Showing headlines posted by dcparris

I read an interesting article in LinuxJournal on setting up thin clients recently. I have always liked the idea of having a server and using X in one of the ways it was originally meant to be used, but so far, no article has offered a clear idea how to integrate and support serving a mixed environment of thin clients and traditional desktop or laptop machines together conveniently.

Initial findings published, hearing next week

The European Commission has published the initial findings from its public consultation on Europe's patent system, revealing deep divisions within the business community on how best to proceed, but also a consensus that something must be done.

Kent Police has cut the cost of running its major criminal investigations system by 90% using Novell Open Enterprise Server, the company's version of SuSE Linux.

The business benefits of IP technologies will be discussed at the West Wales ICT Roadshow in Carmarthen on 19 July.

Another MS Exchange server bites the dust. Pietermaritzburg IT company, DcData, recently completed a Scalix implementation for a large KwaZulu-Natal wholesaler. Tectonic asks how it went.

Mozilla’s Firefox web browser remains a popular choice, especially among tech-savvy web users.

[This article shows growth among Zaire users - dcparris]

Arkeia Software and Computer Dynamics Corporation of Japan, announced a broad distribution agreement for the Japanese market. The agreement provides Computer Dynamics Corporation the ability to market, sell and support the full range of Linux Supported data protection products across all of Japan.

The Portland Project has released a beta version of its programming interfaces for the Gnome and KDE Linux environments. This is designed to boost development of desktop Linux applications by creating common application programming interfaces (APIs) for developers to use.

The name Philips has long been associated with consumer electronics, but as the concept of the connected home has developed and begun to take on meaning, Philips Semiconductors has become one of the main suppliers of silicon for this segment. Philips finds itself, as a semiconductor solutions provider, in a situation where it has to think through and develop a number of possible scenarios for the connected home. Some of the questions are obvious. Will the digital home be PC-centric or TV-centric or both? How will it be networked? Other questions are not so obvious. How can DVDs be transferred onto a home network, if it's illegal to make even a single backup copy of a legitimately purchased disc? How will digital rights management (DRM) schemes operate across a range of mobile devices?

Novell has rung the changes on its management team, with president and chief operating officer Ron Hovsepian stepping up to the CEO role last month.

The Mini Koobox is based on an Intel platform built by AOpen and comes with a Linspire Linux operating system, which includes full Microsoft file-compatible office suite, DVD player and DVD-playing software, music and photo management software, Internet applications, e-mail and instant messaging capabilities.

As the IT director for a non-profit community center, I face several challenges, the most pressing being the lack of money. This means our lab is filled with donated older equipment with limited capabilities. Given this state of affairs, I am always on the lookout for free, easy-to-use open source software. I chose PC-BSD as our standard operating system because of its exemplary performance on older equipment.

Hands on: Back up files using the tar command and rsync

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer just had a chat with Blake Ross of the Firefox team, talking over points such as the project's success and how Microsoft motivated the whole project. Blake says that Microsoft's lack of browser innovation in the absence of decent competition makes him "furious," and that the Google tie-in is based more on the search engine's quality than on any marketing agreement.

Developers are demonstrating the ability of open-source databases and BI platforms to deliver advanced analytics and operate on large databases at a fraction of the cost of conventional commercial systems.

Amateur filmmaker Solomon Rothman has released a full length open source movie called 'Boy Who Never Slept.'

The Verso and IBM offering is designed to maximize a provider's ability to quickly and easily deploy voice-over-broadband services to business, as well as residential, subscribers.

Shopping for network "appliances", especially mid-to-lower range gear, can easily turn into a full-time job. Netgear, D-Link, Linksys, Cisco, Watchguard, Sonicwall, SnapGear, Netscreen, Multitech, Barracuda, CheckPoint, Symantec, and so forth; with all manner of options and pricing configurations. Your purchasing fun is just beginning when you finally make a selection; then comes the per-user, per-year licenses, plus support. And after all that, what do you get? Mostly, you get poorer.

Jim Hall, creator of the open source MS-DOS operating system project FreeDOS, says that while work on the project may have slowed recently, he isn't ready to throw in the towel just yet. In fact, Hall says he hopes to see version 1.0 released as soon as the end of the month.

When I interviewed Richard Stallman back in 1999, he had some interesting thoughts on the subject of freedom:

I'm going to keep working on the free software movement, because I don't see who's going to replace me, and I don't see how I could do something more important in some other area. The issues of freedom that everybody's heard of are much more important than this - freedom of speech, freedom of the press, free assembly. The reason I'm not more involved with them is that I don't know what to do about them very effectively.