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One of the coolest things about being a Linux user can be showing off your slick custom interface to your friends. With the maturing of Grub 2 and kernel mode setting, we’ll soon all have a beautiful boot from start to finish. The step we’re covering today is customizing GDM, the login manager you likely use if you’re running Ubuntu or any other system with Gnome as your desktop. Well those of you who don’t like the Ubuntu brown can brighten up because there’s no shortage of slick GDM themes available for download. Today, we’ll cover where to get them and how to use them.

When it comes to playing music, there is no shortage of software options, both open and closed. The race to gain users is a race to add features, and if KDE is your thing, then Amarok may be running your way. Arriving just a few weeks past its first anniversary, the latest release of Amarok 2 maintains the momentum built steadily by the seven revisions of the past year. In addition to continuing improvements in stability, performance, and usability, the 2.2.2 release adds and edits a range of features from playlists to podcasts and patches a host of bothersome bugs.

At CES, Nvidia demonstrated tablet-PC prototypes incorporating its Tegra 250 processor, including a Linux-based model from Foxconn, and Android-based models from ICD and Notion Ink, the latter using Pixel Qi display technology. Meanwhile, an Android version of HP's Windows-based "Slate" computer is on the way, say several reports.

"We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China."

You may think that word processing is all about WYSIWYG and GUI, but WordGrinder is living proof that a word processor that runs in a terminal does make sense.

For the second time in recent days, a major SaaS software company says it’s introducing tools to remotely manage Linux devices. Suddenly, VARs and managed service providers seem to be jumping on the Linux remote management bandwagon. Here’s why.

Google Engineering Director David Glazer has announced that registration for this year's Google I/O developer conference is now open. Google I/O 2010 will take place on the 19th and the 20th of May, 2010 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The organisers say that, in addition to various Google products, such as App Engine, Google Web Toolkit, Android and Chrome, the Google I/O developer conference will focus on "pushing the boundaries of web applications through open web technologies".

There is a right way to remove and replace your computer's CPU, and several wrong ways. Carla Schroder shows the right way, and how it isn't very difficult.

FreeSWITCH is an open-source telephony platform designed to facilitate the creation of voice and chat driven products scaling from a soft-phone up to a soft-switch. It can be used as a simple switching engine, a PBX, a media gateway or a media server to host IVR applications using simple scripts or XML to control the callflow.

Two interesting tidbits of news about Microsoft today. First is that the company is to make it legal to rent both Windows and Office. The second is an analysis on how slates will affect the Redmond giant’s bottom line. Both are interesting reading, but both also are indications of the problems that Microsoft is likely to encounter over the coming years.

Another week, another example of how Microsoft is being forced to react to the increasing adoption of OpenOffice.org as the 2010 office software of choice. Clearly worried by OpenOffice.org’s increasing market share,

OpenWrt Kamikaze 8.09.2 is released. This is a Linux distribution for network routers, like the Linksys WRT54G, or the Asus WL-500g and a lot of other routers. This distribution adds a lot of new functionality to routers, like improved ipv6 functionality.

Most comparisons of the KDE and GNOME desktops focus on usability and productivity apps. However, they often neglect what might be called the leisure apps -- specifically, those used for image and music management. But in the modern online culture, these leisure apps are often as important to users as any other aspect of the desktop. For many, especially at home, they are probably more important than a word processor or spreadsheet. In KDE, photo management is generally handled by DigiKam, and music by Amarok. In GNOME, F-Spot is used most often for photos, while traditionally Rhythmbox has been used for music.

In a recent attack on the web server of the BerliOS (Berlin Open Source) open source platform intruders replaced the portal's home page. The unknown attackers left a message accusing the BerliOS operators of not investing enough time in proper system maintenance – and in protection against attacks.

CodeWeavers CrossOver 9.0 is slated for launch sometime towards the end of January beginning of February 2010 and represents a major step forward for the CrossOver product.

That long wait while Windows cranks up can be avoided, says Rich Jaroslovsky It took about 20 years before television viewers no longer had to wait for their sets to warm up. Yet here we are, 30-plus years into the personal computer era, and the instant-on PC remains elusive. That may be about to change.

Back in July of last year we were one of the first to review the ASRock NetTop ION 330, which was the first Atom-based "nettop" computer from this budget manufacturer that worked in conjunction with Pegatron Corp to assemble this compact computer. The original ASRock NetTop ION 330 worked out quite well and packed reasonable hardware (a dual-core Atom with NVIDIA ION graphics), but the latest computer in this series from ASRock is the ION 330HT-BD. This new nettop computer, which we are reviewing today under Linux, comes complete with a Blu-ray player along with 802.11 g/n WiFi, EuP 2.0 certification, and an MCE remote controller.

Boxee Beta is now open to all. Even its alpha release was rock solid, so one could think of the kind of expectation everyone has for Boxee Beta. From the first look, I have to say, Boxee beta has pretty much lived up to the hype.

Every year, for the last couple of years, FOSS community Nepal has been getting a small stall to showcase whatever they have to the unusually large mass that come to witness the event. Not that FOSS is going anywhere in Nepal, but still that opportunity to try and create awareness existed. From this year onwards FOSS community is not going to be able to do that too as they have been told that due to lack of space they will not be able to put up a stall.

Facing criticism is part of the cost of doing business for large companies, and Google is no exception. Among the chief sources of criticism for the search giant is its accession to the censorship demands of the People's Republic of China. The outcry may soon see a change of tense, however, as the company has announced an end to its cooperation.