Open Source "Free" Software

[imported_n/a]

Just thought I would post a list of some of the most common open source software programs and info available for free download. No need to download illegal software if good stuff is available free.

If you are new to this and want more info look to the links below the line. Like the dude at ING Direct says...Save your money

Must haves will be in bold. Similar to (commonly used software) in brackets

7-Zip Data Compression File Archiver (WinZip)
www.7-zip.org/

AbiWord Word processing (Microsoft Wordpad)
www.abisource.com/

Audacity Digital audio editor (Adobe Audition)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Blender 3D Modelling and rendering 3D graphics and animations (Alias Maya)
www.blender3d.org/

CDex CD ripper program
http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/index.php

ClamWin Antivirus software (Norton AntiVirus)
www.clamwin.com/

Dia Diagrams, flowcharts (Microsoft Visio)
www.gnome.org/projects/dia/

FileZilla FTP client and server (SmartFTP)
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

FlightGear Flight simulator (Microsoft Flight Simulator)
www.flightgear.org/

Gaim Instant messaging client (MSN Messenger)
http://gaim.sourceforge.net/

GanttProject Plan projects using a Gantt chart (Microsoft Project)
http://ganttproject.sourceforge.net/index.php

GIMP Graphics editor (Adobe Photoshop)
www.gimp.org/

Gizmo Project - Open Standards Internet telephony (VoIP) network (Skype)
http://gizmoproject.com/

Grisbi Personal accounting application
http://www.grisbi.org/

Inkscape SVG editor (Adobe Illustrator)
www.inkscape.org/

Mozilla Firefox Web browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer)
www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Mozilla Sunbird Calendar and personal information manager (Microsoft Outlook)
www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird.html

Mozilla Thunderbird Email and news client (Microsoft Outlook Express)
www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/

MySQL Database (Microsoft SQL server)
www.mysql.com/

NASA World Wind (Google Earth)
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/index.html

NVU Web Authoring System (Microsoft FrontPage)
www.nvu.com/index.html

Open Clip Art Library
www.openclipart.org/

OpenOffice.org Office applications suite (Microsoft Office)
http://www.openoffice.org/
Download version 2.0 not 1.1.5

OpenSolaris Operating System (Microsoft Windows)
http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/opensolaris.jsp
http://opensolaris.org/os/

OpenWengo Open source (VoIP) network (Skype)
http://www.openwengo.com/

Open Workbench Project scheduling and management (Microsoft Project)
www.openworkbench.org/index.php

PhoneGaim Digital quality phone calls (Skype)
www.phonegaim.com/

PostgreSQL Database (Microsoft SQL server)
www.postgresql.org/

Scribus Desktop publishing (Adobe PageMaker)
www.scribus.org.uk/index.php

Shareaza Peer-to-Peer client (Kazaa)
www.shareaza.com/

TightVNC Remote control software
http://tightvnc.com/index.html

TrueDownloader Download manager/accelerator
http://francis.dupont.free.fr/truedownloader/index.html

VLC Media Player (Windows Media Player)
http://www.videolan.org/

WinHTTrack Offline browser utility
www.httrack.com/

WordPress Weblog content management system
http://wordpress.org/

Xara Xtreme Commercial-standard graphics program (Adobe Illustrator)
http://www.xaraxtreme.org/

************************************************** **********

Open source software packages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_software_packages

MIT OpenCourseWare
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/index.htm

NewsForge
www.newsforge.com/

OpenCola
www.colawp.com/colas/400/cola467_recipe.html

Open Source Spotlight
www.pcmech.com/cat/opensource/

Rockin' on without Microsoft
http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html?tag=lh

SourceForge
http://sourceforge.net/index.php

TheOpenCD
http://www.theopencd.org/

Wikipedia (Encyclopedia Britannica Online)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

[HamiltonSteelers]

Nice. Thanks for the list.

[imported_n/a]

No problem. Some of this stuff can be a real revelation to those who aren't aware of the open source movement. Especially the progs in bold. ie OpenOffice

Also, with Microsoft now beginning to get serious about people pirating their software and taking steps to minimize this, the opportunity for open source programs will increase dramatically.

[Desigol]

I Use Firefox, that's about it.

[Sigma]

Is there a video player that is open source?

[DJT]

Yup, VLC, the same one that I've recommended (and now Massive Attack always posts when he releases a torrent) to avoid codec problems with WMP:

http://www.videolan.org

Great list posted by Joe. Of course, there's lots of really great non-open-source freeware available as well.

[shaku_bert]

VLC can get mucky if you try to advance the movie. But it plays EVERYTHING.

[Loud Mouth Soup]

Don't use Firefox 1.5 Beta.

Stick with 1.0.6 for now. The 1.5 was quite iffy in it's current Beta form. It could no longer find a lot of the sites in my Bookmarks, including this one.

Wait until 1.5 Gold is released.

[Sigma]

Thanks for the help.

[imported_n/a]

A couple of others to add are Skype alternative
Gizmo Project - Internet telephony (VoIP) network
http://gizmoproject.com/

Gizmo unlike Skype uses open standards but is not open source

OpenWengo is a truly open source (VoIP) network.
http://www.openwengo.com/

WordPress is a web publishing system (a.k.a. content management system) backed by a MySQL database used to manage frequently-updated web content, especially weblogs
http://wordpress.org/

On a slow dialup connection and want to get Linux without downloading? Go to http://ubuntu.com/ and look for Shipit - Free CDs. Presently there is a delay while a new version of Ubuntu comes out but they will send you as many CDs as you ask for. It will take about 6 weeks for them to arrive. You will receive two CDs per set. One Ubuntu CD and one Ubuntu Live CD for you to try Ubuntu Linux without loading it to see if you like it.

Look for Mozilla Firefox 1.0.7 and likely Thunderbird 1.0.7 to be released soon and Firefox 1.5 to be finalized around December.

List of open source software packages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_software_packages

[Blue and White Army]

Cheers for the list.

But I have to say... I tried AbiWord about 6 months ago, and found it to be utter crap. Formats not at all compatable with MS Word.

[imported_n/a]

quote:Originally posted by Blue and White Army

Cheers for the list.

But I have to say... I tried AbiWord about 6 months ago, and found it to be utter crap. Formats not at all compatable with MS Word.
I can't speak about AbiWord's MS compatibility or lack thereof but I do know that one of OpenOffice's primary objectives is MS compatibility (and OpenOffice 2.0 is not yet completed)

I created a PPT presentation with a custom path animation and OOo Impress played it perfectly.

What people have to remember is that most open source software is still early in the development cycle, barely at version one or two. Proprietary software like Corel and MS are over version ten. Even with this much of the open source stuff is almost as good.

Gimp and Adobe Photoshop are so similar I used my Photoshop user manual to learn Gimp.

Just read that ClamWin was the only a/v software to detect 77% of new virii and is usually the first to get out a virus definition.

[imported_n/a]

quote:Originally posted by Loud Mouth Soup

Don't use Firefox 1.5 Beta.

Stick with 1.0.6 for now. The 1.5 was quite iffy in it's current Beta form. It could no longer find a lot of the sites in my Bookmarks, including this one.

Wait until 1.5 Gold is released.
I'm using it now and everything seems ok. Some extensions have to be updated but the only one I use is AdBlock and it is working fine. I was planning on 1.5 being quite buggy and I'd go back to 1.06 but nothing has happened yet to make me go back and 1.5 also has the automated updates built in.

[Desigol]

The AbiWord Program seems interesting. MS Word isn't Pre-Fitted into XP and costs an Arm and a Leg!

[imported_n/a]

quote:Originally posted by Desigol

The AbiWord Program seems interesting. MS Word isn't Pre-Fitted into XP and costs an Arm and a Leg!
Use OpenOffice 2.0 Beta! It's like MS Word. AbiWord is more like WordPad.

If you need MS Word. Instead of p2p downloading an illegal copy you can buy a student version of MS Office for around $130 Can.

OpenOffice is the best option.

[Desigol]

quote:Originally posted by Joe MacCarthy


quote:Originally posted by Desigol

The AbiWord Program seems interesting. MS Word isn't Pre-Fitted into XP and costs an Arm and a Leg!
Use OpenOffice 2.0 Beta! It's like MS Word. AbiWord is more like WordPad.

If you need MS Word. Instead of p2p downloading an illegal copy you can buy a student version of MS Office for around $130 Can.

OpenOffice is the best option.


Any Open Source program for PowerPoint slides?

[ray]

I think OpenOffice Impress can work with MS PowerPoint presentation files:
http://www.openoffice.org/product2/impress.html

[imported_n/a]

quote:Originally posted by ray

I think OpenOffice Impress can work with MS PowerPoint presentation files:
http://www.openoffice.org/product2/impress.html
That's what I wrote above. It is very good at importing/exporting .ppt files. That's the main purpose of the OpenOffice suite (MS compatibility).

Sorry, I didn't see the post above. OpenOffice.org (OOo) mimics MS Office. It has Writer (Word), Calc (Excel), Impress (PowerPoint), Draw, Math, and Base (Access). Base is at present the weak sister of the suite because it came late to production. It is more like the db that used to be in MS Works. However it can be used as a front end to high end databases like MySQL etc.

Stay tuned, in the next few days there should be a release candidate version of OOo 2.0 for downloading.

http://www.openoffice.org/

OpenOffice is great alternative to Microsoft
http://www.suntimes.com/output/worktech/cst-fin-andy22.html

[Desigol]

If You're interested in Alternative Software, check out this site;

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/

[imported_n/a]

quote:Originally posted by Desigol

If You're interested in Alternative Software, check out this site;
http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/Not sure what you're talkin' bout because what I see doesn't belong in this thread. Looks like some idiot's blog.

Open source software isn't shareware or freeware. It's free as in freedom (and usually free of charge)

[Desigol]

quote:Originally posted by Joe MacCarthy


quote:Originally posted by Desigol

If You're interested in Alternative Software, check out this site;
http://www.nyu.edu/classes/siva/Not sure what you're talkin' bout because what I see doesn't belong in this thread. Looks like some idiot's blog.

Open source software isn't shareware or freeware. It's free as in freedom (and usually free of charge)


It's because He wrote about how the Music Industry is trying to curb the Use of MP3s (ie. The Napster Case), how the US Patriot Act is forcing Librarians to break their Code of Ethics and how Thrid World Nations rely on Pirated copies of Microsoft Software.

[imported_n/a]

The long awaited OpenOffice 2.0 (stable version) is ready for download
http://www.openoffice.org/

Xara Xtreme a good commercial-standard graphics program has gone open source.
http://www.xaraxtreme.org/

Download OpenOffice...and save your money :)

[Daniel]

Firefox celebrated its 100,000,000 download in less than a year, today. You can take a picture with their celebration page and post it. So far it's all guys. :P

[imported_n/a]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel

Firefox celebrated its 100,000,000 download in less than a year, today. You can take a picture with their celebration page and post it. So far it's all guys. :P
OpenOffice is up near 50 million. It's amazing that these two progs probably have 2-3 times more availability. Firefox and OOo are available on most distros of Linux and can also be obtained from vendors or textbooks/manuals on CD. So the numbers are much, much larger than the downloads indicate.

Incroyable

Oops I forgot about OpenSolaris. If you're tired of Windows, you can try a version of Linux or now OpenSolaris formerly Sun Solaris. Sun Solaris and OpenSolaris have pretty much the same relationship as Sun StarOffice has with OpenOffice.

http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/opensolaris.jsp
http://opensolaris.org/os/

[Desigol]

I used Linux in University. I sucked at it.

[DJT]

quote:Originally posted by Joe MacCarthy

Base is at present the weak sister of the suite because it came late to production. [...] However it can be used as a front end to high end databases like MySQL etc.Have you tried this? Any comments?

[Jarrek]

MySQL 5.0 Server was recently released.

Going to be STIFF competition against the ultra expensive MS-SQL Server ...

[imported_n/a]

quote:Originally posted by DJT

Originally posted by Joe MacCarthy

Base is at present the weak sister of the suite because it came late to production. [...] However it can be used as a front end to high end databases like MySQL etc.

Have you tried this? Any comments?
Are you asking if I've tried Base or hooked it into MySQL? I've tried Base, it's definately not as powerful as Access but then again Access has had about ten years more development. Base was really buggy in its early releases but like the suite has really come on.

I haven't tried using it with MySQL but the specs say you can do it and the wizard for doing it is right up front when you open the program. I did open a ten year old Lotus Approach database I had and it displayed the datasheet perfectly. I haven't really played with it too much yet but it's easy to use for a beginner trying to create a db.

As I posted earlier one to look out for is the graphic editor Xara Xtreme. Unlike a lot of OSS this product (and its incarnations) have been around awhile. It's not released yet but I look forward to it. They've been in talks with Inkscape so there might be some sort of collaboration there.

I like intuitive, easy to use software. I don't think you should have to sit down and study a manual to get productive (although I've done this too many times to count) Xtreme sounds like it will be a very user friendly program. Actually I think I will download the proprietary trial while I wait for the OSS version to give it a test drive.

Speaking of user friendly I also forgot to mention Gimpshop http://plasticbugs.com/?page_id=294 which puts a window interface on the Gimp similar to Photoshop for those (like me) who find Gimp's windowing display difficult to get used to.

One question for the guys here. Why does the html formatting always default to the bottom of the page instead of where I highlight or put the cursor? Annoying. Don't have the problem at other sites; is it a snitz bug?

Edit: This just in :) I went to Newsforge and saw a headsup for a list (similar to mine and there are others) from Ubuntu listing OSS.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LoopList

I try to list transitional software (will run on Windows as well as Linux) and their list had a few OSS that weren't included in mine (for home PC use). I'll update my list later.

Winpooch is a Windows watchdog, free and open source. Anti spyware and anti trojan, it gives a full protection against local or external attacks by scanning the activity of programs in real time. Associated with ClamWin antivirus, Winpooch keeps safe your computer against virus.
http://winpooch.free.fr/home/index.php

TurboCASH compare to: Quicken Quickbooks
http://www.turbocash.co.za/

I haven't tested either of these yet, but I think I looked at TurboCASH a while back and didn't think it was suitable for Canada but I'll have another look.

[imported_n/a]

Tried out the trial version of Xara Xtreme, very nice. I now see why they call it the fastest. Has a nice intuitive photo editor program to go with the main prog. Not sure when the OSS version will be released. I would recommend it.

TurboCASH has most of the bells and whistles but its UI looks like it was done by a high school kid. Gets in the way of the program. It would be a good project for someone to fork and do a whole new interface on and I'm sure it would be more successful.

Winpooch didn't do anything for me. I deleted it within 5 minutes and didn't really give it a chance. Programs are like resumes to me, if they don't catch me in a few seconds I'm off somewhere else. Seemed simple but confusing.

[imported_n/a]

Here's a goofy one. It looks like Xara Xtreme will be open sourced and ported to Linux but the Windows version will still be sold. I wonder if someone will port the code back to Windows.

It says at the company FAQ they need to sell the product to allow the open sourcing to happen. Crazy if one group of users has to pay for a product and another gets it free.

[Desigol]

I've downloaded Gimp 2.3 from an Irish FTP site. The previous version didn't work on XP, it said 'Please install vewrsion 2.2.9 or Higher'

[imported_n/a]

quote:Originally posted by Desigol

I've downloaded Gimp 2.3 from an Irish FTP site. The previous version didn't work on XP, it said 'Please install vewrsion 2.2.9 or Higher'
You must have downloaded something else. I've upgraded every time and they all work on XP. The latest stable Gimp for XP is 2.2.9. The 2.3 are developmental releases and I think they're tarballs not windows executables. You also need GTK installed for it to work, both are available below.

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html
http://www.gimp.org/

Download the Xara trial and give it a look. Vector graphics et al and a nice simple photo editor. Great software. Check out the movies to see its capability.

http://www.xara.com/products/xtreme/
http://www.xaraxtreme.org/

[Desigol]

quote:Originally posted by Joe MacCarthy


quote:Originally posted by Desigol

I've downloaded Gimp 2.3 from an Irish FTP site. The previous version didn't work on XP, it said 'Please install vewrsion 2.2.9 or Higher'
You must have downloaded something else. I've upgraded every time and they all work on XP. The latest stable Gimp for XP is 2.2.9. The 2.3 are developmental releases and I think they're tarballs not windows executables. You also need GTK installed for it to work, both are available below.

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html
http://www.gimp.org/

Download the Xara trial and give it a look. Vector graphics et al and a nice simple photo editor. Great software. Check out the movies to see its capability.

http://www.xara.com/products/xtreme/
http://www.xaraxtreme.org/


I can get tarball files working on WinZip.

[Desigol]

Why is this Thread not a sticky?

[Start fan in exile]

bump.

Also, open source office suite for Mac: http://neooffice.org/

It's a port of OOo.

[speedmonk42]

Go Ubuntu! Saw it being given away in a cafe here the other day.

OOo is amazing. You would have to be pretty heavy into some wild features of MSO in order not to get by with it.

In my course the other day, the stupid teacher was schilling for Apple for like 40 minutes telling everyone how great the computer was...... but most of what he said was wrong. Full of crap like "Microsoft has delayed Vista because Apples OSX is sooo good they can't release it"

Yeah right.

[Desigol]

Just after downloading Shareaza.

Guntella sucked, it wouldn't give you a direct downloading Window.

[Joe MacCarthy]

OpenProj by Projity is a desktop replacement of Microsoft Project. OpenProj has equivalent functionality, a familiar user interface and even opens existing MSProject files. OpenProj is interoperable with Project, with a Gantt Chart and PERT chart etc.
http://openproj.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenProj
http://weblog.infoworld.com/tcdaily/archives/2007/10/preview_openpro.html

[Free kick]

quote:Originally posted by Joe MacCarthy

OpenProj by Projity is a desktop replacement of Microsoft Project. OpenProj has equivalent functionality, a familiar user interface and even opens existing MSProject files. OpenProj is interoperable with Project, with a Gantt Chart and PERT chart etc.

http://openproj.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenProj
http://weblog.infoworld.com/tcdaily/archives/2007/10/preview_openpro.html


Thanks. I'll give a try. Been loking for something like this

[speedmonk42]

That is some serious thread ressurection...

There really is almost no reason our municiple, provincial and federal governments should be buying MS Office anymore. (Hell they should have been buying it from Corel anyway, but that is a different argument....too late now)

Open Office all the way.

Now if they just roll this project software and thunderbird into the same suite.....

[Grizzly]

quote:Originally posted by speedmonk42

That is some serious thread ressurection...

There really is almost no reason our municiple, provincial and federal governments should be buying MS Office anymore. (Hell they should have been buying it from Corel anyway, but that is a different argument....too late now)

Open Office all the way.

Now if they just roll this project software and thunderbird into the same suite.....


Yes, Open Office is not only free but vastly superior to Office. I don't know why anyone would use Office after they have tried Open Office. There is no good reason the government should not be using Open Office and spending the money saved on other things.

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by speedmonk42

Open Office all the way. Now if they just roll this project software and thunderbird into the same suite.....Sorry about the old news but I'm just getting back into the Voyageurs scene.

Microsoft Project to get open source competition
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1257
July 27th, 2007

Projity, which has been selling its project management software in the form of Software as a Service (SaaS), will launch an open source version at LinuxWorld next week, under the name OpenProj.

CEO Marc O’Brien said download and community sites should be ready in time for the show, but that the company has not yet chosen a license, other than to decide it will be “OSI approved.”

In addition to a Linux version, there will be Macintosh and Windows versions of the software as well.

“This is a Trojan Horse into business. Microsoft Project and project management is a very defined entity. The fact we can deliver OpenProj in there really opens an avenue for all open source software.”

While O’Brien expects his people to continue doing the “heavy lifting” of OpenProj development, he hopes community members will help in integrating it with open source ERP and CRM packages, and in providing localization.

Talks are also underway with OpenOffice about integration with that suite, and the current version already reads Microsoft Project files.

O’Brien believes the latest version of Microsoft Office leaves Big Green vulnerable to this kind of open source attack.

“Microsoft Project is part of the Office Suite. But it’s not packaged in Office 2007, in any of their suites, and it sells for $1,000 stand-alone. Companies have to go to purchasing, and it’s very expensive. It’s something like $600 even for a corporation.”

O’Brien, who also sits on the board of Adopt an Orphanage, seems very anxious to make certain OpenProj becomes part of the open source family, and will be doing events with all the movement’s leaders over the next few months.

“We’re expecting up to 11 million users, very quickly.” Those are Harry Potter numbers, and if OpenProj can achieve them, Marc O’Brien will become a powerful open source wizard indeed.

http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/08/openproj-a-free.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=625

[Joe MacCarthy]

Again sorry for the old news but I'm trying to update the info in this thread.

GnuCash
http://www.gnucash.org/

GnuCash is personal and small-business financial-accounting software, now available for Microsoft Windows.

Designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible, GnuCash allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. As quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register, it is based on professional accounting principles to ensure balanced books and accurate reports.

Evolution 2.8.2-2
http://tinyurl.com/32gmde

Evolution (Email/PIM) is available for Windows (msi installer)

Pidgin
http://www.pidgin.im/

GAIM, now known as Pidgin, is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once.

Pidgin can work with:

* Google Talk
* Groupwise
* ICQ
* IRC
* MSN
* MySpaceIM
* Yahoo! and many other IM clients

Paint.NET
http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

The application itself is open source but it needs the MS .NET Framework which kind of kills the open source part but nonetheless is a nice little program.

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.

Songbird
http://www.songbirdnest.com/

Songbird is a desktop media player mashed-up with the Web. Songbird is committed to playing the music you want, from the sites you want, on the devices you want.

OpenOffice, Sunbird/Lightning (PIM/calendar), GIMP, VLC Media Player have all had recent updates.

[jonovision]

Is there any Free/Open Source alternative to music production software like FL Studio (formerly Fruity Loops)?

[Joe MacCarthy]

I am definitely not an expert on this subject so here are some links and you can find out for yourself.

For Windows and Linux

Audacity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Hydrogen Drum Machine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_%28software%29
http://www.hydrogen-music.org/

For Linux

Ardour
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardour_%28audio_processor%29
http://ardour.org/

Rosegarden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosegarden
http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/

List of free audio software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_audio_software

Digital audio workstation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio_workstation
Free and open source software paragraph at bottom of above article

If you want to dedicate a whole PC to multimedia production there is

Ubuntu Studio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Studio
http://ubuntustudio.org/

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by speedmonk42

Open Office all the way. Now if they just roll this project software and thunderbird into the same suite.....
OpenOffice 3.0 to Include Thunderbird Email System
Mon Oct 15, 2007
http://tinyurl.com/37q5r9

It isn't that tough to convince someone to give up Microsoft Word in exchange for a free alternative that does 98 percent of the same stuff... but getting people to drop Microsoft Outlook is a whole other animal. People are just really, really attached to their email, and I can understand that.

Thunderbird is the open source alternative to Outlook, and while it's been around for years, I've never found it as useful as Microsoft's original. Bugs abound, and it's just not as polished an application. But nonetheless, Thunderbird may soon be heading into the OpenOffice.org family, where it's set to become part of the suite with the upcoming 3.0 revision.

With bug fixes and improved calendaring support, Thunderbird might be improving its odds as a potential Outlook killer. However, last week the project lost two of its full-time developers, so everything's a little up in the air. While things still seem on track for Thunderbird to join the OOo family, let's take a look at some of OpenOffice 3's upcoming new features outside of the information manager realm:

* PDF import and export - Could OpenOffice be an Acrobat killer as well?
* Office 2007 document and Vista support - Including better integration with the Vista OS.
* Improved charts and formula solving - Spreadsheet work has never been a high point of OpenOffice, but this should help.
* Better presentation system - Including support for running multiple screens during a slide show.

Not familiar with OpenOffice? Check it out by downloading and installing it here. (Remember, it's free; you've got nothing to lose.) You might also try Lotus Symphony, which I wrote about earlier.

Finally, if you want to try Thunderbird now to see what you might be missing, you can download it here. I'd especially love to hear from Outlook users who give it a go; let us know what you see as the pros and cons.

OpenOffice 3.0 Wants to Compete with Outlook
http://tinyurl.com/3au25v

[Start fan in exile]

I've used Eudora (still my favourite), Outlook (on PCs), and Entourage (on a Mac) for email; currently I use Thunderbird and Apple Mail. Thunderbird is a solid program, but I find it annoyingly slow, especially compared to Eudora. It uses the same principle as Outlook, which is to have everything in one mega database, and since I am an electronic pack rat and have emails going back to 1994, that database takes a long time to load. In fact, I find everything about it slow. The upside is that it is a rock-solid program, never crashes and with a well-built interface. Despite that, I would go back to Eudora if it were still being developed, but Qualcomm (who made Eudora) have handed it over to ... the Thunderbird people.

Joe mentioned Audacity - for anyone working with sound who cannot afford ProTools, it is a must-have. Incredibly powerful and cross-platform (Mac, Windoze, Linux) to boot. Also a great tool for those (like me) who have a vinyl collection and want to convert it to mp3.

A couple of other things:

Want to write the next great novel? Try Jer's Novel Writer (Mac only)
http://www.jerssoftwarehut.com/index.shtml
(not freeware)

Work in film? There's a great (and Canadian!) alternative to screenwriting software like Final Draft called Celtx
http://www.celtx.com/overview.html
It's free, cross-platform and open source and well-made to boot.

There's also a nifty video conversion utility from Squared5 called MPEG Streamclip. Converts virtually any video format to any other, converts NTSV to/from PAL, interlaced to progressive and more. Windows and Mac.
http://www.squared5.com/

[Joe MacCarthy]

This looks promising. Check out the demo.
http://www.dimdim.com/

dimdim is the world´s first free web meeting service based on the open source platform. dimdim is a browser-based web 2.0 service that allows anybody to share their desktop, show slides, as well as talk, listen, chat, and broadcast via webcam.

dimdim´s hosted service is available for free and can be easily used for small gatherings, to seminars with hundreds of attendees. With absolutely no software to download for attendees, dimdim gives everyone the opportunity to hold Web meetings and to customize and brand these meetings.

Sourced from
Open Source Pros Pick their Favorite Projects
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/3717066

Ross Turk
SourceForge Community Manager

Ross explains that it's a little politically incorrect for him to pick favorites: As the community manager at the site that’s a motherload of incubating projects, how can he say which ones he likes best?

“Oh boy. Picking winners is dangerous!” he says. “Any of our previous Project of the Month entries are good choices, though.”

When pressed, however, he does select one to spotlight: ‘Personally, though, I do think that dimdim [a free Web meeting service] is particularly interesting. They're just getting started and I want to see them do well."

[The Ref]

Anyone can recommend a Video Capture Software to record webcasts from the internet? Thanks.

[Daniel]

quote:Originally posted by The Ref

Anyone can recommend a Video Capture Software to record webcasts from the internet? Thanks.


How's your feed coming in? What format?

[The Ref]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel


quote:Originally posted by The Ref

Anyone can recommend a Video Capture Software to record webcasts from the internet? Thanks.


How's your feed coming in? What format?

My answer may not be too bright. The feed is through a high speed internet connection (DSL). What format? whatever format the website is using for their live video. My operating system is XP Home SP2 and browser I use mostly Firefox and Explorer 7 when Firefox doesn't work.

[Joe MacCarthy]

There is a program called HiDownload that will do what you want but it isn't open source. I want to keep this thread for open source only as opposed to freeware because freeware may contain malware and adware and is not (by license) freely distributable.

There is a program called CamStudio Open Source that is a screen video capture program that isn't what you are looking for but it may actually do what you want (capturing streaming video). I don't know if it will until I try it.

Here's a description:

CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs)

Here are just a few ways you can use this software:

You can use it to create demonstration videos for any software program

Or how about creating a set of videos answering your most frequently asked questions?

You can create video tutorials for school or college class

You can use it to record a recurring problem with your computer so you can show technical support people

You can use it to create video-based information products you can sell

You can even use it to record new tricks and techniques you discover on your favourite software program, before you forget them

http://camstudio.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CamStudio

[JamesW]

Hey Joe, I'm looking for a Video editor that will help me create stop-motion animation and edit video clips. Right now I'm using Windows movie maker, is there an open source program that would work better?

[Joe MacCarthy]

I wish I could help more with some of your requests but as I haven't used some of the software and am not aware of all their functions I can't individually give a good answer for everybody.

What I can give are what I am seeing and hearing are some of the best open source apps and you guys can take it from there. Of course anybody with first hand knowledge, please reply, but also please keep it open source.

High end Animation
Blender
http://www.blender.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blender_%28software%29

Video Editing
VirtualDub
http://virtualdub.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualDub

Avidemux
http://www.avidemux.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avidemux

Jahshaka
http://www.jahshaka.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jahshaka

I've been posting apps that are transitional (can be used in Windows as well as Linux)

[JamesW]

Thanks! Those links will help a great deal.

And it appears that camstudio.org gets a "509 Bandwidth Limit Exceeded" but you can still download it here:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/camstudio/

Or if that doesn't work:

http://www.brothersoft.com/camstudio-download-3944.html

[Start fan in exile]

quote:What I can give are what I am seeing and hearing are some of the best open source apps and you guys can take it from there. Of course anybody with first hand knowledge, please reply, but also please keep it open source.
Blender is an extremely powerful 3D animation tool that works on Windows, Linux and Mac. Some of my students use it and have done some really impressive work. I'm not sure it's quite ready for prime time, but it's not far off being able to replace some of the software animation pros pay thousands of $$ for.

I've downloaded and looked at Jahshaka on my Mac, and it looks nifty, but a little too much like iMovie and not enough like a higher-end editing app. Unfortunately it's almost the only open-source editing app for Macs.

On another note, here is where you can find Open-source progammes for Mac OS X:
http://www.opensourcemac.org/
It's a pretty good list.

[tarnado]

for flying buffs out there, try

FlightGear: flight simulator, quite a variety of planes available including commercial, prototype, military and world scenery and airports. It will run on a pretty basic machine but still looks good and performs great.

http://flightgear.org

[Joe MacCarthy]

FlightGear was included in the original list on page one of this thread. I'll have to get around to updating that list soon as there have been some good new editions of OSS lately. Noticed FlightGear also had a new version which has been a long time coming.

Here are a couple of sites that maintain a listing of open source software for Windows.
http://www.osalt.com/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ListOfOpenSourcePrograms
http://osswin.sourceforge.net/
http://www.opensourcelist.org/oss/suggestedapplications.html

[Desigol]

I have a Problem with OpenOffice.

I couldn't open PowerPoint files in OpenOffice. I get a 'Convert' window and end up with a Document with ASCII codes.

How is this rectified?

[Joe MacCarthy]

I've never had a problem with it. In fact here is a quote off the first page of this thread from two and a half years ago. I created a PPT presentation with a custom path animation and OOo Impress played it perfectly.

If it was an MS Office 2007 (or whatever they call it) file, maybe there was an issue but I think I just read they have a converter for that now and they definately will have it in OOo 3.0 (fall 2008) which hopefully will also bundle TB/Lightning and OpenProj for exposure to more users.

Do you have the latest version of OOo?
http://www.openoffice.org/

Yet another reason to get away from MS
http://tinyurl.com/2mactz

[Joe MacCarthy]

OpenProj 1.0 (openproj-1.0.msi) has just been released
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=199315

OpenProj by Projity is a desktop replacement of Microsoft Project. OpenProj has equivalent functionality, a familiar user interface and even opens existing MSProject files. OpenProj is interoperable with Project, with a Gantt Chart and PERT chart etc.
http://openproj.org/openproj

[Joe MacCarthy]

Top 5 best (free) open source games ...and a few more nominated by posters
http://apcmag.com/7890/best_open_source_games

Why waste your money on expensive commercial games when you can play for free, and, if you're so inclined, dive into the code and modify the game to suit your exacting requirements?

Apcmag.com presents its selection of the most addictive, fun and refined Open Source games for January 2008.

[Start fan in exile]

Open source developer for Mac:

http://www.hanynet.com/applications/index.html

Has a bunch of applications, including a firwall manager called NoobProof

[Joe MacCarthy]

Open Source Gamer's Guide to Free Games
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/473665/free_quake_open_source_gamers_guide.html?page=2

[Joe MacCarthy]

InfraRecorder is a free (open source) CD/DVD burning solution for Microsoft Windows. InfraRecorder uses the cdrtools software to perform the actual burning. InfraRecorder was born in the Google Summer of Code 2006.

This is one of the better open source programs and gets good reviews.

http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrarecorder

Features

* Create custom data, audio and mixed-mode projects and record them to physical discs as well as disc images.
* Supports recording to dual-layer DVDs.
* Blank (erase) rewritable discs using four different methods.
* Record disc images (ISO and BIN/CUE).
* Fixate discs (write lead-out information to prevent further data from being added to the disc).
* Create disc copies, on the fly and using a temporary disc image.
* Import session data from multi-session discs and add more sessions to them.
* Save audio and data tracks to files (.wav, .wma, .ogg, .mp3 and .iso).

[Joe MacCarthy]

I have updated and revised the list to include the best of the open source software programs and have removed some of the secondary or lower profile programs. They are still on the first post in this thread and are mentioned in posts throughout the thread.

7-Zip Data Compression File Archiver (WinZip)
www.7-zip.org/

AbiWord Word processing (Microsoft Wordpad)
www.abisource.com/

Audacity Digital audio editor (Adobe Audition)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Blender 3D Modelling and rendering 3D graphics and animations (Alias Maya)
www.blender3d.org/

CamStudio (Streaming Video Software)
http://camstudio.org/

CDex (CD ripper program)
http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/index.php

ClamWin Antivirus software (Norton AntiVirus)
www.clamwin.com/

Dia Diagrams, flowcharts (Microsoft Visio)
www.gnome.org/projects/dia/

dimdim (Webmeeting service)
http://www.dimdim.com/

FileZilla FTP client and server (SmartFTP)
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

FlightGear Flight simulator (Microsoft Flight Simulator)
www.flightgear.org/

GIMP Graphics editor (Adobe Photoshop)
www.gimp.org/

GnuCash (Microsoft Money)
http://www.gnucash.org/

InfraRecorder (Nero Burning ROM)
http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/

Inkscape SVG editor (Adobe Illustrator)
www.inkscape.org/

Jahshaka (Video Editing)
http://www.jahshaka.org/

KompoZer (Microsoft FrontPage)
http://kompozer.net/

Mozilla Firefox Web browser (Microsoft Internet Explorer)
www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Mozilla Calendar (Lightning/Sunbird personal information manager) (Microsoft Outlook)
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/

Mozilla Thunderbird Email and news client (Microsoft Outlook Express)
www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/

MySQL Database (Microsoft SQL server)
www.mysql.com/

NASA World Wind (Google Earth)
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/index.html

Open Clip Art Library
www.openclipart.org/

OpenOffice.org Office applications suite (Microsoft Office)
http://www.openoffice.org/

OpenProj (Microsoft Project)
http://openproj.org/

OpenWengo Open source (VoIP) network (Skype)
http://www.openwengo.com/

Paint.NET (Adobe Photoshop)
http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

Pidgin (MSN Messenger)
http://www.pidgin.im/

Scribus Desktop publishing (Adobe PageMaker)
www.scribus.org.uk/index.php

Shareaza Peer-to-Peer client (Kazaa)
www.shareaza.com/

Songbird (Windows Media Player)
http://www.songbirdnest.com/

TightVNC (Remote control software)
http://tightvnc.com/index.html

TrueDownloader (Download manager/accelerator)
http://francis.dupont.free.fr/truedownloader/index.html

VirtualDub (Video Editing)
http://virtualdub.org/

VLC Media Player (Windows Media Player)
http://www.videolan.org/

WinHTTrack (Offline browser utility)
www.httrack.com/

WordPress (Weblog content management system)
http://wordpress.org/

[Jarrek]

Wow, just noticed this list now. Thanks!

[The Ref]

Anyone familiar with a webrowser called Flock?

[Joe MacCarthy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flock_%28web_browser%29

Flock is a web browser heavily based upon Mozilla Firefox and other Mozilla technologies.

Flock's creators call it a "social browser", due to its ability to interact with popular social networking web services. Such web services include Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Del.icio.us, Technorati, Photobucket, and various popular blogging and news aggregation services.

[The Ref]

Thank you Joe

[Number6]

thanks for the site dude, I will pass the info along when I can.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Part of the idea for this thread was to post what are called transitional applications.

The idea being that people would use these open source programs in M$ Windows and it would make the transition over to Linux easier because users would be familiar with the same programs there.

In my case I found it to be true. I use Firefox, TBird/Lightning and OOo on my desktop and have since loaded Ubuntu 7.10 on the laptop.

After trying for years, this is the first Linux I thought was friendly enough (for me) to leave on the laptop. The only issue I have had is trying to get a USB wireless stick going.

The amount of free programs available for Linux is staggering. Most of the apps above and a whole lotta others that I haven't mentioned because they are Linux only.

Another reason why I am a Linux convert? I have a Umax scanner (Win98) that I used to use frequently (stored in the closet). It needed XP drivers (when I upgraded) which were only available through purchasing them from Umax. Believe me, I tried to get them other ways :) Ubuntu Linux was able to recognize and install the scanner.

I am a happy Linux convert (the Ubuntu forum is amazing for its help) and will upgrade my desktop or next computer to Ubuntu and not the bloated eye candy that is Vista. Ubuntu has its own eye candy which I can enable (or not).

Ubuntu rolls out a new version every six months that improves on the last instead of waiting years for a M$ service pack.

If I had to direct someone who had never used a computer before to use Linux or Windows I would choose Linux, for its simplicity. The only thing in Window's favour is its ubiquity and that everyone knows about it and would be able to offer help. This isn't the case (yet) with Linux (aside from their great forum and support).

Having said that, a newcomer is likely only to use email, surf the web, and type up some documents and those apps are rock solid and Linux does not suffer the same worry as Windows in regard to safeguarding the computer ie viruses etc. Therefore they likely wouldn't need the help, because as they say, it just works.

Did I mention that all of this is FREE!

[Joe MacCarthy]

Holy coincidence, Batman!


quote:Originally posted by Joe MacCarthy

If I had to direct someone who had never used a computer before to use Linux or Windows I would choose Linux, for its simplicity.

Having said that, a newcomer is likely only to use email, surf the web, and type up some documents and those apps are rock solid and Linux does not suffer the same worry as Windows in regard to safeguarding the computer ie viruses etc.
Moving my mother over to Linux
By Michael Reed on February 06, 2008 (9:00:00 PM)
http://www.linux.com/feature/125799

To save money, I cobbled together a computer for my mother out of cast-offs left over from my own upgrades. She doesn't need a cutting-edge computer because she's not a power user, but she does need a reliable machine to run a few basic applications and to access the Internet. I moved my mother from Windows to Ubuntu Linux, and the experience was a surprisingly smooth one.

The machine I gave her sports a 2.2GHz Intel Celeron CPU, 512MB of RAM, and Nvidia MX440 graphics card with 64MB of RAM. It's not a cutting-edge gaming rig, but it's an adequate machine for her needs, which include email, Web browsing, music and video playback, photo management, and word processing.

The challenge was to not only build a working system, but also to maintain consistency with her old system. This meant migrating her data across, finding comparable equivalents for all of her Windows applications, and adjusting the desktop layout to one that was similar to that of Windows.

Rest of article here (http://www.linux.com/feature/125799)

[Joe MacCarthy]

As mentioned previously in this thread, if you're having issues with Windows Media Player and codecs try...

VLC - The Universial Media Player
http://www.videolan.org/

VLC (VideoLan) is a cross-platform universial media player. It supports a variety of different inputs, including DVD, VCD, MPEG, AVI, WMV, MP4, and MOV. It has full subtitle support, as well as built-in video filters. There are skins for VLC available at the developer website.

One of the most useful features of VLC is playing incomplete video downloads before they finish. I can start watching a movie as the rest of the data trickles in. VLC plugins are available for Firefox and Mozilla.

It bears repeating that this program will play almost any file you throw at it.

[Grizzly]

Joe, is there an open source application which will play AVCHD high definition video or any plans to enable VLC to play such files? Is Panasonic and Sony's ownership of the AVCHD codec preventing an open source application from using it?

[Joe MacCarthy]

A Linux Valentine
http://linuxhow2.com/Feature_Articles/A_Linux_Valentine.html

Oh Linux, how do I love thee?
Let me count the ways...an open letter to Linux

Way number 1: You breathe new life into old hardware. They should age PCs in dog years. Here's a trusted dog year calendar that helped me better determine the age of my Laptop. My three-year old laptop is going on 25 dog years now, and Windows is like the Army, and 25 year old recruits are starting to get too old to put on the front lines. The average Windows PC lasts three to four years, which at best, would give my laptop a little less than a year to accept its demise. Thanks to you, my laptop should get at least another three years in it, three years of happy blissful churning away of bits and bytes. And thanks again for all the money you have saved me by allowing me to hold on to my aging computer and eliminate the need to put up for the cost of a new laptop.

Way number 2: You run so very fast. I love to just watch you spinning away, launching applications so quickly, executing my programs swiftly. You save me all that time. I still remember how it was before we met, when Windows would freeze, when it would take up all my memory, when it would get slower and slower with each Windows update, when boot up times and the time to load my desktop would increase with every restart, when after every application I would install I would need to close Windows and bring it back up. But those days are over now; I'm much more productive now; I get more work done in significantly less time.

Way number 3: You're just easy to get along with. You don't get in my way or hog my system resources. You just let things be, while I do my work, check my e-mail, and chat with friends. Your package managers update all my software at once; I don't have to worry about every individual application flooding my network, checking to see if updates are available. I don't have to worry about that silly registry that would always get errors or get infected and start launching malicious software. All your software is simple to use; it's familiar; there's nothing really new to learn; I can just go about my business as usual, on rare occasion using your exquisite communities for help when the need arises. Remember when I had problems before? I'd sit on support lines, feeling like a second rate customer. Is this what all my money was paying for? But now I don't pay at all; all those thousands of dollars I save, and now I have a whole world community reaching out to help me.

Way number 4: I feel safer with you. You're just much more secure. When there are bugs or security issues with you, I can expect them to be fixed quickly, not just once a month or when it seems convenient. And maybe it's just my imagination, but when you say a bug is fixed, it's really fixed; I don't find that bug again six months later after another update or another upgrade. You have a good head on your shoulders, and when you say you're going to do something right, that's exactly what you do. You never try to blame me, the user, first for the problem, and then you don't try to say its the fault of third party software, and then you don't tell me that despite the existence of the problem that the likelihood of anyone exploiting it is non-existent. No, you go right out, and you take care of it. You make me feel safe, and for that, I thank you.

Way number 5: You're the best. You support all my hardware. You have all my favorite applications, and they're free. You save me tens of thousands of dollars, because I don't need to buy software just to use a word processor or send an e-mail; you don't even charge me anything to be my friend. No, you're completely willing to work away on my computer, free of charge, and you do this faster and better than the guy who is trying to take me for every penny I'm worth.

Thank You,
Your secret admirer

[JamesW]

I'm having a lot of fun with blender right now, thanks for pointing me in their direction!

[Joe MacCarthy]

Top 25 Linux Games for 2008 (Most available for Win and Mac)
Posted by Jimmy Atkinson in Gaming, Linux
http://whdb.com/2008/top-25-linux-games-for-2008/

If you’re interested in games for a Linux platform, then you know that game probably is open source, free from cost in most cases, and free to modify. The latter attribute is why Linux games are so popular…a developer can take a great game and make it even better, share it with the world, and become a hero. So, why waste your time and money on proprietary games when so many great Linux games are available?

We’ve listed the top 25 Linux games for 2008 below. While we believe that Spring is definitely tops on the 2008 list, we had a difficult time aligning the other games by numerical order. Therefore, take those numbers with a grain of salt, because each game is so different and it’s the best in its league. Take FreeCiv, for instance (#3) - some players will love this game, yet others will like the simplicity of Battle for Wesnoth even better (#6). Or, some people may not like civilization games at all, as they may be addicted (and will continue to be addicted) to the older game, Tux Racer (#18).

While the games listed below focus on Linux distribution, we’ve also added whether each game was available for Windows (edit:most are) and Max (OS X) as well. We’ve also added any details on price and a link to download each game.

Rest of article here (http://whdb.com/2008/top-25-linux-games-for-2008/)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Free Software is Good, m'Kay
http://mrcopilot.blogspot.com/2008/02/free-software-is-good-mkay.html

A few days ago a story was posted to FSDaily with the assuming title of "Can we please stop fighting FUD with FUD?" from Free Software Magazine. The gist of the article is the author's opinion that some, especially new, free software users have a habit of spreading FUD (Fear Uncertainty & Doubt) when comparing it to proprietary software.

In some ways he is right. Free Software usually wins on it's merits, if not it's philosophy. But I want to comment on a few of his statements.

If you’re to going run down Microsoft products then you need to be specific. What products suck, why and how do they suck?

http://i29.tinypic.com/2wf4xzn.png

Whoa, this may require more space than I really want to devote.

I see a lot of this type of thing that simply shows the proponent has rarely used the product in question. Aside from that, is this really a good argument to make?

It is a great argument, if the ways proprietary software sucks could easily be improved if it was released as free software.

Are we really going to be so arrogant as to imply that free software doesn’t suck at all? By running down the opposition aren’t we implying there are no issues with “our” software?

Excellent point, some free software does suck or has issues or both.
The only problem with this being that when we or someone else complains about how or why free software sucks, someone (the developers, you or anyone else) can come along and address those issues.

The article concludes by throwing down the gauntlet.

I—for one—would like to see more blogs and comments on why free software is good rather than why Microsoft is bad. So let’s start here. Your task is complete the sentence “Free software is good because…” in less than 50 words.

I pick up your gauntlet Mr Cartwright and offer my answer. Ahem...

Free Software is good because it offers you choices unavailable with proprietary software. It also eliminates vendor lock-in, patch dependence, forced upgrades, and per user license policing.

28 Words.

I would like to expound on the word choices above. These Choices or Freedoms give you the ability to:

Study the source code to learn how portions of the software work.

Modify the source code to adapt to your circumstances or fix problems.

Modify the source code to create new works and even compete with the original work.

Distribute the software freely, given that you follow the licensing terms.

Anyone who writes for Free Software Magazine already knows these points, but he felt it necessary to ask for them to be written, rather than write them again. I'm going to join Ryan Cartwright and ask that we all stop the FUD.

I mean really, hasn't Microsoft been through enough?

[Joe MacCarthy]

Switching office suites from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice
Solveig Haugland, February 2008 GetOpenOffice.org

You’ve been thinking about it for a while. You’ve seen the PDF converter and sighed longingly; you’ve blushed before the skeptical glances of your open-source and anti-Microsoft friends who say “You’re still using Microsoft Office?” you’re looking at your budget and wondering why you would pay to get Microsoft Office 2007. And you’ve received Word 2007 files and haven’t been able to open them, so you know there’s going to be some file format issues no matter what you do.

But you haven’t switched over to OpenOffice.org. Quite yet.

I’m here to help. Think of this as a virtual guide, the written version of me coming over to your house on a Sunday afternoon to help get to know OpenOffice.org and figure out all the things you’re not quite sure about. Sit down with this article this weekend and in a few hours you’ll feel refreshed, open sourced, and able to hold your head high when you run into those roving gangs of open source supporters.

Why Switch?

You have your own reasons: price, or principles, or you’re setting up a nice cheap Linux laptop for your daughter to use at school. Here are a couple things I like to talk about.

Spend your money on something important

I realize that since I’m targeting this article at individuals, that the upgrade or full price of Microsoft Office might not make or break you. But if it’s you and your family; your small business; your volunteer organization that feeds homeless families…now you even more seriously need to look at the right way to spend your money. Microsoft Office is a habit, and many people don’t even think about whether they need it. Here’s your opportunity to rank it in comparison to other things you could spend $100 or $500 on, multiplied by the number of licenses.

You can do it. Don’t fear the interface.

When you’ve been using Microsoft Office since the mid 90s, it’s easy to think that learning another product will be too annoyingly difficult. Trust me. You can learn this. You have to learn new products all the time, whether it’s the new bug entry system at a new job, or starting a job at Sun where all of a sudden you’re using Solaris instead of Microsoft Windows, it’s going to have to happen. There are differences, sure, but don’t let that mental speed bump of fear let you think for a second you’re not going to be able to figure it out.

Rest of article (http://www.fanaticattack.com/2008/switching-office-suites-from-microsoft-office-to-openofficeorg.html
)

[Daniel]

Does anyone actually still pay themselves for personal copies of Office?

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel

Does anyone actually still pay themselves for personal copies of Office?You'd be surprised. Not everyone has grown up around computers as many of the posters here have.

And to be honest it is morally wrong to download software for free that others have to pay for. I've cracked software and now I've seen the light. You never know with some cracked software or freeware what you might get. Trojans, virii are prevalent these days. It's just easier to download and trust oss. Open source is the better way.

Two people I know, who are otherwise intelligent people, are drinking the M$ proprietary kool-aid because they didn't know any better until I informed them of their alternatives.

I can understand some people purchasing M$ Office but there are many people who buy anti-virus software which is one of the most readily available pieces of software (freeware or open source) to obtain.

I'm surprised the Linux revolution hasn't gone faster than it has within business. Linux runs the servers but doesn't rule the desktop. Yet!

The line from above kind of sums it up Microsoft Office/Windows is a habit, and many people don’t even think about whether they need it. Here's my theory, all Linux lacks is the "neighbour".

The neighbour is the brother, mother, cousin, co-worker, friend or obviously neighbour that knows Linux and is able to help you when you get in trouble just like people do for Windows. When that "neighbour" is there in sufficient numbers like it is for Windows, there won't be a need for Windows because the benefits of Linux (price, security, adaptability, range of free apps etc) will supersede paying for a proprietary OS like Windoze.

[Grizzly]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel

Does anyone actually still pay themselves for personal copies of Office?


To expand on JM's post it is surprising how many people don't know about open source software like Open Office, even computer literate people. Just last week a friend of mine who is fairly computer literate was complaining that he was going to have to buy the Office suite and I told him about Open Office which he had never heard about and is now using. Marketing plays a huge role in what people are using. I use the Opera browser for example which many reviews consider the best browser available. Yet almost evey review comments how strange it is that only 1% of users use this browser probably because IE and Firefox are simply marketed better.

[Joe MacCarthy]

To expand on Grizzly's post, I follow OSS developments fairly closely but didn't know about InfraRecorder. I've used Roxio and Nero and always got the impression with Nero that it was bloated and didn't seem to work quite right. InfraRecorder was a revelation. Simple to use, no bloat and does what I want.

To me the beauty of OSS are two things. One is the speed of development, things are changed and/or corrected quickly not every three years like MS. An example was when OOo (OpenOffice) was changing from version one to version two. I didn't like the interface for the Impress (read PowerPoint) program at all. The next time I downloaded a new version a few months later it was totally changed looking more like PowerPoint.

The second reason to love OSS is the program extensions. Instead of building one big bloated program (slower to run and using more resources) OSS often uses extensions. Extensions add functionality to programs and you can add whatever you like (or not) In Firefox, I added AdBlock and a PDF extension. There are hundreds more, same as there are extensions available for OOo.

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

it is surprising how many people don't know about open source software like Open Office, There are lots of options.

Something I haven't mentioned are non OSS software?? like Google Docs or IBM Lotus Symphony. Symphony is based on OOo but has a totally different user interface. I'm not sure about the licensing of Symphony if it is OSS or not (ie freely distributable) (edit: it's not OSS) You can download it for free but I'm not sure if you can legally copy one copy to several computers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Lotus_Symphony
http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.jspa

Also available is StarOffice. It is the exact same program as OOo but it has clipart, templates, extra fonts etc) Sun charges 80 bucks for it, but you can download a student version for free or get it through the Google Pack software (nice freeware) for free. Again it isn't freely distributable.

http://www.sun.com/products-n-solutions/edu/solutions/staroffice.html#StarOffice
http://pack.google.com/intl/en/pack_installer.html?hl=en&gl=ca

[Daniel]

Talking of the Linux "revolution"... Linux will not hit mainstream until it becomes a regular platform for developers. Macs became an alternatives to PC when most big software became available for it (remember Mac-exclusive or PC-exclusive document files? Ugh...).

Linux doesn't have Office, iTunes, Photoshop, etc. As long as it doesn't have the software people are using everyday ("bad" habit or not), it won't fly. You can't assume millions of people are smart enough and will flock to OSS just because it's there. Look at the marketshare of something a popular and widely available as Firefox. Still well behind IE.

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by DanielLinux doesn't have Office, iTunes, Photoshop, etc. As long as it doesn't have the software people are using everyday ("bad" habit or not), it won't fly. You can't assume millions of people are smart enough and will flock to OSS just because it's there. Look at the marketshare of something a popular and widely available as Firefox. Still well behind IE.That is the whole idea of this thread. To convert people to "free" software to use on Windows that they would be familiar with when migrating to Linux. MS Office (OOo) Photoshop (GIMP) and I'm not real familiar with iTunes but apparently Songbird jives with it. Also all three proprietary programs will run in Linux using Wine if you feel you have to have it.

I don't think you can argue that IE has the biggest market share because it is built into the most ubiquitous OS in the world, if that wasn't the case I doubt IE would have the penetration that it does.

If people want to buy software or worse, steal it, that's their business, I just want people to know their is a very viable alternative that makes sense.

[speedmonk42]

It is a slow process.

There is no excuse for public institutions to be spending millions on IT budgets that amount to Windows and Office.

Open Office could replace 90+ % of current office users.

GIMP could be very good, but is held back by a cabal of freakish hard core nerds that refuse to listen to 999/1000 of the people that try and use the program.

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by speedmonk42GIMP could be very good, but is held back by a cabal of freakish hard core nerds that refuse to listen to 999/1000 of the people that try and use the program.Funny thing about GIMP, I learned it using my Photoshop user manual, they are that similar. Definitely, the GIMP UI, is irksome for many of us but I guess that's why the guy came up with the GIMPShop hack to get the UI to be more like PS.

[jonovision]

This has been a very useful thread. I've already been on the OSS bandwagon for a while, and I ran Linux exclusively for a bit (now I dual-boot), but some of the software tips within this thread have been great. I downloaded InfraRecorder yesterday, and got rid of Nero which was hogging a lot of my minimal HD space (old machine).

[Desigol]

Almost 2 1/2 Years since this Thread started and it's still not Sticky.

[Krammerhead]

quote:Originally posted by Desigol

Almost 2 1/2 Years since this Thread started and it's still not Sticky.


Thats good, I hate stickies. If a thread is good/topical it will stay up at the top without the need of artificial means.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Open Source Apps for Small Biz: Desktop to Backup
February 23, 2008
By Aaron Weiss
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/11070_3729946_1

Open source software (OSS) has become a buzzword sometimes burdened by misperception and misunderstanding. The OSS movement is deeply rooted in the Linux/Unix community, and it's based on the premise that developers distribute their software complete with the source code for inspection or customization. But OSS software is not limited to the Linux and Unix operating systems—increasingly, OSS applications are available for Windows, too, even though Windows itself is a closed-source platform.

Budget-minded small business owners can choose from a number of free, open-source applications designed for Windows that will reliably handle their productivity needs. Better still, many OSS programs support Mac and Linux machines, too, meaning that customers that use those platforms can share compatible files and the same software experience.

Office Alternatives
Microsoft Office has dominated the productivity market for more than a decade, and its bundle of well-known applications, including Word, Excel and Powerpoint, has come to define their respective niches. But critics say that Office has become so bloated over the years that 80 percent of customers use only 20 percent of its features.

Compare the standard package for Office 2007, which retails for $399, to OpenOffice.org, an open-source office suite, which is free. The suite includes a word processor, equation editor, visual database, presentation authoring and drawing application.

OpenOffice.org is not simply a cheap knock-off of Microsoft Office. Some proponents say that Writer, OpenOffice.org's answer to Word, actually bests Word in a number of areas, including page layout, lists, headers, footers and endnotes. (On the other hand, Word maintains the edge on outlining and templates—for a price.) But for typical word processing needs, Writer contains many of the same conveniences you expect, including spellcheck and autocorrect, and Writer can save documents directly to the PDF format. In fact, we wrote this story with Writer.

While you can exchange documents between Writer and Word, some layout features may be lost in the translation, depending the sophistication level of your document.

Likewise, the other OpenOffice.org applications maintain that familiar-yet-different relationship to their Office counterparts. In Impress, the presentation manager, you can export completed presentations to a PowerPoint format for traditional clients, or you can save them in Flash SWF format for easy Web publishing.

If OpenOffice.org is a free and open source alternative to Microsoft Office, then IBM Lotus Symphony could be described as a free and open source alternative to OpenOffice.org. Actually built from the OpenOffice source code, Symphony takes the main components of OpenOffice.org—writing, presentation, and spreadsheets—and refits them with a visual and functional makeover. The overall effect is to streamline the original OpenOffice, in some cases removing features, but improving accessibility and workflow.

Messaging Freely
While e-mail still reigns as the Internet's “killer app” of the, “e-mail” now includes instant messaging, calendars and other groupware collaboration tasks. The typical business probably uses Microsoft Outlook as their messaging client, particularly if they already own a license to Microsoft Office, which bundles it. Microsoft expanded Outlook's popularity by leveraging it on the collaborative features of the company's Exchange server.

Exchange server combines traditional standards-based messaging with Microsoft extensions for duties such as calendaring, scheduling and tasks. It's easy to find free open source software for traditional messaging. Leading the pack is Mozilla Thunderbird, a full-featured messaging client with support for POP and IMAP e-mail, NNTP newsgroups, and RSS feeds.

You can add calendaring to Thunderbird with the Lightning extension or run Sunbird, a standalone version of the same calendar application (in case you don't use Thunderbird for e-mail). Although Sunbird/Lightning lets you share calendars through WebDAV servers and is compatible with Apple iCal, it does not communicate with Exchange servers for access to Outlook calendars. This makes Sunbird/Lightning a good alternative to Exchange calendaring if all you need is the functionality without the interoperability.

The only full-featured free and open messaging client that can talk to an Exchange server is Novell Evolution, but the Windows port is still a little rough around the edges compared to its Linux-based original. It supports only XP, cannot communicate with SSL-encrypted Exchange server, and is sorely in need of a visual face-lift.

Free and open Exchange alternatives like Zimbra support both Outlook and its own free open clients, but require the installation of server software.

If you IM, you can chat the day away with Pidgin. This lightweight and intuitive multi-protocol chat client supports AIM, ICQ, Jabber, Google Talk, MSN, Yahoo and other IM platforms, simultaneously.

Photoshopping Without Photoshop
To its credit, becoming a generic word like kleenex and xerox, is a feather in Photoshop's cap. Like Office is to productivity software, Photoshop is to graphics editing: the de facto, the mac-daddy, the gold-standard choice. But it takes a lot of gold to buy the gold standard, and a full Photoshop license weighs in at $700. But you don't have to use Photoshop to photoshop, and you don't have to spend a dime, either.

The unfortunately named GIMP (“GNU Image Manipulation Program”) has long been the “Photoshop-killer” for anyone using Linux, but it's also available for Windows. Although GIMP isn't about to knock Photoshop off its pedestal among high-end devotees, generating output for the printing press, it offers plenty of sophisticated tools for creating Web and software graphics or touching up and editing digital photos.

But GIMP critics say that the interface is confusing, because it is built around a collection of windows rather than one large editing canvas. To address its controversial graphic interface, there is GIMPshop, a modified version of GIMP with a layout more familiar to people who have already racked up hours in Photoshop.

Then there is Paint.NET, a Windows-specific graphics editor built on Microsoft's .NET framework. Its full-featured and intuitive interface belies the software's lightweight 1.5MB footprint, and it supports popular image-editing features like layers and transparency, and it provides an accessible learning curve.

Compression and Backup
Anyone who actively works at a computer frequently encounters an alphabet soup of data compression formats. Names like ZIP and RAR and CAB and TAR could be the title of a Dr. Seuss book. The free and open 7-Zip utility can unpack most of them (and pack ZIP and its variants), plus it integrates into the Windows Explorer for direct file access.

Data backup is like preventative medicine—we all know we should, but few of us do. One small business recently made the news when a disgruntled employee deleted $2.5M worth of files, which had not been backed up. The data was ultimately restored, but not without shelling out likely thousands of dollars to a specialized recovery firm. You can use Windows' built-in data backup tools, or turn to more sophisticated free and open source solutions like Amanda, NasBackup, or Cobian Backup 8 (note that the newer Cobian Backup 9 is not open source).

Viruses Begone (and Spyware, Too)
Several anti-virus and anti-spyware scanners for Windows won't don't cost you a thing but they're not open source. There is one — ClamWin—that's both. Although ClamWin maintains an up-to-date database for both viruses and spyware, unlike some free-but-closed-source scanners it does not monitor and scan files as you access them. Rather, you must run a ClamWin scan against files manually.

Remote Desktop
Windows includes a client for Microsoft's Terminal Services remote desktop, but not all Windows licenses include the remote desktop server. UltraVNC is a free-and-open-source remote desktop client and server for Windows that also supports live text chat and file transfer. If you use a platform other than Windows, you can connect your Web browser to UltraVNC's Java applet to view the Windows desktop.

And Firefox, Too
A special mention should be made about the Web browser Firefox, perhaps the most well known free-and-open-source application of them all.

Firefox is really one branch of a free, open source ecosystem. The browser is based on the Mozilla Foundation's rendering engine named Gecko, which is also the basis for several other free-and-open Web applications like the SeaMonkey Project (with integrated e-mail and calendar), Flock (with integrated social networking), and K-Meleon (“chameleon”) which is lighter and more tightly integrated into Windows than Firefox.

Fair Deal
Thanks to the philosophy that drives open source software developers, they create new applications rapidly, often incorporating—and sometimes exceeding—features found in analogous commercial applications. While open source applications may fall short of your needs, they cost nothing to try—and nothing to keep.

[Desigol]

I've downloaded Filezilla Client as I'm about to start up my own Web Design Business from home; under New Deal. I had ordered Cute FTP 2 Months ago, but it NEVER arrived.

I also downloaded MySQL, but the format didn't work on my Machine (I'm still on XP).

[Start fan in exile]

Here's a good alternative to Outlook/Entourage. Still in beta, but looks promising and multi-platform to boot:

http://chandlerproject.org/

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Start fan in exile

Here's a good alternative to Outlook/Entourage. Still in beta, but looks promising and multi-platform to boot:

http://chandlerproject.org/Yeah, I've had Chandler in my bookmarks for a few years now, really quiet project, slow and steady development.

While we're here we might as well re-mention Evolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_%28software%29
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,64608-page,1-c,downloads/description.html
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=159440&package_id=194380&release_id=429758
http://shellter.sourceforge.net/evolution/

[Start fan in exile]

quote:Originally posted by Joe MacCarthy
Yeah, I've had Chandler in my bookmarks for a few years now, really quiet project, slow and steady development.

While we're here we might as well re-mention Evolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_%28software%29
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,64608-page,1-c,downloads/description.html
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=159440&package_id=194380&release_id=429758
http://shellter.sourceforge.net/evolution/
I've been following Chandler for about 3 years as well. Thanks for the info on Evolution. I see on the wiki page they have a mac build as well, so I may have to try that out. Been using Eudora for email for about 13 years now, but really don't like the new Mozilla version of Eudora and don't want to go back to Entourage either (had to use it my last job since we were on an exchange server).

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Start fan in exile
Been using Eudora for email for about 13 years now, but really don't like the new Mozilla version of Eudora Funny you say that, I've also been using Eudora since Jesus was a carpenter. I've formatted my desktop and haven't reloaded an email client for a couple of months. I may go with TBird/Lightning or may not. I have TBird on the laptop but miss the simple file structure of Eudora (backups etc).

I was using Eudora Lite 3.06 (how's that for old). I love the fact there is no bloat, it does what I want, and also is so old it won't open a lot of files, which in email are probably not good for you anyway.

Headsup for a new version of OOo (OpenOffice.org) coming soon. Version 2.4 is in RC (Release Candidate 2) and 2.4 proper should be out in a short while with the highly touted version three available in late fall 2008.

[Daniel]

Anything to replace Windows Explorer?

I like the keyboard navigation between folders and subfolders I have with one of the views in Mac's Finder.

[Start fan in exile]

quote:Originally posted by Joe MacCarthy
I've formatted my desktop and haven't reloaded an email client for a couple of months. I may go with TBird/Lightning or may not. I have TBird on the laptop but miss the simple file structure of Eudora (backups etc).
If you go here - http://wiki.mozilla.org/Eudora_Releases - you'll find:

quote:Eudora 8 is an email client that combines Mozilla's Thunderbird with code, features, and GUI elements from Qualcomm's Eudora.
This is what I'm currently using after trying TBird and then TBird with the Penelope extension. The major improvement over TBird is that the file structure is somwhat like Eudora, but it's still painfully slow to load on my 2GHz iMac (Eudora 6 loaded in a flash) and I don't think they've done such a great job with the GUI.

Good thing is it's completely compatible with old Eudora mbox files; I ran Eudora Mailbox Cleaner on an archive i made from my Eudora 3.x on a PC in 2001 and had no trouble getting those old mailboxes into Eudora 8 on my mac.

[Joe MacCarthy]

I know about the "new" Eudora, i just like having the old simple version. It's like that old comfortable pair of sneakers that you just can't throw away.

I haven't any problem with TBird loading issues (speed). That's one more reason to like open source programs, is that they actually listen and work on what the users want (save the GIMP interface). OOo has usually had performance increases in every new version after complaints about slow loading speed. Google, themselves, took on that job. (edit: just downloaded OOo RC2, definite speed increases when opening and running the prog, very snappy)

With some of these OSS progs, I've hitched my wagon to not necessarily the best (at the present time) but to the one that I think will be there for the long term with constant development. For instance, Ubuntu may not be the best Linux distro out there but it has the best user/help community out there. Ubuntu uses Evolution as the default email client but I'm using TBird because i think it will have better development. But I could be wrong.

[Joe MacCarthy]

I should be buying lottery tickets. I post about something here and then go to newsforge to get the latest OSS news and there is an article on what I was just talking about.

Ubuntu Brainstorm launched to invite user suggestions
Linux March 1st, 2008
http://stuff.techwhack.com/archives/2008/03/01/ubuntu-brainstorm/

The developers behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution have announced the launch of Ubuntu Brainstorm (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/)

Ubuntu Brainstorm website has been launched to make it easier for Linux fans to submit their suggestions for this Linux distribution.

They would be able to vote on the already posted suggestions and the developers would get an idea on what is high on most users’ wanted list.

This new section has been inspired by a similar service Dell launched some time ago. Dell IdeaStorm site invite Dell customers to put in their suggestions for future products.

[Daniel]

So I installed Pidgin on my mom's old-ass laptop because I hate MSN's bloated Windows Live Messenger. I liked Pidgin's simplicity, so I started looking for it on Mac, for myself. Turns out it doesn't exist. Oh well, back to MSN Messenger (which is nice and light on Mac), you say?

Well, I read that MSN is actually preparing a PC-like version for Mac and that made me look for an OSS alternative (which I'd heard of before) in the form of Adium (http://www.adiumx.com/).

It took a while to customise, but it looks like I'm sticking with it (if it doesn't crap out on me).

And it got me going on an OSS binge at work today, replacing my defaults from Word 2007 to OpenOffice.org and from Windows Media Player to VLC. :P

I'm still not moving back to Linux just yet, though. I like my Mac ;).

[Daniel]

The VLC experiment is over after the skin would not stick and the program crashed multiple times in 10 minutes. Yikes!

[Start fan in exile]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel
So I installed Pidgin on my mom's old-ass laptop because I hate MSN's bloated Windows Live Messenger. I liked Pidgin's simplicity, so I started looking for it on Mac, for myself. Turns out it doesn't exist. Oh well, back to MSN Messenger (which is nice and light on Mac), you say?

Well, I read that MSN is actually preparing a PC-like version for Mac and that made me look for an OSS alternative (which I'd heard of before) in the form of Adium (http://www.adiumx.com/).

It took a while to customise, but it looks like I'm sticking with it (if it doesn't crap out on me).

And it got me going on an OSS binge at work today, replacing my defaults from Word 2007 to OpenOffice.org and from Windows Media Player to VLC. :P

I'm still not moving back to Linux just yet, though. I like my Mac ;).
Been using Adium and VLC on my mac for a few years now, and they both run great. Would not consider going back to any of the commercial alternatives. Another great piece of video software is MPEG Streamclip which lets you convert just about any type of video file to almost any other. Very handy.

I have NeoOffice (the mac port of OpenOffice) as well, but use MS Office for the most part, mainly because I find NeoOffice slow to load. It's stable, though, and I use it about 25-30% of the time. Not for spreadsheets, though. Excel is the only really good piece of software Microsoft has ever made, and they haven't fvcked it up yet.

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Start fan in exile
Another great piece of video software is MPEG Streamclip which lets you convert just about any type of video file to almost any other. Very handy.

I have NeoOffice (the mac port of OpenOffice) as well, but use MS Office for the most part, mainly because I find NeoOffice slow to load. Just to be clear, MPEG Streamclip is freeware not OSS.

OpenOffice is coming out with a native port for Mac so your NeoOffice days may soon be over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openoffice

Among the planned features for OOo 3.0, set to be released by September 2008, are:

* Personal Information Manager (PIM), probably based on Thunderbird/Lightning
* PDF import into Draw (to maintain correct layout of the original PDF)
* Web 2.0 support for weblogs and wikis
* Office 2007 OOXML document import filter
* Support for Mac OS X Aqua platform
* Redesigned, more modern GUI

[Joe MacCarthy]

Spicebird: Thunderbird, Lightning, and a dash of collaborative flavor
By Nathan Willis on March 07, 2008
http://www.linux.com/feature/128241

Spicebird is a (OSS) cross-platform email and collaboration client derived from Mozilla Thunderbird. If you are a fan of Thunderbird, but need more from it than the standard build provides, you may want to give this new bird a try. (Edit: not created by the Mozilla folks but a company in India)

http://www.spicebird.com/files/images/HomeScreen_0.preview.png
http://www.spicebird.com/

[Start fan in exile]

Discovered a new open source video player today: Miro.

http://www.getmiro.com/

Much the same capabilities as VLC but much nicer interface. Tested it on wmv, avi and mov and all three work well.

Cross-platform.

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Start fan in exile

Discovered a new open source video player today: Miro.

http://www.getmiro.com/

Much the same capabilities as VLC but much nicer interface. Tested it on wmv, avi and mov and all three work well.

Cross-platform.Yes, Miro is definitely a player (pardon the expression) in today's video online universe. Been out for a few years, I tried it out when it was known as Democracy Player but didn't really get the concept. It's been mostly used as a way to download and play online video rather than as a standalone player.

It's improved leaps and bounds since and seems to be one of the better platforms around which TV on my PC is used.

Definately worth a revisit as it will also play Quicktime and XVID (and hopefully DivX). Thanks for the reminder.

[Grizzly]

quote:Originally posted by Joe MacCarthy

Spicebird: Thunderbird, Lightning, and a dash of collaborative flavor


Are you using Spicebird currently Joe? Do you know if you can print schedules out better than you can with Sunbird? Sunbird does not print out the schedules as they are on the screen but rather as data lists, ie. the appointments are listed one after another with no graphic presentation of the day and the empty time slots which kind of defeats the purpose of printing the schedule. I end up taking a screen shot of my schedule and printing it from paint but this takes irritating editing work. I don't see anything in the Spicebird documentation that refers to what I think is the biggest weakness of Sunbird. I would download Spicebird if it has this function but otherwise am not too interested. I have also searched for other programs and can't find one that prints out a schedule the way I want despite this being a pretty simple and basic function. I would appreciate any other program suggestions.

As an aside what do you and other people think of Mozilla? I personally find it to be one of the poorest of the open source software companies. I think Firefox is well regarded simply because people compare it to the absolute worst browser which is Internet Explorer. There are better browsers out there. I gave up on trying to get Thunderbird to work and I dislike Sunbird but use it because I have not found anything better. It seems like a trait of Mozilla software is that it crashes quite frequently. Firefox crashes a lot with media files and Sunbird crashes a lot when making edits to your data. Yet when I download other open source software often performing much more complicated functions and written by smaller companies they usually work great.

I have to say I am also not that fond of the VLC player (not a Mozilla product) but will say that it is the best player for playing files that other media players won't read. I only use it the odd time when I encounter such a file but for regular files I prefer other media players.

[Joe MacCarthy]

I haven't downloaded Spicebird because I'm not really into the contact management thing, I just saw the article and thought others might find it useful.

Don't know if these will do what you want but might be worth a shot.

You might want to have a look at the non OSS freeware
EssentialPIM Free
http://www.essentialpim.com/index.php

or Google calendar
http://tinyurl.com/22qrob

or the Wikipedia list of PIMS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_personal_information_managers

As you might have guessed I am a Mozilla fan but not a shill for them. I agree there might be a better browser (haven't used Opera in years so I don't know if it is better) and I know it isn't IE. But the Mozilla people have to be given credit for taking these major projects on and giving us an open alternative to Ballmer's gang.

I don't get the crashing issues that others have mentioned but people also have to remember where these progs are in the scheme of things.

Sunbird/Firebird is at release 0.8. MS Office is at release number 12 (IIRC) and I don't know the version number of Outlook because I won't have that virus magnet on my PC.

Same for VLC, not the greatest looking or most stable program in the world but it will play every file that WMP won't play and that is after installing the codecs and DivX and Xvid in WMP.

If you look at the Mozilla developers blog these guys are fixing bugs all the time. The beauty of open source is that if you make a suggestion somebody will likely have a look at it and fix it and chances are you are not alone in what you want to do and someone else would like the same thing.

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/help.html
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/request.cgi

Sunbird/Lightning version 0.8 will be out in a few days, maybe they will have corrected your problem otherwise give them a shout and put in a request.

Back to Firefox, is that part of the issue is webpages configured for IE. This is the whole reason to have open standards and not proprietary ones so you don't get locked into one non open standard and can only use one prog to access it.

Again Spicebird is not Mozilla so they might have added the functionality you are looking for.

[Grizzly]

Thanks for the response Joe. Google calendar didn't do what I wanted when I tried it about 6 months ago though maybe I should see if it has been improved. I also tried a couple free versions of propietary software and the free versions wouldn't do what I wanted but the pay ones will. I will go through the WIKI list and see if I can find anything. It is not like I want it to do anything very complicated, merely print out a weekly schedule for 9 am to 10pm with all of the hours listed whether they have events or not similar to the type of schedule one would make by hand. Sunbird will display such a schedule perfectly but won't print it out in that form. Maybe I will ask them to add this though as you suggest or see if someone else has written an extension to permit this though I will wait to see what 0.8 brings. The Spicebird site does not mention any such function so I am not to crazy about downloading it to see if they have done this.

As far as Mozilla is concerned I appreciate that they and companies like them are open source but I am not sure that the philosophy of Open Source is "We are justified in building poor software because it is free". I just don't find the Mozilla programs very good unlike other open source applications such as Open Office and various other OSS programs I have that I think are often superior to the similar proprietary software. Open office is a bit slow to start up but it is otherwise hard to find fault with it and it is far better than Microsoft Office for the things I use it for. I would give Open Office a 9/10 rating while I would give Mozilla programs a 5 or 6/10. When I use Open Office I always think, "This is a great program" and when I use Mozilla programs I also think, "This needs to be improved". I have a reasonably good computer that is very stable and has almost no problems with any programs other than the Mozilla ones. I do use Opera and find it much faster and with better features than Firefox (most of whose features were taken from Opera to begin with). I agree that both browsers have problems with websites that don't follow the Open Standard and this is the fault of web designers and Microsoft not Opera or Firefox (even though whose fault it is doesn't really matter to the user and for this reason I still have IE on my computer). Yet when Opera has a problem with a non-standard page it simply doesn't display it while Firefox crashes. And in using Sunbird and trying to use Thunderbird I just noticed that crashing frequently seems to be a characteristic of Mozilla programs.

I have WMP on my computer but don't usually use it. I usually use Media Player Classic which I prefer to both VLC and WMP. Although development of it has pretty much stopped at the moment it is still working pretty good. I do have VLC on my computer though to play those rare files that MPC won't play and do appreciate it when I need it. It is just too bad that there isn't a media player that works like Media Player Classic but can play all the files that VLC can.

[Start fan in exile]

If calendaring is your priority, the best piece of software I have ever used is a commercial app. called Now-up-to-date (http://www.nowsoftware.com/). I had it at a workplace 6-7 years ago, and the mail feature is an exceptionally useful calendar, with tons of templates for printing out to several different sizes and formats. I haven't used it since '02, so I can't speak to their current release.

As for Mozilla vs. Opera or others; Mozilla is the grandaddy of them all - I used Mozilla in '93 before Netscape took over. The project was dormant for many years during the "browser wars" between IE and Netscape, but they've come back with a vengeance despite a development budget a fraction of what Microsoft devotes to it's (crappy) browser.

The beauty of open source is exactly what Joe talks about: developers respond to user needs and requests in a way a commercial company can't (or won't). Open source constantly under development, and because the code the software is based on is freely available there are hordes of people around the world helping develop it or creating add-ons. A motto I've seen that sums up open source quite nicely is "Free, as in free speech, not free beer".

Granted sometimes software is released that is not quite ready for prime time, but one characteristic of open source is that without huge R&D budgets user feedback and bug reports are essential. Besides, in the not ready for prime time category, Windows Vista, anyone...?

On another note, found some reviews of Miro.

From http://www.slyck.com/story1567_Looking_into_the_Miro

quote:On Windows, Miro's playback engine is built on VLC. On Linux, it's built on Xine, while on Mac OS X it's built on Quicktime. According to Reville, the reason for this was purely ease of implementation, but ideally the client would support VLC, Xine, Quicktime and mplayer. On Vista at least, the VLC base means that Miro will play anything that VLC can play too.

quote:Although the features Miro offers are easily duplicated by a combination of free programs, it's the only client of its kind to tie them all together so neatly. For all it does, it's pleasantly surprising that the client is pretty much set to go with no configuration needed from the first time it loads. Thanks to the automatic expiration feature, there's no immediate reason to worry about where the files are being downloaded to for fear of running out of space. The always-on UPnP support obviates any contact with your router's settings page for BitTorrent downloads. Although power users will do it anyway, the usual client first use ritual of running through the Preferences before you do anything is completely unnecessary.

As both technology writers and their audiences tend to be highly technical, it's generally difficult to make a statement about "average users" as neither of the former groups fall into that category. In this case however, it's hard to say anything other than that the average user should have zero difficulty in getting Miro to work.

A note of caution, however: shortly after the first Slyck article on Democracy, I decided to try it on a late 2003 2.66GHz P4 laptop running Windows XP Pro SP2 with 1.5GB RAM and had a sluggish experience. My point is that while any recent PC should be able to run Miro without blinking, it's probably not the most suitable program for an ancient rig you have laying around.

And another: http://www.last100.com/2007/07/17/democracy-player-is-dead-long-live-miro/

quote:Miro (formerly known as Democracy Player) is an open-source Internet TV application that combines a media player and library, content guide, video search engine, as well as podcast and BitTorrent clients. Developed by the Participatory Culture Foundation, Miro aims to make online video “as easy as watching TV”, while at the same time ensuring that the new medium remains accessible to everyone, through its support for open standards. Described by some as the “Firefox of media apps”, the resulting effort is a slick looking and easy-to-use application — not a mean feat when dealing in open-source methodology — that gives Apple’s iTunes (the default media player and video podcast client for many) a genuine run for its money.

[Joe MacCarthy]

For those who have been following the OpenOffice saga you've likely been aware that OOo can create a PDF file from a document at the click of a button (can also create a Flash presentation).

One of the new features of OOo 3.0 will be the ability to edit a PDF file. Many have hoped for the IE/Office/Outlook replacement app, will this be the Acrobat killer? In all sincerity, no, but again it will be a great option.

OpenOffice 3 = Free PDF Editor + Acrobat Writer
http://tinyurl.com/2b2gue

Though you can write PDF documents without Adobe Acrobat, there aren’t many choices for editing PDF files. Most PDF editors are either commercial or offer very limited functionality.

http://i27.tinypic.com/se86l4.gif

All this is expected to change when Sun releases OpenOffice 3 in the next few months as it includes native PDF import and export features. See the slide above.

You will be able to import PDF files into Draw, perform the edits and then export them as hybrid PDFs, meaning you can edit the PDF files back again in OpenOffice.

OpenOffice 3 will be available on Windows and Mac. It may not have all the PDF editing features of Acrobat but may still satisfy the needs of most users who only require basic editing.


OpenOffice.org 3.0 and Beyond Slide Presentation
http://marketing.openoffice.org/ooocon2007/programme/wednesday_186.pdf

A nice intro to OOo, the people and companies behind it and the new features expected in OOo 3.0

[Grizzly]

Sounds good, the whole PDF/Adobe/Word thing always seemed like the biggest scam to me. Do you know the expected release date for 3.0? The Open Office site just says later this year.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Looks like fall 2008, OOo 2.4 is in RC 4 (release candidate) so it should be available in days. If you've got the update part of OOo installed it should notify you of the upgrade to 2.4 and perform the update.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Yes, my grandma can run Ubuntu Linux
Posted by Matt Asay
http://www.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9889681-16.html

Last week Lenovo lent me one of its X61 ThinkPad laptops so that I could give Ubuntu Linux a try. Having had a bad experience with Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop a few years ago, I had sworn off desktop Linux and determined not to return.

A week into a new trial with Ubuntu Linux, however, it's clear that desktop Linux has come a long way. I found it extremely easy to use, including when I had to install a program (Skype) that wasn't included in the supported applications list. This is an operating system that my grandma could (and, in fact, did) use.

This isn't to say that my week with Ubuntu Linux was uneventful. I had a few struggles, which I'll detail below. These struggles, however, were almost entirely due to running Ubuntu on unsupported hardware, and not any fault of Ubuntu (or Linux) itself.

But first, the good. If you're familiar with Windows, running Ubuntu Linux is a breeze. In fact, my biggest complaint with Ubuntu is that it feels too much like Windows. I use a Mac precisely to get away from the utilitarian ugliness of Windows. Finding it in Linux didn't endear Ubuntu to me.

But for most people, this will be a Very Good Thing, given that it will mean a significantly lower learning curve.

To test how hard it is for an average user to find their way around Ubuntu, I had my grandmother and the lady who cuts my hair give it a try. I set them down in front of it and asked them to perform certain functions:

You need to write a letter to a friend. Will you start the application that manages this and start working on the letter?

You need to sell something on eBay. Please find the browser, upload pictures of the item for sale, and post it.

In every case, it took them just seconds to figure out where to go in Ubuntu to accomplish the task. Neither one complained about using OpenOffice (I didn't tell them it wasn't Microsoft Office, and they didn't seem to notice a difference), nor about using Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. They had work to do and the operating system and applications didn't get in their way at all.

In fact, what I found perhaps most impressive was how easily Ubuntu recognized my camera and imported the pictures. I'm used to this simplicity with Mac OS X, but I was shocked (really) to see the system walk us through the importation and management of images. For a desktop to appeal to the mainstream, it simply must be able to do this. I also had video on my camera (a Canon PowerShot SD1000) and Ubuntu imported and played it with ease.

This ease continued when I installed Skype. Going "off-piste" was what drove me away from desktop Linux several years ago, but this time it was as easy as installing an application on Windows or Mac OS X. Double-click on the installation file and...done.

In this and other ways, Ubuntu demonstrated that it is clearly ready for mainstream desktop adoption. I would have no qualms about recommending Ubuntu to grandmas and other normal people everywhere, people with no love of the command line.

With that said, my Ubuntu experience wasn't flawless. As noted, most of these problems stemmed from running it on excellent, but unsupported hardware (Lenovo's X61 ThinkPad). Whenever I'd put the computer to sleep it would wake to a dim screen that I'd have to CTRL-ALT-F1 / CTRL-ALT-F7 to fix (and I only learned about this workaround through the generous assistance of someone in the comments section of my first post on Ubuntu).

I'm good at self-support, so I immediately went to Google to find the answer to the brightness problem. Two hours later, I was in my own little corner of Linux Hell. I was told to add lines to certain files (/usr/share/hal/fdi/information/10freedesktop/20-video-quirk-pm-lenovo.fdi) on my hard drive. I tried from the command line, and then by browsing my file system. Despite having root access on the machine, it kept telling me I had insufficient permissions to make the change. (Edit: use sudo gedit - sudo for privileges, gedit for text editor JM)

Ultimately, I gave up.

I tried to change the appearance of the desktop (System:Preferences:Appearance:Visual Effects), but got the error show directly above (left). To be fair, I get random error messages occasionally on Windows or Mac OS X, so the fact that Ubuntu throws them up, too, isn't a deal breaker. The difficulty, however, is that there's precious little assistance available if things go wrong, as most people are Windows drones or Mac OS X people. Yes, there's always Google (i.e., others out on the 'Net), but I was directed to go to the command line so often via this route that I just can't see most people being able to resolve their issues in this way.

All in all, however, I am very impressed with Ubuntu. It still has a ways to go to match Mac OS X in elegance and simplicity, but if I had to choose between Windows and Linux today, there wouldn't be a contest. It would be Linux every time.

Given that 95 percent of the world still wastes away in Windows land, this is a good situation for Ubuntu. The learning curve required to switch from Windows to Linux is all of 10 seconds long. My grandma did it. The lady who cuts my hair did it. Neither one of them is an expert with computers.

In fact, as I was testing my grandma's ability to use Ubuntu she kept saying,

Matt, you're just trying to get me to look dumb. I'm not smart enough to use computers.

To this I responded, "Grandma, that's exactly the point. You shouldn't have to be 'smart' to use a computer. The computer should be smart enough to let anyone use it and benefit from it." (Edit: this is my mantra JM)

After ripping out a few emails, browsing the web, writing some letters, etc. on Ubuntu Linux, I'm confident in saying that Ubuntu is smart enough for the myriad of average people like you, my grandma, and I.

[Daniel]

Well, the OO.org experiment at work is over. The poor handling of dictionaries when working in two languages was too much of a hassle, so I switched back to MS Office.

The big issue was once I defined "this paragraph is [language]", the spellcheck for that paragraph would no longer be handled at all (not even by that language's dictionary). I also had to actually download the dictionaries, but that didn't bother me so much. That being said, it should be a feature at install to choose your dictionaries, and there should be an automated client to do so at any point.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Good article (with pictures) on OOo 3.0

OpenOffice.org 3.0's new features, an early look
http://www.oooninja.com/2008/03/openofficeorg-30-new-features.html

OpenOffice.org 3.0 is 167 days away, but who's counting? Maybe the software developers are counting because they have a whopping 2,278 issues targeted for this release. Even though OpenOffice.org 2.4 is not yet out the door, (edit: any day now) let's see how far they've come with OpenOffice.org 3.0. ...

[Joe MacCarthy]

Mozilla says Firefox 3 ready for prime-time
http://tinyurl.com/3ddye3

By Jim Finkle

BOSTON (Reuters) - A new version of Mozilla's popular Firefox Web browser is ready for download with improved security and memory use as the tiny company takes a stab at Microsoft Corp's dominant Internet Explorer.

The program's creators told Reuters on Thursday that the privately-held company's trial version of Firefox 3 browser is ready for the masses to use after months of development.

Until now, the company has discouraged average Internet users from moving on from Firefox 2, which was launched in October 2006.

"In many ways it (Firefox 3) is much more stable than anything else out there," Mozilla Corp Vice President of Engineering Mike Schroepfer said in an interview.

Key rivals to Firefox are market leader Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Apple Inc's Safari browser.

Engineers at Mozilla are still putting the finishing touches on the software and hope to release the final version of Firefox 3 by the end of June, Schroepfer said.

Mozilla is in a battle with Microsoft, which unveiled an experimental version of its Internet Explorer 8 in Las Vegas earlier this month and is looking to expand its presence on the Web through its bid to acquire Yahoo Inc.

Additions boost security and allow users to run Web sites when they are not connected to the Internet. Mozilla also says Firefox 3 uses less computer memory than Firefox 2.

Until now Mozilla has discouraged the typical computer user from exploring these new features. But its developers said on Thursday that the situation has changed and that they will be revising their Web site.

As of Thursday afternoon, the Web site still stated: "We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 beta 4 milestone release. It is intended for testing purposes only."

But they said that as they concluded their fourth round of tweaking their software, they determined it was ready for prime time.

A fifth round of changes, due to begin within the next few weeks, will involve "tuning the visual look and feel of the program" and further improving its stability," Schroepfer said.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Brian Moss)

[Joe MacCarthy]

OpenOffice 2.4 is now released along with a new OOo website
http://www.openoffice.org

New features in OpenOffice.org 2.4.0
http://www.oooninja.com/2008/03/new-features-openofficeorg-240.html

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel
The big issue was once I defined "this paragraph is [language]", the spellcheck for that paragraph would no longer be handled at all (not even by that language's dictionary). I also had to actually download the dictionaries, but that didn't bother me so much. That being said, it should be a feature at install to choose your dictionaries, and there should be an automated client to do so at any point.

Is this what you are looking for?

http://www.oooninja.com/2008/02/set-select-language-spell-check-switch.html

[Joe MacCarthy]

10 ways that Linux is outgrowing the stereotype and becoming the best OS
Submitted by seopher
http://tinyurl.com/3ajmer

Linux has a negative image associated with it; a most unfortunate affliction when that image is contrary to the truth. I'm occasionally asked "why do you bother with Linux?" by people who haven't used it recently under the assumption that it's difficult to use, counter intuitive, geeky, nerdy and any number of other adjectives. However it is my intention to raise awareness that Linux is remarkably usable these days, so on that note let's start looking at how Linux has outgrown that stereotype.

1. Excellent, mind numbingly easy media support

There was a time where only the hardcore (self proclaimed geeky) types would bother with Linux because getting media (videos, most notably) to work fully was a pain in the backside. Over the past 12 months that situation has changed drastically and now the majority of distros come with either codecs preloaded (so your videos work directly post install) or a handy little application telling you what codec you need to play that video, as well as a link to the online repository to get it. Have you tried getting videos to play on a fresh Windows XP install recently? You need to know what you're doing and that's not true with modern Linux.

2. Being 100% user oriented

Modern Linux is more in line with the times; we don't want a bare operating system (a la XP), we want out of the box functionality and most releases I've tried of late have that in spades. Most angles are covered from GIMP, OpenOffice.org, KSnapshot (and so on) which means that an average user could install something like PCLinuxOS 2007 and not need to obtain more software. The user is a massive consideration with modern Linux and I really like that - Apple understand this but Microsoft don't.

3. Online shopping where everything is free (Synaptic, Apt etc)

I've added this in because it was a statement my girlfriend made when toying with her new Asus EEE-PC. I was explaining the merits of Synaptic as a graphical user interface for Apt when she looked a little surprised and questioned "so it's like an online shop where everything is free?" and I found that such a fitting analogy. Whereas in Windows you need to either buy software or hunt around the Internet for a non-spammy application, on Linux you load up Synaptic (or whatever package manager is available) and browse the catalogue. Find something you like? Click install. That application is downloaded (along with all the pre-requisits) and installed - you are prompted when it is done. Your application is ready to use. This is far better than anything I've encountered on either Windows or OSX, it's so intuitive the only danger is you'll install absolutely everything on offer.

4. Cost

Quite an obvious point I had to raise at some point. Linux is free (on the most part). You download the CD's and install the operating system. You browse online catalogues for software and install them (as per point #3) and at no point does anyone ever ask you for money. It's nice, it means you can spend more money on hardware, books, prostitutes, whatever you wish.

5. Frequency of updates

Friends of mine within the community cite this as a major advantage over Windows (or even OSX); updates come so frequently. Distros like Ubuntu have a major release every 6 months meaning you can get through 4-6 major updates before MS/Apple have even announced their next product. This means the community can push things forward in a big way, receive feedback and incrementally improve things. This means your modern Linux distro stays at the forefront of technology (new Kernel, new X-server, new KDE/Gnome, etc).

6. Scalability

I first installed Ubuntu on a P133 that had been previously used as a Firewall - it ran fine. I could also install that same release on a top-end quad-core system and it'd run fine too. There are enough elements that can be turned on and off to allow Linux to scale. You've even got differently weighted environments to choose from, from the uber-light XFCE to the famously scalable Gnome, to the heavily customisable KDE (and a few more). If you've got a machine, there's a version of Linux that'll run on it and I think that's excellent. It means you don't need an operating system from 1997 on an old machine; that P133 could have a 2008 O/S on it, fully up-to date and sexy. Hell, Apple even tie the version of OS to the machine's hardware.

7. Instant wow factor (Compiz-Fusion)

I have never met someone who saw Compiz-Fusion in action and thought "meh". Everyone seems to be in awe of it; what's more it comes with most of the modern releases too - so if you've got a graphics card that'll handle it, then you too can have aesthetic delight that Vista can only dream about.

Check out this rather fast paced if not slightly worrying display of what Compiz Fusion can do. The video runs quite quickly in order to cover all the possible effects:


8. Community

I've been writing about Linux for a while now and the thing I've noticed above all else is the community and the mature responses you get (from the right people). Especially now that I've got a website dedicated to reviewing releases it's refreshing to see community leaders taking criticism on board and working for a better release. Listening to your users means you work collaboratively in the right direction - rather than pulling features out of the air your key demographic are suggesting them. You don't find this with Microsoft or Apple products (as much). The community is there to help you too, but the need for help on this latest breed of 'usable' releases is diminishing as the technological barriers are coming down.

9. Variety

It's different horses for different courses. Do you want Gnome, KDE or XCFE? Do you like an OSX feel or more of a Windows feel? Do you want to use something unlike anything you've ever used before? There are literally dozens of major releases that offer you a usable solution, you just need to find one that feels right to you. I like this, it's that "power to the user" thing back again. If I don't like Windows Vista (which I don't incidentally), what other Microsoft options do I have? Oh, back to their previous product while I await whatever they choose to release next. What about OSX? Oh, same deal.

10. No more command line!

Some of us like the command line, it makes us feel empowered but the 'average' user doesn't want to have to update packages manually. I can hand on heart say that the need to be familiar with the terminal is decreasing, most releases handle everything through the GUI and that's excellent too. Linux has this negative reputation of being command line driven, counter intuitive geek-territory and that's just not true anymore. Sure it's there if you want to use it but it's no longer a necessary evil.

So there you have it; 10 ways that Linux has outgrown this stereotype and has started to surpass the mainstream offerings from Microsoft and Apple. Exciting times are ahead and I'm not going to claim there's a 'mass migration' on the horizon because I've declared that countless times before and been wrong. Needless to say 'modern' Linux is out-accelerating the other operating systems and there's only so much time until utopia is reached and the world takes notice.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Burst of low-end PCs could boost Linux
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/software/2008-04-01-cheap-pc-linux_N.htm?csp=34

By Brian Bergstein, Associated Press

BOSTON — The free Linux operating system handles big tasks like running supercomputers and ATMs. Now Linux has a chance to finally crack Microsoft's hold on computing's most visible domain — mainstream PCs — because of the rise of innovative, inexpensive machines.

Of course, prognosticators perennially say Linux is on the verge. It gets high marks for security and stability and is widely used behind the scenes in corporate servers, making it a natural candidate to steal desktop thunder from Microsoft's dominant Windows. And yet Linux PCs still represent less than 2% of the market.

This time, though, there's actually evidence of momentum.

While the best features in the latest Windows release, Vista, require top-notch configurations that can quickly ramp up a PC's price, one of the hottest segments of the industry involves inexpensive computers.

Laptops under $400 (euro255) are real possibilities now, and some of the most buzz-worthy use Linux, such as Asustek Computer Inc.'s EeePC and the One Laptop Per Child Foundation's $200 (euro128) "XO" computer for schoolchildren. Linux also is available on slim little "netbooks" being pushed by Intel Corp.

Not only is Linux essentially free to the PC vendor, but the operating system also is better suited than Vista for cheap PCs' spartan hardware designs. (Windows XP is available on scaled-back PCs like Intel's Classmate, but it's unclear what will happen after Microsoft soon stops selling XP to the general public.)

Amazon.com's top-selling PCs include several Asustek Linux machines. Although Wal-Mart Stores recently stopped a test run of selling Linux PCs in some stores, the company says it will continue to offer them online.

Business computing suppliers are finding open-source desktops especially gaining traction in cost-conscious developing markets. For example, IBM and Linux vendor Red Hat recently launched Microsoft-free desktops for Eastern Europe.

One buyer is Aleksandar Spagnut, a director of Moscow-based Rushotel, which needed new desktop PCs for a hotel-building project. Spagnut said his company saved 30 to 35% over comparable Windows machines. He added that Linux PCs are now common enough that a snowball effect is emerging, whereby technical support and "drivers" — which essentially tell programs how to interact with hardware — are much easier to find.

"This really makes the difference," he said.

Linux might benefit from a changing conception of computers. With the rise of Web-based applications that reduce the need for desktop-bound software, more of the action comes through an Internet browser now. The feel of the underlying operating system is less important.

That means Linux consumers can get a lot out of their computers even if they are put off by what many reviewers still cite as Linux's biggest flaw: its uneven user-friendliness. Some tweaks to Linux machines require higher-than-average computing savvy, although this is less of an issue than in the past.

Perhaps more importantly, if the desktop operating system fades further into the background, PC makers could have greater incentive to save money on it by offering Linux. The price that big PC manufacturers pay Microsoft for Windows varies and is not disclosed, but is believed to commonly exceed $50 (euro32) per PC.

"I'm a big believer in the inevitable forces of economics — they're like glaciers," said Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, which this month is releasing a new version of Ubuntu, a leading version of Linux that can run PCs. "Glaciers carve out terrain. It takes time."

Linux on the desktop doesn't have to take off like crazy to really start to matter. Of the 981 million PCs in existence worldwide last year, 1.7% ran Linux, according to Gartner. That sounds paltry. But Apple's Mac operating system accounted for just 2.5%, and Apple is considered a significant, influential alternative to Windows.

"Every point is billions of dollars to Microsoft," says Jim Zemlin, head of The Linux Foundation, a consortium devoted to advancing Linux. His group is meeting with top PC makers next week in Austin, Texas, in hopes of accelerating their efforts to sell Linux machines.

The top PC makers have so far treaded carefully. Dell's website sells Ubuntu computers in a separate section for open-source PCs, out of direct comparison with Windows machines. Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden said the placement reflects the fact that Linux is still not a mainstream consumer product.

Linux is partly hampered by its greatest asset: its widely dispersed nature.

Linux is a core set of code called a kernel; developers build different layers of software on top of it to serve different computing purposes. (Open-source providers make money by charging for add-on services, such as technical support or security upgrades.)

As a result, Linux comes in many flavors, known as distributions, fracturing the push Linux might otherwise make. In fact, some programs written for one distribution don't work in another.

"We haven't figured out to how to federate the marketing of the technology as well as we've figured out how to develop the technology," Zemlin acknowledged.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Burst of low-end PCs could boost Linux
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/software/2008-04-01-cheap-pc-linux_N.htm?csp=34

By Brian Bergstein, Associated Press

BOSTON — The free Linux operating system handles big tasks like running supercomputers and ATMs. Now Linux has a chance to finally crack Microsoft's hold on computing's most visible domain — mainstream PCs — because of the rise of innovative, inexpensive machines.

Of course, prognosticators perennially say Linux is on the verge. It gets high marks for security and stability and is widely used behind the scenes in corporate servers, making it a natural candidate to steal desktop thunder from Microsoft's dominant Windows. And yet Linux PCs still represent less than 2% of the market.

This time, though, there's actually evidence of momentum.

While the best features in the latest Windows release, Vista, require top-notch configurations that can quickly ramp up a PC's price, one of the hottest segments of the industry involves inexpensive computers.

Laptops under $400 (euro255) are real possibilities now, and some of the most buzz-worthy use Linux, such as Asustek Computer Inc.'s EeePC and the One Laptop Per Child Foundation's $200 (euro128) "XO" computer for schoolchildren. Linux also is available on slim little "netbooks" being pushed by Intel Corp.

Not only is Linux essentially free to the PC vendor, but the operating system also is better suited than Vista for cheap PCs' spartan hardware designs. (Windows XP is available on scaled-back PCs like Intel's Classmate, but it's unclear what will happen after Microsoft soon stops selling XP to the general public.)

Amazon.com's top-selling PCs include several Asustek Linux machines. Although Wal-Mart Stores recently stopped a test run of selling Linux PCs in some stores, the company says it will continue to offer them online.

Business computing suppliers are finding open-source desktops especially gaining traction in cost-conscious developing markets. For example, IBM and Linux vendor Red Hat recently launched Microsoft-free desktops for Eastern Europe.

One buyer is Aleksandar Spagnut, a director of Moscow-based Rushotel, which needed new desktop PCs for a hotel-building project. Spagnut said his company saved 30 to 35% over comparable Windows machines. He added that Linux PCs are now common enough that a snowball effect is emerging, whereby technical support and "drivers" — which essentially tell programs how to interact with hardware — are much easier to find.

"This really makes the difference," he said.

Linux might benefit from a changing conception of computers. With the rise of Web-based applications that reduce the need for desktop-bound software, more of the action comes through an Internet browser now. The feel of the underlying operating system is less important.

That means Linux consumers can get a lot out of their computers even if they are put off by what many reviewers still cite as Linux's biggest flaw: its uneven user-friendliness. Some tweaks to Linux machines require higher-than-average computing savvy, although this is less of an issue than in the past.

Perhaps more importantly, if the desktop operating system fades further into the background, PC makers could have greater incentive to save money on it by offering Linux. The price that big PC manufacturers pay Microsoft for Windows varies and is not disclosed, but is believed to commonly exceed $50 (euro32) per PC.

"I'm a big believer in the inevitable forces of economics — they're like glaciers," said Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, which this month is releasing a new version of Ubuntu, a leading version of Linux that can run PCs. "Glaciers carve out terrain. It takes time."

Linux on the desktop doesn't have to take off like crazy to really start to matter. Of the 981 million PCs in existence worldwide last year, 1.7% ran Linux, according to Gartner. That sounds paltry. But Apple's Mac operating system accounted for just 2.5%, and Apple is considered a significant, influential alternative to Windows.

"Every point is billions of dollars to Microsoft," says Jim Zemlin, head of The Linux Foundation, a consortium devoted to advancing Linux. His group is meeting with top PC makers next week in Austin, Texas, in hopes of accelerating their efforts to sell Linux machines.

The top PC makers have so far treaded carefully. Dell's website sells Ubuntu computers in a separate section for open-source PCs, out of direct comparison with Windows machines. Dell spokeswoman Anne Camden said the placement reflects the fact that Linux is still not a mainstream consumer product.

Linux is partly hampered by its greatest asset: its widely dispersed nature.

Linux is a core set of code called a kernel; developers build different layers of software on top of it to serve different computing purposes. (Open-source providers make money by charging for add-on services, such as technical support or security upgrades.)

As a result, Linux comes in many flavors, known as distributions, fracturing the push Linux might otherwise make. In fact, some programs written for one distribution don't work in another.

"We haven't figured out to how to federate the marketing of the technology as well as we've figured out how to develop the technology," Zemlin acknowledged.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Mozilla Sunbird and the Mozilla Thunderbird Lightning extension version 0.8 have now been released.
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/

Which is right for me?

You may prefer Lightning if...

* you send or receive meeting invitations via email
* you already use Mozilla Thunderbird for email
* you customize your applications with add-ons (such as extensions or themes)

You may prefer Sunbird if...

* you prefer your calendar to be separate from your email client
* you don't currently use Mozilla Thunderbird for your email
* you don't like adding add-ons (such as extensions or themes) to your applications

[Grizzly]

Hey Joe, as of today I am no longer a Linux virgin! :) I was planning to install it on my next computer but a fatal Windows crash caused surprise surprise by installing a Microsoft program prompted me to put Linux on this computer (though program compatibility forced me to reinstall Windows as well). Went with the OpenSuse 10.3 installation. I like it so far though my internet is definitely slower on it than it is on Windows. Any idea why?

By the way this is a really great thread. When I am looking for an open source program I usually find better info here than I do when I google.

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Grizzly

Hey Joe, as of today I am no longer a Linux virgin! :) I was planning to install it on my next computer but a fatal Windows crash caused surprise surprise by installing a Microsoft program prompted me to put Linux on this computer (though program compatibility forced me to reinstall Windows as well). Went with the OpenSuse 10.3 installation. I like it so far though my internet is definitely slower on it than it is on Windows. Any idea why?

By the way this is a really great thread. When I am looking for an open source program I usually find better info here than I do when I google.
Excellent, another convert. :)

I use Ubuntu, but I ran Suse a few years ago before Novell got hold of it, and was really impressed.

I'm pretty much a Linux newbie myself, but I'll tell you this, once you make the commitment you pick things up pretty quick. I'm doing command line stuff now and understanding more and more everyday.

Linux itself shouldn't have anything to do with the speed of your Internet, so it is likely a setting within OpenSuse. They probably have a very good support community, like Ubuntu, to give you the answer.

Been doing some reading on the number of people using Linux/Mac etc. Apparently two percent of the world's computers are using Linux, five percent are using Mac. Although, this is a drop in the bucket to the evil empire :) it tells me that the Linux people are doing a really bad job of getting their message across.

They have a great product that is improving at a faster rate than its competition, and yet Apple, which hardly has much more market share is far better known and trusted.

They had a recent hacker's contest to see how long it would take to hack into Vista, Linux and Mac. At the end of the three-day security conference in Vancouver, both the Mac OS X Leopard and Vista machines had been cracked, leaving only the Ubuntu box uncompromised.

http://www.linux.com/feature/131059

[Grizzly]

Interesting that despite all the Mac security hype, it was the first OS to be cracked in the competition on the second day (somewhat supporting the theory that Mac's security advantage over Windows is largely due to hackers not trying to hack it as opposed to it having less security problems). Vista actually held out to the end of the third day before getting cracked.

[Joe MacCarthy]

I've posted this interesting report as it dispels a lot of Linux myths. Just a note that I have heavily edited this blog report but you can read the whole report at the link shown.

Linux Driver Project
http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/linux_driver_project_status-2008-04.html?seemore=y

The Linux Driver Project (LDP) is alive and well, with over 300 developers wanting to participate, many drivers already written and accepted into the Linux kernel tree, and many more being currently developed. The main problem is a lack of projects. It turns out that there really isn't much hardware that Linux doesn't already support. Almost all new hardware produced is coming with a Linux driver already written by the company, or by the community with help from the company.

There are two main classes of hardware, video input devices and wireless network cards, that is not well supported by Linux, but large efforts are already underway to resolve this issue, with the wireless driver issue pretty much taken care of already, however there are a few notable exceptions.

The Linux Driver Project (LDP) was born a little over a year ago with an announcement on the linux-kernel mailing list and a few blog postings. It sprang up out of the complaints from some users and companies that there was a real "Linux driver problem". The perception was that Linux did not have good driver support, and that closed source drivers were potentially taking over some device types.

So the LDP was born. It started out as a single place for hardware manufacturers to contact in order to get drivers written for their devices for free. We allowed the ability for companies to sign an NDA if needed to help get over the hurdle that some companies have in releasing their specifications. The NDA process was put into place through the Linux Foundation, and is a 3-way NDA with all of the proper legal documents needed.

A funny thing happened though, what I figured would be a project flooded with requests for companies to get hardware working turned into anything but that.

Two major things then happened, both of which I could have never expected:

The number of developers who said they would be willing to help out in creating these drivers was amazing. As of today, we have over 300 different people who have signed up to be a developer of a Linux driver, volunteering their talents and time to help Linux out. This large developer base is a shining example of how strong and large the Linux community is.

Very few companies signed up for drivers.

It's this last point that made me worry. Yes, a number of companies did ask for drivers to be written, and we have done so, but not as many as I originally imagined. The drivers we were writing were in the narrow vertical markets, all interesting devices and companies, but nothing really "mainstream".

So where was this mass of hardware that Linux wasn't supporting?

The Linux Driver Myth

Back in 2006 I gave a talk at the Ottawa Linux Symposium about a number of myths that are around the Linux kernel. One of them was device and driver support. I stated then, and still do that:

Linux supports more different types of devices than any other operating system ever has in the history of computing.

Later on, a representative from Microsoft validated this statement saying that their research agreed with it, so this is not an unproven statement.

Yet still the "Linux has a driver problem" myth persisted. The OSDL and then later the Linux Foundation's Vendor Advisory board had "Linux drivers" as the second most pressing issue that they faced. Surely these large vendors, all of which shipped Linux on their hardware and dealt with user issues every day were on to something.

So the LDP was created.

And no companies showed up.

So I spread the word some more.

And still no major companies showed up.

So what to do.

I tried my best with a general announcement of, "Tell me all of the hardware that you know of that is not supported by Linux!" The response by users was overwhelming. My inbox was flooded with hundreds of messages, and the wiki page: http://www.linuxdriverproject.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/DriversNeeded was created.

This is the community's best list of devices that are not currently supported on Linux as of today.

I then went and asked all of the individual companies that made up the Linux Foundation's Vendor Advisory board what they needed for Linux drivers.

The conversation almost always went like this:

ME
"What hardware do you ship that is not currently supported by Linux?"

VENDOR
"It all is."

ME
"But wait, why are you claiming that 'Linux drivers' is your second most pressing issue today with Linux?"

VENDOR
"I don't know."

After much cajoling and harassment on my part, I'm happy to say that the Linux Foundation's Vendor Advisory board's top 10 list of things that need to be worked on with Linux doesn't mention drivers at all.

So let's put this myth to rest once and for all please.

User Complaints

But wait, what about all of those email responses that I received. It turns out that they can be categorized into four different groups:

1) Printer and Scanner support.

2) Older devices no longer manufactured that people really want to see working on their Linux machines someday.

3) Wireless device support

4) Video input device support.

Category 1 is already being handled very well by the Linux Printing project and the SANE project. Printer and scanner drivers in Linux are userspace programs and libraries and have nothing to do with the kernel at all. If you have any issues with these types of devices, please go ask the developers of those projects about it. They are very knowledgeable, skilled, have vendor contacts, and can do a lot to help resolve your issues. This area is already aptly covered by these people.

Category 2 is hard. It would be great for Linux to support all of these older devices, but without the specs for the device, or in many cases, a company that is still in business, Linux support is going to be very difficult to achieve. Reverse engineering is a great skill, one that I personally am no good at anymore. This type of effort is not something that the LDP was set up to address, and luckily, for almost all modern hardware devices, it is not necessary.

So that leave wireless and video input devices. Luckily both classes of these devices have a very active and productive developer community surrounding them.

The latest kernel.org releases contain a raft of new hardware support for wireless drivers, and the number of active drivers in their queue to be added in the near future is quite large.

There are still some wireless vendors that do not provide Linux support directly. Two of these, Atheros and Broadcom have drivers created by the community through reverse engineering efforts. These drivers usually lag the introduction of the hardware by a number of months due to the lack of vendor support. Both of these companies have internal versions of drivers for their new hardware, but efforts on getting them to release them so far has been resisted. Hopefully this will change in the future.

The LDP group is also actively working on drivers for a number of different video devices today, with the code being available today for testing by users in the linux-next kernel releases. These drivers should go into a kernel.org release in the near future when development is complete.

I'd first like to thank my employer, Novell, for giving me the opportunity to work on this project full time. Their acceptance and support for the LDP is amazing and has been what has allowed it to survive and produce such great results already in a short amount of time.

[Joe MacCarthy]

OS Smackdown: Linux vs. Mac OS X vs. Windows Vista vs. Windows XP
Four experts defend their chosen operating systems in an opinionated free-for-all
http://tinyurl.com/536wzw

Interesting article about the merits of each OS. The preface is not too complimentary about Vista. Here's the guy shilling for Linux (JM)

Linux: Light on its feet and ready to strut its stuff

Let's get the unpleasant part out of the way first: If running Adobe Premiere is the most important thing in your life, or you want to play Halo, Linux isn't going to do it for you, at least right at the moment. While most Windows software can run under Linux in one fashion or another, applications that make extensive use of hardware drivers or high-end graphics may not work right.

But for everything else, Linux is definitely the way to go.

Unlike Mac OS and Windows, Linux is free as air and open to development by folks who are motivated by the desire to make the technology better, rather than by corporate tech farms whose real interest is the bottom line. Which is all very nice, but is it any good as a desktop operating system? You bet.

Size and speed

Let's start with the hardware footprint: With the possible exception of BSD, Linux's 'sister,' Linux is the lightest thing you'll ever install on your computer. While the minimum required hardware for Windows has been bloating, and Macs need more and more horsepower to run OS X, you can still dig out your old 486 and fire up Linux without problems.

I recently got one of the One Laptop Per Child XOs -- a machine with 256MB of RAM and a power-miserly processor -- and had no trouble running Xubuntu Linux on it. Meanwhile, Windows XP needs to be sliced and diced like crazy to fit onto the same hardware.

It's not for nothing that you'll find Linux inside of devices where hardware cost is an issue, like DVRs (TiVo anyone?) and routers. I was somewhat shocked to find that my recently purchased 52-in. LCD TV has a Linux kernel inside of it. If you hunt around, I'll bet you'll find at least one device in your home running Linux.

Stability, security, transparency, flexibility

Linux is not only small, but it's also stable. I have several Windows boxes at home, and it seems like whenever I blink, something has gotten screwed up in the registry or I have a Dynamic Link Library conflict.

Linux has all the configuration data and libraries right out where you can see them, in files. You can see what's changed and make edits manually, without having to figure out which of 9 million HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry entries is the one you want. Even the system-configuration tools that have nice graphical user interfaces (GUI) end up generating human-readable and editable files at the end of the day.

In the recent "Pwn 2 Own" hacker challenge, computers running Mac OS X and Windows Vista were cracked, but the Linux machine wasn't. I won't claim that Linux has no security or virus problems, but they tend to be right out in the open where you can see them if you look. At the moment, there are far fewer Linux viruses out in the wild than Windows viruses, and there are fairly bullet-proof ways to detect viruses under Linux using checksums on files.

Conversely, it's much easier to move your Linux system to new hardware or clone an existing system because there's no licensing. I've never had a problem moving a Linux system disk to a new computer, even when the hardware was drastically different. There's basically no way to do this on either a Windows or a Mac system.

You also have your choice of Linux distributions, from geek-friendly Debian and end-user-friendly Ubuntu to business-friendly Red Hat and Novell SUSE. And no matter which one you pick, you can rest assured that they'll all run the same apps.

http://i25.tinypic.com/2h6rjpf.jpg
The Ubuntu Linux desktop

Applications and interface

It used to be the conventional wisdom that the problem with Linux was desktop applications. But with tools such as Wine, CrossOver Linux and VMWare Player, many Windows applications run just fine under Linux these days.

And in some cases, native Linux applications may serve you just as well. OpenOffice is a mature replacement for Microsoft Office, and there are good (and free) tools for video and photo editing, audio editing, and many other common applications. Just do a quick Google search for "Linux video editing," for example, and you'll see what I mean.

More importantly, more and more applications are transitioning to Web-based versions using JavaScript or Flash/Silverlight/Flex/Air. Who cares if you can't run TurboTax on Linux, when you can use the Web-based TurboTax right from your browser?

Finally, the Linux desktop experience is now the match of any other desktop GUI in existence. The user interface is intuitive and clean, but still powerful. If you choose a user-friendly distribution like Ubuntu, installing Linux is as easy as installing Windows -- and unlike Windows, you can even "try before you buy," since distributions such as Ubuntu have a "live" install CD/DVD.

You can even run a full Linux distribution such as Damn Small Linux from a 128MB (or larger) USB drive. Did your Windows PC crash again? Plug in the USB drive, and you've got access.

Heck, most Linux distributions will even shrink a Windows partition and set up dual-booting automatically. Ignore all the fear, uncertainty and doubt you'll hear about nightmare installs and bad device support -- that's from the bad old days!

Bottom line

Linux is free, fast, small, powerful, stable and flexible. It will get you off the "new hardware every other year" life cycle and let you concentrate on being productive rather than playing nursemaid to your operating system. You almost certainly already have Linux in your home or business, even if you don't know it. So why not give it a try on your desktop?

[Start fan in exile]

One quibble with that article: moving your Mac system, settings, preferences and files to a new system is dead easy; the Mac OS comes with a wizard that handles it very well and I've done that through several generations of harware now.

But I'm sold; I'm going to download Q (http://www.kju-app.org/) and install Ubuntu in it.

[Desigol]

Help,

I tried to open an Access 2003 Database in OpenOffice base but the File wasn't recognised as it wasn't Access 2007. The only Access Plugin in my Base is Access 2007.

I don't wanna fork out £300 + for MS Office. What do I do?

[Daniel]

BitTorrent it ;).

[Start fan in exile]

quote:Originally posted by Desigol
Help,

I tried to open an Access 2003 Database in OpenOffice base but the File wasn't recognised as it wasn't Access 2007. The only Access Plugin in my Base is Access 2007.

I don't wanna fork out £300 + for MS Office. What do I do?


Here's a link to an article that supposedly tells you how to do just that:

http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid39_gci1236205,00.html

And here's a wiki being developed on that topic: not much info in it yet.

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Talk:MSA-Base_Faq

Any chance you can borrow a machine with Access to get it in the format you need? Seems like a trick procedure all around.

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Start fan in exile
Here's a link to an article that supposedly tells you how to do just that:

http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid39_gci1236205,00.html
That article was written by Solveig Haugland, who is the queen (and king) of OpenOffice. Anything she writes about OOo is worth reading.

Other resources

The OpenOffice.org Documentation Project
http://documentation.openoffice.org/index.html

OpenOffice.org Forum
http://www.oooforum.org/

OpenOffice.org Training, Tips, and Ideas
Solveig Haugland's blog
http://www.openoffice.blogs.com/

[Joe MacCarthy]

Australia's version of Consumer Reports, Choice has a good primer on Linux. If you are curious about Linux and want to find out what it is and what it's about, this is a good place to start for an overview.

http://tinyurl.com/56rsp5

[Desigol]

What I was realy seeking was to manipulate a Database using ASP;

http://www.stardeveloper.com/articles/display.html?article=2002061201&page=1

I had already done so using Access, but have now discovered I can use MySQL. Haleluljiah! :D

[Joe MacCarthy]

New Collaboration App Opens Service to Public
By Ted Stevenson April 11, 2008
http://www.voipplanet.com/news/article.phpr/3740256

Yesterday we received a press release announcing the public release of Dimdim, a new open-source tool for online meetings. We've been testing some similar products of late so this caught our eye.

In a move that will give you some idea of how disruptive this technology may turn out to be, the company scheduled a press conference for the announcement—to be transmitted using the product itself—and invited all interested parties to attend, which we did.

Unlike any other IP-based video conferencing and/or desktop-and-document sharing application, Dimdim does not require that users download and install a software client. You just drop a URL to a "meeting room" into your browser, and you're in the meeting.

We got to the web page a couple of minutes before the scheduled conference start time, and signed up—became a registered user—and was comfortably ready when the conference got under way.

According to Dimdim cofounder and CEO DD Ganguly, since Dimdim was launched as a private beta offering at DEMO Fall, last September, it has been adopted—or at least tried out—by about 375,000 people all over the world. He attributes this rapid uptake to the simplicity (it works on any computer), reliability, and low cost of the service.

In fact, we viewed the audio/video/instant messaging/screen-sharing event using Dimdim Free, which, as the name suggests, costs nothing at all, while supporting up to 20 participants.

The audio quality was excellent in terms of quality and continuity, but audio volume balance between Mr. Ganguly (in Boston) and Chief Marketing Officer Steve Chazin, who chaired the session in San Francisco, was way out of whack. Video of Ganguly was crisp and almost real-time. The whiteboarding worked flawlessly, as we got Ganguly's basic marketing slide show.

After the formal presentation, visitors were invited to IM questions to Mr. Chazin in SF, who relayed them, vocally, to Mr. Ganguly on the East Coast. Public and private IM are usually available to all participants during sessions.

The United Nations and Amnesty International are among the global organizations now using Dimdim, as is a major U.S. university, which has made the service available to the entire faculty and student body. There has also been extensive uptake in the distance learning community, including moodle.com.

Ganguly stressed two special deployments during the press conference. One, in Texas, involves lengthy (five-hour) online seminars in Christian homemaking, attended by what Ganguly characterized as "soccer moms" sitting in their living rooms. In the other, a financial services company has embedded Dimdim's chat screen on their website, so customers can get direct, live input from tax advisors.

Dimdim Free is available for signup here. It provides desktop sharing, document sharing, video broadcasting, multi-way VoIP audio conferencing, instant messaging, and shared whiteboards with annotation tools. Dimdim pro is a more robust version of the service and can scale up to 100 participants per session. Pricing starts at $99 per year. Dimdim Enterprise can support up to 1,000 participants per session and enables multiple simultaneous meetings.

In addition to making the source code available to the open-source community, Dimdim is providing open APIs so encourage development of additional functionality and integration.

Dimdim launches free online meeting services
Anthony Ha | April 10th, 2008
http://venturebeat.com/2008/04/10/dimdim-launches-free-online-meeting-services/

Dimdim, the (mostly) free, open source competitor to online meeting companies WebEx and GoToMeeting, is launching its service in public testing mode today.

Chief Marketing Officer Steve Chazin gave me a demonstration of Dimdim’s free service, and it has the basic functions that you’d want for an online meeting: a collaborative whiteboard, desktop sharing, slideshows and audio and video. The video and audio quality aren’t top-notch, but they work. The selling point, of course, isn’t the quality or innovation of the service — as long as Dimdim is functional, the fact that it’s free makes the service pretty attractive. Also, unlike other meeting services, you don’t have to install anything to join a meeting, not even a browser plug-in.

Dimdim started an invite-only test last fall. Since then, the company says more than 375,000 people in 165 companies have participated in Dimdim meetings. What’s really exciting about the Burlington, Mass. company is that it helps widen the market for online meetings — not just to smaller companies that don’t want to pay for WebEx, but also to groups outside of the corporate world. For example, someone in Florida is using Dimdim to teach English to Mexican immigrants before they arrive in the United States.

Back when we first wrote about Dimdim a year ago, we had one big question: How is the company going to make money? The answer is a combination of advertising on the free service, as well as charging for premium and enterprise-level products. The free version is already pretty good; you can host up to 20 people in a meeting. The fees for Dimdim Premium start at $99 per year and cover custom branding and meetings with up to 100 people.

Update: In the comments, Chazin says that advertising on the free service is, for now, just a possibility.

Dimdim launches free Web meeting service
By Keith Shaw on April 10, 2008
http://www.demo.com/community/?q=node/33563

Collaborate in the cloud with others

Dimdim (DEMOfall 07) announced today it is opening its free service to the public. The Dimdim offering allows anyone to create and host a Web meeting, and share their desktop, show documents and slides, collaborate via whiteboard, as well as talk via Internet audio through any Web browser (no additional downloads required by attendees).

The company plans a professional ($99 per room per year) and enterprise ($18,000 per year for a dedicated, on-site server), with additional features such as customization, scalability and two-way video features.

DD Ganguly, CEO and co-founder of Dimdim, says he "absolutely" stands by his DEMOfall 07 on-stage statement, "WebEx is history." "People have had enough of paying crazy prices for web meeting solutions that have not innovated in over a decade, never work and are a technical headache," Ganguly says. "Our public launch puts an end to this pain."

The company announced more than 375,000 members in 165 countries have used the service since it launched the private beta in September 2007. Going beyond simple meetings, users have utilized Dimdim in new and creative ways, including:

* * A Florida "language scholar" is teaching English via Dimdim to Mexican immigrants before they arrive in the U.S.
* * A California-based entrepreneur is delivering animated presentations to clients to eliminate time and money spent on travel.
* * A Texas-based church group uses the service to hold online seminars about Christian homemaking in the living rooms of their members.
* * An Australian-based veterinary medicine group uses the service weekly to keep members up to date on the latest veterinary techniques.

Ganguly says that moving forward, the service would have no problem integrating into social networking platforms, such as Facebook and MySpace, where users of those networks could add a widget to create a real-time collaboration space within their profiles. Right now, users can just post invites on their profiles, and then when the meeting time arrives attendees would be brought to the Dimdim site. But Ganguly says he can see the day where all of the collaboration could be done within the social network (or blog page) framework.

[Start fan in exile]

NY Times about opens source as a business model: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/technology/13stream.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

quote:SLIPSTREAM
When Tech Innovation Has a Social Mission
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: April 13, 2008
Palo Alto, Calif.

STEVE WOZNIAK built the original Apple I to share with his friends at the Homebrew Computer Club, but it was his business partner Steve Jobs who had the insight that there might be a market for such a contraption. Indeed, for decades, Silicon Valley has been defined by the tension between the technologist’s urge to share information and the industrialist’s incentive to profit.

Now a new style of “hybrid” technology organization is emerging that is trying to define a path between the nonprofit world and traditional for-profit ventures.

They’re often referred to as “social enterprises” because they pursue social missions instead of profits. But unlike most nonprofit groups, these organizations generate a sustainable source of revenue and do not rely on philanthropy. Earnings are retained and reinvested rather than being distributed to shareholders.

The new companies, like thousands of Silicon Valley start-ups before them, typically begin as small groups of intensely motivated people dedicated to the goal of building a product or service.

The best-known examples are efforts like the Mozilla Corporation, which maintains and develops the Firefox Web browser, and TechSoup, an organization that was started two decades ago to connect technology experts with nonprofit groups. It now distributes commercial software to nonprofit groups in 14 countries. (Mozilla’s mission is to preserve choice and innovation on the Internet, which it considers a social good.)

By most measures both companies, with hundreds of employees, qualify as vibrant businesses. Each has revenue in excess of $50 million annually.

Moreover, there is also a range of smaller organizations, like the Internet Archive in San Francisco, with smaller but sustainable revenue streams. Significantly, an ecosystem is emerging that involves support groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which provides legal services, and the Internet Systems Consortium, which plays the role of an independent Internet service provider for the community.

“There is a lot of discussion taking place right now about a whole new organization form around social enterprise,” said James Fruchterman, president of Benetech, a social enterprise incubator based in Palo Alto. “Many of these efforts can make money; they will just never make enough to provide venture capital rates of return.”

Brewster Kahle, who has founded a number of successful Internet companies, as well as the nonprofit Internet Archive, said: “If we do this right, I think there is momentum here. The next major operating systems company might be a nonprofit.”

The Internet Archive, which runs Web crawlers — programs that index information stored on the Internet — and offers the popular Wayback Machine, which allows surfers to find previous versions of Web sites, now has two self-sustaining projects. The first is digitizing books and the second is creating and maintaining Web repositories for national libraries.

Mr. Kahle says he is developing a set of principles that he hopes will help formalize his idea that there is a middle ground between the technologists and the capitalists. He ticks off operating guidelines like transparency, staying out of debt, giving away information and refusing to hoard.

TechSoup stumbled upon its business eight years ago after it began sending a truck around San Francisco to pick up donated commercial software to distribute to nonprofit groups. Today, the organization distributes products from 32 commercial companies, including Cisco Systems, Microsoft and Symantec, to roughly 50,000 organizations annually, for a small administrative fee.

“We were just trying to meet the needs of nonprofits,” said Rebecca Masisak, co-chief executive of TechSoup.

Nonprofits with revenue are not new or restricted to Silicon Valley, and there is a great deal of debate over whether they offer a sustainable approach.

The new stream of technology-centric and successful nonprofits, however, appears to be driven in part by a set of microelectronics technology trends that have sent shock waves through many industries, from publishing to music and movies.

“Computer technology and the Internet are lowering the cost of doing business,” said John Lilly, the chief executive of Mozilla, the Web browser developer that is being subsidized by advertising revenue from the search engine business.

That blends with the strong sense of social purpose held by a number of the best and brightest in Silicon Valley.

“We went through all these decades where we had nonprofits that thought business was evil and sustainability was irrelevant,” said Debra Dunn, an associate professor at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford who advises social entrepreneurs. “Now there has been an influx of business thought. People are saying, ‘I have enough money and I care.’”

STILL, most technology-oriented social entrepreneurs acknowledge that the hybrid model is by no means a one-size-fits-all approach, and there is significant debate about how far it can reach. Moreover, the approach hasn’t always worked.

For example, beginning in 2002, the Lotus Development founder Mitchell Kapor invested more than $5 million in the Open Source Applications Foundation, with the intent of finding a sustainable business. The group had a number of strategies for obtaining revenue from the distribution of free software, but it was unable to get far enough along to begin the experiment. The project never got to the point where the calendar program Chandler could be widely distributed, and Mr. Kapor has since scaled back the project.

The experience, however, has not dulled his optimism.

“You can use a lot of the methods of business, specifically entrepreneurial start-ups, in ways that are directed at having a positive social impact,” Mr. Kapor said. “Mozilla and the Archive are cases where we are harnessing powerful techniques of value creation that were originally forged in the Valley and putting them to use.”

[Joe MacCarthy]

This looks interesting

Software animation with Pencil
By Nathan Willis on April 14, 2008
http://www.linux.com/feature/131921

http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/index.php

Attention computer animators -- if you've ever felt limited by working in three dimensions with tools like Blender, check out Pencil, an open source, cross-platform animation app that lets you create in glorious 2-D. Pencil mimics hand-drawn animation techniques, but it's easy to use and produces high-quality output.

You can download source code packages as well as pre-built binaries for Ubuntu, Arch Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X. The latest release is 0.4.4b for Macs and Windows boxes, and 0.4.3b for Linux. The differences between the two versions are minor, but include a change to the file format, so if you run Pencil on multiple platforms, you may want to stick with 0.4.3b until the Linux build is updated.

Drawing

Creating an animation in Pencil is easy. A timeline at the bottom of the screen lets you step through individual frames. You can incorporate multiple layers, each of which can be of either bitmap or vector format. Note that a vector layer in this context means that the layer is drawn with vector curves -- it does not incorporate vector animation as in Adobe Flash or the free Synfig animation studio. In vector animation, you create motion by moving objects between keyframes, and the application calculates and draws all of the intermediate frames.

http://i28.tinypic.com/erhjx2.png

Simple pencil sketching in Pencil

In keeping with Pencil's goal of recreating traditional hand-drawn animation, you draw on each individual frame as if it were a single animation cell. The interface helps you maintain consistency between frames by "onion skinning" -- rendering adjacent frames semi-transparently, as if drawing on tracing paper. You can test your animation by stepping through the frames, or by running through entire the sequence with built-in playback controls. During playback you can loop the animation, and adjust the frame rate as desired.

The drawing tools are limited to the basics -- pencil, pen, paintbrush, polyline, eraser, fill bucket -- but they are pressure-sensitive if you use a drawing tablet. The tools behave in different ways depending on whether you use them in a raster or vector layer; in vector layers the pencil tool can only be used to draw temporary lines that will not be rendered in the final animation. The reasoning in the documentation is that the pencil can be used to define invisible regions to be filled with the bucket, but that otherwise the pencil's un-smooth lines are out of place in a vector image.

That explanation is sound, but the difference in behavior isn't immediately obvious and could confuse new users -- particularly those without experience in animation. Indeed, Pencil draws on the traditional cartoon animation workflow in many ways that might perplex outsiders. For instance, there is no way to make duplicates of a frame, as you might be tempted to do when you're making only small modifications. In ink-on-paper animation, that is impossible, so it is impossible in Pencil as well. But as lead developer Pascal Naidon explains, the goal of the project is to produce a simple, easy-to-use, and fun program, not to be all things to all animators.

Export and extras

When it comes to producing the final product, Pencil's workflow resembles familiar 3-D animation programs. The canvas is infinite; you can draw at any scale and to any size that you desire much like you can build objects of any size in Blender. In order to export an animation sequence you have to define a camera layer. A camera layer has a specified aspect ratio, but its center can move around the canvas over time. You can even define multiple camera layers and render multiple animation sequences from the same set of frames.

You can export your creation as a sequence of PNG frames or as a Flash video on all three platforms, and also as a QuickTime movie on OS X. The current builds include only rudimentary sound support. You can add audio layers to the timeline, but your choice of supported audio formats is limited and depends on the platform. If the notion of hand-drawing every element on every frame is daunting, you can import raster images into separate layers to serve (for example) as backgrounds.

Looking at the change log for 0.4.4b, we can expect additional drawing tools in future releases. Hopefully more output options and better audio support are on the way as well. Until then, one of the best ways to get more out of Pencil is to visit the user forums, where other animators contribute samples of their own work, screen captures to illuminate the cartooning process, and tutorials to help newcomers master tricks of the trade.

In spite of its limitations, creating animations with Pencil is undeniably fun. Pencil may not have as many features as a vector animation studio like Synfig or Anime Studio Pro, but it provides a unique, hands-on cartooning experience.

[Start fan in exile]

Good find - thanks! I wish I had known about it 6 months ago - I had my students making animated films...

[Start fan in exile]

Good find - thanks! I wish I had known about it 6 months ago - I had my students making animated films...

[Joe MacCarthy]

Scribus - Desktop Publishing for Penguins
Steve Lake 04/11/2008
http://www.raiden.net/?cat=2&aid=401

When it comes to desktop publishing, a lot of people might think of big organizations producing newsletters, or your local boy scouts producing a fund raising flier. But the average person out there might not see where any kind of desktop publishing is really needed. Honestly, if you really look deeply, you might be surprised. There are a lot of great uses for desktop publishing. A lot more than people realize. But what is desktop publishing?

Understanding Desktop Publishing

The urban dictionary defines it like this: "Software programs that enable the user to use a computer and a printer to produce relatively high-quality publications." But really, there's a lot more you can do with desktop publishing. You can create advertisements, fliers, pamphlets, posters, and so many other things. It's like taking what you've already been doing and taking it up several levels. But right now you're probably saying, "I don't do any desktop publishing!" That may be true. But think about it. Have you ever used a word processor to create a poster, a flier, or something like that? How about a bulletin or something similar?

While it's not desktop publishing in the traditional sense, in the end it still is, just in a much cruder way. Plus with word processors, you tend to be locked into a stringent set of rules that hinder a lot of what you can do with your documents. Creating fliers or other desktop publishing related articles can be done, but it tends to be a bit of a chore to complete. Typically this means that you need to get your hands on a dedicated desktop publishing program. But here's where things get sticky. Anyone who's ever tried to buy a professional or even amateur level desktop publishing program has typically been the victim of as severe case of sticker shock.

This is because of several reasons. In the professional category of desktop publishing, you have two main contenders: Adobe Pagemaker, and QuarkXpress Express. Both can run you anywhere from $475 upwards to $900 or more. So unless you're a big marketing or advertising agency, that's a bit of overkill. In the middle is Corel Venture, InDesign, and Adobe FrameMaker. And on the low end are such programs as Microsoft Publisher and Print Shop. But the thing is, none of these programs is cheap. Even Print Shop isn't cheap. And even if you could afford the price, the quality it produces isn't worth the money.

This then creates a problem that needs a solution. There is a need out there for a good low cost or free desktop publishing program that really does a great job at its primary task. I've had my hands into everything from Print Shop and Publisher all the way up to Pagemaker and QuarkXpress. Now while I admit that QuarkXpress is probably the best desktop publishing program out there, despite it's insane sticker price, it's not the most practical. The reason for this is because, as I stated above, only a narrow group of people are going to have any use for the full features of Quark. Out of all those who can and do use desktop publishing apps, 98% or so use less than 1/4 to 1/2 of what the program can do, and less than 1/4 of the remaining 2% actually use the full 100% extreme potential of Quark or Pagemaker.

There's also the issue that every single one of these programs is a closed source, highly controlled, proprietary software package. This even includes dozens of proprietary formats, none of which are compatible with each other. So what's a person to do?

Well, you could possibly pirate the software, but that's neither ethical, nor safe. There are legal issues, ethical issues, and a long list of other problems that come about from such activities. So again, we're back to the original problem. What do we do when we want a good quality, free, open source desktop publishing program? You need to look no farther than Scribus.

Inside the Heart of Scribus

http://i28.tinypic.com/1q0mrm.jpg

Scribus really strives for excellence, and while it may never become the all time favorite desktop publishing application, it's certainly going to be in strong contention for number one for quite a number of years to come. I began playing with Scribus a couple of days ago and to say that I'm blown away is an understatement. As I said before, I've used QuarkXpress and I've use Pagemaker among others, so with that kind of experience in my back pocket, so to speak, one might think that I would find a free and open source application like Scribus to be second rate, or unable to stack up to the big boys. Hardly. If anything, I think the big boys should start quaking in their boots in fear of Scribus.

The program is very rock solid, and while it has probably a fifteen minute learning curve for all the basic features, it's a continual journey of discovery while you're using it that I suspect would go on for at least a couple of weeks. But that's not a bad thing. Once you've mastered the basics and understand the interface, the rest is pretty easy. You might have to hunt around a little bit and tinker for a while at first until you get used to where everything is and what it all does, but after that you should have no problem producing professional quality documents!

There's another nice thing about Scribus. It's got a built in document verifier called "PreFlight". Essentially what it does is it searches the page and finds any possible problems with it such as overflowed pictures and text, font issues, and more. It's also got a built in PDF maker, which is completely legal since Adobe recently released PDF as an open standard. So now anybody can read and write PDF's without any problems. And that's a good thing since PDF's are such an integral part of today's world. So you no longer have to fork over money for a PDF maker.

The whole interface itself is very comfortable to use, and most everything is mouse driven in one way or another. Adding pictures or text is as easy as clicking "Insert" and then the item you want to insert. That creates a document object that can then be edited to do a variety of things. Another nice thing about Scribus is that all the fonts it uses are free and open source fonts! This means you can use them in whatever you want without having to buy a professional license to use them. That'll save you a lot of money by itself and free you from a lot of potential legal issues.

The internal text editor that comes with Scribus is called "Story Editor" and is a fully featured text editor that will allow you to do some pretty amazing things with the text in your pages. You can also insert shapes, lines, curves, draw freehand, rotate and manipulate pretty much any item, and even create interactive PDF's. Also, if you do something a lot, you can even script it if you want. I can't say how easy the scripting is to use, but I don't suspect it's too hard. And if you think that's not enough, there's even an included bar code generator! Seriously!

As I said, I've played with this a couple of days and I'm still uncovering interesting things, and likely will for quite some time. So if you're ever needing to create some high quality, good looking documents, I recommend Scribus. It's really that good. I'm not hyping this up because I've got anything to gain from it. It's an open source project, and thus it has nothing it can give anyone to make people praise it except to go above and beyond and provide you with a top quality program that gives you a top quality desktop publishing experience. Give it a try! Even though you may think you don't need it right now, after you've been in here a few times, you may find that not only is Scribus as good as I stated, but you'll wonder what you did without it before.

And one last thing. If you ever need to take your work to a printer to have them do it, if their computers can read the SLA or SCD open formats, then you're all set. And they don't necessarily have to use Scribus to read them. Any SLA or SCD aware program can handle the formats without a problem. Scribus is available for Windows, Mac, and most especially Linux and BSD. You can find out more information on this awesome project by going to their homepage.

http://www.scribus.net/

[Joe MacCarthy]

Here's an interesting open source concept (posted in the list on the first page) that hasn't been pursued much in this thread.

Great project for anyone who wishes to further their own knowledge pursuits and for those who teach as well. Here goes.

Cap College puts course material on Web for free
Janet Steffenhagen, Vancouver Sun
April 01, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/5dmmld

NORTH VANCOUVER — Capilano College is to become the first post-secondary school in Canada to give course material away for free through an online consortium created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The dean of arts and sciences says the MIT project is as revolutionary as the printing press, and Capilano is delighted to be a part of it. “For the first time ever, anybody around the world can access these sites and find out what is being taught,” Penny Le Couteur said in an interview.

“When the opportunity arose for Capilano college to become involved in this, we grabbed it.”

The OpenCourseWare project is intended to make high-quality educational materials — from written notes and reading lists to podcasts, in some cases — available to educators and learners around the world with the goal of “unlocking” information. People using the free materials are not enrolled in courses, do not earn credits and are not promised access to faculty.

Capilano College will make an official announcement and launch its website Friday, offering 12 of its own courses initially in subjects such as anthropology, philosophy, business, chemistry and astronomy.

MIT, which began offering its course materials online in 2002, has now posted its entire curriculum of 1,800 courses and gets more than one million hits a month.

The consortium now includes 100 institutions from the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. One other Canadian school is a member — Athabasca University in Alberta — but it is not yet sharing courses.

Capilano College has known about the initiative for some time but didn’t become involved until one of its instructors made inquiries and began promoting the concept in-house, Le Couteur said. Not everyone is enthusiastic, however, and the reason might also explain the concept’s slow growth in North America.

“Some people say, ‘I don’t want to let other people use my material,’ ” Le Couteur explained, adding that not all faculty understand they don’t “own” the information and that anyone using their materials won’t present them in the same way.

Others also can’t profit from materials that are copyrighted.

She said the course materials available through OCW are not only a great learning resource for people everywhere, but can also become key learning tools for educators in developing countries who may not even have access to books.

“This sort of dissemination of knowledge is really unprecedented and remarkable,” Le Couteur added.

John Dehlin, OCW executive director, said the project requires a significant attitude change for universities and their instructors, who are not accustomed to giving away course material for free.

“Culturally, professors and departments in universities are often stuck in the mindset of keeping things behind the gate, locked up,” he said in an interview.

“That would be the barrier in Canada and [in] universities across the world . . . combating this cultural instinct of protection.”

Capilano College received a $10,000 grant from B.C. Campus to cover start-up costs. Its Web address is http://ocw.capcollege.bc.ca

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm
http://www.ocwconsortium.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_OpenCourseWare

[Daniel]

I tried to download Scribus for Mac and... wtf? Is there an installer? Because most people don't want to compile their own software.

[Start fan in exile]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel

I tried to download Scribus for Mac and... wtf? Is there an installer? Because most people don't want to compile their own software.
Go to this page:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=125235&package_id=136924
and under 1.3.3.10 you'll find "ScribusAqua-1.3.3.10.tgz". That's the latest mac installer. I ditched Indesign and installed scribus yesterday, and it seems to work ok.

I get an error message about "ghostscript" which has to do with showing certian images which I have not been able to resolve yet.

Read these two pages before you comit to Scribus - basically, although it works for Mac, you have to be willing to put more into it than you would with a mac-native software.
http://www.scribus.net/index.php?name=Sections&req=viewarticle&artid=3
http://www.scribus.net/index.php?name=Sections&req=viewarticle&artid=6&page=1

I keep a list of mac software - open source, freeware, shareware and commercial - on my webiste at http://polymath.wikidot.com/software - it is not comprehensive, but there's a pretty good selction.

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Start fan in exile

I get an error message about "ghostscript" which has to do with showing certian images which I have not been able to resolve yet.Ghostscript is a PostScript language interpreter that has to be installed. You can get it here

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1897&package_id=108733
or
http://ghostscript.com/releases/

Some Scribus video tutorials
http://showmedo.com/videos/series?name=NfUrduNov

[Start fan in exile]

Thanks. I had been there already, but could not get the downloaded version of Ghostscript to appear in Scribus. I think I've got it now.

Go to http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=125235

Under "AquaScribus 1.3.4" you'll find "Ghostscript-8.50-macosx.tar.bz2". Download and unpack (unzip) that file. In the read-me you'll find the following instructions:


quote:This is a binary of GS 8.50 under the Artifex public licence for MacOSX 10.3.
It contains devices for bitmaps, png, ps, pdf and some others; sufficient for Scribus/Aqua.
This binary depends on the libpng.framework from http://aqua.scribus.net.

To install, move the folder Ghostscript.framework to /Library/Frameworks/.

The GS executable is in /Library/Frameworks/Ghostscript.framework/bin/gsc.
It can be moved to any convenient locaation as long as the rest of the framework bundle stays in /Library/Frameworks/.

Check http://aqua.scribus.net for more information.

Andreas Vox

edit - it worked after I went in to the preferences and told Scribus where to find Ghostscript.

[Joe MacCarthy]

New versions (updates/bug fixes/new functions) available for the following programs

InfraRecorder (http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/?page_id=6)
Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/)
AbiWord (http://www.abisource.com/)
Songbird (http://www.songbirdnest.com/)
VideoLAN (http://www.videolan.org/)
OpenProj (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=199315)
Open Workbench (http://www.openworkbench.org/index.php)

And while we're mentioning OpenProj and Open Workbench, we might as well re-mention GanttProject (not a recent release)
GanttProject (http://ganttproject.biz/index.php)

[Desigol]

I googled 'Open Source Telephony' and found asterisk.

The Package was designed specifficaly for Linux using C++, but can it be installed in Windows using a C++ debugger?

[Start fan in exile]

For those into mind mapping:

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

FreeMind seems to be the major open source contender.

[Start fan in exile]

For company/organisational websites in need of collaboration tools:

http://twiki.org/

The about blub states:

quote:Welcome to TWiki, a flexible, powerful, and easy to use enterprise wiki, enterprise collaboration platform and knowledge management system. It is a Structured Wiki, typically used to run a project development space, a document management system, a knowledge base, or any other groupware tool, on an intranet or on the internet. Web content can be created collaboratively by using just a browser. Users without programming skills can create web applications. Developers can extend the functionality of TWiki with Plugins. TWiki fosters information flow within an organization; lets distributed teams work together seamlessly and productively; and eliminates the one-webmaster syndrome of outdated intranet content.

[Joe MacCarthy]

OpenOffice 3 Beta out and Waiting for Download
New version of the application officially released
Bogdan Popa, Security and Search Engines Editor
http://tinyurl.com/535hoz

A new beta version of OpenOffice, the famous open source alternative to Microsoft Office, was officially rolled out.

OpenOffice 3 Beta 1 comes with several new functions supposed to be included in the final version of the application, scheduled for release in September 2008.

Among the new features, one of the most important functions is surely the Mac OS X support which now allows Mac users to install and run the Office suite without the need of X11. This means that OpenOffice 3 Beta will look and behave just like any other Aqua application, the release notes published on the official OpenOffice website read.

And more useful if you currently own a Windows workstation, the newly released OpenOffice 3 Beta comes with support for Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office 2008 which means the program is now able to open multiple file formats such as docx, xlsx or pptx.

Besides, there's a brand new Start Center which provides you instant access to all the applications included in the OpenOffice suite. The Start Center is displayed every time you start the program.

Here are some of the most important functions included in OpenOffice 3 Beta:

• Mac OS X Support
• ODF 1.2 support
• Microsoft Office 2007 Import Filters
• Solver
• Chart Enhancements
• Improved Crop Feature in Draw and Impress
• Spreadsheet Collaboration Through Workbook Sharing
• 1024 Columns Per Calc Sheet (Instead of 256)
• Display of Multiple Writer Pages While Editing
• Improved Notes Feature in Writer
• New, Fresh-Looking Icons
• Start Center

If you wish to download the newly-released OpenOffice 3 Beta, you can take it straight from Softpedia using the following link. In case you encounter difficulties with it and you want to restore the 2 version, the above link also takes you to the stable OpenOffice release.

http://download.openoffice.org/3.0beta/

[Joe MacCarthy]

Audacity Tutorial Part 1 – Recording audio tracks

Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) is a cross-platform digital audio editor application. It imports and records audio tracks, provides a large palette of digital effects and plug-ins, and can be used for a variety of tasks – from post-processing of podcasts, to converting and mastering cassette tapes or records into digital tracks.

This tutorial presents the most important functions of Audacity. Part 1 is devoted to issues associated with recording of audio files. Next parts will show how to use effects, mix tracks and remove vocals from music recordings.

http://linux-audio.net/articles.php?id=25002

[Joe MacCarthy]

SourceForge Project of the Month, May 2008
http://sourceforge.net/community/potm-200805

Description of project:

MindTouch Deki Wiki is really like nothing else in the market today. It's literally years ahead of other, very large, companies that are interested in following in MindTouch's footsteps. Specifically, MindTouch Deki Wiki connects teams, enterprise systems, Web 2.0 apps and web services. It's a connective tissue for the enterprise with a wiki interface. This enables users to organize data and systems to best suit their needs.

http://wiki.mindtouch.com/

[Joe MacCarthy]

Open source project management app hits 500K downloads
By Tina Gasperson
http://www.linux.com/feature/138457

Open source application OpenProj, a Microsoft Project replacement, has been downloaded more than 500,000 times, says Marc O'Brien, CEO of OpenProj's sponsoring company Projity.

O'Brien says, "We have users in 142 countries," and a passel of big-name companies are eschewing the use of Project in favor of OpenProj. Some of the companies he says have downloaded and installed OpenProj are Bank of America, Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, IBM, Siemens, Toshiba, Honeywell, Nortel, and Martin Marietta. Community members have also translated OpenProj from English to a dozen other languages.

"OpenProj replacement of commercial project management applications is highly disruptive for existing vendors and important to the entire industry," O'Brien says. OpenProj reads and opens Project files, a function that makes migrating from Project much easier, and OpenProj runs on Linux, Unix, Windows, and Mac OS.

According to its Web site, OpenProj's capabilities include Gantt and PERT charts, earned value costing, and other features common to project management applications.

OpenProj leapt to popularity on SourceForge.net shortly after its beta release in late 2007, with an average of 40,000 downloads per month. Its first full release came on January 10 of this year, and the next day it hit the 200,000 downloads milestone at SourceForge.net.

OpenProj is distributed under the terms of the Common Public Attribution License Version 1.0 (CPAL) license. Projity also offers a software-as-a-service Microsoft Project replacement called Project-On-Demand.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Coming Tuesday, June 17th: Firefox 3
http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2008/06/11/coming-tuesday-june-17th-firefox-3/

Whenever we’re asked “when is Firefox going to be released” we endeavor to answer to the best of our abilities, but the truth of the matter is that we’ll only ever ship “when it’s ready”.

We have a lot of indicators that help us understand when the product is ready for release: feedback from our pre-release milestones, excitement in the community and the press, availability of compatible Add-Ons, and a large active beta community helping us ensure that the release is compatible with all the various sites on the Internet.

After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we’re proud to announce that we’re ready.

It is our expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17th. Put on your party hats and get ready to download Firefox 3 — the best web browser, period.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Dimdim Open Source is a bright-bright solution for Web conferencing
By Mayank Sharma on June 13, 2008
http://www.linux.com/feature/137877

Dimdim Web conferencing software, which competes with services like WebEx and GoToMeeting, provides almost all the important features you need for conducting a conference over the Web. It's available in three flavors -- a feature-limited but usable Web-based free version, a no-holds-barred fee-based Enterprise version, and an almost Enterprise clone Open Source Community Edition that you can host in your network. I tested the Open Source edition, using it to host conferences on an intranet and over the Internet, and it works fairly well for a beta release.

The Open Source edition of Dimdim is developed using open source components like the Red5 streaming media server, lighttpd Web server, CherryPy Web application framework, and others. The latest version of this edition is available as a platform-agnostic VMware virtual appliance or with a native Linux installer that's configured to run only on CentOS 4.5 (or Windows). CentOS is a fine choice for a server distro, but having it as a required dependency excludes a fair number of potential users. On the other hand, the virtual appliance, which is easy to deploy, tips the scales as a 1.3GB+ compressed download.

Once you have the appliance, you'll also need to download the free VMware Player to run the appliance. It's designed to acquire an address via DHCP, but if you like to hand out static addresses, refer to the online README file for login details. The online document will also help you configure email settings on the Dimdim virtual appliance. This is useful for sending out conference invitations. Once it's up and running, Dimdim doesn't require any special tool or application for initiating sessions. You just need a Web browser (Firefox will do nicely) to start and join conferences.

What can it do?

In a typical Dimdim session, the user who initiates a session is known as the presenter. The presenter can broadcast audio and video to all the other attendees. He can send invites, and control every aspect of the conference, from making users wait in a "waiting area" to prevent uninvited users that have access to the meeting key from joining, to granting audio broadcasting permission to attendees.

In a conference, all members have a common text chat area, and can also chat privately if the presenter has allowed such one-to-one chats while setting up the room. All users also share a white board on which they can scribble and draw. Additionally, a presenter can share PowerPoint presentations and PDF files with attendees, and a presenter who is using the Windows OS can share his desktop.

In setting up a conference, presenters can limit the number of members, send invites automatically while setting up a conference, and decide the nature of the conference (audio/video, audio-only, video-only, text-only). Presenters can also tweak certain aspects of a conference from inside the conference itself. For example, a presenter must specify a duration when starting a conference, but he can extended this, if need be, from within the conference. Some settings, like the nature of the conference, are immutable once a session is underway; a presenter cannot change an audio-only conference into an audio/video conference without ending the current session and starting a new one.

How does it perform?

As you can see, Dimdim offers quite a bit of functionality. On my network I ran the virtual appliance inside VMware Player under Mandriva and Windows without any hiccups. Once it was up and running, I noted the IP address handed out to the Dimdim server by my DHCP-enabled router, switched to the host OS, fired up Firefox, and pointed it to the virtual server.

The details on how to start a conference as a presenter and how to join an existing one as an attendee are covered in the online Dimdim user guide. As the guide mentions, Dimdim runs a check before initiating a session for a presenter, as well as before letting an attendee join an existing one. Although it doesn't need any additional software per se, if you want to share your screen, it's at this stage that Dimdim will ask you to download a plugin to do so.

This is also where I first ran into a typical beta-stage error. On some of my machines, Firefox refused to budge from the page requesting conference information, irrespective of whether I wanted to start a new conference or join an existing one. After a lot of trial and error, it turned out Dimdim didn't like some of the Firefox extensions I had installed -- it doesn't like the Orbit Downloader integration extension on Windows and the Linkification extension on Linux and Windows both, yet doesn't seem to mind the Firebug extension.

Once logged into a conference, all the attendees and the presenter were able to exchange text messages publicly as well as privately without any issues. In one session I ran the presenter on Mandriva, and there were no issues in broadcasting video from a Linux-compatible Quantum QHM500LM webcam to all attendees, but the audio was choppy and almost inaudible, probably due to the limited abilities of the webcam microphone. I switched to a headset microphone, but the audio output from this microphone made me sound like a chipmunk. I switched to another machine, and there I sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies speaking through an electronic voice distorter. This was strange, since the headset works perfectly on both machines outside Dimdim. Finally, I switched to an Audio Technica ATR-35S Lavalier Microphone, and got choppy audio on the Mandriva machine and good quality audio on Windows.

I was able to share simple and small PDF documents and PowerPoint presentations, and when the presenter was on Windows, able to share the desktop as well. But there were still a couple of irritating beta-stage bugs that showed up now and then on all platforms. Firefox crashed randomly when joining or exiting a conference, or when a new user joined in. The white board sometimes behaved oddly, especially when the presenter and the attendee were on different platforms.

The major disappointment, though, came when using Dimdim over the Internet. Since I am on a home DSL plan with no fixed public IP address, I used DynDNS to set up a hostname to point to my DSL modem. The DSL modem forwarded traffic on the ports used by Dimdim to my Netgear router, which used NAT to send them to the Dimdim virtual server. If you do that, don't forget to set up a local loopback via the /etc/hosts file if you want machines inside the network to access the Dimdim server. There's a fair amount of coverage about this kind of setup on Dimdim's SourceForge.net forums. Of note are the threads on configuring Dimdim to work with DynDNS and how to change ports of Dimdim services if they are already in use.

After all the network sorcery, users from outside the network (tested through a DSL connection by a different ISP) were able to start a new session or join an existing one on the server running inside the network. But no matter what I did, Dimdim failed to establish connections with the audio/video component. Others have run into this problem too but no solution has been posted on the otherwise active forums.

Looking forward

Despite the audio/video sharing issues over the Internet, Dimdim's latest beta release is a good preview of the things to come. The developers are working on bringing desktop sharing to presenters on Linux as well. It would also be a good idea to let a presenter delegate more power to attendees, who should also have the ability to share video as well as their desktops with others after due authorization from the presenter.

Since the one-presenter-several-attendees concept is similar to a one-teacher-several-students classroom setting, Dimdim is popular with educational content management systems. It has published a specification guide for projects looking at integrating Dimdim with their systems, such as Moodle and Claroline. Expect it to show up as an extension to your favorite CMS as well.

Depending on how important it is for you to host a conference for users across the Internet, you'll see this Dimdim beta release as a good preview or a complete dud. I think the Dimdim developers have done a great job with the beta release, and am looking forward to seeing more features and more stability and consistency in the next release.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Finally, it's time for Wine
By Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols on June 12, 2008
http://www.linux.com/feature/138160

Fifteen years in the making, everyone's favorite software to run Windows programs on Linux and Unix, Wine, is almost ready for its 1.0 release.

If all goes well, Alexandre Julliard, Wine's lead developer, says that Wine 1.0 should appear on June 20, two weeks after the program's fifteenth birthday. While at this point there are about 1,300 Windows applications that will install and run on Wine to some degree, only four sets of Windows applications -- Photoshop CS2, PowerPoint Viewer 97 and 2003, Word Viewer 97 and 2003, and Excel Viewer 97 and 2003 -- are considered critical for the 1.0 release.

Wine, largely based on volunteer efforts, has always lacked the resources for comprehensive quality and assurance testing. This problem is even bigger than it appears since there are so many different Windows environments, Windows applications, and Linux distributions. Wine has spent so many years in testing in large part because it must replace poorly documented Windows application program interfaces (API), which vary wildly from one release of Windows to another.

As Julliard explains, "There are several reasons [it has taken Wine so long to get to this point]: the Windows API is huge, not well documented, and full of tricky behaviors and side effects that applications depend on. It's also a moving target, as Microsoft keeps adding new features and pushing developers to adopt them (not always successfully, fortunately for us). Also, finding what goes wrong with an application is hard, because we don't have access to the application source code so we can't easily see what confuses it."

In addition, Julliard says, "There are a huge number of Windows applications out there, and while most people only need one or two, they all need a different one or two. So for a credible 1.0 we need to support a broad range of applications, which means we can't take any shortcuts in our implementation, since any shortcut is bound to break some application somewhere."

Jeremy White is CEO of Wine's commercial sibling, CodeWeavers, creators of Crossover Linux and Mac, programs that make it easy to use Wine on Linux and Mac OS X. White says, "I think people don't realize just how very hard Wine is. We're completely recreating Windows from the ground up. Microsoft, with their tens of thousands of employees, has a hard time shipping a new release of Windows that is backwards compatible *cough* Vista *cough*. So imagine then, instead, a scrappy band of volunteers replicating that work with a fraction of the people."

Despite these handicaps, over the years Wine has made it possible for Linux users to run popular Windows applications on their PCs. For instance, the core Microsoft Office 97, XP, and 2003 applications and Internet Explorer 6 have long worked without a hitch on Linux.

As Wine has matured, its reach has extended beyond ordinary office applications to games as well. For example, the popular World of Warcraft and Guild Wars online games now work well with Wine.

It wasn't easy. For the first five years of Wine's development it was pretty much a completely volunteer operation. The core developers decided to tackle bringing Windows programs to Linux because, Julliard says, "It was in the early days of Linux, and among the early adopters it was clear that this new system had a lot of promise, but of course it didn't have any end user applications, while Windows had lots. So it was a fairly obvious question: how can we use all these applications?

"The original crew was Bob Amstadt, Peter MacDonald, Eric Youngdale, and myself," Julliard says. We put together a prototype to run a 'hello world' Windows app, and this showed that the concept was viable. Then we moved on to Solitaire and then to bigger things.... Bob Amstadt was the maintainer for the first year of the project, but then didn't have time for it anymore, so I took over." Today, Julliard is the last of the core group of programmers working on Wine, but "we do have some developers that have been around for more than 10 years now."

Wine was started before Windows 95 appeared, so the first target for Wine's developers was the Windows 3.1 16-bit API. Wine's first big success, according to Julliard, was "when we got Microsoft Office to run, about four years into the project (it was the 16-bit version of Office at the time), that was the first proof that our goals were reachable. Of course then 16-bit apps quickly got replaced by 32-bit ones, and that set us back a few years as we had to switch our core design to 32 bits."

Starting in 1999, Wine started to gain traction. Julliard and White both say that Corel Corp.'s heavy investment in Wine in 1999 through 2000 was a major step forward for the open source project. "Another milestone," Julliard says, "was the choice by Corel to use Wine to port its application suite [WordPerfect Office] to Linux; while it didn't succeed commercially, it was a huge step for the visibility and credibility of Wine." Today, WordPerfect for Linux only lingers on as abandonware.

White and other Wine supporters founded CodeWeavers in 1999 as a way both to make a living from Wine and to further Wine's development. After that, Wine began to slowly pick up steam. Linspire, the desktop Linux distributors then known as Lindows, started sponsoring Wine's work on Microsoft Office in 2002 and started sponsoring an annual Wine developer conference.

Unfortunately, Wine then ran into what eventually turned into a fork between the open source Wine project and what became a semi-proprietary Windows on Linux program: Cedega. The proprietary company Transgaming took Wine's DirectX code and transformed it, via the WineX open source project, into the proprietary DirectX software Cedega. At the time, this was possible because Wine was under the X11 or MIT open source license. Wine is now under the Lesser GPL, which makes it impossible for Wine to be forked into a proprietary program.

According to White in a 2006 NewsForge interview, this forking caused Wine's development to slow down for years. "Historically, the main interest for volunteer Wine developers was games; that was the primary focus for most of Wine's early years (~1993-2000). When Transgaming started in 2001, they promised that they would release their DirectX improvements back to Wine. That cast a chill over games in Wine -- why work on DirectX if all these improvements would 'soon' be coming back? Of course, no meaningful improvements have ever come back, which had the effect of creating a huge hole in what had been Wine's very best facility." By 2007, White says, "The Wine community had recovered from the hole created by Transgaming."

The next big step forward came in 2005 when Apple introduced moved the Mac architecture to the Intel processor. This opened up a new possible market for Wine, and CodeWeavers started to invest in porting Wine to Mac OS X.

Wine's biggest kick in the pants may have come in 2006 when Google got involved. White says, "This is actually a remarkable story of how much impact one person can have, because the honest truth is that for all that it's cool to say that Google is involved, what's really helped is that Dan Kegel [the WINE release manager], who happens to work at Google, is involved."

Google's first contribution was paying for CodeWeavers to bring over Picasa, its popular free photography program, to Linux. Google is also funding CodeWeavers' work on getting Wine to support of Adobe Photoshop CS and CS2. Kegel says in a recent Google Open Source blog posting, "Photoshop is one of those applications that desktop Linux users are constantly clamoring for, and we're happy to say they work pretty well now."

White would like to see Windows applications work even better with Linux. Still, White says, "I think the key message people should get is that Wine 1.0 is not the Wine from three years ago, or even two years ago. It's pretty remarkable in what it can do -- people should give it a try.

Looking ahead, Julliard sees a lot more work ahead for the Wine crew. "There are a lot of things we want to support: USB devices, 64-bit apps, .Net apps, user interface themes, a Mac OS native interface, etc. Then of course all the new functions that Microsoft will keep coming up with, and all the remaining incompatibilities in the ones we have implemented already. There's plenty to keep us busy for the next 15 years!"

[Joe MacCarthy]

Mozilla Weave gears up for new release
By Sean Michael Kerner on June 13, 2008
http://blog.internetnews.com/skerner/2008/06/mozilla-weave-gears-up-for-new.html

While Firefox 3 is the big thing coming from Mozilla next week - it's likely not the only thing. Mozilla Weave which is a Mozilla Labs effort for data synchronization and collaboration should have its 0.2 version out very near the Firefox 3 release on Tuesday.

The general idea behind Weave is that by utilizing a Mozilla online services backend, users can store data such as bookmarks and history. That data can be synchronized with their local browser or even multiple browsers. The last major Weave release came out in April while the platform only got started in December of 2007.

The 0.2 platform will add new data types, according to a recent post by Mozilla developer Chris Beard. When I was at the Mozilla Toronto office, Mike Beltzner gave me the run down on the promise and the potential that is Mozilla Weave. Like many, I incorrectly suspected in the beginning that Weave was some kind of del.icio.us killer, but Weave really is much more.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Firefox extensions to bring back the dead
By Shashank Sharma on June 16, 2008
http://www.linux.com/feature/137231

Don't you find it irritating when a Web page you bookmarked or favorited returns a 404 error on a subsequent visit? Or when a Web site is temporarily down? Firefox extensions Resurrect Pages and 404: Page is Not Found? Now it will be! can help in such scenarios. While Resurrect Pages relies on several popular page cache sites, 404: Page is Not Found uses the Wayback Machine at Internet Archive to serve the dead pages.

To install each extension, click the shiny green Add to Firefox button on its homepage. After the customary browser restart, you'll find the extension available from the right-click context menu. You can even customize Firefox's menubar to sport icons for these extensions if you like. Right-click the menubar and click Customize. Scroll through the available icons, and when you spot the icons for the extensions, drag and drop them onto the menu bar.

The 404 extension uses the Wayback Machine at archive.org to show you a cached copy of a dead page. However, you can use the context menu entry for the 404 extension to view a cached copy of any page. Browse to any page or Web site, right-click anywhere in the main Firefox window, and click Find archived page. The 404 extension looks for the 404 Error code in the HTML tag of the missing page before loading the cached copy. The extension will not load the cached copy of a page if it doesn't find the 404 error. In such cases, you can use the context-menu entry as described above or click the menubar icon.

The extension currently recognizes almost a dozen error messages, including 404, HTTP 404 Not Found, HTTP 404 Error, 404 Error, 404 Not Found, and 404 File Not Found. The 404 extension pops up a confirmation message if it encounters any of these messages on a Web page. When you click a missing link, the extension will report this message: 'Page Not Found' was detected at 'http://slashdot.org/dog'. Click 'Cancel' if this is an error and this warning will not appear in the future for this page, or click 'OK' to see archived version of the page.

If you click OK, the extension will load an archived copy of the page. Sometimes the extension can err and falsely identify a page as missing. In such cases, you should click Cancel; that will add the page to a whitelist and avoid future false detection for that page.

Unfortunately, the 404 extension has a severe flaw: It loads the oldest cached page it finds in the Internet Archives. If you wish to view the archived copy of a page, instead of showing you the most recent archive, it loads the first. So, if you visit a page today and load the archive, the page that comes up on your screen may well be a few years old, depending on when it was first archived.

Resurrecting Pages

While the Resurrect Pages extension has the same basic idea as the 404 extension, its execution is far superior. The extension works with many caches, such as CoralCDN, Google Cache, Yahoo! Cache, Internet Archive, and MSN Cache.

Using this extension is just as easy as the 404 extension. Anytime you run into a page that is no longer available, the error page itself presents the option to select one of the caching mirrors to view an archived copy of the page. Clicking on any of the cache mirrors will open the archived copy of the page in a new tab. You can also view the cached archives of any page if you right-click the main window in Firefox and then click Resurect this page. This brings up the Resurrect dialog box, from which you can choose to view the archived copy of the current page in the current tab, new window, or new tab. After you've selected one of the mirrors in the list, click OK and Resurrect Pages will display the archived page.

If the mirror you selected does not provide an archived copy of the page, choose a different mirror and try again. Unlike the 404 extension, when you use the Internet Archive, this extension will show you all available archives of the page, and you can select the one you'd like to see.

Sadly, this extension too requires some polishing. The Resurrect Pages extension can't remember your preferences. Every time you wish to see an archived copy of a page, you have to select whether to open the archive in a new tab, new window, or the same tab.

Still Resurrect Pages is obviously better than the 404 Page is Not Found extension, thanks to its use of multiple caching mirrors and the option of choosing any cache from the error page itself.

[Joe MacCarthy]

OpenOffice.org PDF import extension is now online
http://free-your-media.net/2008/06/14/openofficeorg-pdf-import-extension-is-now-online/

Beta version of PDF import extension for OpenOffice.org is now available online. Fully functional version, special features like importing layout of LaTeX PDF or import of complex vector graphics, will appear later. However even the preliminary version of this extension allows to open and edit PDF documents up to version 1.4. Files with restricted permissions are not yet supported.

The extension is available at OpenOffice.org extension repository. OpenOffice.org 3.0 beta or later is needed in order to run the PDF import tool. The extension can be installed via the extension manager in the tools menu of OpenOffice.org. In the extension repository you’ll find versions for Linux, Windows, MacOS X, Solaris x86, and Solaris Sparc, both for OpenOffice.org 3.0 and StarOffice 9.

PDF documents are imported in Draw and Impress to preserve the layout and to allow basic editing. It is possible to change parts of text, but PDF forms are not yet supported.

OpenOffice.org developers claim that next releases of the PDF import extension will focus mainly on edit capatibilities, and less on layout. This will allow to open and edit PDF documents using Writer. This is probably good idea. There are other tools which allow to split PDF documents, merge them or attach other files without changing the layout (Pdftk). Thus, I would like to use the OpenOffice PDF extension mainly to edit and copy some text, not bothering with the layout.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Maxthon for Linux: Firefox Slayer?
June 11th, 2008 by James Gray
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/maxthon-linux-firefox-slayer

I've been doing some research on browsers for an article about Firefox and have uncovered some pleasant surprises.

One of them is that the Maxthon Internet browser may soon be ported natively to Linux. This is extremely interesting, given that Glyn Moody wrote that "the Maxthon browser is actually better than Firefox." (See Glyn's article The Real Firefox Killer at http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000159.)

Lots of people are very excited about Maxthon, which has gained notoriety as its China-based producer, Maxthon International, has grown from obscurity (outside of China) to recipient of VC money to over 151 million downloads.

Today Maxthon only runs on Windows. However, I chatted with Maxthon's CEO, Jeff Chen, who told me the following:

We have plans to move Maxthon to Linux. We know Linux is an open and powerful platform and we will not miss it. We have made it run on the Ubuntu system, via the help of Wine and ies4linux. We will continue to research until we can move Maxthon to Linux completely.

When asked whether Maxthon would be open source, Chen replied:

We are not sure about open source now since we’re just starting with Linux. But one thing for sure that we are very open to developers and end users. As we always do with Maxthon, contributions, ideas, and suggestions could go directly to our desktop.

Chen also noted how many of Maxthon's standard features originated as plug-ins developed by the browser’s fans. Also, plug-ins continue to be created largely by non-staffers, as do skins and filters. During the early development of Maxthon, when Jeff essentially was working alone on his 'labor of love', other browser users noticed Maxthon and began donating their time and expertise to expand the program.

All of those words are sweet news to Linuxers' ears. If Maxthon decides to go open source, then Firefox may have quite the challenge on its hands.

Stay tuned!

[Joe MacCarthy]

Microsoft Free - One year later
Mike Kavis (Enterprise Architect) Posted 6/1/2008
http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/eai/madgreek/archives/microsoft-free-one-year-later-25078

In May of 2007 I wrote a post called Open Source and Microsoft Free. Little did I know that this post would show up on Digg, Slashdot, Craigslist, and several other popular web sites and become a platform for both the Linux and Microsoft camps to wage yet another flame war.

This whole "Microsoft free" experiment started when a colleague of mine challenged me to eat my own dog food after reading many of my posts about my dabbling with open source technologies. The next day, after a few blue screens of death and various issues with Outlook, I grabbed a Ubuntu CD and installed it on my laptop....at work! From that day forward, I have not used a single Microsoft product at work. It has been one year now and I have survived with Thunderbird and Evolution, Open Office, Firefox, and many other open source replacements for Microsoft products.

I put "Microsoft free" in quotes because there are a few exceptions. First, I did install IE 6.0 under wine for that rare occasion that I stumble across a website that only works on IE. Second, there is no answer for Visio. Most of the Visio diagrams that I needed to read were embedded in design documents in Word which I can read with Open Office Writer. But for those that I needed Visio for, I opened them at home on my XP box (I have 1 XP, 1 Vista, and 5 Linux boxes at home). I also used Visio at home when I had to create Visio diagrams. The issue is Visio's proprietary format is not available for developers to write a translation utility for.

With those two issues aside, which represents about 1% of my overall usage on my laptop, my Open Source experience was nearly flawless. Open Office worked remarkably well both receiving Microsoft Office files and creating files in Office format. I exchanged literally thousands of documents between Microsoft Office and Open Office. I never encountered a single issue with Word and Excel and occasionally encountered minor formatting issues with Power Point files. The formatting issues where nothing more then some minor placement issues which probably occurred less then 5% of the time.

Over the course of the year I experimented with Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Freespire, Mepis, and PCLinuxOS. I settled on Kubuntu and recently upgraded with ease to the latest version, Hardy Heron. Here is my analysis of the different Linux distros from last fall. With this "Microsoft free" laptop I have coexisted with 1000+ employees who use XP and various verions of Office including 2007 (the 2007 compatibility add-on works fine). I also delivered presentations at conferences using Open Office Impress and traveled across the country and internationally with no issues with wireless connectivity.

I am not in any camps. I use XP and Linux at home and like both. I gave Outlook the boot years ago at home and do just fine with Thunderbird. It has every feature I need. I do however have problems with Vista. But my message here is not about recommending what tools that my readers should use. My message is that I performed at a high level at work while using Linux, Open Office, and other open source products. These tools did not hinder my ability to do my job and did not impact anyone else at my job. I was able to productively coexist with no Microsoft tools in a Microsoft shop. That is all I am trying to say.

I am not going to recommend to anybody that they change their company standards away from Microsoft. What I will tell you is that open source is a viable alternative that can be used in a production environment. So when you see flame wars where the two camps argue back and forth about their favorite technology, you can point to this post when people claim that Linux and Open Office just won't work in the work place. I have validated that they do work for over 365 days now. Whether we should use these tools at work is a whole different story that really depends on factors like corporate culture, skill sets, budgets, user base, executive support, and many others.

All I can say is that for the last year, I have been using Open Source exclusively and I am loving it!

[jonovision]

Firefox 3.0 has officially been released as part of Download Day 2008 (http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord).

Download Firefox 3.0 before 1 pm ET on Wednesday to take part.

[Marc]

I've been going through the thread - anyone have any suggestions for a small, low-memory-demanding mp3 paying program? I have Songbird for organizing, but it's slow and doesn't play all my files. The normal players (Real Player, WMP) all slow my system by 1/2. Any open source suggestions?

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Marc

Anyone have any suggestions for a small, low-memory-demanding mp3 paying program?Here is a list of MP3 players (GPL/Open source included) I'm not familiar with most of them so unfortunately I can't make an OSS suggestion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_media_players#Audio_players

The freeware program Billy might be what you are looking for.
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Billy-Download-19229.html#download_locations
http://www.sheepfriends.com/?page=billy

[Marc]

Thanks. Billy seems to work.

[Daniel]

I updated to FF3 for Mac, but there was something wrong with the bookmarks bar so I had to reinstall it. Seems to be working well.

[Joe MacCarthy]

OpenOffice.org extension will add PDF editing
By Bruce Byfield on July 03, 2008
http://www.linux.com/feature/139588

Easy PDF editing is coming to OpenOffice.org, but you'll have to be patient for a few months. Recently posted to the OpenOffice.org Extensions site, the Sun PDF Import extension (SPI) is only in beta, and only works with recent developer builds of OpenOffice.org 3.0, which is scheduled for September release. Right now, the quality of the final release is anybody's guess, but the beta's capabilities fall squarely in the middle of the available PDF import tools.

To investigate SPI, you need to download and install a snapshot build of OpenOffice.org 3.0. Then, from within the build, you can install SPI from Tools -> Extension Manager. The next time you start OpenOffice.org 3.0, you'll be able to open PDF files from any of the options for opening an existing document in the File menu.

By default, SPI opens PDF files in the Draw application, although you could also use Impress, which shares much of the same code. This default might seem strange at first, especially if your PDF file is text. Actually, though, using Draw is logical, given the limitations of the PDF format. No application -- not even Acrobat, the proprietary PDF editor made by Adobe, the company that wrote the PDF specifications -- is able to edit more than a single line while preserving format. Given this limitation, importing to Draw makes sense, because it can treat each line as a separate text object for editing. Although rearrangement of a paragraph requires line by line editing with SPI, and can be tricky if you need to add an extra line, the extension leaves you no worse off than any other PDF editor.

But at least you are in a relatively friendly user interface. Aside from the limitation of editing one line at a time, the worst problem you are likely to have is the automatic capitalization of the first character of each line if you have Autocorrect turned on while you edit.

In testing, SPI's success at importing text depended largely on the fonts being used in the document. For best results, you need to have the fonts in the imported PDF file installed on your system; otherwise, SPI will use a substitute font that may not correspond to the letter spacing of the original. Also, while common fonts such as Helvetica or Times Roman create few problems, SPI seems to have trouble reading the metrics of some PostScript fonts and displaying them correctly. Usually, the display problem takes the form of a line of text that, converted to a text object, extends far beyond the page margins, and makes reformatting tedious if not impossible. At times, too, the problem leaves random spaces scattered throughout all the lines.

Graphics in imported PDF files had similar mixed success during testing. Many import into Draw without any trouble, with text wrapping around them in the same style as the original document. However, some PNG images -- but not all -- were imported vertically inverted, and, in another case, a graphic became an uneditable object. And, in some complex layouts, the positioning of some graphics was off by perhaps a dozen pixels.

In the beta, SPI cannot handle PDF forms, and text alignment is not always preserved, with fully justified text showing a strong tendency to import as left-aligned. Nor are hyperlinks supported, although they are a basic necessity for many online documents.

Otherwise, the list of what SPI can handle is much larger than the list of problems: Text frames, sections, multilevel lists, and table formatting including border and background color, are all imported without any problems, all of which makes for a promising start for the extension.

For now, though, the problems with rendering fonts and graphics mean that SPI, like OpenOffice.org 3.0, is not ready for production use.

Still, in its current state, SPI is ahead of Abiword, which simply extracts the text from a PDF file and not the graphics, and KWord, which preserves line division but not most other text formatting.

But SPI's current state is behind that of Inkscape, whose main limitations are a restriction to single-page imports and the failure to preserve hyperlinks. Nor is SPI as reliable as PDFedit, which, despite being aimed at advanced users, remains the most reliable PDF editor for the GNU/Linux desktop. Still, a lot of development can happen in the next few months, and if SPI continues as it has started, its final release just might become an essential OpenOffice.org extension.

[Start fan in exile]

I see that Chandler (http://chandler.osafoundation.org/) seems to be moving closer to release. The current page includes links to some reviews which highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the current version.

[Joe MacCarthy]

While I realize that there are other freeware progs available for home design ie Google SketchUp, in keeping with the raison d'etre of this thread I give you...

Sweet Home 3D: simple interior design
By Nathan Willis

Remodeling? Like free software? If you answer "yes" to both questions, try taking Sweet Home 3D for a spin. The open source, cross-platform 3-D interior design application is simple to use and simple to learn. You don't create individual objects in Sweet Home 3D like you do in a modeling app like Blender; instead you focus on the layout and design of the rooms themselves.

Rest of article (http://www.linux.com/feature/141073)

Sweet Home 3D (http://sweethome3d.sourceforge.net/index.html)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Ubuntu hits new high in Linux boredom
By Robin 'Roblimo' Miller
http://www.linux.com/feature/141546

Last weekend a friend was moaning about endless problems with Windows XP on his desktop PC. We installed Ubuntu 7.04 on it. The problems went away. That started me thinking about my own "daily driver" computer, a Dell Latitude that also runs Ubuntu 7.04, and it made me realize that I hadn't thought about my laptop or its operating system in many months. Linux -- especially Ubuntu -- has become so reliable and simple that for most end users it's simply not worth thinking about, any more than we think about tools like wrenches and screwdrivers. Does this mean desktop GNU/Linux has become so boring that it's not worth noticing?

Right now 8.04 is the latest Ubuntu version. I've stuck to 7.04 because I feel no great need to update a reliable system that does everything I ask of it. Yes, there was one major security flaw in 7.04, but Ubuntu's auto-update feature took care of that for me long ago, and took care of it immediately during the install process on my friend's machine.

And, as I type this, I'm (automatically) downloading and installing 24 Ubuntu software updates. Since I'm using a mature, "tried and true" version of Ubuntu, and haven't moved to the latest/greatest version of any software I use regularly -- I'm still running Firefox 2.xx, for example -- I run almost no risk of these updates breaking my system. I haven't thought about Ubuntu updates in several years; they've become that reliable, another "it just works" situation that doesn't impinge on my consciousness. Indeed, I only really thought about updating Ubuntu now because I'm writing this article.

A problem with Microsoft Office 2007

Let me make one thing clear: I personally have no problem with Microsoft Office 2007 or any other version of Microsoft Office, since I do not own and have never owned Microsoft Office. The problem I'm talking about here was with a political candidate friend of mine, who has a new computer and a new copy of Vista and a new copy of Office. He sent document after document to another friend, who is helping him with his campaign, and she couldn't read them -- with an older version of Office.

I had no problem reading his Office 2007 docs in OpenOffice.org (OOo). There's an odf-converter-integrator add-on that seems to handle Office 2007 formats just fine. The version of OOo that came with Ubuntu 7.04 supposedly didn't have it or may have had a primitive alpha version -- but it seems that somewhere along the way a workable method of reading Office 2007 documents with OOo was installed in my system by one of those nifty Ubuntu updates. How nice!

Meanwhile, after some rooting around, we found that Microsoft has some sort of add-on utility that allows users of pre-2007 Office versions to read files from Office 2007. But in the end it was easier to teach the candidate to use the option in Office 2007 to save his work in the old .doc format than to try to get the eight or 10 people with whom he routinely shares files to update their copies of Office.

And somewhere in there, two of the candidate's friends learned that I used some sort of magic, free office software and wanted to know how to get it. I told them. Two more (Windows, for now) OpenOffice.org users in the world!

A tiny, minor victory for open source.

An only slightly larger one is that I have helped a group of about eight people switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox (sorry, still Windows) and several of them have dumped Outlook Express in favor of Thunderbird. More expect to jump on this train before long.

Will any of them jump completely into the GNU/Linux pool? Not yet, but I don't think it will be long before more of them ask me to put Linux on their computers. They've seen my laptop and admired its clean, rapid simplicity and lack of extraneous browser toolbars and desktop icons for software I don't want, and have grown tired of the endless cost of antivirus software, which they all seem to buy from whatever company paid their computer vendor to put its trial version on their computers.

The Vista elephant in the room

My friends and neighbors are not necessarily prosperous. Some are plain blue-collar workers, some are artists, some are retired. Not many of them enjoy using computers. They do it, often reluctantly, and upgrade their hardware and software only when they feel they have no other choice, not because they enjoy playing with the latest technology. Buying a new computer is a major step for most of them, and their most typical reason for doing it is problems with the computers they already own, not a desire for new features.

Now that the only Windows choice for most computer buyers is Vista, I am seeing a new reluctance to buy new hardware. Even my least-computer-sophisticated neighbors have heard and read enough about Vista to know they don't want it. Imagine their quandary: they can either keep their current "broken" computers or replace them with Vista computers that may be nearly as problematical as what they already have.

A third choice is to have a professional fix the computer they already own, but the vast majority of local computer owners I know have had poor experiences with well-known computer repair operations, notably ones associated with major electronics retailers we will kindly not name here, which brings them to a common, fourth alternative: Find a friend or a friend of a friend who "knows about computers" and beg for help.

If I am that friend -- which, due to a hectic schedule I try hard not to be -- I refuse to reinstall Windows unless the person asking is totally dependent on software that isn't available for Linux.

Otherwise, I insist on installing GNU/Linux on the "broken" computer. Yes, I end up answering a bunch of questions. As many Linux.com readers know, once you help a non-knowledgable computer user in any way, you seem to become their (free) computer advisor forever.

For whatever it's worth, I've found that, after an initial spate of questions, a moderately current (but not leading edge) Linux installation tends to generate less stress and less pain than either a Windows XP reinstall or a brand new computer running Vista.

Yes, it's exciting to have that new computer smell and a brand new, heavily advertised Windows operating system. But for most people I know, a boring "it just works" computer is preferable to a new, exciting one, and Linux has become a complete snooze for almost any computer user -- even those who need to have the difference between the left mouse button and the right one explained to them.

With all that said, I will now reboot. The Ubuntu update that went on in the background while I was typing includes a kernel update, which, unlike most updates, requires a restart. Unlike Windows, Ubuntu has not constantly pestered me to reboot even though I was in the middle of a task where it would have been inconvenient.

Once again, we have a true-to-life example of how Linux has become boring -- in the best possible way.

[Joe MacCarthy]

10 reasons to use Pidgin instead of MSN Messenger
Posted by jbj on Jun 15, 2008
http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/os/windows/10-reasons-to-use-pidgin-instead-of-msn-messenger-7

Since Windows XP's release in Sept 2001, MSN Messenger became a de-facto standard for Instant Messaging, at least for many people. Though, the official client distributed by Microsoft is slow, contains advertising and forces you to update if you want to continue to use it. So, here’s 10 good reasons to replace MSN Messenger by Pidgin.

Pidgin is open-source

An open-source software has many advantages: It’s free most of the time, and its source code is accessible, so you can be sure that no backdoor exists in the program

Pidgin can deal with 16 IM protocols

Of course, Pidgin works with the MSN protocol, but also on AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MySpaceIM, QQ, SILC, SIMPLE, Sametime, XMPP, Yahoo! Messenger and Zephyr, for a total of 16 IM protocols.

Remember some years ago, when you had to download a new client just because the friend you wanted to talk to didn’t use the same protocol as you? With Pidgin, this time’s over. Note, Pidgin can also work with the Skype protocol.

Pidgin is advertising-free

Microsoft makes lots of money with the Windows Live Messenger ads. Pidgin developers aren’t that interested in money: The software is advertising-free, which results in more speed and less memory use.

Pidgin is quicker than MSN Messenger

Make a test and see: Due to the fact it doesn’t have any ads or useless features as in MSN, Pidgin starts 2 to 3 times quicker than the official MSN client.

You can use more than one account at time

If you have a MSN account for your job and another for your friends and family, you’ll be able to connect both of them at the same time. With MSN Messenger, it’s one account, and that’s all. I remember a time when I used two different versions of MSN Messenger in order to chat with two different accounts at the same time, but with Pidgin, that’s not going to happen again!

Pidgin is cross-platform

You’re a Mac user, your browser prefers Ubuntu and your girlfriend works on Windows? No problem, anyone can use Pidgin on his or her favorite operating system. Note, on Mac OS X, this is not really Pidgin but a similar software called Adium, and which has almost exactly the same functionality as Pidgin.

Pidgin can be used in command-line mode

Most users will probably don’t care, but the ultimate geek will be very happy to know that Finch is a Pidgin command-line version, in Lynx style!

Pidgin use a tabbed interface

Why take all the available space on your monitor when a single window is enough? If you like tabs in Firefox, you’ll love it in Pidgin. Right, you can use MSN Plus to have tabs in the official MSN client interface, but why install one more software add-on when you simply can install a better IM client?

Fear of being deleted? Pidgin will tell you

In the world of instant messagers, you can easily become paranoid: Did she block me? Am I still on his friend list? It’s kinda easy to know, if you’re a Pidgin user: Just put the mouse cursor over one of your contact's name, and you’ll see if you’re still in this person’s buddy list.

You can modify your friend’s nicknames

The basic MSN user often puts a very loooooooong nickname, or even worse, tells everyone about his mood as his was on twitter. And for you, nothing's more boring than to be forced to open a conversation window just to be able to know who is that person. With Pidgin, it is possible to locally edit the screenname of your buddies.

[Daniel]

And for you Mac-heads, download Adium!

[The Ref]

Joe MacCarthy

Since you seem to know a lot about softwares, I wonder if you can give me your opinion of Total Recorder Pro 7 by High Criteria Inc. versus Audacity. Thanks.

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by The Ref

I wonder if you can give me your opinion of Total Recorder Pro 7 by High Criteria Inc. versus Audacity.
Yeah, one costs 39.95 and the other is free. Not to be flippant but I don't know what you want to use it for.

If Audacity does what you want, use it.

Audacity features
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/about/features

Total Recorder features
http://www.totalrecorder.com/features.htm

[Joe MacCarthy]

Software piracy hurts the open-source community, too
OpenOffice.org community manager sees fallout when proprietary wares are jacked
By Todd R. Weiss
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9110560

July 23, 2008 (Computerworld) PORTLAND, Ore. -- Proprietary software vendors, movie companies and the music industry aren't the only businesses that don't like pirates stealing, copying and reselling their CDs and DVDs.

It turns out that pirated software can also hurt the open-source community. When stolen proprietary software is used by consumers, that's a lost opportunity for open-source software makers to get their own software onto the computer hard drives of new users.

So says Louis Suarez-Potts, the community manager at Sun Microsystems Inc. for the OpenOffice.org open-source project, who discussed the phenomenon here at the 10th annual O'Reilly Open Source Convention.

"Piracy hurts open source because open source asks people to help give back and contribute code, but they say, 'Why should I help? I have Microsoft Office for free,'" Suarez-Potts said.

Around the world, he said, many national governments are realizing that this hurts them, too, because their citizens are then consumers of stolen technology rather than active participants in open-source communities that can help people gain technology skills that benefit workforces and nations.

By cracking down on software piracy, nations around the globe are starting to see that they can help themselves dramatically by encouraging innovation and creativity -- as well as job growth and richer economies -- through open-source development, he said.

"China wants to create workers who can do this and create and sustain wealth," rather than just sell pirated software that doesn't improve the lives of the country's people, Suarez-Potts said. "We will all benefit if they are creating interesting things."

Other nations, including India, are making similar discoveries, he said. "They really quite clearly see that they should have their own intellectual ecosystems. China is now embracing open source and is asking how they can work with the international communities; likewise in India and Latin America."

In a report last week, Washington-based software trade association the Business Software Alliance (BSA) found that six U.S. states -- California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Ohio and Texas -- make up $3.93 billion in pirated software losses in the U.S., or almost half of the $8.04 billion in national losses to software vendors from pirated software last year.

The BSA also conducts annual studies of piracy in countries around the world (download PDF).

The latest version of the OpenOffice suite, Version 3.0, is in its second beta version but is expected to be released in final Version 3.0 form by early fall, Suarez-Potts said, noting that so far, the beta version is generating about 2 million downloads each week.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Mandriva Spring 2008: The new “definitive” Linux?
Jack Wallen August 3rd, 2008
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/opensource/?p=249

Has Jack Wallen finally found the pinnacle of Linux distributions? The one distribution that will usurp Ubuntu as his OS of choice? You’ll have to read his take on Mandriva Spring 2008 and see just how enamored he has become of this distribution once called Mandrake Linux.

——————————————————————————————————–

I’ll just lay this out right from the beginning: Mandriva Spring 2008 Live CD is better than most other distributions fully installed. I am currently writing this blog on a laptop (that is generally flaky about Linux distributions) running the Live version of Mandriva Spring 2008. And even without installing the distribution, I am very impressed. Let’s see just how this is faring.

Display: Works perfectly.
Wireless: Works perfectly.
Sound: Works perfectly.
Hibernation: Works for the most part but because of the Live nature the laptop doesn’t want to fully hibernate.
Performance: Outstanding (blows away the currently installed gOS).
Installation: Quirky but simple.

So now, let’s break it down into its constituent pieces.

Installing Mandriva Spring 2008

It’s not so much the installation that was quirky but loading the Live CD that caught me off guard. Generally a Live CD is booted and places you directly on the desktop. The Mandriva Spring 2008 version of the Live CD first had you select your local and your keyboard and then you actually had to accept an EULA. I have never come across this in a Linux distribution. So I accepted the EULA and then had to select my local and keyboard yet again. Once that was done the live CD booted to the login where you select Guest as the user and no password.

Once logged in everything worked perfectly. I had to open up the network connection tool and select my wireless network. But once I clicked connect I was up and running (and writing this blog.) I really like what Mandriva has done with KDE 3.5. The look and feel is one of the nicest default KDE themes I have seen.

Now the installation on one of my desktop machines was flawless. During the installation you are asked if you want 3D desktop effects enabled and what you want to handle them (either Compiz or Matisse - I chose Compiz.)

Display

The desktop installation didn’t surprise me. The graphics chip is fairly standard. The laptop, however, did surprise me because the chip is a Via chrome chip which can be rather difficult to get working at anything above 800×600. Mandriva automatically configured the laptop to run at a beautiful 1440×900 at a 60 Hz refresh rate. This is probably the first time I have installed a distribution on this laptop and not had to monkey with the display properties to get it to work properly. The only downfall with the laptop is the 3D effects would not work. Of course this doesn’t bother me because the laptop is used almost entirely for writing purposes so 3D effects are not a big issue. And since the 3D effects worked out of the box on the desktop, I can’t hold that against Mandriva.

Wireless

Another issue that has plagued my laptop is wireless. The easiest distribution up to this point has been gOS. But even with gOS I had to install WICD to get wireless to work with encrypted wireless. Not so with Mandriva. Mandriva worked with WPA2 out of the box. Another big score for Mandriva.
Sound

Not that sound is really an issue these day, but I figured I would say that, even with the Live CD, there was no configuration needed to get sound working. Out of the box the Everex laptop had beautiful sound.

Hibernation

This has been an Achilles heel for Linux for a long time now. And I can’t say for sure that hibernation is working on this particular laptop 100% because of the nature of the Live CD, when I try to hibernate the laptop comes right back. The good news is that when it comes back up (almost instantly) everything is still working fine - no need to reconnect to the wireless network. So that, combined with all reports saying Mandriva’s hibernate works out of the box, leads me to think this might be the first distribution that has come close to actually solving the biggest issue with Linux on laptops. I will know for sure when I am ready to blow away my current installation and install Mandriva (I have to make sure I can get Enlightenment installed first ;) ).

Performance

This is where I am truly amazed. Even running as a Live CD Mandriva is out performing the fully installed gOS on the laptop. This is certainly the best running Live CD I have ever experienced. And if that is any indication of how the system will run installed, I think we have a winner for sure. The desktop installation isn’t too shabby either. The hardware is, suffice it to say, ancient and the full installation runs like a champ (even with Compiz running).

Final thoughts

Here’s where I step up on the soap box I have carried around for over a decade and say that Microsoft, upon experiencing Mandriva 2008, should be getting close to shaking in their boots. With the Spring 2008 iteration of Mandriva the Linux community is witnessing probably the closest to a Windows killer the community has yet to see. This is, without a doubt, the finest release of any Linux distribution I have ever experienced in my 10+ years of using Linux.

Mandriva Spring 2008 is amazing simple to install and use. It’s incredibly robust and stable. It is, I would have to say, the future of Linux.

[Joe MacCarthy]

IBM, Linux and the Microsoft-Free PC
Big Blue fires double-barrel action against Microsoft.
Sean Michael Kerner August 5, 2008

IBM is expanding its Linux solution set today with a new initiative together with Red Hat, Novell and Ubuntu for Microsoft-free PCs.

After 10 years of supporting Linux, IBM (NYSE: IBM) continues to challenge Microsoft on multiple fronts and aims to push Linux even further into the enterprise. While IBM has competed and partnered with Microsoft over the last two decades, the Microsoft-free PC effort is perhaps its most direct assault yet.

"The idea of Microsoft-free personal computing has been in the air for a while," Inna Kuznetsova, director of Linux at IBM, told InternetNews.com. "We're just partnering with Linux distribution vendors and hardware vendors to make it happen."

The Microsoft-free PC effort involves the Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), Novell (NASDAQ: NOVL) and Ubuntu Linux distributions in a broad effort to displace Microsoft technologies. Kuznetsova declined to comment on the financial details that IBM has determined with its partners at this point, but she was clear on what IBM's role in the initiative will be.

"Our role is more on evangelizing and providing the necessary software for corporate needs," she said. "I think the need for alternatives to the Microsoft-dominated personal computing environment are there."

Kuznetsova commented that she's heard customers tell IBM that they have saved money by moving to a Linux desktop and away from Microsoft. As part of the Microsoft-free PC effort, IBM will ship preloaded versions of Lotus Notes, Lotus Symphony and Lotus Sametime with each of the participating Linux distributions.

More (http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3763326)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Zimbra officially embraced by Ubuntu (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10009707-93.html)
Posted by Caroline McCarthy (Ed: There's a name you can trust)

Zimbra (http://www.zimbra.com/), the open-source e-mail software that Yahoo acquired for $350 million last year, is officially coming to Ubuntu Linux.

Coinciding with this week's LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco, Zimbra has announced a partnership with Ubuntu parent company Canonical.

Ubuntu users have been able to access Zimbra for the past year. But now, the e-mail software will be in the Ubuntu Partner Repository, providing easy access to both offline and online Yahoo Mail, Gmail, AOL Mail, and any IMAP or POP e-mail accounts. Zimbra also offers document and spreadsheet functions, as well as mashup features with services like Flickr, Amazon.com, and Yahoo Maps.

Offline e-mail and documents are one area where Yahoo has beaten Google to the punch--but there have been strong hints that engineers at the latter may be rolling out something similar soon through Gears.

"Since we first announced general availability of Zimbra for Ubuntu last year, we have seen incredible adoption within the Ubuntu community," Andy Pflaum, senior director of business management for Yahoo's Zimbra division, said in a statement. "We are eager to offer our world-class collaboration experience, Yahoo Zimbra Desktop, to the vibrant community of Ubuntu users worldwide."

[Joe MacCarthy]

Best of Open Source Software Awards 2008
InfoWorld's 2008 Bossies recognize the top free and open products for business, IT, and personal productivity
By Doug Dineley August 04, 2008
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/08/04/32TC-bossies-2008_1.html

If the phrase "open source software" continues to conjure images of impassioned programmers selflessly collaborating for the common good, it may be because, even as commercial interests are behind many of the most prominent projects, the results are no less inspired – and typically no less free. Yes, advanced functionality or maintenance and support may require writing a check, but freeloaders looking for high-quality software – of almost any kind – have never had it so good.

Chosen by InfoWorld Test Center editors, analysts, and reviewers, InfoWorld’s annual Best of Open Source Software awards (or Bossies, for short) celebrate the best products that open source has to offer: the best free software on the planet for businesses, their IT staffs, and their employees’ workstations.

[See Bossie winner slideshows:
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/t.jsp?N=s&V=107881&source=fssr
Collaboration | Developer tools | Enterprise applications | Networking | Platforms and middleware | Productivity applications | Security | Storage]

Our 2008 winners include 60 products in eight categories: enterprise applications such as CRM, ERP, BI, and reporting; collaborative applications, including mail/calendar, wiki, and social networking; desktop productivity apps from office suites to 3-D modeling; platforms and middleware, including operating systems, databases, virtualization, and SOA integration; developer tools from AJAX and rich Internet apps to Web service testing and version control; networking, including server monitoring, routing, Wi-Fi scanning, and VoIP software; security software, including firewall, IDS, disk encryption, and security testing; and storage, including monitoring and administration, backup, and NAS.

Some of our picks were easy. For office productivity suite, what else but OpenOffice.org? For network intrusion detection, what else but Snort? And for security log analysis, nothing beats Splunk. Even in areas where good options abound, sometimes one solution is head and shoulders above the rest: In CRM, Sugar; in content management, Alfresco; in IP telephony, Asterisk.

But in most categories, stiff competition made the choice difficult. Would it be JasperSoft or Pentaho for BI? Scalix or Zimbra for groupware? Compiere or Openbravo for ERP? How to select the best JavaScript framework from among the likes of Dojo, Google Web Toolkit, Prototype, Yahoo User Interface, and so many others? Choosing often wasn’t easy, but we took a close look and made our call.

In almost every category we explored, the pace of development is remarkable and products are evolving fast. A few of our 2008 winners – Sugar, Alfresco, Asterisk – are repeat champions (see Bossies 2007). But in many categories – most notably ERP and SOA middleware – 2007’s winner fails to take the 2008 prize.

Our 60 winners, and the fact that so many categories are hotly contested, are a testament to the tremendous impact that free and open source software is having across the software landscape. Although we found almost twice as many product categories to award in 2008 as in 2007, we realize we have plenty more work to do. Let us know what we missed.

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Desigol

I googled 'Open Source Telephony' and found asterisk.Feature: How to build and customize your own PBX with Asterisk (http://www.geek.com/feature-how-to-build-and-customize-your-own-pbx-with-asterisk-20080812/)
by John Rogers posted on August 12, 2008

This article demonstrates how easy it is to roll your own PBX in about an hour or two. Provided that the instructions herein are followed carefully, you too should be able to set up your very own switchboard/PBX system and all for the cost of the target hardware of your choice.

What is a PBX and why set one up?

A PBX or “Private Branch Exchange” is like a miniature phone company/switch in your own office/house. The PBX is responsible for making sure calls are routed properly.

Situation: when Joe wants to dial Suzy in the office down the hall or downstairs in the TV room, he just picks up the phone in his room/office and dials a local extension just a few digits long. If he wants to call someone across town or around the world, he dials an “outside line” prefix (usually a 9) plus the desired number and the PBX routes his call to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) just like any other dialed call.

Also, if Joe has four teenaged kids, instead of answering their calls and acting as the house receptionist, he can just setup a menu that allows callers to dial the person they want and then needs not be disturbed.

Most people are familiar with PBXs because they’ve used them in an office environment, but what if you wanted to use one in your house? Enter Asterisk.

The beauty of Asterisk (Asterisk.org) is that it is free and offers all this functionality right out of the box.
More (http://www.geek.com/feature-how-to-build-and-customize-your-own-pbx-with-asterisk-20080812/)

[speedmonk42]

Open source phone released!

My brother is picking one up this weekend I think.

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo_FreeRunner

[Daniel]

Too blocky for my taste...

[speedmonk42]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel

Too blocky for my taste...


Played with it today at the Linux cafe.

It is actually very comfortable to hold. The screen is very nice.

But the software is two generations off anything other than an uber nerd should buy.

We slipped in a sim card and it worked well, made calls and sent SMS

But it is still rough around the edges

[Joe MacCarthy]

XBMC's Linux port lacks impressive features
By Mayank Sharma on August 19, 2008
http://www.linux.com/feature/144530

Linux has no shortage of audio and video players, but if you want to devote your whole system to multimedia use, you need the Xbox Media Center (XBMC). Although initially designed for the Xbox gaming console, XBMC has been ported to other platforms (Edit: Win/Mac). The Linux port of XBMC that I use is quite usable, especially for video playback, despite the fact that not all XBMC features have yet been ported.

XBMC began life as the Xbox Media Player with its first open source release in 2002 before growing into an all-in-one media center app in 2004. The developers began porting the media center to Linux only last year. Currently precompiled binaries are available for various Ubuntu releases. If you don't use Ubuntu, you can also compile XBMC from source.

Like a typical media center XBMC can display images and play audio and video content from various internal and external sources. XBMC is skinnable, and the default Project Mayhem III theme is very slick. The XBMC interface is divided into five menu items for accessing Programs, Pictures, Videos, Music, and Weather. The Programs entry is for accessing Xbox programs and isn't applicable in the non-Xbox ported environments. The Weather entry points to a customizable weather station. You can program three locations for which XBMC tracks weather conditions and predictions from weather.com. The other menu entries are for accessing the three media types.

At the bottom of the main interface there are buttons that lead you to the XBMC settings page and the built-in file manager. From the settings page you can tweak general XBMC settings like the skin and default colors, as well as settings for picture, video, and audio playback.

One of the most important features in a comprehensive application like XBMC is navigation, and the app scores high in this department. You can control the whole app from the mouse alone. There's a consistent click behavior -- left-click to enter a menu and right-click to step back -- helpful on-screen controls to navigate media, and an on-screen keyboard when you need one to search for media.

With XBMC you can play media that's on your local disk on a variety of partition types, including such popular ones as NTFS, FAT, and ext3, as well as removable devices like USB disks. You can also play media from over your local network; XBMC can stream files from Windows machines on the intranet via Samba. It also packs a file manager for moving files and folders across partitions and from other machines on the local network to the one running XMBC. XBMC can also display videos in a variety of widescreen and HDTV resolutions if your machine can support these.

Player capabilities

The picture viewer support most common image formats, including BMP, JPG/JPEG, GIF, PNG, TIF/TIFF, TGA, and PCX. It can even be used as a comic reader to read comics in CBR/CBZ format. XBMC can also read and display EXIF data from images and use it to auto-rotate images. It has an inbuilt slideshow application that not only display images under a folder but also traverse inside subfolders and display images recursively. Instead of just running through images, during slideshow, XBMC uses pan and zoom effects to move around images, and can do both sequential and random plays through the images.

For playing audio, XBMC relies on its own audio player, called Psycho-acoustic Audio Player. PAPlayer had no trouble playing every audio file I threw at it, including files in WAV, MP3, Ogg, WMA, RealPlayer, AC3, AAC, FLAC, MIDI, and Audio CD formats. The media center also has a built-in music library function that scans your music collection and stores ID3 tag information like artist, album, and genre, which can be used to filter the collection. You can queue music items, add them to your favorites list, or play them randomly with "Party mode." XBMC can play music from the local hard disk as well as from other computers on the intranet via Samba.

One of the most irritating thing about the XBMC Linux port is the lack of music on-screen display (OSD) controls. The only way to stop an audio file or an audio track is to wait till XBMC plays out the playlist. There's also an audio ripper for ripping audio tracks and complete audio CDs, but it rips them into oblivion; I couldn't find the tracks in the specified destination directory or anywhere else on the disk.

Video playback is handled by XBMC's video player, called DVDPlayer. It flawlessly played the Video CD, DVD, MPEG2, MPEG4, WMV, QuickTime, Real, and Flash files that I had on my local disk and from over the network. Like the audio player component, the video player has a video library feature. The video library gathers information about a video from external Web sites like IMDB and TV.com via scrapers. Once it has the information, you can browse your videos by genre, title, year, actors, and directors. The DVDPlayer has a nifty little OSD for navigating the videos as well as enabling and disabling subtitles.

Missing quite a lot

There are a couple of features that are yet to be ported to XBMC on Linux. XBMC supports scripts, and some of the common ones for things like playing music and fetching weather forecasts are already bundled. I tried the browser script that's designed to help one browse pictures, videos, and audio available on any Web site, as well as the ABC TV script, which streams video content from Australia's ABC network, but couldn't get either of them to work. Both scripts crashed XBMC with a "segmentation fault" error.

One of the most popular features of XBMC on other platforms is Internet streaming. XBMC-TV maintains a list of streams that you can download and feed to XBMC. But no matter what stream I tried playing, it buffered for a while but eventually failed to play.

On other hardware XBMC can be controlled from over the network via a built-in Web server, but this feature hasn't yet been ported to the Linux version. Neither has the built-in FTP server that serves as another mechanism for transferring files to the computer running XBMC.

Wrap-up

XBMC media center is a capable media center application. Even the feature-incomplete Linux port is better and more comprehensive than a standalone media player, but it could still use some more features. I'd especially like to see OSD controls for the music player as well as the Web interface.

Today, XBMC is still best for people who own an Xbox. If you want a full-featured media center for your Linux desktop, consider an application like LinuxMCE that has TV tuner support and home automation controls.

http://xbmc.org/

[Joe MacCarthy]

Grism (http://www.grism.org/index.html) is an open source stock market observation tool. It allows you to easily track the evolution of stock prices through watchlists, portfolios and charts.

Grism uses Yahoo! Finance for its quote data. This means that with Grism, you can observe stocks, ETFs, indices and mutual funds from every major stock market in the world. All you need is the stock's symbol that interests you.

A Windows installer and executable will also be made available in the near future (once the author figures out why it doesn't work on Vista).

Buddi (http://buddi.thecave.homeunix.org/en/index.jsp) is a personal finance and budgeting program, aimed at those who have little or no financial background. it's designed to keep the software simple but still effectively help users to manage their finances. Buddi is a free opensource software released under the GNU GPL license. Buddi will run on almost any computer which has a Java virtual machine installed. This can include Windows, Macintosh OS X, Linux, and many other operating systems.

Some other OS financial software are
GnuCash (http://www.gnucash.org/)
TurboCash (http://www.turbocash.co.za/)
Grisbi (http://www.grisbi.org/)
jGnash (http://jgnash.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)
HomeBank (http://homebank.free.fr/)
Money Manager Ex (http://www.codelathe.com/mmex/)

While not open source here is a free software tip.

If you file a tax return for yourself (or anyone you know) who makes $20,000 or less, go to Canada Revenue Agency Software (http://www.netfile.gc.ca/sftwr-eng.html)

Look through the list of software, they can be used for free if your income is less than $20,000 (some software ie FutureTax has a limit of $25,000). I used FutureTax for a student who made less than $25,000 and was also able to NETFILE for free (some free software has a small charge to NETFILE, FutureTax did not) so do your due diligence and see which is the best for you.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Google Launches Internet Browser (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7593106.stm)

Google is launching an open source web browser to compete with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

The browser is designed to be fast, and to cope with the next generation of web applications that rely on graphics and multimedia.

Called Chrome, it will launch as a beta for Windows machines in 100 countries, with Mac and Linux versions to come.

"We realised... we needed to completely rethink the browser," said Google's Sundar Pichai in a blog post.

The new browser will help Google take advantage of developments it is pushing online in rich web applications that are challenging traditional desktop programs.

Google has a suite of web apps, such as Documents, Picasa and Maps which offer functionality that is beginning to replace offline software.

"What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build," Mr Pichai, VP Product Management, wrote.

Competition

The launch of a beta version of Chrome on Tuesday will be Google's latest assault on Microsoft's dominance of the PC business. The firm's Internet Explorer program dominates the browser landscape, with 80% of the market.

Those already in the browser space were quick to respond to the news.

Writing in his blog, John Lilly, chief executive of Mozilla was sanguine about the new rival in the browsersphere.

"It should come as no real surprise that Google has done something here - their business is the web, and they’ve got clear opinions on how things should be, and smart people thinking about how to make things better."

Chrome will be a browser optimized for the things that they see as important, and it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves," he wrote.

He welcomed the competition and said collaboration between Mozilla and Google on certain projects would continue.

Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, was more bullish.

"The browser landscape is highly competitive, but people will choose Internet Explorer 8 (http://technology.canoe.ca/PCWorld/2008/02/13/4844825.html) for the way it puts the services they want right at their fingertips, respects their personal choices about how they want to browse and, more than any other browsing technology, puts them in control of their personal data online," he said in a statement.

For Nate Elliot, an analyst with Jupiter Research, entering the browser market is an obvious next move for Google.

"This is a much bigger undertaking than providing a Google toolbar but it feels the a natural next step," he said.

But competing with the established browser names could be harder, he thinks.

"Mozilla's Firefox is very well respected and yet it commands less than 20% of the browser market which just shows how hard it is to overtake an incumbent although Google does have almost unparallelled ability to promote it to almost the entire online audience," he said.

Chrome will be available for download from the morning of Tuesday 2nd September, PST.

[Joe MacCarthy]

The real reason Google is making Chrome (http://blogs.computerworld.com/the_real_reason_google_is_making_chrome)
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

The real Labor Day storm wasn't Gustav, it was Google's announcement, by comic book no less, that it was releasing its own Web browser: Chrome.

So why is Google doing this? First, off let me tell what it's not. It's not an attempt to kill off Internet Explorer or Firefox. Google just renewed its partnership with Mozilla and that deal, which runs through 2011 accounts for 85% of Mozilla's income.

So what is it then? There are five reasons why Google is doing this, and, if you read the comic book closely - yes, I'm serious - and you know technology you can see the reasons for yourself. These, in turn, lead to what I think is Google's real goal for Chrome. Rest of article (http://blogs.computerworld.com/the_real_reason_google_is_making_chrome)

[Joe MacCarthy]

I have to say I am very impressed so far with this offering from Google. Clean, intuitive, and fast, the only drawback is the lack of an ad blocker but I am sure that will come soon. The incognito window is cool and also how bookmarks are handled. Did I mention this is fast.

I think this is going to be used 50/50 along with Firefox on my PC (edit: after a few days make that 80/20 for Google). Give it a try fellas, I think you will be impressed. Remember it is still only beta, likely some bugs to be worked out. (Joe Mac)

Hands-On With Chrome: Clean and Crisp, But Needs Extensions (http://ostatic.com/172340-blog/hands-on-with-chrome-clean-and-crisp-but-needs-extensions)

Google's Chrome open source browser is now available for download (http://www.google.com/chrome) in beta, for Windows users. We've put it through some paces today, and have overall been favorably impressed with how clean and complete for a beta browser it is. If you haven't yet read through Google's explanation of its goals for Chrome, see that here. The browser reflects a focus on web applications--letting you create shortcuts for your favorite ones that will open the apps even if Chrome is closed, and more--and runs well. Still, it will be some time before I consider it as my default browser. Rest of article (http://ostatic.com/172340-blog/hands-on-with-chrome-clean-and-crisp-but-needs-extensions)

[Daniel]

quote:Originally posted by Joe MacCarthy
Remember it is still only beta, likely some bugs to be worked out. (Joe Mac)


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/sco/thumb/8/86/Gmail.png/250px-Gmail.png

[}:)]

[Joe MacCarthy]

OpenOffice 3.0 Release Candidate 1 is now available for download (http://download.openoffice.org/680/?intcmp=1235) meaning the final product should be completed in a few weeks.

Here is a list of features (http://marketing.openoffice.org/3.0/featurelistbeta.html) that are new to OOo 3.0

[Joe MacCarthy]

Best Open Source Project? (http://www.grupthink.com/topic/821)

Interesting and well done listing of open source projects and their popularity. Everything from the well known Linux and Firefox to Free Beer, OpenCola, OScar (the open source car) Yoism (an open source religion) and my favourites MIT OpenCourseware and Project Gutenberg. Also, good list to peruse and give you ideas on the best of free software (and other things) that you might not be aware of and could use. (Joe Mac)

What is the absolute best that the open source model has to offer? The term is usually applied to software specifically, but I'd like to use it here to refer to any community developed project whose collaborative efforts are freely available to all to use and/or modify in any not-for-profit manner; This could include content, health, politics, religion, media, etc.. More (http://www.grupthink.com/topic/821)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Switching From Windows To Linux In 3 Easy Steps (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/switching-windows-linux-3-easy-steps)
Shawn Powers

In my ongoing quest to take over the world with Linux as my OS of choice, I've noticed that simply handing someone an install CD doesn't really do the trick. I've also noticed that formatting their Windows 95 install with a fresh version of Linux tends to make angry faces as well. The more tech savvy the user is, the more resistant to change they tend to be. As with most worthwhile endeavors, it takes time and patience for a person to learn to love Linux.

The problem is that hating Windows isn't enough. Most people hate Windows, but feel trapped into using it. That's where my 3 step approach comes in.

Step 1: Open Source Windows Apps

It's painless for a person to try open source applications in Windows. The beauty is that open source apps speak for themselves, and tend to work amazingly well, "selling" themselves without much convincing required. Some prime examples of open source inroads:

* Firefox: Lots of folks are already using this one
* OpenOffice: If you haven't tried a recent version -- holy cow is OpenOffice getting awesome
* Abiword: Just a word processor, and sometimes that all a person really needs
* VLC: It's just like Windows Media Player, except it actually plays videos and stuff. ;o)
* Pidgin: Awesome instant messaging app
* Stellarium: Planetarium on your desktop
* Songbird: It's new and a little buggy, but a cross platform iTunes replacement

Rest of article (http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/switching-windows-linux-3-easy-steps)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Twelve Myths about Free and Open Source Software (http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3771441/Twelve+Myths+about+Free+and+Open+Source+Software.h tm)
September 15, 2008
By Bruce Byfield

By now, you'd think that anyone who owns a computer knows about free and open source software (FOSS). However, once you move beyond techie circles, you'll find that, for many people, the concept is unknown. Even worse, when people have heard of it, they have alarming -- and rather discouraging -- misconceptions of what it involves.

Here are the twelve most common misconceptions of FOSS, and why they're distorted, exaggerated, outdated, or just plain wrong:

1) If software costs nothing, it's no good

Technological culture is so influenced by business logic that most of us believe that "you get what you pay for" is common sense. However, when you only look at proprietary software, that adage isn't true. If price really reflects quality, then Adobe Creative Suite would be six times better than Xara Xtreme.

By the same logic, you can't judge FOSS by the fact that the price is usually either gratis or nominal to cover shipping. In fact, since FOSS like Bind or Apache is running much of the Internet, you have to conclude that at least some of it is high-quality indeed. But, really, you can't judge any software in any meaningful way until you've tried it. Next Eleven Myths about Free and Open Source Software (http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3771441/Twelve+Myths+about+Free+and+Open+Source+Software.h tm)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Slick VLC Media Player Out In a New Version (http://ostatic.com/173286-blog/slick-vlc-media-player-out-in-a-new-version)
Sam Dean - Sep. 15, 2008

VLC Media Player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) has just come out in a new version 0.9.2. This media player, available for the Mac, Windows and Linux, is one of the best-liked open source players. In addition to its capabilities for playback, you can use VLC Media Player to transcode videos and songs between formats. Here's more on what you'll find under the hood.

In the new version, VLC Media Player remains small and lightweight enough to carry on a USB thumb drive. There is a full features list for every supported platform here. Under input formats and decoders on the list, you can get a good sense of the vast number of formats that VLC Media Player supports, inlcuding many that proprietary players don't support. (The Ogg format is supported.)

There are also quite a few splashy screenshots here. The documentation for the new version is in the works, and a message on the VLC site says that it should be up in a few days. This is a good application to have in your open source arsenal. Take a look at the download ticker on the VLC home page for how many people are grabbing the new version.

[Daniel]

VLC is truly awesome! Why no version 1.0?

BTW, I really enjoy this thread, keep up the good work JM.

[Ed]

So boys, if one (moi) were to buy an out of the box new computer, how do you get at / load all this nice freeware without some sort of OS?

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel

VLC is truly awesome! Why no version 1.0?Not sure, I guess their numbering system is either saying they don't think it is production ready yet or they don't really care about 1.0. My guess would be the latter.

Either way, I like the new look and of course it will still play just about every file you throw at it, unlike WMP.

Some more info here (http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/116009)

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Ed

So boys, if one (moi) were to buy an out of the box new computer, how do you get at / load all this nice freeware without some sort of OS?
First thing Ed, it's not freeware, it's open source (which is usually free of charge) Freeware is a totally different breed of cat (sometimes unpleasant, malware, spyware, licensing etc).

So are you saying that you have a computer without an operating system? If you need an OS there are over 300 versions of Linux. Ubuntu, Fedora, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva, OpenSuse are all good choices.

I like Ubuntu because it comes on one disc, allows you to try it before installing, installs pretty much everything you need when you do install it, is one of the most popular OS's and has a large and friendly user community to ask if and when you need help.

Ubuntu will also mail you a free disk if you don't or can't download it. Takes about a month. They will have a new version coming out in late October (8.10) that I'll get mailed to me.

Ed, if you can make your question a little clearer to my pea brain I'll help as best I can.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Open-Source Alternatives To Microsoft Office, Part II (http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/819-Open-Source-Alternatives-To-Microsoft-Office-Part-II)
Jennifer D. Meacham September 17, 2008

In part I (http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/818-Open-Source-Alternatives-To-Microsoft-Office-Part-I) of this series we looked at why the use of open-source software is now gaining momentum. Here, we take a look at some of the most-recognized open-source alternatives to Microsoft Office.

KOffice (http://www.koffice.org/) is one “light” answer to Microsoft Office from KDE, a Minneapolis-hatched open-source software community. With KOffice, “the main benefit is that it’s incredibly light weight,” says KDE spokesperson Wade Olson. It takes up less space, starts faster, may respond faster, and it integrates with—benefits from the—KDE desktop.

We have applications that typically match up with Microsoft Office and Open Office as expected, with Excel and Word expectations, Olson says. “With ours, we also bind in Krita, which is along the lines of a light-weight Adobe PhotoShop.”

In July 2008, KDE 4.1 was released. In January 2009, we’ll have KDE 4.2. KOffice, because of its size, has its own release schedule. A “big, big release called KOffice 2.0,” Olson says, “will be out within the next six months.

Rest of article (http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/819-Open-Source-Alternatives-To-Microsoft-Office-Part-II)

[Joe MacCarthy]

10 things Linux does better than Windows (http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=415)
Jack Wallen September 17th, 2008

If you tallied up the strengths and weaknesses of Linux and Windows, which OS would come out ahead? According to Jack Wallen, superiority in security, flexibility, interoperability, community, and command-line power (among other things) put Linux well ahead. See if you agree with his assessment.

Throughout my 10+ years of using Linux, I have heard about everything that Windows does better than Linux. So I thought it time to shoot back and remind everyone of what Linux does better than Windows. Of course, being the zealot that I am, I could list far more than 10 items. But I will stick with the theme and list only what I deem to be the 10 areas where Linux not only does better than Windows but blows it out of the water.

#1: TCO

This can o’ worms has been, and will be, debated until both operating systems are no more. But let’s face it — the cost of a per-seat Windows license for a large company far outweighs having to bank on IT learning Linux. This is so for a couple of reasons.

First, most IT pros already know a thing or two about Linux. Second, today’s Linux is not your mother’s Linux. Linux has come a long, long way from where it was when I first started. Ten years ago, I would have said, hands down, Windows wins the TCO battle. But that was before KDE and GNOME brought their desktops to the point where any given group of monkeys could type Hamlet on a Linux box as quickly as they could type it on a Windows box. I bet any IT department could roll out Linux and do it in such a way that the end users would hardly know the difference. With KDE 4.1 leaps and bounds beyond 4.0, it’s already apparent where the Linux desktop is going — straight into the end users’ hands. So with all the FUD and rhetoric aside, Windows can’t compete with Linux in TCO. Add to that the cost of software prices (including antivirus and spyware protection) for Windows vs. Linux, and your IT budget just fell deeply into the red.

Next 9 things Linux does better than Windows (http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=415)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Sphinx: Open Source Speech Recognition (http://ostatic.com/173381-blog/sphinx-open-source-speech-recognition)
Sam Dean - Sep. 18, 2008

Have you been frustrated with speech recognition software in the past? I've used the top proprietary products, such as IBM's ViaVoice and Nuance's Dragon Naturally Speaking in the past. I've found limited good uses for them, but they're not entirely accurate, and they're reasonably expensive. Carnegie-Mellon University developed a free offering called Sphinx, which may be a good alternative for many people, and it's now offered under a BSD license.

You can either use Sphinx for straight speech recognition tasks, or integrate it with, say, an online application. Sphinx-3 is one freely downloadable version, Sphinx-4 is a version written entirely in Java, and PocketSphinx--though smaller and less accurate than other versions--is designed to run in real time on handhelds and be integrated with live applications.

If you want to try Sphinx for your own use, it looks like the package to try is Sphinx-4--the Java version (http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/sphinx4/).

Because it's Java, it's platform independent, I'm still in the process of testing it for accuracy, and will do a subsequent post on my results, but this post from Artificial Intelligence and Robotics reports that the Java version works as well as proprietary solutions. It's interesting to see an open source effort in this space, where the proprietary players have always ruled.

Windows binaries here (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1904).

[Joe MacCarthy]

Here's an inspiring story and a reminder of how lucky we are to live in The Best country in the world.

Italian LUG turns Pakistani school into an educational model (http://www.linux.com/feature/148311)
Marco Fioretti September 24, 2008

The students of a missionary school in Pakistan, from first graders to graduates, have become enthusiast Edubuntu users thanks to the cooperation between their administrator and an Italian LUG.

Padre (Father) Aldino Amato is an Italian missionary who has been working for 25 years in the schools of the Rosary Christian Hospital, a nonprofit charitable institution in the village of Rehmpur, near to the city of Okara in the Pakistani province of Punjab. In 2006, during a holiday in Italy, a friend suggested Amato publish in an Italian missionary newletter a request for all the things his schools needed but couldn't find easily in Pakistan. The first item on that list was computers. A newsletter reader pointed Amato to Golem (Gruppo Operativo Linux EMpoli), an Italian Linux user group (LUG) founded in 2000 in Empoli, a Tuscan town about 30 kilometers west of Florence.

Golem is particularly active in the "trashware" sector; it collects and fixes thrown-away computers and gives them away, after installing Linux of course, to schools, nonprofit organizations, and other users. In 2004 Golem sent a few PCs to a school in Somalia and, later, others to schools in Benin and Cameroon.

When Amato discovered this, he immediately wrote to Golem:

I have more than 2,000 students from kindergarden to senior high and only one computer. I'd need at least 50 more, since Pakistani school regulations state that computer training should be at least 40 minutes every day. Can you help me? I'd really like to help my students learn new technologies.

Rest of article (http://www.linux.com/feature/148311)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex" (Alpha 6): first impressions (http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20793/1162/)
Hamish Taylor 24 September 2008
Ubuntu 8.10 available October 30 (Joe Mac)

In a continuing series of articles highlighting that GNU/Linux is a viable replacement operating system, today we're putting the newest release of the popular Ubuntu distribution through its paces.

...My first impressions are that it's all about the speed, the pretty and small improvements that make it more usable.

One of the generally accepted rules of computing seems to be that if you retain the same hardware and upgrade the operating system, then you can expect it to run slower. For example, Windows XP runs pretty well on my laptop, but Vista would be barely useable.

This seems to have been accepted as a fact of computing. But noone seems to have told the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community. They clearly don't subscribe to this idea!

Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex" Alpha 6 absolutely flies on my laptop. It boots faster and generally feels more responsive than the 8.04 version, which again felt faster than 7.10 and 7.04.

At the same time, I have a lot more applets loading on startup (and software installed generally) in 8.04, so I will be interested to see what happens when I enable them in 8.10. I suspect that things will just be faster in 8.10 anyway as the quality of FOSS just keeps increasing.

Rest of article (http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20793/1162/)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Five programs you can afford in a financial meltdown (http://blogs.computerworld.com/five_programs_you_can_afford_in_a_financial_meltdo wn)
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

...No matter what happens to the bailout, it's a safe bet that times are going to be hard. So what can you do if you're not in Congress and you want to get new programs, but not pay an arm and a leg? After all, it's not like you can print money. Unlike, say, the U.S. government. The choice is clear: switch to open-source software.

Like what you ask? Like these five prime examples of open-source software that's every bit as good, if not better, than their proprietary equivalents.

[Joe MacCarthy]

GIMP Gets an Interface Makeover in New Version 2.6 (http://ostatic.com/173555-blog/gimp-gets-an-interface-makeover-in-new-version-2-6)
Sam Dean - Oct. 01, 2008

We've written about GIMP, the outstanding open source graphics program originally developed at U.C. Berkeley, several times before. The application has had a robust community of developers behind it for years, and now a new version 2.6 is downloadable. Here's what's under the hood in the update, including a whole slew of interface enhancements.

You can find the release notes for version 2.6 here. According to the developers:

"GIMP 2.6 is an important release from a development point of view. It features changes to the user interface addressing some often received complaints, and a tentative integration of GEGL, the graph based image processing library that will eventually bring high bit-depth and non-destructive editing to GIMP."

Many of the more important user interface changes are shown on the release notes page. You can pan beyond image borders now, and the Toolbox and Docks are more flexible. You can also make use of many new kinds of brush dynamics when working with images.

GIMP 2.6 also has many enhancements aimed at plug-in developers, including better handling of errors in plug-ins. The application has a thriving community of plug-in developers, and advanced users make significant use of the many plug-ins.

If you're new to GIMP, there are many good tutorials online for getting going with it, in addition to many tutorials found on the GIMP.org site. HowtoGimp is a good place to start. It features general tutorials on how to use the application, and very targeted lessons on granular topics such as images and effects. Also check out Gimp-Tutorials.net, which includes video tutorials and much more. This collection of 22 GIMP tutorials is also worth looking into for creating specialized effects.

See also GIMP User Filter allows use of Photoshop filters (http://www.linux.com/feature/147173)

[Daniel]

Downloaded!

[Start fan in exile]

gOS - "good OS" - "linux for the rest of us".

Reviews:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,2219310,00.asp
http://www.reviewlinux.com/?m=show&id=8247

Homepage: http://www.thinkgos.com/gos.php

[Joe MacCarthy]

Pidgin instant messaging client: a video tour (http://www.linux.com/feature/148840)
By Robin 'Roblimo' Miller on October 03, 2008

Pidgin (http://www.pidgin.im/), formerly known as Gaim, is a popular Instant Messaging (IM) client for Linux (and Windows). It works with 16 different IM services, including AIM, Yahoo, MSN, and Google, and can handle simultaneous connections to as many of them as you like. This 10-minute video is a brief introduction to Pidgin that shows how easy it is to install, in this case on OpenSUSE 11, how easy it is to set Pidgin up to use an existing IM account, and how to find and join an IRC channel with Pidgin.

For those of you using Windows, Robin shows how to configure the program after the quick Linux installation explanation

In other news, OpenOffice 3.0 is at Release Candidate 4 which means it is likely days away from final release. Give it a try and see what all the fuss is about.

Serena Software's (formerly Projity) OpenProj (http://openproj.org/openproj) has a new version out - 1.4.

[Daniel]

And for Mac users, check out Adium: http://www.adiumx.com/

Not quite open source, but the best alternative and with the GNU General Public License.

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel

Not quite open source, but the best alternative and with the GNU General Public License.The GNU GPL is open source and the Adium source code is available, so it passes the smell test.

And for all those eagerly awaiting the release of OpenOffice.org 3 (days away) here are some great tips and screenshots (http://www.tomsguide.com/us/pictures-story/16-OpenOffice-tips.html) to help make OOo work for you.

On a slightly different note, Tip #13: Calc is full of surprises. These hidden bonuses are kind of wacky sometimes – like, for example, the one that gives you a video game similar to Space Invaders (old timers, we’re sure you’ll appreciate it).

To access it, simply enter =GAME("StarWars") in the command line. If you’d rather play tic-tac-toe, type =GAME(A2 :C4 ; "TicTacToe").

http://media.bestofmicro.com/openoffice-tricks-screenshot,1-0-150372-13.png

[Joe MacCarthy]

Watch TV with Linux (http://www.itwire.com/content/view/21012/1154/1/0/)
David M Williams 06 October 2008

In our modern, and busy world the separation between home computers and home entertainment systems is fast fading. Linux makes it a cinch to build your own PVR, allowing you to watch, pause and record live TV broadcasts.

The theme for this month is “I didn’t know you could do that in Linux,” and continuing the theme let’s explore the simplicity of making your own Linux-based media centre for the lounge room.

“So what,” some may say. After all, there are other operating systems out there known for their media centre platforms. However, Linux offers compelling advantages.

Rest of article (http://www.itwire.com/content/view/21012/1154/1/0/)

[Joe MacCarthy]

KOffice 2.0 beta hints at improved capabilities (http://www.linux.com/feature/149770)
By Bruce Byfield on October 09, 2008

KOffice has been trailing the office application leaders for a long time. Despite years of development, it has yet to match OpenOffice.org feature for feature, although its features are complete enough that they have attracted a loyal community. Judging from the first beta, KOffice 2.0 (http://www.koffice.org/announcements/announce-2.0beta1.php) will still not rival OpenOffice.org or other free software rivals, but it should be a major step in that direction.

Rest of article (http://www.linux.com/feature/149770)

[Joe MacCarthy]

FBReader (http://www.fbreader.org/about.php) is an e-book reader for various platforms. Currently FBReader works on

* Linux
* Windows
* FreeBSD
* Various Linux-based mobile devices:
o Sharp Zaurus with Qtopia-based ROMs, pdaXrom or OpenZaurus ROM.
o Archos PMA430.
o Siemens Simpad with Opensimpad 0.9.0/Opie ROM.
o Nokia 770/N800/N810 Internet Tablets (maemo).
o PepperPad 3 handheld web computer.
o Motorola A1200 smartphone.
o Motorola E680i/A780 smartphones. (This port is available from the third-party site.)
o IRex iLiad. (This port is available from the third-party site.)

FBReader is distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Mandriva Linux 2009 released (http://www.linux.com/feed/150008)
October 09, 2008

Mandriva has today released Mandriva Linux 2009, the new major release of the popular distribution. 2009 is a bold release which brings the new KDE 4 as the default desktop, along with a re-designed installer and Mandriva Control Center and many other new features. Other significant updates include GNOME 2.24, OpenOffice.org 3, Mozilla Firefox 3, and kernel 2.6.27. Key features include new graphical in-line upgrade capability, netbook compatibility, class-leading hardware support, and further improved support for working with mobile devices. For more details, see the Release Tour and the Release Notes. Get it at the download page (http://www.mandriva.com/en/download), or go straight to the torrent list.

[Joe MacCarthy]

For those of you who want a headstart on the official release of OpenOffice.org on Monday here it is; OpenOffice 3.0 final (stable)

Windows - Download this if you have Java installed (http://openofficeorg.secsup.org/stable/3.0.0/OOo_3.0.0_Win32Intel_install_en-US.exe)

Windows -Download this if you don't have Java installed (http://openofficeorg.secsup.org/stable/3.0.0/OOo_3.0.0_Win32Intel_install_wJRE_en-US.exe)

Mac OS X (http://openofficeorg.secsup.org/stable/3.0.0/OOo_3.0.0_MacOSXIntel_AQUA_install_en-US.dmg)

I urge everybody to at least download it and give it a try, If you are unfamiliar with open source software (OSS), I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the quality of this free of charge software.

[Daniel]

I've been trying to hunt down a link for a PPC version. Anyone found one?

[Joe MacCarthy]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel

I've been trying to hunt down a link for a PPC version. Anyone found one?I don't know anything about what will work on an Apple machine but I don't think there is one.

This is what they have versions (http://openofficeorg.secsup.org/stable/3.0.0/) for: Linux, Sun Solaris, Windows and Mac OS X.

You might want to try looking around here (http://porting.openoffice.org/)

I know you can get version 2.4.1 for Mac OS X PPC here (http://openoffice.bouncer.osuosl.org/?product=OpenOffice.org&os=macosxppc#9001;=en-US&version=2.4.1) so perhaps they will release 3.0 for it at a later date.

There must be a lot of people downloading because the site has been slow/down much of the day.

[Start fan in exile]

quote:Originally posted by Daniel
I've been trying to hunt down a link for a PPC version. Anyone found one?
Full list of downloads here: http://download.openoffice.org/index.html

Looks like they only have a German and Swedish version of 3.0 for PPC, but I imagine a US English version won't be far behind. Why no UK or international English version?

[Joe MacCarthy]

Only the Swedish download is 3.0 (the German is 2.4.1) but that still doesn't help Daniel but if there is a Swedish version it's likely there will be an English one before long.

Can't wait to see the stats on the downloads, the website is still not fully functioning so it must be swamped.

Next stop, Ubuntu 8.10 on October 30.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Vinyl + Audacity = MP3 (http://www.linux.com/feature/149917)
David Pendell October 20, 2008

If you were born before 1975, you may have a collection of records that you want to convert to digital format. Some open source software and a cable are all you need to convert your prized vinyl to something portable.

If all you want to do is create MP3 files from you LP tracks, the only software you'll need is Audacity. If you want to convert vinyl to CD, you'll need cdrdao and cdrecord as well. All are readily available in most distributions' package repositories or from the projects' sites.

Next, you need to connect your computer to your turntable. There are many ways to do this. In my case, I connected a cable that has a headphone jack on one end and RCA type audio jacks on the other end to my mic jack on my laptop and the preamp on the stereo, respectively. An iPod cable would work if your stereo has a headphone jack. If you have the option of connecting a digital cable to the amplifier on your stereo and computer, then you are truly lucky. This option will give you the most accurate reproduction of your records. However, since vinyl was not necessarily known for its acoustic perfection, a headphone jack will suffice for most people.

Rest of article (http://www.linux.com/feature/149917)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Mandriva One video tour (http://www.linux.com/feature/150427)
By Robin 'Roblimo' Miller October 17, 2008

We loaded and ran the 2009 (10th Anniversary) edition of Mandriva Linux One, which we reviewed earlier this week. It's pretty, it's smooth, and it had a few problems with the GUI software install/remove utility that would leave a new user scratching his head, but overall, it's a nice update to a distro that started out with the idea that ordinary, non-technical computer users should be able to install and run GNU/Linux without expert help -- and that still adheres to this principle.

This is a two-part video. Video One covers installation and first boot. Video Two deals with software installation and removal, and gives you a brief idea of what software is included in Mandriva One by default. Both videos, together, will show you Mandriva Linux One's "look and feel" before you decide to download it and try it for yourself.

Rest of article (http://www.linux.com/feature/150427)

[Start fan in exile]

quote:Originally posted by Joe MacCarthy

Only the Swedish download is 3.0 (the German is 2.4.1) but that still doesn't help Daniel but if there is a Swedish version it's likely there will be an English one before long.

Can't wait to see the stats on the downloads, the website is still not fully functioning so it must be swamped.

Next stop, Ubuntu 8.10 on October 30.

They've now added French, Japanese, German, Brazilian Portugese and Spanish versions of 3.0 for PPC. But still no english

[Start fan in exile]

quote:Originally posted by Joe MacCarthy
Vinyl + Audacity = MP3 (http://www.linux.com/feature/149917)
David Pendell October 20, 2008

If you were born before 1975, you may have a collection of records that you want to convert to digital format. Some open source software and a cable are all you need to convert your prized vinyl to something portable.

If all you want to do is create MP3 files from you LP tracks, the only software you'll need is Audacity. If you want to convert vinyl to CD, you'll need cdrdao and cdrecord as well. All are readily available in most distributions' package repositories or from the projects' sites.

Next, you need to connect your computer to your turntable. There are many ways to do this. In my case, I connected a cable that has a headphone jack on one end and RCA type audio jacks on the other end to my mic jack on my laptop and the preamp on the stereo, respectively. An iPod cable would work if your stereo has a headphone jack. If you have the option of connecting a digital cable to the amplifier on your stereo and computer, then you are truly lucky. This option will give you the most accurate reproduction of your records. However, since vinyl was not necessarily known for its acoustic perfection, a headphone jack will suffice for most people.

Rest of article (http://www.linux.com/feature/149917)

I've recorded quite a few of my old records to mp3 with Audacity and while it is labour-intensive it's definitely worth it.

A couple of things this article does not mentions (naturally enough, since it's for Linux-users):
if you want to burn CDs and have iTunes on Windows or Mac, the best thing to do is to export your tracks as AIFF. Choose AIFF (Apple/SGI), 32-bit float as your uncompressed file format for best quality. iTunes reads AIFF as easily as it reads mp3 and aac, and you can burn a music CD from them. (make sure you chose AIFF as your import format in iTunes preferences when importing those tracks otherwise the default settings will compress the sh!t out of them) Audacity does not come with an mp3-encoder; you have to download one manually; the how-to is here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&i=lame-mp3

[Marc]

I've done a tonne of vinyl recording to MP3 and it was totally worth it. I always used a friend's copy of Cool Edit, which worked well to search out and delete big blips or major imperfections in the sound that wold blast your ears off if listening to the song on headphones. But when I didn't have access to that program, Audacity did a decent job.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Here is a hot piece of news that you have until midnight October 28 to act upon.

For one day only, CodeWeavers is giving away its software (free, gratis no strings attached).

What is CodeWeavers? CodeWeavers' products (CrossOver Pro Linux, CrossOver Pro Mac, CrossOver Games for Linux, and CrossOver Games for Mac) allow you to run popular Windows programs on Linux or Mac.

The site is now swamped (like OpenOffice was a few days ago) but you can still get a serial number and later download the program when the site returns (you have until Wednesday to register and download but the serial number is only available today).

If you were ever curious about Linux and are ready to take the plunge, or maybe down the road, or if you have a Mac, download this program so at least you'll have it for later.

Why is it being given away for free? It's a promise the crazy company president made (http://ostatic.com/175916-blog/codeweavers-to-offer-crossover-for-free-on-tuesday) and now has to live up to.

Get it here (http://www.codeweavers.com/). The site is down but you can get the serial number to start.

CodeWeavers isn't open source software but it is based on WINE which is. I'm posting this because this offer is too good to pass up.

Edit: Six hours later, looks like above has changed

Full Version Downloads
For Tuesday, October 28, 2008 only, we are putting up fully unlocked builds. Get it while you can.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Using Calc to manage schedules (http://www.linux.com/feature/151483)
Dmitri Popov on October 31, 2008

If you want to keep tabs on your deadlines, you don't need a fancy project management application -- often, a simple spreadsheet can do the job. To see how, let's create a spreadsheet that tracks task deadlines, shows the current status of each task, and highlights scheduling conflicts. In the process we'll learn a few useful Calc techniques...

Rest of article (http://www.linux.com/feature/151483)

For larger projects see
OpenProj (http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=199315)
GanttProject (http://ganttproject.biz/index.php)
Open Workbench (http://www.openworkbench.org/index.php)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Linux Continues to Define the Future of Computing While Microsoft Follows (http://www.linux-foundation.org/weblogs/jzemlin/2008/10/30/linux-continues-to-define-the-future-of-computing-while-microsoft-follows/)
Jim Zemlin October 30, 2008

It is hard for the executive director of the Linux Foundation to feel bad for Microsoft, but they are having a bad week while Linux continues to move forward in innovative ways into new markets for computing. Let’s take a look at the difference between Microsoft and Linux this week:

... Linux on more laptops than Windows? Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo and others shipping Linux desktops at unheard of prices? Microsoft stuck in a rut needing to follow rather than lead? And I only hit on a few things going on in Linux this week. As we reach the end of 2008, 2009 is shaping up to be a pretty good year for Linux.

Rest of article (http://www.linux-foundation.org/weblogs/jzemlin/2008/10/30/linux-continues-to-define-the-future-of-computing-while-microsoft-follows/)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Linux to Ship on More Desktops than Windows (http://www.linux-foundation.org/weblogs/jzemlin/2008/10/29/linux-to-ship-on-more-desktops-than-windows/)
Jim Zemlin October 29, 2008

For those that decry the constant prediction of the “year of the Linux desktop” I am happy to say that next year Linux may actually ship on more desktops than Windows or the Mac. That is right, I said next year. What is driving this? Two words: fast boot.

Matt Richtell of the New York Times wrote a great article on Sunday about the demand for faster start up times on computers. In the story the chronicled how HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus and a array of other PC makers are starting to develop “machines that give people access to basic functions like e-mail and a Web browser in 30 seconds or less.” Here is the interesting part: Linux is providing that access.

Rest of article (http://www.linux-foundation.org/weblogs/jzemlin/2008/10/29/linux-to-ship-on-more-desktops-than-windows/)

Demo of Splashtop quick boot at 1:20 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acDS7DmHC_g&eurl=http://www.splashtop.com/videos.php)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Tech Source from Bohol
Free/Open-source Video Editing Software (http://www.junauza.com/2008/02/freeopen-source-video-editing-software.html)

A software application which handles the editing of video sequences on a computer is called video editing software. It can also handle limited editing of the audio clips which accompany the video or at least the ability to sync the audio with the video.

Image editing software typically shows one image on a large area on the screen and a view of the directory. To hold many files in the directory, it is possible to zoom out, so that a single file only covers one pixel-line in the editor, or even less, for rough cutting. A play button lets the software automatically advance to the next image, thus playing the video. Like slide show editing software that comes with a lot of image file format decoders, video editing software comes with plenty of video codecs.

Some of the best video editing software are quite expensive, like Adobe Premiere and Apple's Final Cut Pro. However, thanks to these valuable free/open-source video editing software applications, you don’t have to empty your wallet.

Rest of article (http://www.junauza.com/2008/02/freeopen-source-video-editing-software.html)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Collabora funds development of open source video editor PiTiVi (http://www.linux.com/feature/152464)
Nathan Willis November 06, 2008

Open source multimedia specialist Collabora is hiring developers to work on the nonlinear video editor PiTiVi. The Cambridge, UK-based company contributes heavily to the GStreamer media framework and other GStreamer-dependent projects, so PiTiVi is a natural fit -- and it fills a sorely needed niche on the Linux desktop.

PiTiVi is a GTK+ video editor written primarily in Python and available under the LGPL. It uses GStreamer for audio and video processing, and the Gnonlin editing components. PiTiVi maintainer Edward Hervey is a Collabora employee, and the company employs another PiTiVi hacker part-time to focus on user interface improvements.

...

The lack of a stable, full-featured nonlinear video editor for Linux has been a sticking point for multimedia fans for several years. There are other efforts underway, including the DV-focused Kino and the community-driven Lumiera, a recent fork from the aging Cinelerra.

...

Full article (http://www.linux.com/feature/152464)

[Joe MacCarthy]

Theora Codec is Finalized Could Have a Big Impact on Video (http://ostatic.com/176546-blog/theora-codec-is-finalized-could-have-a-big-impact-on-video)
Sam Dean Nov 05 2008

As ZDNet is reporting, the open source Ogg Theora video codec has completed its beta phase and is available in an official version 1.0. On2 Technologies is the commercial player behind this, and the Xiph Foundation drives the open source effort. "Theora is a video codec with a small CPU footprint that offers easy portability and requires no patent royalties," says a statement from Xiph (you'll find the download links there too). Here's why this matters.

Theora is actually much more widely used than many people realize. Upcoming releases of Mozilla Firefox and the Opera browser will support it natively, and Wikipedia uses Theora for all of its video. It's very much an open source darling, and we've really liked the Mac version of Simple Theora Encoder, as Lisa discussed here. An official version 1.0 of the Theora codec is a signal that the codebase is stable and ready for adoption in many more projects.

Theora is capable at this point of single-pass encoding and decoding at multiple bitrates. Also as ZDNet points out:

"Since the codec is unencumbered by royalties, it can be offered as a W3C standard, bringing video inside the Web standards world without relying on a plug-in. It also means you can plug a DVD player into a Linux box and support a codec with the same basic license structure as the operating system."

Video and media playback issues have long been a sore spot for Linux users, so this bodes well. It's also notable that two of the top browsers out there will support this codec natively. I won't be surprised to see Google Chrome follow suit, and I expect Theora to have a pronounced impact on the growing world of online video.

[Joe MacCarthy]

SourceForge Project of the Month, November 2008

Project name: Shareaza (http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/)
Date founded/started: 2004

Description of project:

It is a peer to peer application that allow you to share and download every type of file from 4 networks simultaneously (Gnutella, G2, eDonkey, BitTorrent), it can also download from HTTP and FTP.

Some recent open source program updates
Blender 3D Animation (http://www.blender.org/)
ClamWin AntiVirus (http://www.clamwin.com/)
GanttProject Project Management (http://ganttproject.biz/)
GIMP Image Manipulation (http://www.gimp.org/)
GNUCash Personal and Small-business Accounting (http://www.gnucash.org/)
InfraRecorder CD/DVD Burning (http://infrarecorder.org/)
Pidgin Instant Messaging (http://www.pidgin.im/)
VideoLan Media Player (http://www.videolan.org/)
HTTrack Website Copier/Offline Browser (http://www.httrack.com/)

[Joe MacCarthy]

SimplyMEPIS: The best desktop Linux you haven't tried (http://www.linux.com/feature/153431)
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols November 21, 2008

Nowadays, everyone uses Ubuntu, most people have used Fedora, and many folks have tried openSUSE. SimplyMEPIS (http://www.mepis.org/) ... not so many. That's a shame, because this relatively obscure Debian-based desktop distribution from Morgantown, WV, is an outstanding desktop operating system. With SimplyMEPIS 8 at beta 5 and closing in on release, I tested the distribution and found it to be a keeper.

Rest of article (http://www.linux.com/feature/153431)

[Start fan in exile]

Came across OpenSophie today - looks essentially like a form of word processor for creating multi-media documents. Haven't tried it myself, but looks interesting. Gets mixed reviews on Versiontracker.

http://opensophie.org/

[Start fan in exile]

Came across OpenSophie today - looks essentially like a form of word processor for creating multi-media documents. Haven't tried it myself, but looks interesting. Gets mixed reviews on Versiontracker.

http://opensophie.org/

[Joe MacCarthy]

Good find, thanks, hadn't heard of it.

OpenSophie (http://opensophie.org/) is a fork of Sophie (http://sophieproject.cntv.usc.edu/)

Some additional info.

OpenSophie (formerly Sophie) description
A reading tool. It is, arguably, the world's best e-book reader

Sophie is software designed to handle digital media assemblies, which allows you to combine images, text, video, and audio into a single multimedia document. It is an easy-to-use program that let's you put together documents, slideshows, presentations, annotated videos, and more.

This tool allows readers to create and share with others their own indexed and commented "readings" of important texts. Sophie's search feature lists the chapter and the phrase for each occurrence of a search string.

NOTE: Sophie is licensed under a version of the BSD license.

Sophie’s goal is to open up the world of multimedia authoring to a wide range of people and institutions and in so doing to redefine the notion of a book or “academic paper” to include both rich media and mechanisms for reader feedback and conversation in dynamic margins.

http://i35.tinypic.com/ay2ej5.jpg
Above: a page talking about a style of flamenco, with different audio files demonstrating that style. The play and pause buttons can be used to control the audio.

[Joe MacCarthy]

What to Expect From Linux as a New User (http://www.computersight.com/Operating-Systems/Linux/What-to-Expect-From-Linux-as-a-New-User.369269)
Razvan Teodor Coloja, Nov 29, 2008

Meeting Linux for the first time can be a puzzling experience for new users. Here's a short article about what a Windows user has to expect from the operating system.

When you spend one half of your life using Windows, switching to Linux can be a little bit confusing at first. Just like any other new thing in your life, it may need growing accustomed to it. While Linux may look similar at first, there are some things you need to know before you embark on your Linux journey.

The filesystem

It is radically different than what you know from Windows. While in XP or Vista you have your Program Files and Windows directories, each with their sets of subdirectories, the folder structure in Linux is composed of several directories, each displayed in a tree format. For example, 90% of the configuration files for the application and system reside in the /etc folder. Most subfolders you'll encounter here belong to one or multiple other applications or the system itself. The /boot folder holds the kernel (core of the operating system) and the configuration files needed by the bootloader.

/usr is where your programs will be installed. You can compare /usr to your Program Files from Windows. /usr/bin is where almost all program binaries go. I say almost because some system utilities will be installed in the /bin directory located in the root of your partition. /var contains your logs and in most Linux distributions is also the place where your Apache web server root will be located, if you chose to install the server.

/media (also named /mnt in some cases) is where you'll find your harddisks, mounted USB drives, the CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives and other mobile storage devices. The system needs to mount these as directories, just like you have to mount a network drive while in Windows.

/root belongs to the root user. The root user holds absolute power over the system. He is the system administrator and this account should be used sparingly. Launching certain commands with root privileges could be harmful for your system, just like in Windows.

/opt is the place where some 3rd-party applications will install their files. It is seldom used by programmers as a place for their applications.

/lib will hold your library files. Library files can be best compared to Windows .DLL files.

Finally, the /home directory is where all your user files are. When you create an account, a folder that bares the same name as the username will be created under this /home directory. Subfolders in your /home/username/ directory can hold data for the application you installed, your personal files, pictures, videos and documents.

Applications

You won't find an .EXE in Linux. Executable files (also called binaries) become executable not by extension but by permissions. If a file has executable permissions, then you can... well... execute it. If you ever used FTP to upload files and change permissions for those files, you'll understand better how this works.

Files in UNIX-like systems can be readable, writable, executable, or a combination of these three (RW, RWX, RX, WX). A BASH script for example will open just as a regular file if it doesn't have the executable bit set on it. Put an X permission on it and it will launch just as a regular program.

However, stay assured, you will rarely need to modify permissions for applications as they come with all their necessary permissions already set.

When it comes to installing applications, you can do it just as you did in Windows: search for it, download, double click, install. There are other, faster ways to install applications in Linux. Depending on your Linux distribution, you'll be able to access software repositories. These are basically servers holding software packages. Through a command line or GUI program you can search for the application you desire and install it in just under 10 seconds, cutting the time you otherwise use to actually search for the software.

Permissions

Linux is very strict with permissions. Trying to install a program as a regular user will in most cases be greeted with a password window asking for permission to setup the new software package. Modifying system files and configuration files belonging to global applications also require permissions.

Keep these things in mind before you start using Linux for the first time. Many new users are puzzled enough by the new operating system they're experiencing and get frustrated when they don't understand why things are like they are.

All new things have a certain learning curve that you'll need to pass through, but I hope this would have been a useful introduction.

[Joe MacCarthy]

Go-OO: The best office suite you never knew you used (http://www.linux.com/feature/154364)
Federico Kereki December 04, 2008

If you run Ubuntu, openSUSE, Debian, or Mandriva, among other distributions, then whenever you run OpenOffice.org you don't run the "official" version, but rather Go-OO, an office suite based on the OpenOffice.org source code. Go-OO includes enhancements and functions that haven't been accepted by Sun, and that may never be, because of licensing, business, or other reasons.

Sun, the major contributor to OpenOffice.org, applies its own set of rules on the project's development, licensing, and copyrights, and as a result, there are often clashes with the general open source community. (Read this interview with an OpenOffice.org developer for more inside info on the Go-OO/OpenOffice.org rift.) Novell is the main mover behind Go-OO, but Debian and Ubuntu developers are also cooperating by maintaining a large group of patches, and making sure they don't break newer OpenOffice.org releases. There used to be a certain lag between Go-OO releases and OpenOffice.org's, but now both variants come out quite close.

Thus, if you install OpenOffice.org in Ubuntu 8.10, though the package is named "OpenOffice.org Office Suite," if you check the package description, at the bottom it reads "Homepage: http://www.go-oo.org," showing its true source.

Go-OO is available both for Linux and Windows. If your distribution doesn't appear to carry it in a repository, you can download the version you need and install it yourself, though before installing Go-OO, you might need to remove your current OpenOffice.org installation.

Among the latest features included with Go-OO you can find:

* Better graphics capabilities than OOo provides; you can import SVG and WPG graphics and EMF files.
* 3-D transitions for presentations.
* A solver for spreadsheets that can find the value of a cell, satisfying arbitrary constraints. OpenOffice.org now has its own, but the one in Go-OO appeared first and has quite a story of its own, showing disagreements between Sun and independent developers.
* Better integration with Microsoft Office, including VBA macro support and support for Office 2007 OpenXML file formats, and Microsoft Works.

However, what most people notice is Go-OO's greater speed, including shorter startup and faster response times. The application's memory footprint is also smaller.

If you've been using Go-OO without realizing it, you probably have no need to change to the latest OpenOffice.org version. But if you have only used the "official" OOo version, trying Go-OO might pay in increased speed and added functionality.

Even more variants

Go-OO isn't the only variation of OpenOffice.org. For Macintosh users, NeoOffice is well adapted and integrated into the Mac environment. This fork is based on version 2.2 of OpenOffice.org and doesn't incorporate all latest changes that have been made to OOo.

OxygenOffice is based on the Go-OO code. Its main focus is on providing a better look, along with templates, cliparts, fonts, and samples.

[Grizzly]

JM, is this the reason Open Office looks nicer in Linux than Windows? I have both openSUSE and Windows on my computer and though I have to admit I use Windows more often (a combination of habit and some of my Windows programs not being compatible) one of the things I notice when I do use Linux is that Open Office looks much better.

[Joe MacCarthy]

^^Could be the chosen or default icon set. Go Tools-Options-View (Icon size and style drop down menu) to view or change the look of your icons. I have seen the automatic and/or default icon set be two different sets. Personally I like Galaxy (small) (which I believe is the most recent) the best.

To be honest, I haven't noticed a difference between the Bill and Ubuntu versions but there could be and I just haven't noticed.

[Joe MacCarthy]

I am all hepped up for Christmas (actually Boxing Day or soon after). After much research (to suit my own computing habits) I'm going to buy a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (and possibly also a new desktop with an HDMI port).

Here is the rub. I'll likely buy the Mini with Bill XP instead of Ubuntu, for two reasons. One, the Ubuntu Dell offers is 8.04 instead of 8.10 and the second is that the Win XP machine may actually be cheaper. How can a proprietary OS be cheaper than a "free" one?

The Dell Win XP comes with all sorts of 30 day trial crapware that helps subsidize the price of the computer. So what I'll likely do is format the machine and put Ubuntu 8.10 on it and thanks to Dell I'll have copies of the software that I erased (interesting that the Mini has no CD/DVD to use with these, but I digress)

On top of the new Ubuntu installation will go the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (http://www.canonical.com/projects/ubuntu/nbr) which is faster than the Dell Desktop they put on top of Ubuntu 8.04, (although they do allow you to toggle back and forth between the Dell and regular Ubuntu desktop).

Ubuntu Netbook Remix
http://www.canonical.com/files/video/netbook-screencast-img.png

[Joe MacCarthy]

I am all hepped up for Christmas (actually Boxing Day or soon after). After much research (to suit my own computing habits) I'm going to buy a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 (and possibly also a new desktop with an HDMI port).

Here is the rub. I'll likely buy the Mini with Bill XP instead of Ubuntu, for two reasons. One, the Ubuntu Dell offers is 8.04 instead of 8.10 and the second is that the Win XP machine may actually be cheaper. How can a proprietary OS be cheaper than a "free" one?

The Dell Win XP comes with all sorts of 30 day trial crapware that helps subsidize the price of the computer. So what I'll likely do is format the machine and put Ubuntu 8.10 on it and thanks to Dell I'll have copies of the software that I erased (interesting that the Mini has no CD/DVD to use with these, but I digress)

On top of the new Ubuntu installation will go the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (http://www.canonical.com/projects/ubuntu/nbr) which is faster than the Dell Desktop they put on top of Ubuntu 8.04, (although they do allow you to toggle back and forth between the Dell and regular Ubuntu desktop).

Ubuntu Netbook Remix
http://www.canonical.com/files/video/netbook-screencast-img.png

[Joe MacCarthy]

To show how varied the open source tree can be, here is a site I've had in my bookmarks for years but seem to have stupidly ignored. I guess I didn't drill down far enough.

The Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/index.php) is a a treasure trove of historical (and trivial) films, books, and audio.

There are many open source films but the real gems are the Prelinger Archives of Ephemeral Films. These are industrial films, commercials, early TV, and other assorted film shorts in the public domain.

Of particular interest are the Sex ed films (not for the reasons you may think). Sudden Birth shows police officers how to deliver a baby (in all its glory). It is interesting to try and figure out how they made that film (1966). Also interesting are the boy/girl school sex ed films from the 50s (for some reason my school never showed them so I guess I had to see what I missed). As someone posted, I doubt if they could show them today without some parent suing the school district in this PC world. The films are somewhat ahead of their time as they actually come out and tell it like it is.

Lest you think I am a total prevert (to quote Archie Bunker), I'm presently listening to the original CBS broadcasts of the D-Day landings where at first they are relying on German radio reports and believe them to be a hoax.

I encourage you all to have a look at this fantastic site. Some of the old films make you wonder if we have progressed or not, notwithstanding some sexist and (and as seen at this time) discriminatory material.

Also at The Internet Archive is the Wayback Machine. Have you ever gone to a website and found it suddenly gone. The Wayback Machine is able to bring back old websites from them being archived. Doesn't work in all cases but works quite often.

For example, a favourite site of mine was http://www.tvhandbook.com/ which was a book that had sample chapters of television and video and audio recording history. If you try the above address it will lead to a placeholder page (junk).

If you paste the url into the wayback machine search field and click Take Me Back it comes up with a page of search results. Pick the most recent with the most archived pages ie 2007 with 22 pages and then click on a date. When I found what I wanted I then bookmarked the new site.

So http://www.tvhandbook.com/ becomes
http://web.archive.org/web/20051211105226/http://www.tvhandbook.com/
...almost as good as it was.

I can't seem to figure out how to get the second (long) address link to work here in this post but if you copy and paste it directly into your browser it will work.

In Firefox you can download the Add on to do this automatically. It's called Resurrect Pages (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2570)

[Start fan in exile]

The Internet Archive is a favourite of mine - use it regularly. Some of the best things are the public domain feature films and docs. They have a lot of old Charlie Chaplin shorts as well, and a pretty complete selection of Abbot and Costello.

I highly recommend
- M. - eine Stadt Sucht ein Mörder by Fritz Lang
- The Kid by Charlie Chaplin
- The Power of Nightmares - a 3-part BBC doc drawing parallels between Islamic fundamentalism and US neo-conservatism. Fascinating.
- two great silent classics: Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

archive.org also has a fantastic audio library.

Another great place to visit is Project Gutenberg - an online library of public domain books. http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/

Other sources of public domain / open source content:

Open Library: http://openlibrary.org/
WikiBooks - open-source textbooks: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page
Wikiversity - open-source education: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikiversity:Main_Page
OpenCourseWare Consortium: major universities provide on-line education for free: http://www.ocwconsortium.org/
OERCommons - open educational resources for K-12 teachers: http://www.oercommons.org/
FreeSound - open sound effects: http://www.freesound.org/
PD-Info - a library of public domain sheet music: http://www.pdinfo.com/index.php
Public Domain Torrents - an alternative to Archive.org for downloading feature films now in the public domain. (mostly b/w b-movies): http://www.publicdomaintorrents.com/nshowcat.html?category=ALL


and my favourite: Creatvie Commons: http://creativecommons.org/

[Joe MacCarthy]

6 Ways to Get Much More Out of GIMP (http://ostatic.com/blog/6-ways-to-get-much-more-out-of-gimp)
Sam Dean Dec. 11, 2008

GIMP, the GNU Image Manipulation Program, is a long-standing and hugely respected open source graphics program, and many readers probably already use it.

Originally created at U.C. Berkeley its interface and feature set runs neck-and-neck with expensive proprietary alternatives such as Photoshop, and it has a thriving community of developers and plug-in creators. The GIMP site has many useful resources for the application, and there are also a lot of other places to visit for turning yourself into a power user of this excellent cross-platform application that always leaves new users bewildered that it is free. Here are six good choices.

Many GIMP users who use or have previously used Photoshop swear by GIMPshop, which is essentially a hack of GIMP that gives it an interface equivalent to Photoshop's, right down to individual menu choices and terminology used. In fact, it's so close in interface to Photoshop that, using it, you can follow the thousands of Photoshop tutorials available online in GIMP. Mac, Windows and Linux users can install GIMPshop. Edit GIMPShop was discontinued over 2 yrs ago. Newer GIMP works more similarly to PS....

There are many good books on GIMP, but you may very well find everything you need in the way of instruction in Grokking the GIMP. The book is available in a free HTML tarball in addition to a printed copy that you can buy. I highly recommend looking at the links in the contents. This free, online book takes you through layers, filters, resizing tips, masks, blending colors, case studies and way more than that. The screenshots and instructions are from an older version of GIMP, but many of the tutorials will still give you what you need to perform advanced tasks.

One of the best aspects of GIMP is that it has a thriving community of plug-in developers. There are plug-ins for granular tasks such as new ways to edit images, plug-ins for more flexible graphics printing options, and more. The registry of plug-ins is here.

Keyboard shortcuts always come in handy with graphics programs, and many Photoshop users employ them. In the link at the bottom of this page, you'll find useful shortcuts for GIMP.

On GIMP's own site, you'll find many tutorials. With them, you can create floating logos, learn how to do red eye removal in photos, make vignettes out of photos, and more. There are lots more community-driven and video tutorials at Gimp-Tutorials.net. Many of the tutorials there are complemented by useful comments and tips from readers.

[Joe MacCarthy]

First Thunderbird 3 beta arrives with UI improvements (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081210-first-thunderbird-3-beta-arrives-with-ui-improvements.html)
Ryan Paul December 10, 2008

Mozilla has announced the availability of the first Thunderbird 3 beta release. This version introduces some significant user interface improvements to the e-mail client, along with some very good IMAP optimizations.

Tabbed interface

The most visible enhancement in the beta release is the new tabbed user interface. When we looked at alpha 3 in October and wrote about some of the prominent upcoming features on the short-term roadmap, we pointed out that tab management and session restore were in the works.

In the beta release, users can open mail folders and individual messages in new tabs. The tabbing system is also exposed through Thunderbird's extension API so that third-party add-ons can take advantage of the feature. The latest nightly builds of Lightning, a calendaring extension for Thunderbird, allow users to display the calendar and task list in separate tabs. The new tab bar interface, which is modeled after the one in Firefox, has an overflow menu at the end but doesn't appear to allows tab reordering yet.

Rest of article (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081210-first-thunderbird-3-beta-arrives-with-ui-improvements.html)

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Mozilla Messaging (http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/)