New Adobe Flash 64bit For Linux Coming 8th December

New Adobe Flash 64bit For Linux Coming 8th December: "

Adobe are to release a new version of their native 64-bit Flash plug-in for Linux on the 8th December.

Posting on the “Flash 10 Player” page for Linux 64 bit, Adobe make the following statement:-

In text for those on small screens: -

Furthering Adobe's commitment to the Linux community and as part of ongoing efforts to ensure the cross-platform compatibility of Flash Player, an alpha refresh of 64-bit Adobe Flash Player 10 for Linux operating systems was released on December 8, 2009 and is available for download. This offers easier, native installation on 64-bit Linux distributions and removes the need for 32-bit emulation. Learn more by reading the 64-bit Flash Player 10 FAQ.

For those not yet on the ball, this statement has been either released too early or is a typo. Given that the version of Flash x64 downloadable on the page is still the last-refreshed version released in July 2009 (v.10.0.32.18), the former seems the front runner in this deduction of pre-release logic.

This release comes just over a year since the first version of native 64bit Flash was made available on Linux.

Thanks to my ever resourceful eyes and ears, Martini1179

© omgubuntu.co.uk 2009. | Ubuntu News, Tips, Apps and more.

"

11 open source business models

11 open source business models: "

Critics are always claiming open source lacks a business model.

(Let’s Make a Deal is back on TV, on CBS, starring Wayne Brady as Monty Hall. Cross-promotion is a great old business model, don’t you think?)

In fact it’s proprietary software that is lacking in imagination. They have only one business model:

1. EULA Ware — Give me money. Now go away. It doesn’t work? Go away. You want your money back? Read your EULA, and go away. You want to see the software? Go away.

This has the virtue of simplicity. People pay and you really aren’t required to give them anything. But it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi. Don’t know what that is? You must work for a proprietary software company. (Go away.)

Telling people to pay you and go away worked for an amazingly long time. It sounds like it shouldn’t. It sounds a bit like theft. But software is a miracle, and for decades EULA Ware was the only model there was.

Open source companies, on the other hand, they have to use their imagination. They can’t feed people EULA Ware, so they must make money in other ways:

1. Support Ware — Pay us money and we’ll support the software. We’ll answer your questions. Or we’ll try to. Over the phone, on the Web, whatever. Pay us enough and we’ll come over. Red Hat likes this business model.


2. Product Ware – The software is free, you just buy the box it runs in. Android phones use this. So do some network routers. It’s number two, but with a bullet.


3. Cloud Ware — Our software is in the clouds now. Pay us for what it does. The money goes into the cloud. Later it will rain on us. SugarCRM likes this business model.


4. Project Ware — Need something done? We’ll do it with open source. Pay us for our work, and pay us for the project. IBM makes a ton on this business model.


5. SaaS Ware — Our software is SaaSy. You can rent it, by the hour, by the month, by the user. This is wildly popular. Zoho uses it. So do many other companies.


6. Ad Ware — This is a free version of SaaS Ware. You don’t pay anything, the advertiser pays instead. Heard of The Google? This is their primary business model. ZDNet also uses this business model.


7. Sugar Daddy Ware — Our software has a sugar daddy. Firefox has Google. Eclipse has IBM. Open Office has Sun, or it did. So just use the stuff. Daddy will provide. We believe in daddy.


8. Foundation Ware — Our software has a foundation. It has lots of sugar daddies. Want to be one? Linux runs this way. So does Apache. Not to mention Wikipedia.


9. Beg Ware — Please give us money. We know you don’t have to. But give us money anyway. Lots of little projects use this business model. Or pretend to.


10. Tchotchke Ware — Wanna buy a t-shirt? How about a bumper sticker? A pen?


11. Let’s Make a Deal Ware — The programmers who wrote the software support it out of their own pockets until they can figure out something. Wordpress started this way. So did Drupal. Go by Sourceforge and you’ll find tons of folks still using this business model.

The great thing about open source is you don’t have to use just one business model. You can mix-and-match as you see fit. You can change. You can go to a more profitable model and buy a suit, or fork the code and go down the stack.

Or maybe you don’t see your business model here. Maybe you have one of your own. Care to tell us about it in the talkbacks? Whisper it in our ear. It will just be between us.

This is what freedom is about. It’s about having choices. You don’t have to go to Sand Hill Road to get into the software business. If they tell you to go away, go open source and in time maybe they’ll call you.

Then you can tell them to go away.

"

Lernid 0.2 Released

Lernid 0.2 Released: "

I am pleased to announce an early snapshot release of Lernid: a little program to make connecting to Ubuntu learning events simple. Lernid is still very much in development, and still needs lots of work before it is ready for our next event, but I have had people badgering me for a package, so here it is.

You can get it from my PPA by running the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonobacon
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install lernid

This release fixes a bunch of bugs, includes some further layout improvements, and completes the plumbing on the first-cut of the Telepathy driven classroom IRC pane. Lernid has been translated into 27 languages, but we currently have a bug in displaying them. This should be fixed in the next release.

A few screenshots:

"

Spanish Government Destroys P2P and Basic Freedoms [File Sharing]

Spanish Government Destroys P2P and Basic Freedoms [File Sharing]: "

The Spanish Government, one of the last bastions of legal peer-to-peer file sharing, has approved a law that will obliterate some of the most basic human rights, like freedom of speech and due process. All in the name of money.

There's a whole bunch of greedy "artists"—represented by the SGAE, the Spanish version of the RIAA, and some cinema associations—who most of the times are used by the Spanish socialist government to support their political agenda. I say greedy because, in Spain, there's an "artist tax" on everything that can be used to record something. You buy a CD to do data backup at work? Doesn't matter, the government's friends assume you are a thief copying stuff, and charge you an extra for it. Maybe you want a new camera to record your newborn baby? Well, that's more expensive too because of the 'artistic' tax. Want an iPod? Pay extra. A DVD-R unit? Give them more money.

Their argument for that tax was that, since people were pirating music and movies using the internet, the artistic associations should get a cut of all media and gadgets that could be used to copy music and movies. I can argue that I don't give a rat's ass about the mostly lousy music produced in Spain, not to talk about their craptastic movies, but it's ok. Let's say that I accept that premise and gladly pay the extra, even while it destroys the presumption of innocence. P2P was legal in Spain—and still is—and everyone was happy.

Everyone but them. They wanted more, and they got it as an obvious favor, returned by the socialist government now in power. After passing the law hidden in another law, the artist associations can now close any web site they want, without a court order. They only have to argue that the site may be used to share media, and the Office of Culture will have to the power to close the site without any judge giving the go ahead, a true 'Cultural Police.' Goodbye democracy, hello National Socialism. What's more, they also want to be able to close the Internet connection of any user who uses the internet for P2P sharing, also without any due process.

In other words, they want to get their money and destroy P2P at the same time, destroying some Spanish Constitutional rights in the process. Needless to say, this has originated a huge response by Internet users, Human Rights activists, journalists, and bloggers, who have signed a manifesto against it. Also needless to say, nobody in the government will do anything about it, which is one of the reasons why I don't live in my home country anymore. [MuyComputer—Google Translation]

"

Sorry Rudolph

Sorry Rudolph: "

"

Crack copy protected PDFs using two simple commands in Ubuntu

Crack copy protected PDFs using two simple commands in Ubuntu: "Use two simple commands to convert a protected pdf into an unprotected pdf.



Here in this example i assume the protected pdf file name to be 'protected.pdf'.



Now open your terminal and type.

$ pdftops protected.pdf out.ps

$ pstopdf out.ps out.pdf

The out.pdf will be your unprotected PDF.



If you don't have pstopdf and pdftops installed then type this at terminal to install them.

$ sudo apt-get install context

"

SAP to Launch Google Wave Competitor

SAP to Launch Google Wave Competitor: "

SAP is preparing to launch a potential rival to Google Wave. The application, code-named Constellation, is described as a 'virtual war room' where co-workers can collaborate in real-time with information aggregated from different data sources.

The cloud-based tool is now in private beta with the code name 12Sprints. The application is being developed by SAP's Business Objects division.

Sponsor

Constellation demonstrates once again how much effort is being placed on cloud-based collaboration platforms that pull in disparate data sources, stitched together into one lightweight environment. What's unique is how these environments are almost separate from the legacy IT infrastructure that at times looks almost antiquated compared to its web-based counterparts in the cloud.

That's the opportunity Google sees with Google Wave, as do other competitors such as PBWorks, MindTouch and a number of other companies looking to bask in the shiny lights of the collaborative universe.

According to IDG, which received a demo of the technology, Constellation works best with five to thirty users. There will be the capability to publish to a wider audience through wikis, Sharepoint and other platforms.

SAP is also working on an on-premise application, but the initial focus is definitely on the cloud. Users will be able to access their enterprise data by tunneling into the app.

For example, buying decisions can be more collaborative as purchasing data can be viewed by a group who can then discuss and make decisions.

Applications like what we see with Constellation illustrate how important it is becoming for the enterprise to become more transparent with its information. Email is a data trap. But voice calls can be the same way. Platforms like Constellation open information to a far larger community.

As part of its offering, SAP will create an application marketplace where developers, for instance, can sell the integrations that they create.

Again, SAP's web-based approach sounds very much like an API integration strategy. SAP maintains they are talking with Google Wave and are eager to see how the products work together.

The question will become how SAP's Constellation will enable developers to pull in all the pieces and how accessible it will be for the average business user.

No pricing has been set for Constellation. A free version is planned. Constellation is expected to launch in the first half of next year.

Discuss"

Microsoft says B(lack)SODs not linked to latest patches

Microsoft says B(lack)SODs not linked to latest patches: "

Microsoft is denying reports of the Black Screen of Death on a number of PCs. A fraction of Windows users have been complaining their computers were locking up and displaying a Black Screen of Death (BSOD, not to be confused with Blue Screen of Death, which is usually due to hardware or driver failure) after the last Microsoft Patch Tuesday on November 10, 2009.

"

Google News Makes A Concession To Whining Publishers: Only First Five Clicks Are Free

Google News Makes A Concession To Whining Publishers: Only First Five Clicks Are Free: "

Today, the FTC held a hearing on the crisis in the (print) news publishing industry, which gave Rupert Murdoch yet another opportunity to publicly call out Google about its supposedly thieving ways. Google’s response: Hey, we send out 4 billion clicks a month to news sites. If you don’t now what to do with all that traffic, it’s not our fault. (I’m paraphrasing).

But Google also gave a concession to news publishers who have been complaining loudly about the backdoor to subscription-protected sites that is Google News. For instance, you can read WSJ.com stories for free if you search for them on Google News and then click through. News Corp, the owner of the Wall Street Journal, knows this, but allows it because otherwise Google won’t index its site and then it will lose 25 percent of its traffic.

Now Google is allowing publishers to opt into a First Click Free program, which should actually be called the First Five Clicks Are Free. A news site now can limit the number of free clicks from Google News for any individual to five a day. After that, anyone coming to their site from Google News will see a pay wall asking them to subscribe to read more. They can set the limit higher if they want or not have any limit at all. It’s up to them.

While this change in policy answers one of the main criticisms of Google News from publishers who want to grow their online subscription revenues, in reality it will do little to change the economics of the online news industry or the behavior of online news readers. Very few people call up a search of every article from the Wall Street Journal on a given day and click back and forth between Google News and the WSJ.com to read the entire paper for free. The vast majority of people find one or two WSJ.com stories on Google News, click through, and then continue surfing elsewhere across the Web.

The days of sitting down and reading an entire paper from front to back is over. On the Web, reading is more scattered as you flit from one link to the next and from site to site. Five free clicks per day is all most anyone really needs.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

"

Steve Ballmer rendered in blue screens of death! Genius! Click...

Steve Ballmer rendered in blue screens of death! Genius! Click...: "

Steve Ballmer rendered in blue screens of death! Genius! Click the image to go to Gizmodo and see more

"

From the Tips Box: iPhone Stylus, Touchpad Middle-Click, and Focused Browsing [From The Tips Box]

From the Tips Box: iPhone Stylus, Touchpad Middle-Click, and Focused Browsing [From The Tips Box]: "

Readers offer their best tips for using touch screens in the cold winter months, middle-clicking with your laptop's touchpad, and staying focused on your work when that work is in your browser.

Don't like the gallery layout? Click here to view everything on one page.

About the Tips Box: Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons—maybe they're a bit too niche, maybe we couldn't find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn't fit it in—the tip didn't make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments or email it to tips at lifehacker.com.

Use a AAA Battery as an iPhone Stylus

Logan shows us a quicker way to use touch screens in the winter:

Wearing winter gloves means having to pull them off every time you want to use your iPhone. There are a few stylus products out there, but I found that the negative (flat) end of AAA batteries, even when remote controls have exhausted them, are conductive enough to act as a stylus. Because it's flat it doesn't scratch the screen, but it works through light fabric too if you're hesitant about the whole metal-on-glass thing.

AA batteries should work just as well and may be easier to come by for most.

Middle Click With a Two Button Touchpad

Photo by CLF.

Chinmay tweaks his settings to allow for quick middle clicking on his laptop:

It's simple really: since you can already left-click by tapping the touchpad and drag by double-tap dragging, set your left-click button to middle-click. Really helps while browsing. I use middle-click all the time for opening links in new tabs and closing tabs.

Access Facebook and Twitter From Gmail

Felipe tells us how he keeps his favorite social networking sites handy in Gmail:

I just found out you can add iGoogle gadgets to Gmail. Since that is not what they are originally made for, they can look a little weird or just not be of any use at all. But these two gadgets I found work wonders!

The Twitter gadget is actually made for Gmail, and the great thing is that it goes 'fullscreen', that is, instead of your email you see tweets! The same goes for Facebook, although it's originally made for
iGoogle. But it also goes fullscreen, you just have to click on 'Expand' inside the gadget box.

To install them, just do the following:

1. Go to Settings –> Labs, find "Add any gadget by URL" and activate it.
2. Find a XML gadget for Gmail or iGoogle.
3. Go to Settings –> Gadgets, enter the gadget URL into the text box and click Add.

These are the gadget URLs:
Twitter - http://twittergadget.appspot.com/gadget-gmail.xml
Facebook - http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104971404861070329537/facebook.xml

Stay Focused in Your Browser

Ryan lets us know how he stays distraction-free when working in his browser:

I frequently find myself wasting time browsing the internet, specifically some of my favorite bookmarked sites, when I should be getting work done. I found that by simply opening the few tabs I actually need (such as Gmail and RTM), pinning them in Chrome, and hitting Ctrl + b to hide my bookmarks bar, the problem is solved! Just the act of seeing no bookmark bar there that I am so used to seeing serves as a reminder that I should be doing something productive. Simple, yet effective tip.

I don't know about Windows, but on a Mac you can take this even further by hiding your address bar if you don't need it too much, by clicking the button in the upper right hand corner of the window.

"

From the Tips Box: iPhone Stylus, Touchpad Middle-Click, and Focused Browsing [From The Tips Box]

From the Tips Box: iPhone Stylus, Touchpad Middle-Click, and Focused Browsing [From The Tips Box]: "

Readers offer their best tips for using touch screens in the cold winter months, middle-clicking with your laptop's touchpad, and staying focused on your work when that work is in your browser.

Don't like the gallery layout? Click here to view everything on one page.

About the Tips Box: Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons—maybe they're a bit too niche, maybe we couldn't find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn't fit it in—the tip didn't make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments or email it to tips at lifehacker.com.

Use a AAA Battery as an iPhone Stylus

Logan shows us a quicker way to use touch screens in the winter:

Wearing winter gloves means having to pull them off every time you want to use your iPhone. There are a few stylus products out there, but I found that the negative (flat) end of AAA batteries, even when remote controls have exhausted them, are conductive enough to act as a stylus. Because it's flat it doesn't scratch the screen, but it works through light fabric too if you're hesitant about the whole metal-on-glass thing.

AA batteries should work just as well and may be easier to come by for most.

Middle Click With a Two Button Touchpad

Photo by CLF.

Chinmay tweaks his settings to allow for quick middle clicking on his laptop:

It's simple really: since you can already left-click by tapping the touchpad and drag by double-tap dragging, set your left-click button to middle-click. Really helps while browsing. I use middle-click all the time for opening links in new tabs and closing tabs.

Access Facebook and Twitter From Gmail

Felipe tells us how he keeps his favorite social networking sites handy in Gmail:

I just found out you can add iGoogle gadgets to Gmail. Since that is not what they are originally made for, they can look a little weird or just not be of any use at all. But these two gadgets I found work wonders!

The Twitter gadget is actually made for Gmail, and the great thing is that it goes 'fullscreen', that is, instead of your email you see tweets! The same goes for Facebook, although it's originally made for
iGoogle. But it also goes fullscreen, you just have to click on 'Expand' inside the gadget box.

To install them, just do the following:

1. Go to Settings –> Labs, find "Add any gadget by URL" and activate it.
2. Find a XML gadget for Gmail or iGoogle.
3. Go to Settings –> Gadgets, enter the gadget URL into the text box and click Add.

These are the gadget URLs:
Twitter - http://twittergadget.appspot.com/gadget-gmail.xml
Facebook - http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104971404861070329537/facebook.xml

Stay Focused in Your Browser

Ryan lets us know how he stays distraction-free when working in his browser:

I frequently find myself wasting time browsing the internet, specifically some of my favorite bookmarked sites, when I should be getting work done. I found that by simply opening the few tabs I actually need (such as Gmail and RTM), pinning them in Chrome, and hitting Ctrl + b to hide my bookmarks bar, the problem is solved! Just the act of seeing no bookmark bar there that I am so used to seeing serves as a reminder that I should be doing something productive. Simple, yet effective tip.

I don't know about Windows, but on a Mac you can take this even further by hiding your address bar if you don't need it too much, by clicking the button in the upper right hand corner of the window.

"

Frank & Ernest - December 1, 2009

Frank & Ernest - December 1, 2009: "

"