Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Yoper claims to be a high-performance Linux distribution optimized for newer processors. It incorporates components from other distros, but its packages have been built from scratch to provide enhanced performance. I tested a beta of Yoper 3.0 on my desktop a year ago and was so impressed that when 3.0 was released this month, I installed it on my new Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv6105 notebook. Using it, however, left me disappointed.

Recently, Jeff Jones posted a survey comparing the number of vulnerabilities found in the first 90 days of Microsoft Vista deployments against those of a number of other operating systems. It may not come as a surprise that Mr. Jones, who is a Microsoft employee, found that Vista was significantly more secure than the alternatives. There has been no shortage of such surveys over the years, and it may be tempting to write this one off as another bit of random FUD. Still, it's good to have an answer to such things.

Right now “Open Source” is in a bit of a jam. Why? For years projects/companies have been using the term “Open Source” to describe closed products. It’s a situation Free Software advocates understand dearly - for years we’ve been trying to explain how the term “Open Source” is confusing when it’s goal is to describe the exact same freedoms Open Source supposedly heralded as a business’s dream.

Atmel has launched an interesting new chip line aimed at reducing NRE (non-recurring engineering) expenses associated with ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) development. The CAP ("customizable Atmel processor") integrates a Linux-friendly ARM9 core together with a metal-programmable function block where users can implement cores, DSPs (digital signal processors), or custom peripherals.

Company releases Linux version of desktop search software, which simultaneously scans the Web and computer-stored data for results.

The second annual LinuxWorld Korea took place in Seoul's Coex Convention and Exhibition Center June 20 through June 23. It was held in conjunction with the annual SEK show, the"representative IT exhibition in Korea." Some of the companies that routinely exhibit at North American and European Linux-oriented events were there -- and so were some you probably never heard of unless you live in or follow IT news from China, Japan, or Korea.

The Simple Linux Backup project announced the release of version 0.3.2 today. Simple Linux Backup is an easy-to-use program for backing up a desktop Linux system, with a friendly user interface, originator Steven J. Rosen said.

The non-profit, member-supported Eclipse Foundation announced the availability of its"largest-ever" release. The release includes 21 projects by 310 developers in 19 countries, and more than 17 million lines of code -- more than double the size of last year's release.

Trolltech will provide free phones and SDKs (software development kits) to developers willing to target its Qtopia application development framework for mobile phones. The Qtopia Greenphone Grant Program will provide an unspecified number of awardees with Qtopia SDKs, along with Trolltech's open, Linux-based Greenphone target device.

For better or worse, DRM is everywhere. In the past six months, letters have zinged across the web and provided fodder for newspaper headlines. The issue balances the rights of the consumer to use purchased works against the rights of the artist

Officially released Monday, Scientific Linux 4.5 can now be installed as a Xen paravirtual guest which, according to the developers"gives a significant speed increase over fully virtualized guests."

Can a commercial graphics program find a market for professionals in GNU/Linux? A company called e frontier is experimenting to see if one can with Anime Studio Pro 5, an editor not only for anime, but also Flash animations, webtoons, and other forms of 2-D graphics. Compiled from much the same code as the Windows and Mac versions, the GNU/Linux version includes the same functionality, with a complex but highly organized interface and three different forms of animation.

On Friday, June 29, at 12 noon (EDT), the Free Software Foundation will officially release the GNU GPL version 3. Please join us in celebration as we bring to a close eighteen months of public outreach and comment, in revision of the world's most popular free software license.

[I received this information just a little while ago. - Scott]

Sun Microsystems has announced new functionality for Solaris Express Developer Edition. The OpenSolaris-based distribution targets developers for the Solaris OS, Java, and Web 2.0 with a set of products that are optimized for multi-core processor architectures and includes new compilers and development tools designed to assist developers in creating better applications more rapidly.

While podcasting and video blogging are all the rage, many people still prefer the simplicity of the typed word for expressing themselves online -- that is, a blog. However, popular blogging platforms like WordPress and Movable Type can be tough to configure and maintain. On the other hand, you might not want to use an online service like Blogger or TypePad because you want complete control over your blog. If you're not afraid of the command line, take a peek at Bash Blogger. As its name implies, this application is a bash script that automates all of your blogging tasks (aside from writing, of course).

Sends its SUSE Linux developers on a seven-day busman's holiday. Open source developers at Novell are spending this week on a 'working holiday' that the company calls Hackweek.

In an effort to promote more communication between open source users and vendors, the nonprofit Open Solutions Alliance, Inc. (OSA) is opening up its membership to customers.

Jack Dorsey wants to change the way people communicate on the Internet. Are you used to updating your blog once every 24 hours? If Dorsey has his way, you'll soon be thinking about lots of tiny blog posts from wherever you are, whenever you want. Dorsey, a former software developer for a courier and dispatch service, is the founder and CEO of Twitter.com, a social networking Web site with a twist: in the clipped style of a taxi drivers radioing a status report to the dispatcher, Twitter users post mini-updates throughout the day and night to let friends (and the world) know the minute details of what they're doing.

A huge problem in most digital households is a growing collection of data without an easy way to share it and store it in one spot. Music. Movies. Pictures. Documents, backups, operating system images. Wow! Where do you put all of this stuff?

Dell isn't resting on its recent consumer Linux PC laurels. The computing giant has added a new laptop -- the Inspiron 1420 Notebook -- to its Ubuntu Linux 7.04 offering. It is also replacing the Dimension E520 desktop with the new, low-priced Inspiron 530.