A month ago NVIDIA had introduced the Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix (VDPAU) that brought PureVideo-like features to Linux. Our initial benchmarks of this video decoding API within NVIDIA's binary driver were quite favorable as it was able to dramatically cut down on the CPU usage when playing H.264 video files.

If you haven't bought that special geek in your life something electronic yet for Christmas, here are 10 ideas for you. They're all Linux-based and are sure to bring a smile to any geek's face. They are in no particular order.

QuickStart is like a Swiss army knife, it allows you to do various things on your Ubuntu desktop: creating and restoring backups, running scheduled backups, backing up configuration files, installing some common applications, installing DVD codecs, deleting unnecessary files, etc.Complete list as follows.

I haven't written in a while. Mostly because life after university is pretty hectic, especially in this current environment where every company is cutting headcount and looking at expense reduction in all possible ways.

PyRoom is a fullscreen text editor that stays out of your way. It has no buttons or widgets. You can't even use different font types on it!

In search of an alternative to Microsoft Office, we test OpenOffice.org, StarOffice from Sun, IBM's Lotus Symphony, KOffice for Linux, and AbiWord.

For a long time, I recorded a basic list of all the backups I made of my movie collection in a scruffy notebook. In due time, I found that relying on a simple piece of paper was wishful thinking. I then endured the laborious process of migrating my list to a spreadsheet on my computer -- but that still wasn't enough.