Thursday, September 4th, 2008
Evolution of DNA: Open-source software traces code of life
There’s a new computer program that knows all about your history - but don’t worry, it’s not going to report those parking violations. It cares about the evolution of your DNA. And it’s open source.
How Big Can a Black Hole Grow?
Giant black holes sit at the cores of virtually all galaxies, and are thought to have grown from smaller seed black holes that swallowed lots of matter.
GNU turns 25
Today the GNU project celebrates its quarter-century. It was on 27 September 1983 that MIT slacker Richard M Stallman made his announcement that he intended to create a complete Unix-like system that would be completely open and hackable, giving anyone the right to modify and distribute the work.
Mozilla CEO uncertain about future relationship with Google
The simple fact that Google is now pursuing its own browser could leave Mozilla scratching its head. And quite apparently, Mozilla has not quite figured out how its relationship with Google will work out over the next few years.
7 Really Awesome Things About Google Chrome
After playing with it for a while, it’s too early to say that I’m blown away, but I must admit that I’ve stumbled onto some impressive feats which show that the team that built Chrome was intelligent, mature and forward-thinking. Here they are, in no particular order.
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Wednesday, August 13th, 2008
Office OpenXML A Dead End, Microsoft Will Back ODF
During the LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco, I met with Bob Sutor, IBM’s vice president of open source and standards. We discussed document standards and the implications of ISO’s controversial decision to grant fast-track approval to Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) format.
Top 10 Cell Phone Etiquette Rules People Still Break
Do we really still need to talk about this? You’d think with over a decade of experience under our belts along with our inherent delusions of hyper sophistication that we’d have figured things out by now. But the sad truth remains: cell-phone baggery is worse than ever!
What would happen if we each used 10% less gas?
For starters, we’d save billions of dollars and keep billions of tons of carbon dioxide out of the environment. So, on that note, support proper tire inflation, not off-shore drilling.
Leaves, Twigs, and Bark: Cheap Biofuel Alternatives?
It seems like new reports are practically coming out daily about the next great gasoline alternative— furfural, algae, and switchgrass, just to name a few. Now 3 more contenders have entered the ring: leaves, twigs, and bark.
Colorado Creating World’s First Fossil Fuel-Free Community
Called Geos, the 25-acre area will have 250 homes from smaller 850 square feet to mansion-sized 3,500+ square feet placed in four neighborhoods. While that’s a whole lot of houses, they’ll be keeping a whopping 40% of the area as green space.
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Thursday, August 7th, 2008
I had a great idea yesterday. I was thinking that since I like to take pictures and post them up on this blog, maybe people would appreciate a dedicated photo gallery.
One of the things that always annoyed me what that no on can really see the detail in my photos. The new camera that I got takes great pictures, but when I shrink them down to fit in the blog, I lose so much of the close up detail. For the blog, I shrink the photos down to 503 pixels. For the photo gallery, I will shrink them down to 1000 pixels. That should let the average blog reader (civilian) see what I want them to see.
Where can you see this marvelous new gallery? Well, right here. The gallery is an open source application developed by Coppermine Photo Gallery.
I just put a few photos in there for now. I am not going to drive myself nuts be going back to every photo I ever took to try to fill it up. Also, I am reserving the gallery for only really good photos…not everyday things I post here. Well, some of the stuff I post here, but only the good stuff. I will also refer to the gallery in my posts if I have a better photo over there.
When visiting the gallery, be sure to click the thumbnail photo. When the photo gets large, click it again for the really big one. That’s where you’ll see some really cool stuff.
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Thursday, July 17th, 2008
For some time, I have been looking for a versatile CMS (content management system) that would allow my mind to wander. So far, I have set up some pretty nice systems. They are meeting my goals, but I wanted to see how things would be outside the realm of business. I mean, a new website would certainly be set up under the business name, but it would be sort of a hobby site in the beginning and we would see what it looks like after a year or two.
There is a blurry line between CMS applications and blog applications now. I understand blogs are becoming actual CMS applications, so who knows what will happen with that. I can see WordPress staying my favorite for a while, but I feel like learning something new.
Here are some of the top open source CMS applications I looked at:
- Joomla
- e107
- Drupal
- Plone
- Mambo
- PHP-Fusion
- PHP-Nuke
- XOOPS
After going over a bunch of these, I decided upon Joomla (along with about a million other people). Just to let you know, there is a really great website that lists many top content management systems, along with blogs, wikis, etc… All listed systems are open source and the website has a link to their homepage as well as a demo of the front page and the admin. This helped tremendously during my research.
I really don’t know what I am going to do with this website yet, but I am sure that once I go through all the plug-ins, I will start forming a plan. For now, I am just going to do the install and document the process here. After that, I will document all the exciting things I come across.
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Monday, July 7th, 2008
Web 3.0 - Could it unseat Internet giants like Google?
Microsoft’s acquisition of Powerset signals the building of a future when the world could have access to virtual “software agents” who “roam” across the Web, taking care of the day-to-day hassles of humankind. It’s called a “Semantic Web” and it really could change the Internet at a fundamental level.
Move Your Business from Windows to Linux
If the cost of Windows is getting your small business down, consider shifting to Linux.
10 Tips for Securing Linux Desktops
You might find these suggestions to be pure common sense, but maybe you’ll see a means of security you never thought of before. If you’re a new Linux user, these tips are a great place to start to ensure that your Linux experience is a good one.
Social Media Sites that Deserve Your Affection
There are so many websites out their that serve the same purpose as Digg, Twitter, and Myspace. The question is; which of these websites are actually worth your time? Since time is one of the most valuable resources that us humans try to utilize, I’ll explain some of the social media sites that are worth using, and why.
Why Don’t More People Use OpenOffice?
Why don’t more people use OpenOffice, the free and open source alternative to Microsoft Office? Microsoft has spent years and dollars engineering creative ways to keep people using its costly software and preventing them from switching to OpenOffice — that’s one explanation, writes Lou Dolinar.
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Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
Microsoft Offers Cash To Use Its Search Engine
Microsoft plans to entice advertisers and users of its search engine with savings on online purchases on a site called Live Search cashback. Microsoft unveiled plans Wednesday to entice advertisers and users of its search engine with cash back savings on online purchases, launching a site called Live Search cashback.
He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died
Yesterday I came across a slightly mysterious website — a collection of Polaroids, one per day, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. There’s no author listed, no contact info, and no other indication as to where these came from. So, naturally, I started looking through the photos. I was stunned by what I found.
Top 10 Firefox 3 Features
The newest version of our favorite open source web browser, Mozilla Firefox 3, offers dozens of new features and fixes, but only a handful will make the most dramatic difference in your everyday browsing. It’s time to spotlight the biggest improvements that will make “Gran Paradiso” the browser to beat.
Cleanest Diesels on Earth Coming to US this Fall (+Timeline)
Later this year we will finally begin to see an influx of new model diesels in the United States. These new diesels will get better mileage (up to 60 MPG) and have cleaner emissions than your average car. When exactly can we expect to see them? Check out this detailed timeline.
10 of the World’s Most Luxurious Private Islands
Feeling a little cramped in your thousand square foot Manhattan apartment? Got a few extra million to blow? If so, you too can join the elite of the elite and buy your very own private island.
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Saturday, January 19th, 2008
75 Tips to Keep Your Car in Top-Notch Condition
‘Don’t fill up if you see the tanker’ - If you happen to see a gasoline tanker filling the tanks at your local gas station, come back another day or go to a different station. As the station’s underground tanks are being filled, the turbulence can stir up sediment. Sediment in your gas can clog fuel filters and fuel injectors…
Google to Host Terabytes of Open-Source Science Data
(Google people) are providing a 3TB drive array (Linux RAID5). The array is provided in “suitcase” and shipped to anyone who wants to send they data to Google. Anyone interested gives Google the file tree, and they SLURP the data off the drive. I believe they can extend this to a larger array (my memory says 20TB).
Why We Flirt
And before you claim, whether single or married, that you never flirt, bear in mind that it’s not just talk we’re dealing with here. It’s gestures, stance, eye movement. We’re biologically and culturally programmed to flirt.
The Science of Sleep (why scientists are still in the dark)
We spend a third of our lives asleep, yet no one really knows why. We do know that people simply don’t perform as well when they don’t sleep enough…
Wikipedia goes video
Wikimedia is partnering with the collaborative video service Kaltura to start rolling out video to Wikimedia sites. Right now, the feature is available on the WikiEducator demo site, which is not affiliated with Wikimedia. But eventually we’ll start to see collaborative video hitting Wikipedia as well.
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Sunday, December 30th, 2007
Technology Consumers Got More Choice in ‘07
In 2007 The computing world revolved around Microsoft, your wireless carrier controlled what your cellphone could do, and the record labels locked your legal music downloads with software to limit what you could do with them.
Spicebird a Mozilla-based collaboration Outlook killer
Spicebird is built on Thunderbird and Lightning, the powerful extension that adds calendaring functions to Thunderbird. Additionally it seems to integrate SamePlace, a Firefox extension that provides instant messaging capabilities based on the Jabber protoco
5 Things You’ll Love About Firefox 3
Firefox 3 Beta 2 shows some nifty new tools we can expect in Mozilla’s next browser
The Flexibility of Open Source
One of the things that has been a strong point of Open Source Software (OSS) for years, even if it hasn’t been held at the forefront of the battle, is the flexibility that OSS offers.
36 Startup Tips: From Software Engineering to PR and More!
This is a collection of startup tips covering software engineering, infrastructure, PR, conferences, legal and finance. They describe best practices for an early-stage startup
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Thursday, December 27th, 2007
The Flexibility of Open Source
One of the things that has been a strong point of Open Source Software (OSS) for years, even if it hasn’t been held at the forefront of the battle, is the flexibility that OSS offers.
The Economist: Ubuntu is the source of Linux’s rise
The Economist makes three technology predictions for 2008, two of which concern web surfing and the third of which concerns everyone, whether they surf the web or not. The Economist’s third prediction is that the technology world will open up:
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC1 vs. Shipping Vista
Microsoft just rolled out the first publicly available release candidate for SP1 of Windows Vista, and we snapped it up, eager to see if it’s faster than the currently shipping version of Vista. To test its speed, we ran a series of benchmarks on exactly the same machine, first with the original version of Vista, and then with the RC of SP1
2007 In Numbers: More People Using Yahoo Mail Than Gmail
Suprising but True …. at least according to this research….
Top 20 Linux Apps for 2007
It seems like every blog on the internet has one of these, so here’s my picks for the top 20 Linux applications. I’ll be covering programs from all different categories that I think stand out and shine as true wonders of Linux and will be presented in no particular order.
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Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
I went to Staples today to get the latest version of Adobe Dreamweaver, which is Dreamweaver CS3.
Just to let you know, I only bought this software after I searched online for open source alternatives to Dreamweaver. I think I came across the top alternatives, but each one had a fault that I didn’t really like. The top choice had a review. The software’s downfall was that it liked to change your code for you, which really isn’t cool. Dreamweaver actually brags about not doing that.
The reason I was looking for alternatives was because the $399 price tag seemed a little hefty for a web editing application. The upgrades are only about $199, so that’s what I will be doing from now on.
I installed the software and gave it a run. Wow, it seemed just like the 2004 version. I am assuming there are a bunch of new features in there, but I most likely won’t use them. I am not into building websites from scratch anymore. There is one thing though…it seems slower than the older version. That could be the Adobe influence of it. Geeez, I remember trying to open GoLive. For big sites, it took a few minutes. But then again, it could be Vista. Everything seems slower in Vista. I noticed that the minute I turned this computer on the day I got it.
I will let you know how it goes.
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