The Document Foundation has announced the release of LibreOffice 3.6.4 for Linux and other popular operating systems. LibreOffice is the main office suite that comes bundled with most major Linux distributions. According to the Foundation, this new release of the free and open source office suite is another step forward in the process of improving […]
Yesterday evening the chief scribe attended the launch of Accessible Bristol down at Bristol’s City Hall (formerly the Counts Louse). Accessible Bristol’s aim is “bringing together digital and strategic knowledge to champion inclusion in Bristol and the South West”. We were welcomed to the event Stephen Hilton, the council’s Director of Futures (the man with […]
Technology news site The H Online reports that a prototype of the Pi Cam camera for the Raspberry Pi was presented at Germany’s Electronica 2012 show. The camera offers a 5 MP sensor and can record 1080p H.264 video at 30 fps. The camera connects to the Raspberry Pi’s free CSI pins and is controlled […]
The Portuguese government is prescribing Open Document Format (ODF) as the sole format for editable documents for public authorities in a list of open standards, according to Germany’s Heise IT news site, commenting on a report from ESOP, the Portuguese Open Source Business Association. The list is part of a body of rules to ensure […]
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) reports that the German Ministry of the Interior published a white paper (English version here) about “Trusted Computing” and “Secure Boot” yesterday. The white paper says that “device owners must be in complete control of (that is to say able to manage and monitor) all the trusted computing security […]
The chief scribe recently took part in some smart city sessions organised in Bristol by Knowle West Media Centre, so he was interested to learn of recent smart cities developments in Italy. According to the EU’s Joinup open source news site, open source software is a key element in many of the Smart City projects […]
There’s been lots of CiviCRM activity in the chief scribe’s inbox concerning CiviCRM, the open source customer relationship package used by Bristol Wireless, including the anonymous email below from someone called CiviCRM Info. I am emailing to let you know about the next London CiviCRM meet-up on Wednesday 28th November. We’ve run some really successful […]
News arrives via Sean Kenny of Circle Interactive that a CiviCRM user and administrator training session is to be held in Bristol on Tuesday, 11th December from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm at the Create Centre, Smeaton Road, BS1 6XN (map). This is being promoted as a comprehensive one day hands on training course covering […]
Today the Times of India reports that a study on the use of free and open source software in e-governance is to be jointly conducted by the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) of Trivandrum in Kerala and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in Bangalore, Karnataka. The study, which is planned […]
Bernama.com, the Malaysian national news agency, reports that the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit’s (MAMPU) Open Source Competency Centre (OSCC) is organising the Malaysian Government Open Source Software Conference (MyGOSSCON) 2012 on 26th and 27th November 2012. The OSCC has been leading the implementation of open source software in Malaysian public sector organisations […]
Debian is a great Linux distribution. Indeed, besides being a distribution in its own right, it acts as the foundation for the very popular Ubuntu distro and countless others. Here at Bristol Wireless, we’ve been using Debian for as long as the chief scribe can remember. The Debian Project is now in the final stages […]
CodeWeavers, Inc., the developers of CrossOver, which enables users to run Windows software on Linux and Mac, is having a giveaway today, 31st October 2012. For one day only, CodeWeavers is giving away CrossOver with 12 months’ free support and product upgrades. If you’d like to take advantage of this offer, point your browser at […]
Last Friday saw the launch of Windows 8, the latest “best Windows ever” (not again; isn’t that marketing slogan getting rather hackneyed after nearly 20 years? Ed.) release from the Beast of Redmond, backed by a marketing budget rumoured to be $1.5-1.8 bn. However, the launch was not without its problems for MS, as reported […]
In Switzerland open source use is extensive and could make even greater costs savings possible. This is one of the findings of the Swiss Open Source Study 2012 (Open Source Studie Schweiz 2012), which has now been published, Germany’s Linux-Magazin reports. The study states that, of the 200 companies and public sector bodies surveyed, 93% […]
Wikimedia UK, the charity that supports the work of Wikipedia and its sister projects in the UK, is organising an editathon this week for Black History Month in conjunction with University College London’s Equiano Centre. The event will be held on Friday 26 October from 2 pm to 6 pm in UCL’s Geography Department in […]
Whilst an ever increasing number of countries is deciding to give free software priority in public sector projects, an open source courts package is currently taking flak in Switzerland according to Germany’s Linux-Magazin. Some years ago the Swiss Federal Court developed a program called Open Justitia which assists in inquiries into court decisions. As a […]
It’s always encouraging to see some good open source advocacy and Namibia’s Elizabeth Asino-Joseph doesn’t disappoint with a recent piece on Namibia’s New Era news website. There’s a great justification in the opening paragraph, which reads: Namibia has limited resources to carry out government programs such as computerizing schools, providing universal access to information technology […]
Before we start, let’s be honest. All operating systems have their annoyances. Linux is no exception to this. However, given the foibles of the suppliers of all the Linux distributions, available, the annoyances are likely to vary from distro to distro. Last Thursday Canonical launched the latest version (numbered 12.10) of its popular Ubuntu distribution. […]
Open source services provider Sirius Corporation has revealed today it has been working with Powys County Council to introduce a combination of Open Source and proprietary software at the newly refurbished Ysgol Maesydderwen secondary school in Ystradgynlais, near Swansea. The project, which has been funded by the council, involved the installation of a complete infrastructure […]
Today, 16th October is Ada Lovelace Day, which is a worldwide event about sharing stories of women — whether engineers, scientists, technologists or mathematicians and has the aim is to create new role models for girls and women in these male-dominated fields by raising the profile of other women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics […]