Automatix

So let's talk about automatix!

Automatix is an applications for debian based Linux distributions that installs a great range of software for you. It's like the Synaptic Package Manager but specific for some applications. The goal of automatix e to provide you with some useful applications right out of the box.
This applications go from chat clients, browsers, email clients to multimedia support (video/audio players, codecs), office suites, development tools, etc.
And the great thing is that is very easy to use, you just select what you want to install and automatix does the rest for you.

Anyway, I felt like doing a video to show you better how to use it:



Hope you liked it and use it as well!

Open source software and software piracy relation

I came across an article on Steve York's blog which talks a bit about the relation between open source software and if it reduces in fact software piracy.
I think the topic is very interesting and Steven made a statistics among his readers to determine how many of them reduced piracy by using open source software.

In my personal case I think I'm not the best person to talk about this since my university has an agreement with Microsoft which lets students access their software by free.
But I think that with some research you can definitely let go of some common applications like Microsoft Office (OpenOffice exists and it's a great office suite), Photoshop (Paint.NET and Gimp are great programs for image edition/creation) and many others.
Even when we talk about development you have Eclipse for Java development and SharpDevelop or Mono-Development which let's you develop applications using Microsoft .NET framework!

Some people just don't bother to search! If you're on of those people or if you're just new to this world, Steven York also has a list of what he considers to be the 70 coolest free applications.
Also Andrew Sellick has a list of 100 great free tools for web developers.

So be sure to check these links and leave a comment about your personal experience, did the use of open source software reduced your software piracy! (I won't tell the police :-P )