Showing headlines posted by the_doctor

You know the drill. Over the last couple of years, each major and minor Ubuntu upgrade has been, well, boring. There's been little to report on, save for the constant droning of "When will we finally see Unity 8?" In fact, I can't remember the last time Ubuntu had an exciting upgrade to roll out. That, in and of itself, says a lot about where we are as consumers and technologists. We live very much in a show me something exciting state. When a company or platform has nothing exciting to offer in an upgrade, the product loses its appeal.

One of the longest-held beliefs is that the Linux desktop comes with invulnerable and foolproof security system.

Whenever someone asks me if a smartphone is truly secure, I find myself feeling vexed. On the one hand, anything that connects to the Internet could become a security concern. By the same token, if someone is aware of commonsense practices for avoiding data leakage and exploitation, then today's smartphones are very safe to use.

Windows 10 is a wonderful operating system. Every day, I boot a computer running Microsoft's latest operating system to get work done. On the surface, everything is peachy-keen. Sadly, under the hood, there are some legitimate privacy concerns. There is a bunch of information being sent to Microsoft, and you may not even know it. This has caused programs like the wonderful O&O ShutUp10 to be created.

Microsoft has built a Linux-based operating system for datacenter switches. Does this mean a Microsoft Linux distribution is just around the corner? Um... no.

Linux: For most people it’s just a pretty word to say. But for programmers its still a remarkably relevant operating system given that the Linux kernel, the part of the OS managing input/output requests, arrived on September 17, 1991. It was a big deal, the dawn of the open source age for the OS world.

On my Windows 10 machine, this is how I've come to start my day: I slowly open my laptop lid, cautiously peer at my screen and wonder what is no longer working like it did yesterday.

Cyanogen's CEO says the coming Cyanogen Android distribution will include MIcrosoft's Cortana built into the base OS platform.

Open-source software is especially trustworthy compared to closed-source software because you can see the source code of the program you’re running.

Every ten months or so, a small distribution starts with the goal of making Linux look more like Windows. Among the latest are ChaletOS and Apricity OS, which if nothing else look like thoughtful exercises in design. Yet after so many similar efforts, I have to wonder whether a Windows-like desktop will do a thing to encourage users to try Linux. Maybe the goal should be something different.

The man behind Popcorn Time, the popular and free BitTorrent-based video streaming platform, has decided to reveal his true identity in an interview with Norwegian website DN.no.

Should all academic software be released as open source by default? In this special guest feature, Neil Chue Hong (Software Sustainability Institute), Simon Hettrick (Software Sustainability Institute), Andrew Jones (@hpcnotes & NAG), and Daniel S. Katz (University of Chicago & Argonne National Laboratory) discuss the the role of open source software in publicly funded research.

One of the things that draws people to using Ubuntu is its package management. Despite upcoming changes to Ubuntu's software management, the current Debian package has been a large part of Ubuntu's success. One of the best parts about the Debian package management that Ubuntu provides is how easy it is to backup your software. In this article, I'll talk about some of the best techniques for backing up your software and how they differ from one another.

What happens when your Android device winds up getting bogged down with malware to the point where you can't get to the Google Play Store to remove said malware? Believe it or not, this happens. When it does, you're going to need to know how to boot Android into safe mode.

And then there's entries like Free POS Project. This is a free POS solution that offers more features than you'd expect at this price point.

After announcing that the Cinnamon 2.8 desktop environment will have a new visual workspace switcher applet, Clement Lefebvre, leader of the Linux Mint project, published details about some of the new features to be implemented in the next major release of the MATE desktop environment.

A Microsoft-commissioned report suggests one organisation could realise huge savings by moving from OpenOffice to Office 365. But how likely are others to see those benefits?

The short answer is no; the long answer is still no.

The problem, of course, is trusting a single third-party with this task. Turing Award winner Manuel Blum recently proposed a solution at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum that uses ID-based encryption but avoids the third-party password generator. Instead, this encryption is done mentally by the user.

Over the past few weeks, the fate of Ubuntu's Software Center has received a lot of press. There have been ample ravings about how the Software Center is about to vanish from the face of the Earth. In reality, it's not going anywhere yet. What is changing, however, will be the ability to submit new applications or updates to existing applications. In this article, I'll explain what this means and where things will likely go from here.