News IT&C

There’s no denying that the FOSS community has many virtues, but gender equality doesn’t seem to be one of them. Gender-related issues and tensions have plagued the FOSS world for as long as many of us can remember, and the...

Eye candy can be a great user experience sweetener, but tastes vary widely as to how much is just enough, and it’s one differentiator among Linux desktops. Fotowall is a handy app that can spice up your desktop as well...

CyanogenMod, which offers aftermarket firmware for Android mobile devices, is apparently planning to sell apps that have been banned from the official Android Market. Koushik Dutta, who writes apps for CyanogenMod, has put up a screenshot of what seems to...

What a difference a week makes. It was just the other day that Linux bloggers were celebrating the news from researcher Net Applications that desktop Linux had surged in popularity in recent months. Now, the mood in the blogosphere has...

The stage is set for a new battle of mobile form factors. The winner could set a new non-desktop standard for consumers and office workers looking for a better alternative to bulky laptops. Lighter, thinner and more powerful are the...

There’s nothing like a popularity contest to elicit a wide array of opinions — particularly those of the opposing kind — but recently an example appeared in the Linux blogosphere that seems to be something of an exception. “Debian is...

LiVES is an advanced video editor that can double as a video jockey tool. It is surprisingly powerful. But its interface makes it rather simple to learn. In fact, it has so many feature levels that this app would be...

OK, Greenpeace, arrest me now as an eco-criminal. I must have single-handedly deforested a good tract of the Amazon rain forest over the last few days. In mitigation, I plead that this was because of the requirements of my job....

There’s no doubt the Linux world has seen its share of good news over the past year or so, but every once in a while a tidbit comes along that calls for a little extra fanfare. Case in point: Recent...

It’s well known that Android is fragmented or, as Google CEO Eric Schmidt contends, “differentiated.” In a bid to codify design principles for the operating system’s look and feel, Google unveiled Android Design at CES on Thursday. This website seeks...

Many Android devices ship with stripped-down office suite apps that offer limited functionality loosely based on the kind you’d get with Microsoft Office on your desktop. Having had a discussion recently with someone who now regularly travels without a laptop,...

Well CES is nearing its conclusion for another year, winding down an event that may well have brought Linux more mainstream attention than any other in the show’s four-decades-long history. Much of that heightened focus has been due to the...

Remember this: The phone or tablet you purchased is yours. It does not belong to the carrier that you bought it from despite the fact that the device is emblazoned with its corporate identity, logo or splash screen. This outright...

As Android smartphones sell like hot cakes — 3.7 million were reportedly activated on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day — concerns about the fragmentation of the operating system are increasing, and Google Chairman Eric Schmidt sought to allay those fears...

Asking a seasoned Linux user what music player you should use is akin to bringing up questions about religion or politics with your drinking buddies. A much safer strategy is, don’t ask and don’t tell. But if you insist, let...

Amid the many predictions for 2012 regarding Linux and open source software, including my own forecast of Linux domination, there is a larger, wider embrace of open source software taking place not only in the technology and other industries, not...

At the Consumer Electronics Show on Sunday, Lenovo unveiled a smart TV it says is the world’s first to run Android 4.0, or Ice Cream Sandwich. Powered by a QualComm 8060 Snapdragon dual core CPU, the smart device — called...

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious,” a very wise man once said, and that’s surely as true in the tech world as it is in the rest of life. Maybe that’s why so many have...

I’ve always been a fan of antivirus maker AVG. That’s primarily because of the intense pain I felt when renewing staple Norton Symantec AntiVirus subscriptions back in the day, when the PC was our sole method of connectivity and Norton...

Linux bloggers’ New Year’s resolutions tend to be many and varied in any given year, but one most can surely agree upon is the desire to outfit a new PC with nothing but free software. That sentiment, indeed, is just...

YouTube is a great source for watching an eclectic collection of videos on music, human stupidity and worldly comedy. But I find it much too easy to go far afield as I click on “also watched” videos when viewing a...

Well 2012 has arrived at last, and not a moment too soon! Not only can we finally dispense with all the holiday festivities, but we can also say goodbye to a year that was far too tempestuous for comfort. Here’s...

Backing up data and restoring a crashed computer are two of those “I wish I hadda” moments in the life of every computer user. When you maintain a collection of computers for your job or organization, those tasks can be...

My interest in desktop eye candy vacillates with the seasons. The added productivity it brings to a particular desktop design is also a factor. Now that GNOME 3 forces a desktop without icons, I took a look at how useful...

British Telecom has filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming the Android operating system infringes of six of its patents. The suit attacks Google on a number of fronts, including Google Maps, Google+ and Google Music. While the technology in question...

As Android continues its breathtaking rate of growth, malware directed at the platform is keeping pace. Studies from McAfee and other antivirus software providers warn that Android is a breeding ground for malicious software. Google has come under fire as...

After such a tempestuous year as 2011 has been, it’s hard to imagine a more dramatic way for it to go out with a “bang” than with HP’s recent announcement about webOS. Yes, for those who missed it, HP finally...

Last month, I succumbed to a peculiar urge to go out to my local, friendly big-box consumer electronics retailer and drop almost a hundred dollars on a product that had been panned by the critics on launch, had a dubious...

Last month, I succumbed to a peculiar urge to go out to my local, friendly big-box consumer electronics retailer and drop almost a hundred dollars on a product that had been panned by the critics on launch, had a dubious...

Well December is halfway over for another year, and that means 2011 is drawing to a close. It’s been a tempestuous year, most would surely agree, and one that wrought momentous change in this already fast-paced industry of ours. Which were...

Text editors are usually replacements for full-fledged word processing suites. They can offer very simple one-trick functionality such as Leafpad or multi-functional tabbed writing tools with even some semblance of character enhancements like Gedit. Or they can offer something completely...

HP’s decision to open source its webOS mobile operating system may have met with some early cheers from observers glad to see the company’s indecision come to an end, but much of that relief has been increasingly tempered by...

Well December is halfway over for another year, and that means 2011 is drawing to a close. It’s been a tempestuous year, most would surely agree, and one that wrought momentous change in this already fast-paced industry of ours. Which were...

Text editors are usually replacements for full-fledged word processing suites. They can offer very simple one-trick functionality such as Leafpad or multi-functional tabbed writing tools with even some semblance of character enhancements like Gedit. Or they can offer something completely...

HP’s decision to open source its webOS mobile operating system may have met with some early cheers from observers glad to see the company’s indecision come to an end, but much of that relief has been increasingly tempered by...

Linux continues to grow both its reach and credibility among enterprise IT users and customers, bringing competition, price and time-to-market pressure and options to key markets such as cloud computing and mobile software. Looking at the coming year for Linux,...

Here in the world of FOSS, watching Microsoft can be like riding on the proverbial roller-coaster, with no shortage of ups and downs. Sometimes — like pretty much all the time when it comes to Android, for example — things...

HP announced Friday it will contribute webOS to the open source community. The decision seals the fate of the operating system, which HP acquired when it purchased Palm for $1.2 billion in April 2010. Since then, the Pre smartphone line...

Ever since the Galaxy Nexus, the Samsung-built Android phone that will usher in Ice Cream Sandwich, was announced in Hong Kong in October, the device has been constantly making the headlines. On Thursday alone, there were stories about its launch...

Education may be “the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world,” in the wise words of Nelson Mandela, but is that true of education in all its forms? That, indeed, has been the question of the...

One of the most-used leisure-oriented apps on my Android smartphones has been Google’s free My Tracks. The app brilliantly measures data related to hikes and bike rides via the GPS radio. It tracks distance, speed, time, elevation, grade and so...

Small packages can be deceptive, especially when it comes to evaluating desktop note-taking systems. Tomboy Notes can easily fool you into thinking you need a bigger, more powerful note-taking app. But the latest stable version 1.8.3 released on Nov....

The connected car is on the verge of going where no vehicle has ever gone before. Presently, many cars enable drivers to pair their mobile music and phone devices with their vehicles’ sound systems. But cars with telemetry that will...

New enhancements to EMC’s Atmos Cloud Delivery Platform are designed to ease the way enterprises and service providers implement and access public and private cloud storage. VMware vApp packaging should simplify installation, and improved visibility and reporting tools provide the...

Software programmers work hard to produce secure, error-free code. Of course, bad things can happen — but really, with increasingly diligent effort, how many things can go wrong? Quite a few, according to NIST. Because cybersecurity is a national goal...

Well the last ruckus over operating systems had barely settled down here in the Linux blogosphere when another one started up anew. The cause this time? Oh, just a little article entitled, “The Disadvantages of Using Linux” by a blogger...

Believe it or not, antivirus software makers are now pitching solutions for our smartphones. Do you believe the hype? Statistics floating around the sea of press releases from antivirus merchants proclaim the end of innocence for our lovable little Android....

Users of Google Maps are already accustomed to relying on the technology for directions to places like the airport or mall, but now they can also use it for help getting around inside once they’ve arrived. Google Maps 6.0 for...

It’s a sad fact of life that none of us are born experts in much of anything, and certainly not in Linux. Noobs are how we must all begin our adventures in the world of FOSS, in other words, much...

A little Wine with your Linux computing session can keep you using your favorite Microsoft Windows programs. What is Wine? Wine is a compatibility layer that’s sometimes referred to as an emulator, though it’s not “that kind” of emulator, according...