Showing all newswire headlines

One category of computer software which often receives little attention is the world of the dictionary. Whilst this type of utility might not seem particularly interesting, dictionary software is an important tool for writers and students.

Watch your BIOS settings with dmdeicode and biosdecode. The Desktop Management Interface (DMI) generates a standard framework for managing and tracking components in a desktop, notebook or server components , by abstracting these components from the software that manages them. Modern mother boards are compatible with this standard. For a lay user it means that the BIOS settings can be watched from your OS. DMI standards are published by Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) into desktop-management standards. They also provide a related standard named SMBIOS (System Management BIOS).

By default, Ubuntu comes with a set of keyboard shortcut that you can use straightaway. However, some of these keyboard shortcuts might not be desirable, troublesome, or obstructive and disrupting your productivity. For example, if you have a keyboard with a media button, that button is automatically mapped to Rhythmbox. If your favorite media player is Banshee, or Exaile, you might want to change the keyboard shortcut to your favorite application.

ALSA 1.0.23 was released in April 2010 as a major update to the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, but it's finally been outdone by ALSA 1.0.24. The ALSA 1.0.24 update is also very significant and delivers on quite a number of sound card / audio processor driver improvements.

The Wine development release 1.3.13 is now available. The source is available now, Binary packages are in the process of being built, and will appear soon at their respective download locations.

Computer Lab International (CLI) released a new Ubuntu-based Linux operating system for its MT2300 and ST6800 thin clients, which use Via Eden C7 processors clocked to 500MHz and 1.6GHz, respectively. The OS features Firefox, the CLI Device Manager, plus support for RDP, Citrix ICA 11, host terminal emulations, VNC client/server, and VMWare View4, the company says.

According to Black Duck data, the number of AGPL projects grew 74% in 2010. The numbers and profiles of AGPL-licensed projects are becoming significant. Why is that?

Well, Christmas 2010 is over, and all the little tech toy devices have been connected, installed, and played with (or returned to the store from whence they came if they didn’t clear those hurdles). This year was an amazing success. Three major computer-linked devices worked on the first try without a hiccup. And I have to at least say a word or two about Mattel’s new Computer Engineer Barbie — a purchase I must admit was a little silly, but my daughter does play with it.

You will find many distributions dedicated to Enlightenment. One of those is the new Bodhi Linux. This distribution offers the E17 desktop on top of Ubuntu 10.04, so it melds a lightweight desktop on top of an efficient operating system. As you can expect, this distro is lean and mean.

Google finally released Google chrome 9 stable, 2 weeks later than it’s promised release-date. We have summarized top 5 must-try features in the new chrome!

IBM and Oracle have divvied up the leadership of OpenJDK – the leading open-source Java project – finally giving IBM the sort of Java control it spent ten years fighting Sun Microsystems for. The new bylaws for the OpenJDK community outline a governing board that consists of a chairman, vice chairman, OpenJDK lead, and two members at large. Oracle has given IBM the power to appoint the vice chairman, while Oracle will appoint the chairman and the OpenJDK lead.

Something that can be excessively difficult on many Linux systems is installing software on a computer without an internet connection. My question is this: Why is this headache necessary? Simple, it isn't!

This article lists various practical Linux commands to be used only as a reference guide and by experienced Linux users. Not all Linux commands will be available on your system by default so consider install a relevant package before use. This Practical Guide to Linux Commands may list Linux commands you may already know but cannot remember usage syntax as well as it may introduce some new Linux commands to improve your Linux command line efficiency. Note, this guide will not teach you how to use Linux commands since it relies on your experience to alter Linux commands syntax below to fit your needs.

I’ve had this handy countdown graphic on my Click blog for the past couple of weeks. Not that Debian is in the habit of setting release dates, but this particular image came about after the project itself announced that Feb. 5 or 6, 2011 would be the target date(s).

Soon after the release of LibreOffice 3.3, the Steering Committee posted their position on OOXML support in LibreOffice. Some of those that have tested the LibreOffice office suite knows that they can open and save in Microsoft Office formats. So, The Document Foundation supports OOXML then? Well, no, not really.

DebianSqueeze is not released yet but it is scheduled to be released the weekend of the 5th-6th of February. So it is a good time to plan squeeze release party in your country. Feel free to add your squeeze release party to this list to let others know about your local ReleaseParty to celebrate the event.

In an email, SCO today (Friday) informed its partners that UnXis Inc. was chosen as the successful bidder for SCO's Unix software business on 26 January. The slightly convoluted phrasing is probably due to SCO's current reorganisation under Chapter 11. On 16 February, the transaction is to be submitted for approval to the bankruptcy court where SCO's case is pending. The email also quotes Hans Bayer, SCO's Vice President Worldwide Sales, as saying that “We are delighted that after years of shifting targets, that under the UnXis ownership, we now will be prepared to create a truly customer driven, fully supported, open systems platform for high reliability enterprise computing”.

The news comes from yesterday's Xubuntu Community Team meeting which also reveals that LightDM is considered to replace GDM (not decided for now). gMusicBrowser will probably use the Shimmer interface by default (as we've seen in our last gMusicBrowser post, this amazing music player comes with lots of layouts) but with some further tweaks which include sort-by-artist mode for mosaic, rename the layouts, make a netbook layout and more.

Finally, Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud (UEC) is set to penetrate deep into the Cloud Computing Enterprise segment post the Dell partnership. Canonical had first debuted the UEC along with their Jaunty Jackalope (9.04 Release) in April 2009.

Ubuntu 11.04 'Natty Narwhal' has been released. With Ubuntu 11.04 the new Unity interface has become default for Desktop version as well.Unity will have two versions, one for systems capable of 3D hardware acceleration and another one, Unity 2D for low end systems.