Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
Canonical is set to release Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon on October 18th. The following week, the Ubuntu Community is hosting an Ubuntu Open Week, which is essentially a series of online workshops for anyone who's ever had a question about the popular Linux distribution and how its community works.
You can talk to some of the project's key developers, engage in a Q&A with founder Mark Shuttleworth, and learn more about the Ubuntu community. If you want to learn more about a particular Ubuntu project or if you'd like to find out about becoming a developer or tester, this is a great way to get started.
The sessions will all take place on IRC. You'll need to visit the #ubuntu-classroom channel on irc.freenode.net. If you need a refresher on how to use a Windows or Linux IRC client, the organizers have even put together a handy page explaining how to join the chats.
Ubuntu Open Week runs from Monday, Oct 22nd through Saturday, Oct 27th.
So you want your Linux and your proprietary software too? Not a problem. Linspire 6.0 was released today. The software formerly known as Lindows is built on the open-source Linux kernel. But it includes support for proprietary components including MP#, Real, Java, Flash, ATI, and nVidia software, codecs and drivers.
Linspire is based on Ubuntu 7.04, but unlike Ubuntu you'll have to pay $50 for a full version of Linspire. Your money buys you support for the aforementioned proprietary components.
Earlier this year, Linspire and Microsoft announced a technology-sharing partnership. And sure enough, the latest version of Linspire supports Windows Media audio and video formats, True Type Fonts, and the ability to open .docx formatted documents using OpenOffce.org.
If you'd rather not cough up the $50, you can always try Freespire 2.0, which includes many, but not all Linspire 6.0's features.
What is white and red and stupid all over? YouTube! Or at least that is that is the premise that the StupidFilter project is using to seed their self-training database. And really is there any form of stupidity with a more enduring appeal than a video discussion? Of course not!
The goal simple: build a stupid filter that works like a spam filter. Take a huge collection of stupid comments (225,000 to start), rate and organize them according to stupidness, and then teach the filter to recognize stupidity in the wild. Once the research is done a core engine will be released suitable for implementation in blogs, wikis, social networks, content management systems, and video sharing websites.
The current target release date for an alpha release is December 2007. After that the race begins: can the StupidFilter keep up with the diabolical adaptiveness of internet stupidity? Or will "stupiders" change their tactics and find ways around the filtering technology (by using complete words, for example)? Only time, and the efforts of a few brave programmers, will tell.
We've known Mozilla had big plans for the mobile space for a while now. But we were a bit disappointed when Mozilla announced their first major Mobile offering back in August. Joey is basically just a web clipping service that lets you save web content using your desktop Firefox browser and access it from any old mobile browser. We were hoping to see a mobile version of Firefox.
Well, sometimes dreams do come true. Mozilla's Mike Schroepfer writes on his blog that work is underway to create a version of Firefox for mobile phones. There aren't a ton of details yet, but here's what we can tell you:
Mozilla is adding mobile devices to the list of "first-class" development platforms
Mobile Firefox will be able to run Firefox extensions on mobile devices and allow third party development via XUL
Mozilla is expanding its team of mobile contributors
Mozilla hasn't picked the target platforms yet. So there's no word whether you'll be able to run Firefox on Palm, Windows Mobile, or Symbian devices. Considering the iPhone is still officially a locked device, we doubt you'll see an official version for iPhone anytime soon, but that doesn't mean some industrious open source hacker won't find a way to run Mobile Firefox on the iPhone.
If you have an opinion about the next open source master of the universe software company(ies) for 2008, you can vote for them and make your voice heard at Linux Magazine's annual top 20 companies to watch edition. Last year, Zimbra, (recently acquired by Yahoo for $350 million) XenSource (enterprise virtualization bought by Citrix for $500 million) and Canonical (think Ubuntu on Dells) made huge breakthroughs.
Nominate your favorites by October 30 and the finalists will be revealed in January.
Need a good web page authoring tool but don't feel like pulling out the pocket book? Up until recently we would have recommended the excellent free application Nvu. But development on the open source tool has been pretty much stagnant.
Enter KompoZer, a new web page creator based on Nvu's code. The only reason the application has a new name is because it has a new developer and the Nvu name was trademarked by Linspire and the original developer.
So what can KompoZer do?
A WYSIWYG editor, much like DreamWeaver
Built on Gecko, Mozilla's layout engine
Integrated FTP file management
Jump between WYSIWYG editor and HTML tabs
Support for forms, tables, and templates
Linux, Windows, and Mac support
Version 0.7.10 looks an awful lot like Nvu, but with the addition of undo and redo buttons.
Looking for a good CD/DVD burning utility, but short on cash? Yesterday we mentioned that CDBurnerXP had been updated to include Blu-Ray and HD-DVD support among other things. And in the comments one reader pointed out another excellent (and free) disc burner.
InfraRecorder is an open source utility that doesn't skimp on features or accessibility. Once installed, you'll notice you can either launch InfraRecorder or InfraExpress. The latter version features a slimmed down interface with wizards for burning data, audio, and video discs. It's sort of InfraRecorder for dummies. The full feature gives you a ton of options that might confuse folks used to using Nero Smart Start.
Here are a few of the things you can do with InfraRecorder:
Create data, audio, video, and mixed-mode discs
Record dual-layer DVDs
Four methods for erasing discs
Record disc images (ISO and BIN/CUE)
Scan SCSI/IDE bus for devices and capabilities
Create disc copies using temporary disc image
Import session data from multi-session discs and add more sessions
It doesn't look like there's support for Blu-Ray or HD-DVD, but the product is still under development and new features are being added all the time.
About a hundred years ago the Industrial Revolution transformed the lives of millions of people. The invention of steam power, telegraph, electricity and the like freed people from labor intensive jobs and let them spend their energy on improving living standards. The focus of the industrial revolution was on new mechanical inventions. It wasn't until the invention of the transistor in the 50's that the next phase of technological revolution was kicked into high gear. The advent of the electronic age further improved the mechanical machines and allowed us new methods of communications. Now, computer software dominates large aspect of our daily life.
The same pattern is happening with the environmental technology movement. As we move to a greener future, all our focus and efforts are directed towards mechanical improvements to existing technology, such as the use of fuel cells or bio-fuels over fossil fuel, or the replacement of environmentally harmful materials with bio-degradable materials.
When AOL introduced 5 GB of online storage--for free--there was much rejoicing. The service is called XDrive. But that wasn't the extent of it. For a reasonable premium (that's ten bucks a month), you could get 50 GB of online storage. Not a bad way to keep a few backups handy. AOL also jumped in the sack with JSON ("jay-son"), a web API that allows developers to work the XDrive into their own apps.
One such app is the Open XDrive Usage Meter Widget for the Mac's built-in widget system, Dashboard. The widget includes analog and digital readouts of available storage (in megabytes) and offers configurable thresholds for low space warnings. The background of the widget will change to yellow and then red as you surpass those thresholds. And, as the author of the widget points out--it's already compatible with Leopard, the next release of Mac OS X.
What makes this interesting is that the copyright Monsoon Multimedia violated was technology protected by the General Public License or GPL. In other words, Monsoon had every right to use the open source technology. What they were not allowed to do was release a closed source product based on the open source technology.
Monsoon makes the Hava place-shifting box, which lets you stream audio and video content from your TV/cable box/DVD player etc to any internet connected PC. It works much the same way as a Slingbox.
The company used a modified version of the BusyBox software in its Hava software. As part of the settlement, Monsoon will make that code available on its website soon. This was the first copyright case that had gone to court involving the GPL license. Since the case is being settled out of court, the question of whether all the provisions in the GPL are enforceable will have to wait for another day.
Beginning November 12, One Laptop Per Child will be offering a special twofer - when you spend $399, one laptop will be donated to a child in need in a developing country, and another one will be sent to your child. Of course, you could just spend $399 and have the laptops go to two children in developing countries where they have little access to education, or on the other hand, you could reward yourself for doing such a good deed and have your own child benefit. Either way, you win and children win.
If you're interested in the 'give one, get one,' promotion, you can sign up and OLPC will send you a reminder email.
OLPC was started by Nicholas Negroponte and a core of Media Lab veterans. Its vision is to empower children in the remotest parts of the world and expose them to knowledge and their own creative and problem solving potential via laptops, the ultimate portal to ideas.
About the interface Check out our previous video walkthrough of Sugar, OLPC's user interface. As you would expect for a $199 laptop, there aren't a lot of fat apps and video games bells and whistles, however there's plenty of opportunity for learning and connecting.
About the laptop The XO is Linux-based, with a dual-mode display-both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white, reflective, and sunlight-readable at three times the resolution. The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have three USB ports and an SD-card slot for expansion. The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network. The laptops are designed to be extremely power efficient, enabling the use of innovative power systems (including wind-up).
Everyone wants a blazing fast PC. But if you've got a laptop, you also want long battery life. Oh yeah, and if you care about the environment or your home electric bills, you might want your desktop to suck electricity from the power grid a little slower too.
PC power consumption comes from a combination of hardware and software. Intel, AMD, and other chip makers have been trying to reduce power usage in their new processors, and Microsoft and Apple have tried to build power-saving features into their operating systems.
Now Intel has also launched a new initiative to encourage Linux developers to find ways to save power. The goal is to create a community of developers, users, and organizations committed to sharing code, bugs, or tips on reducing the power use of PCs running Linux. Intel has been turning to Linux as a way to boost battery life in ultra mobile devices, and has already demonstrated that low-power software can boost battery life by up to an hour on some devices.
It's no secret that a lot of consumer electronics devices are built using Linux and other open source software. That includes well known products like TiVo, and somewhat lesser known items like Monsoon Multimedia's Hava place-shifting device (it's a lot like a Slingbox, but there's a wireless model).
Open source software is often powerful, stable, and most importantly, available. The open source community has developed a wealth of code that developers can draw from in order to build robust consumer oriented products.
But while the software is often free, meaning you can use it without paying, it's also free as in speech. In other words, once you incorporate code that has been published under the General Public License, you have to allow others to see the source code for your device. And that's not something a lot of companies like to do. You know, trade secrets and all.
So when the folks that developed the open source BusyBox software, which is used in the Hava, asked Monsoon Multimedia for a peek at the company's source code and Monsoon failed to comply, two open source developers filed suit against the company.
This is apparently the first time anyone has filed a copyright infringement suit in the US involving an alleged violation of the General Public License. It should be interesting to see if the case goes to court where it could set precedent, or if Monsoon Multimedia decides to settle out of court.
This summer, the development team offered the first alpha of a native version of OpenOffice.org for OS X. In other words, there's a standalone installer and you the applications are themed to look like native Mac apps. But as with any alpha software, install at your own risk and expect many bugs. For example, you couldn't print documents at first. That might be a dealbreaker.
Now the team has announced that they plan to have a fully functional version working for OS X by the time OpenOffice.org 3.0 is released in September 2008. The new version will include support for Apple's Aqua interface.
Of course, if you can't wait that long, you might want to check out NeoOffice, an independently produced OS X port of OpenOffice.org.
One of the main complaints we're hearing from readers about IBM's new office suite is that you have to register in order to download it. IBM released Lotus Symphony yesterday. The suite includes a word processor, spreadsheet application and PowerPoint clone. It's built on OpenOffice.org, but it has a look and feel all its own. And it's free, but you have to give away a lot of personal information in order to download Lotus Symphony from IBM's site.
Fortunately, it turns out that there are a few ways to download the program without first signing up. No, we're not talking about downloading it from a gray market BitTorrent tracker, although we're pretty sure that's another possibility.
