Bonum Certa Men Certa

Links 01/12/2009: New Qt, Rails 2.3.5 Released



GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux

  • Top five business technologies of the '00s
    1. Linux. If you were going to name the '00s after any single technology, you might as well call it the Linux decade. The first Linux kernel was released in 1991, but mainstream enterprise adoption of Linux was decidedly a '00s thing. Not only did Linux open up a whole new role for x86 hardware, it changed the economics and development model of the software business forever.




  • Server

    • IBM buys database security start-up Guardium
      The software is intended to help deal with regulatory requirements under legislation such as the European Data Protection Directive and the US federal government's NIST 800-53 standard. In addition, it targets industry mandates, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).


    • IBM hoists Tivoli Monitoring onto Amazon cloud
      The 32-bit IBM Tivoli Monitoring AMI is running on Linux and available for production use.






  • Google

    • A Google-eyed view of the world wide web
      Based on Linux, the Chrome OS turns the basic concept of an operating system on its head. The main interface of the system will the browser, with applications incorporated like web pages in a tab strip. Of course, Google will retain the Chrome browser’s minimalist interface, and are said to be working towards security nuts and bolts in such a way as to make viruses and other malware history.








  • Instructionals

    • Linux Documentation From A User's Viewpoint
      I'd like to put in my two cents' worth on the matter of documentation. I'm not an expert like Carla Schroder or Bruce Byfield, the two who brought up the topic, but I'm the very sort of person who needs it most, still pretty much of a newbie, but one who learns best by reading. It's a good thing reading is my preferred mode of learning, because as it happens I've not personally met a real live human who is a Linux expert, one who could give me over-the-shoulder instructions as I muddle through.








  • Distributions







  • Devices/Embedded



    • Phones



      • Android

        • Droid Nears Its Million-Device Target
          Motorola and Verizon’s $100 million marketing push seems to be paying off: The much-ballyhooed Droid smartphone made by Motorola and powered by Google’s Android 2.0 OS is inching toward its goal of a million devices sold during the fourth quarter of 2009. The two companies have thus far sold between 700,000 and 800,000 Droids, according to data collected by RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Sue.


        • HD-ready smartphone supports Linux and Android
          ZiiLabs announced a mid-range smartphone development platform supporting its Android and Linux-based "Plaszma" stacks. The Zii Trinity is based on ZiiLabs' dual ARM9-core "ZMS-05" SoC, and provides 1080p video output, OpenGL graphics, HSDPA, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and a 3.1-inch, 800 x 480 OLED touchscreen, says the Creative Technology subsidiary.


        • Optus deliberately blocking Android paid apps
          Optus is blocking owners of Android mobile phones from buying paid apps from the Android store, while locking users into long service contracts.


        • Android Market On Archos 5 Internet Tablet
          Issues be gone! The folks at ArchosFans.com have figured out a way for owners of the Archos 5 to get Android Market and all of the Google Apps like Maps, Talk Calendar and more onto the the device!








      • Nokia

        • Qt adds multi-touch, supports Maemo and Symbian
          Nokia's QT Software has upgraded its "Qt" cross-platform application and UI framework, now featuring multi-touch and gesture support. Qt 4.6 adds support for Nokia's Symbian and Maemo platforms, and provides enhancements including new animation and state-machine frameworks, an updated Qt Creator IDE, and new OpenGL and WebKit engines.


        • Cross-platform strategy will be next step in Nokia's transformation
          This began with the 2007 acquisition of Trolltech, which gave Nokia a cross-platform developer toolkit and serious Linux expertise. It became explicit with the launch of the most significant Nokia device for years, the N900, which propelled the Linux-based Maemo OS to center stage from its niche in enterprise mobile tablets. And the next step will be to make key Nokia weapons -Series 60, Trolltech's tools, and the Ovi services themselves - cross-platform, to extend their reach over the whole industry. That will start with a dual Symbian/Maemo approach, mirroring Google's for Android/Chrome, but like Google, Nokia will be aiming to see its tools and services on third party systems too.


        • Nokia To Release Linux-Based Phone Next Year
          Finnish cell phone maker Nokia is reportedly planning development of a single new Linux-based smartphone next year.

          A source told Reuters on Monday that Nokia has plans to unveil a new smartphone that would run on the Linux Maemo mobile operating system. The announcement may be troubling to some analysts who expected the firm to launch several Linux smartphones in an effort to outshine the competitors in Apple’s iPhone and Research In Motion’s Blackberry.


        • New Beta of Palm OS Emulator for Nokia Internet Tablets Released
          The most recent beta of the Palm OS emulator for Nokia Internet Tablets was set to expire, but Access Co. Ltd. has released a new one. This has no new other features, however.














Free Software/Open Source





  • Sun

    • Oracle-Sun: Statements and observations
      We know they revolve around the open source MySQL database, the European Commission has said that much. But the Statement of Objections weighs in at 155 pages, and even those that have read it admit to being confused by it. Meanwhile some of the most vocal parties in the public debate have vested interests in encouraging opinions for or against the deal.


    • What if Oracle's buyout of Sun falls through?
      With Oracle's proposed acquisition of Sun Microsystems stalled by European Union deliberations, industry dignitaries offered mixed perspectives recently on the ultimate fate of the deal and what it could mean for Sun technologies if the deal falls through.






  • Mozilla

    • Extend Firefox 3.5 Winners
      Extend Firefox 3.5 has wrapped up and we’re very excited to announce the winners! With so many great entries, choosing winners was difficult- and these add-ons represent some of the best thinking in add-ons today.


    • Open-Xchange Offers New Connector Tool for Thunderbird
      The Community OXtender for Thunderbird is available in two versions. The stable version contains the features mentioned above, and any necessary bugfixes. The unstable version (for Thunderbird 3 and Lightning 1.0pre only) contains additional features that are still under development and not yet fully integrated.








  • CMS

    • Drupal 6.14, Introduction and Installation
      With all the great Open Source CMSes out there, it's getting hard to make a choice as to which one to use for your site. After looking into many such CMSes, I decided to make Drupal the primary CMS for developing websites for my clients. Drupal is open-source software that is distributed under the GPL ("GNU General Public License") and has a developer community comprised of thousands of users and developers.








  • Programming

    • Rails 2.3.5 Unofficial Release Notes
      Rails 2.3.5 is out but the official release notes have not yet appeared. So I thought it might be useful to share my own notes on what's new in this version. This list is only the highlights, but it should give you an overview.


    • Rails upgrade fixes security issues, Ruby 1.9 compatibility
      Ruby on Rails 2.3.5, featuring security boosts and compatibility improvements for version 1.9 of the Ruby language, was released over the weekend, according to a blog post on the Ruby on Rails Web site.


    • Announcing the Winners of ADC 2
      Back in May at Google I/O, we announced ADC 2 -- the second Android Developer Challenge -- to encourage the development of cool apps that delight mobile users. We received many interesting and high-quality applications -- everything from exciting arcade games to nifty productivity utilities. We also saw apps that took advantage of openness of Android to enhance system behavior at a deep level to provide users with a greater degree of customization and utility. We were particularly pleased to see submissions from many smaller and independent developers.






Leftovers

  • Scientology Charged With Slavery, Human Trafficking


  • Ozark Officer Who Used Taser on Girl Fired
    Ozark - The mayor of a small Arkansas town says the police officer who used a Taser on an unruly 10-year-old girl has been fired for not using the camera attached to the stun gun.




  • Finance

    • No Accountability, No Bernanke
      The Federal Reserve loaned out over $1.2 trillion and they still won't say who got it. Here's Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) asking about some of the unaccounted-for money:

      GRAYSON: So who got the money?

      BERNANKE: Financial institutions in Europe and other countries.

      GRAYSON: Which ones?

      BERNANKE: I don't know.

      GRAYSON: Half-a-trillion dollars and you don't know who got the money


    • Tough Talk Is Not Enough on Loan Modifications
      As double digit unemployment becomes the major driver of foreclosures and as the vast majority of adjustable rate mortgages have yet to trigger, the White House is finally getting the message that news footage of families being tossed to the curb during the holiday season will not help Democrats going into the 2010 election cycle.

      Tough talk is certainly welcome, but the Obama team doesn’t seem to understand that banks can’t be talked into or even shamed into doing the right thing. The majority simply don’t want to modify loans, and they will not unless they are ordered to do so by a judge.








  • AstroTurf

    • Another Brick in Boral's Wall
      A major Australian building products company, Boral, has been forced to publish a full-page apology for its role in an astroturf campaign against BGC, which was seeking government approval for a new brickworks.


    • A Little Less Work for Lobbyists
      A White House policy of encouraging U.S. government agencies to exclude registered lobbyists from sitting on government advisory boards has irked some business lobby groups. In late September, Norm Eisen, the special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, announced the administration's aim of ensuring that "federally-registered lobbyists not be appointed to agency advisory boards and commissions."


    • Lobbyists pushed off advisory panels








  • Internet/Censorship/Web Abuse/Rights

    • Music library disaster? How to rip songs from your iPod
      Admit it: you or someone you know has had at least one disaster in which you have lost your entire music library, didn't have backups, and needed to rip it back off of your iPod.

      [...]

      Though gtkpod doesn't officially support the iPhone or iPod touch, it's one of the simplest solutions available for Linux users. The most recent version, V0.99.14, supports classic iPods (including the iPod nano, iPod shuffle, iPod mini, and iPod video models) and makes use of the shared libgpod library in order to access the iPod's music database. (iPhone and iPod touch are experimentally supported, but only if they are jailbroken first.)






  • Google

    • Shooting victim Michael Trkulja sues Google
      Michael Trkulja claims that a person putting his name into Google's search engine will be directed to websites where his name and photograph are mixed with underworld figures and crime identities.


    • Google to limit free news access
      Newspaper publishers will now be able to set a limit on the number of free news articles people can read through Google, the company has announced.


    • Huffington: News Corp.'s Google-Free Ploy 'Ain't Gonna Happen'
      Count Arianna Huffington among those who doubt that Rupert Murdoch will pull News Corp's articles from Google's search index in favor of giving Bing exclusive access.

      "I'll gladly wager my share of The Huffington Post that this ain't gonna happen," she said this morning at the Federal Trade Commission workshop "How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age."


    • Rupert Murdoch: Feds Should Stay Out Of News Business, Except, Of Course To Smack Down Google For Sending Me Traffic
      Rupert Murdoch stopped by at an FTC workshop on the future of journalism to say that the federal government should "stay out" of regulating the journalism business. Except, in the same speech he said exactly the opposite. What he meant was that he didn't want the government to get in the business of funding journalism. Yet, in the very same speech he does say that the government shouldn't allow Google to link to his news stories, calling it "theft" yet again.










Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day



Michael Shaw, community reporter for Assigment Zero 09 (2007)

[an error occurred while processing this directive]



Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Linuxsecurity, and Google News Getting Even Worse (More Slopfarms Added Which Attack Linux With Bruce-Force SPAM)
Google News is part of the same problem
GNU/Linux is Replacing Microsoft Windows. But We Need to Eradicate Microsoft, It's a Hub of Crime.
I have been writing about Microsoft since the 1990s when I was in school
 
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead
Happy Independence Day to Our American Readers
Maybe tomorrow will be a good opportunity to explain to American people - in terms of concepts, not brands - which tools respect their independence
Links 03/07/2025: More Cuts and Cancellations at Microsoft Revealed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: Favourite Child and Launching WikiGem
Links for the day
Mystery Surrounding the PCLinuxOS Sites and PCLinuxOS Magazine
Let's hope this isn't something major
People and Companies Do Learn Some Lessons From Their Mistakes (Stubborn Ones Don't)
Brett Wilson LLP is an example of one that would rather drown in mistakes
Links 03/07/2025: 'Hey Hi' Slop Ridiculed Some More and Microsoft's Layoffs Tally for 2025 Reaches About 29,000 in Just 6 Months (Almost 5,000 Per Month)
Links for the day
Microsoft Staff Harassing Women, Strangling Women, Telling Women to Kill Themselves and Worse? Not a Problem!
Two women have left Brett Wilson LLP
The Slopfarms Are Losing the Plot (and Google is Propping Up Rogue Sites)
Google is part of the attack on the Web, on information, and on technology
New BetaNews Realises There's No Potential or Future in Slopfarms, Prior Editor Wayne Williams is Back
They realise that slop (so-called "AI") cannot replace humans
Claims That Microsoft Looks for Staff That Works More and Gets Paid Less (or Can Only Code by Grabbing Other People's Code, Under the Guise of "AI")
People can form their own opinion
Richard Stallman Was Right About Reasons Not to Use Microsoft
last updated 2017
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: No to Cloudflare and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 02/07/2025: Deep Microsoft Cuts, Macron Speaks to Putin
Links for the day
Confirmed: Microsoft Shutdowns Today, Not Only Mass Layoffs
"The Initiative is the only studio closure planned today, although some other teams have seen cuts of varying degrees."
Microsoft Windows Nosedives in Switzerland While GNU/Linux Leaps Above 6%
sooner or later they might have to make the move anyway
Anxiety at Microsoft: Many Workers (Maybe Over 10,000) Still Don't Know They're Being Laid Off Just Before US Independence Day
"Has anyone gotten the notification yet?"
Microsoft "Declined to Say How Many People Would be Laid Off," According to Associated Press
Some other prominent publications said they reached out for comment from Microsoft and received none
The X War is Over and the "Wayland People" Lost
People will gravitate towards what works for them
20 Years Since My Thesis
It's still online
GNU/Linux is Replacing Windows in Laptops/Desktops
The world will move on while Windows and Microsoft shrink
Now Comes the Expected Webspam, Framing Microsoft Layoffs as "Hey Hi" Success Story (False Marketing That's Piggybacking the Layoffs)
falsely marketed as "intelligence"
Hungary: Microsoft Windows Sinks to 17% "Market Share"
In many nations in Europe it seems like the era of Windows is coming to an end
Microsoft Media Operatives and Bill Epsteingate-Funded Sites Said Microsoft Lays Off 9,000, But Other Sites Say More (Including 2,300 in Redmond Alone)
We might never know the real number/s (Microsoft will keep the cards close to its chest) until there are leakers or unless there are whistleblowers with hard proof
Microsoft Layoffs in Spain, Portugal Record for GNU/Linux
in Portugal we see GNU/Linux at record levels
GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High in the United States of America
Windows is trending down
Yes, Microsoft is Again Using Its Favourite Liars (Stenographers) to Seed Fake Layoff Numbers, Much Lower Than What's Really Happening
It is Jordan Novet again, just as we predicted
Will Microsoft Once Again Choose Its Favourite Liar to Spread Lies About Today's Layoffs, Quickly to be Replicated and Spread by Slopfarms?
What lies is Microsoft briefing its media moles to tell today?
"OSS Fetishism" Wins After Ferenc Zsolt Szabó Ousted (Microsoft Mole From Capgemini)
Many people said 2025 would be the "year of Linux on the desktop"
There is Nothing That LLMs Can Offer Honest People
LLMs are a passing fad; they're expensive and offer poor "value" for energy; they usually offer no value at all unless you are a cheater, spammer, and liar
What statCounter Shows Today Helps Explain Microsoft's Helplessness, Mass Layoffs
Since many US journalists are already away on holiday almost nobody will dare ask the difficult questions or give a voice to whistleblowers
Microsoft Gets the Chop in South America
The notion of digital sovereignty gained a lot of popularity
Europe Has an 'Exit'
Let's see what happens the rest of this year
El Presidente Talks, Canada Walks (Away From Windows)
GNU/Linux rising
Cities in France and Germany Move to GNU/Linux and statCounter Detects Big Differences
Will governments lead by example?
Microsoft Lost Its Foothold in Africa
How many of these are "old" Windows machines converted to GNU/Linux? Probably a lot.
Led by Europe, GNU/Linux Makes Big Gains This Month
statCounter started showing new/fresh stats
Links 02/07/2025: Massive Microsoft Layoffs About to Commence, "Tesla's Robotaxi Program Is Failing"
Links for the day
Why the Microsoft People Who Started SLAPPs Against Techrights Could Very Well be Sent Back to Prison
White-collar crime is also a crime
The Company Run by Former (and Last Proper) Red Hat CEO, Promoting Microsoft Mono, Faces Shock as Senior Partner Jailed for 33 Sexual Offenses Including Pedophilia
"As reported by The Oxford Mail in April 2025, the offenses include rape, sexual assault, engaging in non-penetrative activity with a child, and more."
Microsoft Lost 29% of Windows Users, Based on Microsoft, Now Come Massive Layoffs
Microsoft collapse is today
Slopwatch: Google Serves to People Linux Slop and Linux FUD (Made by Bots)
"Slopwatch" finds it difficult to ignore Google's role in encouraging LLM slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 01, 2025
"Wayland People" Behave Like the Googles and Microsofts of This World
Published yesterday by Igor Ljubuncic
Gemini Links 02/07/2025: Arch Linux and Fulfillment in Gemini
Links for the day