Archive - Aug 11, 2008

For those of you who don't know, Bitpim is a great tool for transferring files back and forth between phones and your PC (ie. backing up contacts and making your own mp3 ringtones). This tutorial will be given for a LG VX-8300 specifically, but it should work with later (maybe some earlier) models.

First, get bitpim from the repositories and make sure that bluetooth utilities are installed:

sudo apt-get install bitpim bluez-utils

Start bluetooth with the command:

This tutorial is meant to be directed towards linux users, but this will work on Windows too!

I know many Rapidshare.com Premium Account users who use linux have been looking for an effective way to download multiple files simultaniously.

I have found a great solution!

Before I start, let me just say that the tools in this tutorial definetely deserve some sort of donation for their hard work! I am by no means affiliated with the developers of these tools... I simply believe that some open-source developers should be thanked the right way so that they are even more motivated to further improve their work.

Now on to the tutorial!!!

First you will need to install the following tools:

1. Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/firefox)

Okay many people have seen that when some people start up there is like a "Ubuntu" logo well i will tell you how you can do that.

1. The first thing you will need is to install a program called figlet. To do that Open up a terminal (Usually if your using gnome you would go to Applications>Accessories>Terminal) And than type "Sudo apt-get install figlet" it will most likely ask you yes or no do you want to install and you will half to type your password.

2. The second thing your going to do is while yo are still inside of the terminal(Applications>Accessories>Terminal) your going to type sudo gedit /home/username/.bashrc (where it says username put your login name) and at the very bottom of your .bashrc press enter than copy and paste in

Source: http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/columns/is_microsoft_trying_to_kill_...

When the story about Microsoft shelling out $100,000 to Apache for ASF sponsorship broke across my radar it rather tickled my funny bone and my curiosity. When ASF Chairman Jim Jagielski declared that “Microsoft’s sponsorship makes it clear that Microsoft “gets it” regarding the ASF” I had a fit of the giggles—and then, like many others, I started to ponder on the reasons why and what it actually meant.

Source: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/080808-linux-patent-pool-to-push.html

A tech vendor-backed company that buys up patents in an effort to protect the Linux community from intellectual property litigation will soon launch a Web site to help inventors file defensive publications -- documents that make details of an invention public, preventing others from later making patent claims on it.

"The more we can mobilize this community, the fewer patents that will actually be granted," said Keith Bergelt, who recently became CEO of the Open Invention Network. "Whatever happens in the patent reform world in the next [U.S.] administration is great, but we have to act now to stop the granting of patents that threaten Linux and open-source in general."

Source: http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS7602118344.html

<!-- 1 2 3 -->Two LiMo-member mobile phone stack firms followed through on partnership deals in separate announcements this week. Purple Labs announced a joint testing commitment with Openwave Systems, and Access announced it had concluded a joint development agreement on FOMA phones with NTT DoCoMo.

(Click for larger view of Panasonic P706iu, a LiMo phone aimed at FOMA networks)

The Purple Labs announcement follows up on its late-June, $32 million acquisition of Openwave's mobile phone software business. The deal brought the French mobile middleware firm Openwave's cross-platform browser and messaging client technologies. Purple Labs had previously committed to upgrading Openwave's high-end Surfer Browser, as well as its Mobile Integrated Dynamic Application System (MIDAS) mobile development kit and function library, which was also part of the deal.

Source: http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/community_posts/creating_wealth_free...

A report by the Standish Group indicates that adoption of ‘open source’ has caused a drop in revenue to the proprietary software industry by about $60 billion per year. That’s not a huge amount of money compared to what has been lost though the misselling of mortgages, but it is still a lot. The report identifies the value of these ‘open source’ products to be about 6% of the world market for software. Unfortunately, the Standish Group doesn’t believe in openly sharing its research, instead selling it for $1,000…