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Comment Re:Yes, without reservation (Score 2) 982

by Splintercat (#52229751) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Would You Recommend Updating To Windows 10?

My Grandma is happily uses Linux. All she cares about it being able to get to email.
My Parents actually asked me to switch them back to Linux because they kept having troubles with Windows 7.
My Uncle uses a Chromebook, because they are really hard to screw up and easy to repair.

Encouraging the people I know to switch to Linux has dramatically cut down the number of times I get asked to fix something. Something like Linux Mint just works and tends to be more responsive. It also doesn't have Windows' bad tendency to demand that you restart because it just installed updates.

On the flip side, there are plenty of people I would recommend Windows or OSX to. Normally it's because they need/want to use an application that just isn't available under Linux. I feel like the learning curve for casual use for someone going from Windows 7 to Windows 10 might actually be worse than going from Windows 7 to Linux Mint, Ubuntu, or OSX though.

Submission + - Dragonbox Pyra - The Open Pandora successor now available for pre-order (pyra-handheld.com) 2

Submitted by Splintercat
Splintercat writes: For those of you interested in a handheld computer running Debian, the Dragonbox Pyra is now available for pre-order.

The money from the pre-orders will be used to pay for the first production run and determine if there is enough interest to meet the minimum order quantity for the cellular modem chips that they would like to use.

The Pyra will feature a 1.5Ghz DualCore Cortex A15 Arm Cpu, up to 4GB of ram, 32GB of built in flash storage that can be expanded with 2 SDXC cards, a 5 inch 720p touchscreen, 2.4 Ghz / 5Ghz wifi, Bluetooth 4.1, optional 4G LTE and GPS, one USB 3.0 OTG port, 2 full sized USB 2.0 ports, a micro HDMI port, a backlit keyboard, gaming controls, and an estimated 8 hours of battery life (Though that should be greatly improved once power saving features are enabled). The device is roughly the size of an original Game Boy, or 3dsXL.

Full disclosure: I don't work for OpenPandora GmbH. I own two Open Pandora systems, and have pre-ordered a Pyra. I am very happy with how the Open Pandora turned out, and figured there are other people out there who would have an interest in such a device.

Comment Re:That was easy (Score 1) 867

by Splintercat (#50503843) Attached to: Microsoft Is Downloading Windows 10 Without Asking

Ubuntu gives you an option to do an in-place upgrade through their upgrade gui, and it's worked just fine for me the several times I've used it.

Under Linux Mint it's been a bit trickier, but not really that bad. I wish they handled the in-place upgrade stuff a bit better, but on the flip side the rest of the OS works really well for me and has many of the tweaks I'd normally apply to Ubuntu already done. With Mint 17 you actually can upgrade in-place to the point releases which seem to be tracking some upstream changes.

While I find the short support times annoying, I find it acceptable that a short term release becomes unsupported quickly. The LTS releases from Ubuntu get security patches for 5 years, and you don't have to pay them any money for the service.

Also whining about having to use the command line is like whining about having to drive stick instead of automatic. Automatic is pretty easy, but once you learn it, driving stick is not much more difficult and many people actually enjoy driving that way.

Submission + - Bidding farewell to Google Code (blogspot.com)

Submitted by John Bokma
John Bokma writes: Beginning today, we have disabled new project creation on Google Code. We will be shutting down the service about 10 months from now on January 25th, 2016. Below, we provide links to migration tools designed to help you move your projects off of Google Code. We will also make ourselves available over the next three months to those projects that need help migrating from Google Code to other hosts.
  • March 12, 2015 — New project creation disabled.
  • August 24, 2015 — The site goes read-only. You can still checkout/view project source, issues, and wikis.
  • January 25, 2016 — The project hosting service is closed. You will be able to download a tarball of project source, issues, and wikis. These tarballs will be available throughout the rest of 2016.

    Google will continue to provide Git and Gerrit hosting for certain projects like Android and Chrome. We will also continue maintaining our mirrors of projects like Eclipse, kernel.org and others.

Submission + - Google's Graveyard Haunts Compute Engine (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: In case you missed it, there’s been a bit of a hubbub about whether Google is committed to its Compute Engine offering. The question popped up when analyst Rene Buest raised the alarm after reading a GigaOm story that said Google Cloud Platform manager Greg DeMichillie 'wouldn’t guarantee services like Compute Engine will be around for the long haul.' While it's fairly unlikely that Google will shutter Compute Engine as it did Reader (not least because the company runs internal offerings on GCE), cloud customers may want to think twice about selecting a provider with such a rich history of abandoning services. ITworld's Nancy Gohring asked Google to comment on the speculation and was told to 'wait until tomorrow' so there's a good chance Google will pen a blog post on this topic.

Submission + - Mozilla Updates Firefox OS to 1.1, Prepares for 2nd Round of Device Launches

Submitted by SmartAboutThings
SmartAboutThings writes: Mozilla has oficially introduced the first update to its mobile Firefox OS. The very first update to Firefox OS adds some important new features, performance improvements and additional language support. Some of the most important changes include MMS support, Push Notifications API, Contact Management enhancements, Firefox browser downloads, Keyboard improvements and much more. In a separate announcement, Mozilla also said that new launches of Firefox OS smartphones will begin soon with more devices and in more markets around the world.

Submission + - Guardian Ignores MI5 Warnings, Vows To 'Publish More Snowden Leaks' (bbc.co.uk) 1

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: Summary from BBC article: Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger says he plans to publish more revelations from Edward Snowden despite MI5 warning that such disclosures cause enormous damage. Mr Rusbridger insisted the paper was right to publish files leaked by the US intelligence analyst and had helped to prompt a necessary and overdue debate. Mr Rusbridger said more stories would be published in the future as the leaked documents were "slowly and responsibly" worked through. His comments come after criticism from the new head of MI5, Andrew Parker. Making public the "reach and limits" of intelligence-gathering techniques gave terrorists the advantage, he said. He warned that terrorists now had tens of thousands of means of communication "through e-mail, IP telephony, in-game communication, social networking, chat rooms, anonymising services and a myriad of mobile apps". Mr Parker said it was vital for MI5 to retain the capability to access such information if it was to protect the country. Mr Rusbridger said those on the security side of the argument wanted to keep everything secret and did not want a debate. "You don't want the press or anyone else writing about it. But MI5 cannot be the only voice in the debate," he told BBC Radio 4's World at One. He added that his newspaper had revealed the "extent to which entire populations are now being potentially put under surveillance". "I just spent a week in America where everybody is talking about this, from the president down." Asked about Mr Parker's suggestion that publishing the documents was helping terrorists, Mr Rusbridger said: "They will always say that. You read histories of intelligence and you go back to the 1990s and the security people were saying the same."

Submission + - Crowdfunding campaign for a new $249 PengPod. (indiegogo.com)

Submitted by Splintercat
Splintercat writes: You may remember a story from almost a year ago about a Linux tablet called the PengPod. The same people are at it again with a much better tablet that has a 9.7" IPS — 2048 x 1536 display, a 1 Ghz quad-core A31 processor, 2 GB of ram, 16 GB of built in storage with an open micro SD card slot, and can boot into many different distros of Linux as well as Android.

It appears that the tablet hardware already exists and the crowdfunding campaign is for funding software development and support for the device, though of course, backing at a high enough level will get you the tablet and possibly some other goodies.

Unfortunately this campaign has received very little attention so far, though the upshot is that if you're quick, you can snag one of the early bird specials and get one for less than a new Nexus 7, and should have better support for flavors of Linux besides Android.

Also, if you're considering these for your business, ViewTouch has made a deal with the PengPod folks to make their POS available at a discount on 100 Peng Pods.

Submission + - Arduino Gaming: Not So Retro Any More (kickstarter.com)

Submitted by beckman101
beckman101 writes: Two years ago the Gameduino brought retro-style gaming to the Arduino. This week its successor launched on Kickstarter, still fully open-source but with a video that shows it running some contemporary-looking demos, plus it has a touch screen and a pretty decent 3-axis accelerometer. Farewell to the retro?

Submission + - Second Generation GNU/Linux/Android dual boot tablet available now

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: PengPod, the company who brought the first commercial dual-booting GNU/Linux-Android tablet is now crowd funding a quad core tablet the PengPod1040

PengPod1040. The PengPod1040 can now boot three different OS options from internal memory, select-able with a built in bootloader. This 9.7" high resolution tablet can run Android, GNU/Linux and now Ubuntu Touch . Ubuntu touch is made so one can have the same friendly Ubuntu experience, but is touch friendly, which has the ability to navigate the Ubuntu desktop without having to use a mouse and keyboard.

PengPod has pledged to make all source and tools used to build the images available so users can build their own OS top to bottom and guarantee it free tracking from the NSA or others. The PengPod has previously found some success as a low cost touch platform for industrial/commercial control systems and is partnered with ViewTouch, the original inventors of the graphical POS to offer PengPods as restaurant register systems.

The Crowdfunding goal on Indiegogo is $349,000, with the tablets starting at $249. There is an Early Bird special with some still available for at $220.

Sources
Reuters
liliputing

Submission + - Google's Open Source Director says open source world can be "brutal"

Submitted by Lemeowski
Lemeowski writes: A crowded Sun workstation lab with poor ventilation and smelly "coder odor" ultimately led Chris DiBona to give Linux a shot, and he says it was his "best decision ever." These days DiBona is the Director of Open Source for Google. In this interview, DiBona talks about his favorite Linux distribution and why he once called open source "brutal," saying that "survival of the fittest as practiced in the open source world is a pretty brutal mechanism, but it works very very well for producing quality software."

Submission + - Next generation dual boot Linux/Android tablet available

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: PengPod, the company who brought the first commercial dual-booting GNU/Linux-Android tablet is now crowd funding a quad core tablet the PengPod1040

PengPod1040. The PengPod1040 can now boot three different OS options from internal memory, select-able with a built in bootloader. This 9.7" high resolution tablet can run Android, GNU/Linux and now Ubuntu Touch . Ubuntu touch is made so one can have the same friendly Ubuntu experience, but is touch friendly, which has the ability to navigate the Ubuntu desktop without having to use a mouse and keyboard.

PengPod has pledged to make all source and tools used to build the images available so users can build their own OS top to bottom and guarantee it free tracking from the NSA or others. The PengPod has previously found some success as a low cost touch platform for industrial/commercial control systems and is partnered with ViewTouch, the original inventors of the graphical POS to offer PengPods as restaurant register systems.

The Crowdfunding goal on Indiegogo is $349,000, with the tablets starting at $249. There is an Early Bird special with some still available for at $220.

Comment Re:don't be a chump (Score 1) 242

by Splintercat (#41898215) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Extreme Cable Management?

That particular link doesn't work for me, but the point does stand. Velcro ties are the way to go.
I've got these Velcro cable ties from Home Depot. 50 8 inch Velcro Ties Though at $5.27 each you can definitely find better deals. But being able to just walk in and buy them without waiting for shipping is worth it for small jobs.

If you want to be really fancy then I would also get some kind of way to label or at least mark your cables on both ends. It really does pay off when you have to move, or fix something. My wife went through our entertainment center and labelled all the cables with some blue painters tape and a sharpie. I'm glad for that every time I have to go back there and mess with something.

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