Many people who are using Ubuntu probably have another machine that they are also using like a second computer or a work machine. At times you do work on both machines and need the data to be synced so that you can use either computer and still be working with the same set of data.

In years past this was a pretty serious issue where you had to manually transfer the files back and forth between your computers. You can do this with a USB flash drive always saving to the device when you make changes. This works until you don’t have the flash drive with you. There are some software based alternatives that you can consider.

One popular type of program that has come out in the past few years are these automated backup tools. Many will work on Macs and Windows computers but have not been integrated into working with Ubuntu or Linux machines. Luckily, there are some alternatives to these popular software backup programs.

When using Ubuntu there is something called Ubuntu One. It will give you about 2 gigabytes of space that will let you sync your data with another Ubuntu machine. Anything that is stored in a certain folder will automatically be uploaded to a server. On the second computer it will download this information and sync the folders. It’s as if you are working on the same machine.

The limitation with Ubuntu One is that it requires two Ubuntu computers. What do you do if you have Windows and an Ubuntu machine? There is a very similar service called DropBox. This works on just about any operating system. You can then have this special 2 gigabyte folder on your Ubuntu machine which will sync with your Windows folder as well using the same data cross platform. For a monthly service fee this 2 gigabyte limit can be raised to a much larger size if you need it.

It’s nice to be able to sync data while using an Ubuntu computer. Learn some strategies that you can use to have the same data on multiple computers.

Phil has been writing articles for over three years for his many websites on different subjects. His current project at http://www.kidsswingsetsstore.com will provide information on kids swing sets for their backyard.

Author: Phil Reusch
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New powerful PDA phones with the Google Android operating system have been topping the charts of highest selling phones for the past few months. This new operating system has already cut its teeth in the market and is now sailing out to end-users from almost every cell phone provider. This new PDA phone operating system provides users with the ability to easily text, call, email and install apps to do virtually anything. However, many users who have home or business security camera systems, may find that they can no longer view their cameras like they could with other PDA phones in the past.

However, there are several types of systems that will allow Google Android users to view their cameras remotely over the internet right from their PDA phones. Of these systems, are Standalone DVRs and PC Based DVR Systems. Standalone DVRs like our DVR-2644S 4-Channel Standalone DVR operate a webserver on the DVR which allows for a basic remote viewing of up to 4 cameras at once from your phone and will refresh these snapshots up to 1 time per second, depending on internet connection speeds. This is a basic type of remote viewing, but is popular due to the fact that these systems are contained inside a VCR-sized box, and do not require a computer at the location where the DVR is installed.

The more popular style of home and business security camera system is the PC-Based system. These systems, like our Alnet systems DVR cards provide the ability to plug in an analog capture card into your PC, or allow for connection of IP cameras over the network while providing enhanced software like the CMS mobile application designed specifically for the Google Android operating system which will interface with this system. This type of application allows streaming video directly to your PDA phone to watch live video from your cameras right on your Android phone. While most PC-Based systems do not support the Google Android operating system yet, our professional grade Alnet PC-Based NVR (Network Video Recorder) software for IP security cameras and analog DVR cards for CCTV cameras have PDA clients designed and written specifically for the Android operating system.

Moving to a new PDA phone does not mean that you will not be able to view your IP cameras or CCTV home or business security cameras. Just make sure to choose a security camera software that has a client software designed for your specific PDA phone, or a Standalone DVR which uses a basic universal style web-based PDA remote viewing.

Stay connected with your home or business security cameras on your Android PDA with Alnet DVR Cards. These professional grade DVR cards provide inputs for your CCTV cameras and will broadcast over the internet to your PDA phone. For basic home or business installations, these Standalone DVRs have a web based application that will work with virtually any PDA phone.

Author: Michael Dunteman
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Open source software (OSS), a low cost alternative to proprietary programs, is rapidly gaining popularity in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) industry. Because of the structure of open source, with readily available code for users to change and develop for their particular needs, it is extremely adaptive, responsive, and more secure than the commercial counterparts.

Software-as-a-service is a delivery model where a vendor develops an application and hosts it for use by their clients over the internet. In this business, customers do not have to pay typically hefty licensing fees but instead pay the vendor a periodic fee to use the software. SaaS is generally thought to be a low cost alternative for businesses to obtain the benefits of commercially licensed programs without the high initial cost and internal complexity of running such programs. The idea for SaaS began to circulate around the year 2000 and it has gained in popularity since that time.

According to research by Gartner, up to 90% of SaaS companies will be based on OSS within the next 2 years. The analyst firm states open source solutions can be used in the operating system, application server, or database to reduce overall expenses for the company. Robert DeSisto, vice president of Gartner, proclaimed “the more SaaS vendors use open source in the technology stack, the lower their software acquisition cost becomes.” This cost cutting, however, is not expected to be passed on to the consumer of SaaS services though. Gartner expects the SaaS companies will either reinvest the saved money to improve efficiency or may pocket the money to elevate their overall profitability.

In addition to the use of open source software by SaaS companies, user communities can utilize open source methods to facilitate data and application sharing. Self-policing can occur when both the data and the source code is available for everyone to see, making illegal practices less likely as watchdog groups are naturally created. It is important for businesses and users to not infringe patents in their quest to lower costs. Software-as-a-service provides a legal alternative for companies interested in using licensed software but who are financially unwilling to pay the steep prices associated with such programs.

Open source software can provide answers for both mid-level business, such as Software-as-a-Service, and individual users. OSS solution stacks provide cheap and effective alternatives to many problems in the commercial realm. If you are interested in learning more, this open source software website [http://www.mpoweropen.com/faq.shtml] can provide useful information.

Joseph Devine

Author: Joseph Devine
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Open Source software, with its elevated security and adaptability, is a market force to be recognized. Although the programming for it has been around for decades, open source software has recently exploded in usage and popularity, both with commercial and personal users. Because of its transparent structure, with code readily available to consumers, the software is responsive to both system bugs and the user’s particular needs. The programs can be customized and specialized for each particular business, and multiple pieces of software can be used, if necessary, for a very low price.

All of these advantages have perpetuated and promoted open source software’s popularity in the recent decade. According to an International Data Corporation (IDC) study, the market is in a significant growth stage, with rapid expansion predicted to occur until 2011. The results parallel similar research done by CRN that revealed a large majority of resellers already use open source products. As more barriers to adoption crumble, it will continue to gain market power.

Currently, the marketplace is still immature in terms of revenue generation. Open source programs are being used at all levels in business solutions, leading one to believe that derived income would be enormous. However, revenue production generally lags behind distribution, especially in a market where the product is usually free. Many developers do not charge for the initial usage of the program. Instead, they profit from upgraded support or help with specialization. For this reason, the initial revenue seen by open source companies appears to be low.

However, as companies realize that open source software provides more choices, greater flexibility, and increased specialization for their business needs, the market is expected to grow, generating larger profit margins. In addition, venture capitalists are beginning to invest more money in the open source market, helping the companies to grow and attract more attention from potential large enterprise organizations. Finally, many people are becoming more comfortable with the idea of a subscription service as a viable business model, encouraging more developers to work within the platform and more business and users to be involved with open source solutions.

The open source marketplace, as predicted by many large information technology research firms, is in a state of rapid growth and expansion. Because it is highly responsive to users’ needs, software produced from this domain is in demand for all kinds of businesses. If you are interested in learning more, this open source software information [http://www.mpoweropen.com/faq.shtml] website will be useful.

Joseph Devine

Author: Joseph Devine
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This will be the century of open source software. Open source software is defined as one that can be distributed and used freely – without paying a license fee to a company. Linux is the most famous open source software to date. Linux is an operating system. There are many open source software available today that can allow you to perform functions like – create documents and presentations, run web servers and databases, create graphics. Given below is a list of some of the most effective open source software.

Create documents and presentations like MS Word, Powerpoint & Excel – The open source solution to MS Office is openoffice.org. OpenOffice.org includes a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and a drawing program with an interface similar to MS Office. OpenOffice.org can also work on file formats from Microsoft Office.

Database – If you want an open source database comparable to Oracle your answer in MySQL. MySQL is the world’s most popular open source database software with consistent fast performance, high reliability and ease of use.

Web Server – The leading web server software in the world today is open source. Apache HTTPD server software supports over 65% of the world’s web servers. Apache runs on most operating systems including Windows, OS/2, Unix and Linux. More details and downloads can be obtained at http://www.apache.org

Creating Web Pages / Web Sites – If you are looking for an open source software to compete with Frontpage and Dreamweaver take a look at Nvu pronounced N-view. It comes with a graphical editor and works with Windows, Apple and Linux.

Software Guide

Computer Security Software!

Open Source Software

The different Quicken accounting software packages

Photo editing software for home users

Foreign Language Software

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In the least expensive, or low-end, category are shared servers. As their name implies, these are computer systems that are shared by more than one web site, and hence are appropriate for small, simple, low-traffic sites.

Next on the list are dedicated servers. These are nearly identical to shared servers with the obvious exception that they’re not shared but rather dedicated to a single web site or to multiple web sites owned and controlled by the same business entity. As compared to shared servers, dedicated servers offer more capacity, flexibility, and better security, but at a higher price.

The next category is a substantial step away from the previous categories, but in some ways it’s a step backward. Instead of offering more support that is available from shared- and dedicated-server web-hosting services, colocation is a rather bare-bones service that merely houses servers in a data center and connects those servers to the Internet. It doesn’t include the server hardware or any of the software and services that are necessary to operate a web site. Colocation by itself is aimed at customers who want to supply and manage their own web-site hardware and software, but who don’t want to provide their own physical facilities and may not want to manage their links to the Internet.

In the early days of the web, any organization that was building a web site large enough to be located at a colocation service was also large enough to hire its own staff to manage that web site around the clock. Such companies had little choice, since there were no vendors offering management services for large-scale sites, and the only way these companies could obtain the expertise necessary to run such a web site was to hire the system administrators, database administrators, and network engineers that knew how to do it.

Over time, two changes occurred. First, those system administrators, database administrators (DBAs), and network engineers who knew how to run large web sites became harder and harder to find out and more and more expensive when they could be found. Second, a new subgroup called managed service providers (MSPs) – fourth and final category – appeared in 1997 to address the huge gap between the bare bones offerings of colocation services and the needs of owners of major web sites. Colocation services and MSPs have developed truly symbiotic relationships in which one could not succeed without the other, and the combination of these two services is often the best choice for high-end web sites.

ASPs, or Application Service Providers, are not included here as they provide application services. For example, an ASP might offer hosting of enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications such as manufacturing, order entry, warehousing, accounting, and human resources developed by software vendors such as PeopleSoft, SAP, and Oracle. In these cases, the hosting isn’t for the public WWW, but rather for corporate intranets.

The distinction between web-hosting services, MSPs, and ASPs isn’t simply a matter of experience with public Internet versus corporate intranets, but rather the additional skills that web-hosting services and MSPs have that go far beyond application packages. Some ASPs offer hosting of web-based applications, but the expertise of these companies tends to be in applications such as specific third-party e-commerce packages, not in supporting technologies such as Internet connectivity, DNS, security, firewalls, web servers, and operating systems.

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Author: Vipin Kumar Jain
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Linux Origins

Linux is considered a new operating system. Because it is UNIX-based, however, much of the technology behind it is over 30 years old. In 1969, Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, two software engineers at AT&T Bell Labs who had previously worked on the Multies (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) operating system, began developing a portable operating system. They called this operating system “UNIX” as a pun on Multies. (The c later mutated to an x.)

To make this operating system portable, Thompson and Ritchie had to develop a language that was not bound to a specific platform, and so the C language was born. The C source for their entire UNIX operating system could be copied and then recompiled on various platforms. Because AT&T Bell Labs made the C source code for UNIX freely available, several UNIX variants emerged: BSD (Berkley System Division) UNIX, Sun Microsystems SunOS, and AT&T’s System V. After the federal breakup of AT&T. As a result, companies that wanted to use UNIX had to formally license it.

The various vendors who began to license UNIX rights from AT&T ended up tweaking their own flavors of UNIX so that they could lock their customers into their particular variant. Despite these “UNIX wars,” as they were called, UNIX was still very successful, and most technical colleges had UNIX in their curriculum.

To circumvent UNIX licensing, Andrew Tannenbaum, the author of several highly successful books on operating systems and compilers, created his own flavor of UNIX, called MINIX, for the sole purpose of teaching UNIX to college students, Much later, the University of California at Berkley also created a UNIX derivation called Free BSD that, like MINIX, was intended to be freely modifiable and distributable. Today, however, the most well-known and successful free version of UNIX is Linux, created by Linus Torvalds.

In the early 1990s, Torvalds, then a graduate student at the University of Helsinki, became tired of the limitations of MINIX. He began to develop Linux as his own version of UNIX for the Intel platform. Through Internet newsgroups and forum, Torvalds invited other computer scientists to assist with his pet project. On October 5, 1991, the initial version of Linux, 0.02, was released. Version 1.0, the first business-quality version, was made available in March 1994.

Linux has received so much positive press that its adoption ware has exceeded that of any other UNIX variation, include IBM’s, AT&T’s and Sun Microsystems’. Interestingly, Free BSD, which is comparable to Linux in features and quality, has nowhere near the acceptance rate, mostly because of bad timing. While Linux was the darling of the press, BSD was in litigation with AT&T to determine whether BSD UNIX contained propriety Bell Labs material. By the time BSD was free from the litigation, Linux had gained the industry momentum.

Who Needs Web Hosting on Linux?

Linux is a great operating system for colleges and universities, not only because it’s free and runs on old computers that other operating system can’t handle, but because all the code for Linux comes with it. Students can research the code, make modification, reconfigure, and recompile the entire operating system. In fact, Linux enhancements and bug fixes quite often come from the computer-science departments of universities.

Linux is a good host for a desktop graphical user interface (GUI). The desktop metaphor of a GUI allows users to organize application windows on their monitors in the same way that they organize papers and books on their desks. A desktop GUI also enables the point-click capabilities of a mouse, where a picture represents an action that will occur when the user clicks on it. GUIs have improved the usability of computer applications, and today expect a GUI environment for their PCs.

Cost Effectiveness

Virtually all business requires cost justification for new directions. Although the Linux operating system is free, there are other costs to consider. First, there is the question of technical support, both internally and externally. Then, there is the question of whether or not Linux is a verifiable reliable, stable, and secure platform. If a company dedicates a thousand work-hours to the deployment of a Linux-based web site, and it fails, that’s a loss of perhaps $100,000. Even if the project were a success, would an NT or Solaris server solution have been less costly? To answer the question of server costs, companies look at three factors: hardware, software, and support.

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Author: Vipin Kumar Jain
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When trying Ubuntu especially if it’s your first experience with Linux, there might be times that you just can’t stand a certain application or program. You might not like how it works or how it looks. Maybe it feels too different from what you are used to on your Windows machine or your Mac. There is a simple solution to this if can’t stand on the applications.

One of the big advantages of using a Linux distribution like Ubuntu is that there are thousands of applications to choose from. The only thing that makes Ubuntu what it is would be the selection of applications for that specific distribution. If you don’t like something, whether it’s a program or interface, you can change it.

In Ubuntu there is something called the Synaptic Package Manager. This program will let you search for other open source software. If you hate the text editor, browser, paint program, or anything else, search for an alternative. For most common desktop applications there will be a wide variety of alternatives to download, test out, and use for free.

If you don’t like the way Ubuntu looks, download and try Kubuntu or Xubuntu as these run different programs to have a completely different interface. These also come with a different set of applications to do basic computer tasks. Kubuntu for example comes with KDE and runs a wide variety of “K” applications that will be different than the ones in other versions of Ubuntu.

Before making up your mind about Ubuntu or any other distribution of Linux, realize that the system is extremely flexible and does allow for changes to be made on almost any level.

Besides writing informative technology and computer articles Lance also writes on jewelry and fashion like the Brass Knuckles Necklace and Brass Knuckles Pendant accessories.

Author: Lance Esondi
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Here’s a quick little tip for if you’re running your computer in a dual boot setup with Ubuntu and Vista.

I was doing just this because I was programming Ruby and Ruby on Rails apps from Ubuntu but the lack of Photoshop was killing me. So I did some research and eventually discovered andLinux (the topic of a future post one day), which lets you run Ubuntu Linux as a Windows service. So that so far has solved all of my problems when it comes to being able to both do design and programming on the same operating system (What I really need to do is buy a Mac, but who has that kind of money?).

So I haven’t booted into Linux in about 3 months now. That isn’t a big deal because it’s nice to know that there is a partition there if I need it. But the problem is that I recently started running somewhat low on hard drive space. I found that kind of weird because I only have about 2,000 songs on my computer right now and very few movies.

But I do have that 40GB Linux partition just sitting there.

So I set out to delete that partition and recover some space. What is important though is that you make sure to replace the Linux bootloader that is installed when you install Ubuntu, or else you’ll lose the ability to boot into Vista once you delete Ubuntu. So we’ll start off by replacing the bootloader first in order to avoid any problems. The process is pretty simple:

1. You first need to download Super Grub Disc and burn the ISO image to a CD.
2. Next, pop the disc in and reboot your computer.
3. The Super Grub Disc screens are kind of cryptic in the sense that a lot of the choices look just like gibberish, but the important one you want for deleting Linux so you only have Vista is:

WIN => MBR & !WIN!  ((((((((((((((((

4. That option restores the original Vista bootloader to the Master Boot Record, forcing your computer to automatically boot into Vista next time it starts up.
5. Now, reboot your computer, click “Start”, right-click “Computer”, and select “Manage”
6. On the left hand side (in the menu tree), click “Disk Management”
7. Find your old Linux partition, right click it, and select “Delete Volume”
8. Once deleted, right click your existing Windows partition, and click “Expand Volume”

Now you should have recovered the space from your old Ubuntu install. If you had a swap partition for Linux, you can delete that as well.

Now just remember to only do this after you have backed up everything in your Linux install!

Visit my blog at http://www.layeredthoughts.com for more tips and insights

Author: Darrin Demchuk
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CAN you run Adobe Photoshop on Linux?

Many Web designers, graphic artists and bloggers might consider the answer to this question crucial when considering a shift from Windows.

After all, while there are many excellent open-source alternatives to common office and multimedia applications, the defacto graphics program on Linux, the unfortunately-named Gimp, hobbles a generation or two behind the market-leading Photoshop, which is available only for Windows and Mac OS X.

Years of speculation and wishful thinking have not yielded a Linux version from Adobe, nor does one look likely to come anytime soon.

As they are often wont to do, users have taken matters into their own hands, using free and open-source software called Wine to run Windows programs – including Photoshop – in Linux.

A group of hackers began the Wine project in 1993 as a way to run Windows 3.1 programs on Linux. Over the years, Wine has been expanded to include programs running under later versions of Windows, including 95, 98, 2000 and XP.

Wine, short for “Wine Is Not an Emulator,” is software that translates Windows commands into their equivalent in Linux or Unix.

While the project is more than a decade old, Wine is still under testing, with the latest beta version being 0.9.18.

“Wine is still under development, and it is not yet suitable for general use,” the official Web site (http://www.winehq.com) says. “Nevertheless, many people find it useful in running a growing number of Windows programs.”

Intrigued by the possibilities, I did some research and found a 2003 article in eWeek about how Walt Disney’s animation unit and two other competing studios jointly funded a project with CodeWeavers, the leading corporate backer of Wine, to develop a solution that would allow them to run Photoshop on Linux.

The project cost Disney less than $15,000, but saved it more than $50,000 a year in Windows licenses, eWeek reported. At the same time, CodeWeavers was able to incorporate the technology into Wine and its commercial version, CrossOver Office.

A quick check with the Wine Web site showed that Photoshop was indeed among the 4,398 Windows applications that would run under Wine.

Setting up Wine and using it isn’t rocket science, but it’s probably complicated enough to intimidate the typical Windows user.

I downloaded Wine (using the Synaptic Package Manager in Ubuntu Linux) then configured it by using the winecfg utility (type “winecfg” in the Terminal command line). Doing this the first time creates a fake “Drive C” in the hidden .wine directory of your home folder. This is where Wine installs all Windows programs.

To install a Windows program, pop in the install CD and type this into the command line:

wine /media/cdrom0/setup.exe

The Windows installer will come up and install the program.
Theoretically, to run the program, you’d type the following:

wine “C:Program FilesAdobePhotoshop 7.0Photoshop.exe”

Sadly, this did not work. Further research showed I needed to tell Wine which dynamic link library or DLL file to use. This line from an Ubuntu forum does the job:

WINEDLLOVERRIDES=wintab32=n wine “C:Program FilesAdobePhotoshop 7.0Photoshop.exe”

To save myself some typing, I created a script that executes the command when I click on an icon.

So how does running Photoshop in Linux measure up?

In general, I was pleasantly surprised by the program’s responsiveness. There was none of the sluggishness that I expected and most of the features I use heavily work.

There are some major caveats, however.

1) Right-click menus do not work. In fact, they can lock up the program. This is a pain, because I’m used to right-clicking on items in the Layers palette to manipulate them. Fortunately, there is a work-around for this, using the menu bar at the top of the window.

2) Resizing the Layers palette will also crash the program.

3) Alt-clicking on an area does not work for the Clone tool. Instead, you must hold down the Shift key while doing the Alt-click.

4) The Tools and other palettes will remain on screen even when you minimize Photoshop.

These are pretty serious problems because you could lose a lot of work. On the other hand, if you’re careful to avoid these pitfalls and save your work periodically, you ought to be able to run Photoshop productively under Linux.

From Digital Life by Chin Wong

http://www.chinwong.com

Chin Wong has been covering the technology industry since the 1980s, starting as a reporter for Business Day, Southeast Asia’s first daily business newspaper. He is now a lecturer in journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and associate editor for the Manila Standard Today. Before that, he also served as technology editor of the Manila Times until October 2004.

Author: Chin Wong
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OpenSource software and operating systems offer a cheap but flexible and powerful alternative to expensive commercial software products. A growing number of large companies has already deployed and used such software successfully whereas small business companies are often driven off by a more complex configuration and maintenance. Opensource software is about freedom. You should have the freedom to choose your software solution and not be locked into a proprietary (and costly) provider. OpenSource software gives you the flexibility and reliability that you need. You can be really sure, that no one has placed spyware or other malicious software in it, because you can look into the source. Companies across the world are choosing open source technologies to efficiently increase business growth, optimize system performance and reduce costs. Open source gives IT executives the opportunity to innovate and add value to their business without the problems faced with the traditional software products. Thus Open Source excels in every aspect of the product cycle.

The Benefits?

Customize your software

Open source software gives you the power to control your software’s code. You have the right to modify the code to suit your requirements and control the budgets that you want to spend towards it. Unlike proprietary software, where the vendor controls your code, upgrades and budgets — with open source software, you control the upgrade process and can choose to decide which bugs to fix and when.

Avoid Vendor Lock-in

Disappointment and dissatisfaction with a vendor’s support and service is a reality for all IT managers. Inability to customize software to meet your requirements or support your needs, further increases the frustration. Open source gives you the freedom to choose your preferred vendor giving you the flexibility.

Lower cost of ownership

There are no license fees for an open source software, reducing annual license fees cost to zero. There is zero cost of scale, because open source doesn’t require additional licenses as the installation grows.The only spends are towards the support for your software that ensure reliability and reduces running cost by at least 80%.

Greater Security & Performance

Open source software is available publicly. A large amount of developers globally contribute and analyze the code making it more secure and constantly increasing the quality. The peer review process drive excellence in design.

No Shelf life

It is possible that a proprietary software company shuts shop or decides to discontinue services for a software. With it goes the support and the future of the software. Open source software is not dependent on a single entity and gives users the advantage of the community. Any developer can choose to take up the software and continue from where it stopped.

Author: Dipesh Majumder
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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The rising popularity of the open source OS market, spearheaded by a number of highly popular open source applications, heralds not only a change in how software and information are viewed, exchanged, and developed, but also a shift in the very economics of the software industry. While some see the growth of the OS community as a threat to traditional software commerce and business models, in reality, the nature of open source software necessitates a different – though equally viable (and in some ways superior) – approach to the nuts and bolts of selling, distributing, and maintaining software.

The Premise of Closed Source (CS) Software

The core justification of closed source software (that is, software whose source code is hidden and whose uses are limited by copyright law) is economic. When software developers came up with a new product, they faced a dilemma. On one hand, as entrepreneurs, they had a need to sell their products and receive financial compensation for their work. On the other, the very nature of software makes it a very easily duplicated; a single copy of the application or program could be used to make hundreds or thousands more. Without product scarcity to create market demand, how could one sell software at any sort of respectable price?

The answer was closed source software. By hiding the vital innards of their applications from the public, and barring tampering through copyright protections, software developers were able to impose a type of artificial scarcity on the market, and were thus able to create demand for their products.

Open source software, on the other hand, cannot rely on such an economic strategy. Instead of driving or being driven by market forces, OS software developers are dependent on the popularity and quality appeal of their products. Though this does not necessarily guarantee quality, advocates say that the push for perfection (which is arguably much stronger in the absence of artificial demand) is a strong tenet of OS developers.

Open Source and Closed Source in a Growing Consumer Base

As consumer bases grow, both open source and closed source software encounter new challenges to their existence and maintenance. One such issue is security. Advocates of CS software say that, by hiding source code, they deter hackers and crackers from discovering and exploiting flaws in their applications. Open source advocates respond that, while hackers do have more access to OS software code, the openness of their products means that support and security patches are handled and produced by enormous consumer bases – resources unavailable to CS developers.

For more information on downloads of nonprofit open source software, visit http://www.mpoweropen.com

Joseph Devine

Author: Joseph Devine
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Chief Information Officers, or CIO’s, are responsible for the information technology in their business. As the place of technology continues to expand in today’s commercial setting, the prominence and importance of the CIO role has risen greatly. Each CIO’s position is unique due to the specific nature of their business and work situation; the technological needs of a non-profit corporation are going to be very different from those of a waste management company. However, despite their organizational variance, many CIO’s are finding a common thread in their use of open-source software in the workplace.

Open-source software is a practical tool for businesses for many reasons. Firstly, CIO’s no longer have to struggle with licensing issues or costs. Additionally, free programs tend to be more reliable, responsive to individual business needs, and generally have a community of support, making technical help more accessible. These benefits of open-source software have created two classes of CIO’s: loyalists and managers who have migrated to free software after examining the pros and cons of both options.

Among Indian enterprises, open-source software has exploded recently. To counter problems such as security threats, continual upgrades, and high maintenance costs, free software has been useful to many businesses. It simultaneously lowers overall operating costs and improves security. Open-source programs have helped one business, ELCOT, “save 45-55% on the desktops and 90% on the server side” according to C. Umashankar, the company’s managing director.

Although ELCOT saved a lot on expenses by transitioning to open-source, the switch from proprietary programs was not an easy one. Many factors were involved in the decision, including compatibility with existing programs, migration costs of changing over, and user training and acceptance of the new platforms. After the transition, ELCOT’s emotions about the change parallel those of open-source loyalists. Both groups consider open source to be a “breakthrough platform” and now find it difficult to “adjust to proprietary software.”

Even though their experiences with free software are generally positive, CIO’s still have some suggestions. Proposals consist of driver inclusion with software releases, more participation in the open-source community, and greater interoperability between different distributions. Other ideas include a certification guild and contributing to existing programs rather than starting from scratch on a new project. Open-source software is an exciting and quickly developing field of technological development.

If you are interested in learning more, this open source nonprofit website [http://www.mpoweropen.com/index.shtml] can provide more helpful and useful information.

Joseph Devine

Author: Joseph Devine
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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This article describes my personal experience of using Ubuntu 7.04. It is just my personal thoughts of this version of Ubuntu.

My first forage into Ubuntu was with version 6.06 LTS. Not too long ago, I become curious and decided to install the new Ubuntu 7.04. Therefore I went to their download site and downloaded the installation iso file.

The download was huge and took many hours on my slow computer. After the download, I burned the iso image onto a blank CD. Next I used the CD to install version 7.04 of Ubuntu. The installation was done on an ancient Pentium 3 that has about 350 Mb of ram.

Like all previous versions, Ubuntu 7.04 is able of detecting all the hardware devices on the old pentium machine. This includes the USB devices, sound devices and ethernet card, . The installation takes about three-quarter of an hour to complete.

What I really like about version 7.04 is that it makes installation of certain plugins easier. This include plugins such as flash player for the Mozilla. Now you can install the flash player from any flash-enabled site. In previous versions, the installation of flash is tricky due to some bugs.

Unfortunately, my old pentium hanged while I was surfing the net using the Ubuntu 7.04. The mouse simply stopped working. This happened many times. As a result, I had to restart the computer many times. This point made using this version of Ubuntu rather difficult for me.

As a result, I revert back to Ubuntu 6.06.

Well, that was my personal experience of version 7.04. Thank you for reading.

The author runs Idea Cosmo – creative solutions, a website which provides information for the Robot Building Hobby and Remote control helicopter Hobby

Author: Shen Gerald
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty

As I’m writing these words, a major computer wholesaler has decided to ship some of its new models with Linux Operating System.

They have selected UBUNTU’s 7.04 “Feisty Fawn” distribution of Linux. (Windows have OS releases or versions like XP or Vista; Linux has “distributions” like Fedora, Redhat, Ubuntu and many others.)

Go Linux!

A perfect choice because I’ve been using UBUNTU on one of my machines for over a year now and I have nothing but qualified praise for it.

Qualified? Yes. Because I cannot run any of my Windows application (like Photoshop, Illustrator, FrameMaker, GoLive) on Ubuntu.

GIMP comes close to doing what Photoshop can do (at least at my level of graphic competence) but other Windows applications do not have their Linux-counterparts yet. There is nothing over the horizon, for example, to match the reliability and power of FrameMaker in a Linux environment.

So why do I still like my Ubuntu? Let me count the ways:

1) It’s FREE.

2) OpenOffice that comes with it is also FREE and it can match MS Office in every category, except in mail management. (NOTE: You can download and use OpenOffice on Windows and Mac machines as well.)

3) No viruses. Period. I have not used any anti-virus programs or firewalls with my Ubuntu system yet. Knock on wood.

4) No system crashes. And when I crash my system (a rare event) while trying to open 10 different applications or files at the same time, Ubuntu recovers beautifully, restoring each crashed file one by one when you restart the system.

5) Auto updates… when you click this great little “you have updates” button on top of the screen, UBUNTU automatically downloads (after your approval of each item) whatever updates are developed by hard-working Linux volunteers around the globe.

6) An ever-growing collection of free, new and interesting software available for instant downloads through Synaptic Package Manager. (For example, it’s free CHESS program – one of the hundreds of Linux games available online for free – is one of the best I’ve ever played against.)

I do all my writing, for example, on my Linux machine. Since OpenOffice also has a free PDF conversion utility built right into its word processor, I’m writing my new book (“Copyright-Free Content for Your Newsletters”) also on my Linux machine. (YES – you don’t need to buy Adobe Acrobat Pro to generate PDFs!)

One shortcoming of “Feisty Fawn” distribution – its energy-saving screen- and machine-sleep modes are not perfect and don’t work well. When the machine goes to sleep after a certain configurable duration of time, it shuts itself off as it tries to revive itself. If you get Ubuntu 7.04, do not use that energy-saving option. I hope they’ll fix that pesky problem as well in a future release.

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Ugur Akinci, Ph.D. is a senior writer and web content consultant with 20 years of experience.

Subscribe to his FREE “Weekly Success Update” Newsletter today at
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Author: Ugur Akinci
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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