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Adobe said last week it would introduce an open-source version of a tool for connecting data sources to Flash-based rich Internet applications. Adobe's announcement follows on from open-source plans for several of its other developer products.

Red Hat has launched a regionwide campaign in hopes of raising awareness of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5's virtualization capabilities. The campaign, Integrated Virtualization Inside, kicked off in Beijing Thursday, and will introduce RHEL 5's virtualization capabilities to customers through methods such as training courses.

One problem many people face is finding the right software for their needs. With the huge number of open-source applications avaliable, it can be hard to sort through them, unless software portals focus not just on installing software, but also on helping you find software.

Sun also has created a large batch conversion engine that converts supported documents into a PDF or ODF. Sun Microsystems is offering distributors and OEMs backline support for the OpenOffice.org productivity suite, which is a free alternative to its own branded StarOffice offering.

Thomas Howe is a telecommunications developer and consultant who is passionate about the role of open source software in the telephony industry. He calls open source the "next generation" of telecommunications, and works with large enterprise companies to help them design phone systems that fully integrate with their business flow. "Only open source can do that," Howe says.

BusyBox has just successfully settled its GPL ligitation against Xterasys. Xterasys has agreed to stop all binary distribution of BusyBox until the Software Freedom Law Center confirms that it has published complete source code on its web site. After that, Xterasys' "full rights to distribute BusyBox under the GPL will be reinstated." Xterasys has agreed to appoint an internal Open Source Compliance Officer and will pay an undisclosed amount to the BusyBox plaintiffs.

BBC iPlayer after a lot of complains, petitions, talks and discussions is finally available for GNU/Linux as beta. I took a look at what BBC has prepared and in general I have to say: good job!

There were a few things that immediately stood out about Pardus for me, though: it has its own package management system called PISI (Packages Installed Successfully, as Intended), it's pretty new on the already crowded Linux distro scene but not based on any other distro, and it contains some really interesting developments. LinuxPlanet welcomes review Dan Lynch with his look at this unique distribution.

In my article about theweb site for theGeek Ranch I suggested three tools that made sense for doing the site: Drupal, Joomla and Karrigell. Well, as usual, all I have to do is say "I will pick between X, Y and Z" and good old option W shows up. This time, it is named webgen.read more

High-end project management tools and low-end to-do utilities are a dime a dozen these days. But what if you need something less complicated than a full-blown project management application, but more flexible than a simple to-do list? In that case, give jWorkSheet (JWS) a try. This tiny Java-based tool offers basic project and task management features sprinkled with worksheet-like capabilities. The result is a simple yet functional tool for keeping track of your projects and tasks and the time you spend on them. It's especially useful if you bill per hour and a need a simple utility to track your time.

The VAR Guy spent most of 2007 blogging about open source start-ups and open source business models. As he looks ahead to 2008, The VAR Guy knows hundreds of open source software providers are seeking to catch on in the corporate market. Here are the top 10 open source providers and platforms that are set to succeed in 2008.

Self-hosting GNU/Linux distributions are one of our major interests here since we will be exploring that field as thoroughly as possible. They provide the entire building system for creating a GNU/Linux based platform on most architectures, tailored to suit particular needs. Among them we have various implementations of the same idea like Gentoo, T2, CLFS. The reason for it has little to do with "optimize your binaries for your cpu" scenario, which for various reasons may not always be the best way to go. Thing is, that within the GNU/Linux distribution world, such projects allow end users to tap into a much bigger control power over their platform.

A Step by Step tutorial showing how to install qemu with accelerator module kqemu on Ubuntu 7.10 desktop and then install Windows XP inside virtual machine created using qemu .

Mozilla Foundation, the organization behind the Firefox web browser, has defended itself against claims from sections of the Linux community that it has ignored Linux in the development of Firefox 3, the next generation of the browser. Mozilla's chief interface designer says Linux is very much included in the development project.

I installed Microsoft Office 2007 on a computer with Windows XP and then moved everything over to this box that has Linux on it.

The first thing we can say about the Linux desktop in 2007 is that there are more users than ever. The Linux Foundation 2006 survey had fewer than 10,000 people signing in. This year more than 20,000 Linux desktop users reported in. Who are these users? Most of them, 69.4 percent, work in small companies with one to 100 workers. To no surprise, many of them, 43.3 percent, are IT professionals or software developers, and most of them, 64.1 percent, have already deployed desktop Linux in the office.

Independent developers collaborating through the EeeUser.com web site have created a Xubuntu derivative—called eeeXubuntu—designed specifically for the Asus Eee PC. EeeXubuntu includes fully-integrated support for Eee PC hardware and has been modified so that it can be used more comfortably on the Eee PC's low-resolution display.

Whether you refer to online maps occasionally or on a daily basis, you can add several extensions to your Firefox browser to make Web-based mapping services even more useful.

I had been very happily using Mepis Linux full-time instead of Windows since September, 2006. Mepis is an extremely user-friendly distro that's based on Debian. But a growing feeling inside me made me want to see if I could successfully install and configure "unfriendly" Debian itself. A few days ago, I finally got up the courage to install Debian Etch KDE. And I documented every step along the way...

Sun has released a new open-source project as part of SwingLabs: PDF Renderer, "a 100% Java PDF Renderer and Viewer." PDF Renderer can parse the Portable Document Format (PDF) from a file and display it, as an AWT image, in a panel, or using any Graphics2D implementation. It has been released under the LGPL license, the same license used by the rest of SwingLabs.