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Cloud computing is the hot buzz phrase. But as both Shawn Powers and I have pointed out, cloud computing is not a new technology, or even a new implementation of new technology. But that does not mean it is well understood, either by those who are designing or those who are crying out for it as they follow the yellow-brick road (or the latest issue of PC Week). As several Anonymous (and not so anonymous) commentators have said, there is a lot more to cloud computing then just hardware, some good data links and some smart coding.

gImageReader is a graphical GTK frontend to tesseract-ocr, a free software optical character recognition (OCR) engine.

Last week we learned that Yum supports a robust ecosystem of plugins, and how to find and manage them. Today we look at some good Yum plugins for security, and managing package priorities.

This two-day introduction to Linux broadens attendees horizons with a detailed overview of the operating system. Attendees learn how to effectively use a Linux system as a valuable tool. They get familiar with the architecture and various components of the operating system, learn both graphical and command line tools, and learn to do basic networking. This class is scheduled for January 11th - 12th, 2011.

In a seemingly short period of time, JavaScript has gone from a form-validation tool to a game changer. Having my head buried into SDK development for a number of years, I have taken relatively small notice of JavaScript until this past 18 months. It’s no longer just a scripting language for pulling off Web2.0 tricks but a mainstream language for building full-blown applications.

With the recent announcement that the Russian government will mandate A shift from Microsoft to Linux by 2015. I started thinking about what the Russians will do if they have some Windows Applications that don't have Linux equivalents at this time.

It may be somewhat ironic that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published in the last week of 2010, a year with a boat load of questionable patent filings and approvals, a patent application from IBM, which automates the management of intellectual property and comes with a “defend” module to formulate a strategy in the case of patent infringement.

As illustrated today by the release of Intel's "Sandy Bridge" CPUs there is a new desire by Linux users: open-source drivers "out of the box" at launch. Over the years the expectations of Linux users have gone from simply wanting Linux drivers for their hardware to wanting open-source Linux drivers (read: no binary blobs) to now wanting open-source drivers in the distribution of their choice at the time the hardware first ships. This is a great problem to now be experiencing, as since starting Phoronix seven years ago, the Linux hardware experience has improved a great deal where it's no longer a question if there will be Linux support but when. Some hardware vendors, such as Intel, are now working towards this goal of same-day open-source Linux support -- and in some cases achieving it -- but for open-source Linux drivers for graphics it's a particularly tall hurdle to jump.

Sometimes you find the need to backup a personal DVD. There are many GUI tools available that are up to the task, but sometimes some good, old command-line magic is just what you need to get the job done... especially with some more troublesome tasks.

Last week we looked at Yum Plugins and how to extend Yum's functionality. This week, I'll look at a few of Yum's plugins, in particular the security plugin and the priorities plugin. As I mentioned last week, I'm using Fedora 14 in these examples. If you're on another system using Yum, like CentOS, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) or Yellow Dog (the original distro to ship Yum, by the way), the plugin behavior might be slightly different -- or the plugin may not be available at all.

Android is set to explode at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, with smartphones and tablet computers including a newly revealed HTC Shift 4G phone for Sprint and a four-inch smartphone/tablet hybrid from ViewSonic. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless is cutting the price of the Android-based Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet by $100 to $500, says an industry report.

Not only has Intel's Sandy Bridge met the world today, but VIA Technologies launched the VIA eH1. The VIA eH1 is a discrete graphics card for PCI Express systems, but will it work with Linux?

Canonical's decision to go with the Unity shell on GNOME may be a game changer for Ubuntu, but it doesn't come without risk. Mark Shuttleworth's declared aims are to unite design with free software. He hopes to blur the line between the web and the desktop, to create an intuitive Linux desktop that is a thing of beauty, and to make Ubuntu and free software popular among the kinds of user who have never heard of free software before.

FreeBSD has a long and strange history, tracing its roots back to the original Unix from Bell Labs. FreeBSD can almost be seen as the older brother to the younger, more popular Linux. While they are similar, FreeBSD’s long history has given it a very different philosophy and purpose. You can, and many people do, run FreeBSD as a desktop OS, but that’s not where the systems real talent lies. While Linux has tried, and in many cases succeeded, to be everywhere that a kernel can run, FreeBSD has decided that it belongs in the datacenter, a belief that is personified in the FreeBSD slogan, “The Power to Serve”. FreeBSD’s Jails are a great example of where the philosophy of Linux and FreeBSD diverges and produces systems that are functionally similar but logically very different.

Prey is a lightweight application that will help you track and find your laptop and android phone if it ever gets stolen. It works in all operating systems and not only is it Open Source but also completely free. so basically you install a tiny agent in your PC or phone, which silently waits for a remote signal to wake up and work its magic.

It amazes me that so many times people who are in charge of large and small software companies make dumb decisions. They get nice salaries but often make decisions that come back and bite them later on. One good strategy for any large or small company that is lagging behind on the Windows or Mac OS market is to create software for GNU/Linux. Linux is growing as a platform and has millions of users worldwide.

The smart mobile user shouldn't overlook Linux. The question is, which distro should you pick? You'll get a different answer depending who you ask. You'll probably be pointed in the direction of Arch for performance, Debian for stability and Ubuntu if you want easy access to the biggest collection of apps. If that's not enough choice to make your head spin, Slackware has its fans too – particularly among people who use older laptops.

Technology conquers all, right? Except football (American, that is). The pace of technology is wondrous indeed. No corner of our lives seems safe from digital invasion, from picture frames to pasta makers. For years now, we have been threatened with Internet-enabled refrigerators, and perhaps 2011 will see it so.

Though MeeGo shows a lot of promise, the project is not making the most of the open source developer community. Here’s what’s wrong, and what MeeGo needs to do better in 2011.

Apple is doing it again: they are releasing an app store for OS X on the 6th of January. Just like the iPhone app store, and the Android app store, this is going to be a hit: the OS X ecosystem will get a giant boost from it, and we are left — once again — with a lot to learn. Before you mention that GNU/Linux doesn’t need an app store because it’s free software, and before you even say that GNU/Linux already has an app store through one of the many software managers (Synaptics, Ubuntu Software Center, apt-get), please read this article.