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The GNOME Project is widely recognized in the world of Linux as a leading developer community of a free and easy-to-use desktop environment. GNOME is part of the GNU/Linux Project. The label "GNU" is a recursive acronym meaning GNU's Not Unix, according to GNU.org. Based in Cambridge, Mass., the GNO...

Love it or loathe it, there's no arguing that the adult entertainment industry has been at the forefront of technology throughout the growth of the Internet. The adult industry operates on a shoestring and has figured out how to deploy secure and scalable sites on the cheap. We'll take a cue from th...

It's hard to imagine a topic more central to the argument for or against free and open source software than security. Hardly a day goes by without news of some fresh exploit in the Windows environment, after all -- but what about Linux and other open software? Can they do better? That's essentially ...

A growing recognition of the business benefits predictive analysis provides is positioning newcomer Revolution Analytics into a key role to help adopters of the R programing language migrate from legacy offerings. Until a recent funding infusion and a refocus of marketing goals, the startup did busi...

Note to those avoiding Linux: Yes, you can do desktop publishing. You can do it with Scribus. One of the most frequently recurring comments I hear about why somebody -- especially in a small-business environment -- will not migrate to Linux is the alleged absence of a desktop publishing application...

Windows of opportunity, that is. No one can predict history, but when we look back to today, we may see through these windows more clearly. These are windows of opportunity for Linux -- windows, ironically, at Microsoft's expense. Economy, customer satisfaction, and technical excellence all presen...

Using a scanner in Linux is somewhat different than using that same scanner hardware in Windows. This week's Linux Picks focuses on how the XSane scanner app handles that process. In the Windows world, scanner hardware is TWAIN-compatible through manufacturer-developed scanning software. By comparis...

Gnome Commander, an advanced twin-panel graphical file manager for the Linux OS, brings back memories of my pre-Windows days. That is an era when graphical shell programs were popular before the Microsoft DOS desktop gave way to the Windows 95 GUI. If that sounds like a put-down for Gnome Commander,...

Targeting a market already replete with numerous contenders, a consortium of six Japanese firms announced plans to build a new mobile operating system that will be compatible at least with Linux and Symbian -- and possibly with Android too. NTT Docomo, Renesas Electronics, Fujitsu, NEC, Panasonic Mo...

Linux provides more than one way to listen to music collections. The bare-bones solution is to click on a music file from within a file manager app. The high-end approach is to playback music with Amarok. Amarok is a sound-system-independent audio player with a flexible interface that uses a browser...

Changes impacting storage are taking place at every layer of the network architecture: Disk drives are continuing on a Moore's law-like cost/capacity curve, yet concurrently we are also seeing the growth of solid-state technology to overcome the inherent performance limitations of mechanical disk; v...

You need spend only five minutes with Motorola's Devour smartphone to realize how appropriate its moniker is. It's an information gourmand's delight. What sets Devour apart from other Android phones is Motorola's MotoBlur software. The phone, which is offered by Verizon Wireless, allows you to funne...

Like ERP and CRM before, collaboration is the next big space in software. By the numbers: SharePoint is a billion-dollar business. IBM Lotus is a $700 million business. Forrester Research claims Enterprise 2.0 will grow to a $4.6 billion industry by 2013. Collaboration software is evolving to mean m...

The Linux operating system is highly compatible with two hot computing trends: virtualization and cloud computing. Just as the 2001-2002 recession helped usher in Linux as a mainstream solution, virtualization may accelerate Linux usage during and after the current recession. Linux already has a pow...

Sun Microsystems' loss was Google's gain on Monday, as former Sun guru Tim Bray announced that he's joined Google's Android push in the role of Developer Advocate. "Google and I have been a plausible match for a long time," Bray wrote in a blog post announcing the decision. "Web-centric, check. Sear...

Some system utilities do a variety of things well. They come with tools to give users lots of solutions in one package. Other system apps like the Atol File Manager perform a dedicated function flawlessly without adding other specialties. Atol took a while to grow on me, but now this app is one of m...

After nearly four years of legal battle, a case involving the unauthorized use of open source software last week came to a final conclusion that affirms the legal right of open source developers to collect damages when their code is used improperly. The case of Jacobsen v. Katzer dates back to 2006,...

Cloud computing describes an Internet-based computing infrastructure that has abstracted users and user applications from the underlying computing resources that support them. In concept, cloud computing is functionally different from previous IT architectures in that users no longer need to own, ha...

One of the problems with smartphones up to now is that they behaved more like a computer than a cellphone. That's not the case with the Moment, Samsung's new smartphone based on Google's Android operating system. Android's use of a touchscreen for navigation and easy-to-use applications -- a la the ...

Google finally released a beta version of its Chrome Web browser for Linux on Dec. 8, slightly more than one year after releasing its Chrome browser for Microsoft Windows. The wait was worth it, especially given the more than 300 extensions already available to customize the new browser. Because Lin...