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Still at the experimental stage, but here's a screencast of GTK+ desktop apps and widgets running in a web browser, via HTML5 magic. Lots of collaboration and remote operation potential. The disruption potential here is huge. GTK+ is one of only three major multi-platform desktop widget toolkits that have accessibility baked in (the ATK library). Thousands of desktop apps have been developed with it. Coming to a browser near you?

Citrix Project Kensho provides administrators with highly usable tools that facilitate the export and import of virtual machines and virtual machine based workloads (virtual appliances) using the Open Virtual Machine Format (OVF) and Common Information Model (CIM) industry standards developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF).

Now in its eleventh year, OSCON changes scenery, moving to the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, California July 20-24, 2009, and bringing together over 3,000 experts, visionaries, and hackers in the trenches to explore all that open source has to offer. 2009 promises interesting developments in Linux, Java, Web, and open source infrastructure.

Good article from Aaron Ricadela. The focus is on Java, Sun's hardware-Server business, and Oracle's business objectives. No mention of OpenOffice or ODf though. There is however an interesting quote from IBM regarding the battle between Java and Microsoft .NET. Also, no mention of a OpenOffice-Java Foundation that would truly open source these technologies.

When we were involved with the Massachusetts Pilot Study and ODF Plug-in proposals, IBM and Oracle lead the effort to open source the da Vinci plug-in. They put together a group of vendors known as "the benefactors", with the objective of completing work on da Vinci while forming a patent pool - open source foundation for all OpenOffice and da Vinci source. This idea was based on the Eclipse model.

One of the more interesting ideas coming out of the IBM-Oracle led "benefactors", was the idea of breaking OpenOffice into components that could then be re-purposed by the Eclipse community of developers. The da Vinci plug-in was to be the integration bridge between Eclipse and the Microsoft Office productivity environment. Very cool. And no doubt IBM and Oracle were in synch on this in 2006. The problem was that they couldn't convince Sun to go along with the plan.

Sun of course owned both Java and OpenOffice, and thought they could build a better ODF plug-in for OpenOffice (and own that too). A year later, Sun actually did produce an ODF plug-in for MSOffice. It was sent to Massachusetts on July 3rd, 2007, and tested against the same set of 150 critical documents da Vinci had to successfully convert without breaking. The next day, July 4th, Massachusetts announced their decision that they would approve the use of both ODF and OOXML! The much hoped for exclusive ODF requirement failed in Massachusetts exactly because Sun insisted on their way or the highway.

Let's hope Oracle can right the ship and get OpenOffice-ODF-Java back on track.

"......To gain

this morning Opera unveiled a P2P based technology called Opera Unite that essentially turns every computer running the Opera browser into a full-fledged Web server. Opera Unite can be used to directly share documents, music, photos, videos, or run websites, or even chat rooms without third-party requirements. The company extended the collaborative technology to a platform that comes with a set of open APIs, encouraging developers to create their own applications (known as Opera Unite services) on top of it, directly linking personal computers together, no matter which OS they are running and without the need to download additional software. Networking above and beyond the OS. Catch the video on this page! Although it doesn't explain much by way of the underlying technology, it's really well done and very stylish. It's interesting the way they paint "the Servers" as threatening and evil.

CMSWire has a brief explanation of RDFa and why it's important. RDFa is also finding it's way into the Drupal CMS, which could be a game changer. Timothy Berners-Lee vision of a "Semantic Web" where the meaning of content is understood by both humans and machines depends on the emergence of capable information systems that make it transparently easy to add semantic markup. I'm not surprised that Drupal is jumping with both feet.

"... In the march toward creating the semantic web, web content management systems such as Drupal (news, site) and many proprietary vendors struggle with the goal of emitting structured information that other sites and tools can usefully consume. There's a balance to be struck between human and machine utility, not to mention simplicity of instrumentation.

With RDFa (see W3C proposal),  software and web developers have the specification they need to know how to structure data in order to lend meaning both to machines and to humans, all in a single file. And from what we've seen recently, the Drupal community is making the best of it.

The hazards of developers treating accessibility as an optional feature rather than the foundation of software. Bad publicity; lost business.

Microsoft last week launched its first serious effort to build IT into its cloud plans by introducing technologies that help connect existing corporate networks and cloud services to make them look like a single infrastructure. The concept began to come together at Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference. The company is attempting to show that it wants to move beyond the first wave of the cloud trend, which is defined by the availability of raw computing power supplied by Microsoft and competitors such as Amazon and Google. Microsoft's goal is to supply tools, middleware, and services so users can run applications that span corporate and cloud networks, especially those built with Microsoft's Azure cloud operating system.

OECD Working Party on the Information Economy (www.oecd.org/sti/digitalcontent) Work Plan on Digital Broadband Content OECD Recommendation on Public Sector Information OECD Policy Guidance for Digital Content The OECD's Working Party on the Information Economy (WPIE) is undertaking analysis of the digital delivery of content. This work recognises that the rapid development of high-quality "always on" broadband Internet services is transforming high-growth industries that provide or have the potential to provide digital content. Specifically, this work includes stocktaking studies in the following areas: scientific publishing, music, on-line computer games, mobile content, user-created content, digital content and the evolution of the film and video industries and public sector information and content.

"Crucial open-source projects including OpenSSL will get at least $5.4 million in funding over three years. By Jared Newman, PC World | Security, openssl May 30, 2014, 10:40 AM - OpenSSL is getting funded for two full-time developers and a security audit in an attempt to prevent another devastating bug like Heartbleed. The money is coming from the Core Infrastructure Initiative (CII), a group of tech companies that came together last month in response to Heartbleed. At the time, CII said that each company would contribute at least $100,000 per year to crucial open-source projects over at least a three-year span, but the group didn't say how it would distribute the funds."

"SoftEther VPN Project develops and distributes SoftEther VPN, An Open-Source Free ​Cross-platform Multi-protocol VPN Program, as an academic project from University of Tsukuba."

A new resource site for whistle-blowers. somewhat in the tradition of Wikileaks, but designed for encrypted communications between whistleblowers and journalists.  This one has an impressive board of advisors that includes several names I know and tend to trust, among them former whistle-blowers Daniel Ellsberg, Ray McGovern, Thomas Drake, William Binney, and Ann Wright. Leaked records can only be dropped from a web browser running the Tor anonymizer software and uses the SecureDrop system originally developed by Aaron Schwartz. They strongly recommend using the Tails secure operating system that can be installed to a thumb drive and leaves no tracks on the host machine. https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html Curious, I downloaded Tails and installed it to a virtual machine. It's a heavily customized version of Debian. It has a very nice Gnome desktop and blocks any attempt to connect to an external network by means other than installed software that demands encrypted communications. For example, web sites can only be viewed via the Tor anonymizing proxy network. It does take longer for web pages to load because they are moving over a chain of proxies, but even so it's faster than pages loaded in the dial-up modem days, even for web pages that are loaded with graphics, javascript, and other cruft. E.g., about 2 seconds for New York Times pages. All cookies are treated by default as session cookies so disappear when you close the page or the browser. I love my Linux Mint desktop, but I am thinking hard about switching that box to Tails. I've been looking for methods to send a lot more encrypted stuff down the pipe for NSA to store. Tails looks to make that not only easy, but unavoidable. From what I've gathered so far, if you want to install more software on Tails, it takes about an hour to create a customized version and then update your Tails installation from a new ISO file. Tails has a wonderful odor of having been designed for secure computing. Current

The Verint company has very close ties to the Iraeli government. Its former parent company Comverse, was heavily subsidized by Israel and the bulk of its manufacturing and code development was done in Israel. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comverse_Technology "In December 2001, a Fox News report raised the concern that wiretapping equipment provided by Comverse Infosys to the U.S. government for electronic eavesdropping may have been vulnerable, as these systems allegedly had a back door through which the wiretaps could be intercepted by unauthorized parties.[55] Fox News reporter Carl Cameron said there was no reason to believe the Israeli government was implicated, but that "a classified top-secret investigation is underway".[55] A March 2002 story by Le Monde recapped the Fox report and concluded: "Comverse is suspected of having introduced into its systems of the 'catch gates' in order to 'intercept, record and store' these wire-taps. This hardware would render the 'listener' himself 'listened to'."[56] Fox News did not pursue the allegations, and in the years since, there have been no legal or commercial actions of any type taken against Comverse by the FBI or any other branch of the US Government related to data access and security issues. While no real evidence has been presented against Comverse or Verint, the allegations have become a favorite topic of conspiracy theorists.[57] By 2005, the company had $959 million in sales and employed over 5,000 people, of whom about half were located in Israel.[16]" Verint is also the company that got the Dept. of Homeland Security contract to provide and install an electronic and video surveillance system across the entire U.S. border with Mexico.  One need not be much of a conspiracy theorist to have concerns about Verint's likely interactions and data sharing with the NSA and its Israeli equivalent, Unit 8200. 

""I believe we should all work together for a better future for all. I pledge to incorporate the truths of these messages in my own work in the future. And I will do this, knowing full well that lasting development will only be achieved when people from all walks of life choose to collaborate and work together.""

"Sam Norton  *  Coding, Design  *  February 16, 2015  *  8 Comments Responsive Web Design isn't just about columns, grids, images and icons. All of this will not make sense without text for content. As Bill Gates once said "Content is King." When it comes to content, we need to talk about web typography. Looking at modern web design trends, having responsive typography is a big factor every web designer and web developer shouldn't miss. Here, we will discuss creating responsive web typography and factors you need to know about it. Typography Basics Good typography is all about selecting the right type for web or printed media. From font type, color of the text to the length and font-size on different viewports, good typography ensures that the final letter forms generate the highest quality end result. Before we dive in to the process of creating successful responsive web typography, here are a few terms that you need to understand. "

" Ernesto on April 5, 2015 C: 0 News New research published by the African Governance and Development Institute shows that piracy increases literacy and the spread of knowledge. The researchers warn against the adoption of strict anti-piracy policies, but note that not all copyright protection is bad."

Jack Wallen ponders the problem with the ever-lagging acceptance of the Linux desktop and poses a radical solution.

"Jack Wallen ponders the problem with the ever-lagging acceptance of the Linux desktop and poses a radical solution. Linux desktop I have been using Ubuntu Unity for a very long time. In fact, I would say that this is, by far, the longest I've stuck with a single desktop interface. Period. That doesn't mean I don't stop to smell the desktop roses along the Linux path. In fact, I've often considered other desktops as a drop-in replacement for Unity. GNOME and Budgie have vied for my attention of late. Both are solid takes on the desktop that offer a minimalistic, modern look and feel (something I prefer) and help me get my work done with an efficiency other desktops can't match. What I see across the Linux landscape, however, often takes me by surprise. While Microsoft and Apple continue to push the idea of the user interface forward, a good amount of the Linux community seems bent on holding us in a perpetual state of "90s computing." Consider Xfce, Mate, and Cinnamon -- three very popular Linux desktop interfaces that work with one very common thread... not changing for the sake of change. Now, this can be considered a very admirable cause when it's put in place to ensure that user experience (UX) is as positive as possible. What this idea does, however, is deny the idea that change can affect an even more efficient and positive UX. When I spin up a distribution that makes use of Xfce, Mate, or Cinnamon, I find the environments work well and get the job done. At the same time, I feel as if the design of the desktops is trapped in the wrong era. At this point, you're certainly questioning the validity and path of this post. If the desktops work well and help you get the job done, what's wrong? It's all about perception. Let me offer you up a bit of perspective. The only reason Apple managed to rise from the ashes and become one of the single most powerful forces in technology is because they understood the concept of perception. They re-invented th

Jack Wallen ponders the problem with the ever-lagging acceptance of the Linux desktop and poses a radical solution.