Showing headlines posted by tuxchick

It’s my first class of the semester at New York University. I’m discussing the evils of plagiarism and falsifying sources with 11 graduate journalism students when, without warning, my computer freezes. I fruitlessly tap on the keyboard as my laptop takes on a life of its own and reboots. Seconds later the screen flashes a message. To receive the four-digit code I need to unlock it I’ll have to dial a number with a 312 area code. Then my iPhone, set on vibrate and sitting idly on the table, beeps madly.

I’m being hacked — and only have myself to blame.

It's a few months old, but still pertinent. -ed.

Debian technical committee was discussing the default init system for Debian and it bioled down to basically systemd, which is developed by the larger free software community (lead by Lennart Poettering), and Upstart which was developed by Canonical employees.

DSM’s NanoServer NI-QM87 computer features a 4th Gen., Intel Core i5 with 10 USB ports, PCIe and Mini-PCIe expansion, and support for up to six SATA drives. Following in a line of NanoServers dating back to the circa-2008, Geode LX800 based NanoServer E8, DSM’s new NanoServer NI-QM87 taps a decidedly more robust processor, the Intel […]

Aaeon’s Linux-ready “AEC-6523″ industrial PC runs on an Intel Atom N2600, supports SATA and CFast storage, and features wide power and temperature ranges. The AEC-6523 embedded controller is a more temperature resistant alternative to the AEC-6401 computer announced by Aaeon last August. Among other differences, it offers a wider power range, adds Mini PCI-Express expansion […]

Today's ImageMagick lesson covers how to resize images, change case on file extensions, convert file formats, construct a proof sheet of thumbnails, and search and sort photos by their Exif data.

Last year, Bangalore-based iWave Systems Technologies announced two Linux-ready computer-on-modules (COMs) that offer embedded building blocks for two interesting system-on-chips that combine ARM cores with other types of processors. Now the company is extending these COMs with a pair of Linux-friendly development boards.

Dell's Wyse division, takes a HDMI stick, adds some Android, mixes in some thin-client sauce, and bakes up a new kind of portable PC.

The leading open-source alternative to Microsoft Office is looking better than ever.

Most distro reviews go no deeper than a quick look at a live CD/DVD, or a quick tour in a virtual machine, some commentary on the colors, a few screenshots, and done. Linux distro installers have been the best of any operating system for years now, so there is little point in discussing installation, and colors? Is it a mystery that we can change the colors? openSUSE 13.1 was released in November 2013, and I decided to use it for 30 days before reviewing it. Well, time got away from me and here it is nearly 60 days, so it has had a thorough pummeling at my brutal hands.

Intel released more information about its Quark-based Jarvis headset reference design, claiming that it offers local voice processing for faster responses. At CES, Intel demo’d its upcoming Jarvis headset, along with other products that run on its new dual-core, Linux-oriented Quark processor, such as a smartwatch and a baby monitor. In a Jan. 27 interview […]

I am a born nerd, born to take things apart and put them back together, and to combine unlike things in imaginative ways. I am one of those people you never want to go shopping with, because I have to stand in front of any item I might ever under any circumstances consider purchasing, and work through in my head the nine zillion ways in which I might use it.

In the 10 years since the CentOS project was launched there has been no board of directors, or legal team, or commercial backing. The developers who labored to build the community-led version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) worked largely unpaid (though some took a few consulting gigs on the side.) They had a few hundred dollars in their bank account to pay for event t-shirts and that was it. And the project's direction was decided based on the developers' immediate needs, not a grand vision of future technology. That's all changing with the news last week that CentOS will join Red Hat, said Karanbir Singh, CentOS project leader and one of four CentOS developers going to work for Red Hat as part of the new collaboration

Artila Electronics announced a tiny control computer running Linux on ARM9, and featuring mini-PCe sockets for options including WiFi, Bluetooth, cellular, and GPS. Like Artila’s earlier Matrix-503 the new Matrix-513 runs Linux on a 400MHz Atmel AT91SAM9G45 SoC, offers twin10/100 Ethernet ports, and is aimed at remote, headless operation with browser-based monitoring and control. Matrix-513 […]

Canonical, the legal entity around Ubuntu Linux, is still operating at a loss of millions of dollars each year. Making the rounds on the Internet this morning is Canonical's UK financial report for the 2013 fiscal year...

The strength of the Linux and FOSS ecosystem is its breadth and depth, and ability to fill important niches large and small without worrying about profitability. My top 7 picks for 2014 are nowhere near comprehensive, but they highlight important work. As always you are invited to share your own picks in the comments.

Last year, Lauren Egts designed and programmed a game (The Great Guinea Pig Escape) using a youth-focused programming language called Scratch. She presented it at the 2013 Cleveland Mini Maker Faire where it caught the eye of Element14's David Hamblin. He was impressed, and in June, Opensource.com shared Lauren's interview with David about how she got started programming and what her dad, Dave Egts, thinks of her hobby.

The first Europe Code Week was held two months ago at schools and CoderDojos in 26 countries around Europe—Ireland and Croatia being the most active. The event was launched to help increase the knowledge shared with school-age children about coding, computer science, and technology by The Young Advisors (a group of young people dedicated to advancing a digital society working closely with the Vice President of the European Commission, Neelie Kroes). During the events, kids from schools all over Europe used Scratch, Arduino boards, and other open source software and hardware to build thier projects (including robots)!   Each country that took part in Europe Code Week appointed an Ambassador to lead their event. I reached out to Ireland’s Julie Cullen, a teacher at St. Oliver’s College, Drogheda, Co. Louth, to get her take on the event. In this interview, Julie shares just how excited the kids were to work with code and computers, what open source software they hacked on, and what projects got underway. She also tells us what’s in store for this year’s #codeEU 2014.

LinuxSecurity.com: My expectations were low when I asked the National Security Agency to cooperate with my story on the impact of Edward Snowden's leaks on the tech industry. During the 1990s, I had been working on a book, Crypto, which dove deep into cryptography policy, and it took me years - years! - to get an interview with an employee crucial to my narrative.

It was inevitable: Roku, which shipped its 5 millionth streaming media player last year, is now having its Linux-based STB technology embedded directly within Smart TVs. Since the introduction of the “Netflix Player by Roku” in May 2008, Roku has successfully clawed its way to the top of the streaming media player heap. Last April, […]

While Linus's Law says "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow", the GNOME project ended out 2013 with more than 46,000 open bugs. Here's some statistics out of the GNOME camp about the bugs and patch flow for 2013...