September 2nd, 2008 at 04:42pm
Under Cross Platform+ Media Player
VLC is a free and open source cross platform media player (similar to the non cross platform proprietary Windows media player or Quicktime/Itunes)
One of he great things about VLC is its format support which as well as all the standard (MP3, MP4 etc) includes the patent free Ogg Vorbis and FLAC. Full details of formats and features are here.
Itunes and Windows Media player do not support Ogg Vorbis and Flac natively.
Also as well as is being available for Mac and Windows there are versions for many Linux distributions and it can also be installed on other operating systems.
By admin
April 17th, 2008 at 07:59pm
Under Cross Platform+ Email
The second cross platform application is an email client and comes from the same stable as Firefox (Mozilla). When working on any computer the majority of most people’s time is often spent in either a web browser or an email client so having functional cross platform applications certainly helps when working on multiple platforms or when planning to switch platforms.
Possibly more than any other application email has some serious platform specific solutions used by a good percentage of users, Windows users, especially at work, will be familiar with Microsoft Outlook(or possibly Outlook Express) and Apple Users have Apple Mail or Microsoft Entourage. The Linux camps have Kmail the mail client of Kontact on the KDE desktop and the Gnome desktop has Evolution. All of these are perfectly good email clients but work in subtly different ways.
Mozilla Thunderbird can bring a similar way of working and interface to all of the three platforms and as with Firefox is free and open source.
Just as Firefox users can customise their experience with extensions so can Thunderbird. See some of the following links for some excellent extensions
extensions and tweaks - http://db.rambleschmack.net/pc_tips/thunderbird_extensions_tweaks
8 Killer Thunderbird extensions from Lifehacker
Thunderbird will also integrate with the great online address book plaxo through its toolbar.
Probably on of the first thing an Outlook user will notice is the lack of a calendar in Thunderbird. Mozilla has a calendar application called Sunbird which is a complete stand alone cross platform calendar. Again there is an extension called Lighting that adds Sunbird directly into Thunderbird.
You can also run Thunderbird directly from a portable USB thumb drive which can be useful when using work or other peoples machines or at work with personal email.
With more and more people using web based email and calendars you may ask why you need desktop applications like Thunderbird, While Gmail and Google Calendar may be fantastic they still miss some of the usability of a full desktop application but combining the two can give you the best of both worlds. Full instructions are available for using Gmail with Thunderbird including with IMAP configuration. Also Google Calendar can be integrated and there is a great guide to setting this up on the following blog.
With Mozilla now spinning out Thunderbird to the newly formed Mozilla Messaging the future looks good with focus now on Thunderbird 3.0.
Platform specific applications/alternatives
Mac - Apple Mail
Windows - Outlook
Linux- Evolution (Gnome) Kmail (KDE)
Other notable cross platform browsers
Zimbra
Current full released version 2.0.0.12
Thunderbird - Current full released version 2.0.0.12
By admin
March 28th, 2008 at 10:30pm
Under Cross Platform+ Web Browser
It is not difficult to the pick the fist application for Crossing Platforms. Firefox may be the ultimate cross platform application. Lets start at the beginning Firefox is an open source, free web browser born out of the old Netscape browser that will run on Windows, Mac and Linux. Many BSD and Solaris distributions include Firefox as standard also.
Firefox has many great features which were for a time far in advance of Internet Explorer (e.g. tab browsing) but the one killer feature for me and for many other people are the extensions. Extensions allow 3rd parties to develop specific functional add-ons that enhance and expand the Firefox browser. Nothing new in extensions for software but Firefox probably has more extensions covering an even wider area than any other software. One good example of this would be the ebay extension, this adds additional buttons and a sidebar to firefox that lets you see at a glance the position of the main areas of your ebay account (selling, watching etc).
Firefox on a Mac screenshot
There are many extensions that can improve cross-platform browsing and just surfing in general and I have put some links to some useful extensions lists at the bottom of this post. One extension that is worth a mention when using more than one machine (with multiple platforms or not) is Foxmarks which can synchronise your bookmarks across two or more machines. There is also addons for web based bookmarking services such as deliciouss and stumble upon
Extensions can be very easily be installed, maintained, and importantly uninstalled for the menu option tools>addons. This means that no additional platform specific knowledge is required. An example addons screen as below:
What this means is that not only can you use the same web browser on all three platforms but in most cases you can use the same extensions. So if you like to keep tabs on ebay as you browsing in windows you can also do the same in Mac and Linux. An extension like Foxmarks will even synchronise your bookmarks (favourite websites) across all of these browsers on multiple platforms.
Look and feel is near identical across all of the the three platforms although as Firefox can be skinned it can soon look very different, as below for example. In version 3 some people hoped have a more platform specific look for each version but now this appears no longer to be the case. For Mac users who want a more Mac look and feel based on Firefox there is Camino.
A different theme added to firefox from Tools>addons>themes>get themes
Version of 3 of Firefox is expected soon and is currently in beta. The new version should improve security, usability, speed and also solve the memory issue which has dogged Firefox 2. There are also plans to run Firefox on mobiles and mobile platforms although currently this is limited to the Nokia N800 which is running a version of linux.
You can also run Firefox directly from a portable USB thumb drive which can be useful when using work or other peoples machines.
Platform specific applications/alternatives
Safari(now available for Windows) , Camino (Mac), Internet Explorer (Windows), Konqueror (Linux-KDE), Epiphany (linux-Gnome)
Other notable cross platform browsers
Opera, Flock (based on Firefox), SeaMonkey
Current full released version 2.0.0.13 (March 2008)
Firefox Extension Lists
Firefox Extension official page,
Lifehack Extensions for productivity and
50 Best Firefox extensions
Firefox - Current full released version 2.0.0.13 (March 2008)
By admin
March 18th, 2008 at 02:43pm
Under General
photo credit: Mauricio Pellegrinetti
Crossing Platforms is a blog that seeks to highlight applications that can be used on the three main operating systems:
Microsoft Windows
Apple Mac
Linux
Now of course there are many versions of all of these three platforms but in general I am talking about Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Mac OS 10.x and the popular versions of Linux. I am not looking to offer an opinion on less well known systems such as Solaris, BSD, the ZX81 or any of their variations.
Bill Gates believed there should be a computer on every office desk and in every home and in a lot of cases that has happened in the modern world and in quite a few cases not just ‘a’ computer but more than one. With many people using Windows at work more people are looking at using a Mac at home or even Linux. This is where I think having applications that can be used on all three platforms can be very useful so that although you may want (or have ) to use multiple systems you can have familiarity in the applications you use which can make life easier.
Another positive for cross platform applications is that if you are looking at switching say from Windows to Linux having common applications should certainly make it easier. It is has been said that our user experience it is more about the applications we use than the operating system they are sitting on. If you are using a common browser and office suite this may actually be 90% of your computer use.
The final reason is completely selfish as I use all three platforms mainly XP/Vista, Mac OS 10.4 Tiger and Linux (mainly Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS) I like to find applications that work on all three.
Finally, I appreciate that mobile platforms such as the iphone, windows mobile, symbian, Android etc are becoming more important and where it is relevant and I have any knowledge I will mention it but it is not really the aim of this blog.
By admin
