KMess...

...is a Linux-based IM client for Windows Live. It's a very nice little app that allows me to connect to Windows Live, formerly known as MSN, without having to use Windows. Or allowed, because it's broke. Right now it crashes every time I try to start it.

Oxygen 11 and an Old Bug

Oxygen 11 is out and I just installed it on my laptop. It's still the best XML IDE there is, by far, but I'm getting a bit annoyed by a bug that has persisted for a year now.

Long story short, but basically the tabs bar that keeps track on the open documents and indicates the current document is buggy and will not correctly focus on the current document if that document is too far right to be visible without scrolling, and a previous document, also too far right to be visible without scrolling, has just been closed. The bar and the actual visible document do not synch so while the document itself is open and editable, the tab is missing. Very annoying, to say the least, if you are working with a highly modularised stylesheet and need to have more than a handful documents open at the same time. Apparently the bug is in a third party component and until that component is updated or replaced, the bug will persist.

I can live with that bug, though, and the new version seems to have enough fun stuff to keep me busy for a while. XProc support, for example, is a welcome addition. I've been wanting to try it ever since Norman Walsh presented it at XML Prague, and now there should be no further excuses.

Amarok Woes

Amarok, the best music player there is for Linux or indeed any platform, has been redesigned from the ground up. The old version 1.4, while feature-rich, was apparently up to the standards and visions of the app's makers, and now, there is a 2.2 out.

Amarok 2.2 is completely different in terms of appearance (and probably even more internally), but right now I'm having lots of trouble getting it to work the way 1.4 did. Here's what's bugging me the most:

• I can't seem to get the playlists to sort my music according to albums without every album on the list being listed once for every song that album contains. VERY frustrating.
• Version 2.2 reintroduced the capability to play audio CDs. However, this feature doesn't seem to work on my laptop--the CD is listed but just won't play (even Kscd plays on the laptop and that's to say a lot). On my desktop, the CDs will play, though.
• CD title lengths are always 0:00. Annoying.

I'm sure these will be sorted out in time, but right now, when KDE 4 is still buggy and unreliable, and Pulseaudio still mutes sound on every boot, there is enough on my plate already to keep me annoyed.