According to the KDE 4.6 road map, KDE 4.6 was released on January 26 of this year. I installed the plasma desktop and have about a week to play with KDE 4.6  and here is what I have found. I have included some KDE screenshots from my system.

The KDE team has fixed thousands of bugs and they really worked hard on this release. Thanks to them for all of their hard work. The new Plasma Desktop is really refined and, well beautiful. A huge improvement from previous releases. Improvements have been made to the Dolphin file browser. You can now integrate your network shares more easily and the indexing for searches is greatly improved.

The first thing I have noticed is how much faster the whole environment responds. The KDE plasmoids are fast and responsive. The menu structures move faster than previous releases. Some of the improvements are from improvements by QT, but most of them are from the work done by the KDE 4.6 team. KDE 4.6 did not cause any noticeable processor load on my machine. Previous editions of the KDE suite had given me some issues with run away processes.

Adding more plasmoids was easy and fast. All of the plasmoids that I tried out worked well. There are more plasmoids to be included in the KDE 4.6 feature plan. One of the plasmoids I really liked was the new network tool which worked with both wired and wireless networks. Small and just enough user feedback.

The taskbar now has launcher capabilities. You can drop tasks into the taskbar and use the bar as a smart launcher. Compiz worked after install without any tweaking. KDE has added Desktop Effects system settings to control the aspects of your Compiz desktop. KDE 4.6 handles the OpenGL acceleration very well. With the features added from the 4.6 improvements in combination with Compiz, this is one of the best looking desktops I have used.

All the software I had installed under Gnome worked well under KDE 4.6. Video playback was smooth with no chop. Some of my my favorite packages like Handbrake and the Chrome browser ran perfect, although theme integration with the GTK+ apps was not so great. KpackageKit in the past ran updates with out issues. I did have some issues with Amarok, the KDE Music player, still kind of buggy.

KDE 4.6 was the best release we have seen from the KDE team. More work is needed with integration with GTK+ applications. The plasma desktop is smooth, fast and refined, it’s easy to use and it just looks beautiful. This is what should have come out when they released 4.0, which left a bad taste in the mouths of KDE users. Hopefully KDE 4.6 will be in your distributions repositories shortly. KDE 4.6 is worth the update.

Review of KDE 4.6 was run on Fedora 14

Logitech has promised that the Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote Control will do what other universal remotes have only had fairy tale fantasies about doing for decades: it will actually replace every remote control you own.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably had a few universal remotes in your life – either because you lost your TV remote or because you wanted to simply unify all your device remotes into one unit.

You couldn’t do this, of course, because either your cable or satellite box, your brother’s 1980s tape deck, your ancient audio receiver, or your vacuum tube television didn’t have an IR code from this century.

The Logitech Harmony One has an extensive library of codes, over 40,000 brands are boasted in the product’s manual and website. You don’t have to spend any time looking these up, because the software does it for you. It even found my junky old Wal-mart hand-me-down Durabrand audio receiver – a feat unbelievable to me since I couldn’t find the codes anywhere on the internet.

Read more after the jump and see my screenshot gallery and photos of this bad mother–

[Shut your mouth!]

What? Just talkin’ bout the Logitech Harmony One!

This bad-A remote is not just any remote control – in addition to a huge selection of IR codes for nearly every piece of AV equipment made in the last 20 years, the Logitech Harmony One has a customizable touch-screen that’s centered around “activities” instead of functions and input selections. That way your little baby brother can switch between devices without having to consult a ten-page spreadsheet for your home theater system.

You setup these “activities” such as “Watch a DVD,” “Watch TV,” “Play a CD,” “Play Games,” or “Play the Radio,” during the software setup. The remote connects to any standard PC or Mac via USB cable, seen below (click on the image to enlarge):

Once connected, you’ll load up the software CD and follow the directions on screen to get the device connected and updated, then begin setting up your activities after you either create a new account, or login to an existing one (again, for all these pics, click to enlarge):

Once signed in, you’ll setup your devices. I was surprised to find my Durabrand (cheap Wal-mart brand) audio receiver in the list of supported devices!

After setting up your devices in your system, the software will automatically suggest some “activities” you can customize afterwards. You’ll accept these, and then modify them with your specific device’s inputs (it’s handy to have these written down if your computer is in a different room from the home theater). My setup is fairly simple, almost everything goes through the TV and the TV has audio out to the sound receiver. I did get my input for the Playstation 3 wrong, and had to go back and reconfigure it after testing.

After you’ve setup your activities, you can tell it to update the remote – the upload is kind of slow, but once it’s done you shouldn’t have to do this too often. The software and your remote will both prompt you to go to your entertainment center, turn everything off, and try out the activities to make sure they work. A handy assistant will guide you through the steps on the remote.

Again, everything is touch-screen on the remote that you need for setup. Once you choose an activity, you can use the more tactile buttons on the rest of the remote much like you would your regular satellite, cable, or television remote. I was impressed the way the remote included buttons for pausing live TV and other DVR functions provided by my satellite box.

Oh, and did I mention the One Remote (our precious, yes… the precious) is also rechargeable, so no more running to the store or borrowing from other remotes to replace dead batteries! It sits on it’s own little cradle and looks sexy.

If you’re looking to eliminate the coffee-table full of remote controls and you don’t mind giving up the honor of being the sole person in the household with the matrix of inputs and outputs memorized (and honestly, who isn’t?), the price tag on the Logitech Harmony One is well worth it for its ease of use and sex appeal.

-The Raging Tech

The Raging Tech is part of BzzAgent, a word-of-mouth campaign program where consumers give their real opinions on products they’ve actually tried, and tell their friends. Check it out at http://www.bzzagent.com/