Archive for the 'linux and open source blog' Category

Syncing your BlackBerry on Linux, a howto guide

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Linewbie.com
on December 28, 2007
in guides, how to, information management, linux and open source blog, linux/unix/os distros and news
. 2 Comments

If you use Linux on your desktop, and you also happen to have a BlackBerry handheld device, you’re probably aware that Research in Motion, the company that develops the BlackBerry platform, offers nothing in the way of support for its devices on Linux — but the intrepid geeks in the free software world do. Thanks to to the efforts of the Barry and OpenSync projects, I just finished syncing my BlackBerry 8800 with my Evolution contacts on my Ubuntu 7.10 desktop.

Blackberry

If all you want to do is share data between your Linux box and the BlackBerry, no sweat. The 2GB Micro SD storage I inserted in my 8800 is available to my Linux system just like any other USB storage device. When I connect the USB cable to the BlackBerry, I simply say yes when Ubuntu asks if I want to enter Mass Storage Mode, and I can copy music and photos to the phone. I have run into a problem getting the audio for videos that were created with Kino to work correctly, but other than that, moving data back and forth between the PDA and the desktop “just works.”The Barry and OpenSync projects aim to provide a little more functionality than just moving data. According to its home page, the Barry project “is a GPL C++ library for interfacing with the RIM BlackBerry Handheld. It comes with a command-line tool for exploring the device and a GUI for making quick backups. This project’s goal is to create a fully functional syncing mechanism on Linux.” Release 0.11, which I’ve been playing with the past week, goes a long way toward meeting those goals. With it, you can explore, backup and restore, and — with a little help from OpenSync — sync databases. There is, however, some assembly required.

Continue reading ‘Syncing your BlackBerry on Linux, a howto guide’

Shopping: openSUSE Store

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Linewbie.com
on December 22, 2007
in linux and open source blog, linux/unix/os distros and news
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Get yourself some openSUSE apparel or a mug for this christmas.

Shop @openSUSE Store

Anyone wants to make a gift for me …. let me know, I’ll send you my postal address :-p Happy Christmas to everyone out there.

Tango Theme on Your Symbian60 Mobile Phone

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Linewbie.com
on December 22, 2007
in linux and open source blog, linux/unix/os distros and news
. 1 Comment

Wanna have Tango theme on your mobile phone?! This project is a theme for Symbian60 enabled phones/devices following the Tango Style Guidelines and using the Tango Icon Theme.

Features:

  • Symbian60 2nd and 3rd Edition support
  • Portrait support (Landscape soon)
  • Most Icons are replaced by Tango equivalents
  • Contains Icons for 3rd party applications
  • Custom graphics using the Tango color palette
  • Total replacement of all widget elements such as popups, tabs, scrollbars, clock fonts and others
  • Music Player Skin (Not on 3rd party music players bundled with some phones)
  • Free to download and use
  • Free Open Source Software

Grab the .SIS installer from Martin’s website and have fun. Since I am a Windows Mobile 6 Pro user I cannot run it, but would if I had a Symbian S60 mobile. Also check out the openSUSE theme for your Symbian mobile here.

OpenID - Open Source Identity Management

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Linewbie.com
on December 21, 2007
in linux and open source blog, linux/unix/os distros and news
. 1 Comment

OpenID was originally developed by Brad Fitzpatrick of LiveJournal (now owned by Russian media company, SUP), and, as the term states, the Light-Weight Identity, Yadis, Sxip DIX protocol that was proposed at IETF, and XRI/i-names. The OpenID Foundation was formed to assist the open source model by providing a legal entity to be the steward for the community by providing needed infrastructure and generally helping to promote and support expanded adoption of OpenID.

OpenID has arisen from the open source community to solve the problems that could not be easily solved by other existing technologies. OpenID is a lightweight method of identifying individuals that uses the same technology framework that is used to identify websites. As such, OpenID is not owned by anyone, nor should it be. Today, anyone can choose to be an OpenID user or an OpenID Provider for free without having to register or be approved by any organization, being not proprietary and completely free. OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.You get to choose the OpenID Provider that best meets your needs and most importantly that you trust. At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to.

For businesses, this means a lower cost of password and account management, while drawing new web traffic. OpenID lowers user frustration by letting users have control of their login.For geeks, OpenID is an open, decentralized, free framework for user-centric digital identity. OpenID takes advantage of already existing internet technology (URI, HTTP, SSL, Diffie-Hellman) and realizes that people are already creating identities for themselves whether it be at their blog, photostream, profile page, etc. With OpenID you can easily transform one of these existing URIs into an account which can be used at sites which support OpenID logins.OpenID is still in the adoption phase and is becoming more and more popular, as large organizations like AOL, Microsoft, Sun, Novell, etc. begin to accept and provide OpenIDs. Today it is estimated that there are over 160-million OpenID enabled URIs with nearly ten-thousand sites supporting OpenID logins.Currently work is underway developing OpenID Authentication 2.0, which will use the Yadis service discovery protocol. OpenID is now developing into a much more complete framework that will support other identity services besides authentication and is been made a high priority in Firefox 3 browser.

Here are some places you can visit to see where you can use your OpenID to log in today:

I am quite sure that Web 3.0, if I may say so, will include OpenID as it’s authentication and ID management backend. So, then what happens to IBM and Novell backed Higgins … or are they collaborating?

2007: Top 10 Free and Open Source Legal Issues

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Linewbie.com
on December 21, 2007
in linux and open source blog, linux/unix/os distros and news
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“The year 2007 has been the most active year for legal developments in the history of free and open source (“FOSS”). In fact, you would have been hard pressed in past years to enumerate even five important legal developments. However 2007 permits the creation of a traditional “top ten” list.”

Interested what goes behind the curtain when it comes to all those legality issues going around with free and open source world? Then check out a post here to see the Top 10 list of legal issues compiled by Mark Radcliffe from Law and Life: Silicon Valley blog.

PDF Editing & Creation: 50+ Open Source/Free Alternatives

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Linewbie.com
on December 21, 2007
in linux and open source blog, linux/unix/os distros and news
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Yesterday Amy Quinn notified me that they got a new post on their website listing 50+ alternatives, both open source and/or free, for Adobe Acrobat and PDF. The list is indeed comprehensive with links to app developers and small info packs on every app.

“Adobe Acrobat is expensive, but that doesn’t mean you have to live a life without portable documents. What many people don’t realize is that PDF is a Federal Information Processing Standard, which means the specifications behind the format are widely published. Numerous developers take advantage of this fact and create programs that offer effective alternatives to Acrobat. Check out our list of these programs and take advantage of these tools that are full of some of the best PDF features and functions.”

Check out the complete list

WTF: Nokia Wants W3C to Remove Ogg from Upcoming HTML5

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Linewbie.com
on December 20, 2007
in linux and open source blog, linux/unix/os distros and news
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Somehow I missed a big nuacence that is being proposed by Nokia (!) to W3C consortium - probably the purest anti-proprietary standards body on the planet.

“The World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, a group devoted to publishing web standards, recently moved to approve the Ogg video and audio formats for inclusion into the forthcoming HTML5 standard. Nokia, maker of mobile phones and mobile multimedia services, has taken exception to this proposal, writing a position paper (PDF) and raising a formal issue at the W3’s web site, claiming that Ogg support should be “deleted” from the spec in order to “avoid any patent issues.”“Nokia to W3C: Ogg is proprietary, we need DRM on the Web” - Ogg is an open encoding scheme, as we all know, and it was On2, the company that developed it, gave it and a free, perpetual unlimited license to its patents to the nonprofit Xiph foundation … but somehow Nokia called it “proprietary” and argued for the inclusion of standards that can be used in conjunction with DRM …..

BTW, did you notice that Nokia’s Internet Tablets do not come with Ogg support out of box, official line being that it is up to third party developers to implement it!!!

As one forum user puts it:

“Nokia today is not Nokia from a few years ago. The old Nokia was a company that sold you mobile devices. The problem was, some moron sat inside Nokia and lusted after Apple’s business model… which leads us to the new Nokia. The new Nokia is a company that wants to sell you a mobile device that you’ll use to purchase lots of music and other forthcoming content (N-Gage games) and lock you into their portals and services (navigation subscriptions). The device is only a means to an end, and giving customers choices by making the devices open limits Nokia’s future revenue”

Sad to read such news. Looks like Nokia has growth issues and problems with a management - while right hand goes to the open world, left hand trashes all efforts to the hell.What the hell there should be DRM in my device? How far this DRM idiocy can go? When pirated content is better than original one, that’s a real shame for authors. This shows how far abuse of monopoly power can go in modern world.

I agree with the post from BoingBoing, discussing this matter, and closing their thoughts with: “But remember, that’s not what Nokia is objecting to: they are arguing that Ogg is proprietary (it isn’t) and that DRM should be part of a Web standard (it shouldn’t)”

P.S. It is strange that this post comes right after a post talking about great OS2008 (which indeed is a great Maemo product) release for Nokia Internet Tablets …. hmm

Official OS2008 Release for Nokia Internet Tablets

Published
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Linewbie.com
on December 20, 2007
in linux and open source blog, linux/unix/os distros and news
. 2 Comments

Users can now download the official installer for OS2008 for your Nokia N800 Internet tablet. You get:

  • The sluggish Opera browser has been swapped out for a speedy Mozilla based browser
  • If you’re on an N800, the processor speed has been bumped up to 400 Mhz
  • Built in Flash 9
  • FM Radio software
  • A Beautiful new UI
  • Improved RSS reader
  • and much, much more.

And:

  • This update increases the maximum CPU clock speed from 330MHz to 400MHz. The graphical interface feels snappier.
  • The browser is now the mozilla-based microb browser which seems to use more memory and slightly slower than the previous Opera browser. However, it’s free software and supports newer web standards, so I’m happy with the change.
  • The graphical interface is nicer. The designers appear to have responded to user feedback well in this area.
  • There are more codecs , but still no Ogg Vorbis support, which is very disappointing. The third-party package works fine with third-party media players, but doesn’t work with the default media player.
  • Newer kernel (2.6.21), Gtk (2.10) and DBUS (1.0) and gstreamer now supports the generic playbin

With this update, it feels like the Internet tablet OS platform is maturing nicely.

Check out the following video review on OS2008 running on the N800 made by Rcadden user:

Maps

Youtube