Showing headlines posted by tuxchick

Once again, Linux Journal leads the way in idiotic, pointless misogyny. And they wonder why they have no women subscribers.

We can read the Linspire-Microsoft patent agreement now, and I thought it would be worthwhile to give it a close, line-by-line reading. I'll explain it as best I can, but ask your lawyer if it matters to you in a real-world sense. For our purposes here, let's just have fun with the worst deal I've seen yet in this category.

I found this post over at Brand X. It's one of the best ever answers to "what exactly we are demanding to do with that freedom?" Which is a dopey question to even ask, but it's a common mindset.

I am reaching out to you as a part of a membership drive. Jeff Pulver asked me to lead a relaunch project to preserve FWD's status as a key destination for the people pioneering the new communications landscape. The existing FWD services will remain free, but we are implementing a membership model to fund new services and make FWD self-sustaining.

"Reporting software piracy is the right thing to do and BSA is pleased to reward individuals who come forward with credible information," said Jenny Blank, Director of Enforcement for BSA.

[Are these people for real? --TC]

In part 1 I introduced you fine readers to my new obsession, digital SLR cameras. If you're used to compact point-and-shoot digital cameras, and you're thinking of making the move to a DSLR, there are several important points to keep in mind:

Our steamed, I mean esteamed, I mean esteemed (dang, I need a new keyboard. this one is all defective) Editor-in-Chief's excellent article, From the Camera to the Web With Konqueror taught me some cool new tricks, and inspired me to share some of my own photography adventures.

I'll wager that the economic contributions of FOSS to the world economies are far more significant than are reflected in mere sales figures. I'll wager that a certain notorious unpopular monopolist creates a net loss, thanks to losses due to malware, unreliability, high operating costs, its success at crushing competition, and high barriers to interoperability.

Oh, how I wish the person who started the "never write down your passwords" craze were available for a public thwapping. This is the dumbest security advice of all time.

Can they get any more undignified or childish? This is the biggest software company on the planet, and the most obscenely rich company of all time. Yet they pout, throw public tantrums, and emit the most amazing line of pure baloney on a regular basis. Nothing is ever good enough and everyone picks on them, all those mean governments and unhappy users and mouthy Linux hippies and everyone.

What if you cry yourself to sleep at night because you really really want to have locked hardware and discriminatory patent agreements? No problem — knock yourself out. You just can't do it with GPL code.

Why does it take something this extreme to get people's attention? Women have been bombarded with garbage from the same vile sewer that spewed on Kathy Sierra since forever. This makes it look like there is a two-tier system: acceptable levels of abuse, then somewhere, way way waaaay up there is the line that marks unacceptable abuse.

Some folks love life on the edge, so they run Debian Unstable, or the newest Ubuntu or Fedora releases. These are all wonderful Linux distributions, and under most circumstances are reliable enough. You'll run into weird dependency issues, or find out the hard way that the latest release of an application has a few problems, or that the distribution maintainers introduced entirely new applications that are chock-full of amusing surprises. For the most part they work well, but you never know when they're going to get bored and have a little fun at your expense.

Then there are the brave souls who dare to be dull and don't want surprises. They just want their systems to chug along and not need a lot of babysitting. For these fine folks there is CentOS Linux.

Chastain Motorsports is rolling out an innovative sponsorship program for its return to the Indianapolis 500 this year, as worldwide users and proponents of the Linux computer operating system are contributing to put the team on track at "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing."

"...tolerating poisonous people is the same as taking a big hot steaming dump on the cool sane people you want to have around. I cannot fathom the spineless mentality that would rather suck up to psychopaths than stand up for friends."

"Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY) has agreed to acquire Speakeasy, Inc., one of the largest independent broadband voice, data and IT service providers in the United States."

[Say good-bye to one of the best data and voice service providers in the world, now that they are in the clutches of one of the shoddiest, dodgiest retailers in existence-- TC]

How can a company give away its flagship product and still make money? Ask Red Hat, because it's doing a great job at doing just that. Really. Go here to download it. You can modify it and re-distribute it, or distribute it with only token modifications. You can even sell it, if you can find paying customers.

Now, this is one cool project (and video) from Alan Carvalho de Assis (and friends), as announced on the LinuxBIOS mailing list: LinuxBIOS with X Server Inside.

The NZ chapter of Linuxchix has just been set up for all New Zealand women interested in Linux and Free Software.

We have a website: http://linuxchix.org.nz, a mailing list: http://lists.catalyst.net.nz/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nz-lin... a planet: http://planet.linuxchix.org.nz

And we're planning an install fest, as well as monthly meetups to talk about free software and eat chocolate.

An Australia-wide chapter of LinuxChix has formed, for women living in Australia who are interested in Linux and Free Software.

More information is available on our website: http://au.linuxchix.org/

You can subscribe to our mailing list at: http://lists.au.linuxchix.org/lists/listinfo/chix

AussieChix is a replacement of and expansion of the Sydney and Melbourne chapters of LinuxChix, as many interested Australian women live outside Sydney and Melbourne, and the Sydney and Melbourne chapters were not interacting much. We welcome women living anywhere in Australia to join AussieChix and meet other women in Australia interested in Linux and Free Software.