Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Fifty years ago scientists were restricted to the use of ink and graph paper to assess and compile their data. The first computer revolution of the seventies and eighties vastly enriched the possibilities. But the second revolution in computer technology that has taken place over the last decade has transformed the work of most scientific establishments.

Wind River is readying a vertical-market Linux distribution specifically for MIDs (mobile Internet devices). Wind River Linux Platform for Mobile Internet Devices is the company's second "Platform" product to target Intel's Atom processor, and its second developed in collaboration with Intel, it says.

In this article we will be covering all of the changes in and around the package management stack in the upcoming openSUSE 11.0. There have been a plethora of both visual and behind-the-scenes changes. We’ll also be talking to Duncan Mac-Vicar, YaST team lead, ZYpp and KDE developer, to find out a little more later.

Finland's Movial unveiled a Linux-based toolkit which enables software developers to use web-based technologies to program mobile user interfaces, aiming to cut development times. Movial is a small Helsinki-based software firm, which has mostly been working as a subcontractor for telecom operators.

For web developers, when it comes to debugging the web applications, tools like Firebug for Firefox, Safari Web Inspector and the recently introduced Opera Dragonfly can be handy and very useful. These kinds of tools offers the possibility to trace the DOM, verify the corresponding (computed) CSS, check network usage and resource loading performance, debug JavaScript, etc.

In April, Canonical had a major, Long Term Service (LTS) release of its Ubuntu Linux distribution, both for the desktop and the server, code-named Hardy Heron. There was quite a bit of hype on the Net about the new features and how good it was. I had also previously blogged about how I believed servers to be the entry point for Linux into the small and solo law firm, as it provides the ability to have a powerful, stable server for not a lot of money (especially since you can always retask as the server an older desktop machine in your office).

Linus Torvalds - a classic example of the love-it-or-hate-it type of person. Brilliant programmer, of course, and the father of one of the most extraordinary software projects in the world, but sometimes, he can be utterly arrogant any annoying, yet the other moment completely sensible and utterly spot-on in his statements. CBR listed the ten best Linus Torvalds quotes.

Nothing warms the cockles of a Linux lover's heart more than to hear that X or Y big company/city is migrating its desktops to the free operating system. And nothing can evoke more bitter insults than the reversal of any such decision.

This week, Canonical announced a reworked version of Ubuntu at the Computex trade show in Taiwan. The new Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) is specifically built for new so-called "netbooks" -- mini laptops with small screens geared towards Web browsing and built on Intel's new, low-power micro-architecture called Atom. The new version will allow users to access email, browse the Internet, and use instant messaging, and provide online access to music, photos, and videos, all in one small, affordable package.

KDE was very busy at LinuxTag this year. We were present with two main booths - Amarok and KDE - and a whole bunch of talks within our own track. Additionally, Aaron Seigo gave a well-received keynote on Wednesday, painting a vibrant vision of the desktop in a mobile world, and the direction KDE is heading in. Read on for a more detailed coverage of the event.

Open-source database vendor EnterpriseDB Corp. today said it has appointed a senior sales executive from Linux vendor Red Hat Inc. as its new CEO. Ed Boyajian will become president, CEO and a member of the board for Edison, N.J.-based EnterpriseDB, replacing co-founder Andy Astor, who will become executive vice president of business development.

Some people imagine that they could write a novel if only they had the right tool. StorYBook aims to be that tool, but falls short. The problem is not that StorYBook is poorly organized, or that its timeline and reports don't come in handy. Rather, the problem is that StorYBook has such a rigid structure that it is likely to fit only a minority of writers' plotting needs. For others, living with the rigidity and searching for ways around it is only likely to distract from planning and make it a chore rather than a creative thrill.

Last month, on the official Android discussion group, David "Lefty" Schlesinger posted a message that questioned the open sourciness of Google's fledgling mobile platform. And he was promptly muzzled by Google developer advocate Dan Morrill. "Now I'm moderated," says Lefty, an open source guru with Access, the Japan-based mobile software outfit. "I can't post anything unless Google approves it first." Granted, it wasn't the most diplomatic of messages. It actually quoted from The Reg. And Lefty had been floating such notes for quite awhile. In the end, he was probably muzzled for reasons that extend beyond his views on software development. But his story is still a nice metaphor for Google's relationship with certain parts of the open source community.

Ultimate Edition (UE) 1.8 is a remaster of Ubuntu Hardy Heron with custom software repositories and a distinctive theme. Its claim to fame over pure Ubuntu is convenience, due to preloaded updates and software. While the name might suggest that it is a huge upgrade over its progenitor, in reality its developers have not made many improvements besides application install scripts. Due to a distracting theme, a poorly built user interface, and an incredible lack of the convenience it claims to have, Ultimate Edition falls painfully short of ultimate.

Both of the big powerhouses in the digital SLR camera market -- Canon and Nikon -- make software with which you can control your camera from your PC through an attached USB cable. It is a nice tool for situations when manually triggering the shutter might cause shake (such as long exposures), or for automating multiple shots at timed intervals. But, naturally, the camera makers don't supply this software for free operating systems -- and just as naturally, the open source world has an answer. You can perform the same remote operation functions using gPhoto.

When the need arises to send email from the command line, many folks first think of the mail(1) command. A better choice might be the email program, which gives you the ability to send email to an SMTP server over SSL, offers MIME support including ability to attach one or more files to your emails, uses an address book to store your recipients, and lets you digitally sign and encrypt your messages.

Pentaho Corp., the commercial open source alternative for business intelligence (BI), today announced that its current version 2 alpha release of the Pentaho BI Platform, as well as future versions, will be distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2 (GPLv2). GPLv2 is a software license published by the Free Software Foundation. Pentaho will also provide a “FLOSS Exception”, which simplifies distribution of Pentaho BI Platform with certain other open source licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative (www.opensource.org). The Pentaho BI Platform is the underlying infrastructure that provides integration of Pentaho’s reporting, analysis, dashboard, data integration, and data mining capabilities into the Pentaho Open BI Suite.

Pia Waugh is a leading advocate for FLOSS in her home country, Australia, and all over the world. In addition to running a consultancy in partnership with her husband, she is the vice president of Linux Australia, the president of Software Freedom International (sponsor of the annual Software Freedom Day events), and on the board of directors of the OLPC Australia program. Perhaps because her activities are born out of a love for open source software, or maybe because her husband Jeff is also a major figure in global FLOSS, Waugh says the balance between work and life for her right now is "nonexistent. But we love what we do."

It all started in 1975 with a man named Will Crowther who wanted to create something for his daughters that tied together two of his loves: role playing games and cave exploration. The result was a game called "Adventure" (also sometimes called "Colossal Cave"). He wrote the game on the mainframe he used at work and while his daughters loved it, others who discovered the game did to, and they shared it far and wide. Stanford student Don Woods discovered the program on one of the university computers in 1976 and with Crowther's permission extended the Fortran original, adding more rooms and treasure.

While eBay was once seen solely as the world's garage sale, it is evolving into a general commerce marketplace, and that makes auction monitoring applications all the more useful. JBidwatcher, one of the best open source eBay utilities, has just released a major update. Let's take a look. JBidwatcher is the work of Morgan Schweers, who has overseen its development for close to eight years. It hasn't always been easy, though -- JBidwatcher 0.9 was released in 2003, but 1.0 didn't come until 2006. Since that time, only a few minor updates came down the pipe, usually to fix breakages when eBay changed its formatting or URI scheme.