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Posts published in “Software”

Poll: You Prefer Noncommercial Software

By FOSS Force on June 7, 2013 |

Internet, Politics, Polls and Software

According to our Software Preference Poll, FOSS Force visitors will use commercially developed software, especially if it’s the best software for the job, but would prefer to use community developed, noncommercial software. Absolutely none of our visitors said they’d prefer commercial software.

The poll, which ran from May 13, 2013 through 12:21 am EDT on June 7, posed the question, “Do you prefer open source software that’s commercially or community developed and distributed?” Those taking the poll were given three answers from which to make one choice:

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Poll: Firefox Does Not Need Fewer OptionsFirefox logo

Poll: Firefox Does Not Need Fewer Options

By FOSS Force on May 23, 2013 |

Browsers, Internet and Software

You may remember that back on March 22, Christine Hall penned an article here on FOSS Force concerning worries expressed by Alex Limi, a project design strategist at Mozilla, over configuration issues with Firefox. It seems that Mr. Limi expressed concerns on his blog over the fact that was possible for a user to “render the browser unusable to most people, right in the main settings.”

Ms. Hall agreed that it was certainly possible to “break” Firefox while attempting to configure it, but expressed concerns that the Mozilla development crew would overreact by taking control out of the hands of the user. Such actions she deemed unnecessary and explained why:

Continue readingPoll: Firefox Does Not Need Fewer Options

Why Schools Require MS Office; Nokia Plays Rope-A-Dope & More…

By FOSS Force on May 10, 2013 |

Browsers, Business, Humor, Internet, Media, News, Potpourri, Security and Software

Friday FOSS Week in Review

Pretty fonts coming to Linux?

Most of us here at FOSS Force have been using various flavors of Linux for thirteen years or so. During that time we’ve gotten used to reading comments on the ugliness of fonts in Linux, especially when it comes to browsers.

We’ve never particularly understood this or noticed any homeliness in regards to Linux fonts. Of course, we’ve also never been able to understand reviewers who write about how unexciting they find fonts like Times New Roman or Ariel to be. In our experience, Hunter Thompson is brilliant and compelling no matter what font is being used to render his rants, while Tom Wolfe is a pompous ass, no matter how humble a typeface used to display his insufferable prose.

Continue readingWhy Schools Require MS Office; Nokia Plays Rope-A-Dope & More…

Ubuntu Wins Our “Tablet OS” Poll

By FOSS Force on May 7, 2013 |

Mobile, Site News and Software

If the unscientific poll we conducted on tablet operating systems is any indication, it appears as if Canonical can depend on a community of early adopters if and when a tablet is released with Ubuntu OS preinstalled.

In our poll we asked, “What operating system would you be most likely to consider for a tablet if available?” The options were Android, iOS, BlackBerry 10, Windows Phone 8, Windows RT, Ubuntu, webOS, None of the above and Other. Those who chose the “Other” option were given the opportunity to name another OS.

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Spy vs. Spy; Wikipedia Sports New DB & More…

By FOSS Force on May 3, 2013 |

Browsers, Distros, Humor, Internet, News, Politics, Security and Software

Friday FOSS Week in Review

Goodbye to Fuduntu, hello to FuSE

We already knew, of course, that Fuduntu was history, that the beloved distro was to be no more, evidently due to the fact that it was becoming nearly impossible to support GNOME 2 in any sort of meaningful way. We also knew there’d been talk among the developers at Fuduntu of continuing with a new distro. Well, now it’s a done deal and most of the developers of Fuduntu will be working on a new distro based on openSUSE.

Continue readingSpy vs. Spy; Wikipedia Sports New DB & More…

No Time For QuickTime

By Christine Hall on April 25, 2013 |

Browsers, Internet, Media and Software

It definitely wasn’t worth the effort and I wouldn’t do it again. Now I’ve got this crapware from Apple on my work computer, which I guess I could remove.

All I wanted to do was click and listen to about an eight second sound bite of a recently discovered recording of Alexander Graham Bell saying, “Hear my voice, Alexander Graham Bell.” I’d found an article on the discovery and recovery of the 1875 recording on the BBC’s website, which offered a link to listen on the Smithsonian’s site, which I clicked.

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 readingNo Time For QuickTime

How To Put Your Shields Up To Protect Your WordPress Site

By Christine Hall on April 22, 2013 |

Internet, Security, Software, Tutorial and Web Apps

In case you haven’t heard, the popular open source website platform, WordPress, is under attack by black hat hackers. These attacks are being waged primarily against sites using the WordPress platform that are not being hosted on wordpress.com. According to KrebsonSecurity, a small botnet is being used to break into the back door of WordPress sites in an apparent attempt to build a super botnet:

“According to Web site security firm Incapsula, those responsible for this crime campaign are scanning the Internet for WordPress installations, and then attempting to log in to the administrative console at these sites using a custom list of approximately 1,000 of the most commonly-used username and password combinations.

“Incapsula co-founder Marc Gaffan told KrebsOnSecurity that infected sites will be seeded with a backdoor that lets the attackers control the site remotely (the backdoors persist regardless of whether the legitimate site owner subsequently changes his password). The infected sites then are conscripted into the attacking server botnet, and forced to launch password-guessing attacks against other sites running WordPress.”

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 readingHow To Put Your Shields Up To Protect Your WordPress Site

Firefox: To Configure Or Not To Configure

By Christine Hall on March 22, 2013 |

Browsers and Software

An interesting item came down the pike yesterday by way of Katherine Noyes on PCWorld. It seems that Alex Limi, a project design strategist at Mozilla, has blogged some concerns he has over Firefox being too configurable. It appears he’s become aware that it “…ships with many options that will render the browser unusable to most people, right in the main settings.”

This is absolutely true, but does it really matter?

I remember, many years back, I was clicking away inside Firefox when I managed to make the Menu Bar disappear. This was quite problematic because with the Menu Bar missing there was no place to click to reinstate it. I frantically searched around online, seemingly forever, until I finally found the fix. I’d like to think that I learned something from the experience, other than don’t click away the Menu Bar, but I don’t think I did for I have no memory of what I did to restore the missing item, so if I were to do it again I’d find myself back in the same boat.

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 readingFirefox: To Configure Or Not To Configure

Java Remains Unsafe–Not Likely To Be Fixed Soon

By Christine Hall on March 14, 2013 |

Browsers, Internet, Security and Software

Guess what? We’re hearing reports this morning that the black hats are continuing to take advantage of security vulnerabilities in Java. Of course they are. That’s what black hats do. We’re also hearing from security experts that browser side Java isn’t likely to be made secure in the near future.

Oracle’s management of Java since obtaining it from Sun has been nothing short of a joke. It’s about time for them to decide if they want to keep Java or not. If they don’t want it, they need to spin it off or let it die. If they think it’s a valuable part of their software portfolio, they should treat it as such and work overtime to make it safe.

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 readingJava Remains Unsafe–Not Likely To Be Fixed Soon

FOSS’s Response to Office Rumor

By Christine Hall on February 12, 2013 |

Media and Software


Depending on who you talk to, Microsoft may or may not port their Office productivity suite to Linux. Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols at ZDNet seems to be the biggest naysayer at the moment. You can count me in his camp. He’s right; at present we don’t represent a big enough potential market for the Redmond folks to entertain any thoughts of putting high dollar coders to work doing the porting work. I’m sure the Microsoft bean counters would estimate it would take decades for them to earn their investment back. For that reason alone, it ain’t going to happen.

But the big story here is that this isn’t the big story here.

The big story is in how we, the FOSS community, have reacted to this rumor in a way that shows how much we’ve grown and matured in the last four or five years. We’ve reacted to this rumor like responsible grown-ups and I, for one, feel like a proud parent.

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 readingFOSS’s Response to Office Rumor
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