Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

When it comes to playing music in Linux, Amarok is one of the best audio players out there. It offers almost everything you need, from a clean, intuitive interface to a range of useful scripts. You can even put it on a server and give it a Web interface.

Linux has so many tools, settings, parameters, and configuration files to learn that administering your box can be a challenge. Webmin, a Web-based comprehensive administration tool for Linux, can help you get on your way. Webmin presents a Web-based interface that allows you to perform system administration tasks in Unix, Linux, and FreeBSD. If your particular distribution isn't included in the list of supported systems, some Webmin modules might not work. Distributions use different locations for their various configuration files, and if your particular choice doesn't keep its files in standard places, Webmin won't be able to function.

Getting an IT business off the ground is hard work for anyone. So here's an idea to give your business a power injection: The Cape IT Initiative (CITI) is looking for young IT companies to join its business acceleration campaign, called VeloCITI.

Dell has told DesktopLinux.com that it will be announcing later today, Dec. 19, that it will be releasing PCs with Ubuntu 7.10 (aka Gutsy Gibbon) as part of its Dell Consumer Linux lineup along with the ability to legally play DVDs.

The Open Source Consortium has welcomed the BBC's move to make its iPlayer online on-demand TV service available for streaming on operating systems other than Microsoft Windows.

Choice is an important element of free software, so it's perhaps no surprise that even at the level of the desktop environment there is more than one offering. But the main alternatives – KDE and GNOME – represent more than just a way of placing icons on a screen. Nowhere is that more evident than in their respective views on Microsoft's OOXML document standard, which are very far apart – perhaps dangerously so.

As part of my year-end planning I look at what charities to donate to, since charitable contributions are tax-deductible. Here's a list of charities with ties to free software, open source, and information technology. Debian is my favorite Linux distribution. You can make donations to it through Software in the Public Interest -- make sure to explicitly set your donation to go to Debian. Debian uses donations to cover things like bandwidth and travel expenses for appearing at conferences.

Lighting up the AMIA os-wg and OpenHealth e-mail discussion lists comes news that the Proteus 'intelligent clinical guidelines' tools are going to be open sourced with an as yet to be announced Free/Open Source license: "...I am on the verge of making Proteus related tools available under an open source license. I need the advice of this community of open source champions on how to go about it and the choice of open source license. I know this has been discussed time and again on this list but I am still unclear about several things.

LinuxSecurity.com: There are already tons of written Snort rules, but there just might be a time where you need to write one yourself. You can think of writing Snort rules as writing a program. They can include variables, keywords and functions. Why do we need to write rules? The reason is, without rules Snort will never detect someone trying to hack your machine. This HOWTO will give you confidence to write your own rules.

If you run Linux networks, you need a copy of Linux Networking Cookbook. Even before I picked up Unix, I worked on networks. While networking has gotten simpler, it's almost all TCP/IP now instead of Arcnet, Token-Ring and a half dozen dusty wiring and protocol schemes. The services that use networking have gotten ever more powerful and more complicated. That's why a book like Carla Schroder's Linux Networking Cookbook is so valuable.

Even people who don't live and die by their mobile phones sometimes need to send SMS messages. Did you know you can do that from your computer? Likewise, it's easier to clean your mobile phone of all the numbers you've not been dialing in the last few years using a mouse, rather than navigating repeatedly through the phone's menu system. Here are some Linux tools that can help you manage your cell phone.

This version marks the start of upgrade support for installation by providing a clean database and adding code to upgrade the database schema, data contents, server and client. Issues are now being logged inJira. Scheduling setup and configuration tools have been added to build Resources and Appointment Types. A new registration form was added configured to streamline data entry.

The Fedora Project is looking for a new Fedora Project Leader. Skill set includes being able to juggle a community of around 1500 members, mostly volunteers with the needs of the Fedora Projects flagship product: Fedora the operating system. Must be smart, calm, cool and collected under stress and have an attention span that can be spread in many directions at once. Must have vision of the current landscape of Linux and Open Source in general as well as where it can / should be headed.

Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, has released a content-development tool designed to move development into the Internet age.

Need to convert a video file to a DVD template? Or your favourite song to a ringtone? WinFF is a graphical front end for FFMpeg and converts just about any multimedia format to another, including to phone ringtones, DVD formats and Flash files. And it works on Windows and Linux.

Adobe said last week it would introduce an open-source version of a tool for connecting data sources to Flash-based rich Internet applications. Adobe's announcement follows on from open-source plans for several of its other developer products.

Red Hat has launched a regionwide campaign in hopes of raising awareness of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5's virtualization capabilities. The campaign, Integrated Virtualization Inside, kicked off in Beijing Thursday, and will introduce RHEL 5's virtualization capabilities to customers through methods such as training courses.

Sun also has created a large batch conversion engine that converts supported documents into a PDF or ODF. Sun Microsystems is offering distributors and OEMs backline support for the OpenOffice.org productivity suite, which is a free alternative to its own branded StarOffice offering.

Thomas Howe is a telecommunications developer and consultant who is passionate about the role of open source software in the telephony industry. He calls open source the "next generation" of telecommunications, and works with large enterprise companies to help them design phone systems that fully integrate with their business flow. "Only open source can do that," Howe says.

There were a few things that immediately stood out about Pardus for me, though: it has its own package management system called PISI (Packages Installed Successfully, as Intended), it's pretty new on the already crowded Linux distro scene but not based on any other distro, and it contains some really interesting developments. LinuxPlanet welcomes review Dan Lynch with his look at this unique distribution.