Showing all newswire headlines

Sometimes Firefox can become a real memory hog, especially if you keep it running for hours and have many tabs opened. In order to make Firefox a little more responsive and save some RAM memory, here are three tweaks I bumped into over time. Notice that most of these tips only free up some memory at the expense of (usually) loading speed for web pages. You won't make Firefox 10 times faster, but you will surely make it use less RAM.

It's just possible that Motorola might finally be getting over the Razr. However, it's highly questionable whether its plans to build an Android -- or several -- will be enough to hoist the company out of the deep well of red ink it's drowning in. Motorola's Q1 revenue slid by 28 percent compared with the year-ago quarter, and it posted a $231 million net loss.

I think the confusion that is rampant in all of this nostalgia for the old days illustrates a major problem with traditional journalism-- they're confusing the form with the function. The point of news reporting and journalism is not using up tons of paper and ink, it's the content.

Conventional wisdom says open source software providers are benefiting from the recession as businesses seek lower-cost IT solutions. But if open source is so darn hot, why are two major open source companies — GroundWork Open Source and SugarCRM — cutting prices and/or introducing lower-cost options? Here's the scoop.

The problem for netbooks is that most run Intel Corp.'s Atom N270 processor, which lacks Intel's VT hardware virtualization. The same goes for the N270's successor, the N280, which only recently began shipping. Lack of hardware virtualization support is also a problem for Intel's Atom CPUs for so-called net-top minidesktop PCs, the 230 and the dual-core 330.

When netbooks first came along, they almost all ran Linux. Microsoft, which was stuck with the resource pig known as Windows Vista, simply couldn't compete. So, reluctantly, Microsoft gave Windows XP Home a new lease on life and sold it below cost to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to kill the Linux desktop at the root. For this cost, Microsoft was successful, but now Microsoft is about to blow it by replacing XP Home with Windows 7 Starter Edition, which is crippleware by any other name.

Open Invention Network (OIN) announced that three of the eight patents cited in Microsoft's lawsuit against TomTom have been posted for prior art review by the Linux community. The evidence is being compiled to convince the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that the patents are invalid. Patent holding company OIN was established by IBM, Sony, Philips, Novell, and Red Hat back in 2005, and has since been joined by NEC. The company acquires patents and licenses them royalty-free to companies that agree not to enforce their own patents against Linux and "certain Linux-related applications," says OIN. In December, OIN launched its Linux Defenders portal, co-sponsored by the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) and the Linux Foundation (LF). The program is designed to make prior art more readily accessible to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) examiners, said OIN.

Build your technical skills and your professional network IBM's Linux and UNIX communities. With the debut of My developerWorks®, two little characters ("My") make a big difference: They take developerWorks from "just" the place where you find award-winning how-to content for developers and IT professionals to the place where you and your peers congregate to connect, share, and collaborate. Great content is just the beginning, and now it's time for you to take the next step: Create your professional profile and your custom home page on My developerWorks. Then find and connect with like-minded peers, and invite them into your My developerWorks network to share expertise and build groups for further interaction and collaboration.

The Open Invention Network is making good on its pledge to try to overturn the Linux-related patents that were contained in Microsoft's recently settled litigation against TomTomNV. OIN announced today that three patents in the lawsuit - including those the deal with the creation of long and short file names - have been named for prior art review on the Post-Issue Peer-to-Patent website linked to the Linux Defenders portal.

Ultraportable laptops – netbooks such as the Eee PC – are becoming increasingly popular. A computer that’s small enough to live permanently in your bag without giving you backache can be incredibly useful, especially as wireless connectivity and 3G hardware are growing in ubiquity. Netbooks aren’t just consigned to disposable web surfing, though – they can rely on cloud computing services to provide you with a host of additional functionality. If you’ve never heard of cloud computing before, the idea behind it is that you’re able to store and use your data online, rather than on a local computer. That may sound confusing, but for commonly used examples of online apps that save data to remote servers, you need look no further than Google’s range of apps. The upshot of this is that all you require is an internet connection to have access and control over all your data, regardless of where you are.

Mandriva has released the final version of Mandriva Linux Spring 2009. The new version offers KDE 4.2.2 as the default desktop, delivers up to 25 percent faster boots, supports additional netbooks, and provides enhanced networking and security tools, says the French software company.

A review of several different backup options for ubuntu/linux, and the pros and cons of the different options.

International Business Machines Corp., the world's biggest computer-services provider, increased its dividend by 10 percent to expand shareholder returns after scrapping a bid to buy Sun Microsystems Inc. The quarterly payout will rise 5 cents to 55 cents, IBM said today in a statement before its annual shareholder meeting in Miami Beach, Florida. The company also boosted its stock repurchase plan by $3 billion.

New technology doesn't wait for a 5 year release cycle. It just happens. Operating systems have to be ready for it, and, more importantly, flexible.

There has been some discussion in recent days in the Rails community about appropriate conference presentations, whether women feel welcome in the Rails community, and related issues....But unfortunately for me, in parallel to the public discussion there have been private ones. I can't reveal details without breaking confidences, but suffice it to say that a significant number of Rails core contributors - with leadership (if that's the right word) from DHH - apparently feel that being unwelcoming and "edgy" is not just acceptable, but laudable. The difference between their opinions and mine is so severe that I cannot in good conscience remain a public spokesman for Rails. So, effective immediately, I'm resigning my position with the Rails Activists.

[I commend you for why you are doing it Mike, speaks to your character fortitude. - Scott]

This guide explains how you can do a live migration of an LVM-based virtual machine (domU) from one Xen host to the other. I will use iSCSI to provide shared storage for the virtual machines in this tutorial. Both Xen hosts and the iSCSI target are running on Debian Lenny in this article.

Does Oracle+Sun spell dream come true or disaster for the open source movement? The blogosphere has been ringing with opinions left, right and center on the topic, and perhaps just one thing is certain: The times they are a-changing.

If you like me upgraded to ubuntu 9.04 jaunty jackalope changes are that you are confronted with a login screen at startup. Here's an easy way to get back your settings to login immediately. If you think this is a security risk, just read the article 10 ways of resetting a lost linux root password and think if you really need to protect against 4 year olds. If you really need security take appropriate measures. To me the login screen is only an annoyance. Here's how to remove it:

It's not the first time Microsoft has tried to wrestle away market share from free software using shady tactics. Suddenly, Microsoft seems to have discovered that education is strategic for their enterprise and they are pouring resources into cornering the market... at least in areas where Linux has the lead.

With the release this week of Fedora 11 Preview, which incorporates install-time support for the Btrfs file-system into Red Hat's Anaconda installer, we have now delivered our first set of benchmark results for this next-generation Linux file-system. Through a horde of disk tests we have looked at the Btrfs file-system performance and compared it to that of EXT3, EXT4, and XFS. While Btrfs does perform well in some areas, it is not yet the performance king for Linux file-systems. As our results show, in some tests it even has a hard time competing with the incremental EXT4 file-system.