Synchrorep - A one click folders synchronization

Synchrorep - A one click folders synchronization | Ubuntu Geek

Synchorep is an open source software to synchronize two directories, that mean reporting all modifications of one to the other and vice versa. At the end of synchronization, both directories will be strictly the same.
This is usefull for users who work with a laptop or usb key but may interest also users who want making differential backup to gain time.

Install Synchrorep in Ubuntu

Preparing your system

Note:- You should be running ubuntu version 8.10 and above

Install following packages

sudo apt-get install python python-pysqlite2 python-gtk2 python-nautilus

Now you can download .deb package from here

Install the downloaded .deb packge by double clicking on that or run the following command from your terminal (Make sure you are in correct path)

sudo apt-get install synchrorep-1.3.6.deb

Using Synchrorep

You can start Synchrorep by right click on folder to synchronize.

You can check more screen shots from here

The Web Way to Learn a Language

The Web Way to Learn a Language - NYTimes.com

January 28, 2010

By ERIC A. TAUB

The young woman seated next to us at the sushi bar exuded a vaguely exotic air; her looks and style, we thought, made it likely that she was not American born.

But then she spoke in perfect American English, even ending her declarative sentences in that rising questioning lilt characteristic of many young Californians.

As it turns out, however, she wasn't from these parts after all; she was born in Iran and spoke only Farsi until her arrival here two years ago. What classes, we wondered, had she attended to learn the language so well?

"I didn't," she said. "I used RosettaStone."

Those yellow boxes sold at shopping-mall and airport kiosks may be the most recognizable example of PC-based language learning, but it certainly isn't the only one.

With the growth of broadband connectivity and social networks, companies have introduced a wide range of Internet-based language learning products, both free and fee-based, that allow students to interact in real time with instructors in other countries, gain access to their lesson plans wherever they are in the world, and communicate with like-minded virtual pen pals who are also trying to remember if bambino means baby.

Learning a language sometimes seems as difficult as dieting. The solution is to figure out how to stay interested after the novelty wears off.

To counter boredom, online language programs have introduced crossword puzzles, interactive videos and other games to reward users for making progress.

Online courses are either fee-based, free or a combination. Starter kits of fee-based programs may cost just a few hundred dollars, but the cost to reach higher levels of comprehension and speaking can easily be $1,000.

While that may sound expensive, language company executives say it isn't; college courses often cost many thousands of dollars to reach the same level.

So, cost aside, how do you choose which program to use? The answer is that one size doesn't fit all.

"The quality of feedback is important," according to Mike Levy, head of the school of languages and linguistics at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. "Sites with human contact work best," he said. "This shows the advantage of humans compared to computers. A computer is never as subtle or intelligent."

PAY AND LEARN RosettaStone, the best-known language program, now offers Totale, (rosettastone.com) a $1,000 product that includes RosettaCourse, a traditional lesson-based module; RosettaStudio, a place where a user can talk to a native speaker via video chat; and RosettaWorld, an online community where you can play language-related games.

"We offer modern-day pen pals facilitated with voice over I.P.," said Tom Adams, the company's chief executive.

RosettaStone uses things like colorful flash cards to help students first learn basic words, and then connect those words to concepts and sentences. The idea, according to Mr. Adams, is for the user to let go of the adult "technical questions and just get into a comfort zone, learning new sounds and trying to make sense of them."

One of RosettaStone's main competitors, TellMeMore (tellmemore.com), believes it has an advantage because its software not only teaches words and phrases, but includes a speech recognition component that analyzes pronunciation, presents a graph of speech, and suggests how to perfect it. Other videos show students how to shape their mouths to create sounds difficult for native English speakers, like the rolling R in Spanish.

With 10 levels of content, a 10,000-word glossary, videos of native speakers and more than 40 practice activities, TellMeMore believes it has enough material to keep a user motivated.

TellMeMore charges $390 for a year's access to its resources for six languages; those looking for a quick refresher can buy a $10 daily pass. Weekly, monthly and half-year passes are also available.

The company's product is currently available only on CD-ROM, but online versions for both Mac and Windows that will include real-time coaching are coming later this year.

FREE NOW, PAY LATER Livemocha (livemocha.com), a two-year-old Web start-up, offers free basic lessons in 30 languages. Users can upgrade to advanced courses with additional features on a monthly or six-month basis.

For $20 a month, students can submit up to eight voice recordings to a native-speaking tutor, who will then review and make recommendations for improvement within 24 hours. For $70 every six months, students can submit up to two examples a lesson.

All students, whether using the pay or free model, can join social networking groups and speak live (using VoIP) to people around the world who are native speakers interested in learning English.

As with all social networking sites, this feature is open to misuse. Within hours of signing up for Livemocha, I received a note from a young woman, ostensibly from Poland, "wanting to meet me."

The company says it has "the world's largest community of people learning languages," with five million registered users in 200 countries.

Financed in part by the European Union, Babbel (babbel.com) offers paid instruction (and a free trial lesson) in English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish for $12 a month, or $6.62 a month for a six-month commitment.

In addition to extended grammar and vocabulary, users can communicate with others in their desired language via private or public chats, or arrange to get in touch via voice.

FREE LANGUAGE LEARNING If money is truly an object, a variety of free language learning is available from a number of sites.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (bbc.com/languages) offers varying levels of instruction for 36 languages, with features including audio and video playback and translation.

Looking to visit Deutschland? The German television network, Deutsche Welle, can help you make yourself understood (bit.ly/ts6x7). And for those who not only want to learn another language but another alphabet as well, try japanese-online.com, or learn-korean.net.

Apps for a smartphone No program would be complete without an accompanying smartphone app, and many exist for the iPhone and other devices.

Several are simple providers of useful phrases, including the Lonely Planet Phrasebooks ($10 for each of 18 languages), the Oxford Translator Travel Pro ($10 for each of five languages), and World Nomads (free; 23 languages). The Ultralingua Translation Dictionary ($20 a language) offers simultaneous translation of English and six languages.

Both RosettaStone and TellMeMore say that they are developing smartphone apps as supplements to their online programs, but neither has announced a release date.

Livemocha expects to have an app later this year for both the Android and iPhone operating systems. The company plans on integrating text with a native speaker pronouncing the language, and providing the option for voice recording and live video feeds.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 2, 2010
Because of an editing error, an article on the Personal Tech pages on Thursday about Internet-based language courses misstated part of the name of Britain's public service broadcaster. It is the British Broadcasting Corporation, not the British Broadcasting Service.

The Fight Over Who Sets Prices at the Online Mall

The Fight over Prices on the Internet - NYTimes.com
February 8, 2010

By BRAD STONE

Where's the price?

On some pages of e-commerce sites selling products like televisions, digital cameras and jewelry, a critical piece of information is conspicuously missing: the price tag.

To see how much these items cost, shoppers must add the merchandise to their shopping carts — in effect, taking it up to the virtual register for a price check.

The missing prices are part of a larger battle sweeping the world of e-commerce. Wary of the Internet's tendency to relentlessly drive down prices, major brands and manufacturers — and now, book publishers — are striking back, deploying a variety of tactics and tools to control how their products are presented and priced online.

"You are seeing firms of all types test the waters" with strategies to control online pricing, said Christopher Sprigman, associate professor of intellectual property at the University of Virginia School of Law and a former antitrust lawyer at the Justice Department. "They feel they have more freedom to do it now."

In many cases that freedom stems from a 2007 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS. The ruling gave manufacturers considerably more leeway to dictate retail prices, once considered a violation of antitrust law, and it set a high legal hurdle for retailers to prove that this is bad for consumers.

Ever since that decision, retailers say manufacturers have become increasingly aggressive with one tool in particular: forbidding retailers from advertising their products for anything less than a certain price.

For offline retailers like Wal-Mart Stores and Best Buy, that means not dropping below those prices in the circulars and ads in newspapers. But online retailers have a greater burden. Manufacturers consider the product pages on sites like eBay and Amazon.com to be ads, and they complain whenever e-commerce sites set prices below the minimum price.

This leads the sites to replace prices with notes that say things like "To see our price, add this item to your cart." One day last week, prices were missing on Amazon.com for an array of products like the Milwaukee Sub-Compact Driver drill kit, a Movado men's Esperanza watch and an Onkyo 7.2-channel home theater receiver.

As a result, those prices also did not show up on search sites like Google Product Search and PriceGrabber.com. The trend has arguably weakened one of the implicit promises of e-commerce: that quick searches and visits to comparison shopping sites will yield the best deals.

Most online retailers complain that the missing prices confuse consumers and give an advantage to big chains like Wal-Mart, which do not bear the same burden in their stores. They also say the practice of enforcing minimum advertised prices has gradually spread from the consumer electronics business to companies in other industries like sporting goods and jewelry, which are also trying to stem the downward pressure of prices online.

Amazon declined to comment on the issue, but the company's feelings on the matter are public. "Retailers like Amazon have the legal right to set their own prices independently, but some manufacturers place restrictions on how those prices may be communicated," reads an explanation on Amazon product pages that lack prices. "We realize that this is an inconvenience and are regularly working to educate manufacturers on how their policies impact our customers."

A few online retailers, like Buy.com, say advertising restrictions have not measurably affected sales. But most other e-commerce companies volubly protest.

"We think consumers are best served when the retail marketplace is open and transparent and retailers have an opportunity to offer the best prices and services, and are not controlled from above by manufacturers," said Brian Bieron, eBay's senior director for domestic government relations.

Manufacturers, of course, have a different view. They say the competitiveness of the Internet has unlocked a race to the bottom — with everyone from large corporations to garage-based sellers ravenously discounting products, and even selling them at a loss, in an effort to capture market share and attention from search engines and comparison shopping sites. They also worry that their largest retail partners may be unwilling to match the online price cuts and could stop carrying their products altogether.

"If there isn't that back-and-forth between manufacturer and retailer, it's just a natural tendency to drive the price down to nothing," said Wes Shepherd, chief of Channel Velocity, which sells software that allows companies to scour the Web looking for violations of pricing agreements.

Southern Audio Services, based in Baton Rouge, La., sets a suggested retail price of $80 for its Woodees Inner-Ear Stereo Earphones, while their minimum advertised price is $50. Most online retailers sell them for around $50, but Amazon sells them for $48.40, keeping the price off the product page.

"At the end of the day, it will become a race to zero if you don't do anything to manage the issue," said Jon C. Jordan, chief executive of Southern Audio Services. "Then you've devalued your product to the point where it's difficult to get distribution and consumers lose interest in it."

The battle may shift back to Washington. Companies like eBay and Amazon are asking Congress to override aspects of the Leegin ruling. One bill that would repeal provisions of the ruling is now being considered in the House. In October, 41 state attorneys general wrote a letter to members of the House Judiciary Committee, arguing that the court's decision had resulted in higher prices for shoppers.

Just like other product makers, book publishers have also been emboldened by the Leegin decision. In their case, they want to prevent low prices on electronic books from cannibalizing their more profitable hardcover sales.

Instead of selling e-books wholesale to retailers like Amazon.com, the publishers want to sell them directly, setting prices and having the retailer act as an agent, taking a fixed 30 percent commission. Macmillan recently struck such an agreement with Amazon.com after a protracted dispute that led Amazon to remove, briefly, Macmillan's electronic and physical books from its site. Deals with the other major publishers will most likely follow.

Book publishers "are using a different set of levers, and a different vocabulary, to get what they want," said Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, which helps companies sell online. "But it's the same outcome. Manufacturers are effectively controlling the price that the consumer sees on the Web."

State of the Art - The Best Cameras $300 or Less Can Buy

State of the Art - The Best Cameras $300 or Less Can Buy - NYTimes.com

By DAVID POGUE

In 2001, I conducted a search for the best camera with a street price under $300. I've repeated the experiment every year since.

Wow, have things changed.

Back in 2001, every camera on the market had an eyepiece viewfinder; today, almost none do. Then, all $300 cameras ran on AA batteries; today, all use rechargeables.

Then, you got a whopping 1.3 or 2.2 megapixels; now, 12 or 14 is standard. Then, some cameras could actually zoom — wow! — up to 2X. Now, pocket cams with 10X or 12X zooms aren't unusual.

It's time to ask the question once again: "How much camera can $300 buy me?"

Below, reviews of nine answers to that question. Most are small, attractive, competent little machines with 12 megapixels, 3-inch screens and hi-def video capture.

All have image stabilization and face recognition, for sharper, better exposed shots. The Panasonic, Fujifilm, Canon and Casio models have unusually wide-angle lenses for capturing vistas — but can also zoom in 10X or even 12X. (There's usually some distortion at the corners at the widest view, but that's a small price to pay for this kind of versatility.)

Still, small, cheap cameras saddle you with shutter lag (the delay after you press the button), low-light compromises (blur or grainy "noise"), and blown-out highlights (bright areas of pure white, with no detail). If you want a camera without those drawbacks, buy a bigger, more expensive interchangeable-lens model.

And now, here are my notes on this year's contenders. CANON POWERSHOT SD980 ($280 street). Sleek, squished-capsule shape. Canon's first touch screen. Drag a finger or tap to flip through photos, magnify them, focus off-center. Tilt the camera various ways to activate certain functions. Other highlights: a wide-angle lens, O.K. picture quality, high-definition video. Quick circuitry; minimal start-up time and shutter lag.

Real problem: the three-inch screen is shaped like a hi-def movie; when you're shooting stills, you get black bars on either side, so the usable screen is much smaller. Touch screens eat up battery; only 240 shots a charge.

ZOOM EX-H10 ($262). Another quirky, breakout camera from Casio. Best parts: wide-angle, 10X zoom, astonishing 1,000-shot battery — three times the norm.

Has 38 presets — not just Sunset, Beach and Portrait, but all kinds of crazy special effects. Multi-Motion Image places several copies of your moving subject (ski jumper, skateboarder, whatever) against a single background. Dynamic Photo mode is hard to use, but very cool: it cuts your subject out of one photo and places it against the background of a different photo, à la green screen, for a still composite photo or short movie.

Weak spot: Video — no high-def, no optical zoom while filming, 10-minute clip max.

FUJIFILM FINEPIX F70EXR ($197). Low light is always a small-camera bugaboo. Cheap little sensors produce blur or grainy photos indoors or after sunset. But F70EXR has the largest sensor of the batch (.5 inches), and in EXR mode, can combine the light from two adjacent pixels on that sensor. Result: clearer, more colorful low-light photo (at half resolution, 5 megapixels instead of 10).

Zooms quickly, though noisily, while shooting video; can't shoot hi-def. Over all, wonderful, sharp pix. But camera takes time to learn.

KODAK EASYSHARE Z950 ($183). Kodak strikes again in its traditional niche: design clarity. Important controls are on top — and they light up. Price: $183, a steal for a camera with 10X zoom, full manual controls and hi-def video.

Zooming while filming is another small-camera problem. On the Fuji, audio track picks up zooming noise; on the Samsung, audio cuts out completely while zooming; on the Panasonic, zooming is incredibly slow to avoid noise. But Kodak zooms nice and fast — and almost silently (though it blurs in and out of focus while zooming).

Downsides: It's big, bulky and very slow. Pictures are only average. Have to charge battery in the camera (so can't keep a spare charging).

NIKON COOLPIX S8000 ($299). Just released, so for near term, you'll pay list price. Nicely thin, compact 10X zoomer. As with Sony, Samsung and others, it can snap automatically when subject smiles. Like Casio and others, it can apply a fake-looking smear to skin tones to minimize blotches and wrinkles.

Hi-def video with stereo sound and dedicated Movie button is a plus, but it can't zoom. Amazing-looking screen. Photos generally excellent, except when the autofocus misses.

OLYMPUS STYLUS 7000 ($184). Superlight, cheap 7X zoom. Panorama mode stitches consecutive frames together automatically as you swing your arm. Illuminated controls: nice. HDMI jack for showing photos in hi-def on a TV.

Lots of bad news, though: no hi-def video, no zooming while filming, horrific shutter lag, no autofocus lamp for low light, a nonstandard U.S.B. cable to get the photos off. And still using the nonstandard memory cards (XD or MicroSD)? Get with it, Olympus!

PANASONIC LUMIX DMC-ZS3 ($244). The camera that wants to be a camcorder. 12X zoom, usable during filming (which is pristine hi-def); stereo audio; dedicated Start/Stop button for video. (Caution: Factory setting uses a format — AVCHD Lite — that few video-editing programs can handle. Motion JPEG format is available, but it's lower quality and has a 16-minute clip maximum.)

Homely software — ALL CAPS MENUS, anyone? — but clear. Terrific screen (super-high-res, like the Nikon's). Doesn't just recognize faces, but recognizes particular faces, which you can name ("Uncle Stu"), but doesn't do much with that information. Pictures are excellent, but screen doesn't brighten up as necessary, as rivals do, making it very hard to compose shots in low light.

SAMSUNG DUALVIEW TL225 ($274). Crazy amount of tech in this one. Small, secondary screen on the front. Nearly invisible in sunlight, but great for self-portraits, for counting down to the self-timer snap, and even for holding the attention of children (the camera can play a little cartoon on that screen).

Main screen is the biggest on the market, at 3.5 inches. Responsive touch screen: draw an X for Delete, swipe across for Next Picture, tap to change settings like flash. Tilt or shake the camera to activate playback functions, too.

Detractions: Have to charge battery inside camera; have to transfer the photos using bizarre nonstandard cable; movie audio cuts out completely, weirdly, while you zoom; requires a cellphone memory card (MicroSD). Touch screen does a real number on battery life (180 shots). Camera is too flash-happy.

But very good photos.

SONY CYBER-SHOT W290 ($180). Least expensive camera here, but few other virtues. Buttons tiny and cramped. Have to zoom by holding down buttons, rather than turning a ring around the shutter button. Shoots hi-def, but can't zoom while filming. The first with an "auto fire when subject smiles" mode — but a dedicated shutter button on top just for that feature? Really? Also, the photos are soft and fuzzy.

THE BOTTOM LINE As the ridiculous megapixel race winds down at last, camera companies are now putting effort into differentiating their cameras — and wow, are there some weirdies here, like the two-screened Samsung, the green-screen mode of the Casio and the would-be camcorder Panasonic.

And if you can choose only one? I have three favorites this year, for different reasons. (That's the price we pay for differentiation.)

The Fujifilm F70EXR is superior in low light (and has that 10X zoom). The Panasonic Lumix ZS3 takes great hi-def movies (12X zoom). (The Nikon S8000 is extremely similar, but costs more.)

The Samsung DualView TL225 zooms only to 4.6X, but offers that huge touch screen and the amazingly handy small front screen. (Honorable mention to the Kodak Z950. It doesn't quite match the big boys' photo quality, but what you get for $183 is amazing.)

Oh — and for the price and pocketability, all three of this year's winners take very good photos. That's always a nice feature to have in a camera.

E-mail:pogue@nytimes.com.