September 7, 2012
by sjvn01
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Five things Desktop Linux has to do to beat Windows 8

In 2007, thanks to netbooks and Vista, Linux briefly exploded onto the desktop. Microsoft soon realized they were losing the low-end laptop market and they brought XP back from the dead and practically gave it away to original equipment manufacturers (OEM)s. It worked. Linux’s popularity receded. In 2012, Microsoft is once more bringing out a dog of a desktop operating system, Windows 8, so desktop Linux will once more get a chance to shine… if it can.

Linux is more than good enough on the desktop. Just ask Google, which used its own Ubuntu-spin, Goobuntu, not just for its engineering desktops but for everyone’s PCs.

While much of the reason why Linux hasn’t gone much of anywhere on the desktop has been because of Microsoft’s iron-grip on OEMs and anti-Linux FUD, Linux hasn’t helped itself much either. So what can Linux do to be as competitive as the Mac with Windows?

Five things Desktop Linux has to do to beat Windows 8. More >

September 6, 2012
by sjvn01
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Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD will give Apple’s iPad fits

I love my Nexus 7. It’s replaced my Apple iPad for daily use. But, at 7-inch display, people who want a full-sized tablet don’t like it as much as I do. For them, the new Amazon Kindle Fire HD with its 8.9-inch display, 16GBs of storage, and a price of only $299 may just hit their sweet spot

Don’t think for a minute that the Kindle Fire HD is just for home-users. True, it’s got lots of consumerish features such as FreeTime, so your kids won’t spend all day on the tablet; Dolby speakers for music and movies; X-Ray for Movies, which will let you get film info from IMDB while you’re watching a film; and so on. That’s all nice, but it was the business features that caught my eye.

This new top-of-the-line Kindle comes with Microsoft Exchange support and out of the box can sync e-mail, contacts and calendars with Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo. As I was watching this I couldn’t help thinking that is what RIM’s Blackberry PlayBook should have been… and wasn’t. Maybe the forthcoming 4 LTE PlayBook can be competitive, but the Nexus 7 and the Kindle Fire HD have raised the bar.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD will give Apple’s iPad fits. More >

September 5, 2012
by sjvn01
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OpenSUSE 12.2 Linux finally arrives

OpenSUSE, SUSE‘s community Linux, may not be as sexy as Fedora, Mint, or Ubuntu, but it’s still a strong, popular Linux for both servers and desktops and it’s good to see the latest version finally arrive after months of delay.

First due on July 11th, openSUSE didn’t make its release date because, frankly, it wasn’t ready for prime time. OpenSUSE release manager Stephen “Coolo” Kulow said in June, “our development project, is still far too unstable. Things have improved.

Andreas Jaeger, openSUSE’s program manager told ServerWatch‘s Sean Michael Kerner that the openSUSE developers had” concentrated on stabilizing the release.” The resulting Linux distribution may not always have the latest software, such as the newest editions of Firefox and KDE, but it should be very stable. Rock-solid reliability and performance have long been openSUSE hallmarks.

OpenSUSE 12.2 Linux finally arrives. More >

September 4, 2012
by sjvn01
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Chrome and Internet Explorer locked in Web browser desktop battle

I’m a big Chrome fan and so are many other people since Chrome recently became the world’s favorite browser, but according to StatCounter’s August numbers, Internet Explorer (IE), has been making a comeback.

By StatCounter’s count, Chrome passed Internet Explorer during the week of May 13th. StatCounter’s stats are based on a sample of 15 billion page views in the company’s network and they show that Chrome was gradually pulling away from IE. As Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter’s CEO wrote in a blog posting in July . “There is much greater competition now. Although IE still leads in countries such as the US and UK, on a worldwide basis Google’s Chrome overtook IE in May and maintained a narrow lead in June.”

In August, though, IE started taking some market share back. Chrome had increased its lead in July, 33.81% to IE’s 32.04% but IE closed the gap in August. By the end of the month, Chrome lost a bit, to 33.59% and IE had gained some to reach 32.85%.

Chrome and Internet Explorer locked in Web browser desktop battle. More >

September 3, 2012
by sjvn01
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How to watch football on the Internet

I’m not a big football fan, but like almost everyone from the United States, I have my particular favorites—the West Virginia University Mountaineers and the Pittsburgh Steelers–that I want to watch. Unfortunately, while watching even their most obscure games have gotten easier on cable or satellite TV thanks to ESPN, the NFL Network, and DirectTV, it’s not to easy to watch them on the Internet.

There is some coverage available though and here’s what I’ve found so far.

First, on the college side, ESPN3 used to be your go-to place on the Internet to watch live college football. While it still has some live sports—Canadian Football League (CFL) anyone?–Division 1 college football coverage is no longer a given. Some games are available, while others are blacked out.

How to watch football on the Internet. More >

September 3, 2012
by sjvn01
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Linus Torvalds on the Linux desktop’s popularity problems

I’m a Linux desktop user. Google’s staff are Linux desktop users. But the Linux desktop itself has never been that popular and Miguel de Icaza, one of the creators of the GNOME’s Linux desktop explained why in What Killed The Linux Desktop. Linux’s creator, Linus Torvalds, and other top Linux developers, had other takes.

De Icaza had argued that Linux desktop’s ‘failure’ was “rooted in the developer culture that was created around it.” Specifically, “Linus, despite being a low-level kernel guy, set the tone for our community years ago when he dismissed binary compatibility for device drivers. The kernel people might have some valid reasons for it, and might have forced the industry to play by their rules, but the Desktop people did not have the power that the kernel people did. But we did keep the attitude.”

By that, de Icaza meant, “The attitude of our community was one of engineering excellence: we do not want deprecated code in our source trees, we do not want to keep broken designs around, we want pure and beautiful designs and we want to eliminate all traces of bad or poorly implemented ideas from our source code trees. … And we did.”

Linus Torvalds on the Linux desktop’s popularity problems. More >

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