Portable Apps
Posted by Nazly on Saturday, 18th February 2006 20:11:37 (GMT +0530)PortableApps.com has got a cool collection of FOSS Applications for Windows that can be carried around on portable devices such as USB thumbdrives, portable harddrives, MP3 players etc.. Once the device is plugged in the applications and the personal data will be accessible like in our own PC and once unplugged nothing will be left behind on the PC we plugged it in. This sounds very useful specially for the ones on the move.
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Hands on FOSS
Posted by Nazly on Wednesday, 15th February 2006 22:55:57 (GMT +0530)The last day of Foss-ed was a day for Hands on Workshops. The day started off with Chamindra and Arunan doing a great presentation on running windows applications on GNU/Linux using QEMU, Wine and CrossOver Office etc... Most prefer using a dual-boot system or running FOSS apps on Windows platform. Due to few of our favourite Windows applications we still gotta stick with Windows. Chamindra made it a point that the best practise is to run windows applications on the GNU/Linux rather than the other methods coz the other methods have a tendancy to drag us back again to the Windows platform after while. This has happened to me all the time. I'm trying to plan things out to follow this method coz I'm still stuck at running FOSS Apps on Windows OS due to few favourite Windows based Apps and hardware compatibilty issues. The time has come I guess.
Suchetha and Dr.Shahani Weerawarana did a tutorial session on OpenOffice while Wasantha did an excellent tutorial on Blender. Its great to know what these FOSS apps could do. Blender which is less than 7MB that could do almost all what we used to model/animate using 3DStudioMax. Even Reactor animations. I was stunned.
Dr.Nandalal Gunaratne and Rajkumar made a presentation on 'FOSS Content Management Systems and WIKIs', one of my favourite subjects. Dr. Nandalal demonstarted about the CMS using Plone built on Zope which has a high rating at CMS Watch for OpenSource CMS.
All and all the last three days has been very informative and have been FOSSed up. Thanks to all the organizers of this great event and expecting more in the future.
I didn't take a cam this time so couldn't take pics though Buddhika was very kind enough to share the photos he took. More photos here
Ligting up the Virtual Oil Lamp
Fullhouse at FOSS-ed
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Digging real deep
Posted by Nazly on Tuesday, 14th February 2006 22:51:20 (GMT +0530)The day two of the FOSS-ed kicked off with Dr.Nimal Rathnayake of Peradeniya University giving us some piece of history of how FOSS was used on the server-side since 1990. He also covered on how operations have been automated within the universities in Sri Lanka using FOSS.
Suranga de Silva did a great presentation on FOSS Security and Tools and he spoke mainly about SE Linux, a security kernel module which was developed by the NSA.
There was also a session on Sahana, an OpenSource Disaster Management System.
Then it came to a very interesting session by Buddhika AKA Bud on FOSS Gadgematics. There is a wrong impression that FOSS doesn't support well with all the tiny fancy hardware thats available. Well he broke that for sure. He was actually running a FOSS application on a Sony PSP(huh??) to listen to an audio stream which was broadcasted by Icecast via WiFi.
The keynote by Brian Behlendorf was the highlight of the day as he spoke on 'The global adoption of FOSS'. It really helped me a great deal about getting the whole idea behind OpenSource. When he brought this rumour about Oracle is planning to buy Zend I was like
![[eek]](/smiles/icon_eek.gif){kind=icon}
and when the question came from the audience asking on how this will effect the OpenSource communiy and the answer was very obvious at the end and that is what OpenSource is all about. Its about Freedom. We always have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.
I missed the panel discussion though I gained a lot through out the course of the two day conference. Tomorrow there are few workshops and I will keep you posted on those.
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Free beer?
Posted by Nazly on Monday, 13th February 2006 22:18:09 (GMT +0530)It has been a very informative day learning loads of stuff in the OpenSource World at FOSS-ed today. Today was the first day of the three day conference and workshops. There was also a Panel Discussion on addressing challenges to adopting FOSS in Sri Lankan institutions. Topics covered today were more on what FOSS is really about and how we can adopt to it in our day to day lives. I was really impressed with all the sessions today as it definielty would have cleared all minds which totally had a different idea about FOSS and why it should be choosen over Commercial or pirated software.
Almost on all sessions one important fact really stood up. A fact that most people have got all mixed up. The word "Free" has mislead a lot of people. Some even ask if its Free and Open Source Software Conference why they charge for it? Are they talking about free beer?
"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech," not as in "free beer."
Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
- The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Eagerly waiting for get there tomorrow as few interesting topics lined up including the keynote on 'The global adoption of FOSS' by Brian Behlendorf.
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NFS Most Wanted
Posted by Nazly on Monday, 6th February 2006 22:37:14 (GMT +0530)After completing NFS Underground I was away from all the gaming though NFS Most Wanted was released and I couldn't get my hands on wheels coz of my old machine. I even found playing Underground 2 quite difficult as it ran really slow.
Atlast I got my hands on wheels after upgrading the Processor and the Memory. The graphics are really awesome and had a quick race to get the feel of it on a Mustang. Just started a new career. Hitting the tracks again.. Lets see how fast I can get up there..
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Why OSS??
Posted by Nazly on Sunday, 5th February 2006 23:35:58 (GMT +0530)Here is a great article that describes why Open Source Software should be considered when we are looking for a software. The market share, reliability, performance, scalability, security, and total cost of ownership are considered here.
Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS)? Look at the Numbers!
Its very important that we choose what is right for us rather than getting caught in the hype.
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FOSS-ed
Posted by Nazly on Friday, 3rd February 2006 10:12:54 (GMT +0530)Free & Open Source Software Educational Programs, a three day Conference will be held on the 13,14,15th of February 2006. This will be a great event after FOSSSL which was held last year where top names in OpenSource made that event a great success.
Its a great opportunity to dig deep into OpenSource Software.
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