There is a story called "The Tower of Babel". It is based in ancient times where all people spoke the same language and made a decision to build a tower to reach the heavens. Then, according to the story, the big guy from above saw their hubris and decided to scramble their languages and spread these people around like Vegemite on toast. If you don't know what Vegemite is then beware of Australians offering sandwiches :)
Last week I gave a presentation at LinuxCon in sunny Boston entitled Desktop Linux Distribution Showdown. The premise was to compare the three most popular desktop distributions to find out which is most user-friendly. It wasn't easy, and the results might (or might not) surprise you.
You are running a Linux Ubuntu Operating System on the laptop -- Considering the Ubuntu penetration into the consumer market, what's the target audience for this?
We have customized the UBUNTU OS to feel and work like Windows OS. One major reason was the price of Windows 7 for touch screen is approximately US$ 110, which is 1/4th the price of the complete machine, and we have yet to find a customer willing to pay for the Windows OS. We installed Open Office and can install all Windows-based software through WINE, hence all Windows machine file formats are supported and interchangeable with those on our machine without any issues.
The improved data transfer rates and ease of management of 3ware 6Gb/s controllers, combined with Pogo Linux's robust Intel(R)-based Iris servers, provide Blue Box Group with a scalable, high-performance infrastructure from which to build its cloud-based application and database solution.
Oracle doesn’t seem to understand that HPC is the birthplace of IT innovation. Many of the technologies used in enterprise computing today got their start in HPC, including clustering for scale, the use of Linux for computationally complex tasks, and high-speed storage and networking gear.
IBM on Tuesday continued its introduction of servers based on its new Power7 architecture with the debut of several midrange systems, including one purpose-built for data intensive business analytics applications, and a high-end system that features 250 processor cores.
The PyMT developers have announced version 0.5 of their Python multi-touch user interface library. PyMT 0.5 supports Windows 7 and Mac OS X multi-touch APIs and, in this version, now supports Linux multi-touch kernel events, which were introduced in the 2.6.32 Linux kernel.
Linux patent defense organization Open Invention Network (OIN) announced a partnership with Arizona State University's Arizona Technology Enterprises (AzTE) office, focused on mobile device identity management research. As part of the agreement, OIN acquired key intellectual property from AzTE aimed at providing "intellectual property for defensive purposes" for open source software on mobile devices, says OIN.
Palamida has become the newest member of The Linux Foundation. It will participate in The Linux Foundation’s new Open Compliance Program.
The Linux Foundation’s Open Compliance Program includes a set of tools, training curricula and a new self-administered assessment that will allow companies to ensure compliance in a cost-effective and efficient manner. It also includes a new data exchange standard so companies and their suppliers can easily report software information consistently.
A defensive patent management organization formed by IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat, and Sony to support Linux systems, OIN has established a uniquely collaborative business model attractive to universities. OIN licenses the technologies from its defensive patent pool on a royalty-free basis. It typically works with universities on technology and patent acquisitions, funded research, and defensive publication programs.
As we reported last month, Intel's Open-Source Technology Center developers responsible for working on their open-source Linux graphics stack has been wanting to merge their GLSL2 shader compiler into the mainline Mesa code-base by the end of August so that it can be released as part of Mesa 7.9 by the end of this quarter. Over the night this milestone was hit and the GLSL2 compiler is now in Mesa master and has replaced the antiquated GL Shading Language compiler long used by Mesa.
Since you've upgraded to KDE 4.5 and started to suddenly feel the need for speed, you aren't quite happy with Amarok 2 or Banshee anymore. "I want something faster, lighter" you think to yourself.
After more than 15 months of development, the KMyMoney team has released the first stable version of their personal finance manager built on KDE Platform 4. KMyMoney 4.5, which aims to be the best, free personal finance manager, is now based on KDE 4 and competes with such similar finance applications as GnuCash, a cross-platform personal and small-business financial-accounting program.
With GNOME 3.0 not being released now until March of 2011, GNOME 2.32 is being released next month and will continue to focus on dependable and trusted GNOME 2.x technologies, such as the GTK+2 library rather than GTK+3 that's been in development for quite a number of months and is already supported by most GNOME modules.
While most development work on this primary tool-kit of GNOME is still focused towards GTK+ 3.0, GTK+2 continues to receive a bit of love with GTK+ 2.22 being the last planned stable release. Making way towards GTK+ 2.22 there was the release of GTK+ 2.21.6 last night as one of the final development snapshots towards this release that bids farewell to GTK+2. GTK+ 2.21.6 is being checked-in with the many other official GNOME modules that are providing updates for the GNOME 2.32 Beta release that's expected later in the week.
The latest iteration of the distro uses the 2.6.35 Linux kernel and incorporates a more user-friendly, scrollable text menu to access the most commonly needed features.
At Red Hat, employees were given a lot of freedom, much more than in any other company I'd ever worked for. Yet Red Hat also had a strong culture of accountability. What we found over the years (these values were first articulated back in 2002) would probably be counterintuitive to many people:
The more freedom the company gave, the more accountability it received in return.
We watched this play out over and over in different parts of the company. More freedom in a department = more personal accountability from employees in that department. Conversely, the less freedom, the less accountability.
Installing a Linux server is easy, especially if you download one of the latest CentOS ISOs. There’s a nice wizard to walk you through the installation process, and it’s perfectly acceptable to do a standard default install. But, if you intend to do any serious hosting or expect production quality performance out of the system, or if you are just as particular as I am, than a bit of customizing of the install at the beginning could save you lots of time later on down the road.
An Ubuntu Linux veteran has joined Dell as part of the PC giant’s effort to focus on systems management. Ken Drachnik, a former manager at Canonical (promoter of Ubuntu) has joined Dell as director of product marketing for KACE, The VAR Guy has confirmed. Here are the details and the implications for Dell’s systems management strategy.
And so, we come swiftly to a conclusion: allow me to introduce the Natty Narwhal, our mascot for development work that we expect to deliver as Ubuntu 11.04.
Mark Shuttleworth has just announced via his blog that Ubuntu 11.04, which will be released in April of 2011, is codenamed the Natty Narwhal.
Canonical developer Chase Douglas says Ubuntu 10.10 will have multi-touch support for Apple's Magic Trackpad, iPod, iPad, iPhone, MacBook and MacBook Pro. Canonical's announcement yesterday that it had released uTouch 1.0, a multi-touch gesture recognising stack for multi-touch based devices, prompted queries about which Apple multi-touch devices were supported. In a Canonical log posting, Douglas has listed the supported devices and announced that he has decoded the protocol for Apple's Magic Trackpad.
Keith and Koep GmbH announced a SODIMM-sized, Linux-compatible single board computer (SBC) and a compact baseboard to go with it. The Trizeps VI offers Marvell Armada 100-series processors clocked at 800MHz or 1.1GHz, up to 256MB of RAM and 512MB of flash storage, and an onboard microSD socket, while the baseboard adds an Ethernet port and HDMI, among other functionality.
Live TV news aggregator Livestation is taking an app on to Boxee, the internet TV media centre software for Mac, Windows, Linux and AppleTV.
For the time being, Livestation’s premium channels, which it is now trying to push, are available on Mac and Linux only.
Every geek and technology lover will undoubtedly have stumbled across online adverts for tiny headless Linux-powered devices that are barely larger than the power point they plug into. What can you actually do with them? Plenty, it seems!
Froyo is currently available only on a few phones, including Google's Nexus One and some HTC Evo 4G and original Droid phones. It will soon ship on the Droid 2, and next month will be available for the Droid X, while many other Android devices will be updated in the coming months.
Motorola isn't taking their foot off of the gas, bringing an XT610 which is said to feature a Droid X-like screen size (4.3-inches) but with hardware more in the middle of the pack (think 3.2 or 5-megapixel camera and slower CPU). PhoneArena's source says to expect a $100-$130 price point with a contract. Also arriving in October is a Motorola A957 "Sick" which likely comes from a "Dude, check out how sick this phone is!"
Can a small team of French developers really take on the might of Google Chrome OS with Jolicloud 1.0? Linux User & Developer thinks they’re in with a shot…
A 3.2-inch, Android 2.1 tablet called the Archos 32 has been spotted on the FCC's website. Like the Archos 5 and Archos 7, the Archos 32 is said to run on an ARM Cortex A8 system-on-chip (SoC), and offers GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, accelerometers, and composite video out, according to a manual posted on the FCC site.
Though the Obama administration is ending NASA's moon mission, not everyone is taking the news lying down. A group of engineers and scientists have teamed up with a handful of universities and companies in the space industry to form a collaborative volunteer organization called the OpenLuna Foundation. Together, they hope to pick up space exploration where NASA left off and eventually settle a manned outpost on the surface of the moon.
The "Great Recession" has businesses and consumers alike looking for ways to cut costs. That includes looking for cheaper alternatives to expensive software.
In most cases, open source applications offer much lower prices, even if you need to purchase paid support. With that in mind, we've put together a list of open source alternatives to software that tends to cost a lot.
This list comes with a few caveats. First, it's nearly impossible to find prices for the very most expensive software you can buy. Many enterprise software vendors don't release their prices because they negotiate separately with each customer or because their licensing schemes are so complicated that they could never explain them adequately in less than 5,000 words.
When most people think OpenOffice, they think of word processing or spreadsheets. What many people do not realize is that OpenOffice also includes Base, a database system roughly equivalent to MS Access. Many businesses and individuals use these systems to allow even non-technical people to enter, store, retrieve and organize their data. Using Base, you can follow simple steps to create an easy, user-friendly way for people to store and retrieve information using custom-designed forms and reports.
The EE Times Group has announced keynotes and tracks for its ESC (Embedded Systems Conference) Boston, set for Sept. 20 to 23. ESC Boston includes a Linux/Android track, with half-day tutorials on each plus sessions on MeeGo, and once again offers its "Build Your Own Embedded System" track, this time using a BeagleBoard-xM.
FoxToPhone, formerly known as SendToPhone, is an extension for Mozilla's Firefox web browser that allows users to send their current web page directly and almost instantly to their Android-powered device using an address bar button. Users can also send any link, image or page to their mobile device by simply right clicking on it and selecting the appropriate action. Additionally, highlighted text can be sent directly to the phone's clipboard.
States of the European Union recently implemented Directive 2007/47/EEC of September 5th 2007 concerning Medical Devices. This Directive amended Directive 93/42/EEC from June 14th 1993. Given that this Directive should now have become part of the national legislation of each EU Member State, it is a good time to take a look at how the provisions of the Directive could apply to open source software.
The jQuery Project developers have announced the launch of the jQuery Mobile project, a new project for a cross-platform mobile version of their JavaScript framework. According to jQuery creator John Resig, as part of the new mobile project, the core jQuery library is being improved to work across the various major mobile platforms and their browsers. Resig says that the developers are working to release "a complete, unified, mobile UI framework". Current expectations are that this will be completed in late 2010.
A small team of telecom industry veterans has solved both of those problems. The team developed OpenBTS, an open-source, software-based cellphone network. Not only does it cost one-tenth as much as traditional networks, but carriers could charge callers about $2 per month and still make a profit.
So I have been writing code of one sort or another for over 15 years (mostly Perl) and there is still one thing I don’t get ... what is the advantage of object oriented programming (OOP) over procedural programming (PP)?
I want to have an open discussion on the topic. Obviously I deal with both OOP and PP, but I am strongly in the PP camp. I am wondering “did I miss the boat”? I heard that Perl 6 will have very strong OOP and possibly will be pure OOP only, so if Larry Wall (way smarter then me) thinks it is a good idea, I must have missed something.
Lord Lester explained that in his Bill he had reversed the presumption that trial is by jury rather than by judge in defamation proceedings because, in the present situation, the prospect of jury trial supposedly makes it more likely that parties hold out for the prospect of argument before juries rather than settling the case early, which would generally be in the interests of the parties (and, incidentally, save the state costs). I question whether the practical consideration about the likelihood of cases settling earlier is worth changing the principle of trial by jury, but - regardless of the accuracy or merits of that decision on its own terms - I would highlight the great risk involved in this approach.
A consumer watchdog told insurance commissioners here that consumers are looking to state regulators to protect them from health care companies’ tendency to put shareholders first.
Wendell Potter, a former insurance company executive who is now affiliated with the Center for Media and Democracy, Madison, Wis., addressed attendees at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC's) summer meeting Saturday.
When Oxfordshire switched off its fixed speed cameras due to budget cuts, what the council kept secret was that two of them were left running.
In a media atmosphere that prefers entertainment over enlightenment, segments such as the one occurring on Aug. 10 on Morning Joe have become the norm. Rather than spend time talking about issues of substance, Joe Scarborough and his team instead decided to spend a whole segment of his show poking fun at Rep. John Boehner new tan. It's not as if anything else more important is occurring at the moment in the world, right? Infotainment, as epitomized by this segment, often reigns supreme in the mess that is the contemporary American "news" industry.
During his visit to the the Swedish capital Stockholm, Wikileaks spokesman Julian Assange struck a deal with the local Pirate Party. The Party, which participates in the national elections next month, will host several new Wikileaks servers to protect the freedom of the press and help the whistleblower site to carry out its operation.
There are only "four and a half" meaningful players left in Australia's internet service provider (ISP) market, iiNet supremo Michael Malone said today, with companies like Primus and Eftel not relevant any more in terms of providing competition.
In fact, much of both articles seems to be wishful thinking to support a view that the two authors -- Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff -- hope the world will come to eventually, rather than what seems to actually be happening. In both cases, it feels like they take the misleading graph at the top as the starting point, and then justify it, even though it's not painting an accurate picture. There is this new fascination with app madness as the latest new thing -- and companies love it because they think it gives them back some of the control they've lost to the open web. But, openness tends to find its way through. Closed systems are great for leading a charge to a new level, but they almost always stall out as more open solutions leapfrog them in the end. Apps are still digital, after all, and it's tough to keep anything digital closed for too long.
Paul, the people responding to your speeches and interviews and columns with these concerns are not some bogeymen from the dark with no name reaching out to "attack" you. We're people who love music and worry about an industry that is making many misguided and dangerous decisions that do more to harm the music world than the new services and technologies you apparently haven't taken the time to understand. We're not attacking you. We're pointing out the very big flaws in your ideas. Rather than repeating the same flawed plans -- with gratuitous and incorrect claims of some anonymous mob that's out to get you -- perhaps you could respond to the actual points that we've raised? Or is asking for that just a form of an attack?
Lessig is a visionary when it comes to digital freedom and is one of the most inspirational people I’ve ever had the priviledge of meeting in person. I’m a huge Creative Commons fan. I see it and his work as championing one of the basic things there is to know and learn in life: sharing. We’re all part of one big community and, every chance we get, I feel like we should share knowledge, thoughts, science, research, art, and anything else that we know or create.
Following in the footsteps of The Pirate Bay and the successful BitTorrent distribution platform Vodo, uTorrent has now embraced an artist of their own. Starting today, all new uTorrent downloads will be bundled with the latest album from PAZ, an up and coming musician who hopes to achieve stardom through BitTorrent.
Ixquick's New Proxy Service!
Comments
Needs Sunlight
2010-08-19 16:31:30