You’ve been through the basics of playing sound and editing videos on your Linux system. Now take a step closer to the tools and techniques of the experts.

The MainActor video editing software may appear to have only a rudimentary title generator. But with some tricks and special effects, MainActor can give you some impressive opening credits.

Authoring video DVDs with Linux was a problem for a long time, but a few useful tools are closing the gap. And Q-DVD-Author gives you a handy front-end for controlling the process.

Transcode is a handy tool for manipulating video files at the command line. With its modular architecture, the Transcode utility gives users much more than simple format conversion.

Don’t look now, but your mailbox is full of junk, and a snooper is live on a distant server, reading your opinions of your boss. Remember when email used to be easy? To restore some sanity to your correspondence, you’ll need the right tools.

Even if you do not have a mail server of your own, SpamAssassin can help you filter out unsolicited junk mail. This article describes how SpamAssassin collaborates with Evolution and KMail. Thunderbird, on the other hand, has its own simple spam-detection feature.

The leading email applications include new features for helping users secure and authenticate their mail messages, but each tool has a different approach to handling tasks such as signing and encryption. This article describes how to add encryption and digital signatures to the Thunderbird, Kmail, and Evolution mail clients.

Hypermail converts email messages to HTML and allows you to group your messages in tidy archives.

When you’re going wireless,it pays to be careful. Get the right hardware,and make sure your network is as secure as you think it is.

The IEEE 802.11 standards are at the center of the wireless revolution. The wireless alphabet starts with 802.11a and extends to 802.11n. Linux Magazine helps you get your wireless spelling right.

Electronic gadgets keep on getting smaller,and WLAN adapters are no exception.The first USB WLAN sticks hit the stores last year.This article tells you what to look for and how to get your USB WLAN device to work.

Wireless networks are practical but dangerous at the same time.WEP encryption is unlikely to stop an attacker. But help is at hand in the form of add-on security measures such as an encrypted OpenVPN tunnel.

Firewalls are becoming evermore sophisticated. Luckily, the tools for managing firewalls are becoming simpler and more accessible for ordinary users

The KDE Guarddog program promises an easy Linux firewall setup with just a few clicks. Guarddog helps inexperienced users secure computers – and even whole networks – against attack.

Firewalls are typically implemented as routers,but it doesn’t have to be that way. Bridging packet filters have a number of advantages,and you can add them to your network at a later stage without changing the configuration of your network components.

Netfilter firewalls create highly detailed logfiles that nobody really wants to inspectmanually. Logfile analysis tools like IPtables Log Analyzer,Wallfire Wflogs,and FWlogwatch help administrators keep track of developments and filter for importantmessages.

When users think about their workstations at home, they often forget about security. But danger is out there,waiting to pounce on the unsuspecting. Shorewall helps everyday Linux users keep the intruders away.