Ubuntu For Free

After Top 10 Kubuntu Applications Part 1 I noticed the fellows at SpeedCrunch linked to me, and it prompted me to look into the software a little further. I am always interested in active open-source projects, and here is a group that is really interested in their software.

Researching it further, I am very happy with what I have found, and there are a few features I overlooked I’d like to share.

I began with the menus and checked out the Tip of the day. With the nice animated effects, it is very helpful in revealing some not-so-obvious features.
Visually, “Syntax” highlighting is helpful for inputting functions or calculations with more than a few operations. Parentheses grouping is also available and helpful for the same purposes.

Insert function list via Control-F is awesome. This present us with a quick list to some commonly used functions we are bound to use over and over.
The Inline result display I find essential. It calculates and displays the current result as you type your operations. This is helpful to double check your work as you go.Another area I have seen grow since 0.8 is the built-in lists of functions and of constants.

Important to me, is the sophisticated Qt interface that allows users to drag and drop panes which contains lists for functions, history, variables, constants. These are also undockable, if that’s the way you want to calculate.

Unfortunately it lacks a Load session feature, however the user is given an option to save a file, yet so far the result has always been an empty file. It has been reported at their bug tracker as a reproduced error though.

It needs RPN input, which I also saw is being developed.

Also in-development, but of more interest to me, is a huge project of an open-source math book being integrated with the application. This is a lofty goal, but one that can really help to make the software stand out on it’s own even more.

Overall, I think I’ll be using SpeedCrunch more and more for doing my mathematic evaluations.

It works on Windows too, so if you’ve decided to stick with that operating system, here’s a better replacement for the included calculator, and at a great price with code you can trust that is actively being enhanced.

My first install of Ubuntu was Dapper Drake, and it was the original flavor, with the Gnome desktop. It included XChat, which seemed an easy transition from mIRC. Since I’d previously managed IRC connections using telnet, it wasn’t daunting. However, after switching to Kubuntu, I found myself presented with Konversation. It might have been my previous experience with mIRC, but I almost felt right at home.

In comparison to XChat, I feel it’s better at managing connections to multiple servers. The servers are spawned as separate tabs, where XChat *tried* to do it in a tree-like view, it failed and inserted the additional servers as child-nodes of the first-connected server.

Using bash scripts, we can make Konversation take action. It requires the DCOP protocol, a newer method permitting KDE applications to communicate between each other. Known as an Inter-Process Communication, DCOP providesthe ability to send DCOP messages to/from any other KDE app, allowing Konversation to integrate nicely with Amarok (i.e. to announce the “now-playing” track) and other KDE software (i.e. getting data from “weather” or sending/retrieving information with “kate”).

One of my favorite features, is the On-Screen Display, abbreviated as OSD. This feature provides a miniaturized display of text in a separate screen area. For example, we can see entire messages directed to us, even when Konversation is minimized, through the OSD, when Konversation is able to determine our nick.

You can also configure notifications, or specific actions when selected events occur, including pop up messages (optionally passive), sounds, shell commands, log insertions, etc.

I have plans for a couple of scripts for the application, so I think I’m going to try my hand coding something different.