Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

I've been using and advocating free software for around six years. When studying and then working as a freelance writer, migrating an office seemed so simple -- draw up a list of comparable programs and, over a reasonable period, move your staff across. But over the past few weeks I've been trying to use Ubuntu Gutsy on my desktop PC in a Windows-based office, and whilst most things work just fine, it's far from the seamless integration I was hoping for.

go-mobile, a provider of popular extensions for SugarCRM, has released ZuckerDocs version 2 which integrates the open source KnowledgeTree document management system into SugarCRM. Using ZuckerDocs users can access KnowledgeTree's document management features from within SugarCRM, including version control and full-text document search. Documents within the KnowledgeTree repository can also be associated with SugarCRM objects such as accounts, opportunities and leads.

Palamida, the San Francisco company that helps companies to audit their use of open source software, has released a list of what it calls "the top five most overlooked open source vulnerabilities." To this list, Palamida has added an additional five vulnerabilities exclusively for Linux.com.

Red Hat added a peculiar name to its Exchange software store by picking up OS morphing code from Transitive. Last year, Red Hat launched RHX (Red Hat Exchange) as a centralized shop for customers looking to pick up software that runs on the Red Hat Enterprise Linux server operating system. RHX offers up code such as Alfresco's content management software, the MySQL database and Zimbra/Yahoo!'s messaging products. Red Hat vows to support these applications, resolving issues with RHX partners on behalf of the end customers.

Last wee we learned how to create text frames, and how to control text flow across multiple frames. Today we're going to learn some great shortcut for navigating long documents, some simple tricks for managing photo printing, and how to turn on KWord's text-to-speech engine and make it read to you.

In 2004, health care software vendor McKesson Provider Technologies began focusing on ways to cut IT costs for customers, including hospitals and medical offices. The cure for IT cost bloat: moving many of McKesson's medical software applications to Linux, which could then be used on less expensive commodity hardware instead of expensive mainframes.

Yesterday OpenLogic announced that it would be running a global census to collect and share quantitative data to count how many enterprise installations there are in the world for each open source software package.

Trolltech announced today that the Phonon backends, which they have been developing for inclusion in Qt, are being transferred into the KDE source code repository. Phonon is the KDE 4 API for multimedia and is also set to be part of Qt 4.4, scheduled for the end of Q1 2008. You heard it right folks, a part of Qt will be officially hosted and developed inside KDE's very own Subversion repository, from whose loins Phonon first sprung, and be freely available to all under the LGPL.

Pardus developers describe the Linux distribution as advanced yet easy to install and use. Let's see how well it lives up to the hype. Pardus originated in Turkey, was once based on Gentoo Linux, and is packaged with KDE. It comes in two versions: a live CD and a traditional, multilanguage installer, which I used. Its full-screen interface is uncluttered, simple, and easy to navigate and decipher. Helpful information appears on the right for every step. The installer follows the same basic recipe most installers adopt, but it also lets you choose a language --Turkish, Spanish, German, Dutch, or English

Do you really like OpenOffice.org as your office suite? Would you like to be able to use it on any computer with an Internet connection? If you answered yes to both those questions, you'll be interested in Ulteo's beta of Ulteo Online Desktop, which allows the use of OpenOffice.org over the Internet as SAAS (software as a service).

As of this last Friday, December 7th Fedora Core 6 is no more. With it goes the last release the Fedora Project had seen the split between “Community” (Extras) and Red Hat sponsored (Core). Those not intimately involved in Fedora might be interested to learn that when the merge happened it was the core packages that ended up having to follow the former “Extras” packaging guidelines and not the other way around. Yet another testament to the power of community.

It's been a long road, but Freemed-YiRC V1.00 has finally been released! Freemed-YiRC is an open source software project intended for use as a complete information system by child caring agencies.

Sun Microsystems is reaching out to scripters and developers on rivals' IDEs with enterprise tools and a migration program for its latest version of NetBeans. NetBeans 6.0, released Wednesday, targets Ruby and Ruby on Rails fans squarely with tools for code refactoring, debugging and deployment.

What has happened in the year since Sun Microsystems released the source code for Java? While end users might be starting to wonder, those most involved in the building of the free Java community describe a thriving community that, after one year, is still working hard to reinvent itself. Free Java projects that existed prior to Sun's announcement on November 13, 2006, are either integrating into the OpenJDK community or continuing to provide alternatives -- but with greater resources in code.

Some people are happy with their operating systems as installed. Others like to tinker. Still others—PC Magazine readers, often enough-need to dive under the hood and make those systems run exactly the way they want. Its all about control, and Linux gives you as much control as you can handle. The configuration tools in Ubuntu Linux provide a full range of customization choices. Some are cosmetic, of course, but others dig deep into system settings.

PostgreSQL is very sophisticated and powerful database server to use with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. However, many people argue that one of the features it lacks is the memory storage engine of MySQL. This storage engine is ideal for applications that process temporary data that is updated rarely but accessed many times. These applications use databases stored in memory to decrease the number of disc operations. An example of such an application is the web-based BitTorrent tracker.

Simon Phipps, Sun's chief open-source officer, calls the dispute with ex-employees a misunderstanding. A Sun Microsystems official said the company regrets an incident that has called Sun's commitment to open source into question and is working to reach an amicable solution.

For novices, functions are one of the most intimidating features of OpenOffice.org's Calc. Newcomers quickly learn that functions are a main feature of spreadsheets, but there are almost four hundred, and many require input that assume specialized knowledge. Nor are the often circular definitions of the Function Wizard much help: You are no better off for reading that the SKEW function "returns the skewness of a distribution," for example. However, Calc includes dozens of functions that anyone can use, the most basic of which create formulas for basic arithmetic or for evaluating numbers in a range of cells.

The Open Solutions Alliance says more open-source projects need to be built with good interoperability hooks. While commercial open-source solutions are being broadly adopted, there are obstacles slowing that adoption, particularly around interoperability, the Open Solutions Alliance has found.

About three years ago we had a look at how Gambas speeds database development. Now that Gambas 2.0 is being prepared for release, it's time to see what the new version can do now. One cool feature is its ability to create a chart.