500+ Results for Southern California Linux Expo

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Open Source Textbook Plan Could Use Funding

At OStatic, we've written on several occasions about how schools could benefit from adopting open source software solutions--an effort already going on in many parts of the world. We've also reported on the multi-billion dollar U.S. market for textbooks, and the huge cost savings that could be reaped by educational institutions if they pursue open source textbooks. Now, as Ars Technica reports, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has launched an inititative to compile open source textbooks for the state, which is experiencing a budget crisis. The initiative faces an uphill battle, but shows a lot of promise, especially if it gets funding.


Interview: Behind the Scenes at SCALE

scaleThe seventh annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) is scheduled to get underway early next month, along with a few co-hosted mini-conferences that address issues surroundingwomen in open source (WIOS) and FOSS health care solutions.

I caught up with one of the event's organizers, Gareth Greenaway, to find get the inside scoop on what's new, what's different, and what they've learned from past events.



K Desktop Environment is Dead: Long Live KDE

Following in the footsteps of KFC, the KDE Project is rebranding and getting rid of the full name K Desktop Environment. Unlike KFC, KDE won't be offering crispy chicken and stale biscuits. What KDE will be offering is distinct brands for the software that was previously referred to generically as 'KDE'. Instead of offering KDE 4.4 in 2010, the project will be releasing the KDE Software Compilation 4.4.



Over 50 Free, Must-Have Open Source Resources

On a regular basis, we at OStatic round up our collections of open source resources, tutorials, reviews and project tours. These educational toolkits are a big part of the learning mission we try to preserve at the site. We regularly collect the best Firefox extensions, free online books on open source topics, free tools for developers, resources for working with and enjoying online video and audio, Linux tutorials, and much more. In this post, you'll find an updated set of more than 50 useful open source resources. Hopefully, you'll find something to learn from here, and the good news is that everything found in this post is free.


What Does a User Cost?

Seth Godin has some advice to marketeers and businesses that open source proejcts should take to heart as well. Godin writes today about embracing the lifetime value of a customer. Open source projects may not have customers, but it pays to think about the lifetime value of users as well.

Godin writes Instead of comparing what you invest to the benefit you receive from the first bill, the first visit, the first transaction, it's important to not only recognize but embrace the true lifetime value of one more customer.



Amarok Refreshed: Better, Stronger, Faster!

Even though it's a point release, the latest Amarok comes with some major new features and all the benefits of the 2.2.0 release. Dubbed Weightless, the 2.2.1 release is full of bug fixes and polishing from 2.2.0 release as well as improvements to music management, podcasts, and the ability to update Amarok scripts.

Amarok is already speedy when processing large media collections, but this release includes a tweak to take it up a notch. In the past, Amarok would scan an entire directory -- including sub-folders -- when the main directory had changed. Now Amarok can just breeze through the main directory if the subdirectories haven't been modified, making it even faster. And it's plenty fast already: I've passed a 57GB collection through Amarok in just a few minutes.



Dell's Multimedia Mini PC Ships With Ubuntu

It measures 8 inches by 8 inches--a mini system--but it packs some powerful features and is available with Ubuntu Linux pre-loaded. Dell's Zino HD Desktop computers sell for $230. For that you 8GB of RAM, you can choose from one of ten colors, you get discrete graphics, and you get some notable HD and entertainment-oriented options. It's good to see the world's number two PC supplier shipping Ubuntu on a desktop computer in addition to shipping it on netbooks and laptops.


What Lies Ahead for Chrome OS?

So rumor has it that Google's Chrome OS, which had been slated to arrive some time next year, is about to arrive as a beta release. As I pointed out this morning, netbooks based on it may help preserve open source influence on a hot hardware category, but is Chrome OS likely to be a smash hit?


Don't Count Linux Netbooks Out

The announcement last week of a Linux-based smartbook from Lenovo was just one of several signs I'm seeing that Linux will maintain a foothold in emerging portable computing categories, including netbooks and smartbooks. Many people predicted that, with the arrival of Windows 7, which is squarely aimed at netbooks, Linux would fade on low-cost portable computing platforms. Here are several reasons why that is probably not going to happen.


Lenovo's Smartbook: The Company Can Still Back Linux

I'm surprised that more people in the Linux community aren't talking about Lenovo's smartbook, which it announced yesterday. Powered by a Qualcomm ARM Snapdragon processor and sold by AT&T, the new smartbook is Linux-based. Lenovo has had an up and down relationship with supporting Linux, and smartbooks may represent a good way for the company to get back on track with an open source platform.


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