Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

We're on the verge of a serious evolution on the web. Right now, the common way to include video on the web is by use of Flash, a closed-source technology that is a massive resource hog. The answer is the HTML5 video tag, which allows you to embed video into HTML pages without the use of Flash or any other non-HTML technology; combined with open video codecs, this could provide the perfect opportunity to further open up and standardise the web.

Clutter, the open-source toolkit designed to develop rich user interfaces with OpenGL and OpenGL ES but without the complexity of programming to such APIs, is nearing version 1.0. This toolkit, which was used to create the very impressive Moblin V2 interface, is backed by Intel and continues to gain steam. Version 0.9.4 was released just this morning, which is serving as the Clutter 1.0.0 Release Candidate 1 build.

I can talk until I'm blue in my space about the technical advantages of Linux and open-source software. Forget about that for now though. Let me give you a reason for your office to use them that may strike home: It can save jobs, including, just maybe, your job. This simple fact was brought home to me over the weekend when I was at the SouthEast Linux Fest at Clemson University. There, I saw Chad Wollenberg, a network administrator who focuses on the integration of free and open technologies in education. The point of his talk was really quite simple: "Why should our school systems be paying for proprietary software when teachers are being laid off?"

The Linux Plumbers Conference 2009 is now accepting proposal submissions. Proposals can be edited and created until Monday 22 June 2009 PDT (7 AM Tuesday June 22 2009 GMT). Submissions are invited for speakers in our microconference tracks as well as the general track session.

A home-cooked Microsoft license has carved out a small but growing following among the open-source community in less than two years. Microsoft's Public License (MS-PL) is used by 1.03 per cent of open-source projects less than two-years after it was officially recognized by the Open-Source Initiative and is poised to overtake the Mozilla Public License (MPL) in terms of popularity.

The OpenSource World conference — previously known as LinuxWorld — is fast approaching &mdsah; it convenes in San Francisco from August 12 - 13, showcasing everything Open Source and more. Conference organizers this week drew back the curtain on one of the conference's main attractions, its keynote speakers, and the lineup promises to be an interesting listen.

As I wrote a few days ago, I replaced Kubuntu and Ubuntu on several of my home PCs with PCLinuxOS and 64 Studio. I was intending to wait a couple of months to post a followup because long-term performance is what matters. But a few things have impressed me so much these two newcomers to my little computing empire deserve an extra mention.

I've written quite a bit about using Linux to help educate people. In the past, I've discussed using Linux to teach astronomy, programming and computer logic design. So today, I'm writing about using the KDE Interactive Geometry (Kig) program to teach mathematics. Kig allows you to use various tools to diagram and demonstrate different mathematical concepts. With Kig, you can draw points, lines, line segments, half lines, vectors, circles and various other conic sections. When Kig refers to a “half line”, it means what I was taught was a ray—essentially a line with one endpoint. Drawing hyperbolic curves on the computer sure beats getting dry-erase marker all over yourself or sneezing because of chalk dust.

With the release of Ubuntu 9.10, which is due out this October, Canonical and the Ubuntu developers hope to fix at least 100 "paper cuts" on the Ubuntu Linux desktop. Paper cuts are rather trivial usability bugs that are small, but in one way or another could impair the Linux desktop or increase the burden placed on a new Linux user ever so slightly.

One thing that I love about Linux (and Ubuntu) is that it is fully customizable and I can configure it to the way that I want it. Previously, I have already illustrated its flexibility by showing how you can transform Ubuntu Hardy and Intrepid into Mac OS X. Today, let’s bring a step further and see how we can transform Kubuntu Jaunty to Windows 7 in 3 simple steps.

SourceForge is keenly aware of its roots in the open source community, and its strategies for growth encompass ways to better serve its base. Among its goals are a transformation of the Sourceforge.net Web site into "a world-class development environment," said Jon Sobel, SourceForge's group president of media.

The company providing technology to the US intelligence community has invested in an open-source firm to provide enterprise-search technology to the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Will ARM-powered smartbooks make all the difference for Linux? There's no unanimity of opinion in the FOSS world, except perhaps the general agreement that the $200 units Freescale and Qualcomm debuted at Computex are, well, interesting. Unlike Windows, most Linux software is "only a recompile away from running on ARM," noted Slashdot blogger Peter Brett.

Currently, there's a lot of hype around Android on ARM-based netbooks, a type of netbook arriving later this year. However, despite the obvious choice for Android and other Linux systems, NVIDIA has openly stated their preference for... Windows CE. ARM and Asus are also quite sceptical about Android on ARM netbooks.

Last month, Eric Geier introduced us to an open source wireless mesh solution from Open-Mesh. In Part 1, we reviewed solution and configured the basic settings. In Part 2, we reviewed the captive portal options and set up the internal one. Now we're going to experiment with the CoovaOM captive portal. Then we'll touch on how to get Web filtering up on the mesh network. Finally, we'll install and test the system.

Coders have reacted with disappointment and frustration to Microsoft's decision to cease development of a connector to Oracle in its .NET Framework, a move that looks like another budget cut. Microsoft has said it will no longer develop OracleClient, or System.Data.OracleClient, with the the up-coming .NET Framework 4.0. It will still be included with the framework but will be "marked as deprecated."

The compact and flexible nature of the Linux Kernel, plus the fact that it and all its support code is modular open source, means it lends itself very well to stripped down small and efficient distributions. This article explores a few of these distributions and explains just how useful they can be

Linux kernel development continues to roar ahead, and 2.6.30 is cram-full of excellent new features: Tomoyo, the learning framework for SELinux, NILFS (new implementation of a log-structured file system), IEEE 802.11w enhanced wireless security, and fastboot, which is a speedier boot process in the kernel itself. Sean Michael Kerner reports.

Xandros-owned email and groupware vendor Scalix released Scalix ActiveSync 1.0, a push email and synchronization add-on to Scalix Server that implements Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync protocol for wireless message synchronization. Scalix also released Scalix Server 11.4.4, touted for its over 200 improvements.

Going back to 2007 we have been talking about Valve Software and Linux games after they were hiring software engineers to port Windows-based games to the Linux platform. Late last year we also got some confirmation of a Steam Linux client through some Linux shared libraries that had mistakenly shipped with the Left 4 Dead game client along with some other information we received through the grapevine. Well, now there may be another sign of impending Linux support by Valve Software. In fact, it's listed right on the Valve Software web-site!