Showing all newswire headlines

Python has greatly increased its number of syntactic features and built-in functions and types, making it no longer a language that experienced programmers can pick up "in an afternoon." This article discusses the new features that have been added to Python, and weighs in on which ones are truly valuable and which just add unnecessary complication.

One of the main problems facing GNU/Linux is that it simply is not known by the majority of the computer-literate users in this world, and is used on a daily basis by even fewer. It is an excellent Operating System which can satisfy the needs of most demographics bar certain specialised ones, such as gamers, so there is nothing stopping it from hitting the mainstream except marketing funds. You know what? These might not be needed.

http://www.whoissick.org recently launched a free new website focused on bringing heath information to the public by tracking and monitoring current and local sicknesses. Essentially, it is Web2.0/User generated content meets Healthcare through a very simple Google Maps interface. Given the relatively slower adoption of internet and"web 2.0' technology by much of the healthcare industry, we set out to create a simple, user-friendly, and valuable website for the average consumer.

Gael Duval, the creator of Mandrake (now Mandriva) and now fired from its own company, has recently released the Ulteo project.

Texas Tech University Medical School will deploy a possibly proprietary version of VistA by Document Storage Systems, Inc. According to several news reports like this one: 'The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine has begun deploying a public domain version of the Department of Veterans Affairs' electronic health record (EHR) system developed by Document Storage Systems, according to the vendor... 'Some articles are saying that this is an open source deployment, however that may not be the case. The vendor, Document Storage Systems, is noted for being a very proprietary vendor selling its own, not Free or Open Source Licensed, proprietary version of VistA.

The leader of the Open Graphics Project comments on the state of UI development in Linux: "I fear that Linux developers also don't grok these [User Interface] ideas either, and they're too afraid to change, sticking to out-dated methods in the name of backward-compatibility or inertia or both."

In what many long-time observers of free and open source software consider a natural progression, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer is to join the board of the Linux Foundation.

[What day of the year is it? ;-) - Scott]

The Mozilla Corporation and eBay International have announced a Mozilla Firefox partnership to "improve the online auction experience for people in France, Germany and the United Kingdom". According to the press release, "Mozilla and eBay are collaborating on new technology and approaches to enable eBay users to stay up to date with their auctions more easily from within Firefox regardless of where they are on the Web."

Mozilla developer Michael Kaply has written a six-part series of weblog posts describing how to deploy Mozilla Firefox 2 within an enterprise or similar institution. The series is aimed at organisations that cannot deploy standard Firefox releases for some reason and need to distribute customised builds to their users. It focuses on the Microsoft Windows version of Firefox.

Pramari and The University of Arkansas have announced a strategic partnership to further integrate their RFID Open Source Products and create a comprehensive open source offering for RFID. Under this partnership both organizations will work closely by integrating their products, and leverage their collective knowledge in helping some of the most influential RFID users. With this free exchange of ideas and tools, Pramari and the University of Arkansas seek to create an Open Source community that can further advance RFID infrastructure and create products that fill the needs of the rapidly evolving RFID software market.

Are you adept with Virtual Network Computing (VNC)? If not, you'll find that learning even a little about this desktop sharing system pays off big in your daily development or system administration responsibilities.

Many free software advocates make a name for themselves by being involved with a single project. Dave Neary casts a wider net. He is a GNOME Foundation member, community manager of the OpenWengo project, and a former contributor to the GIMP project.

Embedded Linux development services provider TimeSys is among seven companies chosen for a new Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) attraction designed to showcase innovative startups. The "Disruption Zone" honors startups that significantly "speed electronics design and development, and improve digital signal and memory performance," CMP said.

We received the following today by email from Hewlett Packard, which clarifies their warranty policy for customers running Linux on HP hardware, at least in the specific case we reported on recently: "HP is committed to supporting its customers and backs its PCs with a solid hardware warranty regardless of the operating system."

Thanks to the Novell-sponsored open source Mono effort and its contributors, the idea of cross-platform ASP.NET development isn't a dream. It's a reality. But how quickly can you go from being only conceptually possible to becoming a reality and then deployed? For the winner of the first round of the Race to Linux 2 contest, it is five hours and 26 minutes.

OpenGL apps running inside a Virtual Machine (VM) can use VMGL to take advantage of graphics hardware acceleration. VMGL can be used on VMware guests, Xen HVM domains (depending on hardware virtualization extensions) and Xen paravirtual domains, using XVnc or the virtual framebuffer.

The Fedora project this week announced the availability of the third of four development releases of Fedora 7, which can be deployed as either GNOME- or KDE-based live CDs or installed to a hard drive.

In response to recent demand for Linux preinstallation, Dell plans to expand its Linux offerings. At the present time, Dell's Linux lineup is limited to three Dell Precision workstations which come with Red Hat Enterprise Linux and sell for the exact same price as the equivalent Windows-based systems. After conducting a survey to help determine the wants and needs of Linux users, Dell decided to expand its Linux lineup to include additional desktop and notebook systems.

It's Day 3 of the Thin Puppy torture test, in which the Thin Puppy -- a Maxspeed Maxterm thin client repurposed to run Puppy Linux 2.14 -- will run continuously to test the hardware and OS ... and also because since the Compact Flash memory died, I booted the machine with a CD drive, then disconnected said drive. So the Thin Puppy is running totally in RAM (I have a 256 MB USB flash drive connected in case I want to save anything big, but there's no OS or apps on it), and it can't be rebooted without me cracking the case open and re-plugging the CD drive, or inserting a pre-programmed CF module in the back (the only "disk" this thin client is wired for is the CF, via an IDE adapter that plugs into the motherboard and a floppy power connector.

Once again, we're a far cry from PS3-Linux-easy, but those 360 kids seem rather hard to dissuade. The latest development on the XeLL bootloader front is that you no longer need a serial cable hooked up for executing the boot loader, all you need is a 360 set up for running burned DVDs, a modified version of the King Kong disc -- you'll want the original game, Windows and a DVD burner to get that together -- and of course a Live CD with XeLL and your Linux distro all prepped to go.