Archive for the 'Open Source' Category

Android is a recently-announced, open source mobile-phone operating system and development platform from Google. The Android software stack could be installed on any number of handsets, from various cell providers around the world. I’ll take a first look at Android, with an Eclipse project and an Android plug-in, to create and debug a simple Hello World application.

Launchy is a keyboard application launcher for Windows. Keyboard launchers are generally considered easier and faster at launching applications because a user’s hands never leave the keyboard. I’ve been using Launchy at home and at work for a couple of months, and could not go back to using my computer without a keyboard launcher. Launchy consumes just 12MB of memory (on my system), and becomes a natural way to open applications or perform other simple tasks because it is so fast. Launchy is open source and is designed to be skinnable and highly extensible.

On this day, Americans around the country will take part in Democracy by casting their votes for candidates and platforms. What most Americans don’t know is that another kind of Democracy exists, a kind you write code for, a kind you contribute documentation to, a kind you use to discover great video content that is delivered through the Internet. You may be sick of phone calls and mailings asking for support, but I can assure you that you’ll support this platform (provided you’re running Windows, Linux or OS X).

The Camino Browser is a alternate browser for OS X built on the same technology as Firefox, however it uses the native OS X interface and has attractive icons and menus, to really give it an “OS X feel.” The idea is to take the stability and performance of Firefox, but capture the attractiveness of Safari and other native OS X applications.

Keeping your bookmarks synchronized between different computers is difficult since operating systems represent data differently. While social bookmarking sites like digg and del.icio.us, or RSS readers like Google’s Personalized Home and Bloglines let account holders store links and feeds to their favorite sites, I’ve found that I still want to use traditional bookmarks, but am frustrated when I move between my different computers and they are not there.

This article was created in response to a visitor’s request from a Matt Thommes article titled Using Paths to create smooth, rounded corners in Photoshop. The visitor requested a write-up on how to create images with rounded corners in the GIMP, a free, open source image editing and manipulation program.

This article is an opinion piece on what a home entertainment PC should be, and also suggests an easy to implement software solution for Windows called MediaPortal. This free application is still under development. Read this article, download the app, and contribute if you feel inclined. Please leave comments on what PVR/DVR you use and why you like it.

Technology should be enabling, not disabling

Like most people reading this, I keep all of my music on my hard drive and my best