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Raspberry Picademy USA Accepting Applications

By Isaac Carter on January 13, 2016 |

Community and Hardware

Raspberry Picademy USA Accepting ApplicationsPicademy USA logo

The Raspberry Pi Report

Are you an enthusiastic individual that is interested in using the Raspberry Pi in the classroom and in community education programs? Then get ready to fill out your application for Raspberry Picademy USA! This will be the first time ever that the Raspberry Pi Foundation will be offering a Picademy in the United States. If you haven’t ever heard of Picademy, or have and are looking to participate, then I’ll answer some basic questions for you on the ins and outs of Raspberry Picademy USA.

Picademy USA logoWhat is Picademy? Picademy is a two day series of classes taught by certified Raspberry Pi educators. These classes involve learning all hardware and software aspects of the Raspberry Pi. You will also be learning from some of the brightest minds that make up the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

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Gmail and a Can of Spam

Gmail and a Can of Spam

By Ken Starks on January 12, 2016 |

Operating Systems, Security and Web Apps

The Heart of Linux

“You’ve got mail compromised mail!”

The emails started coming in slowly at first. Friends and colleagues were telling me that my Gmail address was pushing out spam.

“Spam? Really?”

My first inclination was to push those emails aside as a temporary albeit bothersome incident. Something similar had happened a few years earlier, but subsided quickly with no real or evident damage. I guessed that some bot did a drive by and picked up my email contacts and started pumping out spam and other messages.

GmailBut this incident wasn’t to be pushed aside. The emails started coming in faster and faster, until I acknowledged that I had a real problem.

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FOSS Rock Stars at SCALE 14xCory Doctorow

FOSS Rock Stars at SCALE 14x

By Christine Hall on January 11, 2016 |

Community

Sure you go to Linux expos such as SCALE to sharpen your coding skills and to learn about how to get your hands dirty going under the hood with you favorite open source applications. You might even go to learn a little bit about the business of open source. But you have to admit that an added attraction is just getting to see presentations from FOSS rock stars, the well known movers and shakers who have taken a big part in shaping the past, present and future of free and open source software. These are people whose presentations you’ll be tempted to attend no matter what the subject because…well, just because. Some of these are legends; some are not. But they’re all rock stars. And as usual, there’ll be an abundance of them at SCALE.

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When It’s Time to Seed the Pot and Get Things GoingFOSS Force begging

When It’s Time to Seed the Pot and Get Things Going

By Christine Hall on January 10, 2016 |

Site News

FOSS Force: 2016 Fund Drive

Our Indiegogo campaign with the descriptive title “FOSS Force: 2016 Fund Drive” has begun. We’d like you to pull out your wallet and make a contribution to help us continue to supply you with all of the great content you’ve come to expect from FOSS Force. Actually, you don’t even have to go to the effort of pulling out your wallet, you can just click and pay using your PayPal account. Then again, you might need to dig for your wallet if you want to pay by credit card, unless you’ve memorized the number.

If this were an NPR outlet, right about now I’d start telling you that your contributions help pay for all of the content you read on our site. That’s true; it does. Also if this were an NPR outlet, I’d be telling you that we’re user supported (in NPR’s case listener supported) and that 90 percent of our funding comes from readers like you. That’s not true. We run ads, offer sponsorships and such. It’s just that right now that’s not enough to pay the bills — but revenues are increasing and if we keep on keeping on we’ll soon be able to stand on our own two feet. Right now, we just need some help to see us through.

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Arch Wins First of Two Round PollFavorite distro poll results graph

Arch Wins First of Two Round Poll

By FOSS Force on January 9, 2016 |

Community, Distros, Operating Systems and Polls

The FOSS Force Poll

The voting is over in the first round of our annual GNU/Linux distro poll, which sought an answer to the simple question, “What Linux distro do you currently use most?” The result was a complete surprise, at least to us. By a decisive margin, you voted for Arch Linux. The poll was certainly one for the record books. By the time it was closed to voting, a total of 5,784 of you had cast votes, more than double from any previous FOSS Force poll. The poll was online for approximately one week.

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Shuttleworth at SCALE, Google Rolls Over & More…Soyuz Rocket Shuttleworth

Shuttleworth at SCALE, Google Rolls Over & More…

By Christine Hall on January 8, 2016 |

Business, Community, Distros, Mobile, News and Operating Systems

FOSS Week in Review

Wow. It certainly didn’t take long after the holidays for the FOSS news wire to heat up again. It’s like all the newsmakers have been chomping at the bit to get back to work doing what they do best, which would be, well, making news. Let’s start with some breaking news concerning a well known FOSS personality…

Soyuz Rocket Shuttleworth
Mark Shuttleworth, rocket man and founder of Canonical/Ubuntu will be a keynote speaker at SCALE 14X in Pasadena, Calif. Presumably, he’ll arrive using a conventional mode of transportation.
To SCALE or not to SCALE: If you live somewhere within driving distance of Southern California and you’ve been sitting on the fence trying to decide whether to attend SCALE 14X (that’s the Southern California Linux Expo for the jargon impaired), then we’re about to give you a tidbit that might help you make up your mind.

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FreeBSD Foundation Takes Right Steps

By Larry Cafiero on January 7, 2016 |

Community, Operating Systems and Politics

Larry the BSD Guy

First things first: I’m the new kid on the BSD block. While in the process of still figuring things out on PC-BSD — dang that Synaptics! — and finding a place to contribute in the community, I have no real handle on the nuances of the inner workings of the wider BSD community. To my self-promoting credit, I am a quick study and the learning curve is not as difficult as I imagined. On the whole, I like what I see in those contributing to BSD, especially in the way of eagerness to help new users.

However, when Randi Harper decided to bail on participation in FreeBSD as she outlined in her blog, it raises the question, “Where have we seen this before?” Taking a step back, it raises the question, “Why does this keep happening in FOSS communities?”

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Raspberry Pi Closes December on Up Note

By Isaac Carter on January 6, 2016 |

Community, Distros, Hardware and News

The Raspberry Pi Report

Pi Wars Logo - Raspberry PiWith the holidays and all, the month of December wasn’t as action packed as some of the past months have been concerning the Raspberry Pi, but there were still some interesting stories that occurred. Let’s take a minute to reflect back on the Raspberry Pi and December.

Pi Wars: The second annual Pi Wars competition occurred in Cambridge this past December, and just like the year before it was a complete success.

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