect Mother's Day tech gift: it's affordable and it's easy on the eyes, and since it's the newest Kindle model, your mom will be able to brag to all her friends about it.

The best part? She won't have to deal with all the book clutter she has lying around, since they'll all be digital.

4. Moxie showerhead and bluetooth speaker

Get it at: Amazon ($149.25)

Tagline: "It takes Moxie to shower out loud"

Moms have it hard. Whether their kids are 2, 12 or 40, it seems their job never ends. The shower may be one of the only places your mom gets to relax. And with the Moxie showerhead and built-in bluetooth speaker, she can do it while listening to her favorite Celine Dion or Phil Collins songs.

The showerhead speaker connects to a smartphone or other bluetooth devices at up to 32 feet, and one of the best parts is that the speaker isn't limited to the shower - it detaches and can travel with your mom all over the house or wherever she wants to go, with seven hours of battery life.

An alternative for moms who appreciate some ambiance but don't care as much about music is an LED showerhead that can simulate rainfall while projecting various soothing colors. Browse LightintheBox.com and take your pick.

5. Slingbox

Get it at: Slingbox.com ($179.99 - $299.99)

Tagline: "Watch your TV anywhere"

The Slingbox is a great Mother's Day tech gift - whether your mom is down with all the memes or still thinks that her browser is called "Google," she'll appreciate the ability to take her television shows and newscasts with her on the go.

The latest models are the Slingbox 350 and the Slingbox 500, and although the 500 comes with some extra features, let's be honest - your mom probably isn't going to use them anyway. You might as well go with the cheaper version (we won't tell).

Plus, your dad will likely show some appreciation for this one as well.

6. Flower Power by Parrot

Get it at: Parrot.com (not yet available)

Tagline: "The most advanced plant sensor"

Parrot's Flower Power is a device the likes of which we've never seen before, and it's sure to tickle your mom's green thumb - or better yet, lack thereof - on Mother's Day.

It's a plant sensor that sits in the soil of a planter or pot, monitoring sunlight, moisture, temperature, and fertilizer, then sending the data wirelessly via bluetooth to your mother's gadgets. It will even remind her when to water them.

It was only introduced at CES this year, so unfortunately it's not on the market yet, but a 2013 release is promised and you can sign up to be notified at parrot.com. Maybe it will make a good birthday present, or you can remember it for next year's Mother's Day.

7. LogMeIn

Get it at: LogMeIn.com ($69.95 per year)

Tagline: "Simply connect from anywhere"

This one's for the working moms, though even the retirees and stay-at-homes out there could no doubt find some use for it. LogMeIn is a subscription service that will allow her to access her home PC from anywhere.

Moms at soccer practice or dance recitals won't have to duck out to email their bosses that important file, and when she's with her friends she'll be able to pull up all those cute baby pictures and home videos without having to worry about what's synced with her tablet or phone.

Trying to juggle files between multiple devices can be a hassle even for the tech-savvy, so your mom will definitely appreciate not having to do it.

Getting her a year's subscription to LogMeIn Pro will ensure that she remembers what a good son or daughter you are all year long.

8. Canon PowerShot Elph 110 HS

Get it at: Amazon ($194.98)

Tagline: "Style, Sophistication and Power"

If your mother is sick of being disappointed by blurry smartphone photos (or if she - gasp! - doesn't use a smartphone at all) you might want to consider getting her an affordable point-and-shoot.

There are many to choose from, but Canon's name carries some weight in the world of photography and the Elph line of point-and-shoots has always proved reliable in our experience.

The Canon PowerShot Elph 110 HS is the latest model, and it has plenty of features that will keep your mom entertained. In case she isn't too tech-savvy, though, the charming name ("Elph") and the rainbow of colors that the 110 comes in should allay most of her fears.

And she might be amazed when you tell her that it takes full HD 1080p video, even though that's become a standard feature for point-and-shoots. You don't have to tell her that part.

9. Nook HD

Get it at: Barnes & Noble ($149)

Tagline: "The best in reading"

If the Kindle Paperwhite is too light on features for your media-hungry mother, the Nook HD may be the ideal alternative.

Barnes & Noble's Kindle competitor has improved dramatically with the Nook HD, which, with the very recent addition of Google Play store access, has become a desirable little tablet in its own right. The standard Nook HD comes in a handy 7-inch size, while the upgraded Nook HD+ adds an extra two inches and an improved resolution.

The best part? Barnes & Noble has got your back with a Mother's Day sale that's knocked $50 off the price of the Nook HD and a full $90 off the price of the plus-sized version.

10. Epson Perfection V500 photo scanner

Get it at: Epson.com ($149.99)

Tagline: "Extraordinary quality and versatility"

If your mom's a scrapbooker or dedicated family archivist, she may balk at the idea of turning her old-fashioned photos into a sleek digital collection. But with Epson's easy-to-use photo scanners, she won't have any more excuses to remain in the realm of physical photos.

The optical resolution of 6,400ppi means that all her photos will make the transition with nary a pixel lost, and she'll be thrilled with the quality once they make it to the other side.

Everything will be preserved for future generations, just like she wants, and she'll be kept busy for a while, too - perfect for newly retired mothers wondering what to do with their time. The Perfection V500 isn't even limited to photos, so it will fulfill all your mother's scanning needs, whatever they may be.

11. ION Pure LP USB conversion turntable

Get it at: ionaudio.com ($99.99)

Tagline: "Convert your records in style"

Here's another one for the mom who spends her days reminiscing about the past - not that that's a bad thing.

A vinyl-to-digital converter like ION's Pure LP may seem like a gadget only an audiophile will appreciate, but your mom may very well enjoy combing through her dusty collection of LPs and cataloging them digitally. It's easy to set up and comes with custom software that will guide her through the process.

Once they're on her computer, she'll be able to transfer them to her smartphone or MP3 player and listen to all her favorite tunes from the days of yore wherever she goes.

For Apple-loving moms there's also ION's iLP digital conversion turntable, which can skip the PC altogether and transfer songs from vinyl directly to an iPhone 5, 4th-gen iPad or iPad mini.

12. Belkin Chef Stand and Stylus

Get it at: Amazon.com ($23.99)

Tagline: "Use your tablet while you cook"

Belkin's Chef Stand and Stylus is a niche gift, for sure, but foodie moms who love to use recipes on their tablets will definitely appreciate the convenience afforded by this gadget.

The Chef Stand will do little more than prop up her tablet, while the stylus, which rests on its own little stand, will allow her to navigate on the device without touching the screen and potentially messing it up with food.

It boasts compatibility with most iPads, including the iPad mini plus the stylus reportedly works with any touchscreen. She could probably even use it with her smartphone if tablets aren't your mother's thing.

And all components, including the magnetic stylus, are hand-washable.

Facebook Hints at ‘Home’ Evolution, Expands Availability

News Updater — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:39:51 +0000

Facebook is reporting that Android-operated mobile device users have downloaded its Home app nearly 1 million times since the product debuted in the Google Play store in April. Considering the billions that use Facebook, though, that's not an overly impressive stat.

Part of the issue is that Facebook Home is limited to a handful of devices. The app, which aims to offer up your friends' latest updates on your home screen and messages that reach you no matter what you're doing, is currently only available for the Android operating system. And even then it rolled out only for the HTC One X and One X+, the Samsung Galaxy S III and Note II. Facebook this week quietly added support for HTC's flagship device, the HTC One, and Samsung's Galaxy S IV.

The HTC First, the first phone to launch with Facebook Home pre-installed, may be an indicator of the challenge of adoption. AT&T this week slashed the price of the HTC first from $99 to 99 cents. Now, Facebook is looking to make upgrades.

Home Users Engage More

According to the Los Angeles Times, Cory Ondrejka, Facebook's director of mobile engineering, would not disclose how many of the 1 million Facebook Home downloaders are actively using the app. He did disclose to a small group of journalists at the company's headquarters, however, that Home users are spending 25 percent more time on Facebook and interacting with other users 25 percent more.

"Chat usage has bumped up 7 percent, and Home users send about 10 percent more messages," the Times reported. "He acknowledged that users have complained that Facebook Home makes their apps hard to find. So it plans to create folders of apps within the launcher. Facebook will also add a dock at the bottom of the home screen to give quick access to...

Apple iRadio stumbles as Google’s music service races on

News Updater — Fri, 10 May 2013 09:45:00 +0000

Apple has reportedly just signed a deal with Universal Music for what is expected to be its fabled iRadio service, but it looks like other negotiations are struggling along.

The Universal clinch sees iRadio (at least that's what the internet is currently calling it) take another step towards being an actual thing.

However, sources have told the Financial Times that final negotiations with Warner Music are still ongoing, while Sony is proving a bit tougher to get on board.

But Cupertino might want to get the ball rolling as quickly as possible if its wants to beat Google to the punch. Google is said to have been chasing licences for its own Google Play streaming music service, which we may see surface soon.

Riot on the radio

Sources told the paper that Apple's service will be free of charge, funded via advertising, and will work like Pandora with a few more on-demand features.

But even though Google is in the race, we still don't know how many licences it has actually acquired, meaning Apple could easily still get in there first. It was said that Apple had hoped to introduce iRadio alongside the iPhone 5 last year.

Could Google take advantage of next week's Google IO to generate some early buzz? Given what we know right now, it's definitely possible.

Acer CEO says Windows 8.1 is Microsoft’s return ‘down to earth’

News Updater — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:49:00 +0000

Windows 8.1 could be a significant improvement over the current state of Windows 8, if statements made by Acer executives are any indication.

Acer President Jim Wong told the Wall Street Journal that Microsoft is making plenty of changes to Windows 8 with the upcoming update, and that Microsoft is listening to input from OEMs.

Further, Acer CEO and chairman JT Wang told the WSJ that Microsoft is listening to critics of its latest OS.

"In the past we consider they [Microsoft] live in heaven," he said. "But now they go down to earth and they start to learn how people living on earth think."

What an analogy

Wong said Microsoft has realized that while touch interfaces are great, "you need to take care of the rest of the world that doesn't need touch" as well.

If Microsoft is finally listening to the peoples of earth, it may be that the Start button and a boot-to-desktop option will return to Windows with the 8.1 update.

A rumor in April that sprung from a line of code suggested that Windows 8.1 will allow Windows 8 users to boot their devices straight to the traditional desktop instead of forcing them to begin at the Start screen.

Reports of the return of the Start button have been circulating as well, most recently when Microsoft Corporate Vice President Julie Larson-Green said earlier this week that Microsoft hasn't ruled it out.

More concrete details on Windows 8.1, the Microsoft OS update that was originally thought to be called Windows Blue, are expected to be divulged at Microsoft's Build conference in June.

Internal document reveals $1B Microsoft offer for Nook maker

News Updater — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:00:00 +0000

After spinning off its e-book division into a separate company last fall, bookseller Barnes & Noble may soon unload troubled Nook altogether to investor Microsoft.

TechCrunch reported Thursday that Microsoft may have an offer on table to entirely swallow up Nook Media LLC, the digital book company it invested heavily into last year.

According to an internal document obtained by the website, Microsoft has offered $1 billion to buy out the joint venture, which is co-owned by retailer Barnes & Noble.

Since its spinoff last fall, Nook has been on the decline with a 26 percent year-over-year drop in the holiday quarter, immediately sparking rumors that Barnes & Noble could buy back the company or even ditch hardware entirely.

Shift to Windows?

As part of the reported Microsoft buyout, existing Android-based Nook hardware would be phased out by end of the 2014 fiscal year in favor of app distribution through "third-party partner" devices.

Nook already has a solid presence on Windows, iOS and Android as well as having sold 10 million tablets and e-readers sold to date, so it's unclear if Microsoft's offer suggests a push to Windows 8-powered hardware or devices made by others.

Microsoft already has a 16.8 percent stake in Nook Media LLC following a $300 million investment made in last April, which $180 million earmarked for Nook Windows 8 software development.

Last October, Barnes & Noble shifted Nook Media LLC into a separate entity recently valued at $1.8 billion - considerably less than the amount Microsoft has reportedly offered.