TooMuchGreen

“When business, education, and governments are cost conscious, they move toward Linux. Even in times of economic strength, they want control od their operating systems. Ubuntu Linux saves money. The open source nature of Linux allows organisations to control and customise their operating systems.

If desired, commercial support is available from Canonical. Even with that support Linux saves money, and provides a higher degree of control when compared to Microsoft Windows.  Read more... (estimated reading time 47 secs)

Apple were slated by a few people post the September 9th event for not releasing anything innovative enough. All considered I feel this was a touch harsh but I do realise demand of the gadget hungry innovators from the world of media tech doesn’t get any easier to satisfy so I suppose it was only to be expected.  Read more... (estimated reading time 2:34 mins)

Open Source? Many people may have no idea what it means, to some it’s a descriptive tag for certain platforms of community developed free software, to others it’s “lab” computing for geeks, at the far end it’s a comprehensive lifestyle ethos and to a select Facebook few on the flip side of phonetics it’s a bottle of HP with the lid off waiting to be plopped onto their soggy fish & chips. What’s obvious is that the term “Open Source” applies to more than a single area or product, however there is a constant and if we dig down we’re going to end up somewhere around root “collaboration”.  Read more... (estimated reading time 2:06 mins)

This was going to be a single topic post to discuss the imminent release of Googles very own desktop (sorry – Netbook) operating system, the enhanced browser based  quick hit to be known as Google Chrome (OS). I was going to highlight the fact it’s built around a Linux kernel and how pleasing a plug for the open source community this will be to raise mass awareness for the mighty Penguin, after all, the weekend home user wandering round PC World may not have heard of Open Source, he may not have heard of Linux but I’ll bet my tattoos he’ll have heard of Google and if he knows nothing else about I.T other than what the big G feeds him then that’s more than enough, what’s good enough for Google is most certainly good enough for him, Google knows best, Google IS the internet, it’s given him free eMail and a calendar and is going to take over the world, it’s already photographed and mapped it for his convenience.  Read more... (estimated reading time 2:03 mins)

It’s incredibly reassuring and inspiring to come across like minds, especially when they’re based in ones home country (& county) and especially when they’re on such a professional level. I’ve recently linked up with Open Source For Business (OS4B) based in Leeds (West Yorkshire, UK) who are just this, and more, to quote…

“Open Source for Business (OS4B) is the exciting joint venture from Yorkshire Forward and nti Leeds, designed to help regional businesses make the most of open source technology to benefit from cost effective and flexible open source IT solutions”

So, you’ve registered your domain and have your Linux VS ready to roll, what’s next? Well, rather than wrestle with the bottomless world of hardcore geekdom at the convoluted CLI you could do a lot worse than install the ECHP domain management tool.

EHCP is open source and thus free to download and use, it comes very well supported and the website supplies what could be THE all time best procedural “How To” for installation I have ever come across (if you excuse the ‘interesting’ english) with clickable “Yes/No” confirmation checks and resulting problem resolves after each stage (admittedly the ‘concept’ sections aren’t as yet fully complete). Install is as follows..  Read more... (estimated reading time 1:26 mins)

Optimised I.T ‘Virtualisation’ is finally becoming the realised norm across the carbon hungry server rooms of today, and not before time either.

For those who aren’t fully aware the term basically describes a method of installing multiple software ‘machines’ on a single hardware unit (a server) and saves untold amounts of previously wasted, and increasingly expensive, electrical energy. Contrary to what you may think the vast majority of server operating systems don’t need all encompassed access to the full power of the hardware they’re installed on, those expansive arrays of hard disks and fans which suck up the amps are there merely to provide resilience and scalability than contribute to any high end processing delivery, plus, unlike that desktop PC of yours there’s no requirement for the pull of high end graphics engines either.  Read more... (estimated reading time 1:50 mins)

Due to the lack of an OSX version for the (apparently) swish and whizzy new browser from Google (Google ‘Chrome’) I thought I’d give the multi processing session concept a tryout for myself by installing the beta of Stainless on to the MacBook Air.

Stainless started out merely as a technology demo for Mesa Dynamics however due to it’s rapidly growing fan base and corresponding list of evolving features it’s continuing on toward a fully fledged release (V1.0). The present version (0.6) is still only at beta development stages however it’s already offering some nice touches above and beyond Chrome itself, to quote from the site -  Read more... (estimated reading time 3:00 mins)

Due to an increase in project work lately I’ve had to review and produce various bits of documentation sent to me in MS Word format, and nice as iWork 09 is (and it IS nice) you have to face it that the two still aren’t 100% compatible regarding the finer points of formatting (very close, but just not 100%), so, last week I gave the groovy little MacBook Air the shock of it’s iLife by by installing MS Word on it just to see how it compared to the open source offerings, I should have known better, from the *word* go it just didn’t feel right.  Read more... (estimated reading time 2:38 mins)

Software can get quite expensive, as such it’s always nice finding alternatives to save a few quid. As much a fan of open source as I am GIMP is still a bit weird for people and hasn’t taken much hold, Adobe Photoshop is therefore predominantly perceived as the one and only for photographers, web heads and as a complimentary tool to Illustrator for most design studios, it’s feature set is deep and extensive…..however so it is it’s price at around £400-£500 (unless you qualify for educational discount)……however there is an alternative, and an extremely capable one at that – we’re looking at Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.  Read more... (estimated reading time 1:45 mins)