News reaches the lab (hat tip: Lugbikaner) that Nigeria now has its own open source advocacy group called the Open Source Foundation for Nigeria (OSFON). According to OSFON’S website, its mission is The mission of Open Source Foundation for Nigeria (OSFON) is to promote and educate decision makers in government, educators, NGOs, businesses and citizens […]
Arriving at the lab on Tuesday this week, your correspondent was pleasantly surprised to see that an additional batch of LTSP thin clients had been set up in the lab. He was even more surprised to observe that all 4 new machines were in use and a full-blown lesson on use of the Linux command […]
Today the BBC reports that Race Online 2012, the organisation that aims to reach out to the 9.2 million adults in the UK who are currently offline, will be offering low-cost computers as part of a government scheme to encourage people in the UK to get online for the first time. Prices will start at […]
News reaches the lab that Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, the Linux operating system which we install on our refurbished machines, is organising a Developer Day on 27th January 2011 in Bangalore, India. The event will be held at Bangalore’s Leela Palace Kempinski Hotel. Ubuntu is different from other commercial Linux offerings that preceded it, […]
Just before Christmas, PCWorld.com ran an article speculating on the differences if the world ran its IT on secure Linux-based systems rather than insecure closed source proprietary operating systems. One reason for such speculation is that, for as long as we advocates can remember, it’s always been the next year that’s going to be the […]
The wonderful xkcd, a favourite read in the Lab, has the cartoon below as its current front page. Luckily, it’s available for re-use under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial licence. And one final thing: season’s greetings to you all from Bristol Wireless.
A couple of days ago, we received a donation of a rather smart machine; this will be refurbished and offered for sale as part of our refurbishment project, for which we currently have a selection of machines complete with a full set of software (internet, office, entertainment and multimedia applications) available starting from £30. The […]
From today’s inbox. The Debian Women project is pleased to announce the forthcoming start of a series of training sessions which will be held on IRC by experienced community members. The main goal of this initiative is to encourage more people, and specifically women, to contribute to Debian while introducing them to different aspects of […]
…for a quick commercial from the Linux Foundation.
Tomorrow, 18th September 2010, is Software Freedom Day. Software Freedom Day (SFD) was started by a group of FOSS believers, Matt Oquist, Henrik Omma and Phil Harper with the idea of distributing The OpenCD to everyone. Software Freedom Day is an international event with hundreds of teams from all around the world running local events […]
It’s hard to make out what’s going on with Ubuntu in the increasingly schizophrenic world of Dell, one of the UK’s/world’s largest suppliers of computer equipment. In June the specialist IT press was buzzing with an announcement from Dell that ‘Ubuntu is more secure than Windows’, whilst praising its ‘fast boot-up speeds and elegant design’, […]
Late yesterday evening, the Financial Times (the sporting pink for the casino economy. Ed. 😉 ) reported that search engine giant Google is phasing out the use of Microsoft’s Windows platform for its employees. The policy has been gradually implemented since January, when Google’s Chinese operations were hacked, which Google blames on the lack of […]
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 […]
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. 😀
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’ […]