Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

It's been a long road, but Freemed-YiRC V1.00 has finally been released! Freemed-YiRC is an open source software project intended for use as a complete information system by child caring agencies.

Sun Microsystems is reaching out to scripters and developers on rivals' IDEs with enterprise tools and a migration program for its latest version of NetBeans. NetBeans 6.0, released Wednesday, targets Ruby and Ruby on Rails fans squarely with tools for code refactoring, debugging and deployment.

What has happened in the year since Sun Microsystems released the source code for Java? While end users might be starting to wonder, those most involved in the building of the free Java community describe a thriving community that, after one year, is still working hard to reinvent itself. Free Java projects that existed prior to Sun's announcement on November 13, 2006, are either integrating into the OpenJDK community or continuing to provide alternatives -- but with greater resources in code.

Some people are happy with their operating systems as installed. Others like to tinker. Still others—PC Magazine readers, often enough-need to dive under the hood and make those systems run exactly the way they want. Its all about control, and Linux gives you as much control as you can handle. The configuration tools in Ubuntu Linux provide a full range of customization choices. Some are cosmetic, of course, but others dig deep into system settings.

PostgreSQL is very sophisticated and powerful database server to use with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. However, many people argue that one of the features it lacks is the memory storage engine of MySQL. This storage engine is ideal for applications that process temporary data that is updated rarely but accessed many times. These applications use databases stored in memory to decrease the number of disc operations. An example of such an application is the web-based BitTorrent tracker.

Simon Phipps, Sun's chief open-source officer, calls the dispute with ex-employees a misunderstanding. A Sun Microsystems official said the company regrets an incident that has called Sun's commitment to open source into question and is working to reach an amicable solution.

For novices, functions are one of the most intimidating features of OpenOffice.org's Calc. Newcomers quickly learn that functions are a main feature of spreadsheets, but there are almost four hundred, and many require input that assume specialized knowledge. Nor are the often circular definitions of the Function Wizard much help: You are no better off for reading that the SKEW function "returns the skewness of a distribution," for example. However, Calc includes dozens of functions that anyone can use, the most basic of which create formulas for basic arithmetic or for evaluating numbers in a range of cells.

The Open Solutions Alliance says more open-source projects need to be built with good interoperability hooks. While commercial open-source solutions are being broadly adopted, there are obstacles slowing that adoption, particularly around interoperability, the Open Solutions Alliance has found.

About three years ago we had a look at how Gambas speeds database development. Now that Gambas 2.0 is being prepared for release, it's time to see what the new version can do now. One cool feature is its ability to create a chart.

The Linux Phone Standards Forum has released its first complete set of specifications for mobile Linux. Comprising members such as France Telecom, Texas Instruments, ARM, and Freescale, the Lips Forum is only one of several major industry consortia that want to use Linux on handsets in a relatively unified way. Open-source-based technology already powers many consumer mobiles, but there is no agreement on a single standard that suppliers can use.

Mandriva is the only Linux maker that offers a version of its distribution packaged with and designed to run off a USB stick. True, you can install virtually any Linux distro onto an external USB device, but Mandriva Flash 2008 offers you a complete solution, including a USB stick with pre-installed version of Mandriva Linux and a CD containing a few useful tools. It's a worthwhile package, though not without room for improvement.

Access has announced a potentially enormous win in Japan for its Linux-based software stack for phones and other mobile devices. The deal could see the Access Linux Platform (ALP) serving as a common OS platform for NEC, Panasonic, and Esteemo phones sold by NTT DoCoMo and other mobile carriers.

Firefox is a great browser, but you already knew that, right? Firefox's keywords facility can be used for a neat search trick. It is best used for a directed search engine that digs specific data-for example, a Bugzilla search, IMDb search, LXR search or Marcel/wine [url=searchhttp://www.wine-searcher.com,]searchhttp://www.wine-searcher.com,[/url] and so on.

The latest version of OpenOffice.org is now available using a browser with a single click of a mouse, with no download or installation process ('no install') of the productivity suite required. This new service by Ulteo offers many benefits for users of the productivity suite, and has been well received by early beta users across Windows, Linux and Mac operating systems.

The KDE Community is happy to announce the immediate availability of the second release candidate for KDE 4.0. This release candidate marks the last mile on the road to KDE 4.0. This release sees increasing participation from distributions, you can download packages for Debian, Kubuntu, Mandriva, openSUSE & Fedora or grab the live CDs from Kubuntu & openSUSE.

Red Hat Inc has postponed until January the launch of a new Linux software product for personal computers that would directly compete with Microsoft Corp's Windows operating system.

A Harvard study appearing in Health Affairs confirms what this Linux Medical News editorial entitled "RHIO's and the Illusion of Health IT Success" predicted in 2005:"...Electronic clinical data exchange promises substantial financial and societal benefits, but it is unclear whether and when it will become widespread. In early 2007 we surveyed 145 regional health information organizations (RHIOs), the U.S. entities working to establish data exchange. Nearly one in four was likely defunct. Only twenty efforts were of at least modest size and exchanging clinical data..." The 2005 Linux Medical News editorial gives hints as to why this might be. Kudos to the Harvard researchers for doing the heavy lifting.

Paldo Linux is a cross between a source-based and binary distribution. It installs as a binary system to provide a quick and easy desktop. Once it's running, users can either build packages from source as they would with Gentoo, or install binary packages, as is common with Debian, openSUSE, or Mandriva. Paldo's main features are an easy hard drive installer, GNOME desktop environment, and Upkg package management system. Stable version 1.12 was released last month. I found it to be one of the more interesting and promising distros to come along in a long time.

The GNOME Foundation is charged with several tasks, including serving as the official voice of the project, coordinating releases, deciding which projects fit under the GNOME umbrella, supporting events, and more. Once a year, a board of directors is chosen by the Foundation's members. This time around, there are ten candidates running for the seven available positions. This election may seem like another boring bureaucratic exercise, but its results are important: GNOME is the desktop used by a great many free software users, and it is the platform supported by the Free Software Foundation.

After releasing the multicore, multithreaded chip earlier this year, Sun plans to release the UltraSPARC T2's source code to the open-source community.