Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

I love software — really I do. I love to create stuff. Some of my favorite words to hear are: "Would it be possible to…?" The answer to this oft-spoken query is usually something between: "Why would you want to do that?" and "Of course, let’s see it in action." I love the "Get it done" aspect to writing software. Creating proto-types to test out an idea is arguably my favorite thing to do professionally. Production code is OK — if you can make a living writing it. It tends to get boring very quickly. If the code can be written well, that is great too. And if the code is easily maintained over time, that is even better. And usually, my code is. Except for the spurious comment that just says: // punt

Mozilla's John Lilly has announced that, after nearly 5 years at Mozilla, he will be stepping down as CEO and leaving the company later this year. Lilly says that he is "incredibly proud of the work we’ve done over the last several years, and very optimistic about what the future holds," adding that he still intends to stay involved with the non-profit organisation and on the Board of Directors. After leaving Mozilla he says that he will be joining Greylock Partners as a venture partner.

Learn how to install, upgrade, and manage packages on your Linux® system. This article focuses on the Advanced Packaging Tool, or APT, which is the package management system used by Debian and distributions derived from Debian, such as Ubuntu. You can use the material in this article to study for the LPI 101 exam for Linux system administrator certification, or just to explore the best ways to add new software and keep your system current.

Intel has a new 48-core experimental processor. I want to discuss the technology, but first I need to rant a bit. The PR contrived headline calls it a “Single-chip Cloud Computer.” Arrgh, they are even using an acronym calling it the SCC chip. Where to begin? First, when this project was started, I doubt the hardware engineers at Intel said, “Hey let’s build a processor for the cloud. You know that nebulous concept that is years away.” Second, I am sure they have good technical reasons for designing this chip, but sorry Intel PR geniuses I doubt it was for “The Cloud.” Yes, “The Cloud,” that vague but ever so trendy name for timeshare/grid/Internet-computing that gets tacked on to every technology news story I read.

Just about everyone loves a good looking abstract desktop background, but not everyone agrees on exactly what defines “good looking”. There are dozens of websites that specialize in these types of images, but you have to sift through hundreds, sometimes thousands, to find one you really like. Sometimes, after all the searching, the one you like is not in the right size or has a huge watermark or other such problems. Wouldn’t it be great if you could quickly and easily create your own image, with your own color scheme, at whatever size you choose, all in about 5 minutes? You can, and as usual, it’s Gimp to the rescue.

The NPD Group says U.S. sales of Android smartphones have surpassed Apple's iPhone to take the second spot behind Research in Motion (RIM), with 28 percent of the market. Meanwhile, Sprint has joined Verizon in turning its back on Google's Nexus One, says eWEEK.

Mozilla Drumbeat and the Shuttleworth Foundation have announced a joint fellowship focused on ‘education for the open web’. According to a post on the Commonspace blog by Mark Surman, executive director of the Mozilla Foundation and former open philanthropy fellow at the Shuttleworth Foundation, the aim of the fellowship "is to find someone with solid, scalable and fresh ideas on how open learning and the open web intertwine."

Last week we reported that the open-source ATI Linux driver had picked up improved power management in the form of dynamic power management and power management profiles that can be defined by the end-user. With the ATI Linux power management finally coming to fruition within the Linux kernel for its kernel mode-setting / DRM driver, we have decided to take a close look at how this power management support is working in the real world.

What are you to do when you don't want a giant glitzy desktop environment for your Linux system like KDE or GNOME, but just want something lightweight with essential functionality? Try on some of the many excellent lightweight Linux window managers. In this final segment of her excellent Lightweight Linux series, Juliet Kemp reviews Awesome, fvwm, and Ratpoison.

Whether you root for Google or Apple, it's a heck of a horse race as Android beat the iPhone in first quarter U.S. sales, according to the NPD Group. Android sales accounted for 28 percent of smartphone sales last quarter, NPD reports. That puts Android ahead of the iPhone's 21 percent, and within striking distance of Research in Motion's BlackBerry, which took 36 percent. It's worth noting that while Android had a great quarter, it still lags behind RIM, Apple and even Windows Mobile for total market share, according to recent statistics from ComScore. Google's operating system had 9 percent of the market as of February 2010, compared with the iPhone's 25.4 percent, so Android won't catch up for a while, if at all.

Lately I have been hearing criticism about embedded Linux and how fragmentation, as represented by the many flourishing Linux projects such as Meego, Android and webOS, is bad and dangerous for Linux; these critics suggest that fragmentation will hinder Linux’ ability to compete with companies like Microsoft and Apple. I disagree, which is not surprising. But the market and marketing strategists also disagree. Citing the familiar ogre of fragmentation shows a limited view of the Linux economy. The Linux platform is both fragmented and unified.

Your editor recently had cause to dig around in the cpuidle subsystem. It never makes sense to let such work go to only a single purpose when it could be applied toward the creation of a kernel-page article. So, what follows is a multi-level discussion of cpuidle, what it's for, and how it works. Doing nothing, it turns out, is more complicated than one might think.

Last week you learned the basics of using Access Control Lists (ACLs) and the command associated with them: getfacl, setfacl and chacl. This week you’ll learn that protecting the rights of your users is as important as protecting your users from themselves. You’ll also learn the effects of changes to user’s rights. Managing users and permissions is a full-time job. That’s why your job as System Administrator (SA) exists. Your job is to keep the system running smoothly for the system’s users. That includes patching, file maintenance, performance measurement, capacity planning and user maintenance.

So you just finished installing the latest version of Ubuntu (or any Linux distribution) on your main machine, and you need to do some simple graphics work. Maybe you need to crop some photos or take out some sensitive information in a screen capture. Maybe you want to create a simple logo for your website or create a freehand drawing. If you open up the Applications menu and click on Graphics you won't find much. In fact, you won't find a tool that would let you do all of the tasks just mentioned.

This week's column has been written a little more slowly than normal because on Wednesday, I tripped over the dog and broke my left thumb. Under strict instructions to keep it elevated, and concerned not to put too much strain on the remaining good hand, I went looking for resources for one-handed keyboard operation. Here are a few useful links in case you are ever in the same position!

Welcome to my new ComputerWorldUK blog, where I'll aim to bring you regular dispatches from the front lines of the free and open source software revolution. Starting out with news seems smart, so I'll use this post to announce my new job. Throughout the five years I spent as the chief open source officer for Sun Microsystems, I had the great pleasure of liberating the source code behind many great products. During my tenure Sun open sourced the Java platform, Solaris Unix, the UltraSPARC processor and much more.

There's always something noteworthy happening in Linux audio development. This week's news includes reports about a new Linux audio blog, music made by particle acceleration, how to use a laptop as a virtual music stand, synth emulation from the terminal command prompt, and watching the Linux Audio Conference on-line.

LXer Feature: 10-May-2010

In the Roundup this week we have a Faster and better Chrome 5 as well as 5 things you didn’t know VLC could do, Why rejecting Microsoft’s OSS contributions is counter-productive, Upgrading your distro should come with a warning and more. Enjoy!

Last week we delivered the first of our Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu 10.04 benchmarks to much anticipation, but now we have the results for Apple's Mac OS X 10.6.3 operating system to tack in too. In the first part of that Windows 7 vs. Ubuntu Linux performance examination, we looked closely at the OpenGL gaming performance across six different systems and a whole slew of tests. More articles are on the way looking at the performance and later in the week we already delivered some initial disk benchmarks. However, now it is time to see how Microsoft Windows 7 Professional x64, Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, and Apple Mac OS X 10.6.3 compete with one another.

If you have been wondering: What's all the fuss about VistA? Where can I learn more about VistA? Who is the VistA Community? Can I use VistA in my hospital, clinic etc? How can I contribute to the improvement of VistA? Then plan on attending the 21st VistA Community Meeting, June 8 to 11, 2010 at George Mason University, Fairfax Virgina.