10.07.09

Contents

• GNU/Linux
  • Distributions
  • Devices/Embedded
• Free Software/Open Source
• Leftovers
• Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day

GNU/Linux

• q4wine 0.113 has been released

  Finally, after many months of development, testing and bugfixing a new version of q4wine has been released. q4wine is a wine configuration and management utility written in QT.

• Linux Radio Ads a Success, Not a Failure

  A big thanks to Ken Starks for once again putting his money where his mouth is, and generously sharing the fruits of his labors. And a big rude noise to those titans of industry who profit handsomely from Linux, but can’t be bothered to promote it in any way. The Linux “brand” is valuable and has many important differentiators; it’s all in how it’s presented.

• Why the London Stock Exchange went for Linux

  MillenniumIT has already tested the system using data from the LSE. Fairbrother said that the system offered high performance, was highly scalable, and could perform at sub-millisecond speeds.

• Applications

  • Home, Sweet Home: Sweet Home 3D 2.1 Linux Version

    3D design applications are somewhat an anomaly among Linux. Sweet Home 3D proves that good, free programs now exist in that market.

  • Gmail Notifier Applets for Ubuntu

    After trying each of these different applets for a few days, I think I’ve settled on cGmail, although CheckGmail is a close second and would definitely be a winner if it integrated with osd. But that choice reflects personal preference more than anything else; all of these utilities perform the same basic function well.

• Distributions

  • LiveCD, Now Developed by Team Unity Linux

    The main tools used by developers for many LiveCD distributions was facing stagnation in 2008. Unity Linux has taken up the torch for bringing this great tool into the 21st century.

  • More Linux Distros That Don’t Suck

    Some of these are more obscure lesser known distros that are quite powerful and very useful. Some of these come from personal use some of them came from the great comments you readers posted the first time I did this.

  • Red Hat Family

    • Red Hat: We’re 75% of the Paid Linux Market

      According to Red Hat Executive Vice President Paul Cormier, Red Hat now represents 75 percent of the paid Linux market, easily beating out other players in the sector such as Novell’s SUSE Linux and Canonical’s Ubuntu.

    • [Jim Whitehurst among the Carolina's highest paid]

  • Ubuntu

    • Screenshots Tour of Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 Beta

      Yes, after six months down the road, it’s time to gear up for the newly born Ubuntu baby again. This time, Ubuntu 9.10, codenamed Karmic Koala, will be officially released on 29th Oct 2009. We, at MakeTechEasier have not been slacking around. With the release of the 9.10 beta, we have grabbed the LiveCD image, wipe our machines clean and installed the full version onto it. Now, let us present you the screenshots tour (and new features) review of Ubuntu Karmic Koala 9.10 beta.

    • Why Matt Zimmerman must not quit Ubuntu.

      Canonical, and for that matter Ubuntu, pride themselves on certain philosophies that I believe must be upheld at all times, the theme of this philosophy being tolerance and humanity towards each other. How then can such a company throw out or pressure someone to resign because he had disagreed with his boss albeit publicly?

    • Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope on Lenovo G450

      What? You asked why I give Linux to my father? Of course I give it to him, he have been using linux for more than 2 years now. My father and my sister were a fond user of Linux. He use Kubuntu 7.04 on his PC at his house, and Linux Mint Felicia on his office. Yet he is not an IT worker, he just a lecturer teachin Philosophy. My sister like using Linux for it’s unique style. She use Linux Mint Felicia for daily activities in his university, and she has been a kind of linux marketer whenever her friends ask her about it (giggles, since I myself were hardly doing it) … Well, nope she is not an Engineering, or Computer Science student, she majoring Psychology (and I’ve been asked her to do the research about people and open source for her final project).

    • Karmic Koala: The best Ubuntu Linux ever?

      Another real nice addition to this distribution for new users is the Ubuntu Software Center. This take on an apps store, makes it mindlessly easy for people to find and install software. Experienced Linux users won’t need this. For them, the Synaptic package manager and all the other usual package installation programs are there, and that’s great. But, if you have a friend who’s just getting their feet wet in Linux, this feature is great.

    • What makes Ubuntu so user friendly?

      Of course what you really need to do is define “user friendliness”. For many people that means “just be Windows”. But for some it’s much more than that. If you say “Just be Windows” – doesn’t that include Vista? And Vista was not the most user-friendly OS. User-friendly, to me, is an operating system (as a complete whole – not in pieces) that does not interfere with the user. A real user friendly operating system will allow the user to do what they need to do without confusing road blocks or cumbersome sub-systems. And, finally, a user-friendly operating system should be secure from the threat of viruses and malware without the inclusion of third-party software. Linux has that in spades.

• Devices/Embedded

  • $8 ARM chip touted for DDR2 support

    Atmel announced a new member of its Linux-compatible ARM9-based SAM9G family of industrial-focused embedded processors. Touted for supporting DDR2 memory and 100Mbps+ data rates, the “AT91SAM9G45″ clocks to 400MHz, supports LCD touchscreens and 3.3 V power, and offers a 480Mbps USB interface, says the company.

  • uClinux-based DSP module takes on SIP audio

    Analog Devices Inc. (ADI) announced an embedded module and host board designed to enable SIP-based multimedia communications. The ADI uCBF54x-Start Kit host board incorporates an ADI Blackfin-BF548 DSP-based uCBF54x System Module developed by Arcturus Networks, and is equipped with a uClinux BSP, says ADI.

  • Mobile hotspot gains full Linux SDK

    Novatel Wireless announced an expanded development program and Linux-based SDK for its low-cost “MiFi” WiFi/3G mobile hotspot. Initially available only to select developer partners, the MiFi Developer Program provides a “NovaCore” SDK with comprehensive APIs for the MiFi, as well as technical support, says the company.

  • Palm Pre re-re-introduces iTunes synchronization

    The company also tried to get the USB Implementers Forum to rule that Apple was unfairly locking the Pre out of iTunes, but the industry group sided with Apple’s position instead.

    When Palm released webOS 1.2 without iTunes syncing, we thought perhaps the company had given up. But it seems Palm was just busy finding a work-around to Apple’s proprietary locks.

    Barring some unforeseen and extremely unlikely change of heart for Apple, it’s only a matter of time before the Pre’s compatibility with iTunes is once again shut down. It’s a losing battle to be sure.

Free Software/Open Source

• Open Source and the Fear of Failure

  Yesterday I took part in an interesting event organised by BT called “Accelerating Enterprise adoption of Open Source Software” (disclaimer: filthy lucre was involved.) One topic that elicited much comment was why the public sector has singularly failed to deploy open source. As well as political issues (Tony Blair was and presumably still is manifestly in awe of (Sir) Bill Gates), there’s another important issue to do with a fear of failure.

• Wikipedia Co-Founder: Openness Is Not the Enemy of Quality

  Wikipedia is NOT about crowdsourcing: Jimmy compared crowdsouring to tricking people into free labor. Instead, he compared Wikipedia to bowling. Yes, bowling. “It’s about providing a nice bowling alley for people,” he stated as he explained that when people enjoy contributing rather than being tricked in free labor, it’s not crowdsouring.

  The world is information dense: Culture has become smarter. He compared the plots and jokes of I Love Lucy to Seinfeld and just how much more complicated storylines have become. TV has become a more engaging experience because there are so many more characters and storylines. He then pointed out Lostpedia, a wiki for the TV show Lost which has over 5,700 articles. Yes, that’s how complex TV shows have become.

• Brian Behlendorf, Founding Member of the Apache Software Foundation Speaks on How Open Source Developers Can Save the World

  Q: Please tell us a bit about your history with with Web

  Brian Behlendorf: I have been on the ‘net since I started at UC Berkeley as an undergrad in 1991. While working at a new magazine called Wired in 1993, I helped them launch the first major publisher’s website, then later one of the first ad-supported sites, called HotWired. I left that in 1995 to co-found a company named Organic which built commercial websites, then launched another company in 1999 named CollabNet, which creates open source development tools and communities. I spent 2007 and 2008 doing quite a bit of public speaking and travel to promote Open Source software collaboration practices across the tech sector, and then since February I’ve been in Washington DC helping the Federal sector understand where Open Source software can help address some big challenges.

• Mozilla augments Firefox’s plug-in check

  Mozilla is testing the page, which pings the company servers, then returns a list of plug-ins, noting those that are up-to-date and ones that should be updated. Links to the plug-in download pages are also available so that users can obtain the most current versions of software from the likes of Adobe, Microsoft, Sun and Apple.

• Some of Maryland’s open source heroes

  Could this be a more instructive metric of Maryland technical vitality than statistical measures such as number postgraduate degree holders?

• Single-window mode progress report

  When the news of the introduction of a single-window mode in GIMP 2.8 hit the net it became clear what an incredible desire for something like this there was. The reactions have been overwhelmingly positive, and this really helps to motivate you to hack on it. The news also revealed an interesting but previously rather anonymous group of people: multi-window zealots despising the idea of a single-window mode in their beloved multi-window application. I suspect they don’t realize that single-window mode is going to be optional…

• New Chart features in OpenOffice.org 3.2

  The behavior of the Insert menu within charts now is selection dependent. In case a single data series is selected or an element belonging to a single data series the additional elements ( like error bars, data labels, trend lines or mean value lines) are only inserted for this single series. Otherwise the additional elements are added to all existing series.

• Making Corporate FOSS Successful

  I’m a community guy. In a company that has lots of products, both open source and commercial, I’m lucky enough to get paid to work on open source projects. What I’ve learned in my work with the community is that building a successful project takes more than many people think.

• Open Source Enthusiast To Advise Conservatives

  Tom Steinberg, co-founder of mySociety, the site behind online tools such as TheyWorkForYou.com has agreed to help the Conservative party

  The co-founder of an organisation that has campaigned for smarter use of the Internet and open source software as a way to increase visibility in government has agreed to help advise the Tory party on its web strategy.

• NSF considering a repository

  In addition to the $20 million grant announced today, the Libraries received a $300,000 grant from NSF to study the feasibility of developing, operating and sustaining an open access repository of articles from NSF-sponsored research. Libraries staff will work with colleagues from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), and the University of Michigan Libraries to explore the potential for the development of a repository (or set of repositories) similar to PubMedCentral, the open-access repository that features articles from NIH-sponsored research. This grant for the feasibility study will allow Choudhury’s group to evaluate how to integrate activities under the framework of the Data Conservancy and will result in a set of recommendations for NSF regarding an open access repository. …

Leftovers

• Internet turns pet peeves into social movements

  Finally, the American people are burning with overdraft anger and starting a revolt against outrageous credit card interest rates, and it looks as though their elected leaders in Washington and the state capitols might actually do something about these parasitic practices by the bailed-out banks.

• Man Arrested for Twittering Goes to Court, EFF Has the Documents

  Over the past day, Everyone has been reporting about the arrest last month of Elliot Madison for twittering about police movements to protesters during the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, PA.

• Hardware Hacker, E-Voting Investigator, and Public Domain Advocate Win Pioneer Awards

  The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is pleased to announce the winners of its 2009 Pioneer Awards: hardware hacker Limor “Ladyada” Fried, e-voting security researcher Harri Hursti, and public domain advocate Carl Malamud.

• Intel Promotes Its OpenSim Project as “3D Internet” (Second Life Not Included)

  “Is Intel trying to steal Second Life though an expensive advertising campaign?” (Reverse engineer, DD, it’s called reverse engineer.) Lack of credit aside, it’s probably the most publicized showing of an OpenSim project from a Fortune 500 company. Unless they’re planning to adopt Linden Lab’s sea of troubles, I doubt they intend Science Sim as a mass market product directly competitive with SL, or for that matter, consumer-oriented OpenSim products.

• AstroTurf

  • Government Watchdog Says Treasury and Fed Misled the Public on Bailout

    SIGTARP Neil Barofsky, the independent inspector general for the TARP bailout program, issued a report highly critical of the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and other federal agencies for comments made to the public last fall. Last October, the federal government was deeply enmeshed in the attempt to stem the worst financial crisis in decades. On October 14, 2008, the Fed and Treasury announced capital injections worth $125 billion for nine of the largest financial institutions: Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, State Street and the Bank of New York Mellon.

• Censorship/Web Abuse

  • Cambridgeshire cops get coy with FOI

    Cambridgeshire Police has emerged as the latest force that prefers not to explain itself to the public – and then not to explain why it won’t explain itself.

  • Memo – Amendment 138: Debunking the Council’s arguments

    The European Parliament’s second reading version of the Telecoms Package has yet to be formally rejected by the Council of the European Union, but closed-door negotiations are already taking place as a run-up to the upcoming conciliation procedure.

• Intellectual Monopolies

  • Another Author Notes That Giving Away His Book Increased Sales

    I’d actually heard about his book, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization a few months ago when someone pointed out that he was giving away his book for free, but I hadn’t heard much more about it.

  • Postcodes: Royal Fail

    Here’s a perfect example of why intellectual commons should not be enclosed.

    The UK Postcode data set is obviously crucial information for businesses and ordinary citizens – something that is clearly vital to the smooth running of everyday life. But more than that, it is geographic information that allows all kinds of innovative services to be provided by people with clever ideas and some skill.