Tech Updates

Apple introduced new programming language - Swift

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 12:37:00 +0000

Swift is a multi-paradigm, compiled programming language developed by Apple for iOS and OS X development. Introduced at Apple's developer conference WWDC 2014, Swift is designed to replace Objective-C, Apple's object-oriented language, while working with Apple's Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks and the large body of existing Objective-C code written for Apple products.

Swift is intended to be more resilient against erroneous code. It is built with the LLVM compiler included in Xcode 6 beta, and uses the Objective-C runtime, allowing Objective-C, Objective-C++ and Swift code to run within a single program.

The Swift Programming Language, a free 500-page manual, was also released at WWDC.

How Swift differs from Objective-C

Statements do not need to end with a semicolon (';'), though they may be used to allow more than one statement on a line
Header files are not required
Comments of the form /* ... */ can be nested, allowing blocks of code to be easily commented out.
Strong typing
Type inference
Generic programming
Functions are first-class objects.
Operators can be redefined for classes (operator overloading), and new operators can be created.
Strings fully support Unicode. Most, but not all, Unicode characters can be used in Swift language names.

Example code

// this is a single line comment using two slashes

/* this is also a comment,
   but written over multiple lines */

// Swift variables are declared with "var" followed by a name, a type, and a value
var explicitDouble: Double = 70

/// if the type is omitted, Swift will infer it from the variable's initial value
var implicitInteger = 70
var implicitDouble = 70.0

// the "let" keyword defines a constant, which may also be implicitly typed
let numberOfApples = 3
let numberOfOranges = 5
let appleSummary = "I have \(numberOfApples) apples."
let fruitSummary = "I have \(numberOfApples + numberOfOranges) pieces of fruit."

// code can be placed anywhere, making it global within the namespace
println("Hello, world")

// define a dictionary with four items, each with a person's name and age
let people = ["Anna": 67, "Beto": 8, "Jack": 33, "Sam": 25]

// now we use Swift's flexible enumerator system to extract both values in a single loop
for (name, age) in people {
    println("\(name) is \(age) years old.")
}

// methods and functions are declared with the "func" syntax
// note the use of parameter naming, and the return type specified with ->
func sayHello(personName: String) -> String {
    let greeting = "Hello, " + personName + "!"
    return greeting
}

// prints "Hello, Jane!"
println(sayHello("Jane"))

Facebook offers Rs 38 lakh package for IIT

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 12:08:00 +0000

Social networking site Facebook has offered a package of Rs 38 lakh (USD 85,000) for IIT Madras students during the ongoing placement season, a top official of the institute said. Companies selecting prospective candidates from the country''s premier educational institute IIT Madras began on December 1.

However, Facebook leads the chart with a package of Rs 38 lakh, IIT Madras Advisor (Training and Placement) N Ramesh Babu said. "Every year, the selection process commences in December and this time too it began on December 1," he said.

Every year students eagerly await to participate in the campus selection and this year too more than 260 companies have registered so far, he said, adding, "But we expect it to cross 300 companies." Asked on the selection processes, he said the final round of interview would be done later.

"For example, Facebook after conducting all the rounds, will conduct another interview via Skype from the US and when a student gets selected he/she will be offered USD 85,000 package," Babu explained. He said around 1000 students from various streams including B Tech, MTech, MS, Doctoral programmes, MBA, have registered for placements this year and so far around 30 students have received offers from various multi-national companies including Goldman Sachs, IBM and Boston Consulting Group.

Last year the highest package was offered by Tower Research Capital at Rs 28 lakh per annum and about 225 companies had visited the institute for selecting 700 candidates. This time, while the leading package was offered by Facebook, an oil company has offered to pay a package of Rs 28 lakh, he added.

New Firefox JavaScript engine is faster than Chrome's V8

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 06:36:00 +0000

One of the most impressive features in Google's open source Chrome web browser is V8, a high-performance JavaScript virtual machine that was developed by a team of specialists in Denmark. Although Chrome's performance beats the current stable version of Firefox, benchmarks show that Mozilla's next-generation JavaScript engine actually outperforms V8.

Mozilla is using tracing optimization techniques and Adobe's open source nanojit to increase the execution speed of SpiderMonkey, the JavaScript runtime engine in the Firefox web browser. The new engine, which is called TraceMonkey, delivers unprecedented JavaScript performance. The new optimizations have already landed in the latest Firefox nightly builds (but still have to be manually enabled) and will likely be included in Firefox 3.1.

JavaScript creator and Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmarks against Chrome and the latest TraceMonkey-enabled Firefox build, which includes some recent improvements. The benchmarks show that TraceMonkey is clearly faster than Google's V8. Mozilla believes that the optimization technique used in TraceMonkey has the potential to unlock even more performance improvements.

"As we continue to trace unrecorded bytecode and operand combinations, we will only get faster," Eich wrote in a blog entry. "What spectators have to realize is that this contest is not a playoff where each contending VM is eliminated at any given hype-event point. We believe that Franz & Gal-style tracing has more 'headroom' than less aggressively speculative approaches, due to its ability to specialize code, making variables constant and eliminating dead code and conditions at runtime, based on the latent types inherent in almost all JavaScript programs."

Eich also praises Chrome. He says that the V8 JavaScript engine is "very-well engineered" and he describes the multiprocess design as "righteous".

The results of the benchmark show that Mozilla is still a powerful force to be reckoned with in the browser space and that they will continue to innovate and remain relevant as new companies enter the market.

Ubuntu is switching the default search from Google to Yahoo

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 06:39:00 +0000

Those of you testing out the development version of Ubuntu Lucid should notice a change in Firefox very soon. The default search provider for new installations of Ubuntu Lucid (10.04) and upgrades will be Yahoo! and not Google. Canonical have struck a revenue sharing deal with Yahoo! which generates income for the company.

This revenue should help pay the wages of Ubuntu Developers employed by Canonical, and support the infrastructure required to develop and build the distribution.

So when using the search box in the top right corner of Firefox on Ubuntu, you’ll be taken to a Yahoo! results page rather than the old default Google one. If you are upgrading to Ubuntu 10.04 and you had Google as your search provider (the previous default) then this will change to Yahoo!. You can of course change the search provider, this is merely the default for Lucid. Doing so will mean your search revenue won’t go via Yahoo! to Canonical. That’s your choice, clearly.

In addition, the browser ’start page’ – that is the page you see initially when you open the browser – will reflect whatever the default search provider is. So in the top right, if you choose ‘Google’ you’ll get the Google start page, and conversely if you choose ‘Yahoo!’ you’ll get the Yahoo! start page when you first open the browser. Again, you can change the start page to be blank or use some other search provider. These are just the new defaults.

It’s possible that additional search vendors may be added to the list – Bing anyone? – but it seems that for Lucid there will be at least the two mentioned above. Users who already run Ubuntu and are upgrading to Lucid, but don’t use Google won’t notice a difference, but they’re welcome to manually switch to the new Yahoo! search provider if they want to financially support the Ubuntu project that way.

No doubt this will cause some consternation within the Ubuntu community, as many find changes to “their” browser to be tantamount to breaking and entering their home. Indeed when these things were previously messed with there were a few heated complaints and reports of broken-ness.

Hopefully the dialog on this change will remain civil and, well.. lucid.

Chrome 5 released, browser exits beta for Mac and Linux

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Sat, 29 May 2010 05:04:00 +0000

Google announced today the official release of Chrome 5 for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. It arrives less than a month after Google made the new version available through its beta channel. This release reflects Chrome's rapid pace of evolution and Google's strong commitment to advancing Web technology and performance.

Chrome 5 brings significant performance improvements, including a major increase in JavaScript execution speed. It also brings support for important HTML5 features, including Web Sockets and drag-and-drop. The JavaScript acceleration and robust compatibility with emerging standards are important capabilities that will enable developers to write richer and more sophisticated Web applications.

Google has enhanced the browser's cloud synchronization framework, extending it to support browser preferences and themes in addition to bookmarks. Chrome 5 ships with the Flash plugin included by default, an addition that was made possible by Google's recent partnership with Adobe.

This release marks a significant milestone for the browser, because it is the first official stable release of Chrome for Mac and Linux. Chrome was previously only distributed for those platforms in the form of beta and developer builds.

"Since last December, we've been chipping away at bugs and building in new features to get the Mac and Linux versions caught up with the Windows version, and now we can finally announce that the Mac and Linux versions are ready for prime time," Google said in a statement on its official blog.

When Chrome was first launched in 2008, it was only available for the Windows operating system. Mac and Linux versions emerged the following year and quickly advanced towards parity with the Windows version.

Although building Chrome for Linux posed some early challenges, the developers were able to deliver an impressive port with native theming and a complete feature set. Chrome development now appears to be largely in sync across all three of the major operating systems. It seems likely that we can expect to see simultaneous cross-platform releases for subsequent versions.

Chrome and the open source Chromium variant are rapidly gaining traction on Linux and Mac OS X. Statistics from popular Linux websites such as OMG!Ubuntu show that Chrome and Chromium are collectively approaching almost 40 percent market share among Linux enthusiasts.

Chrome was a hot topic at the recent Ubuntu Developer Summit, which I attended earlier this month. The Ubuntu developer community elected to include Chromium as the default browser in the next major version of the Ubuntu Netbook Edition. The browser's excellent performance and highly responsive user interface make it an obvious choice for netbooks, but it won't displace Firefox yet as the default browser in the conventional desktop version of Ubuntu. One of Google's Chrome engineers attended the event and participated in the discussions.

Google intends to use Chrome as the centerpiece of its own Linux-based mobile operating system, which could potentially start appearing on devices later this year. The idea of a browser-centric Chrome OS seemed a bit far-fetched when it was first announced last year, but it's starting to look a lot more attractive as said browser matures.

Why Ubuntu excites me more than Windows or Macintosh

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Tue, 18 May 2010 07:01:00 +0000

You know that thing that happens on your computer, when you are using Windows? When you ask it to do something, and it thinks about it, and then it keeps thinking, and then you go off and make a cup of tea, and it’s still thinking, and you want to headbutt the wall, again and again, until gets all smeared and red and bloody and bits of your brain are raining down on to your shoes? Yes? Well, there’s a way to stop that happening. Stop using Windows. Use Ubuntu instead.

Ubuntu is an operating system. If you don’t know what one of those is, Google it, and then come back. The latest version comes out today. I’m writing this yesterday (confusingly) and I’m actually quite excited. Pathetic, isn’t it? Look, bear with me. It’s not easy writing in a passionate fashion about an operating system. It feels a bit like having a favourite type of petrol, or mounting a vigorous advocacy of a particular shade of lightbulb. But dammit, if you work on a desk, these are the environs are our worlds. Mine used to be Windows, and now it isn’t. And, as a result my life is better. Sad, but true.

Ubuntu is a Debian-based distribution of Linux. What does that mean? Buggered if I know. If you do, and you are feeling a powerful urge, already, to recommend a different version of Linux, then let me stop you right there. Is it easier to use? Is it prettier? No? Well, not interested. Move along.

I first tried Linux about five years ago, and it was a disaster, for all the reasons that Ubuntu is wonderful. The way it used to work, you see, was that you’d spend hours downloading the thing, and burning it in the right sort of image, and then you’d stick it in your CD drive and the screen would go all doolally, like the stuff Keanu sees in The Matrix. And then, if you were lucky, it would just go “KERNEL PANIC!!!” and do nothing. If you weren’t, it would wipe XP off your actually perfectly respectable PC and sit there having ropey graphics at you and not letting the wi-fi work. It didn’t take me long to realise why Windows was the market leader, and switch back.

But then came Windows Vista, the OS world’s answer to the Austin Allegro. All across the world, sleek expensive machines were sitting on desks, blinking little green lights and doing little else, for hours. Netbooks and smartphones came along at around the same time, helping people to realise that it didn’t really matter what language your computer spoke, as long as you could use Google and Hotmail. And into the void swooped Ubuntu. Finally, there was a version of Linux that was actually pleasant to use. “Linux for human beings,” they called it. See? Some IT jokes are actually quite funny.

My Ubuntu setup is faster than a PC and prettier than a Mac. But best of all, when you ask it to do something, it does it. Or, at worst, it doesn’t do it. It doesn’t think about it, for hours, and then mysteriously go off the idea. It doesn’t crash. It doesn’t break. I don’t know why everybody doesn’t use it.

Well, okay, I do. Some things might not work, straight away. When I installed Ubuntu, the graphics card didn’t get detected (so it was a bit blocky) and I couldn’t get flash to work in Firefox. It just took three minutes of Googling, though (“Vostro 1700 Ubuntu graphics”) and 30 seconds of tinkering, and I was away. This kind of stuff shouldn’t put you off. Any problem you might have, somebody else will have had first.

“But will I still be able to use Word?” you cry. Well, no. But you will be able to use something almost indistinguishable (OpenOffice), or Google Docs, which is far more useable anyway. You can mess around with it in all sorts of ways, and make it look however you want. I gather that Windows 7 is perfectly serviceable, but I wouldn’t go back. I wouldn’t see the point. It would be like moving into a generic hotel room, when you’re used to having your own house.

Hmm. I’m going on a bit, aren’t I? Look, I’m not an anti-Microsoft freak, I swear. I run XP quite happily on my netbook, because it works just fine and I can’t be bothered messing around with it. But on the big Dell tank that sits on my desk, it’s Ubuntu all the way. Now the new version is out, you should try it, too. Download it, put it on a disk, stick it in the drive and see what happens. You can run it from there, if you want, or you can tell it to install alongside whichever OS you’ve got on there already.

Personally, I dual boot with Vista, although I’ve barely used Vista three times in six months. The sole reason I do this is because Ubuntu won’t run iTunes properly, and as a result it won’t sync our music onto the wife’s iPhone. (Yes, I know there are other options. But IT’S THE WIFE’S IPHONE.)

Obviously, it’d be nice if Apple would do something about that. Although I doubt they ever will. Because if they did, why would anybody ever buy a Mac?

Ubuntu tricks - how to mount your Windows partition and make it read/writable

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Tue, 11 May 2010 07:46:00 +0000

Here’s a guide to making the most of your NTFS partition while in Ubuntu. When you’re done you should be able to have your NTFS partition mounted at boot, be able to write to it and read from it and be able to lift three times your body weight without breaking a sweat.It should be noted that writing to NTFS is still experimental. You’d best have a backup of your machine if you’re going to do this.

First let’s figure out where our NTFS partition is hiding. I’m going to assume that you’ve got an NTFS partition, an EXT3 partition and perhaps a FAT32 partition laying about. Open up a terminal session and type the following:

sudo fdisk -l

You’re looking for the NTFS partition, my output looks like this:

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2550 20480008+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 2550 7493 39707451+ f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda3 7494 9729 17960670 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 2550 7394 38911288+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda6 7395 7493 795186 82 Linux swap / Solaris

It’s /dev/sda1 that I’m interested in. Find out what yours is and write it down somewhere. A good thing to do is to write it backwards on your forehead in indellible marker. This not only allows you to see where it is every time you look in the mirror but I’ll also be able to identify my readers if you venture out into public.

So let’s install the stuff we’ll need to get this working.

sudo apt-get install libfuse2 fuse-utils libntfs8 ntfsprogs

Now let’s add fuse to the list of stuff that our kernel will load:

echo fuse | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

Now let’s add a group which we’ll use to control who can or can’t get access to the NTFS partition.

sudo addgroup ntfs

When this is done, you’ll get some output which will contain your GID (Group ID). It’ll look something like adding group ntfs (1001). Write down that GID, or add it to your backwards forehead list.

Now we’re going to create a mount point for our partition. This is a folder into which this disk will be shoved. Well, metaphorically speaking anyway. We’ll put it in the /media directory so it’ll show up on our desktop. then we’ll edit the fstab file to tell it to mount the NTFS partition on to the folder.

sudo mkdir /media/windows
sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.bak
gksudo gedit /etc/fstab

Now that you’ve got the fstab file backed up and open in gedit, let’s add the following line to the bottom of it.

/dev/hda1 /media/windows ntfs-fuse auto,gid=1002,umask=0002 0 0

Here’s where you’ll need a mirror to look at the info you’ve written backwards on your forehead. The first bit ‘/dev/hda1′ is the location of your NTFS partition. If you’re is different, then change it in your fstab entry above. The second bit we’ll need is the GID of your ntfs group. If it’s not 1002 then change that as well.

Now, let’s add your user to the ntfs group. If you’re username is ‘slartibartfast‘ this is how the command would look. (If you’re username is not ’slartibartfast, then type your username in place of slartibartfast, or consider changing it to slartibartfast’).

sudo adduser slartibartfast ntfs

Now let’s do some quick removing and linking to fix a known bug.

sudo rm /sbin/mount.ntfs-fuse && sudo ln /usr/bin/ntfsmount /sbin/mount.ntfs-fuse

Now reboot your machine and you’ll come back up to the joy of being able to muck with your windows install while not actually booting into windows.

Ubuntu 10.04 hit by major bug on release day

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Mon, 10 May 2010 08:35:00 +0000

Spring is here, and so is Ubuntu 10.04. Or at least, that's the plan. Canonical's rigid release schedule is awesome for many reasons -- one of which is the amount of excitement it generates around each new Ubuntu release. However, I don't think this is the kind of excitement Mr. Shuttleworth had in mind when the "fixed schedule" policy was set.

As it turns out, after the final release ISOs were already created (or "spun" in Ubuntu geek-speak), acritical bug came up; and no, I don't mean something like "OMG, we put the window buttons on the wrong side!". I mean something like "once you install Ubuntu, you will not be able to boot your other operating system.

" Oops. It doesn't kill the other OS, and it's fixable when it happens (it's a problem with the GRUB2 bootloader configuration), but it's certainly not something you want to have happen to people just trying out your OS (or even upgrading from previous versions).

Granted -- it doesn't happen with each and every installation, but it can happen. The Ubuntu team considered a quick-fix, but eventually went for the more responsible (and safer, in terms of PR) option of re-spinning the ISOs. However, re-spinning all ISOs would push the release into May, which would be a PR flop in itself. So they're just re-spinning some of the most popular ones, like the x86 and x64 desktop releases, as well as the Netbook remix. Exciting stuff!

Sony Sued Again For Removing PS3 Linux Feature

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Sun, 09 May 2010 07:26:00 +0000

Two more class action lawsuits have been filed against Sony Computer Entertainment America for removing the 'Other OS' feature from the PlayStation 3.

The first lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, May 5 by Todd Densmore of Cumming, Ga., and Antal Herz of San Francisco, Calif., claim Sony has rendered several PlayStation 3 features they paid for "inoperable" as a result of the release of firmware 3.21. The update, released on April 1, 2010, disabled the ability to install the Linux operating system. By choosing not to update their console, users couldn't access separate, non-related features, such as signing onto PlayStation Network.

The suit states Sony allegedly failed to disclose to customers that it reserved the right to remove advertised, built-in features. The suit also states the right to remove the 'Other OS' feature is not disclosed in Sony's Terms of Service or System Software License Agreement.

Densmore and Herz are seeking damages and other relief the Court deems just. The class includes anyone who purchased a PlayStation 3 from November 17, 2006 to March 27, 2010 and folks who continue to own their console as of March 27, 2010.

A complete copy of the lawsuit in PDF form can be viewed here.

The second class action suit, filed on April 30 by five individuals across the United States, claims, among other things, that the plaintiffs "lost money by purchasing a PS3 without receiving the benefit of their bargain because the product is not what it was claimed to be - a game console that would provide both the Other OS feature and gaming functions."

The group is seeking compensatory damages, restitution, and injunction relief.

A complete copy of the lawsuit in PDF form can be viewed here.

The total number of lawsuits filed against Sony in the last two weeks for removing the feature is now at three. On April 28, a similar lawsuit was filed by Anthony Ventura of California. That case is still ongoing.

Sony representatives told IGN the company does not comment on pending litigation.

Ubuntu 10.04 arrives with extended support (and less brown )

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Thu, 06 May 2010 10:12:00 +0000

Canonical has announced the official release of Ubuntu 10.04, codenamed Lucid Lynx. After six months of development, the stealthy cat has emerged from the jungle and is ready to leap onto users' desktops. The new version of the popular Linux distribution delivers a visual refresh, updated software, and a number of noteworthy new features.

Ubuntu 10.04 is a long-term support (LTS) release, which means that its users will receive package updates for an extended period of time. Typical Ubuntu versions get 18 months of updates, but LTS releases are supported for three years on desktop computers and five years on servers.

Another significant characteristic of LTS releases is that they are built with a stronger emphasis on stability. Instead of loading in a pile of experimental new features, the developers focus on quality control and aim to make the software more reliable. Due to the extended support cycle and higher standard of robustness, LTS releases tend to be more appealing to business users and hardware makers.

Although the focus on stability means that Lucid's roster of new features is shorter than usual, it still brings some impressive enhancements. One of the most noticeable changes is a completely new theme that radically departs from the distro's previous signature style. The fancy feline has shed Ubuntu's traditional brown coat and is sporting a sleek new look with an updated color palette. The new theme, called Ambience, has black trim, orange highlights, and an aubergine wallpaper. The visual redesign is part of a broader branding overhaul that will help to modernize Ubuntu's image.

Ubuntu 10.04 introduces several usability improvements and heightened consistency thanks to ongoing efforts like the Ayatana project and the 100 Papercuts initiative. Ubuntu developers have transformed the panel notification area into a combined grouping of embedded menus, called application indicators, which have more consistent behavior and appearance. This will help reduce panel clutter and make long-running applications easier to manage. Previous panel simplification efforts, such as the messaging indicator menu that was added in Ubuntu 9.10, have received additional improvements in this release.

Another major panel improvement in Lucid is social networking integration, which was introduced as part of Ubuntu's Social From The Start initiative. This feature is powered by Gwibber, my own open source microblogging client. I created Gwibber in 2007 and have spent much of my free time developing the application over the past few years. It's gratifying to see it become a part of the Ubuntu desktop stack.

Gwibber isn't the only new application that was added in Ubuntu 10.04. Another very significant addition is PiTiVi, a video editing tool that is built on the GStreamer multimedia framework. PiTiVi is easy to use and won't intimidate inexperienced users.

Canonical has continued its efforts to enhance Ubuntu One, a commercial cloud synchronization service that is integrated with the Ubuntu desktop. Some key additions in Lucid include preliminary support for mobile synchronization and a new music store that is integrated with Rythmbox.

True to the LTS label, Lucid seems relatively robust. Although I didn't encounter any major problems with it myself during the beta cycle, there were a handful of major issues that got resolved at the last minute. The developers did a respin of the ISO after identifying a glitch in the boot menu configuration. Users who require ironclad stability should wait until remaining kinks have been ironed out before upgrading.

Ubuntu 10.04 is available for download from the Ubuntu website. For additional details, you can refer to theofficial release notes.

Review: Ubuntu Lucid Lynx Declared Perfect!

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Tue, 04 May 2010 07:55:00 +0000

Six months ago I declared Ubuntu 9.10 to be the best version of Linux I had ever used on a desktop computer. In fact, I went on to call it “almost perfect“.But, and I hate to say this about any release of any Linux distribution — Ubuntu 9.10, no matter how good it was, really didn’t matter all that much. Why, you ask? Because Ubuntu 9.10 was not a “Long Term Support” release.

Every six months a new version of Ubuntu is released. That given release, 9.10 for example, is only supported for 18 months. A year and a half of fixes for security vulnerabilities (among other things) is simply not long enough for most people to consider viable.

But every two years (give or take) we get a Long Term Support release of Ubuntu. Those versions are supported and updated for a full 3 years. Thus making it a possibility for businesses and the non-geek home users to consider installing on their desktops and laptops.

Ubuntu 10.04 is our first Long Term Support release since early 2008… and it feels long overdue. And that is because desktop Linux has come a long, long way in the last two years.

Just to give you one great example: Those amazing 3D desktop effects we all know and love? Those were not a part of Ubuntu 2 years ago. That’s right. Out of the box, Ubuntu in early 2008 was horrifyingly 2-Dimensional!

So Ubuntu 10.04 is important. This is a release we are going to be “stuck” with (for many) for the next two years and is the release that many companies will measure up against Windows and MacOS X.

But how does it stack up?

The short answer: This is the best operating system currently available.

And here’s why.

Look and Feel

This is a huge improvement over past versions of Ubuntu. Gone is the dreadful orange/brown theme of yesteryear. In is the new, super smooth dark look and feel.

The new look of Ubuntu is classy. Elegant.

Refined.

I would call it far more pleasing to the eye (in an “ahhh, that’s soothing” sort of way) than Windows 7 or MacOS X 10.6. Of course that is a purely subjective thing, but that’s my take after sitting in front of all of these operating systems every day. Ubuntu 10.04 is just plain easier on the eye. Almost… calming.

There have, of course, been some controversy around the new look. Specifically the fact that the window buttons (close, minimize, etc.) have now been moved to the left side of the windows. This… has made some people cranky.

I, myself, was one of those people. I disliked the change. But I am now used to it and consider it not a big deal. It certainly isn’t a deal breaker. In fact there are already tutorials for how tomove those buttons back to the right hand side.

More Ubuntu One

Ubuntu One, Canonical’s online file storage service (similar in many ways to services such as DropBox) has been integrated far more tightly in this new release.

It now auto-magically syncs your contacts, Tomboy notes and bookmarks across all of your Ubuntu powered machines.

And, of course, it still provides 2gb of free storage for every Ubuntu user. (For $10 per month you can upgrade to 50gb of storage, syncing with mobile phones and Windows/Mac desktop applications).

In my testing (using the free version of Ubuntu One) this worked astoundingly well. Syncing of data was incredibly fast and getting setup was a snap.

Will I be switching away from DropBox (which I have been a loyal customer of for some time)? It’s looking that way.

The Ubuntu Software Center

This is the big one for me.

I’ve often lamented about the lack of a good, easy to use software store application for modern Linux distributions. This is, I feel, one of the biggest things that can be done to further Linux as a desktop platform.

And with Ubuntu 10.04… it’s not here yet.

But it’s getting closer. With this release, the Ubuntu Software Center has become my favorite way to find and install new software. It’s fast. The user interface is clean and easy to navigate. Finding new applications is incredibly easy. Certainly a huge improvement over solutions such as Synaptic.

The public plan was that the ability to purchase commercial (non-Free) software via the Ubuntu Software Center with the Ubuntu 10.10 release later this year. And, if their progress with 10.04 is any indication, they seem to be right on track.

And that has me excited.

The Ubuntu One Music Store

Continuing on the theme of expanded Ubuntu One services, Canonical has introduced the Ubuntu One Music Store.

The prices are reasonable (typically seeming a little cheaper than iTunes), and the files are all provided in DRM-free MP3 format.

In an interesting twist, when you purchase songs from the Ubuntu Music Store, those songs are download directly into your Ubuntu One online storage. Which makes all of your music available on all of your Ubuntu-powered PC’s without needing to manually re-download or copy over your music.

Which is, I must say, fairly cool. Plus, the store seems to work great. Good speed. Good sound quality.

My only gripe? The Ubuntu One Music Store is built in to Rhythmbox. Now, I like Rhythmbox, don’t get me wrong. It’s a good music player. Does the job. I just prefer Banshee so much more.

Social Networking

Lets talk for a moment about the new “Me Menu”.

By default it sits in the upper right hand side of your screen. And, from there, you have quick access to your instant messaging accounts (viaEmpathy, my favorite little IM client).

That, by itself, is nice. Not earth shattering. But handy enough to be worth while.

But you’ll also notice a “Broadcast Accounts…” option there. From this one spot you can post updates (simultaneously) to Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and more.

Once set up you will also receive message alerts from these services in the form of nice looking system notifications. Plus, with the pre-loaded Gwibber, you can directly interact with all of these services.

This takes Ubuntu from being a totally acceptable platform for interacting with social media (on par with Windows or MacOS X)… to become the platform for interacting with social media. The other platforms don’t even come close.

It is simple, elegant and very well designed.

Working with Media

Ubuntu has been great at managing photos for quite some time. F-Spot is a fantastic application for this task (and integrates awesomely with Facebook, Flickr, Picasa and more).

But video editing. That’s another story altogether.

Before now, Ubuntu has not shipped with any way to edit video. And that is, due in large part, because there simply was not a good consumer oriented video editor, built for Linux, to include.

Thankfully, that has changed.

PiTiVi is now included, by default, in Ubuntu 10.04.

Sure. PiTiVi isn’t the most advanced video editor on the planet. But it’s capable, well designed and will serve the needs of the individuals who need to edit together some family video quite nicely.

Interesting to note: As of this very moment, MacOS X 10.6 and Windows 7. Neither of them ship with a video editor of any kind out of the box. That’s right. Of the three operating systems, Ubuntu is the only one that ships with any video editor at all.

The Rest

Most of the rest of Ubuntu 10.04 is pretty much what you might already be used to with previous versions.

You get a full office suite with Open Office 3.2, the latest version of Firefox, great CD/DVD burning tools and a handful of games that are completely adequate (though improved over past releases).

The Bad

Are there problems? You betcha.

There have been reports of many people having significant trouble upgrading from past Ubuntu releases. We’ve also heard several reports of display driver issues causing a fair number of issues.

So it certainly hasn’t been a 100% painless upgrade.

That said, I’ve got three machines in front of me (including two netbooks) running Ubuntu 10.04 with 100% support for every device attached to them. Wifi, video card, webcam… everything has been working and running great.

Oh my HP Mini 1000 netbook I had to enable restricted hardware drivers (a simple checkbox) to get my wireless working. But that’s been the extent of my “tweaking” to get things running smoothly. Both of my other machines worked 100% on first boot.

But, and this can’t be stressed enough, if you are upgrading to Ubuntu 10.04: Back up your data first. It looks, based on feedback so far, that things are mostly going smoothly. But it’s always best to play it safe.

The Final Verdict

Ubuntu 10.04 ups the ante significantly by bringing polished features that Windows 7 and MacOS X users simply do not have.

The user experience is clean and elegant, with an almost timeless quality to it. The functionality is advanced and the integration between applications superb.

Add to this the fact that Ubuntu 10.04 has 3 years of full support ahead of it, and I’d say, with out a doubt…

Ubuntu 10.04 is, by far, the best operating system for desktops, laptops and netbooks available today. I highly recommend this release both both personal and business use. For existing Linux users, Mac users or Windows users.

This is a big freaking deal.

This is not a matter of “one day, Linux will be ready for the desktop”. Nor is this a hopeful proclamation of “This year… this year will be the year of desktop Linux”.

This is it. This release, of this particular Linux distribution, is astounding and competitive with both Windows and Mac. No. Strike that.

Ubuntu 10.04 blows them out of the water.

Download Free Windows password cracker

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:12:00 +0000

Ophcrack is a free Windows password cracker based on rainbow tables. It is a very efficient implementation of rainbow tables done by the inventors of the method. It comes with a Graphical User Interface and runs on multiple platforms.

Features:

» Runs on Windows, Linux/Unix, Mac OS X, ...

» Cracks LM and NTLM hashes.

» Free tables available for Windows XP and Vista.

» Brute-force module for simple passwords.

» Audit mode and CSV export.

» Real-time graphs to analyze the passwords.

» LiveCD available to simplify the cracking.

» Loads hashes from encrypted SAM recovered from a Windows partition, Vista included.

» Free and open source software (GPL).

Download

http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/download.php?type=ophcrack

http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/download.php?type=livecd

Google Gadgets open-sourced for Linux

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 10:28:00 +0000

Google has announced the official release of Desktop Gadgets for Linux and is distributing the source code under the open-source Apache software license. Although there are still bugs and the implementation is not yet entirely complete, it works well enough for day-to-day use.

Desktop Gadgets is one of the primary features of the Google Desktop suite, which also includes a search mechanism. Gadgets are small, interactive, web-oriented applets that the user can place on the desktop or in a sidebar. Google publishes a complete Gadgets API that enables third-party software developers to create components for the platform. It also supports Google's web-based widgets.

Google issued a somewhat lackluster release of its desktop search tool for Linux last year, but didn't support Gadgets on the open-source operating system until now. Although somewhat incomplete, this early Gadgets release reflects a much stronger understanding of the expectations and requirements of Linux users. Source code is available for the entire program, and it leverages widely-used open-source libraries and toolkits. A particularly nice touch is full support for both GTK+ and Qt, which means that it is designed to play nicely with the two major Linux desktop environments.

Consistent with standard Linux development practices, the program is being developed out in the open in a very transparent way. Users can retrieve the latest source code from the project's subversion repository or download a source tarball of the 0.9.1 release. Google isn't providing binaries and has opted to leave packaging to the Linux distributors. Major Linux distributors will likely make it available to users through their own standardized package management systems, but users who want to test it right now will have to compile the source or find unofficial packages.

I compiled it for testing on Ubuntu 8.04 in a GNOME environment. Google provides detailed build instructions that explain the process. Users will require several dependencies, all of which were easily accessible from the Ubuntu package repositories.

I tested several gadgets and didn't encounter any serious problems. Not all gadgets are available or fully functional yet, but this is a pretty strong start. The sidebar worked fine and I was able to drag gadgets between it and the desktop. There seems to be a minor bug that causes a regular window frame to be drawn around gadgets sometimes when they are dragged from the sidebar to the desktop, but this problem doesn't show up frequently.

Gadgets can be installed from the Gadget Browser interface, which also allows users to search for gadgets and filter them by category. A Google Gadgets icon that is displayed in the notification area when the program is running provides easy access to the Gadget Browser and can be clicked to toggle Gadget visibility.

The implementation is structured so that the Gadget rendering and runtime functionality is encapsulated in its own library that is separate from the actual Desktop Gadget host program. This will make it easy for existing Linux-based desktop widget systems to integrate full support for running Google Gadgets.

Although I've been extremely unimpressed with the poor system integration of Google's previous Google Desktop offerings for Linux, I'm pleased to say that the Gadgets release is a big turnaround. Google appears to have gotten everything right this time, from the process to the implementation. It seems like Google is finally beginning to understand that supporting Linux means embracing the culture, ecosystem, and methodology, not just offering compatible programs.

HP releases netbook interface for Ubuntu

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 17:25:00 +0000

Hewlett Packard has released a custom version of Ubuntu Linux designed for netbooks. For the HP Mini 1000 Mi Edition, to be exact. Under the hood, the operating system is based on Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron.

That means it can run pretty much any application that runs on Ubuntu including OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird and Pidgin. In fact, it comes preloaded with all of those applications plus a few more. It's also fairly easy to install other Linux staples like image editor GIMP.

But what makes the Mi Edition software stand out is the graphical user interface which looks nothing like Ubuntu or even Ubuntu Netbook Remix. When you first boot up the Mi Edition software you're greeted with a screen with a web search engine, a list of favorite web sites, and shortcuts to your music and photos. If you click the Start New Program button, a program launcher will open that separates your applications into Internet, Media, Utilities, Work, Play, and All tabs. The settings manager shows you everything you'd find in the typical Ubuntu settings screens, but it's arranged in a new way that makes it easier to find what you're looking for with fewer clicks.

HP has also added a custom media player called HP MediaStyle that looks a lot like Apple's FrontRow. MediaStyle provides you with a simple full screen interface for navigating music, videos, and photos.

Overall, HP has created one of the best thought out Linux interfaces for netbooks. The software is designed so that users who have never used Linux should have no trouble performing basic tasks. But experienced Linux users can always fire up a terminal window by hitting Alt+F2 and entering "gnome-terminal."

The software comes preloaded on some HP netbooks. But HP also plans to post a utility on its web site in the next few days that will allow you to create a system restore USB flash disk from Windows. You can already create one if you're running Linux.

You can use this utility to either restore a Mi Edition netbook to factory default settings or to turn a Windows XP HP Mini 1000 into a Mi Edition device. I would not advise anyone to try using this install disk on unsupported hardware as you'll probably end up with an operating system that doesn't support your WiFi card or other hardware.

It's not clear whether HP plans to offer the software for non-netbooks. But if you want to try adding installing the user interface over a normal Ubuntu installation, you can try adding the HP repositoriesand using the Synaptic package manager to install a package called glassy-bleu-theme.

Ubuntu One music store will rock in Lucid Lynx

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 05:29:00 +0000

Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu Linux distribution, has announced the official launch of the Ubuntu One music store. Integrated into the Rhythmbox music player in the upcoming Ubuntu 10.04 release, the store allows users to purchase downloadable songs and albums.

The music store is powered by 7digital, an online music distributor that offers over 4 million songs in the MP3 format without DRM. Canonical partnered with 7digital and developed the software that allows the music store to integrate with Rythmbox and Ubuntu One, the cloud service that Canonical launched last year.

The Ubuntu One music store is accessible through the navigation sidebar in Rhythmbox. When the user clicks on the Ubuntu One item in the sidebar, it will load the store interface in the main area of the Rhythmbox window. The store is basically a webpage that is loaded into an embedded WebKit frame. It's not fully integrated into the Rhythmbox track selection user interface like the Jamendo and Magnutune stores. The WebKit approach feels a bit less seamless, but it's arguably better because it allows a richer presentation. The music store interface shows a lot of album art and other visual elements.

The main screen of the music store will show a selection of popular and recommended songs. The user can click various elements to browse by genre or view recently added tracks. It also has a built-in search textbox which allows the user to find a specific artist, album, or track. When you select a specific musician or music group, you will see a concise description of the group along with a list of available albums organized in a grid with titles and cover images.

When you click on an album, you will see a list of available tracks with prices and download buttons. You can purchase songs individually or buy an entire album. Each song also has a preview button which you can click to hear part of a song before you buy it. The preview function will stream the first 60 seconds of the track and play it directly in Rhythmbox.

Users have several payment options, including credit card and PayPal. 7digital handles the transaction and can also store your credit card data if you desire.

The music selection is reasonably decent but isn't nearly as broad as the likes of iTunes and Amazon. The store's available music is said to vary between different geographical regions. 7digital has separate stores for the UK, the United States, Germany, the rest of Europe, and other parts of the world. I tested the US store.

It has most of the mainstream stuff that the average consumer will want, but it didn't fare as well when I started looking for more obscure items. The J-pop selection is especially weak, lacking some names like High and Mighty Color and Kajiura Yuki. Despite the gaps, there are some areas where the breadth of the selection managed to impress me. For example, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the store has a comprehensive assortment of Blind Guardian albums.

The music store is integrated with the Ubuntu One service in several ways. When a user purchases music from the store, the files are downloaded directly into the user's Ubuntu One cloud storage area. This means that the files will be propagated to all of the computers that the user has connected to Ubuntu One. The purchased tracks show up in a special section of the user's Rhythmbox music library, but are treated just like any other music file on the user's computer.

The files are also available from the Ubuntu One Web interface, which allows users to download individual files on any computer via a Web browser. The cloud storage integration is a great concept and is executed well. The downside is that the files purchased from the store count against your total Ubuntu One file sync capacity, which means that the free 2GB tier of Ubuntu One service will likely be insufficient for users who intend to sync a lot of purchased music.

You can, of course, move the files out of the synchronized storage area and put them anywhere on your filesystem if you don't want them to use your Ubuntu One space. The files don't show up in the regular Ubuntu One folder on your filesystem, but you can find them in the ~/.ubuntuone/Purchased from Ubuntu One directory.

The music that is sold through the store is encoded in the MP3 format. Although most users favor MP3 encoding because it is widely supported by third-party devices and software, it is somewhat controversial among certain Linux users who favor unencumbered formats such as Ogg Vorbis. The store does not offer Vorbis-encoded music and isn't likely to do so in the near future.

Ubuntu itself doesn't natively support MP3 playback in the default installation. Users have to install an additional package in order to get a licensed MP3 codec for GNOME's GStreamer multimedia framework. When the user first attempts to access the Ubuntu One music store, they will be prompted to click a button to automatically install MP3 playback support.

After downloading a few tracks myself, my overall impression is positive. Canonical has largely succeeded in making the music store feel like a convenient and well-integrated part of the Ubuntu user experience. Although it's impressive, the software is still in the beta stage of development and isn't entirely stable yet. It functions properly, but I experienced several crashes during my tests, primarily during the checkout stage of the purchasing process. There are also some minor bugs in the HTML user interface, like links that accidentally cause it to load the regular 7digital Web site instead of the one that is customized for Rhythmbox.

With additional refinement, the music store could be a win for Canonical and Ubuntu users. It's unclear exactly what kind of revenue-sharing deal the company has with 7digital, but there is definitely some kind of arrangement that allows Canonical to profit from the music sales. If the service gains traction among Ubuntu users, it could help boost Ubuntu's financial sustainability.

Ubuntu 10.04 beta 1 is looking good, less brown

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 06:16:00 +0000

Canonical has announced the availability of the first Ubuntu 10.04 beta release. The new version of Ubuntu, codenamed Lucid Lynx, is scheduled to arrive in April. It will be a long-term support (LTS) release, which means that updates will be available for three years on the desktop and five years on servers.

Although the Ubuntu developers have largely focused on boosting stability for this release, they have also added a number of noteworthy new features and applications. One of the most visible changes is the introduction of a new theme—a change that is part of a broader rebranding initiative that aims to update Ubuntu's visual identity.

Canonical's Ayatana team has continued its effort to overhaul the panel. Ubuntu 10.04 introduces a newapplication indicator system that will streamline the panel notification area. The panel has also gained a new menu—referred to as the Me Menu—for managing instant messaging presence and posting short messages to social networking Web sites. The social networking functionality is powered by Gwibber, my open source microblogging application, which was added to Ubuntu for version 10.04. Another application that's new in Lucid is Pitivi, a simple video editing tool. In a controversial move, the Ubuntu developers have decided to remove the GIMP, the popular image editing program.

The new theme has benefited from further refinement since its initial inclusion. Some of the more garish elements, like the strong hash marks on the scrollbars that we saw in the original version, have been smoothed out and made more subtle. Several bugs have also been addressed, such as the problems we previously encountered with OpenOffice.org menu highlighting. The Ubuntu Software Center has also gained an improved look that matches the new Ubuntu branding.

The beta is not quite ready for use in production environments, but it's already fairly robust and ready for widespread testing. You can download it from the Ubuntu Web site. If you would like to test it in a virtualized environment without having to change your current Ubuntu installation, you might want to try the TestDrive tool. For more details about 10.04 beta 1, check out the official release notes.

Build a Cheap Linux Home Media Server in Thre Easy Steps

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 06:39:00 +0000

Most home computer users think of servers as the complex machines that form the backbone of corporate computer networks. But the functional definition of a server is far more flexible than that. Essentially, any computer that "serves" data to other machines on a network is a server.

And as American households become populated with multiple PCs, the idea of a central hub that can be used for backup, storage and even remote access becomes reasonable, even essential. Anticipating a household server market, HP recently launched its HP MediaSmart Home Server ($599), using Windows Home Server software as the operating system. The HP server comes with a single 500 GB hard drive (plus three empty drive bays for expansion), and can automatically back up computers on the network, as well as store and stream media.

The HP device works well, but you don't need to buy specialized equipment to have a home server. You can build one yourself using cheap or salvaged PC parts. It turns out servers aren't really that complicated, at least when it comes to hardware. Unless you're planning to run a high-traffic Web site or a business with centralized e-mail, there's no need for a high-powered CPU or graphics card, or even a lot of RAM. And since you're probably going to stick your server in a closet somewhere, a stylish and expensive case is pointless. Plus, once a server is set up, it can operate without a screen or keyboard. We put together a server using a motherÂ board and dual-core chip we had lying around in our lab. But, frankly, the fancy parts we worked with are overkill. A machine with an older Pentium 4 chip would do the trick.

The process of building your server can be as simple as adding a few parts to an existing PC, or as complex as building from scratch (see photographs below), but it's important to make sure any new components you purchase match the standard connections on your server's motherboard. (Does it take SATA or IDE hard drives? DDR or DDR2 RAM?) Since the main function of a media server is centralized storage, we would suggest spending the largest part of your budget on hard drives. (We were able to find two 500 GB drives for $99 each at newegg.com.)

Once we put our machine to-gether, we tried two software options: the easy and expensive route (Windows Home Server; $150 to $200), and the free and labor-intensive one (Ubuntu). Windows Home Server is the same operating system that runs on the HP MediaÂ Smart box, but it can be installed on any semiÂ modern computer. Installation is a guided three-step process. The install software configures the server, as well as client software on each PC on the network, then sets up accounts for all users. Functions such as autoÂ mated backup, file sharing and remote access over the Internet are built in, so once you've installed the software, you can shove the server in a closet and be done with it.

With Ubuntu, setup was a bit more involved. Ubuntu is a Linux-based graphical user interface (GUI) operating system that can be tweaked to unleash server functionality. But to do so, you'll want to study up on the text-based command language that is required to unpack and install many of its networking features. After loading Ubuntu, we installed a variety of secondary programs such as Samba for file and printer sharing; VLC media player for playing and streaming movies and videos; SBackup for automated backup; and secure shell (SSH) for remote Web access.

The OS you choose depends on what type of computer user you are. Windows Home Server had a set-it-and-forget-it appeal that required minimum management time. But we found the Ubuntu server more rewarding for the geeky hobbyist who is willing to spend time experimenting with the software creations of the open-source community. Either way, we got a powerful machine for minimal investment.

The Steps

1. Look under the hood

You don't need a high-power PC or specialized equipment to build a server; you can make one out of that old PC in your closet. Any computer with a Pentium 4 or later processor will do.

2. Make a few upgrades

Blow out any dust with canned air. For best performance, upgrade RAM to at least 512 MB. Be sure that your memory matches the specs of your motherboard.

3. Maximize your storage

Your server will provide backup and storage for all the computers on your network, so spend the majority of your upgrade budget on hard drives.

Transmission Becomes Default BitTorrent Client for Ubuntu

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:25:00 +0000

Transmission is already included in the 4th Alpha release of Hardy Heron, and is set to replace the Gnome BitTorrent client that Ubuntu has used up until now. A stable version of Ubuntu 8.04 is expected to be released in April 2008.

Transmission has gained a lot of popularity over the last year, and is considered to be one of the fastest and lightweight BitTorrent clients. It is an Open Source project, and the application is currently available on almost every operating system except Windows. Similar to uTorrent, it focuses on being lightweight, while including all the features a demanding BitTorrent user needs.

The Transmission team describes it as follows: “Transmission has been built from the ground up to be a lightweight, yet powerful BitTorrent client. Its simple, intuitive interface is designed to integrate tightly with whatever computing environment you choose to use. Transmission strikes a balance between providing useful functionality without feature bloat.”

Transmission uses little resources, and we’ve heard of people running it on their routers, NAS devices and even mobile phones. There is also a great WebUI for Transmission, called Clutch. With Clutch you can easily monitor and control your torrents remotely. Today, the Clutch team has released version 0.3, and instructions on how to get started are over here.

Downloads and more information about Ubuntu Hardy Heron can be found in theUbuntu Wiki.

The cake is a lie: IE team bakes a treat for Mozilla

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 17:58:00 +0000

In honor of today's Firefox 3 release, Microsoft's Internet Explorer team gave a cake to Mozilla. The tasty treat, which prominently displays IE's blue "e" icon, just arrived here at Mozilla headquarters in Mountain View.

The cake congratulates Mozilla on shipping Firefox 3 and expresses love from the IE team. Microsoft's IE developers also sent a cake to Mozilla in 2006 following the release of Firefox 2, so this is clearly becoming a tradition.

Portal jokes aside, the cake is a very friendly gesture of goodwill. The Internet Explorer team could learn a lot from Mozilla. Closer cooperation between Microsoft and Mozilla on standards and web innovation would be a big win for everyone. But until Microsoft gets its act straightened out, Mozilla will be eating Internet Explorer's marketshare in addition to cake.

Mozilla to remove Firefox EULA

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Ubuntu users who couldn’t stand the idea of a EULA (End User License Agreement) for the popular Firefox Web browser are going to get their way. The Mozilla Foundation’s chairperson, Mitchell Baker, has agreed to entirely remove the Firefox EULA.

In her blog, Baker wrote, “We’ve come to understand that anything EULA-like is disturbing, even if the content is FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software) based. So we’re eliminating that. We still feel that something about the web services integrated into the browser is needed; these services can be turned off and not interrupt the flow of using the browser.

We also want to tell people about the FLOSS license — as a notice, not as as EULA or use restriction. Again, this won’t block the flow or provide the unwelcoming feeling that one comment to my previous post described so eloquently.”

What this new way of telling people about Firefox’s license, the MPL (Mozilla Public License), will be hasn’t been determined yet. “We’re still working on this. There’s been a bunch of helpful feedback. We appreciate this. We think we’ve integrated the feedback into something that’s a good solution; different from out last version in both its essence and its presentation and content.” She added that this new “solution” should be made public sometime today, September 17.

This EULA fight began when Mozilla issued Firefox 3.02 with a new EULA that rapidly drew fire from Ubuntu users. Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu, urged users to calm down while Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, and Mozilla worked on the problem.

Baker quickly tried to get on top of the problem by issuing a proposed revision to the EULA. When this version also drew far more complaints than praise, Baker and the rest of the Mozilla leadership decided to abandon entirely a EULA approach and take a different approach.

While it still isn’t entirely clear what this will be, simply dropping any sign of a EULA will likely go a long way to calming upset Ubuntu Linux users.

FVD Suite vs. Orbit Downloader: Downloading the Undownloadable

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 05:58:00 +0000

Remember those damn bad times when the content from such major video libraries as YouTube, MetaCafe and others really was available only for viewing online? You wanted to get that movie on your PC, you needed it really really bad for some purpose – but you just couldn’t do it because of the strict no-download policy of those resources?

Fortunately, those times are finally over and there’s a good deal of various video downloaders working with clips of different formats supplied by different content storage systems. Today I will be scrutinizing and comparing two of them – the ones that might be the best in market at the moment. Ready to hear the names of these must-have programs? Here you are – these are FVD Suite and Orbit Downloader. Which one of them is better, you wonder? Well, hopefully, this review will show!

1. FVD Suite – Simplicity Almighty.

FVD Suite is a very good streamline video downloader – and there are a whole lot of reasons making me think so. The first one that I have noticed straight from the start of my acquaintance with this software (bet that you will notice it too) was the simplicity of its interface. Come on, take a look at the screenshot below – seeing anything that appears to be hardly comprehensible? I doubt that!

The list of supported sites is totally stunning here – if my arithmetic skills are not totally gone, FVD Suite can work with as many as 356 video sites and 12 RTMP ones. The list of languages that those sites are presented in looks very impressing – just like the list of languages offered for the interface of the program itself. English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese and even Finnish and Russian – they are all there for your maximum comfort.

I know that converting the downloaded *.FLV files into a more or less decent format is always a pain in the neck for the users as well – you should either look for a separate converter or use an FLV player. Fortunately, with FVD Suite it is not the case – this software brags a built-in converter allowing you to choose any appropriate output video format. AVI, FLV, WMV, MOV, MP4, PSP, 3GP, SWF – whichever you prefer. Yeah, almost forgotten that this software can also convert vids into simple sound tracks without the original visual component.

Just like the majority of similar programs, FVD Suite has got that omnipresent little icon that will be displayed above all windows that you have got opened (unless you uncheck the corresponding line in its properties). I’m not much of an ill-tempered person but… Sometimes I wonder how come the inventors of such software don’t content themselves with desktop icons and QuickLaunch menu items.

2. Orbit Downloader – The Heavyweight Champ

Having completed the installation of Orbit Downloader and having refused to accept and install any additional software (come on, I only need a reliable downloader and that’s it – there’s no need for all those extras), I launched the program and… This is what I saw there:

I wouldn’t say that this program is much more complicated than FVD Suite – but the unmatched simplicity of the latter is certainly lacking. What is also absent is the converter function – if you are using Orbit Downloader, you will definitely need to get yourself that extra converter of FLV player, whatever suits you best. On the other hand, there is that pretty interesting “Scheduler” function allowing you to schedule automatic downloads on any day and any time you wish.

Orbit Downloader is certainly not spared from a bunch of really cool positive features as well. Let’s start off with the fact that this downloader is compatible with a whole lot of online video libraries – the list of supported sites is even longer than that of FVD Suite. Besides, Orbit Downloader also supports RapidShare downloads, which is a considerable advantage as well.

Orbit Downloader’s compatibility with the majority of popular browsers was something I couldn’t leave unnoticed too (I liked that GetIt button appearing right on the video – very useful), as well as the variety of languages that the software’s interface is available in. The list of languages in FVD Suite that impressed me at first starts looking simply laughable if compared to that of Orbit Downloader!

What is good about both programs is the fact that they are available to their users without any charges at all. Anyway, the final verdict will be as follows: if you are looking for a very functional video downloader with a good deal of additional features, choose Orbit Downloader. However, if simplicity is exactly what you value most in software and you also plan to convert the downloaded vids into a more appropriate media format, FVD Suite is the right choice for you.

Download here:

http://www.brothersoft.com/download-fvd-suite-290601.html

Teacher threatens to call the cops over Linux

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 09:56:00 +0000

A teacher has thrown a student into detention and threatened to call the police for using Linux in her classroom.The teacher spotted one of her students giving a demonstration of the HeliOS distro to other students.

In a somewhat over-the-top reaction, she confiscated the CDs, put the student on detention and whipped off a letter to the HeliOS Project threatening to report it to the police for distributing illegal software.

"I am sure you strongly believe in what you are doing but I cannot either support your efforts or allow them to happen in my classroom," writes the teacher, identified only as Karen.

"At this point, I am not sure what you are doing is legal. No software is free and spreading that misconception is harmful. I will research this as time allows and I want to assure you, if you are doing anything illegal, I will pursue charges as the law allows.

"I along with many others tried Linux during college and I assure you, the claims you make are grossly over-stated and hinge on falsehoods. I admire your attempts in getting computers in the hands of disadvantaged people but putting Linux on these machines is holding our kids back," she writes.

Not content with completely missing the point of Linux, Karen concluded by throwing down the ultimate insult to the Linux advocates: "This is a world where Windows runs on virtually every computer and putting on a carnival show for an operating system is not helping these children at all.

"I am sure if you contacted Microsoft, they would be more than happy to supply you with copies of an older verison of Windows and that way, your computers would actually be of service to those receiving them..."

The HeliOS project members were understandably upset, and quickly fired off a reply.

"Please...investigate to your heart's content. Linux is a free as-in-cost and free as-in-license operating system. It was designed specifically for those purposes...

"I don't know when you attended college Karen but the Linux of even two years ago pales in feature and ability to what there is available now... and that in turn will pale in a year's time. Linux is superior to Microsoft Windows in so many ways, they are too numerous to mention here."

Why I've moved from Vista to Ubuntu

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 10:23:00 +0000

I've been using Windows since it was battling for desktop supremacy with GEM in the early 90s. In the mid 90s I spent several years producing newspapers on Apple Macs. Since the late 90s I've dabbled with Linux, but there have always been compelling reasons to return to, or stick with, Windows. No more, for two reasons: Vista, and Ubuntu 7.10 (ala Gutsy Gibbon).

Through all this time I have looked forward to each new version of Windows either because I expected it to be more stable, add better hardware support, or correct problems in some other way. Several weeks ago I took delivery of a brand, spanking, £1300-worth of notebook in the form of an Asus V1S desktop replacement. It's a lovely machine, if unwieldy. A quick tour of the stickers next to the keyboard reveals such delights as a SATA hard drive, GeForce 8600 GT graphics card with 512MB of video RAM, Core 2 duo processor and 1GB RAM. It also came with Vista which, after several weeks of concentrated use, has left me with numerous questions.

* Why is Vista so slow (part 1)? On a brand new £1300 notebook built (one would think) with Vista in mind, the operating system should fly, especially when no applications are running. Not so; it's a complete dog. It's so slow that applications often won't register that I've hit the space bar until I'm halfway through the next word. I'm a fast typer, but not that fast.

* Why is Vista so slow (part 2)? After tracking the ever increasing speeds of processors and computers for the past 15 years I'm left somewhat dismayed to see menu bar so sluggish, and finding myself waiting around for the OS to do the most simple of tasks.

* Why is Vista so slow (part 3)? I know, I know, I should by an extra 1GB. I would but for two reasons: First, I would have to buy a 2GB to upgrade to 2GB, and while I may contemplate doing so should I discover I *really* need that much memory for some application, I resent the thought of doing so just for the operating system. Operating systems should be light, run in the background and do everything they can to keep out of my way.

* Why does the screen blank out every time I try to run a program? I appreciate the need for security, but when it comes to user experience I, like many other users, will try everything to bypass such security features.

* Why did Microsoft ignore the first rule of usability and ditch all familiar methods of doing stuff that I'd spent 15 years getting used to?

* Why, after five years waiting for the most important product from one of the biggest companies on the planet, was I left feeling with such an overwhelming feeling of "Is that it?".

And now onto Ubuntu.

I've been through dozens of Linux distros over the years and while I have wanted to like them, I've always found myself a little disappointed in some respect or other. No more.

Ubuntu has the slickest installation I have yet found in any OS.

Ubuntu makes it supremely easy to install extra software packages.

Ubuntu has a wonderfully useful and responsive 3D desktop, in the shape of Compiz Fusion. Ubuntu is fast, and is like a fresh breeze blowing through after my weeks of gazing at Vista, waiting for something to happen.

Ubuntu generally works just fine on my Santa Rosa laptop. I had to spend some time figuring out how to get Compiz Fusion working, but even that is relatively easy.

Sure, I have yet to find drivers for the built-in webcam and HSDPA data card (Asus, are you listening?), but these sacrifices I'm willing to make.

The other reason that Ubuntu does it for me is that over the past 12 months I've found myself increasingly using non-Microsoft products. Google Docs is usually open in a browser Window, OpenOffice.org has been on my home and work machines for some time now, and while I still use Outlook, I find Evolution quite useable. Even for those applications I use that are not available on Linux - such as Mindjet's mind-mapping software - I find there are often quite suitable alternatives with some degree of file compatibility.

Of course this is just my experience, and this is just Ubuntu. Yet I have had a look at SuSE 10.3 which seems to be equally able, and this is not to even mention Apple's Leopard OS which is due later this week and which can be relied upon to deliver a 'wow' factor that people have simply failed to see in Vista.

Have we reached the beginning of the tipping point? I think we may just have.

Funnily enough my colleague Rupert Goodwins documented his - very similar - experiences andthoughts on Vista and Ubuntu late last night, just hours after I posted mine. Of course his write-up is far more eloquent and well worth the read

Mythbuster Jamie recommends Ubuntu over Vista's bloat

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:26:00 +0000

In the tech world this phenomenon is known as “software bloat” or “feature bloat.” It's a well-documented problem and a frequent complaint about Windows OSs—Vista in particular. In addition to being buggy, the extra features tend to bog down your system by demanding more processing power and memory. Computer-makers: Don't load up operating systems with features and then make us sweat to figure out how to get rid of the fat.

Most features can be set up as options. Why not start with a computer loaded with basic stuff that works 100 percent of the time? Then, give us the option of adding the bells and whistles. There's another solution available to consumers: Switch to a Linux-based OS such as Ubuntu. Since most Linux OSs are free, there's no business reason to bloat up the system with feature frills.

And high-tech companies—stop messing with us on your treadmill of upgrades while making the old stuff obsolete. It may be that any software company that didn't routinely upgrade its product would go out of business. But what if the rest of the world worked this way? Oh, I lost a sock. I need to get a whole new wardrobe because the replacement sock is version 2.0.1, and the stores now only sell version 2.0.3.

Automobiles with obnoxious electronics.

There are all sorts of things that are being built into cars that are really bugging a lot of us. We all like new cars with technology that improves handling, speed, mileage, safety and comfort. Designers are working hard to deliver that kind of tech. But I don't like all the beeping and buzzing electronics that are being put into cars—and I know I'm not alone.

When a car's electronic junk harasses me with beeps until I buckle up a seatbelt around a box I'm carrying on the passenger seat, then there's a problem. And why on earth can a car lock me in automati cally? If I want to get out of my car quickly, darn it, I should be able to. We should have control over these things. If I want to be nagged by my car, I'll turn on a nag button.

Cars designed to make it tough to do maintenance.

One late-model sedan I worked on required the removal of a front wheel, plus a bunch of other stuff, just to replace the battery. These days, opening the hood of most cars is enough to give me a headache.

Batteries, filters, fuses and other parts that wear out or need to be serviced should be easily accessible. If the carmakers can install all those oh-so-convenient comfort controls, do they really need to make me do gymnastics to change the oil?

I could go on, but you get the point. We all know companies are in a race to find smarter, faster, slicker technology, but do they really want to pursue that goal at the expense of consumers? Can't we all just be friends and play nice?

To my mind, engineering is a high art, and it brings tears to my eyes to see it so disrespected at times by the marketing and legal departments of corporations. Ideally, form is supposed to follow function, and designing and manufacturing consumer products should be a collaborative process. Com panies, it's time to wake up and pay attention to your engineers—and to your customers.

Local DNS Cache for Faster Browsing

noreply@blogger.com (Learnphp) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:27:00 +0000

A DNS server resolves domain names into IP addresses. So when you request “google.com” for example, the DNS server finds out the address for the domain, and sends your request the right way.

You can run a DNS cache on your computer. This will speed up the process of looking up domain names when browsing. The difference is about 30-60 ms for me. Multiply that difference by the number of websites you visit a day for an approximate estimate of the speed improvement. Of course, all this would be worth it if it weren’t for the fact that setting this up is way too easy.

The following instructions are for someone with a cable (broadband) internet connection, where the computer gets it’s local IP address using DHCP from the router in your house/office:

The package we will be using for caching nameserver lookups is calleddnsmasq. So first, install it using:

$sudo apt-get install dnsmasq

(If you can’t find then, then you probably haven’t added the Universe repository to your list of repositories.)

No uncomment the following line (that is edit the line to NOT have a “#” in the beginning) in the file

/etc/dnsmasq.conf

listen-address=127.0.0.1

Now edit

/etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf

and make sure the section below exactly like this, especially the line that says “prepend domain-name-servers 127.0.0.1;”



#supersede domain-name "fugue.com home.vix.com";
prepend domain-name-servers 127.0.0.1;
request subnet-mask, broadcast-address, time-offset, routers,
domain-name, domain-name-servers, host-name,
netbios-name-servers, netbios-scope;

Explanation for the above change: In the normal case, when you get a new dhcp lease, the dhcp3 client (tool) on your computer gets a new lease, and updates the

/etc/resolv.conf

file on your computer with the right values for the DNS servers to use (usually some machine in the network of your hosting provider). Adding the “prepend” option as we did above ensures that “127.0.0.1″ will appear on the top of the list of DNS servers. That magic number refers to your own computer. So in the future, whenever your computer needs to resolve a domain name, it will forward that request to dnsmasq (which is running at 127.0.0.1 – your computer). If the details for the domain name are already in you cache, well and good, dnsmasq will serve it up and make the process real fast. If it is not in the cache, then dnsmasq will look at the /etc/resolv.conf file and use the nameservers listed below the “127.0.0.1″. I hope that explains things.

Now open the file

/etc/resolv.conf

in your text editor. It probably looks like:



search yourisp.com
nameserver 217.54.170.023
nameserver 217.54.170.024
nameserver 217.54.170.026

The 127.0.0.1 is missing right now since you haven’t renewed your lease after you edited the /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf file. So, let us add that in manually this one time. After you do, your /etc/resolv.conf file will look like the following:



search yourisp.com
nameserver 127.0.0.1
nameserver 217.54.170.023
nameserver 217.54.170.024
nameserver 217.54.170.026

Don’t worry if the numbers are different – if they are not, then hey – we must be neighbours

Okay. We are almost done here. All we have to do now is to restart dnsmasq so that the changes we made to the configuration file take effect. You can do that using the command:

$sudo /etc/init.d/dnsmasq restart

Now you are running a local DNS cache. If you want to measure your speed improvement, type the command:

$dig google.com

You will see something like “;; Query time: 38 msec” there.

Now type the command again, and you should see something like:”;; Query time: 2 msec”

See, the first time, since google.com’s details were not in your cache (you are using it for the first time), the query took 38 ms. The second time, the cache speeds up the lookup. I have been using this for over a month now, and haven’t had a problem.

The following is ONLY for dsl customers

Note: If you have a dsl connection, the following may work:

Basically, the differences are in how the “conf” files are edited and used.

Copy the /etc/resolv.conf file to /etc/resolv.dnsmasq.conf

Then, edit the /etc/dnsmasq.conf file as follows:



# Change this line if you want dns to get its upstream servers from
# somewhere other that /etc/resolv.conf
resolv-file=/etc/resolv.dnsmasq.conf

You also have to uncomment the line that says

listen-address=127.0.0.1

Now, edit /etc/resolv.conf to have ONLY the following line in it:

nameserver 127.0.0.1

Next, edit /etc/ppp/peers/dsl-provider and change the line:

usepeerdns

#usepeerdns

(that is, comment out that line)

The ppp client does not allow you to prepend the 127.0.0.1 entry to your /etc/resolv.conf file. So what we did in the above was to create a copy of your previous resolv.conf for dnsmasq to use for lookups, update the file to use a local cache, and then prevent the ppp client from overwriting the resolv.conf file the next time. Now you can restart the dnsmasq service as I explained above, and start enjoying faster name resolution.

I don’t have a dsl connection, and so all the above is to the best of my knowledge