Based on this video, it appears as if this Chromebook from Samsung would be a great machine with GNU/Linux installed on it.
The Viewing Room
When watching this video, imagine how nice this Chromebook would be with a full Linux install.
FOSS Force
If it wasn’t for Linux setting the bar, would Windows users still be dealing with the “blue screen of death” several times a day?
Roblimo’s Hideaway
There was a time when a computer operating system called Windows totally dominated the market, and it sucked. I mean, really sucked. Blue screens of death, unexplained crashes, viruses and worms galore, re-re-reboots all the darn time…and still, despite all the problems, people used this Windows thing. Why? Because except for the artsy/hipster $MacOS, it was the only computer OS you could get for your desktop, and it was the one that ran all the 17 jillion programs businesses wanted their office workers to use. Luckily, Windows has gotten a lot better over the years. Except…was it luck or was it Linux that made Windows improve?
For those of you who like your reality virtual and your software open, there are options — such as this nifty headset our Phil Shapiro found while searching YouTube.
The Screening Room
Virtual reality is the big deal these days and it’s great to see open source is alive and well in this realm. This newly uploaded video shows one of the VR solutions open source enthusiasts can explore and enjoy, the Razer OSVR HDK2 virtual reality headset.
Evidently DevOps running MongoDB haven’t heard the word about the latest round of ransomware targeting the database, as the numbers of deployments with data being held for ransom continues to rise.
Last week when the news started hitting the net about ransomware attacks focusing on unprotected instances of MongoDB, it seemed to me to be a story that would have a short life. After all, the attacks weren’t leveraging some unpatched vulnerabilities in the database, but databases that were misconfigured in a way that left them reachable via the Internet, and with no controls — like a password other than the default — over who had privileges. All that was necessary to get this attack vector under control was for admins to be aware of the situation and to be ready and able to reconfigure and password protect.
Guess what? It hasn’t gone down that way — at least not so far.
On Wednesday when I wrote about this there had been about 2,000 databases attacked. By this morning, according to eWeek, over 10,000 databases have been affected. What’s more, last week it appeared as if all of the attacks were being carried out by one person or organization. Now there are at least five organizations steadily working in an attempt to turn unprotected databases into bitcoins.
FSF and GNU decide to grant Libreboot lead developer Leah Rowe’s wishes. The project is no longer a part of GNU says RMS.
Breaking News
A saga that began about four months ago has ended — or so it seems, On Thursday, Richard Stallman, founder and head of the GNU Project, officially said Goodbye to GNU Libreboot in an email on the GNU mailing list.
Wednesday saw the official release of Inkscape 0.92. Eleven months in the making, this version comes with many improvements, including mesh gradients, an improved Pencil tool that features interactive smoothing and much more.
The Screening Room
Inkscape, the very popular open source cross-platform vector drawing program, has released version 0.92. Check out the new features in this very nicely done video. (Note: The sound level is a bit loud in this video. You might want to turn the volume down on your computer before starting the video.)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EI1hxXt9U4c?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]
The program is so popular, a student in Los Altos, California, once asked his parents to get it for him as a Christmas present. Suppose your child’s fondest wish was to own a no-cost software program from which they could derive thousands of hours of use and enjoyment. Without knowing it, this child gave his parents a Christmas gift of their own. And the programmers who make Inkscape? They gifted the entire world with this wonderful program.
Some days it doesn’t pay to be a huckster selling phony Windows support. Not that Windows doesn’t need supporting, mind you…
Roblimo’s Hideaway
“What,” you may ask, “is Online Tek Squad?” I didn’t know, either, until a guy calling himself Paul, known to Caller I.D. as “Name Unavailable,” rang me up from what turned out to be a nonexistent phone number. Paul said he called me because my computer was infected with “over 30 viruses.” Wow. Good thing he got hold of me before the number climbed to 40 or 50, right?
The Video Screening Room Do you need to record multiple camera angle video for lectures or a conference? As you might expect, you get the…
In this trip down memory lane, we look back to the days when cutting edge technology came with vacuum tubes.
Days of Future Tech Passed
The first broadcast of FM stereo in North Carolina was on WMDE, an FM-only radio station in Greensboro. I’m guessing that the time was late 1961 or early 1962, as the FCC approved FM stereo broabdasts in April, 1961. Dad ordered the stereo generator as soon as they became available. I was there the night it was installed. I would have been 10 at the time.
The station was no more than a control room and transmitter room, that had been built by my father and one of his friends in the corner of a brick building that had been some sort of garage, but which my father had turned into a television repair shop when he bought the building in the early 1950s. In the control room, the walls and ceiling from about waist high were covered with white acoustic tiles, made of compressed fiber, with holes to absorb sound. The bottom half of the walls were plywood painted light lime green, with a strip of molding running along the seam at the bottom of the tiles. Like nearly all control rooms, there was no outside window.
The console desk, also built by Dad, was a backwards “C,” built deep and sat against the transmitter room wall. The console was a small Gates Studioette, bought new in 1956, which could mix from four sources. To expand its mixing capabilities, there were switches that the operator could use to take audio from additional sources and assign them a pot. It was a Gates, so it was well designed and built. Rek-O-Kut Rondine turntables with Gray hydrolic tone arms sat on each side of the operator.
These are the ten most read articles on FOSS Force in 2016. 1. SourceForge and Slashdot Have Been Sold by Christine Hall. Published January 28,…