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By now, you should at least be passingly familiar with Python. One of the fastest-growing languages, Python has been gaining popularity for years and has reached a level of maturity that makes it a top choice for enterprise development. Companies from Microsoft to Google have embraced Python and are...

In this debate series for LinuxInsider, we've heard from Evan Prodromou, CEO of StatusNet, who put forth the case for an open, distributed, federated model for social networking in contrast to Facebook's approach. We've also heard from Steven Bristol, partner and self-described "Chief Nerd" at Less ...

Steven Bristol is a partner and "chief nerd" at Less Everything, a company that focuses on building easy-to-use Ruby on Rail Web apps. The company created LovdbyLess, a free open source social network platform, after getting requests from customers. Users download a copy and are responsible for inst...

Facebook has been battling users, prominent people in the high-tech field, and privacy advocates over the question of privacy for years now, and the problem appears to have intensified. In November 2008, Evan Prodromou -- founder of identi.ca and CEO and lead developer of StatusNet -- published a bl...

Dell reportedly is talking with Google about the possibility of using the search giant's Chrome OS on its laptop computers. Dell wants to be a "leader" when it comes to implementing Chrome and Android, said Amit Midha, Dell's president for Greater China and South Asia, who confirmed that talks betwe...

Love it or loathe it, there's no arguing that the adult entertainment industry has been at the forefront of technology throughout the growth of the Internet. The adult industry operates on a shoestring and has figured out how to deploy secure and scalable sites on the cheap. We'll take a cue from th...

It's hard to imagine a topic more central to the argument for or against free and open source software than security. Hardly a day goes by without news of some fresh exploit in the Windows environment, after all -- but what about Linux and other open software? Can they do better? That's essentially ...

The question of security is one that has plagued proponents of proprietary and open source software alike for as long as there has been a choice. Is free and open source software more secure by virtue of all the many pairs of eyes that can see the code, identify vulnerabilities and fix them? Or is "...

Ask fans of FOSS what keeps them loyal to free and open source software, and security will likely be high on the list. Ask proponents of paid, proprietary software, however, and they may well say the same thing. On the one hand, there's the argument that open source software is more secure because t...

A growing recognition of the business benefits predictive analysis provides is positioning newcomer Revolution Analytics into a key role to help adopters of the R programing language migrate from legacy offerings. Until a recent funding infusion and a refocus of marketing goals, the startup did busi...

Note to those avoiding Linux: Yes, you can do desktop publishing. You can do it with Scribus. One of the most frequently recurring comments I hear about why somebody -- especially in a small-business environment -- will not migrate to Linux is the alleged absence of a desktop publishing application...

Open source software is often considered more secure than proprietary counterparts by virtue primarily of the many sets of eyes that can find and patch any vulnerabilities, but a new report suggests otherwise. In fact, the broad visibility of open source code serves to make it more easily exploitabl...

A group of high-tech firms, led by ARM, Freescale Semiconductor, IBM, Samsung, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments, have formed a nonprofit organization to promote the use of Linux software on smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. To that end, the organization, called "Linaro," will develop t...

Google is planning to open an app store for its Chrome browser to make it easier both for users to discover Web applications and for developers to reach a large potential audience. Chrome users who find apps in the Chrome Web Store will be able to create shortcuts in Chrome for easy access, Google s...

Google on Thursday announced WebM, a royalty-free media file format for online video. With WebM, Google has thrown the gauntlet to H.264, the codec backed by rivals Apple and Microsoft, among others. Buried within the new format's FAQ was news about another Google project: Android. The next iteratio...

Using a scanner in Linux is somewhat different than using that same scanner hardware in Windows. This week's Linux Picks focuses on how the XSane scanner app handles that process. In the Windows world, scanner hardware is TWAIN-compatible through manufacturer-developed scanning software. By comparis...

Lucid Lynx, Canonical's latest desktop release of Ubuntu, sports a new look and feel designed to attract new users, both in business and at home. No doubt the launch of a music store component for the Ubuntu One cloud service available through the Ubuntu OS will give consumers a reason to consider o...

Linux aficionados gained a new option Monday, thanks to the release of Peppermint OS. Checking in at under 512 MB, Peppermint is a Linux-based operating system that's designed to be cloud/Web-centric, ready to use and "insanely fast," its makers said. As a fork of Lubuntu, the system is based on --...

Rhythmbox, an integrated music management application, was originally inspired by Apple's iTunes. This open source app works on the Gnome Desktop and is based on the powerful GStreamer media framework. If you have read recent Linux Picks columns, you know that the Linux world of apps gives you sever...

A newly rechristened Cloud.com on Tuesday unveiled its CloudStack Platform, an integrated software solution that lets enterprises and service providers quickly and easily build, manage and deploy Infrastructure as a Service cloud computing solutions. Formerly known as "VMOps," Cloud.com focuses on h...