The Source

aTunes is an open source iTunes alternative.  aTunes recently upgraded its version to 1.7.0 which includes radio support.  aTunes is able to play mp3, OGG, WMA, WAV, mp4, and FLAC files.  You can also rip and burn audio CD's with this application. aTunes integrates with AudioScrobbler and Last.fm to add the songs played to your profile.  If you are looking for a music player similar to iTunes this is a good alternative.

aTunes is available in multiple languages.

Album cover view.

Main controls for the player.  You can customize this to display in various areas of the player.

Menu for changing the look and appearance of aTunes.

aTunes is created with Java6 and Swing.  Developers can hop on board this project here!

Portable Apps is a remarkable portable application suite which runs off your USB flash drive.  You can carry around all of your favorite open source applications with this utility. 

Everything runs off the USB drive so there is never anything to install.  If you place of employment requires Windows everything… just take along Portable Apps and your back in the open source comfort zone.  Portable Apps is put together extremely well and is very visually pleasing.  Most applications start with a splash screen such as this one with Open Office Writer. 

Provided your USB drive is large enough you can carry around and save everything you create and do with Portable Apps.  Everything is saved to your USB drive.  In fact the folder system of Portable Apps is just like Windows Explorer (the screenshot below is the folder system inside Portable Apps running on my flash drive).  You will be quite comfortable in this environment. 

There is even a very handy backup utility included in the Suite.

So far I am extremely impressed with Portable Apps.  New and updated open source applications are constantly being updated on the Portable Apps web site.  Adding a new application is achieved simply through the main menu.  The portable versions of of popular open source applications like Open Office may lack some functionality of the full installation but you will definitely be able to get by on what is available.  For programmers wanting to help out with the project fine out more here!

RSSOwl is a multi platform open source RSS Reader.  The overall feel and navigation is just like a web browser.  The RSSOwl user interface is very customizable.  You will notice there are a lot of feeds already entered by default which includes many categories.  Select feeds open up as HTML inside RSSOwl.  As with a browser you can bookmark you favorites as well.  To be honest I just started using this application a day ago and so far am very impressed!  If any of you are experienced RSSOwl users please feel free to comment. 

RSSOwl has a very good search feature also. In fact you can search for podcasts and download them to your hard drive.  I have not yet found a way to auto update favorite podcasts … being open source hopefully this is a feature to be added.

If you want more than just iGoogle or don't want to open a separate browsing session to read articles then I highly recommend RSSOwl.  This is a great utility for the RSS junkie.  RSSOwl is available on Windows, Linux, and Mac.

Expect more information on this handy app.  Everyday I use it I am more impressed by it's versatility.

VLC is probably the most popular open source media player out there. VLC plays basically any type of media file you can imagine. It has a very trim lined interface. The program is very light on system resources as well. Not only is it an incredible media player, it is also a server and a client to stream media across your network or the Internet. Various tweaks in video and audio are limitless. VLC is completely open source and available on Windows, OS X, and pretty much every flavor of Linux and Unix.

This is the basic interface of VLC there are also multiple skins available.

VLC is capable of playing multiple video files including MPEG, DVD, VCD, Real, WMV, and a bunch more!

There are many cool visualizations you can use while playing audio.

VLC is definitely a top notch media player and can also be used for streaming video across a network and the Internet. If you are a coder you can download the code here.   I highly recommend this player!

One of the more popular open source IM clients is Pidgin (formerly GAIM).  This client works with pretty much all chat services including the majors MSN, Google Talk, AIM, and Yahoo!  Pidgin works with Linux, Windows, BSD, and other Unix distributions.  If you're a real minimalist you can even get a text based version.  It is very customizable and there is a lot of open source plug ins for it as well.  Pidgin supports pictures, emoticons, and fonts.  Very customizable IM alternative!

Choose your favorite chat service.

Here is an example of the menu choices available.

You can resize your messaging window to your liking. 

Get more information and download Pidgin.

ClamWin is a very cool lightweight open source anti-virus program.  This may not be the best anti-virus solution for beginners, but experienced PC power users should check this out.  The download size of this application is around 15 MB.  I really like that this application is so light weight and uses little system resources.  One downside (if you can call it one) is this development does not yet support real time scanning.  You can schedule automatic updates and scans though.  ClamWin also creates nifty reports on your updates and scans.  You can use it to scan individual files and it also integrates seamlessly with Outlook. 

ClamWin is built on the Clam Anti-virus engine for Unix.   

The ClamWin UI - Start Menu

As you can see there are a lot of options for precise customization.

ClamWin downloading updates where you can save a report of these if you wish.

Find out more and download ClamWin

Miro is a wonderful open source video player.  Miro is the new name for the same project entitled Democracy Player.  The last version of Democracy Player was 0.9.6 - Now with a new name, logo, and interface Miro is definitely ready for prime time.  Miro is available on Windows, Apple, and Linux platforms.

Think of Miro as a TIVO for your computer.  Just select the video web content you like and subscribe.  You can pick a bunch of video content or just a few channels to check out.  What I like to do is have Miro download all of my favorite content and go to work.  When I get home I can go through and play what I want when I want.  You can also download video podcasts with Miro.

Looking closer here is a PBS video playing on Miro.  As you can see toward the bottom it has your typical media player controls.

On the left side of the player you have your main menu.  Playlists, libraries, recently downloaded programs etc.  You can customize these various menus by right clicking and choosing an option from a sub menu.

Miro also has a neat feature that allows you to search and play video content from some of the major video websites.  Yes there are others than YouTube!

Miro is will also play virtually any type of video file.  You can also use Miro as your BitTorrent client and watch the video file directly from Miro.  If you are looking for a great free open source video application compatible with Windows, Apple, or Linux you should definitely download Miro.

Mozilla's Firefox web browser is arguably the Internet's most popular open source application.  Since the release of Firefox 1.0 this web management tool has grown to a gargantuan entity.  

The Firefox web browser (through the open source community) has pioneered a plethora of innovative add-on's, security enhancements, and other features which Microsoft's Internet Explorer is still trying to catch up with.  Since Firefox is such a widely used browser the How To Geek site has an entire section devoted to it. 

I have been a huge fan of Firefox since the 0.9 release.  There is probably an add-on created for about everything you would want to do with your web browser.  If you don't see any you like you can always create your own.  Firefox works with the three major OS platforms Windows, Apple, and Linux.  If you have not experienced Firefox yet I highly recommend downloading and testing it out for yourself today!

The current stable version is FireFox 2.0.0.5 — If you are a developer or would like to beta test the latest builds all you need to do is get involved.

This is the obligatory first post on a new blog which has nothing to do with the content of the site itself. We'll promise that we'll be awesome and update every day, but who knows if we'll be able to pull it off.

The goal here is that we will feature one Open Source software application each day. We'll explain why it's great, and why you should switch to open source.

First post will start in the next few days.