Hello readers, and welcome once again to Free Software Magazine’s fortnightly newsletter, keeping you up to date with all things free software! Enjoy!
General announcements
This fortnight we have been focusing on the back end—a major server upgrade, increased usability for magazine staff, administration upgrades. It isn’t something you can all see, but very important none the less in helping to smoothly produce and distribute quality content for the readers. And speaking of quality content...
Latest content
Fun With Ubuntu: Top Ten Next Names, Part 1—Jabari Zakiya has some suggestions for the Ubuntu developers—stay tuned for the next five! Read more...
Learn some command line: using du, df, file, find to make your life easier—Anthony Taylor wants you to know that while he can’t teach his old dog new tricks, he can give you a couple for the command line. Read more...
Configuring a Linux home internet gateway: How to justify to your spouse adding another Linux box to your home network—John Calcote just replaced his LinkSys router with a custom Linux router, and he’s willing to tell you how. Read more...
When is a standard not a standard?—You tell ’em, Eddy. Eddy Macnaghten gets OOXML contradictions, objections, arguments, problems and comparisons to ODF and sorts them out once and for all... Read more...
FOSDEM—A Personal Account (with all personal details withheld)—Steve Goodwin had a rip-roaring good time at FOSDEM... who knew a pack of geeks could have so much fun? read more...
Latest content continued
Linux and Dell—getting there?—Chris Holt celebrates the beautiful friendship... Read more...
The emerging FOSS revolution in Cuba—Jabari Zakiya looks at what FOSS can do for Cuba... and what Cuba can do for FOSS. Read more...
Wrapping up PyCON 2007—Terry Hancock went to PyCON 2007, and he’s kindly letting us all know what went down. Read more...
Instant GNU/Linux time machine—Anthony Taylor shares a blast from the past... Read more...
Managing your iPod without iTunes: using free software to unlock your iPod’s potential—Jon Peck shows us how to shake off the restriction of iTunes using free software. Read more...
Latest book reviews released
Agile Java Development with Spring, Hibernate and Eclipse by Anil Hemrajani Alan Berg examines this book for developers which effectively weaves an understandable lesson based on a realistic, but imaginary timesheet project. read more...
BIRT: A Field Guide to Reporting by Diana Peh, Alethea Hannemann, Nola Haque Alan Berg delves into the world of BIRT, consisting of a set of tutorials that develops your skills base from scratch to the level required to build sophisticated, database-driven, chart rich, well laid out and complex sets of reports. read more...
Book competition announcement for this fortnight
This week we are giving away a copy ofAgile Java Development with Spring, Hibernate and Eclipse by Anil Hemrajani and a copy of Red Hat Fedora Core 6 Unleashed by Andrew Hudson, Paul Hudson.
All you need to do to enter is check out the latest book competition announcement on our blogs page.
GOOD LUCK!
Thanks go to Sams for providing these fantastic prizes.
Winner of the book competition from last fortnight
To be announced
Please comment wherever possible and don’t forget to log in so that you’ll be in the running to win the latest book competition
Poll Results—How worried are you about trusted computing, DRM, and software patents?
51% of you were “very concerned”—the out and out winner of this fortnight’s poll. This was followed by 28% of voters falling into the even more concerned category of “extremely worried—they will eventually kill free software”. 14% were “a little concerned”, a tiny 6% were concerned “not at all—it will pass” and 1% had a different opinion. However, most of the comments this week reflected the poll results—very concerned! Read more here and stay tuned for...
This fortnight’s poll
How do you feel about the idea of governments mandating the use of free software in their countries?
Freedom is a big word with a lot of weight on it. And while most migrating governments are only mandating government use of free software, what would you think if the use of free software was mandated through all major public and private organisations as well? Is this more freedom or less?
Reminders
Comments
Your comments on articles, issues, and blog entries are very welcome. They provide other readers with insightful suggestions, further information, and the feeling that they are not alone. They also provide our authors with the feeling that they are being heard. Please comment wherever possible and don’t forget to log in so that you’ll be in the running to win the latest book competition.
Avatars
Avatars are a great way of expressing your personal identity, whether it be a photo or an image that you feel represents the you you want to be. Read more about avatars here. To add an avatar: log in, go to “my account” in the menu on the left, go to the “edit” tab and scroll down to where it says “Upload picture”. Now, hit the browse button, find the image on your computer that you want to upload and go to the bottom of the page and hit the submit button. That’s it; you now have an avatar image.
Donate
As you might know already FSM is a low profit project with all funds raised going back into producing the fine magazine you can download for free.
Think about how much you would normally have to spend buying a magazine of this quality. We provide it for free!
Your donations will help us to continue spreading the word about free software and producing more fantastic issues.
Contacting us
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Thanks
Thank you for subscribing to Free Software Magazine. You are a part of a growing community who help to raise the awareness of, and educate new users in, the joys of free software. Without you we would not have this community and without you we would not have a magazine. Happy reading!