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Many users are content with the label and mail merge features in OpenOffice.org Writer, Abiword or KOffice for basic jobs. What if you want a smaller, dedicated program for elaborate formatting or graphics. In these cases, you should consider turning to gLabels

The Openmoko FreeRunner smartphone, with its open platform, will remain the company's latest hardware product, at least for now.

The good news is all you need to use this book is some prior experience building static web pages using HTML/XHTML...sort of. That's what the Who is this book for? section says. However, the Who should probably back away from this book part says that anyone who isn't familiar with basic programming concepts like variables and loops should steer clear. On the other hand, the same section declares that those basic concepts can be learned from this book. OK, just a tad confused here. Actually, the one piece that would bind all this together would be the mention of JavaScript (and there's a Head First book for that, too). Not sure why JavaScript wasn't mentioned, but it would have been a good bridge linking the rank web design beginner to this book, since JavaScript also makes static HTML pages dynamic. Also, folks familiar with JavaScript would certainly be familiar with basic programming concepts. Be that as it may, let's move on.

Last month, a group called The Author's Guild raised loud objections to the text-to-speech feature in Amazon's new Kindle 2. They claimed that reading a book out-loud is a violation of US copyright law. We had hoped that Amazon would stand up to this legally baseless bullying and support their customers. But, instead, they caved, and allowed publishers to deactivate the Kindle's text-to-speech capabilities using the device's built-in DRM.

The first Beta for FreeBSD 7.2 has been released, updating network drivers as well as some threading libraries. Beyond its own development efforts, FreeBSD also might soon benefit from the Debian Linux community as well. Debian users will soon be able to choose to use a FreeBSD kernel (instead of a Linux kernel).

The Linux blogosphere had its fair share -- perhaps more than its fair share -- of techie trickery on April Fools' Day, but some of the real news was almost as hard to believe. Citigroup buying Red Hat? Surely, you jest. As odd as that might seem, the prospect of Oracle buying Red Hat might be even harder to swallow. And what's up with Microsoft's latest effort to reach out to losers?

Phoronix Media has today released Phoronix Test Suite 1.8 (codenamed "Selbu"), which is a sizable update to its very popular testing software. Phoronix Test Suite 1.8 introduces a graphical user-interface making it easier for end-users to test out their computer systems, adds support for reference system comparisons, is compatible with more *BSD operating systems, and adds a number of new test profiles and suites. The Phoronix Test Suite is designed to run benchmarks/tests atop Linux, Mac OS X, *BSD, and OpenSolaris systems in a clean, reproducible, and easy-to-use way.

Sometimes, even the best job can call for extraordinary sacrifices. Even grumpy editorial jobs. Let it never be said that your editor is unwilling to take one for his readers; why else would he choose to spend four hours in the company of around 100 lawyers gathered to talk about software patents? This event, entitled Evaluating software patents, was held on March 19 at the local law school. The conversation was sometimes dry and often painful to listen to, but it did provide an interesting view into how patent attorneys see the software patent regime in the U.S. The following is a summary of the high points from the four panels held at this event.

MIDs (mobile Internet devices) may be the channel for Linux to reach mainstream consumers in Asia, according to an analyst. Ian Lao, senior analyst, mobile technologies at In-Stat told ZDNet Asia in an interview, MIDs are expected to do better in the region than in others, and that Linux will likely grow alongside as a result.

When changing software configuration it is always a good idea to test things as thoroughly as you can. In the case of SMTP it is generally possible to test things offline pretty easily, and then perform simple tests via a manual telnet - but the SWAKS tool makes SMTP-testing even simpler.

DKIM is an authentication framework which stores public-keys in DNS and digitally signs emails on a domain basis. It was created as a result of merging Yahoo's domainkeys and Cisco's Identified Internet mail specification. It is defined in RFC 4871. We will be using the milter implementation of dkim http://dkim-milter.sf.net on CentOS 5.2.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" said Dickens, and he could well have been talking about Silicon Valley in 2009 — while some firms are setting up venture capital funds, others are looking for a buoy just to stay afloat. Such is the case for Silicon Graphics, as the once power-player revealed last week it will be sold to Rackable Systems for just half the cost of some of its systems.

Last weekend, the Birmingham Perl Mongers group hosted and was main financial sponsor of the 2009 QA Hackathon, which was held at the Birmingham City Inn. Key developers in the Perl Quality Assurance world flew in from as far afield as Sydney, Portland, OR and Birmingham itself to spend 3 days hacking on all aspects of the Perl and CPAN toolchain. If the hackathon proved anything, it's that while Internet time is fast, face time is faster.

One of the must-haves in the toolkit of any serious free software enthusiast is a decent partitioning tool. This week we take a look at the newly released Parted Magic 4.0, a live CD for managing hard drives. In the news, Intel hands control of Moblin, a distribution for netbooks and mobile devices over to the Linux Foundation, rumours about a possible purchase of Sun Microsystems by IBM spur speculations about the future of OpenSolaris, Debian announces support for kFreeBSD i386 and amd64 port, and Mark Shuttleworth talks about the upcoming release of Ubuntu 9.04. Also in the news, first hints about a possible major and more adventurous update of the GNOME desktop, version 3.0. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the recipient of the DistroWatch.com March 2009 donation is smxi, a project developing a variety of useful scripts for Debian and Debian-based distributions.

IBM's talks to acquire smaller computer and software rival Sun Microsystems Inc broke down on Sunday after Sun rejected IBM's $7 billion offer, a source with knowledge of the matter said. The collapse of negotiations, if final, is likely to hurt Sun's shares as a buyout was seen as a means of survival for the once-storied Silicon Valley company, which has been losing market share. A deal would also have helped IBM compete more effectively against rivals such as Hewlett-Packard Co.

I have to admit, I am a software junkie. I like good software that works as it should and does it’s job with a minimum of effort on my part. When I first started using a computer at home, one of the first things I started looking for was a software program that would manage my finances and allow me to keep up with what I spend. It is essential for me because although I do not have a lot of different finances to keep up with, I need all the help I can get.

Google's big surprise: each server has its own 12-volt battery to supply power if there's a problem with the main source of electricity. The company also revealed for the first time that since 2005, its data centers have been composed of standard shipping containers--each with 1,160 servers and a power consumption that can reach 250 kilowatts.

A new month and a new set of Linux distribution releases. Check out what’s new and where to get it!

Dr. Tony Shannon; Chair, Clinical Review Board, openEHR Foundation has released details on the Clinical Knowledge Manager to aide in the development and governance of archetypes (clinical knowledge units). His full announcement is below the fold.

KDE4 is a radical rewrite, and it lays the groundwork for a long and sustainable future. The long-term vision for Gnome is conservative and careful. While radical changes are upsetting, Gnome's conservatism could lead to an increasingly crufty and un-sustainable code base. Bruce Byfield gazes into his crystal ball and predicts what the future holds for both.