While Apple's announcement got most of the attention, Oracle+Sun is of more interest to most in the Linux community. Specifically, after waiting something like nine months to move forward with the acquisition, it's finally real and Oracle is discussing its roadmaps for all of Sun's product lines. Or most of them, anyway.
Whether you are an experienced Linux Admin or a newbie gingerly stepping forth into the world of Linux, you will need to prepare. We all often become experts in whatever we use everyday, but the scope of subjects covered in the exam may encompass more than you know. Just reviewing the contents of the syllabus may do it for some but others will need weeks of even months of preparation. Going back to the classroom will provide a systematic and regular disciplined approach to the examination. They also provide hands-on practice and prove to be well worth the expense. Your instructor will also clarify any doubts you may have. However self-study books and on-line resources can do the trick if you are determined and self-disciplined enough to chart your own course through the deep waters.
Familiarity undoubtedly ranks among the largest barriers to open source adoption — software, like so many other things, is habit-forming. Much of that familiarity, at least among younger users, comes from the prevalence of proprietary applications in education, an area awash with government regulations, competitive bidding, and its own habit-induced hangups.
Enter Albany Senior High School, an Auckland, New Zealand-based unorthodox enclave of education. The school, which opened its doors in 2009, takes a different approach to learning, utilizing open principles that include open spaces, open interaction, open opportunities — and open source.
I have switched to Ubuntu for 2 days now. It's awesome, I'm using awesome window manager. I'm more efficient than usual. I have got wireless to work(not manually), battery status to work, start up programs to work and more. It's a interesting experience.
If you are looking at this software from an expert point of view, OpenShot is not definitely not up to par with professional video editing tool like Final Cut Pro or Cinelerra. However if you just want a simple, easy to use video editor that comes with plenty of useful features, then OpenShot will be the one for you.
A post on the Zero Ballistics forums has been posted asking how interested people would be in a free release of Zero Ballistics and what I believe is them stating they will release the game for free also. For people who do not know Zero Ballistics is a game that is a blend of first person shooter and tank combat, focusing on multiplayer gaming exclusively. You can check out the beta if you want to get a better feel for the game.
KDE SC 4.4 has some improvements to the notification system, as I shown there, but still some problems remains:
The popup can still be very big, covering a big part of the screen, stealing input area or just being too big for smaller screens.
Akademy is the annual conference of the KDE community and open to all who share an interest in the KDE community and its goals. This conference brings together artists, designers, programmers, translators, users, writers and other contributors to celebrate the achievements of the past year and helps define the vision for the next year. In its 7th year, we invite all contributors and users to participate in Akademy in Tampere, Finland from July 3 to 10 2010.
Continuing the theme of "KDE Everywhere", recently it was announced by the folks over at TiltOS that KDE applications are now available for download and use. TiltOS provides a repository and an easy to use application manager for the Haiku operating system, which is in turn aims to be an open source implementation of the BeOS operating system.
The KDEAP is a small on-line community of developers and other volunteers dedicated to ensure that our favorite desktop is accessible to all users, including those of us with physical handicaps.
Gstyle is a new full Gnome theme manager with some really great features which I am sure you will love if you like to customize your Desktop look constantly. Gstyle can automatically download and install wallpapers, Xsplash, GTK themes, icon themes, full themes, mouse pointers and more from gnome-look, deviantart, customize.org and others, or directly from the software source. But not only that, Gstyle can show you how a theme (any kind of theme: icons, Emerald, Metacity, etc.) actually looks, not just a preview. You will see what I mean in the screenshots below (3rd screenshot).
Stali is a new Linux distribution from Suckless.org that is based on a "hand selected collection of the best tools for each task, and each tool being statically linked (including some X clients such as xterm, surf, dwm, dmenu, mplayer)." Suckless has often delivered outstanding software, and I am eagerly awaiting an official release. So, what else is in store?
On occasion I have a need for a tiny, lightning fast Linux distribution to boot into in order to check various issues on a machine. Either that or I just don’t want to monkey around with someone else’ data. Either way, I will often grab for either a CD or flash drive containing my favorite “micro” distribution, Puppy Linux.
My Computer is quite older so I am thinking of using a light weight powerful Distro that comes in 250MB size. It think that in future Linux maker will going to make such distro.
Red Hat's JBoss middleware division is set to have a busy 2010 as it continues to improve its developer tools and Java servers. While feature improvements are always important for JBoss, this year's focus will be on improving the way that developers work with their tools and servers.
Ars Premier 2.0 is our new and improved subscriber program that offers some fantastic benefits for subscribers. So far we've had chats with Mac OS X reviewer John Siracusa, Ars cofounder Jon Stokes, and Electronic Frontier Foundation senior staff attorney Fred von Lohmann. Most recently, Stardock CEO Brad Wardell answered your questions about gaming, DRM, and more.
I also think mascot wallpapers are perfect for Alpha releases as a placeholder until the final artwork lands. Sadly this did not happen for this release either.
Let's turn now to free software. People modify and redistribute it all the time, but to be honest about it, they shouldn't do so under the name chosen by the original developers. Practice is very fuzzy in this area, where few developers trademark their work--it takes whale of an effort, because even after spending thousands of dollars for a trademark you have to police its use--and those that do often have liberal policies. (There's a trademark policy for Ubuntu and a whole trademark organization for Linux.) Anderson and Dare go over the licenses of the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative and find a wide range of practices, or lack thereof.
In summary, I’m not ungrateful to the Ubuntu Tweak developers. They have produced a useful application that has undoubtedly helped many a non-geek make the switch to Ubuntu. They’ve clearly identified areas where Ubuntu’s default user interface is weak, and have developed a solution.
Last but not least, Ubuntu beats Windows many times over when it comes to having an engaging, knowledgeable, friendly community.
Linux Mint is indeed a very nice distribution, a very stable one. It really just works out of the box and is perfect for people who don’t want to mess with their computer to make it work or for people who don’t like to customize it a lot. The menu and mint updater can be annoying, at least for me, but it does what it promises and looking sexy while at it. I perceive a very positive response from people about the distro and I feel it may actually become the most popular home Linux distro one day, which would only show that small communities with good ideas and dedication can yield a better product than sponsored or corporative distributions.
These diminutive projectors can fit in the palm of your hand, yet they're powerful enough to use for small-group business presentations.
Today our good friends over at Woot! are selling the Leapfrog Didj, a low cost educational toy aimed at little kids. Lucky for hackers out there, the Didj is actually a linux device, and gaining serial console access is as easy as soldering two wires. The documentation out there is a little outdated, with a number of broken links and stale wikis, but $25 for a portable linux device is a hard deal to beat. A list of sites which might be helpful are listed after the break, as well as the hardware specs of the Didj.
IT SEEMS THAT Google's Nexus One smartphone might appear on the T-Mobile network in the UK, according to a loose-lipped tweet by Robin O'Kelly, head of corporate affairs at T-Mobile.
A new version of Google's Nexus One smartphone will apparently arrive soon for use on AT&T's 3G wireless network.
Customers are already able to buy an unlocked version of the Nexus One for $529. But the Android-based phone, which was launched last month, supports GSM radio frequency bands. The only 3G wireless bands that it supports are on T-Mobile USA's network.
Released by Akazawa, and imported by AudioCubes, Plen is billed as a "desktop hobby robot". But unlike most miniature bipedal hobby robots, Plen can can be controlled via your Android handset.
Android is predicted to surpass the iPhone and Blackberry platforms by 2013 becoming the second largest smartphone platform. Only Nokia's Symbian will be on more phones sold that year.
In the world of Apple, being a Netbook is a bad, bad thing. During Apple's keynote for the newly announced iPad, the Netbook was called out by Steve Jobs, who said "they're not better at laptops than anything, they're just cheaper." The affordable, tiny, and yes, often bare-bones Atom processor-running device we've come to know and love, or hate, as the Netbook is often clunky and frequently disappointing, true enough.
I had the chance to work for a couple of months with my friend Mike Dawson last year in Afghanistan. He is the core person behind the OLPC project in Afghanistan and pushes for Free and Open Technologies in Afghanistan. Solutions like LXDE with it focus on a lightweight and energy saving desktop or decentralised low powered networks like Freifunk offer new opportunities to give people access even in remote areas.
The free software movement has unwittingly presented the peoples of the world with an important tool to avail of, on the frontlines of democracy. Many of those previously and currently engaged in the free software movement are unlikely to be fully aware of the consequences and benefits of their work and may still be living in the fantasy belief world of neo-liberalism, free markets, trickle down economics, endless growth, domination and mindless consumerism. This is simply because many of the participants just do it ( -i.e. write code) and are not in any formal way a member of anything in particular, or politically motivated. Undoubtedly global capitalism has also fed off the free software movement and gained its own benefits, but on balance it would seem it has been positive to ordinary people too.
One thing holding back the greater adoption of free software in this country is free software.
Schools could use Linux and other open source technologies, but the Education Ministry very kindly negotiates on their behalf with Microsoft for a licence covering all New Zealand state and integrated schools.
Crafting Digital Media is not an attempt to enumerate and describe every relevant package for Linux. Some users may be disappointed to learn that their favorite program is not profiled or even mentioned, but that should not diminish the book's value for those users. Above all, Crafting Digital Media is about maximizing the creative potential of Linux by organizing its productive software into a seamless workflow. The information and advice in this book is valuable to the creative user regardless whether he uses the recommended applications or his preferred suite of custom-built software.
There was a flurry of Puppet Versus Chef in last week or so. I don’t want to go into sorting all the details at this time, but I hope I add perspective and clarity to one of the subtopics.
If you're looking for Linux automation solutions, or server configuration management tools, the two technologies you're likely to come across are Puppet and Opscode Chef. They are broadly similar in architecture and solve the same kinds of problems. Puppet, from Reductive Labs, has been around longer, and has a large user base. Chef, from Opscode, has learned some of the lessons from Puppet's development, and has a high-profile client: EngineYard.
During her visit in Munich Mitchell Baker, head of the Mozilla foundation, took the time for an interview with Linux Pro Magazine.
Michael Bemmer, the former head of Sun's software business, is now the general manager of the Oracle Office Global Business Unit and is in many of the clips. He said there will be a name change for Star Office and Star Suite, which will become members of the Oracle Office family.
A large percentage of small to medium sized websites depend on Mysql server to support their db infrastructure. Working with it is as easy is saying it and for some reason there are numerous web and non-web administration software written specifically to manage a Mysql server and sites running on it. This article lists quite a few of them which you may find useful.1. NG-Admin – designed for the content management of MySQL databases. It allows the user to browse, add, edit, and delete data. It is somewhat similar to phpMyAdmin, but specializes in editing the content of Web sites, not the database structures. Its features are very easy to use and highly tunable.
This, ultimately, is the most reassuring aspect of the Great Oracle Experiment: if things go wrong, there is always the possibility of taking the code elsewhere (if Oracle doesn't mind) or just forking it (if it does). In this respect, takeovers of companies that control open source projects are rather less nerve-wracking for users than those involving purely proprietary software – a fact that we can all be grateful for after the worrying uncertainty that has surrounded the Sun-Oracle deal during the last few months.
OStatic: Some people say it doesn't matter in the long run what Oracle does with MySQL. It's open source, so it will just succeed in forked versions if Oracle does nothing with it or kills it? Are they right?
No, a fork is not likely to save MySQL long term. I have outlined the reasons in detail in my blog.
In short, the GPL only guarantees that the code will be available, not that it will be developed. If things are not developed fast enough (according to the needs if its users), it will very rapidly be uninteresting for the masses and slowly die.
Unfortunately, FreeBSD is a great operating system with an unholy awful installer — compared to other operating system installers currently available. Some people are comfortable with text-mode installers, some aren’t.
They are nothing to be afraid of if you have a moderate amount of knowledge, but for those who absolutely require a more up-to-date installer, PC-BSD may be of more interest than FreeBSD. Having said that, the installation is probably the hardest part of using FreeBSD, so if you’ve made it through this, FreeBSD is a lot of fun to play with.
This was carried into the IT sphere. I did several stories at ZDNet Healthcare about efforts by private contractors to destroy the VA’s open source VistA system — starving it of funds, driving away the best employees, centralizing contributions, and eventually replacing it through contracts.
My sources were former government employees. The ex-VA employees stayed in touch with former colleagues and got the story out. This was not a big story, but it held a lesson, namely the risk inherent in having government employees building vital infrastructure.
Openness, like democracy, must be constantly defended, says Bill Thompson.
In the last year I've been involved in two open data projects, Open New Zealand and data.govt.nz. I believe in learning from experience and I've seen some signs recently that other projects might benefit from my experience, so this post is a recap of what I've learned. It's the byproduct of a summer reflection on my last nine months working in open data.
A new IETF working group has been formed in the Real-time Applications and Infrastructure Area. For additional information, please contact the Area Directors or the WG Chairs.
So, dear developers, please stop assuming we're all idiots. Let us make the same mistake again and again and sooner or later we will learn to not make the same mistakes. Training wheels are for Windows.. leave us *BSD/Linux users out of this particular loop.
Mountain View is reportedly building an online store to punt business software from its partners in a move to grab more Google Apps customers.
You know what's really annoying? Teenagers. Even more annoying? Teenagers inventing legitimately useful things and getting awards for it. Meet Alexander Kendrick, the 16-year old inventor of a new low-frequency radio that allows for cave-texting, which isn't some fresh new euphemism, it just means people can finally text while deep underground.
Advance-fee fraud (AFF), also known as 419 scams and Nigerian scams, exploded in 2009, with victims losing more money than ever before. This is according to the latest analysis from Dutch investigation firm Ultrascan—a company that has been monitoring the activities of 419 scammers since 1996—which says that victims lost almost 50 percent more money in 2009 than 2008.
Two Trustwave security consultants report they have uncovered hardware and software vulnerabilities in femtocell devices that can be used to take over the device. The duo will present their findings at the ShmooCon conference in Washington.
Researchers working for TrustWave will present details of their successful attacks against femtocells at the ShmooCon security conference next week in Washington. They will explain that they were able to gain root access to the Linux-based devices, which could then be tampered with to track users and intercept calls.
Laws banning cellphone use while driving apparently haven’t reduced crashes, according to a study released on Friday that compared the number of total crashes before the ban with the number after. The study found virtually no difference in the numbers, a finding that had the researchers scratching their heads.
Two weeks after hackers launched a cyber-attack on Google that has appalled security researchers for its degree of sophistication, the Christian Science Monitor has revealed that online criminals breached the systems of three U.S. oil companies in 2008 through previously unreported attacks.
Some passengers at Heathrow and Manchester airports will have to go through full body scanners before boarding their flights under new rules.
It is now compulsory for people selected for a scan to take part, or they will not be allowed to fly.
The government has guaranteed virtual immortality for every British citizen - as long as they join the National Identity Register.
Kids in the UK are experts in using fake IDs bought online or using someone else's documents to get their hands on age-restricted products.
We are witnessing an epic battle between two banking giants, JPMorgan Chase (Paul Volcker) and Goldman Sachs (Rubin/Geithner). The bodies left on the battleground could include your pension fund and 401K.
* Anonymous comments banned for SA election * Michael Atkinson says speech still free * Media says censorship is 'draconian'
SOUTH Australia has become one of the few states in the world to censor the internet.
The new law, which came into force on January 6, requires anyone making an online comment about next month's state election to publish their real name and postcode.
South Australia's Attorney-General has defended tougher laws on political comment made on the internet.
During election periods, anyone posting comment or blogs must publish their real name and postcode.
Michael Atkinson says it has long been a requirement that newspapers verify personal details for letters published during election periods.
Of course, it's also noted that Reporters Without Borders ranks the UK higher than the US when it comes to freedom of the press, leading the professor to claim that perhaps the UK press is a little too free when it feels comfortable making such totally unsubstantiated claims.
When it added Public Citizen’s defense of Julia Forte’s 800Notes.com to the Citizen Media Law Project database the Project took note of a bizarre motion filed by Vision Media, asking the court to prohibit any public discussion about its lawsuit, including blogging. The motion is an apparent response to my email to Vision Media’s counsel inviting them respond on this blog to my comments about their lawsuit.
Ubisoft does not have the best history when it comes to invasive—if not downright broken—DRM, but the company's upcoming "solution" to game piracy is much worse than anything we've seen in the past. The gist is simple: every time you want to play your game, it has to phone back to Ubisoft before giving you permission to play. No Internet connection? You're simply out of luck.
That’s right. More than half of the “best-selling” e-books on the Kindle, Amazon.com’s e-reader, are available at no charge.
It seems like every year there's some sort of controversy over trademarks and the Superbowl. Of course, the NFL has been famous for aggressively defending trademarks.
[...]
The Monistere brothers seem particularly annoyed by the NFL bullying small t-shirt makers, saying that they're more than happy to grant licenses to those folks to produce Who Dat merchandise, and merchants have said that the NFL communication has been tremendously threatening and aggressive, while the Monistere's have been quite friendly and accommodating.
Ten years after the publication of "No Logo", Klein looks at how Obama created a brand that won him the Presidency. Will his failure to live up to his lofty brand cost him?
What makes it even worse, of course, is that the quoted/plagiarized/infringing bit might not even be accurate. As we discussed in our own post on the subject, there appears to be significant disagreement over whether or not embedding authorized content could be seen as infringing -- and apparently, there is a widespread debate about it in Dutch legal circles as well, saying that it is far from readily agreed upon in the legal literature.
Anyone who still remembers the basic principle of Economics 101 understands, on a gut level, one big problem with recorded music: It costs too much.
Greg Sandoval, over at News.com recently came across a grandmother who was falsely accused multiple times of file sharing, and her ISP, Qwest, was threatening to kick her off the internet. We had not heard that Qwest had signed on with a "three strikes" program, so it's a bit of news that it's one of the companies who will accept bogus accusations. Not only that, but Qwest even told her that no other provider would grant her service because Qwest would let those other service providers "know her name and what she did." Thanks, Qwest!
Several UK Lords have criticized the practices of law firms that send out warning letters to alleged copyright infringers demanding big payments. These schemes have been labeled a scam, and the lawyers operating them accused of “harassment, bullying and intrusion” and “legal blackmail” in the House of Lords.
Canadian officials travel to Guadalajara, Mexico this week to resume negotiations on the still-secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The discussion is likely to turn to the prospect of supporting three strikes and you’re out systems that could result in thousands of people losing access to the Internet based on three allegations of copyright infringement. Leaked ACTA documents indicate that encouraging the adoption of three-strikes - often euphemistically described as “graduated response” for the way Internet providers gradually send increasingly threatening warnings to subscribers - has been proposed for possible inclusion in the treaty.
Secretive international talks about how to curb counterfeiting and Internet piracy are under way in Mexico this week. But instead of focusing on the subject at hand, negotiators will spend much of their time discussing transparency, or rather the lack of it in the whole process.
Except of course for those with a devoted heir, such as Grace Guggenheim. She was not willing to accept defeat. Instead she set herself the extraordinary task of clearing all of the rights necessary to permit her father’s films to be shown. Eight years later, she is largely done. About ten major works remain. Just last year, her father’s most famous documentary--Robert Kennedy Remembered, made in 1968 in the two months between Kennedy’s assassination and the Democratic National Convention, and broadcast only once--was cleared for DVD release through the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center.
Listening to Holly pleading with the masters he has alienated his rights to is heartbreaking. Decca had dropped him, apparently, but had the rights to sit on his recordings for 5 years. Although they had no intention of releasing the songs, they also would not give Holly permission to do so--the cigar-chomping executive kept saying "well, we got a lot of money tied up in them, Buddy!" But Holly offered to reimburse those costs; no dice.
On 5 January, the Independent's website ran a photo uploaded to the Flickr image-sharing site by user Peter Zabulis. Zabulis flagged his photo of a snowed-over field as "all rights reserved," and he took exception to the Independent's use of the image without permission, and he wrote to them to tell them so.
Exception turned to outrage as a terse note from the Independent claimed that by posting the photo to Flickr, Zabulis had not asserted his copyright (whatever that means) and thus copyright had not been breached.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has signed up with iCopyright, the American copyright bounty hunters used by the Associated Press, to offer ridiculous licenses for the quotation of CBC articles on the web (these are the same jokers who sell you a "license" to quote 5 words from the AP).
An offhand comment the other day by a friend caught my attention—"Did you know that you can't watch the Super Bowl on a TV screen larger than 55 inches? Yeah, it's right there in the law."
Yahoo has renewed its licensing deal with the Associated Press to post articles from the global wire service on Yahoo Web sites, the companies said on Monday.