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It is not often that a critical software component is made available on Linux at the same time it is made available on Windows or even Mac OS X. The folks at Adobe deserve a lot of credit for doing just that with the latest iteration of the Flash Player, an absolute must-have plugin for any browser that wishes to trawl the Interweb.

Though Flash is a proprietary technology, there are many websites that rely on it – if you don’t have it, you’ll be disadvantaged by not being able to see all that wonderful content available!

Flash Player version 10 is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, as well as Solaris. Browser support includes Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera. The most obvious improvements are smoother representation and better graphics performance. A number of interesting features to assist with more immersive game development and better sound management have been included. More details about the new features can be found here.

Install Flash Player from here – take note that the installation will require your web browser to be restarted.

The Intrepid Ibex has made its date of arrival, typical of the Ubuntu team’s ability to hold themselves to their promise of an announced release date. Ubuntu 8.10‘s changes are mostly under the skin, similar to the recent release of Mandriva 2009.0, for example.

The most significant update relates to the way in which wireless networks and HSDPA or 3G modems are recognized and managed. The new network management tools are able to pick up wireless network signals more reliably, and ease the connections to such networks considerably. The same can be said for 3G modem support, which has suffered from manual interventions and user frustration due to the lack of GUI interfaces for critical settings required by those devices.

GNOME fans will be happy to have access to release 2.24 which has been included. Unfortunately, the Ubuntu team has decided not to include OpenOffice 3.0 by default. That’s a pity. I recommend you download and install OpenOffice 3.0 as soon as your system is up and running – would have been great to have had this in the distribution already. The new GNOME brings with it improvements to file management and better support for multiple monitors and display adapters.

As with all other modern Linux releases, the provision of a safe harbour for guest accounts is also available in 8.10. That permits a guest to use your system without gaining access to your files and applications. Of course, system settings cannot be altered by the guest user.

An interesting addition is an application to create a copy of the operating system on a USB thumb drive. This mobile-version-on-a-stick can be used to take your existing desktop environment from one system to another, or to install a new copy of the OS on a friend’s system.

Get the Intrepid Ibex here.

A follow-up to my recent headaches with Vista is that operating system’s inability to install software properly. Not to mention that the file operation bug has reared its ugly head again today…

For R4.99 I bought a World of Warcraft trial DVD with the intention of installing it on G2S and to see what all the fuss is about. It’s almost impossible to get WoW to install on Vista, never mind starting to play the game!

A lengthy wait during which the installation program copies many large files to the intended target directory, which oddly enough, is suffixed by .temp. As in C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft.temp.

When the installation finishes, the installer keels over because it’s unable to either rename or move that directory name to something a bit less temporary. Net effect: a good fifteen minutes wasted. Rebooting doesn’t help either.

The error condition is known, though no one seems to have any clue what to do not to make it rear its ugly head. The trick is to boot into Safe Mode, then install WoW.

Then you get to reboot again to actually use the system and fire up the game. Though I hate constantly comparing, the installation process on the Mac worked first time and without any hitches…

The Lego Agents line didn’t appeal to me at first. To me, it’s an obvious ploy to cash in on the hype surrounding the soon-to-be-released Bond movie. But on closer inspection, there are some real gems in the current line-up of eight sets featuring Agent Fuse and friends. The names are a bit silly, but what the hey: it’s the building we’re into! Set #8634 (TurboCar Chase) is really great fun and adds many pieces that can be useful in future building projects and dioramas. But the Mobile Command Center must rank among the coolest Lego sets produced in quite a while.

First off, the end result of piecing together almost 1200 pieces is a horse and trailer that has a combined length of 50cm.

But that’s not all! The set includes a jet boat, jet plane and two cars all of which are stowed away safely in the trailer, ready for the next adventure. A number of minifigs, moving parts and light effects round out the package.

Numbered parts bags make a staggered build possible, with at least something to play with even if everything hasn’t been put together yet. There are varying levels of difficulty for the various components of the model, making it perfect for co-operative build sessions where each participant gets to build something that matches their level of skill or dexterity.

I can’t remember when last I created a CD or DVD. Hard disks have become so ubiquitous that my ordinarily orderly cycle of archiving software to a DVD and then removing it from my hard disk has gone out of the window and has been replaced by a plethora of external hard disks all containing who-knows-what. Maybe the Lightscribe Design Center will help get me back on track.

You’ll need a LightScribe-capable DVD burner. Then, download the available label burning tools available from the LightScribe site. To assist in making the golden coasters more appealing, the Design Center offers a wide range of designs and artwork that may be downloaded and incorporated into your lightscribing.

The templates and labelers work on Windows, Mac and Linux.

One thing the Yanks need to learn from the Japanese and Germans is that it’s no longer necessary to build engines that have capacities in excess of 6l to gain performance. A turbo-assisted 1.8l will do quite nicely, thank you! Nonetheless, the 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8 is a good-looking vehicle with impressive performance statistics.

The 6.1l SRT HEMI V8 transfers 425HP via a five speed automatic transmission to the rear wheels. A six speed manual gearbox is an option. It’s fast enough to warrant the placement of a speedometer with a maximum speed indication of 180mph into the dashboard.

I’m trying to like Vista, I really am. G2S is a Vista-ready system that should have no issue running Microsoft‘s latest excuse for an operating system, and on the whole things work reasonably well. There are a number of annoying mishaps that do disturb my computing experience, however.

After a similar round of behaviour some time ago, I spent an inordinate amount of time reinstalling the operating system from scratch. Now, it seems the same ghost has found a way back into the machine. The first annoyance is Vista‘s penchant for sudden crashes, resulting in the infamous Blue Screen of Death. Almost always, the error reported is IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.

I’m convinced this has something to do with the awful LAN I need to connect to on a daily basis, but that shouldn’t be an excuse. I’ve had Linux and Mac OS systems on the same LAN under heavy use without ever once suffering a similar fate.

Thankfully, Vista‘s BSOD prevents damage to my computer only infrequently. The most annoying Vista bug that I simply cannot squash or find a solution to involves file operations using the Windows Explorer and even the command line. The problem manifests itself after some time and after I’ve been busy deleting, copying or moving a large number of files. Often, those files are images and media files. In the beginning, all copies and deletions function as they should. Without fail, Vista suddenly decides to take an eternity to calculate the time the operation should take.

I say an eternity because that’s the time the calculation takes. I am able to kill the dialog box and try again with the same result. After a few retries, the inevitable happens: the Windows Explorer goes opaque and no longer responds:

That’s the end of the story. Kill it and restart:

Unfortunately, the status of the file operations remains: it is no longer possible to copy, delete or move files until the machine has been restarted. I’ve even tried copying the file using the command line. Believe it or not, but the command line copy, move or del commands all freeze up, too.

All software is imperfect, but you’d expect certain, basic functions to work! Apple‘s latest ad is right on the money.

The iPod Touch (iPhone too) excels at providing interactive applications. One of the most practical I’ve seen is Google Earth. The popular desktop application is now available for the iPhone and boasts some innovative uses of the touch interface and accelerometer. I played around with it on the Touch and have to say I’m very impressed.

The obvious lag experienced whenever the application has to fetch satellite data for a selected view is not as bad as I expected – it all depends on the wireless network’s signal strength. The data you see on the screen is the same as you’d see using the desktop version.

A search function is available:

and you’ll be flown to your search target in typical Google Earth style as soon as it has been found.

The motion sensor in the iPod Touch is used to great effect when the device is tilted. That causes the map display to tilt towards or away from the horizon. The sound advice to any pilot push the stick and the houses get bigger applies It’s probably more suited to terrain with a bit more relief…

Google Earth is a free download, roughly 9MB in size, from the iTunes App Store. Location-based services are accessible and the application does include two layers for the Geographic Web. These layers may be enabled or disabled, depending on how much information you wish to see.

If you have an iPhone, you may want to monitor your 3G data usage…

The purchase of an Adobe Acrobat license to enable opening and modification of PDF files is sensible if you’ll be making use of that functionality a lot. For the ad-hoc natured work home users use their software for, the purchase of that software package does not make financial sense.

There are a couple of applications that assist with the task of modifiying PDF files for which the source documents are no longer available. One of the more interesting projects for this purpose is an extension for the newly released version of OpenOffice. The software is presently in beta, so any use needs to take that into account. The premise is simple: download and install the extension into your OpenOffice 3.0 environment.

Open a PDF file from any of the applications in the suite and the extension will go to work to decode and display the PDF content in the OpenOffice Draw application. The structure of the document is analysed to preserve the content and structure as far as possible. I tried it out with a variety of different PDF‘s and was quite impressed by the results.

Remember that this is a beta version and not everything may work as it should yet! Text can be edited, though one needs to spend some time to match up fonts and their sizes. The extension is not suited to large-scale editing work. Each line of text needs to be selected and modified individually – you’d use this only for minor cosmetic changes, certainly not to rework the content of an entire document.

Once the changes have been made, my favourite feature in OpenOffice can be used to output the document in PDF format once again.

It’s an extension that could prove very useful at some time or other.

The Mobile GMail application is constantly running on the E90 and is the easiest way I have found of watching out for new mail. The GMail team has released a new version with a number of usability features and additional functionality.

Mobile GMail version 2.0 now allows access to multiple accounts and has fixed the softkey command assignment display on the E90‘s wide interior and narrow exterior screens. The ability to access multiple accounts is the feature I’ve been looking forward to most of all.

Overall, the application has been optimized to load faster and retrieve email more efficiently. Another great addition is the customizable menu that provides entry points to the inbox, outbox and other folders. As I live in the All Mail view, I can now access that with a single selection rather than having to scroll around two menus as in the previous version.

Mobile GMail is now also capable of working in an offline mode whereby composed emails are kept in the outbox until a network connection is once again available. From a usability point of view, some handy shortcut keys make composition and other activities easy to activate through a single button push.

To install to your device, open a web browser and point it here. Java-capable (J2ME) devices and Blackberry only. Any existing older version will have to be uninstalled prior to the download and installation of the new version.

If you use GMail and have a phone capable of running the client, you should try it out. The ease with which you’ll be able to interact with your mail account on-the-go will be something you’ll wonder how you ever did without.