Open Source

Tag Archives: Open Source

How to Do It Yourself! April 11, 2013

Tiny Tiny RSS: DIY Android Google Reader Replacement

I am still lamenting the decision Google made to kill off Google Reader. While I am generally ok with Feedly, I am actually in the same boat I was with Google Reader when I use another service like Feedly. If Feedly goes away, then I am stuck yet again. So I began searching for other [...]

Geeksphone to Ship FirefoxOS on Developer Hardware Next Month

The biggest criticism I have of Android and iOS challenger UbuntuOS is that they made an announcement with no hardware that was even close to shipping. Well, the Mozilla project has gone a step further and announced that they will have not one, but two developer phones to ship next month with the new [...]

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Crowdfunding, News January 20, 2013

by Michael Anderson

GCW Zero – Open Source Gaming Handheld

Have you ever looked at the Playstation Vita or Nintendo 3DS and thought that they look great, but you would rather have a handheld gaming system that ran inexpensive open-source games but had physical control buttons? That is the concept behind the GCW-Zero: Open Source Gaming Handheld. Project Title: GCW-Zero: Open Source Gaming Handheld Status: [...]

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News June 8, 2012

by Joel McLaughlin

LinuxMint Project Releases the mintBox, a PC the Size of a Router

I have long been a fan of Clement “Clem” Lefebvre’s distribution of Linux that goes by the name LinuxMint. LinuxMint is based on the popular Ubuntu distribution of Linux and also has a version that is based on the Debian distribution of Linux. LinuxMint is sleek and sticks to a traditional desktop style interface unlike Ubuntu’s Unity [...]

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News May 29, 2012

by Joel McLaughlin

ZaReason’s ZaTab: A Tablet That Honors Your Freedom

Many tablet makers ship their Android tablets with locked bootloaders, and some don’t even provide an unlock utility for allowing the hacker types, like myself, to load custom ROMs like CyanogenMod. Well, my friends at ZaReason are now shipping the ZaTab, which not only has an unlocked bootloader, but will eventually ship with CyanogenMod 9 [...]

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News January 3, 2012

by Joel McLaughlin

10 Important Desktop Open Source Projects for 2012

In the spirit of Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier’s post over on Linux.com, I thought I would craft my list of 10 important open source desktop applications of the last year. Now I know that not every Gear Diary reader is a huge Open Source fan or follower, but these are projects to watch in the coming [...]

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Events, News February 14, 2011

by Judie Lipsett Stanford

MWC: AppUp, MeeGo, Open Source, and Tablets

The partnership between Nokia and Microsoft that was announced the other day has caused some speculation that the Intel powered AppUp store in general, and the MeeGo in particular might be the losers in this story. Helena and I spoke with Peter Biddle, General Manager to AppUp Products and Services, and he said that despite [...]

Review: The Wikireader

A while back the OpenMoko project created the goal of bringing out a Linux based smartphone called the Freerunner. Then Google brought out what became the most successful Linux based operating system of all time, Android. Well, needless to say, the writing was on the wall. The clunky OpenMoko OS, with the behind the times [...]

Wikireader: Now You Can Carry 33,000 Books Too!

OpenMoko’s Wikireader project has let you carry the entire contents of Wikipedia in the palm of your hand for about a year now. While the device’s design isn’t as awe inspiring as the NookColor or Kindle, it still is an interesting idea. Thankfully the developers have been hard at work and now have released a great update [...]

Linux Netbook Review: ZaReason Terra HD Netbook

It’s been a couple of years since I reviewed a laptop from ZaReason, the UltraLap SR. Now I’m reviewing something a bit smaller — the ZaReason Terra HD. ZaReason is a different type computer company; every single computer they sell runs Linux, and they only ship Linux (or no operating system at all) on all [...]

Droid X Gets the Lockdown: Does it Matter?

There’s been a bunch of stuff going around the web about the Droid X and the fact that it likely will not be able to run custom ROMS and may even be hard to root. I’ll try to describe, in layman’s terms, what this may mean to a prospective Droid X buyer. What is this [...]

Preview: Southeast LinuxFest 2010

Up until this year, I had only attended the Ohio LinuxFest being lucky enough to live in its host city of Columbus, Ohio. The Ohio LinuxFest is an awesome community driven event that amazes me every year it’s run. However, in 2010, I will be attending both the Ohio LinuxFest and the second year of [...]

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News March 17, 2010

by Joel McLaughlin

Qi Hardware’s Ben NanoNote: A Completely Open Source Pocket Computer

Imagine not only building your own computer, but making the boards yourself. Yeah, it’s not something the common person would do, but Qi Hardware’s Ben NanoNote is open in a way most hardware isn’t. This is a similar model to the OpenMoko Freerunner and has been started by former members of the OpenMoko team. Not [...]

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News December 27, 2009

by Joel McLaughlin

XBMC Project Releases Version 9.11 ‘Camelot’ Xbox Media Center

XBMC is a full screen media center program similar to Apple’s Front Row, Windows Media Center, and Moovida. XBMC started out running on hacked versions of the original Xbox hardware. However, as the years have progressed and the original target, the first generation Xbox got old, the project ported the interface to Linux, Windows, OSX and [...]

Peeking at Micro Innvations USB Hub Concepts

Some of you may recognize the name Joe Born from the company Neuros, whose open source products we’ve been reviewing and talking positively about for years. What you may not know is that Joe also founded the company Digital Innovations over ten years ago. According to him, he hasn’t been “very active in it since [...]

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