Now that 11.2 gets closer and closer to the rc status being able to play mp3 becomes important in order to make the testing experience even nicer.

Here is my workaround to get that mp3 working in amarok. I do not know about the dvd’s as the only one that I own is to boring to use it for testing purposes

wget http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/suse/x86_64/libcdio7-0.80-5.30.x86_64.rpm
zypper in file:<Path-to>libcdio7-0.80-5.30.x86_64.rpm
wget http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/suse/x86_64/libiso9660-5-0.80-5.30.x86_64.rpm
zypper in file:<Path-to>libiso9660-5-0.80-5.30.x86_64.rpm
wget http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/suse/x86_64/libMagickCore1-6.4.3.6-5.3.x86_64.rpm
zypper in file:<Path-to>libMagickCore1-6.4.3.6-5.3.x86_64.rpm
wget http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.1/repo/oss/suse/x86_64/libMagickWand1-6.4.3.6-5.3.x86_64.rpm
zypper in file:<Path-to>libMagickWand1-6.4.3.6-5.3.x86_64.rpm
zypper in libxine1-codecs

So as you can see I just use the missing libs from 11.1.Of course I assumed that you added the 11.1 packman to your repos already.

Nowadays more and more organisations will use an intercepting proxy to give you access to internet. Last week I had the pleasure to use again such a system. To use is an exaggeration as my opensuse 11.1 box with kde4.3 rc1 connected to the wireless network (network manager) but refused to give me access to the authentication page in the browser.

I did all the decent tests that my brain and time allowed me. Checked the ip, checked gateway and checked dns. They seemed ok.

To make frustration even bigger I was able to connect to th very same network with a kde4.3 beta1.

I will go on holiday next week, so today is my last day in the office. I have decided that the things I have to do today are too many and I should work in the train in my way to the office.

All good, start the computer, of course no internet, so I had to shutdown kontact to stop him crying about not being able to connect.

Being able to easy go to an offline mode  would be a very nice and useful feature to have in kontact, and kde applications in general. Checking that before you want to communicate with some third party that you actually have the phone instead complaining that he is not answer, would be a very good design decision, too.

Now being the holiday season I hope at least one of the kde/kontact developers would get hit by this missing feature and soon we will have it.

We are almost one month far away from the kde4.3 release. Yesterday the 4.3 rc1 was tagged and due to excellent work of our colleagues in OBS we have it already.

Personally, I would have liked it to go a little bit further away in terms of usability, we will speak about that later.  This release will mark the break with 3.5. I see no real reason for not using kde 4.3. All the functionality that people were crying after from 3.5 is finally up and running (a lot of time better) in KDE 4.3.

What more would you like then, people may ask.

I would like to be able to give a kde4 desktop to a secretary to use and to a teenager who is into Web2.0.

• a features consistent kontact, a kalendar that actually can be used in a real life environment, avoiding silly design inconsistencies like you can spell check your popup notes but you cannot do it for your notebooks entries.
• a kopete that actually supports video/audio features of protocols.
• a rock solid kblogger may help.
• a way to synchronize mobile devices.

and the last

• adding more work on making existing features working perfect rather than adding new ones.

Alin