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Aug 08 2007
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linux, microsoft

Google to Rescue Linux from Microsoft

Google has joined the fight to save Linux from an army of patent-waving Microsoft lawyers.

With Redmond threatening to collect royalties from Linux users and distributors across the industry, claiming that the open-source operating system violates 235 of its patents, Google has thrown its considerable weight behind the Open Invention Network (OIN), a consortium of companies bent on protecting open-source software from legal attack.

All OIN members – including big names such as IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat, and Sony, as well as Google – agree not to use their Linux-related patents against each other, and all have free access to a collection of additional open-source-related patents purchased by the consortium as a whole.

From ActiveWin.com

Aug 06 2007
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apple, linux, open source, software, technology, ubuntu

Make Ubuntu Look Like OS X

Sorry there haven’t been updates to this for a while but I’ll try to get back on it.  Here is an awesome way to make Ubuntu look like Mac OS X Tiger.  The site doesn’t tell you quite how to do everything, but it gives you all of what you need to do it.  Very cool stuff.

Linux Desktop Imitating OSX

Jun 05 2007
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linux, open source, software, technology

Fedora 7 Released

Red Hat has released it’s new open source Linux OS- Fedora 7.

Download Fedora 7

Fedora 7 Review – DistroWatch

Jun 05 2007
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backup, computers, linux, microsoft, software, technology, vista

Acronis True Image 10 Backup

I recently purchased a great backup solution for my computer. It’s from Acronis and it’s the True Image 10.0 Home Edition software backup solution.

This software is similar to products you may already be familiar with like Norton Ghost. However I’ve used Norton Ghost v12 and I didn’t like it. The interface is not user friendly and it does not function like a great backup solution should.

Acronis on the other hand has released version 10 of their True Image software. It has some great features that make it really stand out. It also supports a variety of file systems from Fat to NTFS to Ext3. Very cool. The suite costs $50.00 from their website and offers some really nice benefits if you register your product including account management and notification of upgrades. It also activates your support for the product.

So if you need a great way to backup your data and image your hard drive in case of failure, Acronis is the way to go.

Download Trial (2000/XP/Vista)

May 01 2007
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linux, open source, software, technology, ubuntu

Dell to Offer Ubuntu Linux

Here’s an article about how Dell is going to offer Ubuntu preinstalled on their desktop and laptop computers. This is a huge step forward for Linux – being ported into a mainstream PC maker. I think it’s great and I hope it further introduces Linux to a larger crowd.

Dell to Offer Linux

Apr 18 2007
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linux, open source, software, technology, ubuntu

Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn Debuts Thursday

The new version of Ubuntu dubbed “Feisty Fawn” will be released either tonight through various FTP’s or tomorrow from the official Ubuntu website.  I’ll be on the lookout and will post the links when it is released.  If I get the time I will post a little review of the OS with some screenshots.

Apr 10 2007
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apple, cd/dvd, linux, software, technology, vista

The Versatile VLC Media Player

There’s a really cool media player that’s becoming more and more popular everyday. It’s called the VLC Media Player and it runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows including Windows Vista. It’s a versatile player that can play almost any audio or video content including but not limited to: DVD, VCD, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, DivX, MP3, ogg and more.

What I love about it is that it actually plays my DVD’s on Vista. I could not do this before because my copy of Vista Business does not come with a built in DVD decoder like the Ultimate edition does. So now I can do anything with optical media using all free software, and I’ve detailed it all on this blog various times. So check it out!

VLC Features

VLC Downloads

Apr 06 2007
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apple, linux, open source, software, technology, ubuntu

Make Ubuntu Look Like OS-X

I’ve been using Ubuntu Edgy for a while now and I love it more and more everyday.  I’ve never had a Mac before either and since I’m delving into so much new computing atmosphere I thought I’d make my Linux partition feel like OS-X for fun.  So I looked it up and found this great website on how to actually make Ubuntu look very much like OS-X and it really does look cool.  Check it out below!

Lauri Taimila – Ubuntu to OS-X

Mar 25 2007
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beta stuff, linux, open source, software, technology, ubuntu

Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn Beta Preview

OSNews had a link to this great review of the new beta from Ubuntu.  The new version of the stunning Linux OS is still slated for an April release date.  The review comes from the Only Ubuntu Linux blog and includes some screenshots.  Below is their list of new features for Feisty:

New features in Feisty Fawn

Migration assistant: The new migration tool recognises Internet Explorer bookmarks, Firefox favourites, desktop wallpaper, AOL IM contacts, and Yahoo IM contacts, and imports them into Ubuntu during installation. This offers easier and faster migration for new users of Ubuntu and individuals wanting to run a dual-boot system.

Easy-to-install codec wizards: A new guided wizard for installing codecs not shipped with Ubuntu gives users a safe way of installing codecs they can legally use to view multimedia content.

Plug and play network sharing with Avahi: This new feature allows users to automatically discover and join a wireless network and share music, find printers and more.

Kernel Virtual Machine: On x86 systems with the Intel VT or AMD-V extensions, Kernel-based Virtual Machine support (KVM) allows users to run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux. Each virtual machine has private virtualised hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, and so on. We have also added VMI support, which provides optimised performance under VMWare.

Faster searching with Tracker: Tracker is a search tool much like Beagle. Both programs will be available in the repositories.

Networking Improvements: New in Feisty is Network Manager, a simple way to find and connect to wireless and wired networks.New Zeroconf support makes it easy to network desktop computers without needing servers to assign IP addresses or names.

Artwork:For Feisty all new artwork is trickling in, including a new background image, and a usplash image that has more ‘bling’.

Help Center:In order to make Help more accessible, a brand new Help Center with a easier to use interface that is more stylish.

Print and sound support: Jetpipe, a new printing architecture for thin clients, greatly improves on previous technologies.Sound support in applications is also dramatically improved with the PulseAudio sound server.

Thin client management: Administrators can now manage thin client connections to a server more easily.

VPN: Easy VPN access with NetworkManager.

New Gnome control center

Desktop Effects: Graphical Desktop Effects will be made extremely accessible, with one click activation in the system menu.

Mar 07 2007
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computers, linux, open source, software, technology, ubuntu, web 2.0

My Escapades into Linux…

kubuntu-header.png

So a few days ago, I broke out my many Linux CDs & DVDs. I have downloaded 4 or 5 distros recently and I wanted to test a few of them out on an extra 40GB hard drive I have on my old Dell computer. It’s a P4 2.4GHz with 768MB Ram and a 64 Meg graphics card – nice little machine – works very well with no problems.

I did my research and decided on the Ubuntu Edgy Eft release. It installed perfectly. Then I read something Linus Torvalds said that he hates Gnome and loves KDE. So I figured if the creator of Linux’s kernel loves KDE, I should probably try it out… and since I don’t use Macs and Gnome is more emulated for Mac style I should probably just try KDE. So I installed Kubuntu 6.10 from the DVD distribution I downloaded. It installed great.

I tried to install a nVidia third party graphics driver so I could get Beryl XGL working but that failed horribly due to lack of experience on my part and some bad instructions online. I had to reformat my installation again…

Round 2

After installing Kubuntu again, I found some better instructions on how to get a third party graphics accelerator installed here. Then I found a great wiki on how to install XGL & Beryl so I can get cool desktop effects. VERY FUN!

I couldn’t believe I actually got Beryl working on my Kubuntu installation… I was SO excited! Still am. It’s so great to have a free OS with free software, free tools, free help, free EVERYTHING and it works so well and is secure and safe and fast and fun. It’s a challenge to learn the Konsole (command line) and how to install stuff but once you get the hang of it and if you don’t mind researching on the internet how to do stuff it’s not that bad.

The Future

I’ll be posting more about my escapades into the Linux world as I discover more cool stuff. I’ll be sure to let you all know what I find. I don’t think Linux is ready for the mainstream world yet. If Linux can be as powerful as it is today and change to become an OS that my dad can use….. then it will be ready to CRUSH Microsoft. That’s what I think :)

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