This week we look at the 7 best open source projects for newbies, why a bad app could be worse than no app and programming languages you should skip.

I got bitten at camp this weekend, but indifference would have been the only relevant repellant and thankfully, I'm allergic to that. Here's what I learned as a first-time camper. Transparency Camp is not for the faint of heart. It requires you to dig in deep. If you are a tech expert, like Northeast Ohio's own Jeff Schuler, you look for how to apply everything you know to figuring out ways to free data.

Google Code got started back in 2006 as an alternative open source code hosting repository and google codecollaborative development site. At the time of its creation, I had thought that it would competitive with Sourceforge (which it was), but as it turns out Sourceforge will now get the last laugh.

Bash is a commonly used scripting language for shell scripts. A script is a small list of instructions for the computer to follow. A scripting language is a programming language used in a script. Shell scripts are scripts written in a shell language, and a shell language is a programming language used within a terminal. In BASH scripts (shell scripts written in BASH) users can use more than just BASH to write the script. There are commands that allow users to embed other scripting languages into a BASH script. This article will explain how to embed several languages into one script.

Not everyone has a computer. And, not all schools have access to the types of technology that are second nature to many of us at our workplace. It is also true that many people in the general public don't know about open source and the free alternatives that are available to them, like LibreOffice instead of Micrsoft Word.

Mixxx is a DJ tool that allows for the playback and mixing of digital music (MP3, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and Wave).The basic requirements for Mixxx are a desktop computer or laptop with a reasonable amount of storage space on the hard drive for your music, at least 1 audio card for outputting the sound and a way of controlling the software either by mouse, keyboard or hardware DJ Controller.

How does Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) CEO Meg Whitman feel about Windows 8 vs. emerging Google Android and Chrome OS tablet and notebook alternatives? The answers emerged indirectly amid HP's Q2 2013 earnings call. Here's the scorecard.

In the Star Trek Book of Management, there are two approaches to big data decision making: The Kirk way and the Spock way. Which type are you?

The Neptune team is proud to announce the release of Neptune 3.1. We worked hard and spend a lot of effort in creating this service release for Neptune 3.0. This release features the Linux kernel 3.9.2 and is exclusively meant to run on 64-bit CPUs. The Debian base system was updated to the released version 7.0 to provide a stable user experience. The KDE Plasma Desktop ships with version 4.10.3. Chromium was updated to version 26, Kdenlive 0.9.6, Amarok 2.7.1 and LibreOffice to version 4.0.3. We ship with the latest and greatest multimedia codecs pre-installed, as well as the Flash player.

In the last week of classes, since finished all of my assignments, I have had a little time to do some distribution reviews before starting to prepare for final exams. The second such review is of the KDE edition of Korora 18 "Flo". I have reviewed Korora before. Back then it was called Kororaa (with an extra 'a'), so I guess the name was shortened in a manner similar to that of Facebook (from "TheFacebook"). It's a distribution that essentially offers a bunch of niceties on top of Fedora with GNOME or KDE. This time I tried just the KDE version.

Big Data is becoming a big deal beyond the United States, and it's time for the international software market to pay attention. The latest evidence: DataStax, which provides enterprise database management services based on open-source software. The company is making an aggressive push into the European market in what may be the first move toward a greater presence throughout the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) region as a whole.

From the 'Good Things Come in Small Packages' files:

You can now add another Linux distro to the list that will run on the Raspberry Pi. The core distro for the small device is the Debian based Raspian and there is also an Arch based Linux for the Pi too.

And now once again, we've got a Fedora Remix for the Raspberry Pi as well.

Even though there are many top-quality open source games available for Linux, the operating system is still vastly underrated as a gaming platform. Encouragingly, we have seen developers of some of the most popular commercial gaming titles embrace Linux. The welcoming hand that Valve has extended, developing a Linux native version of their Steam client and porting their back catalogue, should accelerate takeup of Linux as a real gaming platform. But it is important that Linux developers do not neglect what has made it a success; high quality open source software.

Most of you agreed with Ms. Hall, if the results of the “Firefox Configuration Poll” we conducted alongside her article is any indication. The poll asked the question, “Do you think the Firefox browser offers too many configuration choices for most users?”

LXer Feature: 24-May-2013

Recently I've been trying to 'minimize' some big 'legacy' MS Word files. When using MS Office to export to HTML (unfiltered), I've found out they're so big because they have EMZ (gzipped EMF) and WMZ (gzipped WMF) files in them, accompanied by large "msoledata-thingies". These WMZ's / EMZ's are (zipped) "container" formats, and some of them contain vector graphics, a bit like SVG - but sadly Microsoft doesn't seem to support SVG in MS Office. These EMF / WMG-graphics may contain vector images: That's text, fonts and lines - which has to remain readable of course. I found out replacing this EMZ / WMZ files by PNG files in the Word-documents dramatically reduces size.

The Debian Project today is mourning the loss of legendary Linux developer Ray Dassen. Ray Dassen served the Linux community and Debian at large for nearly all of Debian’s life, having joined the project in the very beginning working hand-in-hand while the project’s founder, Ian Murdock.

This guest column, BeagleBoard.org co-founder Jason Kridner introduces the BeagleBone Black’s cutting-edge Linux 3.8 kernel, up from the original BeagleBone’s 3.2 kernel. The 3.8 kernel gives the BeagleBone Black access to a new Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) display driver architecture, as well as full support for the Device Tree data structure introduced in Linux 3.7 [...]

HTML5 seen as key to open source smartphone success TDC2013 You could be forgiven for thinking there's not much going on with Tizen, the Linux Foundation's open source mobile OS. It's been two years since the project was launched and there still are no Tizen devices on the market. But that's about to change – and there has been a lot happening behind the scenes, as well.…

Who says you need a few million bucks to build a supercomputer? Joshua Kiepert put together a Linux-powered Beowulf cluster with Raspberry Pi computers for less than $2,000.

If you're walking down the street in Russia and somebody yells out "Pidora", they might not be referring to the newly released distro for the Raspberry Pi.

Linux Advocate Dietrich Schmitz today accepted an offer to write weekly feature stories for ECT News Network.

BeagleBoard.org has begun shipping its faster, cheaper “BeagleBone Black” SBC with a Linux 3.8 kernel, supporting Device Tree technology for more streamlined ARM development. The $45 BeagleBone Black runs Linux or Android on a 1GHz TI Sitara AM3359 SOC, doubles the RAM to 512MB, and adds a micro-HDMI port. A month after BeagleBoard.org announced its [...]

Digia launched a technology preview of Boot to Qt, a commercial offering that provides "a fully-integrated solution for the creation of slick user interfaces on embedded devices." The current version of Boot to Qt is built on top of an Android kernel base layer, and includes support for the Nexus 7, BeagleBoard-xM, SABRE Lite, and x86 hardware.

Tripwire the developers behind Killing Floor had an email chat with me recently about the possibilities of Red Orchestra 2 and Rising Storm coming to Linux and why they currently won't. It gives us a small bit of info on Unreal Engine 2+3.

Pre-release version of Zorin OS 7 Core available for testing, the RC including Linux Kernel 3.8 and an overhauled graphical interface

bc utility is surely one of the underdogs when it comes to calculations on command line. It’s a feature rich utility that has its own fan base but needs time to get comfortable with. Here, in this article, structured in form of Q&A, let’s get comfortable with bc utility by discussing both basic and advanced features of this command line calculator.

(Sacramento, CA, USA: May 23, 2013) The Linux Professional Institute (LPI: http://www.lpi.org), the world's premier Linux certification organization, announced promotional exam labs for their Linux Professional Institute Certification (LPIC) at the SouthEast LinuxFest (SELF: http://www.southeastlinuxfest.org/) at 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., June 9th at the Blake Hotel in Charlotte, NC. In addition, during SELF, Darrell Flewell, LPI CFO, will deliver a presentation on "Preparing For A Fantastic Career In Linux and Open Source" at 2:45 p.m., Saturday, June 8th in the Linode room of the Blake Hotel.

ProjectLibre is an open source project management solution ready to give Microsoft Project a run for their money.

Fedora and the Seneca Centre for Development of Open Technology released an optimized Fedora 18 Remix for the Raspberry Pi, and unveiled a new name for the remix. “Pidora 18,” based on a new build of Fedora optimized for ARMv6, features speedier performance and includes packages from the Fedora 18 package set, says the Pidora project team.

In many scientific disciplines, the research you may be doing is completely new. It may be so new that there isn't even any instrumentation available to make your experimental measurements. In those cases, you have no choice but to design and build your own measuring devices.