Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

In 2005, two former Merrill Lynch techies, young and living large in New York City, left their jobs to start a company based on their favorite pastime: playing with yo-yos. YoYoNation is more than just an online retailer -- it is a community for all things yo-yo, with a mission to make New York the "center of the yo-yo universe." This particular universe runs on open source software.

When the data corruption bug which is fixed as of 2.6.20-rc3 [story] was still being tracked down [story], it was thought that the bug, a race in shared mmap'ed page writeback, might have been in the 2.6 kernel for a very long time. It has since been determined that the bug was introduced much more recently. Nick Piggin [interview] explains, "this bug was only introduced in 2.6.19, due to a change that caused pte dirty bits to be discarded without a subsequent set_page_dirty() (nowhere else in the kernel should have done this)."

The basic idea behind Mac OS X's Dock is that when you need an application, you click on its icon on an on-screen bar, and the application is launched (if it has not been yet) or switched to (if it has). Stefano Zingarini has borrowed this concept for KXDocker, a KDE variation of OS X's Dock (which is also usable with GNOME and other desktop environments).

Sessions are 1 hour in length. In the past the most popular format has been 45 minutes of presentation, 15 minutes for Q&A. Some of the best sessions last year were the sessions that were purely Q&A, or involved/encouraged heavy audience participation.

Lately, I've been pining for the simplicity of a text email client. Though Sylpheed has been a reliable workhorse, I decided to survey today's text email clients to see if I should go back to reading email in an xterm. I tested Pine, Cone, Mutt, and nmh to see if any of them were up to the task. For my use, Mutt came out on top, but Pine is also a reasonable alternative if you don't mind the licensing.

Digium has released the second beta of a "software appliance" version of Asterisk, the open source IP PBX (Internet protocol private branch exchange) it maintains. The GPL-licensed AsteriskNow appliance sports a web-based config/admin GUI, and comes with a complete Linux environment with several installation options.

Does using Google Search for malicious purposes affect the application of their “Don’t Be Evil” motto even if the negative activity isn’t actually their fault? Should Google restrict some of their search command capabilities if the results are being used to attack other sites?

The December 20 LWN Kernel Page contained an article about a file corruption bug generally (but not exclusively) seen with ext3 filesystems. Certain applications which have unusual patterns of access to memory-mapped files could, at times, see gaps where data had not made it all the way to the disk. The rtorrent tool was one such application; other test cases were found (and developed) as the hunt for this problem intensified. The problem is now solved, but it offers some interesting lessons on how this kind of subtle bug can come about - and how to get it fixed.

Known by the code name "Sugar," the open-source user interface publicly announced today was developed by OLPC with Linux distribution vendor Red Hat Inc. and design firm Pentagram Design Inc. The organizations' combined 10-person design team focused on creating a user interface that could be easily used by children with little or no computing experience.

Looks like the Mozilla folks are working on turning Firefox from HTML renderer to information broker. Using technology called "microformats," the browser would be able to link content in Web pages to the appropriate application on the client. Users would be able to click to add contact information on a Web page to their address book, or an appointment to their calendar, or translate an address to their favorite map. We can already do some of this now; Alex Faaborg, a user experience designer at Mozilla, describes how the tools will become much more powerful in Firefox 3.

A commercial Linux bootloader and open source Linux distribution will be offered for Microsoft's Zune multimedia player, according to forum posts at Zuneboards.com by a "Mys Videl" user. The posts generated considerable discussion, much of it questioning whether the port might be a hoax.

Today, you can do everything you want with a Linux desktop, except play the latest games. Even there, Linux is catching up. So, why do only a handful of people run Linux instead of Windows? Here are my top-four reasons why Windows wins and Linux loses.

The state of Tamil Nadu, home to a population the size of the UK, is in the process of deploying 32,600 Linux desktop systems and training 30,000 government officials. Forty-three open source-based servers are also on the way to support key Government applications.

REAL Software has said that REALbasic 2007 Release 1 is now shipping. In addition to improved reliability for building Universal Binary applications, REALbasic 2007 Release 1 improves support for MySQL, PostreSQL and ODBC compliant databases, such as Microsoft SQL Server. This release also improves support for QuickTime and making network connections via proxy servers.

Columnist Eric A. Hall was looking for a Linux distro that combines stability with the capabilities needed to test bleeding-edge technology. After a long search, he found that openSUSE 10.2 was up to the job.

The ImageMagick (IM) suite of command-line graphics tools is a free software staple; Linux, other Unix-like operating systems, and proprietary OSes like Windows have supported IM for close to two decades. But there is also an alternative tool called GraphicsMagick (GM) that covers much of the same functionality. How do you know which one is right for you?

LinuxQuestions.org has just launched the voting for its 2006 Members' Choice Awards. The awards enable Linux community members to select their favorite products of the year in 21 categories, including distribution, browser, office suite, desktop environment, and database, a spokesman for the website said.

The code for the Falcon Storage Engine for MySQL has been released as open source. Jim Starkey, known as the father of Interbase, is behind its creation; previously he was involved with the Firebird SQL database project. Falcon looks to be the long-awaited open source storage engine that may become the primary choice for MySQL, and along the way offer some innovation and performance improvements over current alternatives.

Firefox and Google have enjoyed a quaint partnership as of late. The search engine giant has helped sponsor the development of the increasingly popular web browser, and in return Firefox has embedded Google as the default search engine and start page in the application.

Distro founder and chief maintainer Barry Kauler on Tuesday announced the release of Puppy Linux 2.13, featuring a 2.6.18 kernel and the GNOME desktop environment. The build also includes "the complete suite of kernel drivers," according to Kauler.