Showing all newswire headlines

A new, built-to-order PC with a pre-installed Linux distro may not sound like much fun to a hard-core, do-it-yourself Linux geek. But if you want a quick, easy, inexpensive way to get started with Linux, Systemax and Linspire have just the ticket. I recently took a hands-on look at the the companies' then-current offering: the Systemax Venture L335 Linspire PC. The system, which is available from Systemax subsidiary Tiger Direct carries a list price of $299.99, plus shipping and handling, in its basic configuration (see box). The system I ordered for review included some significant upgrades (see box), giving me a solid all-purpose PC for around $500, not including shipping charges.

The Fedora Project, a Red Hat-sponsored and community-supported open source project, today announced that the third Fedora User and Developer Conference (FUDCon) will take place on the second day of this years LinuxWorld in London on 6th October, 2005 at the Olympia Exhibition Centre. Following successful conferences of the Fedora Community in Boston in February and during Linux Tag in Karlsruhe, Germany in June this year, this third conference will further enable Fedora participants in the UK to exchange their views on various topics around the current state of the Fedora Project including infrastructure and development issues.

The disgruntled developers behind Mambo, an open-source software for publishing Web sites, have launched their own version of the project, called Joomla.

The leading Unix-on-Intel company is joining forces with open-source DBMS giant MySQL to bring the commercial version of MySQL to OpenServer. (ED: It doesn't look like a hoax, can this really be true?)

Google Desktop Search has taken the Windows community by storm. What about the real geeks that use Linux? Beagle comes to the rescue! An Open-source alternative, Beagle provides fast indexing and searching of all your files. Kevin of the LinuxForumsDOTorg Content Development team has used it, abused it and reviewed it. Read all about Beagle here!

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer vowed to "kill" Google in an expletitive-laced, chair-throwing tirade when a senior engineer told him he was leaving the company to go work for Google, the engineer claimed in court documents made public on Friday.

Tsync synchronizes multiple devices so that you never have to move data back and forth by hand,” said Anderson, a second-year Ph.D. student in Computer Science and Engineering at UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering. “And it’s all updated automatically.

While Novell Linux Desktop excels in the enterprise space and makes for a better corporate workstation, Xandros Desktop OS 3 Business Edition, a recommended product, empowers non-technical users by simplifying its installation and desktop tools. Ultimately, however, Test Center engineers recommend working with Novell over Xandros because of its wide variety of tools and strong channel presence. (Note: A good article about the Linux desktop -ED)

In the wake of Apple's decision to move from PowerPC to Intel, other vendors are stepping in to meet the Power demand.

Embedded Linux is all about the small, the stable, and the fast. The latest release from embedded powerhouse MontaVista, MontaVista Linux Pro 4.0, promises all three in its quest to provide Linux-based computing for devices everywhere.

Using a Thinkpad T21, I wound up doing the engineering I expect the maker of my Thinkpad to do. All the tools exist, now let's see if Lenovo will take the hint.

Here is a nice little two-part introduction to using MySQL as a backend for Linux system services, like Samba user authentication and mail servers. Covers the basics of creating a database, tables, finding, adding, deleting, and changing data. Also a good beginning general-purpose MySQL howto.

Massachusetts state government may stop using Microsoft Corp.'s popular Office software by 2007, unless the giant software company adopts a file format compatible with other software brands.

We have edited the announcement.

The Mozilla Quality weblog has requested help testing Litmus, a new Web-based Mozilla testing tool. Litmus guides users through a series of simple manual tests to check that the basic functionality of Mozilla products works correctly. The tool is designed to be used with recent nightly builds, enabling regressions to be found quickly.

I received an e-mail from Simon Romanski, director of information systems at Fulfillment America, asking about the nature of open source software and its intersection with commercialism. Open source software (the code) is free and open. You can pay for support, packaging, reliable distributions. If in what's called commercial open source, the code isn't all free, then should it be marketed as open source? It's a bit of a long story, so forgive the length.

Looking to consolidate servers? T-Systems swears by Linux on zSeries mainframes which the company says are easier to maintain with fewer staff and offer better performance than many other mainframe combinations.

Norway's best known IT export, DVD Jon, has hacked encryption coding in Microsoft's Windows Media Player, opening up content broadcast for the multimedia player to alternative devices on multiple platforms. Jon Lech Johansen has reverse engineered a proprietary algorithm, which is used to wrap Media Player NSC files and ostensibly protect them from hackers sniffing for the media's source IP address, port or stream format. He has also made a decoder available. Click Here

Before you can add a table to a MySQL database you first need to create the database itself. However, most hosting companies allow only one database per customer account and therefore you may not have this option. If this is the case, you can add a table to the existing database for your account. For those lucky few, here is the sql statement that you will use to create a new database. For the purpose of this tutorial, I created a new database called calendar. This database will hold the information or data about the activities listed on my calendar.

Linux PC enthusiasts may be tired of hearing about all the ways Microsoft PCs are taking over the living room. Having conquered most home offices and dens, Windows is now running such entertainment apps as MP3 players, CDs and DVDs with its XP Media Center Edition, complete with a PC-friendly remote control that’s similar to a cable TV or home electronics controller. But Linux can also play in the home entertainment arena, with help from a package called Linux Infrared Remote Control.