Intuit has released Quicken 2006, which includes such new features as a Smart Payee feature, scheduled transactions and .Mac backup.
GNOME 2.12 will be released to the world on September 7th, 2005, culminating 6 months of very exciting work by members of the project. A number of exciting technologies come together in GNOME 2.12 that will set the standard for free software desktops to come. Here is a sample (by no means an exhaustive list) of some of the outstanding work that has gone into GNOME thanks to its many contributors.
Firefox, the popular open-source Web browser, is continuing to gain users even as its management structure evolves and it resets its plans for its next update.
What can you, the individual or small business Internet user, do? Plenty! The first and most obvious step is to choose carefully your hardware and OS. Since there are tons of articles already addressing that, and new ones every day, I won't say much more than this: when you can, avoid Windows as severware. It is on the workstation and desktop where you are more likely to have required applications that only run on Windows. Too often each piece of the software matrix has a separate price tag. If there is an Open Source application or combination that does the same job, spam fighting tools for example are built in at no extra cost. When properly configured, they are more resistant to attacks. My own local ISP has joined many others in making the switch to Open Source, with Linux servers now replacing most of their Windows servers simply for reasons of cost and service.
Over the last few weeks I have addressed licensing and usability issues with GNU/Linux desktops. One of the points raised against my arguments had to do with the need for companies providing Free Software to make money, namely, the need for Trolltech to make money. It is with the greatest irony that I now find myself discussing one of the new features in KDE 3.5 (although not exclusive to KDE) intended squarely at preventing some from receiving their dues.
Last week I promised to demonstrate why I am not a GNOME zealot simply looking to try to give KDE a hard time. In actuality, I don't use GNOME much at all, these days. Or KDE. I do keep up with them, but my actual desktop home is elsewhere. “Hey, Clippit! Stop staring at me.”
How did we get in this mess? How have we come to the place where a relatively small group of rogue Internet users are on the verge of bringing the whole thing to a grinding halt because of their short-sighted greed?
I knew when I mentioned something negative about the GNU Project's General Public License (GPL), in my column last week, I would inevitably be accused of arguing the GPL was a bad license. I knew this would happen despite my qualification to the argument that I had released code under the GPL myself. What did not fit into that piece shall now be dealt with: is the GPL a bad license?
It started out as a simple project: with the prospect that I'd be away from my desktop computer for a few weeks, I wanted to beef up my laptop's meager 256 megs of RAM. Having purchased my 12” PowerBook one release cycle before Apple boosted the RAM to the 512 megs it really should have had to begin with, it was long past time I embarked on opening up the case and upgrading. One thing was stopping me: I couldn't open it.
We've all had this nightmare. You turn on your functioning Windows/Linux PC, and all you get is a blank screen, or a message telling you that certain files are missing, or the kernel has panicked for some obscure reason. Nothing works, and you need the data on your machine. Yes, now's the time to whip out that trusty backup disk, and heave a sigh of relief that all the important stuff is backed up, right? Well, think again.