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While the native screenshot applications found in most Linux distributions are fine for quick screengrabs, you need something heftier if you plan to highlight, annotate, resize or otherwise tinker with images. Shutter is a great little open source app that lets you take quick snapshots of your computer screen and dress them up all sorts of ways.

Use Shutter to take a timed or instant screenshot of your entire desktop, a single window, or a particular area of your screen. You can even dispatch it onto the Internet to take a snapshot of a Web site and bring you back the results.

As Computerworld's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols explains, Canonical has always offered commercial support for Linux, though its services largely targeted the enterprise market. Today, Canonical is announcing its plan to extend commercial support services to Ubuntu desktop users: individuals and small- and mid-sized businesses desiring a dedicated helping hand with Ubuntu installation, data migration, and network configuration.

Canonical offers three levels of support -- starter, advanced, and professional (the comparison chart breaks down coverage nicely) -- for one- or three- year periods.

SpringSource takes on Java goliaths. The company is proving that commercial open source can peacefully coexist with community involvement.

Microhoo lessons for open source. Yahoo?s open source projects are now held by a company that is cash poor.

Acer: Android netbook on track for Q3. The company has wavered on whether it will deliver one, but it apparently is on track, and may dual-boot with Windows.

The Gap moves from Windows to Red Hat Linux. The company needed to revamp its entire end-to-end business technology platform.

Dell: New Ubuntu desktop PC launching soon. There?s a high probability that it will debut the week of August 2nd.

While the native screenshot applications found in most Linux distributions are fine for quick screengrabs, you need something heftier if you plan to highlight, annotate, resize or otherwise tinker with images. Shutter is a great little open source app that lets you take quick snapshots of your computer screen and dress them up all sorts of ways.

Use Shutter to take a timed or instant screenshot of your entire desktop, a single window, or a particular area of your screen. You can even dispatch it onto the Internet to take a snapshot of a Web site and bring you back the results.

Missing: Dell Ubuntu desktop PCs. The VAR Guy explores whether Dell has stopped selling Ubuntu desktop computers.

Open source Hive: Large-scale, distributed data processing made easy. Hive is a data analysis and query front end for Hadoop that makes Hadoop data files look like SQL tables.

Microsoft opened Linux-driver code after violating GPL. Did it act simply to head off any potentially embarrassing legal disputes over violations?

SpringSource and MindTouch seek to redefine the application server. Spurred by economic pressures on IT departments, new breeds of app servers are taking shape.

The tech jobs that the cloud will eliminate. IT pros face new competition for their jobs from cloud services. Which jobs go, and which become more valuable?

Hadoop and MapReduce are cheap and scalable for clustered queries, but they're slower than relational databases. Yale researchers have an improvement.

The Ubuntu Linux app store: fact or fiction? The emerging app store, which offers Ubuntu Linux and Debian applications, wasn?t built by Canonical.

Linux slips into Microsoft's warm, deadly embrace. How Microsoft will use the GPL to mount a serious backdoor assault on the core of the Linux platform.

Is Microsoft's GPL2 support really a big deal? It's recently released code is only for Linux Virtual Machines on Windows, not physical Linux servers and Linux desktops.

Red Hat is wrong to insist Microsoft disavow litigation. Did IBM, HP, Oracle, or even Red Hat ever declare that they will never, ever sue open source developers over patent infringements?

Palm's Linux secret makes the Pre. Palm Pre is no thriller as a smartphone, but the SDK reveals the most open mobile platform on the market.

Is Oracle getting ready to kill OpenSolaris? What does a Linux company, which Oracle is, want to do with its newly purchased Sun operating system?

Google releases open source NX server. Amid the fanfare of the Chrome OS announcement, Google quietly released an open source NX server, dubbed Neatx, for remote desktop display.

HP releases $500 Linux netbook onto Aussie market. This week sees the Australian launch of the Mini 110, which HP is offering with both Ubuntu and Windows XP.

Free operating systems that aren't Linux. There are other free options such BSD, OpenSolaris, HaikuOS, ReactOS, and PureDarwin.

Chrome, Android have different jobs, Google says. Android has features unique to running mobile devices, and one doesn't replace the other, a Google mobile executive says.

Open source companies log impressive growth in Q2 2009. Several companies are reporting impressive sales and earnings growth, despite the economy.

Chrome OS: Cloud computing made real. Could Chrome OS take cloud computing to the next level?

First open source Symbian software released. The OS Security Package is the first package from Symbian's long-awaited opoen source OS.

Jono Bacon on the value of good communities. Ubuntu's Community Manager weighs in.

?T-Mobile's next-generation Android phone, myTouch, coming up July 8th. The 3G phone is a big step for Android.

Why Ubuntu has become the flag bearer for Linux. It's not just because of Canonical's investment.

PostgreSQL version 8.4 is now out and available for download. Improvements to the open source database focus on administration and monitoring.

10 awesome features of Krunner in KDE 4. Here's a screenshot-driven tour.

Amarok music player 2.1: One step forward, two steps back. There are several improvements, but also several issues.

With clouds, license arguments become fog. Does it matter if you are using a license out there??