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One of the constant complaints about the Android diaspora is its fragmentation — the increasingly diverse multiplicity of OS versions and devices that are so relevant yet so confusing to the average consumer’s mobile decision-making process. Apparently, the powers that be (at Google, that is) have heard users’ complaints on this score and have created the Google Phone Gallery, a carousel of devices that displays images, phone features, manufacturer and carrier information and more.

The beauty of an open development platform is that anyone can take a stab at creating an application. KDE, which is built upon the Qt application and UI framework, is a shining example of this. A quick look at KDE-Apps.org reveals that new apps are added daily. I periodically browse through the latest KDE apps to see if anything stands out, and I found these five, some of which are in early development.

Linutop released version 4.0 of a Ubuntu Linux-based distro optimized for kiosk applications on small, energy-efficient fanless PCs, including legacy 386-based PCs and the company's own mini-PCs. Linutop OS 4.0 is based on Ubuntu 10.04 ("Lucid Lynx"), has a 700MB footprint, is available in a bootable USB key, and offers a variety of display and security features, says the company.

If you frequently use the terminals and the command line, I hope you know the command screen, otherwise get ready to see something that will help you immensely. Screen ? (from the man page) Screen is a full-screen window manager that multiplexes a physical terminal between several processes (typically interactive shells). Each virtual terminal provides the functions of a DEC VT100 terminal and, in addition, several control functions from the ISO 6429 (ECMA 48, ANSI X3.64) and ISO 2022 standards (e.g. insert/delete line and support for multiple character sets). There is a scrollback history buffer for each virtual terminal and a copy-and-paste mechanism that allows moving text regions between windows.

Version 9.0 of the PostgreSQL database management system was released on September 20, with considerably more "buzz" than a PostgreSQL release has had in a while. The PostgreSQL Project does a major release every year, but this one is special. It has more than a dozen major features and nearly 200 minor improvements, so the release has more new goodies in it for database geeks than any release before it, hence the "9.0" version number.

I will say again, for the record, I am not a fan of bloated GUI desktops like KDE and GNOME. I am a GUI minimalist and use the fluxbox window manager for my “GUI desktop”. However, I do like some of the applications that are available for both KDE and GNOME. For a long time now I have been using Kmail and then Kontact with Kmail for my e-mail needs. With Kontact/Kmail I have saved a few thousand messages in Maildir format going back several years, have dozens of contacts both personal and professional, and over 200 filters to keep messages organized. I have been pleased with Kontact/Kmail … until now.

This month we have been testing a new kernel patch named bcache that takes SSDs and uses them as a cache for block devices (with the typical device being hard drives). This article wraps up the testing with an investigation of the throughput of large files and summarizes all the testing to date (and there’s a lot of that).

Last week I wrote about Ares and Draftsight, and how they where close to go full comercial (Ares, Draftsight will be free as Mac and Win released versions), so this is it.... So, since 18 Set., what happened here? Let's go back a few days, and: 22 September - I found out that Draftsight for MAC is available for download 28 September - After reporting a bug for ARES, I received an email from Graebert, that says "BTW: We have released a final version of ARES Commander on Linux yesterday evening.".

Lighttpd is a secure, fast, standards-compliant web server designed for speed-critical environments. This tutorial shows how you can install Lighttpd on an OpenSUSE 11.3 server with PHP5 support (through FastCGI) and MySQL support.

Launched in October of 2004, Linux Mint has rapidly emerged as one of the most popular desktop Linux distributions. In this review, LinuxTrends takes a look at the latest Linux Mint release and finds it to be preferable to Ubuntu (on which it’s based) in several significant ways.

It’s a small step for Dell and symbolic victory for Ubuntu Server Edition, Canonical’s Linux distribution. Specifically, selected Dell PowerEdge servers are now certified to run Ubuntu Server Edition. Does that mean Dell is shifting away from Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Novell SUSE Linux? And what are the implications for Linux channel partners? Hmmm… Here’s the reality check.

Now that I know how to patch my OpenBSD-release installation and keep it updated as OpenBSD-stable, I pulled out the Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 now running 4.7-stable, applied the latest patch, then rebuilt the kernel and rebooted. It was a step in the journey that culminated with an X session over SSH from the OpenBSD machine to a 1995-era Macintosh Powerbook 1400 with MacSSH and MI/X.

This is a nice script to automatically backup your MySQL tables and send them to your email.

Synaptic is a graphical user interface (GUI) for managing software packages on Debian-based distributions. If you are using Debian or Ubuntu you will easily find Synaptic in the System Tools menu or in the Administration menu. Synaptic uses the GTK graphic libraries . So, if you are using GNOME on your debian-based distro you will probably have Synaptic installed as well. Synaptic is a graphical package management program for apt. It provides the same features as the apt-get command line utility with a GUI front-end based on Gtk+.

One of the reasons for the popularity of the Firefox browser is the wealth of downloadable add-ons, and the customization options available via the about:config hacks. However, there are some tidy tricks you can employ from within the “as is” browser that can greatly improve your web surfing experience. These simple but powerful tips and tricks for the open source browser will have you cruising the web faster and smarter in no time. So, if you’re a Firefox user, check out these 10 features we’ve highlighted and, as always, please do share any other Firefox hints you’ve found useful in the comments.

Few days ago, we discussed the usefulness of Spark and how it enables you to create custom shortcut keys in Mac. Alternatively, in Windows, we can use the popular AutoHotKey to create custom shortcuts. So what about Linux? Autokey is probably the best answer. AutoKey is a desktop automation utility for Linux and X11. It allows you to create scripts and assign hotkeys to these scripts, allowing you to execute them on demand in whatever program you are using.

I was ecstatic today to hear the news that former members of the OpenOffice.org Foundation have decided to create a fork of OpenOffice called LibreOffice. This fork will be a democratic and community-driven project, free from the dubious motivations of Oracle Corporation. I suspected that someone would eventually do something like this, but I was not expecting it so soon.

The level of modification possible with Nautilus is enormous and some of them were included in our 8 not-so-common nautilus hacks and improvements post. And now, we are going to introduce a bunch of useful Nautilus scripts which can further extend the functionality of nautilus in a big way.

Yesterday Red Hat has submitted comments to the U.S Patent and Trademark Office regarding interpretation of the Supreme Court’s Bilski decision. The submission was made in response to the PTO’s request for public comments to assist it in determining how to apply the Supreme Court’s decision in that case. Although the Bilski decision did not expressly address the standards for refusing to allow software patents, interpretation of the decision will determine whether certain patents are granted. Thus the PTO’s approach to examining patent applications will have a substantial effect on the patent landscape.

Firefox have many add-ons that are created specially for Ubuntu Users like TerminalRun. Chromium extension developers were not ready to fall behind and created couple of extensions that are specially suited for Ubuntu users. So I decided to share these two extensions available as of now.