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Software

Cost-Conscious Companies Turn To Open Source 249

Posted by CmdrTaco from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.
Martyr4BK writes "BusinessWeek has a slew of special reports today on open source software discussing the benefits for buyers who are cost conscious and open source being the silver lining for the economic slump. They even have a slideshow of 'OSS alternatives' like Linux, Apache, MySQL, Firefox, Xen, Pentaho, OpenOffice.org, Drupal, Alfresco, SugarCRM, and Asterisk. These are all good examples (we use a bunch of them already); what other open source software can I use to drop my company's IT costs, and maybe get a decent bonus for the year?"

Comment Re:Configurable? (Score 5, Funny) 165

by debilo (#21998520) Attached to: KDE 4.0 Is Out

Maybe you should get work done instead of masturbating with your desktop environment. Other than changing the background image and window color scheme, how much more diddling do you need ?
Ah, a GNOME user!
Google

Submission + - Google had enough of Scroogle?

Submitted by
Giles
Giles writes: "Looks like Google have finally decided to block the Scroogle scraper (set up to protect searchers privacy) — as of 6pm BST today, searches through scroogle produce a 403 error. Scroogle also presents a version of the google results without advertisements, so google may have acted more to preserve revenue than to protect it's stash of data on you..."
Networking

Submission + - Online Board Games for Linux

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: After 6 years away from Linux I install Ubuntu. It's great. But — I can no longer play online Chess or Go. Sure, Ubuntu and its ilk are great — but this is a deal-breaker. Don't expect me to give up DirectX *and* online (Java-based) games! Where is a realtime Chess/Go server for Linux/Ubuntu?
Windows

Journal Journal: Windows update killed my computer

Journal by eagl

The latest set of windows updates killed my computer. After the mandatory reboot, the computer locked up hard. It locks before the windows boot splash screen even shows, even when I boot using the various "F8" options. I used a ubuntu live cd to make sure it wasn't a hardware problem, and after mounting the windows partition I saw that trying the windows "logged" boot option wasn't even getting far enough to create the log file.
Novell

Submission + - Novell's revenue for Linux up by 659%

Submitted by crush
crush writes: According to Linux Mag Novell has seen a massive surge in Linux related sales this last quarter: 'The company reported last week that revenue from Linux Platform Products was up 46% from the same quarter last year to $15M and Linux-related invoicing was up a staggering 659% to $91M.' Their conclusion is that Jeremy Allison is the only person that has decided that it's safer to take their linux custom elsewhere after last year's revelations of Novell's shady patent indemnification deal with Microsoft.
Windows

Submission + - Help me AT&T

Submitted by rhinokitty
rhinokitty writes: AT&T seems to feel the need to reassure people that Windows Vista will be compatible with their current Internet service: http://helpme.att.net/article.php?item=10680 Strange that this laundry list of requirements are needed just to get online. How would the customer who just switched to vista be reading this webpage, by the way?
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft's HD Photo spec: Review at your own risk

Submitted by
PetManimal
PetManimal writes: "Microsoft is preparing to submit its HD Photo standard as a replacement for the JPEG standard. Microsoft claims the new HD Photo standard can potentially display higher-quality photos that take up just half the storage space of an equivalent JPEG image. Unfortunately, it's not easy to actually read the HD spec — Microsoft forces users to agree to a legal document before downloading the spec. The agreement states that users cannot duplicate any part of the spec and Microsoft can "commercialize your feedback"."
User Journal

Journal Journal: what is this syntax doing? 3

Journal by eglamkowski

I have a shell script with the following lines in it:

#!/bin/bash

DATE="$(date +%Y%m)"
DATE="${1:-$DATE}"

IMAGE="${2:-/dev/dvd}"

I entered these in a command line and echoed back the variables and it just returns:

$ echo $DATE
200703
$ echo $IMAGE
/dev/dvd

Privacy

Submission + - UK Minister proselytising Open Source

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: George Osborne, British MP in the Treasury has opened a debate on the 'open sourcing' of politics on the Comment is Free website. Although I doubt parliament will take any notice.
Microsoft

Submission + - Tech Talent on the Cheap?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Eric Chabrow of CIO Insight agrees with Bill Gates, who told the U.S. Senate on Wednesday that it makes no sense to open our universities to smart foreign nationals, educate them, and then keep them from working in our country. Says Chabrow: "The technology skills shortage here exists now, and we must act swiftly. To help meet that shortage, U.S. businesses find themselves either importing foreign talent — which is restricted by limits on the number of skilled professionals who can immigrate — or sending the work overseas in the form of offshore outsourcing. Where better to start alleviating the skills shortage than to allow foreign-born, U.S. educated I.T. pros to stay here and work to grow our economy? Better here than there."

His readers don't agree with him.
Bug

Submission + - 'Our data is trapped'

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: "The problem we have here obviously is ... the software didn't work. Our data is trapped in the system, and we can't get it out." The Baton Rouge Advocate is running this piece about the loss of two years of data at the state sponsored property insurer to last resort. From the looks of it Citizen's Insurance outsourced its book keeping. The software being used lost the data. The State of Louisiana is now about to sue everybody involved. Sometimes the State of Louisiana can't win for loosing. We hire a private company to handle the books, through the trade association representing all the insurers operating in Louisiana, and this mess happens.
Portables

Submission + - AMD brings Xbox 360 tech to handhelds

Submitted by almondcookie
almondcookie writes: AMD has announced a new set of tools so that developers can make new gaming content for a number of portable devices. This includes Rendermonkey, which is already used for making PC and console games, and Ars Technica believes that these new tools enable Microsoft to turn the Zune into a gaming handheld. From the article:

Judging by the capabilities that AMD claims for Imageon and by the screenshots on the Imageon site, you could instantly add quite a bit of functionality to Zune with the inclusion of one of those processors. Zune could pick up a camera, and the new version of Rendermonkey, when combined with Imageon's support for unified shaders, could make it easier for Xbox 360 developers to do Zune ports.
Communications

Submission + - Tucows email defense users sent to some guys blog.

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Users of Tucows email defense service are receiving a quarantine report that links to some guys blog. This is capping off about three weeks of difficulties with the company. The problems lately have included being unable to send email to any ATT network, as well as to cox.net and aol.com. These problems continue despite the companys assurances that a fix is on the way. Let this be a lesson to you all of you who are tempted to outsource mission critical services. When things break, you need to be able to fix it. Can anyone else comment on this particular problem, or relate any similar anecdotes?
Privacy

Submission + - Big Brother alive & well in Sweden

Submitted by
sharky
sharky writes: "Sweden's government presented a plan Thursday to allow the government to use
data mining software to search for sensitive keywords in all phone and e-mail communication passing through cables or wires across the country's borders without a court order.

http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf? /base/business-10/1173371950225620.xml&storylist=b usiness"

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