wftl's blog
Your occasiodaily dose of FOSS news as delivered by your host, Marcel Gagné (aka WFTL). Today's news features a nasty market downturn, a new browser exploit that affects even Linux users, Drupal and company, and Hugo Chavez buy-in to Linux. (Earlier episodes of WFTL Bytes! are here.) WFTl Bytes for Sep 30, 2008 -- Market crash, Clickjacking, Drupal, and Hugo's Notes from Marcel Gagne on Vimeo. Click the read more link to view the story links for today. |
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I'll call this Experiment #3 as I try to come up with a daily FOSS news format I (and at least a couple of you people) like. Today . . . Google (again), Iron, GNOME, and Cygwin WFTL Bytes, Sep 26, 2008 from Marcel Gagne on Vimeo. |
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So, what would a daily Linux/FOSS news show look like on Ustream.tv? Can it be done? Let's find out. Watch, then leave your comments. Sadly, Ustream does not record either co-hosts or the links I post, so I will post them here. In order of appearance. 1: Scientific American http://tinyurl.com/3kfxcn |
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As some of you know, Google released a new browser recently, something called Chrome. The idea is/was to fix everything that is wrong with browsers and make the Web browsers a tool to run applications. As opposed to just viewing Web pages. I'm being a bit silly here, but Chrome is built to be more like an operating system than a plain old browser. There's more but it's all only for Windows users since a Linux version doesn't yet exist. Wait . . . What? Check out this screenhost (click it for a full screen view).
Does that browser look unusual? |
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This certainly qualifies as an interesting development. CBC is reporting that FACIL, a non-profit organization that promotes the adoption of free software in Quebec, is suing the provincial government for buying Microsoft software. More specifically, they are alleging that Quebec's provincial government refuses to allow competing bids (including bids from free software vendors) in preference of large players like Microsoft. Allow me to quote from the CBC article.
You can read the entire article on the CBC Website. You will also want to read FACIL's press release on this suit. What do you think? Is FACIL doing the right thing? I've said many times that it's very nearly a crime that our governments and schools cry poverty when they spend a veritable fortune on proprietary software and its trappings. Is FACIL's action what's needed to force government to play nice with our tax dollars? |
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I've always felt that if you needed to comment on a story or blog post, you should take the time to register with the site, log in, and do things properly. Somewhere along the way, a handful of readers managed to convince me to at the very least, open up anonymous comments and see how it goes. That was the easy part. The hard part cost me a few hours and an eventual trip to the #drupal-support IRC channel where a user who goes by nick "nearlythere" got me there. Allow me to explain. My sites run on Drupal and while I love the power and flexibility of Drupal, there are times . . . [ insert sounds of growling here ] Since I wanted to avoid a massive influx of comment spam, my first step was to add captchas with the aid of the reCaptcha module which makes use of the wonderful and superb reCAPTCHA system. I also wanted to force Anonymous users to include their names and email addresses, a common enough practice on blog sites around the Net. Here's what Drupal gave me to work with when I turned on anonymous comments. |
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Inside that distinctive, tall, Vin d'Alsace bottle, is a pretty fantastic little wine. Those of you who know me well will find it somewhat surprising that I would gush over a medium-dry wine, but gush I must. Intensely floral, moderately fruity with hints of peach and apricot, and deliciously golden in color, the 2006 Cuvée Bacchus Pfaffenheim Gewurztraminer is a pleasure to savour.
Looking good is easy for our regular guests. True enough. However, looking good on the Web takes a little more work, which doesn't mean it can't be a lot of fun. With a little help from your Linux system, your smile will shine online! Yes, François, I think it would be great to add a gallery of our regular guests on the restaurant's Website, but I do have a couple of concerns. First and foremost, I really don't think you should call it a "Rogue's Gallery". Second, why on Earth are you coding HTML by hand. This is going to take you forever and our guests will be here momentarily. Lucky for you, tonight's menu has some great free software for your Linux system that will make creating that gallery a breeze. Later, though. I can see our guests arriving as we speak. Good evening and welocome one and all to Chez Marcel! Your tables are ready as are we to serve you. My faithful waiter, François, will fetch your wine while I introduce you to tonight's featured Linux software. François, to the wine cellar. Vite! In the South wing, you'll find a case of 2003 Sariza from Bulgaria. The Sariza is a great medium-bodied red wine that I'm sure you'll enjoy. I must tell you that François had an excellent idea that involved creating a Web photo gallery. Before I show you how easy it can be to create such a gallery, I need to tell you about a package you'll need to have on your system, a package which will let you do all sorts of magical things with images. |
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Hello, oh great and powerful Adobe people. Thank you so much for releasing Flash Player 10 beta 2 for Linux. Thanks even more for (finally) building in support for video4linux2 Webcam technology. You have no idea how much we appreciate that. The only problem is that many (if not most) of us can't use it. You see, it crashes our browsers within seconds. Reading earlier posts on this subject, it's obvious that Adobe is aware of this problem (Flash player 10 beta 2 crashing Firefox) and that they have fixed it in-house. I think I speak for more than just myself when I say, "Please, just let us have the fixed version." You don't know how long we've waited for video4linux2 support. The suspense is killing us. Besides, it's kind of rough to be told that a beta is available with said features, then not have it work. It's even harder when we are told it's fixed but we can't possibly have it. So, please. Please. Let us have the current fixed version. We know it's not the real, final product, but we accept that. It's cool. Really. What do you say? Come on, guys. One little tiny fixed beta? No one is going to complain. In fact, we'll say nothing but nice things about you. Really. What do you say? Please. Pretty please . . . |
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