Remember this quote? "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." It was uttered by none other than Microsoft frontman Steve Ballmer himself, in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times in 2001. It's no secret that Microsoft has put itself right in the center of the proprietary versus open-source war. But the software giant is now starting to dabble in the dark side of open-source projects itself. We're getting nothing but mixed-signals from Redmond. So what is it, Microsoft? Cancer, or cash-cow?Read on to find out about Microsoft's newest open-source initiatives! read...
Filed under: Linux, Freeware, Open Source, Analysis, EducationIf you're not familiar with it, the HeliOS project is an effort to get computers into the hands of kids who might not otherwise be able to afford them. To date this year, they've distributed over 300 machines. Apparently that's not enough to keep them from making an enemy.A middle school teacher named Karen observed one of her students demonstrating the abilities of his Linux-powered laptop to his classmates. What a great thing, a student exposing his peers to technology they probably weren't familiar with before....Right?Wrong. Karen sprang into action, confiscated the CDs...
Post from: Royal HeHe2-ness! A blog that advocates Linux and Open Source. 7 Cool (and Functional) Android Applications [Video Tour] Its been almost a month since my 2 brothers and I received our G1 phones from ebay, and truth to be told, it really exceeded our expectations. True we have our gripes, which we will detail in a future blog (stay tuned), but our final vote is, that its the best phone we had the pleasure to use. Truth to be told, the Android app store has a long way to go to rival iTunes, but still there are some...
We have been hearing about new versions of the MSI Wind for a few months. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be chatting on the phone with the product manager of the MSI Wind Andy Tung about the the company’s plans for the Wind. Chatting with Andy always proves to be really interesting and you can see a few of my planned questions below. But what do you want to know? Please post your questions in the comments below. I will try and ask MSI as many as I can. Check back tomorrow night to see if I selected any of your questions...
While it’s true the Desktop Flickr Organizer for Linux can’t be beat as far as backing up your Flickr account is concerned, I was searching for a way to do the same in Windows and yes, I found a way. The app is called Downloadr. It is very basic but it does the job it’s supposed to do and furthermore doesn’t crash like flickredit does. The way to back up your entire Flickr account (meaning all photos including private ones) is to do this: In your preferred web browser, login to your Flickr account first. Launch Downloadr. Click Extras then...
The long-anticipated release of the Google Earth browser plugin for Mac OS X (Intel and PowerPC) has arrived, about half a year after the plugin for Windows was announced and about 5 weeks after the introduction of the GE iPhone application. Linux users will still have to wait a bit for a compatible version. You can download by visiting any Google Earth Plugin app or visiting the GE API web site. Attention: the file is 47MB in size, because of the combined Intel and PowerPC compatibility. Go to EarthSwoop or 360Cities to see it in action. It will be interesting...
Netbooks are here. The Coby PoqetMate prove it as the sub-$100 netbooks are headed to Rite Aid Pharmacies and Kroger grocery stores. Once a product breaks free of its niche market and invades the general populous, you might as well get use to them ’cause they aren’t going anywhere. As for this Coby Netbook, the 7-inch flavor is going to ring up under $100. Specs are a bit sketchy but it seems that a Chinese Longsoon CPU will power some sort Linux distro. Expect them to hit main street sometime by March. Netbooks are here, folks. No avoiding ‘em now....
If you like to open .docx files without Office Word 2007, there’s a new Firefox extension from Microsoft that should help. Available for Windows as well as Linux machines. Open DOCX files as an HTML document in any web browser Called OpenXML viewer, this plug-in (download link) lets you read docx files inside the Firefox browser just like any other HTML web page while retaining all the text formatting and layout. There’s a command-line version of OpenXML viewer (download link) available as well for converting docx documents into HTML files that you may then open in any other web browser....
Just as we're coming to grips with the entire netbook phenomenon, low end manufacturer Coby comes up with something even lamer. "[Midget PCs] are smaller than a netbook but not THAT small." Midget PCs. Lovely. What's makes a midget PC different than a netbook? If you listen to Coby's marketing director, they're a whole new category of computer meant for leaner times. As far as I can tell though, the PoqetMate-7 and PoqetMate-9 are just netbooks, albeit extremely cheap ones. Coby hasn't offered many specs to ponder, but the models, primarily differentiated by screen size (7in and 9in) will run...
Last year we showed you a new, lightweight Linux-based operating system called gOS (aka Good OS) with an emphasis on integrating web-based applications with your desktop. gOS first gained notoriety as the operating system on Walmart's $199 PC, and now the good folks at gOS have put together a new, super-lightweight operating system for netbooks called gOS Cloud that runs entirely inside a web browser (which looks like it's probably a tweaked version of Google Chrome). Details are scant, and there doesn't seem to be an available download yet, but gOS Cloud looks like it could be the perfect OS...
