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The AuthorSupportTool extension not just adds some random features to OpenOffice.org Writer, it dramatically enhances the word processor's functionality, turning it into a powerful tool for working on research papers and complex documents.

In the growing war of words between Apple and Google, Google just picked up a very sharp tongue with many followers. Even without writing a line of code, his impact will be felt through his blog and tweets. One month after resigning from Oracle and after spending a few days teasing it on Twitter, Tim Bray, the co-creator of XML and one of Sun's more prominent personalities, has resurfaced with Google to work on the Android platform. At Google, Bray will assume the title and position of Developer Advocate, which he admits is a bit fluid at this point. He also admits that he has a lot to learn about Android, the Google-backed open source mobile platform, and is not totally sure of what his job will entail. Bray plans to bring himself up to speed on HTML 5 and write an Android app to learn the platform.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical, says some progress has been made towards what he calls cadence, an alignment of versions and release schedules, between distributions, even though his earlier proposals of a formal alignment between Debian and Ubuntu were not taken up. He points to an informal synchronisation between Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and Debian Squeeze on the Kernel, GCC, Python, OpenOffice.org, Perl and Boost versions, as an example of progress.

Join me on a tour of my house as I show how I use open source software in nearly every room. This episode also is the first to use my new intro. This episode is NOT sponsored by the Apple iPad.

Forget Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and the rest. We put the seven other browsers through the PC Pro grinder, with surprising results.

Switching to Linux is easy if you know how to run Windows applications on it. For many users considering switching to Linux the biggest hurdle is a question of whether they can find a suitable replacement for their favourite Windows applications. While sites like LinuxAppFinder list hundreds of open source application alternatives it's not always as straight forward as that. Many users are bound, for one or other reason, to using a particular application, be it because there is no way to convert existing data or because company policy demands they use a particular application. Fortunately there are a number of ways to run a good deal of Windows applications on Linux.

X2go - Open source terminal server project (alternative to FreeNX). x2go is an open source terminal server project offering a comprehensive “server based computing” solution. Combining the advantages of existing systems it features ease of use, performance and scalability. x2go provides you with access to your desktop as an individual as well as a corporate user - from within your own network and via the internet. x2go is not limited to any particular hardware, it supports a variety of devices and architectures. x2go is open source and open minded. The project also offers you a command line client for you to implement your own client applications and ideas. Like any open source project we welcome your support.

If you ever used or seen some screenshots of Linux Mint (or openSUSE), I'm sure you noticed how amazing it's menu is. I don't know about you, but I've always wanted to install it in Ubuntu. Sure, you could install Gnome Main Menu ( sudo apt-get install gnome-main-menu ) but I don't find it to be nowhere near as useful as the Linux Mint main menu.

In which the shadowy Alexandria Project finally shows its hand - and delivers an ultimatum.

This tutorial shows how to do data striping (segmentation of logically sequential data, such as a single file, so that segments can be assigned to multiple physical devices in a round-robin fashion and thus written concurrently) across four single storage servers (running Fedora 12) with GlusterFS. The client system (Fedora 12 as well) will be able to access the storage as if it was a local filesystem. GlusterFS is a clustered file-system capable of scaling to several peta-bytes. It aggregates various storage bricks over Infiniband RDMA or TCP/IP interconnect into one large parallel network file system. Storage bricks can be made of any commodity hardware such as x86_64 servers with SATA-II RAID and Infiniband HBA.

Some Linux users insist that anything you can do on Windows, you can do better on Linux. While there's some truth to that, many of us have Windows applications that make completely leaving Windows close to impossible. That's where CodeWeavers' latest version of CrossOver Linux comes in. CrossOver Linux 9 (code-named Snow Mallard) and its Mac brother, CrossOver Mac 9, let you run many popular Windows applications on Linux or Mac OS X. Supported Windows applications include Microsoft Office (from Office 97 to Office 2007), Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Outlook 2002 to 2007, all current versions of Quicken up to 2010 and QuickBooks up to 2004, and some versions of Photoshop and Photoshop CS.

XML co-inventor and languages expert Tim Bray has taken a job at Google just a month after he left Oracle. "As of this morning I work for Google. The title is 'Developer Advocate'. The focus is Android. Fun is expected," he wrote in a blog post titled "Now A No-Evil Zone". Bray, who is among a growing list of Sun veterans to have jumped ship since Oracle bought the company earlier this year, didn't mince his words about his new anti-iPhone job with the Mountain View Chocolate Factory.

Will a mass produced Linux pad ever exist to compete with the iPad? One reader says that there is one but you get a different story when you click "Order."

LXer Feature: 15-Mar-2010

This past week on LXer we had Jonathan Schwartz reminiscing in "Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal", a newbies guide to hacking the Linux kernel, Phoronix reviews power and memory usage in the various desktop environments, Former Sun chief open source officer Simon Phipps joins the OSI board, Jack Deslippe explains why he no longer uses Apple products and last but not least my editorial on why Windows users have no Choice. Enjoy!

Zarafa, the Dutch mobile messaging and collaboration specialist gets a foothold in France. Today, Zarafa announces that it has signed contracts with the French open source systems integrator Smile and with French distributor ETC. With these contracts and her presence at Solutions Linux, Europe’s largest commercial open source exhibition, Zarafa aims to strengthen its international market position.

In a case, dripping with irony, record label EMI was forced to stop selling digital singles from Pink Floyd albums after the courts in the UK ruled it violated a 1999 contract between the band and the record label. That a record label, which fought digital music for so long would be forced by the courts to stop selling digital songs because it violated a band's rights is just too funny.

Too bad it's only for professional use the HGZ Linux based coffee machine. I'd love to have on of these. A Dream come true. The Linux coffee maker. Embedded Linux on a coffee machine, touch screen. Build on Qt framework. Have Linux brew your coffee, finally a stable cup of coffee. Demo-ed at the Embedded World in Nurmberg Germany by Qt:

The Humanity Icon Theme got a really nice update in Ubuntu Lucid today which brings integration with the new branding (purple that is) [...]

Wolvix is a desktop oriented GNU/Linux distribution based on Slackware. It features the Xfce desktop environment and a comprehensive selection of development, graphics, multimedia, network and office applications. Using Wolvix does not require more than basic computer skills, but installing and administering the system might require more knowledge than some of the other GNU/Linux distributions. Much like Slackware, Wolvix sometimes requires you to roll up your sleves and get your hands dirty. So if the thought of using the command line and reading documentation scares you, you might be better off using another distribution.

The HP Deskjet D2680 is very easy to install in Linux. First I installed hplip and then I installed hplip-gui. After that it was as simple as plugging the printer in and then opening the HP device manager.