Showing all newswire headlines

After the success of BarCamp Cape Town, two more "unconferences" have sprung up on the South African horizon: BarCamp Johannesburg and BarCamp Durban.

The 451 Group, a New York-based technology-industry analyst company focused on the business of enterprise IT innovation, is introducing a first-of-its-kind service that investigates both user experiences and vendor strategies as enterprise customers begin to deploy open source software.

As an industry, hydrocarbon exploration and production operates in an increasingly challenging environment. The new challenges include more than high risk and high capital commitments, or declining fields and complex operations. Unconventional plays have become conventional, with fractured and/or tight porosity systems becoming commonplace. New environmental challenges require sophisticated and constrained operations.

How is the third version of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3) being written? Considering how much the revised license and its success or failure could affect the free and open source software communities, the question is almost as important as the final content. Yet, until now, the answer has been largely unknown.

Japan's largest mobile operator will power-up a 3.5G network next week, and launch a Linux-based phone capable of using it. The N902iX phone, supplied by NEC, offers features most U.S. and European users can only dream of -- such as 3.6Mbit/s peak download speeds.

Two groups involved in promoting software for mobile platforms, Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and the Linux Phone Standards Forum (LiPS) are joining forces to provide device makers and operators with an alternative to closed (proprietary) operating systems.

NVIDIA today has graced us with a new driver release and the big news is X.org 7.1 support. Let the party begin! (Yes, I realize ATI already released this and I thank ATI for probably pushing NVIDIA into working on this sooner.)

[It would be 'real' news if NVIdia would announce libre drivers. Oh well... - dcparris]

The State of Massachusetts has reaffirmed its commitment to begin using the OpenDocument Format by Jan. 1, 2007, a move that has been welcomed by the ODF Alliance.

In SQL terms, a trigger is "procedural code that is automatically executed in response to certain events on a particular table in a database" (Wikipedia). More simply, it is a stub of code that is automatically activated when a particular database event, such as an INSERT or DELETE, occurs.

AllPeers released a beta Thursday of what it called the most ambitious Firefox extension to date, a peer-to-peer application that would allow friends and family to share files and content between one another in a private setting.

Pure-play open-source software providers are being squeezed out of the enterprise market by increasingly complete offerings from application and OS providers, according to a report from The 451 Group's just-launched "Commercial Adoption of Open Source" (CAOS) service. The report's findings may be applicable to embedded Linux stack providers, as well.

OK, "easy" really isn't the word for heterogeneous network management. Still, with the right tools, managing Windows and Linux systems on a LAN can go from dragging blocks, to building a pyramid, to using wheels to move those massive stone blocks. Over at Linux-Watch's sister publication, eWEEK, we recently reviewed Centeris' Likewise Management Suite 2. This is a management program for Windows Server 2003 and W2K server managers who know how to snap an AD (Active Directory) whip, but aren't too clear on Linux management details.

The ability to install and create plug-ins is one of the most anticipated new features in the Apache Geronimo 1.1 release. This article introduces you to Geronimo plug-ins and shows you how to find them, install them, and create them yourself. Plug-ins open a new world of instant upgrades for Geronimo users. You can now download new applications and services and have them running on your Geronimo server within minutes.

On 24 August 2006 NVIDIA released a 64-bit Linux driver that got 1.0-7184 as serial number. The driver permits the use of some older graphics controllers under 64-bit Linux.

It’s the free software mantra that is doing the rounds in the state these days. When free software guru Richard Stallman came calling, he too supported the idea. The thoughts got louder with chief minister V S Achuthanandan, known for his stance against monopoly companies, coming out strongly in support of free software.

[This is just one of the articles I have been seeing about RMS's Tour of India. I think the timing of his Tour is right on the mark. - Scott]

Many users of the increasingly popular Ubuntu Linux distribution found themselves on Tuesday thrown back to mid-1990s, when a botched update to the graphical X Window subsystem brought them face-to-face with the command-line terminal.

Bigger and Badder! The Fifth Annual Southern California Linux Expo is coming! It will be February 10-11, 2007, at The Westin Los Angeles Airport

We've already learned from press accounts that Mass. will use plugins for those with disabilities, and that the January 2007 date for full implementation of ODF has slipped. Now we know what the new date is

A number of spammers have been evading filters like SpamAssassin (SA) recently by encoding their messages as images. SA already has a set of rules that are meant to combat image spam, but the more recent messages (typically for stock scams or pharmacy products) have been crafted to avoid them. This would indicate, once again, that spammers are using SA to pre-test their messages and are modifying them to get through. SA developers, however, are up to the challenge and two specific countermeasures have been released.

Dental-On-Line, a French company selling hardware and software for use in dentists' offices, offers full dental assistance suites and associated services. The twenty-first century dentist's office includes a computer with a touchscreen interface for displaying a patient's oral X-rays, photographs, medical history, treatment plans, and other information, all of which needs to be kept secure and backed up.