Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

The new, record breaking, Firefox 3 web browser is the fastest version of Firefox yet. But are you really getting the biggest bang for your buck (metaphorically speaking, because, of course, Firefox is free?) You can eke out a better disk and memory footprint and higher speeds by building it yourself from the original source code. I'll show you how, with genuine metrics to prove it.

Images are an important part of an attractive, eye-catching blog. Well-chosen images can highlight and capture the essence of your communication, helping your audience to better appreciate your message. Here are three WordPress extensions that help you gain more control over the photos and graphics you want to display on your blog. Image Manager lets you set default image sizes and borders and control other aspects of your photo and graphics collection. ImageManager works especially well if you like to include images with each blog post and need to keep them to less than a specific width in order to avoid breaking a template design.

A business version of Micro-Star International's (MSI) Wind mini-desktop PC should be available in Asia and Europe in July, as products are already in mass production, a company representative said Monday.

One of the perennial jibes about open source is that it never innovates. This conveniently forgets that the World Wide Web was released as free software (Tim Berners-Lee contemplated using the GNU GPL before he decided to release it into the public domain). Despite the ludicrousness of the accusation, it is nonetheless always good to have further counterexamples.

You've seen it too - a recent Linux convert, used to clicking on executable files to install software, is often shocked to discover that Linux distributions use dedicated package managers to install and remove applications. But with a large number of distributions and philosophies, which is the best tool on the market? And how do they differ in terms of usability and convenience? If you are a new Linux user then our article explaining the various package management options is a must-read. In the news section, openSUSE developers defend their inclusion of KDE 4 into the recently released openSUSE 11.0, Mandriva cancels the first alpha release of version 2009 due to problems with X.Org, Debian completes the security infrastructure for the upcoming release of Debian "Lenny", and Ubuntu unveils the first developers' build of the new MID edition for mobile Internet devices. Also in this issue: a link to an interview with Zenwalk's Jean-Philippe Guillemin, a review of the upcoming Acer Aspire One and a round-up of rescue live CDs based on Linux. All this and more in this week's DistroWatch Weekly - happy reading!

OK, I’ve now tried KDE 4.1. I’d been assured that it would be better than KDE 4.0x. It is. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I still find KDE 4.1 to be inferior to KDE 3.5x. KDE’s developers believe that KDE 4.1 “can fully replace KDE 3 for end users.” I don’t see it.

LXer Feature: 29-Jun-2008

In this week's Roundup we have a OLPC XO-1 spotted in a red enclosure and a possibly faked demo of XP an a OLPC as well, The MPAA says "We Don't Need No Stinking Evidence!", Linux developers petition for open Linux kernel drivers, No Vista Inside for Intel, Dear Microsoft, thanks for the help, Linux, Battle of the Titans - Mandriva vs openSUSE: The Rematch and Ten sticking points for new Ubuntu users.

The business of standardizing compression formats for audio and video files on the Internet is largely dominated by the big companies -- Adobe, Microsoft, etc. Some in the open source community are fighting vendor lock-in by creating superior formats. Now, if only users would adopt them.

Social networks are peppering the Internet with Facebook-like interactive features. Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is fast becoming the defacto programming tool for Web developers. But by itself, Ajax is a daunting challenge that requires demanding coding skills. Ajax toolkits offer Web developers a shortcut method to build in the convenient and useful features that visitors of Web 2.0 sites have come to expect. However, the toolkit concept is nothing new to programming. What's newer is the proliferation of Java-based toolkits to feed the social network phenomenon.

This will be a concise report regarding, the spamming of web forms by commercially driven criminal enterprises. I am forced to make this short, because my knowledge is second hand and incomplete. I have been consulting with an associate, who has been trying to counter a deluge of spam that is being thrown both into his and into his client's email. We are not in agreement as the probable path; I think it is through the form each time whereas he suspects a single pass followed by cloning the resultant emails. However, I have no access to the email or the internals of the site. He just wants the problem solved with minimum effort. Therefore, it is possible his answers are not accurate; I simply cannot be certain.

Resuming regular bi-monthly releases, the Wine development team released 1.1.0 and is now available.

On Monday, Orbitz Worldwide plans to announce the creation and release of two open-source projects, Extremely Reusable Monitoring API (ERMA) and Graphite. Though there were hints of these projects at JavaOne earlier this year, Monday's announcement will add significant context to the work Orbitz has done to create two highly compelling open-source projects, whose applicability extends far beyond the travel industry.

Motorola has quietly started shipping three new Linux-based "PDA" phones. Available now in China, and also approved by the FCC for use in the U.S., the MotoMing a1600 and a1800 are higher-end versions of the popular a1200, while the a810 adds a lower-end Ming model.

This quarter was all about constructing the fireworks of the future for Linux vendor Red Hat. You don't see much happening at the moment, but all the ingredients for a massive eruption are there. In its first quarter of fiscal 2009, Red Hat produced $0.08 of GAAP earnings per share on revenue of $156.6 million. That's a 32% sales increase over last year, while profits held steady. But the numbers don't tell the whole story here

After 18 months of widespread consultation with community and corporate interests, the third versions of the GNU General Public License (GPL) and GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) were released one year ago on 29 June 2007. In November, they were joined by the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL). Looking back at these licenses today, observers of free and open source software (FOSS) judge them a modest success, and credit them with continuing to educate people about free software.

Low-cost PC maker Everex this week said it had agreed to be acquired by systems integrator Newmarket Technology for an undisclosed sum. Newmarket said it will buy 75 percent of Everex's shares from parent company First International Computer, a Taiwan-based PC vendor. Everex is well-known for the Linux-based Cloudbook, an inexpensive ultraportable notebook computer like the Asus Eee PC, which it introduced earlier this year. In April, Everex announced Cloudbook Max, an ultraportable laptop that includes WiMax mobile broadband capabilities.

There is a local radio show here in Phoenix that is as cool as it gets. Its called The Gutsy Geeks Computer Show. Michael Cady, Nick Coons and Richard "Mr. Modem" Sherman host the show every Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. on 1310 KXAM here in Phoenix. This week's show features your humble Editor-in-Chief as a guest. I have been on the show several times before and have always had a great time.

Gutsy Geeks Computer Show

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On March 11 I decided to move away from using Microsoft Windows XP as my primary work operating system on my IBM-supplied Thinkpad T60p. I've offered progress reports on how I was getting along. Through all of this I kept a reduced Windows XP partition on the machine "just in case."

With Ubuntu, Canonical has had notable success in convincing people to switch from other platforms, but potential Ubuntu users are still running into trouble in several areas. Having spent some time on Canonical's forums, I've identified 10 points that seem to be common sticking points for new users -- that is, problems that have the potential to prevent a new user from adopting Ubuntu in the long term. These problems span the entire Ubuntu experience, but they all have two things in common: they are all serious enough to evoke the dreaded "I tried Linux but it didn't work" excuse, and they are all solvable.

Sometime back, I had a couple of encounters with OpenSUSE, the so-called community distribution which was started by Novell in 2005. Neither of them was exactly salutary. For example, in October last year, version 10.3 was released and my efforts to see what it was all about were frustrated to a large extent by the downloads themselves.