VLC player hits 1.0.1

VLC is an open source media player which supports a wide variety of formats. Just a few days ago it reached the version 1.0 milestone, which is great for all of us.

VLC is a great alternative to many proprietary media players, and usually provides wider format support, making it the media player of choice for many novice and proffesional users.

See the official notice here and also the discussion on Digg about it.

Weekly round up Sept 25th

Over the last couple of days there were quite a few interesting stories popping up around the net. Here are a few of them.

The first story is about a child in Russia that survived a plane ride on a the outside of boeing 737 by holding on to its wing. Though that sound questionable, the story is interesting and seems legit.

Another interesting story is about the M-16 and M4 and how they are pretty much obsolite, as the gun hasn't been changed or upgraded much since the 1960s when it was invented. In the link you'll find a movie article from PBS with the story and some interesting interviews and discoveries (e.g. did you know someone invented a 100 bullet magazine for the M-16?...).

Michael Winslow, the actor who starred in Police Academy (1984) (more info about him in his IMDB file) and also Spaceballs (1987) does a short skit in the neighboring blog Fuzbooo.

The movie poster is (c) of its respective owner.

Speaking of Spaceballs, I came across this fan site and noticed the ad that there's an animated series of Spaceballs coming this Fall to G4!

Amazing cloud formations can be seen a the link, though I must admit that those look too good to be real clouds, and if they are (i.e. assuming they are), well, they are just beautiful.

One more list of great Open Source tools for you to choose from, whether you're a student, an educator, or just a regular computer user. Open source provides you with free software alternatives to programs you would otherwise pay money for. Not only that, but for the same free-price you also get the source code, so that you'd be able to adjust the program to your own needs. For more information about open source, you can check out the list of articles I've written about them and also be sure to read more at the Free Software Foundation website.

400 million downloads for Firefox

Firefox has reached a great milestone of 400 million downloads. Though that number does not neccesarily mark 400 million users, it still is an important benchmark for the Firefox team and the Open Source community as a whole.

The official release about it can be found here and you can also read about it over at CNET.

Open Source and Education

Dana Blankenhorn writes about Open source in the K-12 education system, its difficulties and achievements, and how it copes with Internet restrictions in the education system.

See also the discussion in Digg.

Free Software Sticker Book - update

After so many downloads, some of the mirrors were down, as you've noticed. There are now more mirrors, and one of the nice things about the Open Source community is that there are more and more people contributing to the project. The book has been updated with more and more new stickers.








You can check out the Free Software Sticker book here or here, and don't forget to read my original post here.

Linus explains why Open Source works

The people over at Linux.com have an article about Linus explaining why Open Source works.

It's worth a read, especially if you're into Open Source.

See also the comment on Digg.

Free Software Sticker Book

What a novel idea! a book full of stickers for you to print, and all you have to do is download it, and print away.

So simple. So good.

Pictures include Linux, Drupal, Gnu and many more.

Also, see discussion on Digg regarding the book.

UPDATE: You can find a mirror of the original site here. You can also visit the project's page on the Google Code at this address.

Student starts Firefox campaign on campus

I've come across an interesting story about a student who decided he's going to switch all of the people on his university's campus to Firefox.

His name is James F. Beckner III and he is the representative of the Firefox campaign on his campus.

I wish him luck, and hope he'll convince people to try it out - and maybe even switch over.

Open Office for Schools

I came across a blog post by Nate Grondin about Open Office and wanted to support Nate and other teachers and educators.

Open Office is a great alternative to the proprietary programs we use - whether a word processor, a spreadsheet, a presentation generator or even a drawing tool - they're all there in the pack.



The first noticeable advantage is the price - it's free! yes, absolutely free. The second advantage is that it is Open Source, which means that it is in constant evolution to become better than before*.

Like with everything that is free, you make some compromises. I.e. knowing that it'll take some time to get used to the new GUI, and perhaps some of the smaller functions may not be ripe yet. But for most work that needs to be done the Open Office provides a great alternative to the proprietary office software that's out there.

If you're wondering what you can do now about this, whether it's for saving a few bucks for your school, or just to educate your self, why not start with something real basic - download the Open Office and start getting acquainted with the GUI and all the menu layouts. That way, you can get a taste and feel of how Open Office works. You'd be surprised how some things are very similar, other very intuitive. Some of the things you'll learn will be new to you, but that's all part of life - to learn.

Open Office is a good alternative, in my view. It provides you with most if not all of your needs. And now is a good a time as any to start familiarizing yourself with it.

This recommendation is of course spoken from experience - I've downloaded it and even installed it for my dad.

* Open Source is a very wide topic with many advantages (and some disadvantages) for the end user. However, since writing about Open Source can be very lengthy and stretch into a book or two, if you don't know what it is and want to learn more, I suggest reading more about it. You can even see my previous posts on Open Source on my blog.

Drupla or Joomla?

Some of you may remember that I've been trying to decide on a new CMS for the website I was running, as described in my previous post.

Since then several things changed, some of them more major than others. But, the overall influence of the time that's passed forced me into a harsh decision I was not willing to make - I have to choose the best CMS for the website.

I am not the sole webmaster on the project, and lately I've had less time to contribute to it. That changes the preferences for the decision.

If it were up to me I would choose to try out Drupal. Reasons include a wide range of users from around the net, that is mainstream sites that I surf to that use Drupal (i.e. www.twit.tv), a growing community of users and the international multi-language support it started to offer (translations are in good shape only since the last version).

However, since it is not, the decision was made to go with Joomla. I am not disappointed, and actually I am a bit relieved. Choosing Joomla allows me to let the other webmasters push forward with their ideas and advance the website, as some of them know Joomla. Those that don't know any CMS will learn Joomla, and maybe some day take on Drupal.

I will return to Drupal when I'll have a bit more time and perhaps use it for a personal website or project.

Management 'scared' by open source - EclipseCon

A report from EclipseCon about Open Source licensing and the big corporations.

Roadmap into Linux

IBM published a roadmap for developers making the transition to Linux. This overview of the process will help people (developers, students) make the transition a lot smoother, from a Windows OS to the Linux OS.

Over the past several years I've come across several surprises from the people at IBM. I wonder if they are still worthy of the notorious nickname they've had for years, "Big Blue".

By adopting Drupal, supporting Open Source contributing to many open initiatives, I think that my personal view of IBM is changing.

At the bottom of the page you'll find lots of helpful links they've collected.

Quoting Wikipedia as a Source

As a university student, one of the things you look for when writing a paper is supporting sources for your work. You scan and skim through many articles, essays, books and other sources before you can find write one for you.

In the Digital Age, searching has become a tedious job. With a click of a button and a scroll of the mouse we can now skim and brush through so many more sources than ever before. The information age brought with it the opportunity to explore databases and sources that were never before available to us at a very small (almost nil) cost.

I came across this article in Yahoo (by AP News Agency) that tells of how in Middlebury College students are not allowed to quote Wikipedia as a source.

This should not come as a surprise to people, students and teachers alike, since Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales was quoted saying that for Academic papers you should not base your material only on Wikipedia in an event in UPenn.

It is understandable, since Wikipedia relies on user input to generate its knowledge (though there are problems with plagiarism from time to time). There is no scientific research to coroborate the information in the Wikipedia, and also no sure way to verify its authenticity.

The only logical conclusion is that Wikipedia is a good starting source for a project, pointing you in the direction of the quotable sources that'll be academic enough for your university/college paper.

Open Source on a USB flash memory

French students will get a USB drive filled with Open Source software for their own use. The article goes on to explain why and how, but I just wanted to express my opinion that it's a novel idea. Using a USB drive and giving it for free to teenagers is a step in the right direction in teaching them about the Open Source alternatives to other software they already know.

Drupal - IBM's choice of Open Source CMS

IBM has decided to choose the Drupal CMS as their Open Source CMS. Drupal was prefered over Ruby on Rails and other Open Source CMS, such as Mambo (and Joomla) and Typo3. To be honest I do not know the latter, but I do know Joomla and I find the simplicity of it reassuring.

I have already wrote about my dillema, to Drupal or not to Drupal?. I am currently considering a variety of Open Source CMSs, including PHP-Nuke, Joomla, and Drupal.

The last couple of weeks were dedicated to getting to know the Joomla interface better. During the next several weeks I will look into the Drupal craze that the wave seems to have caught.

This is the link to the article at the IBM website that entails in great length the reasoning for this choice. I think you'll find it to be a good read.

Open Source for Windows

A great list of all many, if not all, open source projects out there. This list is a great idea that will help many, whether is be individuals or small buisness owners, who've always wanted to switch to open source and didn't know where to start.

On my part I will say that I found open source to be a worthy substitue to payware (software that you buy in order to use). On most projects the final resault is at least as good, and sometimes even better than the payware acquivalent.

I suggest you go over the list, and maybe even consider making a small donation to help keep it alive.

Greasemonkey

As an avid FireFox user, I've come to love the various extensions available. I find them far superior to the add-ons available for the IE, and far more versatile. A great example of it is the Greasemonkey extension. Allowing me, the user, and not the webdeveloper to decide how the site will show up on my screen is a tremendous advantage.

One possible use that comes to mind is people who are vision-impaired and can use an enlargement of all the text on a page.

There are links on the main page of the Greasemonkey site, including ones that teach you what you can do and how to do it.

I'm off to learn the stuff ;-).