Distro Hoppin`: Fedora 16

Good day, everybody!!! Gloomy autumn days are heavily upon us with winter approaching quickly and temperatures dropping like crazy. I often looked up to the bird kind and felt a bit jealous of how they carelessly leave everything behind once summer is gone and leave to warmer places. Plus, they can fly!! Well, at least we've got our GPUs and monitors to keep us cosy during these awful, cold days. Of course, they alone would only comfort us physically, the software is the one that really puts a geeky smile on our faces.

Ubuntu was the first that made the cold season Tux collection, with Fedora following closely and openSUSE graciously touching the third place - I haven't tried the latter yet, but there's a lot of enthusiasm among users. 

Today I am here to show you Fedora 16 - dubbed Verne. I am sure Mr. Jules would write an exciting story about brave distro hoppers, were he alive today.

Latest Y!M Update Brings Voice & Video Chat to My Galaxy Mini

Up until today, trying to download and install the Yahoo Messenger Voice & Video plugin was an impossible mission on my Samsung Galaxy Mini from Orange, even though my device seemed compatible with the requirements. I was starting to believe my Mini was simply underpowered and the 600 MhZ processor was unable to handle video calling.

But, when I woke up this morning, a Yahoo Messenger update was waiting to be installed. Once it was done, I opened it up, quickly pressed the "Options" button, selected "Install Voice & Video plugin" and, lo and behold, the respective Market page appeared and allowed me to seal the deal.

Even so, I highly doubted it would actually work, so I asked my girlfriend to log into her Yahoo Messenger account on the PC and made my first Video call from the Galaxy Mini. Result? CRASH! Undeterred, I cleared the RAM and made a second attempt. Result? IT'S ALIIIIIVEEEEE!!!!!! Yep, I could see and hear (at a reasonable quality - limited of course by the crappy camera on the Mini) whatever was transmitted from the PC's webcam/microphone and viceversa.

There's one weird problem: on the phone screen, my video overlays the video that comes from the PC, which makes no sense and I hope a fix is on its way.

Note that the test was made on a Wi-fi connection, I've yet to try video calling on 3G. When I do, I shall update this post. Update: on 3G/HSDPA, a connection couldn't be established.

Sadly, a Linux Y!M client is still missing in action and until that is fixed, I am upset with Yahoo! Hmph!