Top 10 Free Software Daily stories this week!

Top 10 Free Software Daily stories this week!


Sun, 2008-07-20 03:51 -- admin

You get the best free software news at FSDaily... because YOU decide what's important. Here are the top 10 FSDaily stories from the last week as voted by the members. Don't like 'em? Think something's missing? Want to know more? Head to FSDaily and get voting!

Top 10 stories:

  1. 10 things I’ve overheard about my Linux laptop while on public transportation --I’ve been taking the train to work for 4 years now. It’s a 45 minute rambling ride in which I usually either read a book, sleep, or grab my laptop loaded up with Ubuntu and get some stuff done. Over time, I’ve collected a few funny remarks I’ve either over heard, or that people have said directly to me. Here are the 10 best. Read more...

  2. An Open Letter to my HoD --Letter is a Request to allow avoiding usage of proprietary software in curriculum. To use Nasm instead of TASM, When syllabus does not say about TASM or any other software for that matter. In a college with its campus (internet) network is available only in GNU. Read more...

  3. Malware on GNU/Linux --GNU/Linux users should not have any false sense of security just based on the fact that viruses designed for exclusively for windows won't run on GNU/Linux. Here is a list of "Linux computer viruses" Read more...

  4. Offline Wikipedia for Linux --Did you know that it's possible to view the content of the biggest and most widely used online encyclopedia without the need for Internet connectivity? That's right, Wikipedia, with over 10 million articles in 253 languages can be viewed offline in your Linux box anytime, anywhere. Read more...

  5. FreeRunner first impressions --"OpenMoko's FreeRunner went on sale on July 3. I ordered early that day and my FreeRunner arrived today..." Read more...

  6. The ISO Document: Brazil's Appeal and ISO/IEC's Attachments 1 and 2 - as text --Thanks to Groklaw's Steve Martin, we have Brazil's appeal against the approval of OOXML as an ISO standard, as text. It begins on page 11 of the ISO document [PDF] Groklaw published Wednesday, the recommendation memo to the TMB to toss the four appeals in the garbage. The memo lists Alan Bryden, Secretary-General and CEO, ISO, and Aharon Amit, General Secretary and CEO, IEC, as the authors. Read more...

  7. Improve system performance by moving your log files to RAM --The Ramlog project lets you keep your system logs in RAM while your machine is running and copies them to disk when you shut down. If you are running a laptop or mobile device with syslog enabled, Ramlog might help you increase your battery life or the life of the flash drive on your mobile device. Read more...

  8. Environmental and social justice groups unite in support of free software --"... While these environmental consequences alone are sufficient reason for many to reject Vista, the disposable computer mentality is a symptom of a larger problem—one that should concern all social activists. That problem is the dependency of activists on software owned and exclusively controlled by entities that design their software in ways directly opposed to grassroots social change. Read more...

  9. Linux in schools: a teacher speaks --Catching them young is a popular slogan and one that yields dividends too, no matter whether one applies it to the adoption of software or the learning of a language. And with a small window seemingly open for Australia's FOSS community to push for the use of free and open source software in schools, the question arises - how does one go about making the first inroads? Read more...

  10. How do you get down off an elephant? --If you're convinced that you still need anti-virus in your new Linux installation, or you know somebody who thinks that way, this article is for you. Read more...

Thanks to mark, freedom.fighter1988, dave, peterk, can.axis, GiTS, LittleBabyCheeses, bridget, and 3rdalbum for these stories!

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Interview with Dave Mohyla, of DTIDATA

Dave Mohyla is the president and founder of dtidata.com, a hard drive recovery facility based in Tampa, Florida.

TM: Where are you based? What does your company do?
DTI Data recovery is based in South Pasadena, Florida which is a suburb of Tampa. We have been here for over 10 years. We operate a bio-metrically secured class 100 clean room where we perform hard drive recovery on all types of hard disks, from laptop hard drives to multi drive RAID systems.

Anybody up to writing good directory software?

Since the very beginning, directories (of any kind) have had a very central role in the internet. (I have recently grown fond of Free Web Directory. Even Slashdot can be considered a directory: a collection of great news and invaluable user-generated comments. As far as software is concerned, doing a quick search on Google about software directories will return the free (as in freedom) software directories like Savannah, SourceForge, Freshmeat and so on, followed by shareware and freeware sites such as FileBuzz, PCWin Download Center and All Freeware (great if you're looking for shareware and freeware, but definitely less comprehensive than their free-as-in-freedom counterparts).

Interview with Mark Shuttleworth

Mark Shuttleworth is the founder of Thawte, the first Certification Authority to sell public SSL certificates. After selling Thawte to Verisign, Mark moved on to training as an astronaut in Russia and visiting space. Once he got back he founded Ubuntu, the leading GNU/Linux distribution. He agreed on releasing a quick interview to Free Software Magazine.

Is better education the key to finding better software?

I read David Jonathon's article Anybody Up To Writing Good Directory Software? the other day, which got me thinking about software directories in general. As David mentioned, many of the software directories one finds when doing a quick google search are free as in beer, not as in freedom. But what interests me is the software directories that already exist, providing a combination of both free as in beer software, and open source software. Sites such as Freeware Downloads and Shareware Download don't advertise themselves as providing free as in liberty software, but each of them have a good selection of open source software available... if you know where to look.

Most emailed

Free Open Document label templates

If you’ve ever spent hours at work doing mailings, cursed your printer for printing outside the lines on your labels, or moaned “There has got to be a better way to do this,” here’s the solution you’ve been looking for. Working smarter, not harder! Worldlabel.com, a manufacture of labels offers Open Office / Libre Office labels templates for downloading in ODF format which will save you time, effort, and (if you want) make really cool-looking labels

Creating a user-centric site in Drupal

A little while ago, while talking in the #drupal mailing list, I showed my latest creation to one of the core developers there. His reaction was "Wow, I am always surprised what people use Drupal for". His surprise is somehow justified: I did create a site for a bunch of entertainers in Perth, a company set to use Drupal to take over the world with Entertainers.Biz.

Update: since writing this article, I have updated the system so that the whole booking process happens online. I will update the article accordingly!

So, why, why do people and companies develop free software?

More and more people are discovering free software. Many people only do so after weeks, or even months, of using it. I wonder, for example, how many Firefox users actually know how free Firefox really is—many of them realise that you can get it for free, but find it hard to believe that anybody can modify it and even redistribute it legally.

When the discovery is made, the first instinct is to ask: why do they do it? Programming is hard work. Even though most (if not all) programmers are driven by their higher-than-normal IQs and their amazing passion for solving problems, it’s still hard to understand why so many of them would donate so much of their time to creating something that they can’t really show off to anybody but their colleagues or geek friends.

Sure, anybody can buy laptops, and just program. No need to get a full-on lab or spend thousands of dollars in equipment. But... is that the full story?

Fun articles

Santa Claus - the most successful open source project

It dawned on me the other day, as I was shopping for the dozens of gifts it seems I have to buy every December, that Santa Claus is the most successful open source project in history. (Bridget @ Illiterarty would agree with that). Santa Claus is essentially a marketing development that is embodied by everyone who stuffs a sock, gives a gift, hosts a dinner or wishes Merry Christmas over the holiday season.

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Editorial

When I first started thinking about Free Software Magazine, I was feeling enthusiastic about the dream. I had Dave, Gianluca, and Alan willing to help me, I had established members of the free software community willing to help me out, I had writers volunteering their time and energy for free, and I had a generous offer from OpenHosting for servers, all before I'd proved myself. There was a sense of excitement in the air, and I thought maybe, just maybe, I could make this work.

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