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Your a Linux user and you want to convert videos from DVD to iPhone or convert video files in flash format to stream online, what are you choices? A few years back you were stuck with command line only utilities like FFmpeg, which works great but doesn’t offer the ease of use found in GUI applications. Now with the popularity of Linux, you have 3 great GUI applications that can easily handle all your video converting needs.

If only the machines could fix themselves and everyone knew how to use Linux... oh, yeah. I'd be out of a job ;)

Almost two years ago, your editor sat on an Open Source Business Conference panel with Microsoft's Sam Ramji, who made the point that Microsoft had only launched patent infringement lawsuits twice in its existence. Given that, worries about the Microsoft/Novell patent deal were, in his opinion, misplaced. Last week, it was revealed that the count has gone up to three: Microsoft has filed a lawsuit against TomTom, a maker of Linux-based navigation devices. There is much speculation and uncertainty on the net as to just what this action means. Your editor means to add to it by saying that Microsoft's intentions would appear to be relatively clear.

OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte has revealed that the project could switch to ARM processors for its next-gen XO laptop. This move is odd in light of the organization's increasingly Microsoft-centric software strategy, but Negroponte says he is hopeful that Microsoft will port Windows XP to ARM.

This happy meeting of GNU and Linux is why Richard Stallman insists that the proper name is GNU/Linux, rather than plain old Linux. Another popular debating point is "Linux is a kernel, not an operating system!" What would FOSS be without arguments?

Truth be told. I started using GNU/Linux as early as 2002 with Red Hat 7.3. I was coming off of FreeBSD at the time, so I had some experience with a UNIX-like operating system. So when I say “a trip down memory lane”, from experience I can only go as far back sd the Linux kernel 2.4.18-3, which was the kernel in the release candidate of Red Hat 7.3.

A group called The Open ISES Project (openises.sourceforge.net) created an open source medical dispatch system called Cards 911, a document for use by emergency dispatchers. It gave them a script to follow when an emergency call came in. The answers would lead the dispatcher to different parts of the document using hyperlinks. The entire document was created in OpenOffice Writer. This was a document with hyperlinks in it that helped a dispatcher help the caller as quickly as possible. It was open source and available for free. Lawyers for a company called Priority Dispatch Corporation sent a legal nastygram listing out ten patents that the company held, which the lawyers implied the Cards 911 project violated. The lawyers demanded that all physical and electronic copies of the documents be destroyed.

Computers are not intuitive. Computers are abstract, and trying to tie abstract concepts like directories, files, and interfaces to paper folders and files, and physical desktops creates more confusion. I prefer a direct approach: show me. Which "Ubuntu For Non-Geeks, 3rd Edition: A Pain-Free, Project-Based, Get-Things-Done Guidebook" does in a most excellent fashion.

Go to the Fedora Project Wiki and search for "uninstall Fedora." You won't find anything. Try "remove Fedora." Nothing. Go to Ubuntu's official documentation site and search for "uninstall Ubuntu." You won't find anything in the "official" documentation but in the "community" section you find two entries that state "Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu...." In an installed Ubuntu distribution, clicking on Help and searching for uninstalling or removing Ubuntu finds nothing. A link “repeat the search online at the Ubuntu help pages” brings up a 404 – page not found. If you look hard enough on the real community support pages you'll find a post from July 2007 titled "HowTo: Remove Ubuntu (& Restore Windows)" .

Novell has found a creative way to put Netbooks and SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 in the hands of IT managers and channel partners — even with Microsoft sitting in the same room. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.

While Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) is not a full-fledged open source company today, the company argues that it is making "open" efforts for its Web technology -- and it sees active participation in the broader open source ecosystem a key way to spread its offerings. "It's a changing mindset -- the company understands the value of releasing specifications and moving to standards," McAllister said. "We're beginning to really understand the value in using open source in growing the developer ecosystem. But it's an ongoing process."

In so many ways, Linux gives us an embarrassment of riches, such as a multitude of desktop environments to suit all tastes and purposes. Bruce Byfield reports that the latest release of Xfce (4.6) delivers a high level of polish and usability, without lard, that makes it a worthy alternative to the popular KDE and Gnome desktops.

Microsoft Corp. is facing increasing pressure to bring its mainstream Windows operating system to the ARM mobile CPU. But analysts say the company should take a different route. Nicholas Negroponte, head of the One Laptop Per Child Association Inc. (OLPC), said Wednesday that "like many, we are urging" Microsoft to support the ARM processor already used in several billion cell phones and which the OLPC, as well as others, plans to use in the next version of its children's laptop. The week before, Warren East, CEO of ARM Holdings, the designer of the CPU, said that with 10 ARM-based netbooks likely to hit stores by year's end, Microsoft is in danger of missing out.

A report on the Open Source Observatory and Repository Europe (OSOR.EU) web site, says that, according to Lieutenant-Colonel Xavier Guimard, the French Gendarmerie's gradual migration to a complete open source desktop and web applications has saved millions of euros. The Lieutenant-Colonel, says "This year the IT budget will be reduced by 70 percent. This will not affect our IT systems."

An interview with Daniel Albuschat, member of Firebird community , It's all about arora browser , lisp , c++, qt, overclocking, and the firebird database.

Ubuntu Podcast #21 covers the need for 9.04 countdown banners by end of March, LoCo Teams Meeting, new Xfce 4.6 in Xubuntu 9.04, Jaunty encrypted home directories, Phoronix test suite to be in 9.04 repositories, Ubuntu derivative Qimo 4 Kids, and X.org

The simplest alternative would be for Mozilla to sell Firefox's default search space to someone else. "There are probably other search engines that would pay us more money," Baker says. Yahoo! (YHOO) and Microsoft's MSN, Google's two main search rivals, come to mind, but Baker says smaller search engines wouldn't be discounted should such a situation arise. Firefox's valuable real estate would likely fetch a premium from any contender seeking a quick way to gain ground on Google. One player Baker won't identify "offered a blank check to replace Google," she says. She notes it wasn't Microsoft.

Here is the tutorial and tips needed for running Ruby on Rails on Firebird. Migrations doesn’t work yet with Ruby on Rails and Firebird but you can use Flamerobin to create the database tables by hand

The ATI FireGL graphics cards have been a staple of the workstation graphics scene for about a decade, but last year AMD made the decision to end the FireGL series and create the FirePro 3D series in its place. The FirePro 3D series is now made up of graphics cards ranging in price from under $100 USD and built using their RV730 GPU to their highest-end models costing well over $1,000 and using the RV770XT graphics processor. The ATI RV770XT is what is used by the consumer-grade Radeon HD 4870, which was greeted by same-day Linux support and other firsts for their Linux Catalyst driver like OverDrive, RandR 1.2 support, and CrossFire. The support for the new FirePro graphics cards is also first-rate under Linux with their Catalyst driver, but how is their performance? In this article we are examining the ATI FirePro V8700 1GB workstation graphics card under Linux.

The Linux release candidate 2 kits for Firebird 2.1.2 have been released for field testing. Feedback to the firebird-devel list please; bug-reports to the Tracker.