Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Yesterday's announcement of Microsoft and Nokia hooking up over Windows Phone 7 on Nokia's smart-phone has rattled the free software / Linux communities. There's more than 100 comments in our forums about this announcement and this isn't the only tech community where there are outraged customers and other parties disappointed in Nokia's decision. In particular, many are upset because with Nokia's decision it basically pushes the MeeGo Linux operating system and the Qt tool-kit to the back-seat.

LXer Feature: 13-Feb-2011

MPEG LA, the organisation which acts as a patent pool for many royalty bearing standards, including H.264 and MPEG2, has begun a search for patents which are considered "essential" to Google's open source and royalty free WebM/VP8 video codec. The move by MPEG LA is the first step in possibly creating a patent pool which would be able to demand royalties for the use of WebM/VP8.

Whether you are upgrading components for a system refresh, selling an old laptop on Craigslist, or recycling your desktop PC, there comes a time when you have to wipe a storage device in preparation for giving it to someone else. Chances are, you don't want whoever gets physical access to your old hard disk to have unfettered access to its contents: files, email, passwords, the embarrassingly-high frequency of Justin Beiber sites in your browsing history. You'll find several open source utilities for wiping away personal data — so this weekend, why not take stock of your options and put together a deep-clean routine?

The Android Market gets a much-needed updated and makes some important strides forward in how apps are distributed. For a couple of years now the Android app purchasing experience has been largely on-device as the web based “market” page was little more than a page with a handful of top-selling applications.

Version 1.0 of the Open Source Hardware Definition (OSHW definition), first initiated in July 2010, has now been published. Originally planned as a singular licence, the process expanded to cover a range of licences by creating a definition of what open source hardware is. The OSHW definition attempts to codify a definition for hardware that has a design made publicly available for others to study, modify, distribute, make or sell things based on that design.

Lubuntu is best known as a lightweight and speedy Linux distro, but when it comes to beauty and elegant, it is still lacking. Its default theme is rather plain and boring and its library of themes is limited too. Luckily, there are tons of beautiful themes out there that you can use and you can easily theme it up to make it the best looking distro out there. Here’s how:

Canonical published a database of 1,300 certified components for Ubuntu, said to enable ODMs to more quickly bring to market Ubuntu- or other Linux-based computers. Meanwhile, Canonical and Autonomic Resources announced an "ARC-P-UEC" cloud computing platform for the federal government based on Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud running on Dell Blade servers.

Lantronix announced a Linux-based wireless device server with IPv6 and extended temperature support. The PremierWave EN is built on a 400MHz Lantronix ARM9 processor, offers 64MB of RAM and 64MB of flash, provides dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n with extensive wireless security features, and includes USB, Ethernet, I2C, SPI, and serial connectivity.

Little Linux wall wart computers have a thousand and one uses. But what if you accidentally brick your little plug server? No worries, for Akkana Peck shows us how to un-brick them.

Yesterday, HP held a press conference where the company finally announced its plans for WebOS, its newly acquired operating system that happens to be based on Linux. The company is putting WebOS in a new tablet to compete with Apple's iPad, but WebOS is headed far beyond that, including becoming part of the brains behind HP's market-leading printers. That's yet another promising new market for a Linux-based OS, but HP's announcements are producing some desktop predictions that seem a bit lofty.

There are two great questions in life that people struggle to answer. The first is why we're here, and the second is why there are so many different Linux distributions. A Linux distribution, for the uninitiated, is the stack of software, configuration tools and desktop environments, all bound to the Linux kernel, that go together to make the entire operating system, which most of us call Linux.

I attended HP’s press conference this morning and Linux again took center stage as a major technology leader revealed the details of its mobile device strategy. HP announced two new WebOS phones and more importantly an impressive new tablet that is a clear contender against the iPad. While I don’t for one second underestimate Apple, that was not the most interesting part of the event for me.

Despite the appearance of updated roadmaps from the MeeGo developers, the future of MeeGo is shrouded in doubt. Both the Handset and "Netbook UX" (User eXperience) versions of MeeGo seem to be in trouble, according to reports.

With a little over two weeks left before the first-of-the-year Linux expo, the ninth annual Southern California Linux Expo is shaping up to set the tone for an outstanding Linux year in 2011.

To oldtime Linux server admins it seems quaint that in this new millennium, the year 2011 in the 21st century, there are still a considerable number of IT managers and staffers who think the world begins and ends with Microsoft Windows, with all the lardy, vulnerable application stack that goes with it, and the horrible customer-hostile pricing and End-User Licensing Agreements (EULA). The best thing I can say about a Windows IT infrastructure is you're paying top dollar for something that sort of works OK. Though it is without peer at fueling the World Wide Botnet.

There is only a month to go before the first KDE and Qt conference in India opens. The event will be headlined by three keynotes speakers talking on the effects of technology on culture, the law and what makes our community tick. Talks and workshops have been announced and registration is open for anyone planning to attend. Read on for details. read more

Geoff Huston is the Chief Scientist at the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre. His frank linux.conf.au 2011 keynote took a rather different tack than Vint Cerf's talk did the day before. According to Geoff, Vint is "a professional optimist." Geoff was not even slightly optimistic; he sees a difficult period coming for the net; unless things happen impossibly quickly, the open net that we often take for granted may be gone forevermore.

Systems software maker Novell has announced today a special deal for customers building clusters with its SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. If you cluster servers with the company's High Availability Extensions, you get those extensions for free.

Last week, I covered OfflineIMAP to sync IMAP for use with Mutt or other applications. Continuing with that theme, I want to talk about another tool I use with Mutt to handle the opposite problem -- actually pushing mail to an SMTP server. Let's take a look at msmtp.