Georg Greve, founding president of the Free Software Foundation Europe, has received the Cross of Merit on ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany (Verdienstkreuz am Bande). Georg received this high award from the German President for his work on Free Software and Open Standards. “FSFE is very proud to have a ‘knight’ among its […]
A brief email dropped into my inbox earlier this week pointing me in the direction of the blog of Joss Winn of Lincoln University. Joss relates his experiences over 10 years of running a Linux desktop on a Mac (several actually. Ed.). At the start of his experiences Joss relates: The first time I installed […]
News arrives in your correspondent’s inbox and via the South Bristol Digital Neighbourhoods (SBDN) blog that a series of WordPress workshops has just got underway. Both SBDN and ourselves run WordPress (“both free and priceless at the same time“) to publish our news and a free WordPress blog from WordPress.com is an easy route for […]
Not to be confused with tomorrow, April Fools’ Day, today, 31st March 2010 is Document Freedom Day – that time of year when those of us in the open source movement highlight the use of open standards for documents, that lifeblood of any organisation. One thought that strikes me when thinking about open formats is […]
My inbox today contained the an appeal from 38degrees, who have been helping fight the Government’s Digital Economy Bill. The Bill would present a major threat to the survival of open public wifi services (such as provided by Bristol Wireless and many other small outfits and operators). In addition, it introduces draconian copyright protection/infringement measures […]
A few years ago I stumbled across a cracking little application which helped me no end as an introduction to Linux. Wubi is an Ubuntu Linux installer designed for Windows. The great thing about this application is that the benefits of the open source world are literally just a simple mouse click away. The installation […]
It’s Valentine’s Day and the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is calling on free software users everywhere to show their love for free Software. Behind every free software initiative and organisation there are real, hard-working people from the developers to those who help with documentation and users who assist in squashing bugs and improving the […]
Earlier this week a newsletter popped into your correspondent’s inbox from our good friends and fellow free software advocates at Trinity Community Arts giving details of the centre’s weekly classes for 2010. These include computer classes every Thursday between 4 pm and 6 pm. The classes are free and are being organised by Bristol Refugee […]
Hot on the heels of the New Year comes encouraging news from Munich, where the city council is progressing with its LiMux free software project. Writing on his blog, deputy project leader Florian Schießl notes a number of major milestones. Firstly, the open source and ISO standard Open Document Format (ODF) is now the main […]
It’s 3pm on Friday afternoon (aka POETS Day. Ed 🙂 ) and the lab is in the capable hands of Jim, Stefan & your ‘umble scribe. Jim & Stefan, both freshly supplied with a hot drink are busy working away on machines for our refurbishment project, whilst yours truly is catching up on paperwork, but […]
This morning news arrived via your scribe’s Twitter feed that Mozilla’s Firefox, the leading open source web browser, has now overtaken Internet Explorer as the top browser and now accounts for over 44% of installed web browsers, according to the latest user analysis from w3b.org. Those who feel competent in German may like to try […]
Regular readers will be aware that Bristol Wireless wrote during September to the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer (news passim) and sent them each an Ubuntu live CD (so they could do half of Whitehall each? Ed. 😀 ). We’ve now had a reply (sort of. Ed.) from Tim Bett, Director, Commercial Delivery, […]
CodeWeavers, a leading developer of software products that turn Linux and Mac OS X into Windows-compatible operating systems, have announced the release of CrossOver Games 8.1, masquerading under the codename of Zombie Mallard. Picture courtesy of CodeWeavers, Inc. As part of the launch, CodeWeavers will also be giving away a fully loaded, custom built, blingtastic […]
French newspaper Le Figaro reports that the Government of Latvia, which has been severely affected by the economic crisis, intends replacing Microsoft’s proprietary software with free and open source software. “This is being done with the sole aim of saving money”, a spokesman explained. The decision, which was recently signed by the Prime Minister, is […]
Freeskilling don’t – and don’t think you do either (quite rightly. Ed. 🙂 ). Tomorrow night – Tuesday, 13th October – they’re organising an event at the Better Food Co. Cafe in St Werburghs (map), starting at 7.00 pm to tell you why you don’t need Redmond’s offering. To quote from the publicity: Ben Smith […]
OSOR.eu, the Open Source Observatory and Repository, reports that Inria, France’s national computer science institute, says free software is essential to develop digital society. The institute is launching a research centre to focus on this type of software, Cirill (IT Innovation and Research Centre for Free Software). Cirill’s founding was announced at the Open World […]
Yesterday John Headstrong, an old friend and supporter of Bristol Wireless, posted the following on his Twitter feed: My 6 year old son is currently installing Ubuntu. What is your excuse for not installing it ? #ubuntu Ubuntu Linux: so simple a 6 year-old can install it. Excuses below in the comments please. 😀
Jules, our treasurer here at Bristol Wireless, is currently on holiday in the far west of the USA; he’s also gone there with one of our VoIP telephones, which is registered on our system as an extension phone for the system at our lab in Bristol. This means the Bristol Wireless PABX telephone system is […]
It cannot have escaped the notice of anyone in the United Kingdom that, after having slipped our profligate banks billions of pounds to prop them up, the public coffers are rather empty and that consequently central government is looking around for ‘efficiency savings’ and even the Prime Minister has been forced to say the ‘c’ […]
Some months ago Bristol Wireless were asked by Easton Community Centre to provide some new LTSP thin clients in secure cabinets, similar to those already installed in St Werburgh’s Community Centre (news passim), whilst regular readers may recall our first post on the Mk. II cabinets. The first of the cabinets was delivered to Easton […]