Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Debating the value of "my first time using Linux" articles was the pastime of choice recently in the open source blogosphere. Other topics of discussion included the Linux Foundation's takeover of Linux.com from SourceForge and the ongoing saga of why Linux isn't accepted by mainstream users yet.

If you’re not beginning to think green, you’re a release behind. In today’s world you have to think green. But how do you do that without installing a roof of solar panels? If you are using (or thinking of using) Linux, you’re one step ahead of the competition. In this article, you will find 10 solid ways to start thinking green in your IT department. It’s responsible, it’s smart, and it’ll save you money and time on this great planet.

A surprising decision from the second-highest court for US patent cases will put meaningful restrictions on the patentability of software here, Red Hat patent lawyer Rob Tiller said in a well-attended talk at the Southern California Linux Expo. In a surprise October ruling in the case of In re Bilski last year, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit "threw out wholesale" the existing test for software patentability, and substituted a new, stricter one. "The test has teeth," said Tiller, who, as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, IP for Red Hat, handles incoming patent threats and authored an amicus brief in the case.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Microsoft's suit against TomTom, which alleged infringement of eight of its patents - including three that relate to TomTom's implementation of the Linux kernel. I wrote there that this seemed part of a larger attack on Linux, and not just one on TomTom, as Microsoft nonetheless insisted.

Computerworld is undertaking a series of investigations into the most widely-used programming languages. Previously we have spoken to Alfred v. Aho of AWK fame, S. Tucker Taft on the Ada 1995 and 2005 revisions, Microsoft about its server-side script engine ASP, Chet Ramey about his experiences maintaining Bash, Bjarne Stroustrup of C++ fame and to Charles H. Moore about the design and development of Forth. We've also had a chat with the irreverent Don Woods about the development and uses of INTERCAL, as well as Stephen C. Johnson on YACC, Luca Cardelli on Modula-3, Walter Bright on D, Simon Peyton-Jones on Haskell and more recently, Larry Wall, creator of the Perl programming language.

Sure, it's handy being able to run Internet Explorer or Microsoft Office on Linux or the Mac thanks to WINE and Crossover Linux and Mac, but you know what's even cooler? Running WoW (World of Warcraft) or Guild Wars on them. That's why I'm really pleased to see that CrossOver, the company behind WINE, the programs that lets you run Windows programs on Linux and Mac OS, has just released new editions of CrossOver Games for Mac and Linux, version 7.2.0. At first, you might think, "Are they kidding, you can't run -- seriously run -- a demanding Windows game on Linux or the Mac." You'd be wrong.

Vinay Gupta is a Scottish-Indian engineer who designs low-cost homes for poor parts of the world or disaster zones, and then makes them freely available on the internet so others can do the building. His flagship is the Hexayurt shelter system, which costs around $200 (£142). It uses common building materials, including insulation boards - which, he claims, are a third of the cost of a tent. The business plan is to cut the price of essential goods and services to the point where the poor can afford them. Gupta is just one example of a global movement that offers an alternative to the scandalous tales of banking avarice that have saturated the world's media.

In a meeting with financial analysts last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer laid out who he thinks are the biggest threats today to Windows on the client side. Surprisingly, Apple wasn't number one. It wasn't number two or three either. Referring to a pie chart at the meeting that gauges threats to Windows, Ballmer said that Windows itself, both licensed and pirated, were the top two threats to Microsoft in the client OS space, followed by Linux, then Apple. Ballmer quipped: "Windows license, number one market share. Number two market share goes to Windows pirated, or unlicensed. That's a competitor that's tough to beat; they've got a good price and a heck of a product, but we're working on it."

A security update for cURL, the file transfer utility, and its associated libcurl library has been released to fix a vulnerability which could allow an attacker to examine files on a system, or possibly even write files. The cause of the problem is the cURL (Client for URL) automatic redirection feature.

Indiana University has released open source software, called Variations, that allows you to create a digital music library system. College and university libraries may digitize audio and musical scores to provide to their users in an interactive, online environment, including streaming audio and scanned score images.

The most exciting bit of kit I've played with in ages isn't a cutting edge graphics card, or a multimedia tablet. It's a netbook - a Samsung NC-10 with a bog standard Atom chip, a bit of RAM and an ancient operating system. It isn't just a great bit of kit, though. It's the canary in the coalmine, chirping that the tech industry has completely lost touch with reality - and that it's caught us in its Reality Distortion Field.

Have you ever come across a situation where you wanted to convert a video from one format to another in your Linux machine and you have absolutely no idea how to do it? What about playing DVD on Ubuntu or rip your favorite VCD to mpeg file? Below, I have come up with a great list of software that you can use to handle your video/audio files in Linux. All the software listed are compatible with any of the Linux distros out there. The installation instructions and screenshots are based on Ubuntu, so if you are on a different distro, you will have to change the command accordingly.

A new industry alliance, Genivi, has been launched and aims to bring open source to "In-Vehicle Infotainment". Genivi, a non-profit organisation, has been founded by car makers BMW, General Motors and Peugeot Citroën, component makers Delphi, Magneti Marelli and Visteon, CPU maker Intel and embedded systems developer Wind River. It plans to work on a Linux based, open source reference platform that can be incorporated into vehicles.

In Torture-Testing Phoenix HyperSpace, the Linux-Based Instant-On OS, we learned a bit about Phoenix HyperSpace, the Linux-based "instant on" operating system. We learned that Phoenix is positioning it as a fast, safe, secure, energy-efficient environment for mobile workers that should meet most of their computing needs, making a trip into Windows an occasional foray rather than a daily necessity. I've been spending some quality time with it on a Lenovo S10 IdeaPad, and today you get to hear all about my adventures with it.

Looking for a Web-based content management system that uses Perl instead of PHP? Want to server dynamic and static content with PostrgeSQL, not MySQL? What started out as a hobby project by Hendrik Van Belleghem, based in Bazel, Belgium, has grown into Spine – a Perl Web content system for Apache on Unix systems. With so many LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) content systems available, Spine offers a refreshing alternative with the tried and tested Perl language and is database independent. Open Source Identity interviews Van Belleghem about Spine, a lesser-known alternative to the popular Web CMSs.

As companies grow, merge and scale up, the systems they use for various enterprise tasks become tangled and mixed. They may also age very poorly. Replacing them with newer, more efficient, better-supported systems is no small task, especially when they're so tightly intertwined. Not doing so, however, can make for a difficult-to-manage, insecure system.

The DOHCS 2009 conference has come and gone, and it was a tremendous success exceeding even our own lofty expectations. With nearly 300 attendees we greatly appreciated the interest in the speakers and their outstanding presentations. We are already in planning for DOHCS 2010 and hope to see you there. Below are the presentations and audio from DOHCS 2009, please note that the audio has some problems including volume in sections (particularly Q&A) that we are aware of and unfortunately cannot resolve. MP3 files are approximately 30-55MB .

What's the best Linux distribution? It's one of the most commonly asked questions from people who are new to Linux. The answer? Well, there isn't really a simple answer.

Software Tree has filed a lawsuit against Red Hat claiming the Linux distribution and open source middleware manufacturer has infringed upon one of its patents. The patent at the heart of the case is 6,163,776, System and method for exchanging data and commands between an object oriented system and a relation system.

Well, the nightmare part has kicked in. Bear with me, folks, because I'm going into some detail so others may learn from my pain. The other night I was up until past 3 a.m. trying to get the Linux machine to access shared folders on the Win 98 machine. At least I found out that many, many other Linux users faced the same problem. Even better news, thanks to somebody named Rafal and his "LANMAN fix," I got it to work. More on that later.

[Linux newbie doesn't like bad grammar in the documentation and things that are different. - Scott]