Hello everybody, and welcome once again to the fortnightly newsletter of Free Software Magazine: keeping you well informed about the realm of free software... AND the top 10 FSDaily announcements for this week! Happy reading!

Top 10 Free Software Daily stories this week

1. ZFS: what “the ultimate file system” really means for your desktop -- in plain English!— Now I may just be showing my geek side a bit here, but file systems are awesome. Aside from the fact our machines would be nothing without them, the science behind them is frequently ingenious. read more...
2. Stable Full NTFS support in Linux At last!— Adding full read/write NTFS support to Linux has been a story of damaged reputations, data corruptions and human ingenuity! Now after 12 years in development, there is a full driver at last! Here is a brief tutorial how to make use of it. read more...
3. Google and Linux Join Forces for Google OS—In the past, we have explored the reality that, in many forms, the much anticipated “Google OS” has long since already arrived. But recently, there have been strong indicators that Google may be positioning for something more. read more...
4. Firefox 3 and Google team up for offline apps— Mozilla and Google are collaborating on an effort to make web applications work offline.rnrnFirefox 3 will be the first internet browser to offer offline web application support when it launches at the end of this year read more...
5. Study shows that 43% of companies are using FOSS. Followup study shows that 57% of companies have no idea what software they run— This is a survey that claims 43% of companies are /already/ using FOSS. Judge for yourself read more...
6. FSF - GNU GPLv3 Launch— On Friday, June 29, at 12 noon (EDT), the Free Software Foundation will officially release the GNU GPL version 3. Please, join us in celebration as we bring to a close eighteen months of public outreach and comment in revision of the world’s most popular free software license. read more...
7. Four Reasons to Avoid Ubuntu—I’ve spent recent days praising Ubuntu’s simplicity. My $1,400 investment in a screaming Dell machine running Ubuntu was money well spent. But I also realize Ubuntu won’t appeal to all users. In fact, I can think of at least four key reasons why many Mac and Windows users won’t want an Ubuntu PC read more...
8. Two Gnome easter eggs— Want to have a little bit of fun with your Gnome desktop? here are a few easter eggs for you. read more...
9. 10 Things To Do After You Install Ubuntu— Ubuntu is a great distro, but it still needs some slight tweaking to get it just right. I’m going to show you how to use Automatix2 to get your OS perfected. For those of you unfamiliar with Automatix2, its basically software that makes installing add-on software easier in Ubuntu. read more...
10. Microsoft, Linux Distros Get Cozy: Let’s Get Scared—First we had Novell jumping onboard with Microsoft, and then came a cooperative deal with Xandros. Now we have Linspire following the trend and I’m left wondering: should we be worried? Many of you may point out that it is merely a handful of companies, but I see this differently. read more...

Thanks to tony, dave, bridget, mattflaschen, waleed.saud, and snotbutter for contributing these stories!

Latest content

Freemind in your kitchen—Gianluca Pignalberi introduces us to Freemind with a tutorial on representing recipes as mind maps... with a tasty treat included! read more...

Desktop search tools for GNU/Linux: the competition hots up - Tracker, Recoll Strigi and Deskbar—Gary Richmond gives us the low down on a myriad of search tool alternatives.read more...

3D desktops—Beryl, Compiz and more—3D desktops, productive AND fun? Mitch Meyran tells you how. read more...

Weekly tip: killing processes—Andrew Min provides the weekly tip... three ways to kill processes! read more...

OpenOffice.org and mail merge: how to suppress the Address2 line—Solveig Haugland talks about getting rid of those pesky empty lines in OOo mail merges. read more...

History of glibc and Linux libc—Ciaran O’Riordan provides us with a history of glibc and Linux libc. read more...

The story (and the protocols) behind instant messengers—Andrew Min provides the history of the instant messengers, from IRC to Pidgin. read more...

Cleaning your OS in Kubuntu and GNOME—Let Laurie Langham guide you through some spring cleaning! read more...

Sharing medical software: FOSS licensing in medicine—Fred Trotter tells us how FOSS licensing works in the medical profession. read more...

Why everybody should use GNU/Linux, and how?—Phil Thane gives you 5 good reasons to use GNU/Linux, with 10 bonus tips if you decide to do so! read more...

Latest book reviews released

ImageMagick Tricks by Sohail Salehi Frederick Noronha learns the tricks of ImageMagick! read more...

WordPress Complete by Hasin Hayder Frederick Noronha learns how to set up, customize, and market a blog using WordPress. read more...

Pro Open Source Mail: Building an Enterprise Mail Solution by Curtis Smith Raymond Burke explores setting up an enterprise mail system. read more...

The Definitive Guide to SQLite by Michael Owens Raymond Burke delves into the exciting world of SQLite! read more...

Book competition announcement for this fortnight

This week we are giving away a copy of The Definitive Guide to SQLite by Michael Owens and a copy of Pro Open Source Mail: Building an Enterprise Mail Solution by Curtis Smith.

All you need to do to enter is check out the latest book competition announcement on our blogs page.

GOOD LUCK!

Thanks go to Apress for providing these fantastic prizes.

Winner of the book competition from last fortnight

To be announced

Winner of the book competition from 17th June 2007

Thanks to all those who entered, unfortunately there can only be one winner...

Congratulations Anders Jackson of Sweden!

Anders has won copies of AJAX: Creating Web Pages with Asynchronous JavaScript and Beginning Ubuntu Linux, Second Edition.

Thanks to all who entered.

Thanks also go to Prentice Hall and Apress for providing these great prizes.

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—What do you think about the (re)launch of Free Software Daily?

As you should all know by now, we’ve relaunched FSDaily and we wanted to know what you thought. And the results were very encouraging! 49% of you responded with “It’s a good site - I’ll probably have a look once in a while”, closely followed by 43% of you going with “It’s the perfect news site for me - I’ll be reading it everyday”. Aw. Thanks, guys! 2% of you decided that “I read news hubs, but we already have enough news sources; so, no thank you”, and 6% of you opting for “Other” - such as the RSS feed. Read more here and stay tuned for...

This fortnight’s poll

What’s your favorite news hub for free software news?

Okay. This should be easy... What’s your favourite? Feel free to suck up :) . We don’t mind we are definitely biased on this one. If your favourite hub isn’t listed and you choose “Other”, don’t forget to let us know in the comments. And please let us know why you’ve voted the way you have too.

Reminders

Comments

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