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In KDE 3, extracting archives, such as zip and tar files, is pretty simple. You just find the relevant file in Konqueror or Dolphin, right-click it and choose Extract for a list of extraction options.

For some reason, that functionality hasn't been copied over to KDE 4. Now, you must open up Ark for each archive and use the extraction wizard from there.

Extract and Compress KDE4 is a service menu for KDE 4 that restores the right-click extract functionality and once again makes it simple and quick to extract archive files. It also restores the functionality to make archives from the right-click menu.

Go ahead and download the tar.gz file from the website and extract it (yes, using the slow method this last time).

Double-click install.sh in this folder to start the installation of the service menu.

You will first be asked whether to perform this installation for just your user, or for the whole system. Choose whatever you prefer - obviously you can only do the whole system if you have the administrator rights and the right password.

You'll be asked for the password if necessary and then a folder selection box will come up. Here, you have to select the directory to install in, which must be where your KDE 4 service menus are stored.

On my Kubuntu 8.04 system, the right place for all users is /usr/lib/kde4/share/kde4/services/, so I choose that folder in the selector.

To find out where your service menu directories are, you can run this command in a terminal:

$ kde4-config --path services

That will spit out a list of the directories you can install in, separated by colons (:). In most cases there will be two entries, one in your home folder and one elsewhere. Choose the one in your home folder if you're doing a single user install, or the other one for all users.

Once you know the right directory to install in, choose it in the folder selector dialogue and click OK to install.

The program will now disappear for a few seconds while it installs, so have a little patience until you are notified the install is done.

That's it, the new service menu for extracting and compressing files is installed. You will need to close and re-open any applications, such as Dolphin and Konqueror, before the new options will show up in the right-click menu.

Microblogging service Twitter is as popular as ever and is a great way of keeping in touch with your friends who also use the service.

Of course, the service is much more useful when you can quickly and easily access it to see what is going on and update your status. That makes dedicated Twitter 'clients' very popular.

KDE 4 features a new desktop shell named Plasma. Part of Plasma is support for desktop widgets, known as 'Plasmoids', which can include a clock, a notepad and more.

Kubuntu users (and possibly other distros) have access to a package called extragear-plasma. This package, when installed, offers several additional Plasmoids, one of which is KDE Twitter.

Once the package has been installed, go to the top-right of the screen and click Add Widgets when it is revealed. In that list should be 'Twitter Microblogging', so click Add Widget to add it to your desktop.

You will obviously need to enter your Twitter details and log in before this will be of much use. Right-click on the widget and choose Twitter Microblogging Settings.

Once you have entered your details and changed any other settings, you will be able to see tweets from your friends show up in the widget. You can also use the text box at the top of the widget to post messages to the service.

One thing I should note is that on my KDE 4 Kubuntu Hardy Heron system, the area to post messages seems to be in black, while the background is ... also black. This makes it rather impractical and I wasn't immediately able to find a way to change the colour scheme. Let me know in the comments if you find out how!

I should also thank @oniryx for posting a tweet with the widget, which piqued my curiosity and led me to discover it!

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Konqueror as a web browser still unfortunately lags quite a way behind Firefox in terms of compatibility. For that reason, many KDE users stick with Firefox, despite the poorer integration between the desktop environment and the browser.

I have just come across a theme for Firefox 3.0 designed to make Firefox fit in better on a KDE 4.0 desktop (although it can be used on any system you like!). It makes use of the Oxygen icon set and various visual tweaks to make things a little cleaner alongside KDE 4 applications.

It is worth noting that the theme is only in alpha stage at the current time, so it might cause things to break. If problems occur, you should switch back to the default theme in Tools > Addons.

I had difficulty installing the theme from Mozilla's official Addons site, so we'll go about the process on the developer's site instead.

Navigate to http://ramonantonio.net/kde-firefox/ and click the Add to Firefox button.

You'll get a warning about Firefox preventing the website from installing software.

Click Allow, and then click on the Add to Firefox button once again. You'll get a standard add-on download window. Once you click Install and restart Firefox, the theme will be applied!

As I've already mentioned, this theme is in an early stage of development. Also, because we're installing from the site manually, not through Mozilla Add-ons, I recommend you check back with the developer's site frequently for new versions of the theme.

All in all, though, this theme is a promising solution to bridge the user experience gap between Firefox 3.0 and KDE 4.