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The View from Mudsock Heights: It’s Not Nice -- or Smart -- to Fool With the Market

By Dennis E. Powell | Sep 11, 2011 at 5:47 AM

A few years ago there was an advertising campaign on television, the punchline of which was, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!” Like so many commercials, I remember the joke but not the product — I believe it was margarine, but I do not know or care which brand.

RHEL 6 for the Clueless: Generic Software Build

By Ed Hurst | Sep 09, 2011 at 6:23 AM

For our last desktop oriented article, I promised we would build one item using the generic Open Source scripted building process. For this project, I chose something only slightly complicated, and likely to be favored by most users: PySolFC, the Python Solitaire Fan Club Edition. It's not just a collection of card games, but more card games than you've ever seen, along with a wide array of Mahjongg based games. It also comes with background music.

The View from Mudsock Heights: There’s Always Time for a Little Woodland Vacation

By Dennis E. Powell | Aug 29, 2011 at 7:33 PM

The bug bites, I think, were worth it. One of the advantages of living in the country is the absence of sensory overload, which allows us to take in the more subtle phenomena that we would otherwise miss.

Getting More RPM's Out of Linux

By Ed Hurst | Aug 25, 2011 at 2:50 PM

In my last column, we learned the basics of RPM, the software management tool of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and numerous other distributions). With a little less hand-holding this time, I am going to outline for you building a bigger SRPM project which has lots of dependencies. As scary as that may sound, it is really fairly simple in practice.

The View from Mudsock Heights: People in Different Places React Differently to Hot Weather

By Dennis E. Powell | Aug 09, 2011 at 9:55 PM

There is said to be a place hotter than it has been around here, but believers — I am among them — hold the view that if one is good, and repentant, it is possible to avoid ever going there. I’m speaking, of course, of Washington D.C.

Edging Forward: Apple’s Win for the Open Web

By Timothy R. Butler | Aug 03, 2011 at 4:42 PM

I remember as a boy shopping with my parents for our first computer that didn’t hook up to a TV. In the stores, there was the “open world” of PC’s and then that odd little section for people who insisted on closed, strange — gasp — Macs. Such a view was more a sign of a general misunderstanding of Macs than anything else, but the reputation has persisted for many. A new product launch from Adobe, however, shows just how wrong that reputation is.

The View from Mudsock Heights: Memories of a Big, National, Overly Covered Trial

By Dennis E. Powell | Jul 28, 2011 at 12:48 AM

This month saw the end of another murder trial that was covered by the news media as if it were of vast national importance. I’ve always puzzled over how this case and not that one is chosen for close and continuing scrutiny, and I’ve concluded it is the same phenomenon that causes the goldfish to erupt in a feeding frenzy over this flake of fish food and not that one.

Red Hat for the Clueless: RPM

By Ed Hurst | Jul 24, 2011 at 4:31 AM

You probably know everything on your computer is just zeroes and ones, grouped together in eights and sixteens, and so forth. You might know a bunch of folks type out lines of instructions ("code") for computers which have to be converted into those ones and zeroes, in a process called compiling. You may have heard compiling stuff on Windows requires you to buy expensive software suites to do that sort of stuff. Maybe you know Open Source means the entire process from start to finish is wide open and free, and if you take a notion, you can compile your own software because it's all part of the package. This is why I recommended you install the Developer Workstation package profile. You can take all those instructions people write and make it into zeroes and ones yourself.

The View from Mudsock Heights: Putting History in Some Small Perspective

By Dennis E. Powell | Jul 14, 2011 at 10:29 PM

This time of year, I’m drawn to think of the people who founded this country — no surprise there; it’s what the 4th of July is all about — and the kind of world they occupied while creating the form of government we have today.

Linux for the Clueless: Fonts

By Ed Hurst | Jul 13, 2011 at 3:23 AM

Linux is capable of superior font display handling. On my hardware, it's better than any version of Windows if those capabilities are taken advantage of. However, its capabilities are not turned on in Red Hat Enterprise Linux (or many other distributions) by default. There are several issues involved, but never fear — they can be solved.

You are viewing page 55 of 128.