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NewsVac: News from around the Web
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Unemployed? Five reasons to build your resume with FOSS contributions
27 minutes ago
It looks like we’ve gone from speculating whether we’re headed into recession depression, to speculating just what that depression is going to look like. Yihong Ding, over on the Thinking Space blog,predicts that we’ll have a “Golden Age” of the Web thanks to millions sitting at home with little else to do than putter around on the Web: -
'WSJ' calls Microsoft antivirus tool 'spyware'
57 minutes ago
There's a lot of ways to look at Microsoft's decision to abandon OneCare and come up with free antivirus software. -
Exciting Features For Ubuntu 9.04
1 hour, 27 minutes ago
If all goes according to plan, the first alpha release for Ubuntu 9.04 (the Jaunty Jackalope) will be released tomorrow. It's not even been one month since the release of Ubuntu 8.10, but this first alpha release will show early signs of what we can expect to see in this next Canonical-sponsored release -- albeit many of the features are still in planning. In this article we will provide a glimpse at what Ubuntu 9.04 should hold in store to captivate Linux desktop users. -
Linux: Should You Use Twice the Amount of Ram as Swap Space?
1 hour, 57 minutes ago
Linux and other Unix-like operating systems use the term “swap” to describe both the act of moving memory pages between RAM and disk, and the region of a disk the pages are stored on. It is common to use a whole partition of a hard disk for swapping. However, with the 2.6 Linux kernel, swap files are just as fast as swap partitions. Now, many admins (both Windows and Linux/UNIX) follow an old rule of thumb that your swap partition should be twice the size of your main system RAM. Let us say I’ve 32GB RAM, should I set swap space to 64 GB? Is 64 GB of swap space really required? How big should your Linux / UNIX swap space be? -
5 Reasons I Like Linux (And 5 Why I Dislike It)
2 hours, 27 minutes ago
Doing “stuff” on linux is just so easy. By “stuff”, I mean everything from doing some normal day chores, downloading files, customizing things, automating routine tasks, etc. The backbone for this is “the terminal” (not the movie :P). I can do almost anything I want from the console. -
Mounting Xen virtual machine storage on physical hosts
2 hours, 57 minutes ago
If a Xen virtual machine fails to start up, having its storage back end-mounted to your Xen server physical host is beneficial. An expert explains how to do so if you use a device as your storage back end. -
Ubuntu for the Holidays
3 hours, 27 minutes ago
Want some Ubuntu gear to put under the Christmas tree? Then check out the new U.S. Ubuntu store. -
PHP Zend Framework 1.7 adds Adobe support
3 hours, 57 minutes ago
The open source Zend Framework 1.7 is now available expanding the PHP framework to work better with Adobe Flex and AIR applications. Adobe and Zend announced back in September that they would be collaborating for Zend Framework and now they've delivered. -
Using Fedora 10 on the One Laptop Per Child XO Laptop
4 hours, 27 minutes ago
With the release of Fedora 10, and the One Laptop Per Child Give One Get One (G1G1) approaching On-Disk.com was approached by OLPC to make Fedora 10 available for the XO G1G1 laptops. Because we needed to test the process anyway, I documented the process and my impressions of Fedora 10 on the XO laptop. -
16 videos from the Linux Kernel Summit
8 hours, 27 minutes ago
The Linux Foundation has published a series of video interviews from the annual Linux Kernel Summit held Sept. 15-16 in Portland, Oregon. In the videos, 16 developers -- including Linux creator Linus Torvalds -- discuss their development activities. -
NVIDIA Driver Brings PureVideo Features To Linux
12 hours, 27 minutes ago
Over the course of the past few months we have been saying that the NVIDIA 180 Linux driver to be released in the fourth quarter of 2008 would hold in store a few interesting features. Well, today that closed-source driver has been released in beta form. This driver adds a new VDPAU API, which provides PureVideo-like features on Linux, adds in CUDA 2.1 support, new workstation performance optimizations, X Render improvements, and other improvements. -
Open Comparability: against anti-benchmarking EULAs
19 hours, 27 minutes ago
It is time that legislators, regulators and procurement officials put an end to end-user license agreements (EULA) that prevent publication of comparative benchmarks. -
The Microsoft-Novell Linux deal: Two years later
20 hours, 57 minutes ago
The controversial arrangement over open source and Windows still creates strong feelings, pro and con -
Papers sought for Embedded Linux Conference
21 hours, 57 minutes ago
The largest embedded Linux conference has announced its venue and topic list for next year's event. Set for April 6-8, 2009, at San Francisco's Hotel Kabuki, the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum's fifth-annual Embedded Linux Conference directly precedes the Linux Foundation's Spring Collaboration Summit, Apr. 8-10. -
Mozilla launches super-simple Firefox customizer
22 hours, 56 minutes ago
Browser maker debuts new directory for add-ons that's easy to use but way too sparse. - More News
Linux.com : Features
Manage your music with ID3 tag editors
The Linux desktop comes with a variety of multimedia players, such as Xine, MPlayer, and Amarok. Yet all digital media players are only as good as the files they have to work with, and preparing those files requires the best tag editor you can find. I checked out half a dozen of the more popular and stable graphical ID3 tag editors available for Linux. I found that going from no tags to great tags requires keeping more than one of these editors on hand.
Doing a diff without touching the command line
With diff-ext, GNOME users can compare and merge files from within Nautilus. If, instead, you use KDE 3, try out kdiff-ext from the same site, which works with Konqueror. Each utility handles paths to files and directories and invokes an external diff tool to perform the grunt work. With diff-ext you can easily compare two files with different names, from different directories, or whole directory trees.
iPhone applications for the Linux user
The iPhone and iPod Touch haven taken the mobile market by storm. Apple's AppStore is full of interesting applications that take advantage of the two devices's capabilities. But what's in there for Linux users? Sadly, GTKPod and Amarok cannot yet transfer files on an iPhone with the 2.x firmware upgrade, but there are other interesting ways your iPhone can interact with your Linux desktop and even servers.
sK1 vector in on good illustrations
From its name, you'd never know that sK1 is a good vector graphics drawing program, in the same category as better-known names like Inkscape, Dia, and OpenOffice.org Draw. Moreover, sK1 includes a feature that other Linux applications lack: it can read CorelDraw's CDR files and convert them to Linux-friendly formats.
Treat your C code like scripts with C Cod
C Cod is a front end to your C, C++, or Objective-C compiler that lets you treat C more like a scripting language. C Cod comes with C Server Pages, which provides support for CGI so you can write Web applications in C or C++ and have them automatically compiled on demand.
Slumberland rests easy after move away from proprietary Unix
In 2005, when Slumberland faced end-of-lifecycle replacements of its proprietary Unix platform, its warehouse management system (WMS) vendor suggested a move to Red Hat Linux and commodity x86 servers. Seth Mitchell, the infrastructure team manager at the large furniture retailer, gladly agreed. Upper management wasn't quite as quick to jump on the open source bandwagon, but once the cost savings started rolling in, everyone agreed that it was a profitable decision.
Crafting offers and invoice documents with Kraft
Kraft helps you keep track of business offers and invoices and can generate PDF files to help you easily issue these routine documents to third parties. Since Kraft is a KDE application, it can draw contact information directly from your KDE address book, so you don't have to duplicate or sync your contacts in order to generate an invoice.
Enrich your Joomla! site with image extensions
Several extensions can help you work with photographic images on your Joomla! content management system. Here are some of the best.
Bug Labs creates open source Lego for software engineers
Most of the new breed of open source hardware centers on specific products. Bug Labs is taking a different approach. Instead of developing particular devices, Bug Labs' goal is to provide a Lego-like collection of open source hardware and software that customers can use to build their own devices. According to CEO Peter Semmelhack, the result should be not only a higher degree of innovation, but also a forerunner of the hardware business of the future.
Set Mantis to track your bugs
Mantis is that rare bug-tracking program for small projects that is neither too bloated nor too featureless. It's an excellent choice for developers who need a bug tracker that the average computer user can use. Its clean interface and numerous features make bug tracking fast and easy.
Back-of-the-napkin calculations with Frink
Linux users have a myriad of calculators and unit conversion tools at their disposal. To set itself apart, Frink aims to track units for you and give you a way to quickly perform little conversions and real-world calculations without burdening you with needless details.
Ace Suares: A big Linux advocate on a small island (video)
The word "big" has two meanings here. Ace Suares is not only a big-time GNU/Linux and FOSS advocate, but he is close to 2.5 meters tall and built like a football lineman. He lives on the island of Curacao in the Netherland Antilles, where he and his wife run a small Web design and hosting firm that (of course) runs Linux servers. But trying to convert other IT people on Curacao to the FOSS cause has not been easy, and has caused Ace plenty of frustration over the years. Somehow, he keeps going; arranging conferences, holding LPI Certification classes, and generally talking up Linux to his clients, friends, and even to strangers whose businesses or government agencies might be made more efficient by using FOSS instead of proprietary software. Now we'll get out of the way and let Ace tell his story directly to you in the following video. (It's about 13:20 long.)
Clone your Ubuntu installation onto a new hard disk
Just upgraded your system with a shiny new hard disk and want to make it your new book disk? Cloning Ubuntu to another hard disk is easy. In fact, Ubuntu provides tools to clone the entire hard disk -- including the Windows partition, if there's one on there. This is the kind of fundamental task that Linux excels at, in fact.
Tidy up your mailboxes with Archivemail
Over time, people tend to accumulate a large number of messages in various email accounts, most of which they never bother with again. The problem is particularly acute for administrator accounts that receive routine notifications of events that are viewed, if at all, no more than once. The archivemail tool lets you easily archive these old messages and thereby free up some disk space and improve your mail client's performance.
Portrait: FOSS legal leader Andrew Updegrove
Attorney Andrew Updegrove specializes in technology, intellectual property, and standards. While other lawyers can make the same claim, few have his credentials -- maintainer of an online repository about standards consortia, former board member of the Linux Foundation, and progenitor of a major open source license.
Splashtop moves into netbooks
The Splashtop instant-on Linux environment is included in the new Lenovo IdeaPad S10e netbook, marking the product's first appearance in that form factor. That news should come as no surprise, since netbooks' ultra-portability is a natural match for Splashtop's instant-on.
Find your way with tangoGPS
If you want to turn your netbook or conventional laptop into a nifty open source navigation system, you need two things: a USB receiver and a GPS-enabled navigation application. You can buy a GPS receiver cheaply at virtually any gadget store or on eBay. And there are actually several GPS-enabled navigation applications out there, including Navit, GPSdrive, and Roadnav. These are fine applications, but if you are looking for GPS software that offers the right amount of features wrapped in a sleek and user-friendly interface, try tangoGPS. This lightweight GPS-enabled navigation application can pull maps from different sources and has a few clever features up its sleeve.
Levolor leverages Talend to better manage floods of data
When Levolor, a maker of window coverings, was looking for a better way to manage floods of data more quickly and efficiently, it ended up swapping its homegrown application for an open source tool.
Does cb2bib remove drudgery from bibliography creation?
Many academics and students share a dirty secret: They hate the drudgery of assembling bibliographies. The cb2bib utility attempts to remove some of the drudgery, at least so far as online references go. Designed primarily for use with BibTeX, cb2bib can also be used with other formats once you export the results. However, whether the application actually makes bibliographical tasks easier seems questionable.
Access remote network services with SSH tools
You probably rely on the services on your own private network -- wikis, mail servers, Web sites, and other applications you've installed. What happens when you have to leave the friendly confines of your network? With minimum exposure and few simple tools, you can get all of the comforts of home anywhere you can find an Internet connection.
