Open SUSE 12.1 comes with the completely redesigned Gnome 3 desktop, which in my opinion is the best one so far. I have been using Gnome for a few years now and even though I like the clean design of Gnome 3, I still like to have some desktop icons. To Show your Desktop icons on Open SUSE 12.1 is a very simple procedure,

1. Go to Applications > Advanced Settings
2. Select Desktop
3. Set option “Have file manager handle the desktop” to ON

For other Versions of Linux you may need to install dbconf

Technorati Tags: Desktop icons, Gnome 3, Gnome settings, Linux, Open Source, Open SUSE 12.1

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• April 8, 2011 -- Linux turns 20
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If you are a thinker, a mad scientist in the making or just a curious ADD person like me, the Arduino boards are just what you are missing in life.

Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform based on a simple micro controller board, and a development environment for writing software for the board.

Arduino can be used to develop interactive objects, taking inputs from a variety of switches or sensors, and controlling a variety of lights, motors, and other physical outputs. Arduino projects can be stand-alone, or they can be communicate with software running on your computer .

Arduino hardware can be used in Windows, Mac or Linux. The boards can be assembled by hand or purchased pre-assembled and the open-source IDE (programming environment) can be downloaded for free.

There’s a great starting guide at http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/HomePage, but I have also been recommended this book:

30 Arduino Projects for the Evil Genius

This guide shows you how to program and build a variety of projects with the Arduino microcontroller development system. Covering Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms, it gets you up to speed with the simplified C programming you need to know–no prior programming experience necessary.

You can find more books and arduino boards and components on here.

Examples of what one can accomplish with Arduino:

Technorati Tags: Arduino, arduino projects, C Programming, DIY geek, geek gifts, IDE, Linux, Mac, muti platform, Open Source, Programming, robbots, Windows

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The Linux Foundation is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Linux and its influence in our everyday.

Technorati Tags: 20th anniversary, GPL, Linux, Linux Foundation, Open Source

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• December 14, 2011 -- Show Desktop icons in Gnome 3 on Open SUSE 12.1
• November 7, 2011 -- Arduino the Open Source hardware
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• January 9, 2009 -- Google Android OS on Notebooks

For a long time I have been very frustrated with e-commerce systems, from my self built one all the way to Magento. That was until I came across OpenCart. It’s a great system, easy to use and to develop for. Installation takes 5 minutes, it has all the modules you need to run a successful e-commerce site straight out of the .zip.  I nicknamed it the “WordPress of e-commerce”!  Have a look for yourself at the Opencart demonstration page.

OpenCart features:

• Open Source
• Documentation
• Unlimited Categories
• Unlimited Products
• Unlimited Manufacturers
• Templatable
• Multi-Language
• Multi-Currency
• Product Reviews
• Product Ratings
• Downloadable Products

• Automatic Image Resizing
• Multiple Tax Rates
• Related Products
• Unlimited Information Pages
• Shipping Weight Calculation
• Discount Coupon System
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Module System
• Backup & Restore Tools
• Printable Invoices
• Sales Reports

Technorati Tags: e-commerce, online sales, online shop, Open Source, opencart

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• September 30, 2009 -- Google Wave

Google Wave is an online (and open source) tool for real-time communication and collaboration.

A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

On an interview with the BBC technology site the developer behind Wave described it as “a communication and collaboration tool”.

“It struck us that e-mail is still the main communication tool on the web, which seemed remarkable given that it is 20-year-old technology,” said Lars Rasmussen, who, alongside his brother Jens, was the brains behind Google Maps. (extracted from BBC Technology)

An interesting (but possibly annoying) feature is the live transmission as you type. With this live typing participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

To test Wave you will will need to request an invitation, if accepted you can then invite 5 more people to join in the experience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ

Technorati Tags: Google, Google wave, instant messaging, Open Source, share photos, social network, team collaboration, TEchnology News

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PHP-GTK is an extension for the PHP programming language that implements language bindings for GTK+. It provides an object-oriented interface to GTK+ classes and functions and greatly simplifies writing client-side cross-platform GUI applications.

PHP-GTK is one of those great resources that for some unclear reason hasn’t become mainstream. One would think that  standalone applications created with the power of PHP would be a big hit, and I do hope it still happens.  Earlier this year there were some rumours about the death of PHP-GTK, the developers were quick in responding with this:

“Rumours of PHP-GTK’s death have been greatly exaggerated! The project is very much still alive, but we’re waiting for PHP 5.3 to come out, and also some work needs to be done on the Cairo extension before a new release can be made. This should be completed soon. This release will come with support for GTK+ 2.14 and 2.16, Cairo, and PHP 5.3. 

The next release will also include official installers for Windows and Mac OSX, and an installer script (thank you bob) for Linux.” – extracted

Have a look at PGP-GTK Community for some examples of applications created with PHP-GTK.

Technorati Tags: Application, Development, Open Source, PHP-GTK

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Google has announced it will launch an Operating System in 2010, the Google Chrome OS.  On its official blog Google said that it will target primarily Netbooks and that the OS will be Open Source. They also stated…

” Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work. “

Read it in full at Google’s official blog…

Technorati Tags: Google Chrome OS, Netbooks, Open Source, Operating System

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On June 18th 2009 The OpenSuse Project announced that its development factory has been made more accessible to package contributors.  Joe Brockmeier’s post at opensuseNews states…

 ”we’re making it easier for contributors to take responsibility for packages and to contribute directly to openSUSE. This means contributors will be able to be directly responsible for packages, without having to go through a Novell employee to make changes.“

Read more on OpenSuse News site.

Technorati Tags: Development, Linux, Novell, Open Source, OpenSuse Factory, Programming, Suse Linux

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Switchvox is Digium’s family of Voice Over IP Phone systems for small and medium businesses. Switchvox systems are designed to be easy to use, full of helpful features and cost less than a traditional PBX. It’s based on the world’s leading open source PBX, telephony engine, and telephony applications toolkit Asterisk.

Technorati Tags: Asterisk, Difium, IP PBX, Open Source, SwitchVox, VoIP

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• September 30, 2009 -- Google Wave

Bringing Firefox‘s features, security, performance and ease-of-use to mobile phones.  Fennec is yet in it’s Beta 1 version, it has been built on the same technology as the world famous Mozilla Firefox and has many of the same features.

• Tabbed browsing
• One-click bookmarking
• Super easy navigation
• Add-on ons (Firefox style)
• touch-enabled interfaced optimized for the small screen

The interface is very intuitive, download the emulated version to run on your PC and check out this great browser.

Watch the video overview:

Fennec Beta 1 walkthrough from Madhava Enros on Vimeo.

Technorati Tags: browser, Fennec, Firefox, Mobile, Mozilla, Open Source

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A developer team on venturebeat.com has reported that they can get Google’s Android to run on netbooks. Long before Andoid was released there were rumors about its use not being restric to mobiles. The Venturabeast team claim to have made it work on a EeePC 1000h within 4 hours as reported by the Linux Magazine online.

“The largest challenge was to adapt the ARM processor optimized code to the x86 architecture of the Intel Atom processors. Fortunately the Google team could take some guidance from previous work they had put into it. And they didn’t need drivers in that the 2.6 kernel code already contained the necessary modules. “

Google claims to have created the first open, free mobile platform but many would say they were the first to launch, apparently OpenMoko was idealized long before the Android but sadly it’s still on its development stages. If only some big names like Google had put their power behind them!

Technorati Tags: Android, EeePC, Linux, Open Source, OpenMoko

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Interesting how contrasting the world of Linux can be. As an OpenSource (Free) and reliable operating system it should appeal to anyone, specially those in the developing world, one would naively think. Don’t get me wrong, Linux has a great success rate in Latin America, in Brazil alone it has become a real contender to Microsoft specially in the pubic sector. That’s due to the reliabilty of the system, low cost and the desire to be free from the heavy hand of Microsoft. In Brazil open source works, Linux works. In other parts of the developing world the reality is very different. Linux might be seen as a threat to many. A lot of people make money out of Microsoft either by selling illegal software or by providing IT support, also Microsoft is seen, wrongly, as the Developed World’s first choice and trying to give them Linux is like calling them second class existence. Who shows this clearly is Jeremy Allison on his recent post “When Linux Fails” at zdnet.com.  He’s basically talking about a presentation given by a Linux developer in West Africa and the reality he (and Linux) faces.

” Ian’s group first worked on a custom Linux distribution called
“Kunnafonix”, designed for local radio stations. Local radio stations
are an incredibly important communication tool in Africa, and most of
them run on proprietary systems imported from the West, ill-suited for
the temperature extremes and power requirements found in rural Africa….

However, installation of Kunnafonix was resisted by many of the
local organizations they had to work with. The local “computer support
person” resented a solution that was so easy to use that it undermined
the power and prestige they received by being the person to consult
when a Windows computer had problems….

(extract from the post “When Linux fails“) worth reading in full

Well Interesting enough just before reading this artice I read something about Linux in Europe entitled “The future of climate change is in Linux’s hands“. This article talks about the simulations for climate change and the huge amount of data it generates and how Linux has been the answer to their needs.  

According to Budich, the contribution of Géant2 – which is also used by
scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider – cannot be overstated.

“We, as a project, depend on Géant… Such an infrastructure initiative
like Géant is really indispensible for us.”
The data from the Millennium Simulations is stored at the World
Datacenter for Climate, housed in the German Climate Computing Centre
in Hamburg – the largest Linux-based database in the world, Budich told
silicon.com, holding 400 terabytes of data.
The link between the Max Planck Institute and the German Climate
Computing Center is a theoretical 655Mpbs.” (extract)

Interesting contrast of realities in these two articles. Linux and Open Source software can fail badly in the real world not
because of technical issues, but because of economic issues.

Technorati Tags: Linux, Open Source, Technology

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