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Posts published in “Internet”

Another Behind-the-Scenes Niche Where Open Source is Winning

By Robin "Roblimo" Miller on August 17, 2017 |

Business, Internet and Software

Another Behind-the-Scenes Niche Where Open Source is Winning

Hook one of these BLE babies up with facial recognition technology and we’ll be living smack dab in the middle of a Philip K. Dick novel.

(Graphic courtesy of Grid Dynamics)

Roblimo’s Hideaway

Do you spend a lot of time thinking about Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons? Unless you run a retail store, probably not. But if you do run a store (or stores) along with an e-commerce operation, BLE is a hot new thing you are either using already or thinking about using before long.

Continue readingAnother Behind-the-Scenes Niche Where Open Source is Winning
An Introduction to Open Data KitOpen Data Kit

An Introduction to Open Data Kit

By Phil Shapiro on February 28, 2017 |

Internet, Mobile, Video and Web Apps

With just a little imagination, you could easily make yourself a pretty cool mobile app using Open Data Kit.

The Screening Room

Open Data Kit

Open Data Kit is a free and open source set of tools which help organizations author, field, and manage mobile data collection solutions. The flexibility that open source offers means that the use cases for these tools are very broad. Check this introductory video about ODK tools which explains a rural medicine use case.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Continue readingAn Introduction to Open Data Kit
DuckDuckGo Ups Ante: Gives $300K to ‘Raise the Standard of Trust’DuckDuckGo logo

DuckDuckGo Ups Ante: Gives $300K to ‘Raise the Standard of Trust’

By FOSS Force on February 15, 2017 |

Business, Community, Internet and News

For the seventh year in a row, the search engine that promises not to stalk your online moves puts its money where its mouth is, this year by donating $300,000 to organizations that work towards online privacy.

DuckDuckGo logo

The search engine DuckDuckGo isn’t Google — in more ways than one. For starters, its whole premise is to not follow you around as you surf the web. It’s also not rich, so it doesn’t have gazillions of dollars to throw at whatever project strikes its fancy. However, the people who run the little search engine that can are very generous with what money they do have.

As they have for the last seven years, this year they’ve been busy handing out money again.

Continue readingDuckDuckGo Ups Ante: Gives $300K to ‘Raise the Standard of Trust’
‘Think WordPress’ Documentary TrailerWordPress logo

‘Think WordPress’ Documentary Trailer

By Phil Shapiro on February 14, 2017 |

Internet, Video and Web Apps

While Linux runs the Internet, it’s the free and open source content management platform WordPress that runs most of the websites we visit to stay informed and entertained.

The Screening Room

WordPress logo

Open source activism takes many forms, including the creation of documentaries that celebrate and explain open source solutions. Two bold women in France, Deborah Donnier and Emilie Lebrun are working on a 50-minute documentary in French that celebrates and explains WordPress.

You can view the beautifully done trailer of their project here — with English subtitles.

Phil Shapiro

For the past 10 years, Phil has been working at a public library in the Washington D.C.-area, helping youth and adults use the 28 public Linux stations the library offers seven days a week. He also writes for MAKE magazine, Opensource.com and TechSoup Libraries. Suggest videos by contacting Phil on Twitter or at pshapiro@his.com.

Continue reading‘Think WordPress’ Documentary Trailer
Poverty Helps You Keep Technology Safe and EasyPoor Linux

Poverty Helps You Keep Technology Safe and Easy

By Robin "Roblimo" Miller on February 9, 2017 |

Humor, Internet and Security

In the technology age, there might be some before unknown advantages to living on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. The question is, do they outweigh the disadvantages.

Roblimo’s Hideaway

Poor Linux

Earlier this week I saw a ZDNet story titled Vizio: The spy in your TV by my friend Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols. Scary stuff. I had a vision of my wife and me and a few dozen of our closest friends having a secret orgy in our living room, except our smart TV’s unblinking eye was recording our every thrust and parry (you might say). Zut alors! In this day of Internet everywhere, we all know that what goes online, stays online. Suddenly our orgy wasn’t secret, and my hopes of becoming the next President were dashed.

Except… lucky me! I’m poor, so I have an oldie-but-goodie dumb TV that doesn’t have a camera. There’s no way my old Vizio can spy on us. As Mel Brooks didn’t quite say, “It’s good to be the poverty case.”

Robin "Roblimo" Miller

Robin “Roblimo” Miller is a freelance writer and former editor-in-chief at Open Source Technology Group, the company that owned SourceForge, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, ThinkGeek and Slashdot, and until recently served as a video editor at Slashdot. Now he’s mostly retired, but still works part-time as an editorial consultant for Grid Dynamics, and (obviously) writes for FOSS Force.

Continue readingPoverty Helps You Keep Technology Safe and Easy
The Man Who Didn’t Invent Email Attacks Free Speechemail to remove Ayyadurai post from diaspora

The Man Who Didn’t Invent Email Attacks Free Speech

By Christine Hall on January 29, 2017 |

Business, Internet and News

The man whose much disputed claim to have invented email when he was a 14-year-old is taking legal actions, or threatening such, against anyone who publicly disagrees with his version of history.

email to remove Ayyadurai post from diaspora

Shiva Ayyadurai says he invented email and will sue the pants off anyone who says he didn’t. He’s already picked up a fat $750,000 settlement check from Gawker, which decided to settle because another lawsuit by Hulk Hogan had already put the site out of business. There is currently a suit pending against Techdirt, a site that mainly reports on threats to free speech. Now he’s going after social media, by sending a demand to a node of Diaspora to remove three posts by Roy Schestowitz, publisher of the popular FOSS site Tux Machines and the iconoclastic blog Techrights.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingThe Man Who Didn’t Invent Email Attacks Free Speech
In Search of an Open Source DNS ServerDNS The Internet's Phone Book

In Search of an Open Source DNS Server

By Robin "Roblimo" Miller on January 26, 2017 |

Internet

You’d think that in this day and age finding a free and open DNS server would be easy, no? Evidently, not so much. That didn’t keep Roblimo from finding one, however.

Roblimo’s Hideaway

DNS server The Internet's Phone Book

Does it matter whether the DNS server you use is open source? Most of the good ones run proprietary code. But after some tedious shopping and testing, I finally found one that’s open source, community-owned, and (so far, at least) as reliable as its proprietary competitors.

Robin "Roblimo" Miller

Robin “Roblimo” Miller is a freelance writer and former editor-in-chief at Open Source Technology Group, the company that owned SourceForge, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, ThinkGeek and Slashdot, and until recently served as a video editor at Slashdot. Now he’s mostly retired, but still works part-time as an editorial consultant for Grid Dynamics, and (obviously) writes for FOSS Force.

Continue readingIn Search of an Open Source DNS Server
‘Refer a Friend’ Ransomware ProgramPopcorn Time lock screen

‘Refer a Friend’ Ransomware Program

By Christine Hall on December 14, 2016 |

Internet, News and Security

A new, under development ransomware called Popcorn Time has a “refer a friend” option meant to appeal to the victim’s worst instincts.

Popcorn Time lock screen
All graphics in this article are courtesy Bleeping Computer, LLC. Used with permission.

Security

If you need any proof that malware is a business much like any other — with the big exception that it’s illegal — all you have to do is look at the latest ploy being used by the currently-in-development ransomware called Popcorn Time that was discovered December 7 by MalwareHunterTeam. The folks behind the malware are incorporating a scheme to drum up business that’s directly from a Marketing 101 textbook.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue reading‘Refer a Friend’ Ransomware Program
Saying Goodbye to Net Neutrality Under TrumpNet Neutrality

Saying Goodbye to Net Neutrality Under Trump

By Christine Hall on December 13, 2016 |

Business, Internet, Opinion and Politics

One of the things we can expect to see after Trump takes office in January is the demise of Net Neutrality, which some say will signal the end of a free Internet.

Net Neutrality

Op-ed

News organizations that like to have obituaries written and ready to go to bed well before a death actually occurs might want to go ahead and assign someone the task of writing an obit for Net Neutrality. Without a doubt, one thing that’s sure to happen when Trump begins his weekly commute to the Oval Office is an end to the legal principle that Internet service providers should treat all Internet traffic equally.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingSaying Goodbye to Net Neutrality Under Trump
System 76 Talks With Ubuntu, WordPress Ups Game and More…Ubuntu logo

System 76 Talks With Ubuntu, WordPress Ups Game and More…

By Christine Hall on December 11, 2016 |

Community, Desktops, Distros, Hardware, Internet, News, Software and Web Apps

Also included: Fedora community says goodbye to Matthew Williams, Solus gets a new package build system, end-of-life for Fedora 23 and IoT security.

Ubuntu logo

FOSS Week in Review

Something arctic this way comes. That”s what Lannie Pope, the weatherwoman on the local NBC affiliate, tells us, Trouble is, I’m still stuck in a house without proper heat, a situation that’s been dragging on since near the end of September. It’s a long story, but…brrr. I’m glad I don’t live in a part of the country where it gets really cold.

Now on to this week’s FOSS news, which is always warm…

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com
Continue readingSystem 76 Talks With Ubuntu, WordPress Ups Game and More…
When Slashdot Was the Hub for FOSS News and DiscussionSlashdot Timothy Lord

When Slashdot Was the Hub for FOSS News and Discussion

By Robin "Roblimo" Miller on August 4, 2016 |

Community, Distros, Internet, Media and Video

The original Slashdot crew was declared redundant in early 2016 by the site’s latest owner, Slashdot Media. Timothy Lord was the last of the early Slashdot editors to be let go, and has posted more stories on Slashdot than anyone else, ever, so we turned to him to learn how and why Slashdot helped the FOSS movement grow and eventually infiltrate mainstream IT.

The FOSS Force Video Interview

Starting in the last years of the last century, when Linux and free software were first making their mark on the world, a website called Slashdot was the king-hell news and discussion site for such things, along with a variety of other topics that interested the kind of people you might meet at a LUG meeting or in the CS department of your local university. The original Slashdot tagline (no longer visible on the site) was “News for nerds, stuff that matters.” And one of the people who worked on Slashdot during those heady days was Timothy Lord, who is such a devout Linux person that he has a Tux tattoo (which we forgot to have him show in the video, darn it).

Robin "Roblimo" Miller

Robin “Roblimo” Miller is a freelance writer and former editor-in-chief at Open Source Technology Group, the company that owned SourceForge, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, ThinkGeek and Slashdot, and until recently served as a video editor at Slashdot. Now he’s mostly retired, but still works part-time as an editorial consultant for Grid Dynamics, and (obviously) writes for FOSS Force.

Continue readingWhen Slashdot Was the Hub for FOSS News and Discussion
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