August 19th, 2010 by Walt
After finding both my ham radio and Linux sites down last night, I decided to create a Twitter account to post to if I find the sites down again for extended times.
The link is twitter.com/n3mtj and will cover both this site and my ham radio/hobby oriented site.
I have a life so I will only tweet what I feel is important (like the servers going down), not the fact that the dog just stretched and fell out of his favorite chair -yet again- ….. you get the idea.
EDITED to say: I will likely tweet tech related news that catches my fancy.
Tags: Site News, Twitter
Posted in Site News | No Comments »
June 17th, 2010 by Walt
WordPress has released their 13th version as the latest available release. They squashed over 1200 bugs during the later stages getting it ready for release as the latest and greatest.
Normally this is where I’d say we’re about to start work on 3.1, but we’re actually not. We’re going to take a release cycle off to focus on all of the things around WordPress. The growth of the community has been breathtaking, including over 10.3 million downloads of version 2.9, but so much of our effort has been focused on the core software it hasn’t left much time for anything else. Their Blog entry announcing the final release
Don’t fear; they will not let the project stagnate. WordPress has just grown into so much more than the open source blogging software of its early days and they want to explore all areas (plugins, Codex, etc, etc, etc (etc!)) in bringing the best blogging experience possible to WordPress users.
If you have WordPress installed on your site, now is the time to upgrade! Be sure to follow their precautions and back up your database and important files. I had no issues at all upgrading with the automatic feature from 2.9.2 to 3.0, but it is possible for the server to cough up a few bad bits, or maybe have an unexpected Plugin hiccup.
I upgraded both this site and my ham radio site in under five minutes total.
Now if they would just develop a version that will enter what you mean to say instead of what is fat-fingered on the keyboard……..
Tags: Blogging, Open Source, Software, WordPress
Posted in Open Source News | No Comments »
June 16th, 2010 by Gareon
While the actual manuals and documentation you get with many open source applications and platforms can be underwhelming, the good news is that there are a lot of free, online books on open source topics available. We round these up on a regular basis here at OStatic, and in this post you’ll find seven online books that you can get comfortable with quickly. They introduce essential concepts for getting started with Linux, Firefox, Blender (3D graphics and animation), GIMP (graphics), the OpenOffice suite of productivity applications, and more…
Source:
More 
http://ostatic.com/blog/7-free-open-source-tomes-for-your-edification
Tags: Documentation
Posted in Non-Linux Open Source | 1 Comment »
June 4th, 2010 by Walt
Just browsing Ars and found that Google has tweaked the licensing of WebM to avoid a conflict.
It now fits in better with GPL. Actually they use language from Apache and GPLv3 that decouples copyright law from patent law.
Tags: Licenses, Media, Open Source, WebM
Posted in Open Source News | No Comments »
June 4th, 2010 by Gareon
Is the government going to mandate open source for its websites? That’s certainly the most straightforward way to read the response by Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, to a question by one of his predecessors, the Labour minister Tom Watson:…
Source: Government hints at open source mandate for websites as £360,000 cost revealed | Technology | guardian.co.uk
Posted in Open Source News | No Comments »
May 28th, 2010 by Gareon
“A computer is now recognised as a necessity, not a luxury. With both local and international brands flooding the market with their products, the percentage of people using assembled computers (white-box) is slowly going down.
“The drawback is that with numerous options available, a computer requires several software applications, often a pricey addition. You might never use many of these. For first-time buyers or those who want to use their computer (notebook or desktop computer) for basic tasks, these applications can take up precious hard-disk space and a massive chunk of your wallet, too.
“Here are some free and easy-to-download applications one must have — operating system, office documents, photo editing and security tools….”
Source: Welcome to the world of free software
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/welcome-toworldopen-source-software/396258/
Posted in Open Source News | 1 Comment »
May 26th, 2010 by Walt
Being a Beehive fan, I automatically installed it first, but had problems getting it to work; every time I solved one problem, another popped up. Resolving the time bug created yet another date related bug where “today” was always considered to be non-existent. Then there was something about how it set up its own database tables….on and on…… A look at their forum didn’t give any clues, and I didn’t feel comfortable asking for help as I really couldn’t give too much information at the time plus I wanted a working forum up and running sooner than later (call me compulsive).
Finally enough was enough so I went “forum shopping”. I settled on Simple Machines Forum software. It is fast and presents a small load on server resources. The software will update with a click from the Admin area and no need to update the database each time due to changes like Beehive.
I’ll certainly miss navigating the Beehive way, but I will stick with Simple Machines on this site.
I also plan to keep my Beehive forum on my other site (n3mtj.net), it is not going anywhere!
Tags: Beehive, Site News
Posted in Site News | No Comments »
May 25th, 2010 by Walt
Microsoft fairly quietly released the PST specifications to the public in February. At least I didn’t hear of it until just now. Outlook uses the PST files for its database and archiving of emails.
Currently everything is read-only, but hopefully it will work in both directions shortly. Now people will have ways to keep their Outlook emails but use another client. Of course, Microsoft most likely wants this to work both ways; later people using PST in other clients will be able to migrate to Outlook. 
Ars has the story.
Tags: Email, Microsoft, Outlook, PST Files
Posted in Microsoft, Outlook | No Comments »
May 24th, 2010 by Gareon
“The long struggle for open video on the Web may finally be over for Linux users. Last week, Google announced WebM at its Google I/O conference. What’s it mean for you? In the long run, a totally open media format for the Web, plus the backing of enough companies and organizations to push open media over the top online.
“Google I/O brought a lot of interesting developments, but one of the most interesting for Linux users might be the announcement of WebM. Finally, Linux will be a first-class platform for media…”
Sunday, May 23rd, 2010
Source: | Linux Magazine
More : http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7786/1.html
Tags: Media, video
Posted in Media | 1 Comment »
May 23rd, 2010 by Walt
I just noticed that the theme I am using didn’t give credit to the author, so I tweaked it. I have no idea why it didn’t give the author credit, but now it does. It seems that the PHP code for displaying the author was commented out. I un-commented it since this blog has more than one contributor so everybody will have proper credit.
My apologies to Gareon for not having credit until now.
Posted in Site News | No Comments »
