Showing headlines posted by Sander_Marechal

How many of you has never customized/tweaked your favorite linux distro since your first installation? I suspect very few, if any. One of the main appeal of Linux (and open source softwares) is the freedom of customization and the choice to do virtually anything you want. You are only limited by your imagination and understanding of the system. So today we will share some tips and information to make your linux system harder, better and faster.

Sooner or later, we all end up installing new software on our computers. Whether it's a new version of Firefox, or a cool game, or a video editing package, there comes a time when you want to make your system do more than it can do now. Under Linux, installing new applications isn't a particularly hard task, but installations do come in several different varieties, so it's worth understanding the differences and what you'll need to know to make them work.

Today I got an e-mail from the author of Nathive, which is a fairly new linux image editor. I encourage people to try it out and give feedback to the author to help him improve it. Nathive is a libre software image editor, focusing on usability, logic and provide a smooth learning curve for everyone. The project runs over Gnome desktop and everyone can collaborate in it with code, translations or ideas.

LiquidTV offers most of the features of a standard TiVo DVR: online scheduling with the integrated Electronic Programming Guide, recording of up to two shows simultaneously to the hard drive, HD and standard image quality, and support for as many as four tuners.... Unlike the standard DVR, however, content navigation is not limited to remote control, and unique mouse and keyboard commands have been added. Also, the software has the ability to export recorded media to portable devices supporting .tivo, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 (H.263 + H.264), AVI, and WMV files, or burn-to-DVD.

Nearly a week after T-Mobile, HTC and Google unveiled the G1, the first handset running the open source Android mobile platform, another handset maker is reportedly preparing a large push to incorporate the nascent mobile software system into its upcoming devices. A report Sunday stated that Motorola is boosting the size of its Android development team from 50 to 350.

Over the last decade, vector graphics have gone from being a revolutionary format to a standard method of rendering computer images -- so much so that they are standard in the KDE 4 desktops. This popularity is based on the fact that, because they represent images as mathematical equations -- usually in SVG format -- vector graphics open faster, render better on screen, and can be resized more readily than raster graphics, in which an image is created pixel by pixel. Free software includes a number of options for working with vector graphics, including several simple ones: OpenOffice.org's Draw, KOffice's Karbon14, and Inkscape, which is currently the premier vector graphic editor in free software.

I saw a lot of FOSS sites covering GTD in the past few months so I decided to give it a go, read the book and play with all kinds of software. I quickly came across Tracks, a nice looking GTD application to manage your actions. Unfortnately it's written in Ruby on Rails which can be a bit of a pain to set up under Linux, especially if you want to use Apache as the webserver instead of the built-in WEBrick server. I’m already running Apache on my server and I didn’t feel like running a second webserver on a different, non-standard port just for this one app. It took me quite a bit of time to piece it all together, but here’s how I set up Tracks in Debian Lenny.

What does it mean to be open. My copy of Oxford defines open as: "unconcealed circumstances or condition". Way back in the day when the GNU operating system was getting going, they coined the mantra: "Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer." Last month, I talked about transparency and how important it was in software and systems. Just as important are standards, and, more important following those standards. Today, in Computerworld, a different issue has been raised. The value of standards.

New Inspiron Mini 9 netbook will ship with Ubuntu pre-installed - including Netbook Remix - or Windows XP if you're prepared to pay a litttle extra.

The latency of the execution of a particular task can be affected by what tasks a system is running, the condition of the network the machine is connected to, and how well the various server machines on the network are performing. LatencyTOP is a command-line tool and kernel patch that lets you see what is causing latency in the applications on your system.

Morning wrap: Are you running Ubuntu but you're keen to see what all the fuss over Google's Chrome browser is about? Then here is a guide to running Chrome on Ubuntu using Wine. Speaking of Chrome, Google has updated its terms of service for Chrome to remove the sections that suggested that Google would own all your content while using its browser. The new terms simply state that your content is your content. And Red Hat has just bought up an Israeli virtualisation company, Qumranet, for a $107 million. Red Hat plans to incorporate the new virtualisation software into its Red Hat Enterprise desktop.

In my last article for Linux Journal's web edition, I discussed a web-based program that queried an SQL database and output a native Excel file. That article was based on a program I wrote for a customer some time ago. Today, I'm going to write about doing the exact opposite; today's program will accept an Excel spreadsheet, collect data from it, and make additions to an SQL database. This program is also based on a program I'm writing for a customer. In fact, I wrote both programs for the same customer.

I have six basic different uses for free, open-source software: 1) my law office practice; 2) managing and editing video for the Digital Tipping Point Project; 3) running a 25-seat Edubuntu lab at a public middle school as a volunteer in San Francisco; 4) placing ACCRC.org Linux computers in classrooms; 5) giving out ACCRC.org Ubuntu computers to friends, neighbors and the children who attend that school; and 6) supporting San Francisco's Tech Connect program by demonstrating Linux boxes at events for nonprofits and low-income individuals.

Up until recently, the big-name PC brands have been decidedly reluctant to go with a Linux operating system on their mainstream desktops and notebooks. Dell with its option of Ubuntu on selected models is about as good as it got. But with netbooks beginning to arrive in Australia and the US by the truckload, the brands have had to look at their costs and even Microsoft’s decision to keep Windows XP Home Edition around specifically for these devices hasn’t done the trick. Enter various shades of Linux with Asus choosing Xandros, Acer getting cosy with Linpus and Dell sticking to its tried and trusted Ubuntu distro. The low cost, high stability and ease of use appears to have now reached the right levels for major brands to take a risk.

The truth is perception plays a large part in most buying decisions, and that goes from choosing a brand of laundry detergent to buy all the way up to deciding what operating systems to run. Just ask Microsoft. The perception is that its Vista OS is a pile of garbage, and Microsoft reckons it's worth spending $100 million on a campaign to try to change that perception. Linux has many things going for it, yet it makes up just 13.4 percent of total server revenue.

Adam Jackson has just announced the release of the much anticipated X Server 1.5.0. This is the key component that will make up X.Org 7.4, which we expect to see released (hopefully) this week during the X Developer Summit. The X Server 1.5.0 release announcement can be read on the mailing list, while we'll have a full run-down on X.Org 7.4 as soon as it's released.

Viking is an open source application that allows you to import and edit your Global Positioning System (GPS) points of interest and tracks. It can overlay the points and tracks on your choice of Google Maps, Terraserver, OpenStreetMap, or NASA's BlueMarble map tiles so you can see what you are doing.

Back in May it was announced that the Give 1 Get 1 program would be making a comeback and in June there were indications that it would happen after September 1. Now IDG News Service broke the news earlier today that Amazon will be running this year's Give 1 Get 1 program from late November until possibly the end of December. This information is based on an interview with OLPC's Matt Keller who works as OLPC's director of Europe, Middle East and Africa.

There was a time when IBM took a lot of pride in supporting the IT needs of big sporting events like the Olympic Games and the U.S. Open, and it also used to try to showcase all of its key information systems as part of the overall solutions. IBM walked away from the Olympics IT sponsorship after the Barcelona games, but it still hosts the infrastructure for the U.S. Open tennis competition. The one big change at this year's tennis tournament is that IBM is not only consolidating servers, but has ported all the applications, which do scoring and provide Web applications, to Linux.

Last year, curious over the hype that was flooding the internet in the wake of the release of Windows Vista, I decided to turn masochist and inflict a 14-day Vista trial on myself. I found the operating system much worse than even its worst critic. I earned some flak for the review I wrote but many people also agreed with my experience. Those were early days as far as Vista was concerned - since then there has been tons of criticism, some of it pure vitriol.