Is the Nexus Tablet coming soon to a Best Buy near you? If rumor is to be believed, Google is partnering with LG to make a reference Honeycomb tablet. Much like the Nexus One and Nexus S set the bar for Android smartphones, a Nexus tablet would be a high-water mark that all other manufacturers strive toward. Also in this week's episode, the good and the bad of in-app billing hitting the Android Market. Finally we look at April Fool's headlines that weren't fooling around. Android Market on the BlackBerry PlayBook and an open source Android in partial lock down. Say it ain't so. Kate Abraham joins us with a review of the TipNSplit Android app. Be it known; if ever you go out with Kate, you won't get away without paying your fair share of the bar bill.

Your netbook probably has some version of Windows on it, like XP or Windows 7 Starter. Since your netbook has limited resources to begin with you may want to run an operating system that give you the most horsepower. So, for the next three weeks we're going to look at three Linux distros that are perfect for your netbook. Doc starts off with a look at gOS, ideal for underpowered netbooks.

Doc finishes up his coverage of

the five best purpose-built Linux distros

. From the light weight and light on system requirements of Puppy Linux to the full featured and feature rich Ubuntu, Doc covered five great Linux distros. With so many options, one is right for you.

Ubuntu is, for many computer users, the first name that comes to mind when thinking of Linux. This distro does it all and is a great bet for anyone looking to make a permanent switch to Linux, eschewing Windows and Mac OS X.

XBMC is the best Linux distro for media

. It lets you connect with other computers and NAS drives in your home to stream movies, music and pictures. You can also play video from discs or straight from your set top PC's hard drive. Ideal for living room applications, it bests MythTV in our opinion.

Doc continues his countdown of his

top five Linux distros

with a look at Linux Mint. This graphically gorgeous OS is as solid as a rock and is very user-friendly. In fact, it maybe the

best Linux distro for Windows switchers

.

Next up in Doc's top five purpose built Linux distros is Slax. This nifty Linux distro comes with just about everything you need on your netbook. In fact, it maybe the

best Linux distro for netbooks

. On the Slax site you can assemble your own custom version of Slax.

Making the switch to Linux, even part-time, can feel like a bit of a shock to the system. Doc helps to ease the transition by rounding up his 10 favorite Linux apps that are free for the download. This week, we look at one through five and in next week's show, Doc rounds it out with numbers six through 10.

The

source code

of a

computer program

is what defines that program and makes it unique. Therefore, most companies carefully guard their source code so it cannot be borrowed or tampered with. However, some programs are

open source software

, which means that the source code is available to the public so they can view or

modify the program code

.

If you're an avid

iPhone gamer

, you might have noticed that leader boards, friend following and achievements have started to make an appearance in iPhone games. Chances are, you've encountered more than a few OpenFeint games in the course of your iPhone gaming. It's the open platform that empowers all this functionality in a ton of awesome iPhone games, as Jay Goldman explains.

You hear a lot of talk about "Android" lately. The

mobile operating system from Google

has caught on in smartphones and other mobile devices. But

what exactly is Android

? Why should you care about Android? Michael "Doctor File Finder" Callahan explains.

Open Source

is a philosophy for developing and distributing software. The Open Source concept encourages public participation in software projects. With Open Source, not only is the program available, but so is the "source code" it was generated from. In this way, forward thinking developers can see the thought process of other developers and work together to make it better. This makes for better and lower cost software.

Depending on your personal viewpoint, either nothing in life is free or the best things in life are free. These great open and

free college and university articles

, and even entire courses that you can take for free will dispel that notion if the former or affirm it if the latter. Stacy Reed shows off some great

free college textbooks, free college courses

and more.

Jay Goldman, better known to butterscotch viewers as

Mr. Mobile

takes a close look at the

Android operating system (OS)

for

smartphones

... and beyond. If you already have a Google account, everything you have on Google Apps on the desktop will show up on your phone. Definitely a killer app for dedicated Googlites.

Google's Android smartphone operating system is pretty revolutionary. Some of the most anticipated smartphones running the Android OS were HTC's handsets the Magic, which we take a look at in this episode of Gadget TV, and the Dream, coming up in the next episode. The Magic eschews the full QWERTY keyboard of the Dream, opting for an on-screen keyboard instead.

Cheryl Poirier, AKA Miss Download, somehow managed to obliterate

Microsoft Office

from her home PC only to discover the

open source equivalent to Office, OpenOffice.org

. Not a moment too soon either; she had an important spreadsheet due in two days' time!

The world of Linux has been getting increasing attention. Versions of Linux, the "open-source" operating system, are being installed on computers from major makers like Dell and HP. Google's Android mobile phone operating system is also a variation of Linux. Of all the versions of Linux available, Ubuntu is among the most polished and

user-friendly Linux distros

. It's free and comes with an amazing amount of software. Join us as we take a look into the wonderful world of Linux with our

introduction to Ubuntu

.

Cheryl Poirier takes a look at the open source (read: free) audio editor Audacity. Playing the audio layer from a Miss Download episode in reverse, she searches for hidden messages...

In this

10 part video tutorial on setting up and using Thunderbird as your email client

, Michael "Doctor File Finder" Callahan runs us through the basics of getting started with

Mozilla's email client

. We look at

how to add email accounts to Thunderbird

, including

how to add a Gmail account to Thunderbird

, dealing with

email privacy

,

managing spam in Thunderbird

and much more.

What is Linux? You've probably heard of Ubuntu as it is the most widely adopted Linux distribution. But what is Ubuntu? Doc Callahan offers a video guided tour of Ubuntu. Doc covers everything from running Windows applications on Ubuntu, games in Ubuntu, applications in Ubuntu, Linux versus Windows and much more. If you've never tried Ubuntu, this is your beginner's guide. If you've already tried Ubuntu, you might still learn a thing or two.