HandBrake is a popular free and open source video transcoder available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. The tool works great however, the app widgets are black under Unity, this issue being caused by Ubuntu's overlay scrollbars:

Rhythmbox 3.2 was released yesterday, bringing new features like a Soudcloud plugin, along with bug fixes. If you're using Ubuntu 15.04, 14.10 or 14.04 / Linux Mint 17.1 or 17 (and derivatives), you can already install the latest Rhythmbox via PPA.

Pushbullet is a service that lets you easily send files, links, notes, list and more to your Android or iOS device from your desktop or the other way around. The tool can also be used share the clipboard between your desktop and mobile device (feature called "Universal copy & paste"), mirror Android notifications on your desktop and more.

NitroShare is very easy to use: simply select "Send Files..." or "Send Directory..." from the AppIndicator / tray icon menu, select the files and you get a list of devices that run NitroShare on your local network:

After selecting the files and the device you want to share them with, click "Ok" and the file transfer should begin.

For those not familiar with Insync, this is an unofficial Google Drive client which "extends Drive's web functionality to your desktop by integrating tightly with Windows, Mac and Linux so you can get work done". The application is not free: it costs $20 per Google account (one-time fee), along with plans for 3 Google accounts and for business.

Twitch Indicator is, like its name suggests, a www.twitch.tv appindicator. In case you're not familiar with Twitch, this is a popular live streaming video platform that primarily focuses on video gaming.

The purpose of Twitch Indicator is to track the channels you follow and notify you when they go live. Besides notifications, which can be turned off from the indicator settings, the list of live channels is displayed in the indicator menu and clicking on any channel will open its Twitch page in your default web browser.

gksu hasn't been updated since 2009 and is not recommended any more. In fact, Ubuntu no longer ships with gksu by default (though it may be installed for many of you, because some apps still depend on it) and it may even be completely removed at some point.

The recommended replacement for gksu is pkexec. Applications like Synaptic, Ubuntu Software Center, Software & Updates and others use it for some time but what if you want to use pkexec with applications like Gedit or Nautilus?

By default, you can't because pkexec can't run graphical applications without having a PolicyKit file installed in /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/ for the app you're trying to run as root, and Ubuntu doesn't ship with PolicyKit files for Nautilus or Gedit.

Folder Color is a file manager extension available for Nautilus, Nemo and Caja, which until recently could only be used to change individual folder colors. The tool was updated yesterday with a new feature: you can now use it to easily change all the folders colors with a click:

If you run fullscreen Wine games or apps and the Unity panel and launcher show up on top of the game/app in some cases, here's a simple fix you can use.

For those not familiar with Nemo, this is the default Cinnamon file manager and is a Nautilus fork. 

Nemo continues to provide many of the features removed from Nautilus, like the extra pane or the toggle location button, but there are some other changes as well, like a customizable toolbar (you can add or remove the up/refresh/search/etc icons), a warning is displayed when running Nemo as root, built-in "Open as root", "Open in terminal" and "Set as wallpaper" context menu items and much more.

The default Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet wallpaper was revealed a few minutes ago. The wallpaper continues to use the polygon style introduced with the Ubuntu 14.04 default wallpaper, but without the orange. In fact, the new default wallpaper is mostly purple, as you can see below:

Ozon OS "Hydrogen" beta is available for download. This is a Linux distribution based on Fedora, created by a collaboration between Numix Project and Nitrux S.A., "designed to not get into your way and and be simple, sleek and modern while focusing on helping you to get stuff done quickly".

The latest Ozon OS "Hydrogen" beta is based on Fedora 21 and it uses GNOME Shell (3.14.x), customized with various extensions. And of course, since Numix Project and Nitrux S.A. are known for their beautiful design work, Ozon OS ships with gorgeous GTK, GNOME Shell and icon themes, which you can see in the screenshots throughout this post.

The winners of the Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet Community Wallpaper Contest were revealed yesterday. The new wallpapers didn't land in Vivid yet, but you can already download them via Launchpad.

The Xfce 4.12 PPA was updated with the final stable Xfce 4.12, for Xubuntu 14.04 and 14.10.

For what's new in Xfce 4.12, see THIS article.