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Google is making lots of Android- and Chrome-related news. But if you stop to really think about this conference you’ll see how Google is winning the hearts and minds of software developers and business partners. Here's how.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has said that only about 20 per cent of Google's employees are still using Microsoft Windows, and that all of those users are on Windows 7. He stressed, however, that he is not sure of the exact percentage.

Pinta, a "lightweight" open source raster image editor, turned 1.0 on April 27, offering Linux users another choice for simple image editing. Pinta is intended to be a clone of Paint.NET, the Windows-only raster editor written in .NET. As such, it uses Mono under the hood, but it gains the ability to run equally well on Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows. Is it a replacement for GIMP or Krita? That depends on what you need to do.

Google is rumoured to be set to announce a scheme where students can get a Chrome OS toting laptop for a $20 (£12) a month contract, mimicking the way in which many people get the latest mobile phones. According to Forbes, Google will announce the deal later in the day at its Google I/O conference, and the package will include Google Apps.

Ubuntu Natty has been out for almost two weeks. If you do not like the Unity interface, nor the classic Gnome, you could install KDE and give it a spin. We have covered KDE 4 several times and it is elegant and by far the best KDE distribution. Here’s how you can install KDE in Ubuntu Natty.

As you probably know after the gnome 3.0 release developers are back on releasing the second iteration of the ‘awesome’ desktop, gnome 3.2. There have been discussions going on in gnome development lists. One of the discussions is about including deja dup backup as default in gnome. This will help to create a unified experience from the start.

Engineers at Facebook have launched the Open Compute Project, a new initiative to share state-of-the-art plans for datacentre design. Rory MacDonald investigates…

Samsung and Acer will start selling the first Google Chrome OS notebooks starting June 15, priced from $349 to $499 but also available as part of monthly business/school subscriptions. The 12.1-inch Samsung Chromebook Series 5 and the 11.6-inch Acer Chromebook offer dual-core 1.66GHz Intel Atom N570 processors, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 16GB solid state disk, memory card reader, a webcam, USB, Wi-Fi, and optional 3G.

Apparently it's source-code delay week, as Google joins Apple in delaying the release of source code for open source licensed software. Except, unlike Apple, which promptly released the source code in question Monday afternoon, Google stated yesterday that it will not release the source code for Android 3.0 ("Honeycomb") until after the release of the next version of Android ("Ice Cream Sandwich").

A few days ago it rediscovered Fuduntu. Fuduntu, as a Fedora based distribution with good power management, seemed to fit my needs perfectly.

So Microsoft is buying Skype for $8.5 billion, its biggest deal ever. It's too soon to make a pronouncement on whether the purchase is an idiot move, a brilliant one or just something in between. All the geniuses who ripped the investors who bought Skype from eBay in 2009 don't look so smart now. But I will recount a bit of history that readers of "In the Plex" already know: It was almost Google who owned Skype.

(Sacramento, CA, USA: May 11, 2011) The Linux Professional Institute (LPI), the world's premier Linux certification organization (http://www.lpi.org), announced a new affiliate in Africa: LPI-East Africa. LPI-East Africa will promote LPI programs and certifications in the nations of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia and South Sudan.

The rm command can be used safely to remove files and directories in Linux, especially if you create an alias that will interactively ask about deletions.

Google on June 15 will launch Chromebook for Business, a hardware, software and cloud service that costs $28 per month. Google Chromebook for Business will include a Chrome OS notebook tied to Google's various cloud services. Is Google about to disrupt the traditional PC and notebook software markets? Here's the analysis live from the Google I/O conference in San Francisco.

Skype has been purchased by Microsoft, for $8.5 Billion. I have used Skype for years on Linux, even though Skype treated their Linux client as something like a red-headed step-child. Features like video chat were always included in the Linux client long after they were in the Windows version, bug fixes were slow, stuff like that. But, and here's the biggest thing: It worked.

Boxee released the second major update to the D-Link Boxee Box’s firmware today. The new v1.1 release adds a variety of content channels for both movies and shows, enhances the Linux-based device’s browser functionality, improves the consistency of its user interface, and squashes numerous bugs.

Timesys announced LinuxLink support for PMC-Sierra's MIPS-based WinPath3-SuperLite networking system on chip (SoC), a scaled-down version of the WinPath3. The company also announced a free Timesys University embedded Linux training series, starting with classes focusing on home automation with the Freescale i.MX51, medical devices employing the i.MX53, and internet radios using the Texas Instruments AM3517.

For me, using multiple browsers is part of my work style. On all of my computers, I switch among several browsers, and I keep finding reasons to come back to SeaMonkey. This latest version is a drastic retooling. Even though its innards are revved up with the Firefox engines, SeaMonkey still has its own personality and is not the Firefox browser.

When you lose your Internet connection is the fault of your ISP? Or is it a problem on your side of your connection? Here is how you find out using standard Linux networking tools, and avoid embarrassing tech support calls that conclude with "Yes, dear customer, you broke it your own self."

Remember how SCO told the court in SCO v. IBM that Linux wasn't ready for the enterprise until IBM got involved in the year 2000 and allegedly worked to make it "hardened" for the enterprise by donating code? It said that it wasn't until 2001, with version 2.4 of Linux, that Linux was ready for enterprise use. Linux, SCO said, was just a bicycle compared to UNIX, the luxury car, until IBM did all that. Not only is that chronology not true, I think I can show you evidence that SCO knew it was not true or could have and should have known. Just in case the case ramps up again in some form, I thought it would be good to add the evidence to our collection.