Recently Google released their photo editing/management package Picasa for Linux. There was some outcry in the community that this was a token gesture as it used Windows emulation rather than being properly ported, but if it encourages people to consider Linux then it's a good thing. I have tried it and it seems to work much as the Windows version does.

Today I see that they have now released a Linux version of Google Earth. From what I've read this seems to be a proper conversion, but may not quite have the look of a native application. I shall have a play with that too, but I expect my old PC may struggle a bit with the graphics. I keep checking the prices of new hardware and it just gets cheaper. My rule of thumb in the past was to consider a CPU upgrade when I could double the speed for under £100. The problem now is that I would need a new motherboard, memory and cooler as well. It would probably be worth building a whole new PC rather than upgrading what I have. Even that is pretty cheap. I just priced up a system and it came to under £350.

Update on the previous post. MP3 playback is now working in Amarok, but I'm not sure what has changed. I tried installing the recommended packages, but they seemed to be there already. Last night I was listening to the Digital Planet podcast whilst sweating off a few pints on our exercise machine.