It’s hard to believe that the ever-growing alternative operating system, Linux, has been around since 1991. To help celebrate its 20th birthday and co-ordinate activities, The Linux Foundation has launched an official celebratory website.
As a long-time Linux user myself, I find it astounding that just 20 years ago Linus Torvalds started what has become a cultural and technological phenomenon. Since its first year, developers from across the world have worked together to provide an extremely powerful operating system, with many different flavours, to so many individuals and businesses. It should really be consider a software engineering marvel! If you want to learn more about what has made Linux what it is today, check out the video below and here’s to another great 20 years!
Big thanks to Mashable for bringing this news to our attention!
While popular Linux distribution, Fedora, currently sits at version 14 “Laughlin”, the development team wants your input on what to name Fedora 16! There are no details on when Fedora 16 will be released, but with Fedora 15 “Lovelock”scheduled for release on May 10, 2011, it is likely that we will see Fedora 16 towards the end of 2011.
There are a few requirements when it comes to suggesting a name, but thankfully the team has set up a page to guide you through the naming process and show off some of the names submitted so far. While it certainly won’t make the cut, the most delicious submission so far has been bacon. I, for one, would ditch Debian, Ubuntu and all the other distributions use Fedora 16 “Bacon” for the rest of my computing days.
The naming schedule for Fedora 16 is as follows:
Name collection: 3 March through 10 March List to Fedora Board: 11 March through 14 March Legal Review of Board approved names: 15 March through 22 March Community vote on final name: 23 March through 29 March Name announced: 30 March
There have been some great names submitted so far, so be sure to get yours in soon and share your submission in the comments below!
As a Web developer, I have had a growing hatred towards the impossible-to-please Web browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. I find it astounding that a Web browser has remained in such existence for 10 years, but it seems like many corporations just haven’t wanted to risk upgrading to superior, and actually safer, Web browser. What has plagued IE6 to this day is the gross list of incompatibilities it has with standardized practices in Web designing and development. Web developers have always had to include IE6 conditional tags with alternate instructions in order to appease IE6 users – to put it blunt, this has been a pain in the ass. In fact, when I launched GeekGold, I decided to just forget about IE6 compatibility and I have yet to take the time to look at a BrowserShot of an IE6 rendering – I just don’t care.
Well, after a great number of campaigns in hopes of killing IE6 by third parties, it seems like Microsoft has joined the fight! Apparently 12% of the Web is still being browsed by the archaic IE6, with China taking responsibility for most IE6 activity. If you are still using IE6, please, please, upgrade! I would like to take the time to talk you into using a superior browser such as Chrome or Firefox, but if you are using IE6, I really don’t care if you stick with Microsoft. Just upgrade!!
If you have experience using MS-DOS and early versions of Microsoft Windows then this video is for you! The video shows a user upgrading to every major Windows release, from an initial installation, on a VMware virtual machine, of MS-DOS 5.0 . The major releases used in the video, in order, are Windows 1.0, Windows 2.0, Windows 3.0, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and, finally, Windows 7. Check it out below!
Every once-in-a-while I enjoy performing some basic research using Google Trends. This service allows you to compare various search terms over flexible periods of time and flexible geographic regions. Enter your search terms with a simple comma between them and watch the magical graph appear in front of you. If you haven’t checked out Google Trends before, I highly recommend that you do.
Anyways, I was doing some research into Linux distributions and while I was doing so I was dumb-founded to find a steady decline in searches for the generic term, “linux”. I compared this trend to the various Windows releases (XP, Vista, 7), but the only interesting one that I found was, the now almost 10-years-old, Windows XP, which followed a similar trend – but with a neat relation! Every late-December the Windows XP searches would spike and the Linux searches would valley. There are many possible reasons for this – consumers receiving computers as gifts, increased time to troubleshoot due to holiday time, etc.
It makes sense that the Windows XP search volume would trend downwards as it was replaced by Vista and then Windows 7, but Linux trending downwards may have a different cause. One reason for this decrease, as illustrated by the Ubuntu dataset (notice the peaks at their release points and general rise to a plateau similar to the Linux data) is that individual Linux distributions have taken over for the more generic, Linux, term.
This post really isn’t meant to be overly insightful into the downward trends of Linux and Windows XP, it is more-so a demo showing just how much great data is available to anyone on the Web. Head over there and have some fun on your own!
Those of you that know me personally know that I am a Linux-enthusiast at heart. When it comes to the wonderful world of Linux, it is like visiting an ice cream parlour – so many flavours! For those of you that might not understand what I mean, the term, Linux, refers to the Linux kernel, which provides the basis for all Linux-based distributions. While these distributions have such a strong bond with their kernels, it is the software packages and customizations that make them truly unique.
Rather than ramble on about the semantics of what exactly Linux is, let’s get to the purpose of the article – what are the most popular Linux distributions? The website, DistroWatch, has provided users with a one-stop-shop for distribution specifics and news for years. DistroWatch is the go-to place for anyone wanting details and links on nearly any Linux distribution.
All of the rankings below are courtesy of the DistroWatch ranking system, which counts the number of visitors to individual distribution pages over a given period of time. These numbers can be skewed if only looking at a short period of time, so the rankings I have used are based on the DistroWatch 6-month rankings.
Representing a big milestone in the Linux community is the official release of Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) just earlier today! This is the first major release since Debian 5.0 (Lenny) was released on Valentines Day in 2009. Debian has been the basis for many of the biggest, and most well-known, Linux distributions available including Ubuntu and Mint.
Expect more posts in the future involving Debian 6.0!
I can honestly say that I have never thought of using Microsoft PowerPoint as an image creation tool until today. Many of the websites that I have created have used Thesis (a high-quality and easy-to-manipulate theme for WordPress) and with that, I have been exposed to one of the greatest Web design/publishing blogs on the Internet. Today, guest blogger Kiesha Keasley, posted a great article on how to use PowerPoint to create high-quality Web graphics.
Basically, PowerPoints provides a good number of auto-shapes, text styles, image styles (shadows, reflections, rotations, weights, etc) and alignment options in an easy-to-use interface. It is difficult to rival Adobe Photoshop in many instances, but I find that when it comes to alignment and text, PowerPoint actually might be better!
I created the image below in less than 2 minutes using some auto-shapes, text and weight tools.
Over at Techi, I just read a great article regarding Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, and his desire to move all government systems to Linux. As a Linux fan-boy, I think this is a great step forward for a few reasons. First, moving to Linux can save massive amounts of money in licensing fees for paid software (yes, I understand that some Linux software is still paid) and second, it can allow for much more customizable and efficient workstations.
Kudos to Putin and the Russian government for at least considering this potential change.
The folks over at Gizmodo posted a browser speed test article this weekend comparing the latest and greatest Web browsers across a variety of tests. While Safari was left off the list all together, beta versions of Chrome, Firefox and Opera were included with their stable counterparts and Internet Explorer 9.
Google Chrome and Opera handily defeated both Firefox submissions and Internet Explorer in all tests except memory usage, where Firefox creamed the competition. Overall, the soon-to-be-released Google Chrome 10 came out on top with the stable Opera 10 a close second when factoring all tests.
What is your browser of choice? Check out the poll on the right!
While popular Linux distribution, 
This post really isn’t meant to be overly insightful into the downward trends of Linux and Windows XP, it is more-so a demo showing just how much great data is available to anyone on the Web. Head over there and have some fun on your own!
Those of you that know me personally know that I am a Linux-enthusiast at heart. When it comes to the wonderful world of Linux, it is like visiting an ice cream parlour – so many flavours! For those of you that might not understand what I mean, the term, Linux, refers to the Linux kernel, which provides the basis for all Linux-based distributions. While these distributions have such a strong bond with their kernels, it is the software packages and customizations that make them truly unique.
Representing a big milestone in the Linux community is the official release of Debian 6.0 (Squeeze) just earlier today! This is the first major release since Debian 5.0 (Lenny) was released on Valentines Day in 2009. Debian has been the basis for many of the biggest, and most well-known, Linux distributions available including Ubuntu and Mint.
Over at 
Loading ...