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There are quite a few time tracking solutions out there, including the nifty Rachota utility which not only makes it easy to track time spent on different tasks but also helps you to analyze the collected data.

IceCat3.6 is released and is available for download. IceCat is the GNU version of the Firefox browser, it is fully free software, as it removes the non-free Firefox artwork.

While the price took everyone by surprise, I'm still not sure that Apple can convince iPhone buyers that they really need this device when the one in our pockets does many of the same things. And we already own it.

Extended discard support means that Linux now supports ATA TRIM, which can increase SSD lifespan and throughput. New additions to the Linux kernel include HA solution DRBD and drivers for HP, LSI and VMware storage hardware. The new kernel version, expected in early March, also includes many minor improvements to the code for the Btrfs, Ext4 and ReiserFS file systems.

RevLin OS base is built upon a new kernel called PopCorn which is derived from a re-written version of the well established linux kernel, while still maintaining full binary support for applications and drivers allowing for vast hardware support. RevLin OS will not be like the other operating systems which rely on HTML5, CSS3 and JS - the data will not be stored in the cloud but locally and integrated with the cloud so you can access data from anywhere, but you don't rely on an internet connection. The whole OS is built from source and is not based on any distribution of Linux. [...] So, would you use it?

It all started with upgrading a CPU. It should have been a simple, inexpensive task, but it has taken on a life of its own, resulting in battles with warranty service and shopping for yet more new parts. Will the madness ever end?

Finch is a powerful text user interface instant messaging client based on libpurple, and it comes included in the Pidgin source, the popular GNOME IM client. Finch supports various protocols, including AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo and IRC.

Zoho has decided to offer its Zoho Discussions tool free of charge to open source projects. It will even help customize the discussion forum for the individual needs of each group.

Talk about a careful balancing act involving Ubuntu. Canonical appears to have financial relationships with both Google and Yahoo. Here’s how the relationships — involving Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) and Google Chrome OS — are shaping up. Plus, the potential financial implications for Canonical. Here's some perspective.

One of Silicon Valley's last true characters has signed off - Sun founder Scott McNealy has sent a final goodbye memo to his staff. In his own words McNealy is "a big mouth who is always ready with a clever quip" and his swansong email does not disappoint. He said the last four years (since he left the company) had "not been without serious withdrawal". He said: "So, to be honest, this is not a note this founder wants to write. Sun, in my mind, should have been the great and surviving consolidator. But I love the market economy and capitalism more than I love my company." He said he hoped the rest of the US economy would fall in love with capitalism again soon.

Audio processing and synthesis plugins are always a lively topic for musicians. Many contemporary music-makers rely completely upon their plugin collection for all their sound sources and processing routines, and it is not at all uncommon to discover that some of these composers have never learned to play a traditional instrument. However you feel about audio plugins they are a fact of life in modern music production.

The scientists at IBM Research – Zurich, in cooperation with the FUJIFILM Corporation of Japan, recorded data onto an advanced prototype tape, at a density of 29.5 billion bits per square inch — about 39 times the areal data density of today's most popular industry-standard magnetic tape product.

Only three days after posting my blog regarding the plight of Google's Chinese customers and how their data is now at the whims of a US-based company and its conflict with the Chinese government, I read about the issues of SourceForge.net and the U.S. State Department's Export lists and how the data stored in a US-based company, sometimes created by non-U.S. based citizens, is now being controlled by U.S. State Department rules.

FreeNX is an open source implementation of NoMachine's NX Server. It is a bit more akin to Microsoft's RDP protocol than the usual VNC, so while keeping bandwidth to a minimum, it maintains good visual quality and responsiveness.

Get the most out of your netbook with an operating system built to purpose. Netbooks were big news in 2009 and we can expect them to be just as popular in 2010. But, being small and ultraportable there are compromises to be made: smaller screens, slower processors and smaller keyboards are just some of these. So, to get the best out of your netbook you need to pair it with an operating system built to make the most out of the smaller form factor.

Is your family prepared to access and or recover data, personal or professional, in the event of your death?

Back in August we shared that Sun would be discontinuing SXCE, or formally known as Solaris Express Community Edition. Solaris Express Community Edition for the past five years has served as Sun's delivery mechanism for the latest and greatest Solaris code that will eventually make it into the next Solaris stable release, but earlier this month Sun Microsystems put out their last bi-weekly build of SXCE and as of the end of this week all downloads will cease. OpenSolaris has superseded Solaris Express Community Edition, but with this article, we are taking one last look at Build 130, the final version of Solaris Express Community Edition.

It's the thought experiment we all like to engage in. What would life be like without Microsoft Windows? To listen to the free open source software crowd, the demise of Windows -- and by extension, Microsoft's hegemony over the PC universe -- would signal a kind of rebirth for information technology. Software would finally be free of the corporate shackles that have stifled innovation and dragged down the best and brightest among us. Such thinking is naïve, at best. Rather than freeing IT, the demise of Microsoft would plunge the industry into an apocalyptic tailspin of biblical proportions -- no visions of hippie utopia here. The withdrawal of the Redmond giant's steady hand would cause today's computing landscape to tear itself apart at the seams, with application and device compatibility and interoperability devolving into the kind of Wild West chaos unseen since the days of the DOS big three: Lotus, WordPerfect, and Ashton-Tate.

[The author's take is nothing short of hilarious. - Scott]

Steve Jobs once again weaves his magic spell, and the world is all agog over the announcement of Apple's latest gadget, the iPad...The Free Software Foundation is unimpressed: "*With new tablet device, Apple's Steve Jobs pushes unprecedented extension of DRM to a new class of general purpose computers*"

The schedule of weekend talks for SCALE 8X has been finalized and are posted on the SCALE web site at http://www.socallinuxexpo.org. The topics are interesting and wide-ranging - check them out! The schedule for the Friday specialty sessions (OSSIE, WIOS and the Try-It Lab) will be posted in the next week.