Ojith world Information

Referred to as Fedora Core since its inception, this Red-Hat-sponsored Linux distribution is now called Fedora. The word 'Core' was used to distinguish the main Fedora package from those of the Fedora Extras project, which provided add-ons to Fedora Core. The difference between these two repositories was that Red Hat maintained Core, and a team of volunteers maintained the Extras. From this release on there is no distinction between the Core and the Extras package repositories anymore. Fedora 7 now ships with the latest software packages that drive the system, including the Linux 2.6.21 kernel, GNOME 2.18, KDE 3.5.6, and X server 1.3.

USABILITY

Fedora's commitment towards true open source software meant that the distribution cannot have any MP3, Flash or Java codecs, but a quick Google search will have you playing all your media files in minutes. Try out the system-config packages if you have recently switched to Fedora. They make system administration a walk in the park. One such package is 'system-config-display', which runs out of a terminal to start an xserver and help you choose the right driver and screen resolution, in case you switch monitors or graphic cards. The Fedora forum and wiki are bookmarked in Firefox, making it easy for new users to find help. Composit is installed during the desktop installation and can be started from the 'Enable Desktop Effects' option on the 'Desktop Effects' menu.

It takes a couple of hours to customize Fedora 7 and iron out the little issues that might arise because of plug-ins or incompatible drivers. Afterwards, Fedora works well. The DVD has most packages that users need to install later, which is good considering the slow Internet connections most of us have.

VERDICT

With its simple graphical system administration tools, Fedora 7 is a great replacement for the Windows desktop, if you are ready to enter the world of open source software.

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Author: Santana Bhatnagar
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Pressure cooker

General geekiness found me trying to get the Chrome OS running this weekend. It took quite a bit of time to work through all the resources including some conflicting instructions and bad software. It all worked out though and I now have the OS running on a netbook. This post is a brief summary of what was involved and doesn't include the numerous deadends and problems I encountered.

Basically this is Google's attempt to develop a small-footprint control system for netbooks running web-based apps. The core plumbing is Linux and the UI is a variant of the Chrome browser. Whether or not this will find large-scale mindshare won't be determined for quite awhile. The official release will probably be a year from now. But it is an interesting concept and I wanted to get my arms around it. If it does become popular then it will be something that user assistance professionals will need to understand in order to effectively support their apps.

The two major elements are the device hardware and the Chrome OS software.

The pre-release version of Chrome OS has a lot of hardware dependencies. So I did some web research to pick a device on which the OS has been successfully installed. There were a number of candidates. I picked the Asus Eee PC Seashell because it met the requirements and also looked like a nice netbook.

The netbook comes with Windows 7 installed. In order to use the Chrome OS you need to boot from a USB flash drive that has an image of the software on it.

The page referenced below by Jorge Sierra provides instructions, a Chrome build, and an image writing tool. I already had a couple of the tools mentioned in the article.

I did all of the flash disk processing on my Toshiba/Vista laptop.

The Sierra article provides a link to a Bit Torrent package with the Chrome OS and an image writing tool. There are other Chrome OS builds available but this one worked fine.
I ran the torrent and the download took about ten minutes. I opened the zip file that was in the torrent package and then extracted the Chrome OS build: chrome_os-img.

The next step was to format a flash drive. Since the image file was close to 3 GB, I purchased a 4 GB SanDisk Cruzer. Any brand will work but I wanted one with an LED so I could tell there was activity on it. I used the HP Disk Storage Format Tool to format the USB drive using the NTFS setting. The Format Tool is available from a number of sites.

I checked the formatting using the Windows Manage command. Click Computer/Manage/Storage/Disk Management. If the formatting went correctly you should see the USB drive listed and a "Healthy" message.

Next I used the Win32 Disk Imager utility to install the image file on the USB drive. This was included in the Sierra package but I had it already. After launching the utility I pointed to the chrome_os.img file. My USB drive (E) was already selected. Click Write and the process begins. When the Progress bar is full the copying is complete. The USB drive is now ready to be used.

After unpacking the netbook I first activated the Windows 7 Starter kit which is included on the device. I don't think you need to do that but I wanted the device to work with Windows anyway. And I wanted to test the wifi connection. The wifi found my network just fine and I powered it down.

The last step requires a change to the BIOS so the netbook boots from the USB drive.

I plugged the USB drive into the netbook. I pressed the power button and tapped the F2 key until the BIOS setup appeared. The BIOS key is probably different from device to device. BTW, I had to tap the F2 key rather than holding it down.

The boot instructions I found on the web didn't quite work for me. I had to make two changes in the BIOS. The following instructions worked for this Asus netbook.

From the Boot menu select Boot Device Priority. The first option should be the device HDD hard drive. Press enter and you should see Removable Dev as an option. Select that by pressing enter.

Below Boot Device Priority is the option Hard Disk Drives. The 1st Drive was the HDD hard drive. My USB was listed by name (SanDisk Cruzer) as the 2nd Drive. Pressing enter on the 1st drive brought up a pop menu. I selected the USB drive and it swapped places in the list with the HDD. Then F10 to save and exit from the BIOS setup.

The device immediately booted to the Chromium OS logon screen. I used the username and password provided by Jorge Sierra: "chronos" and "password". I believe this is a logon applied by Jorge for his specific distribution. I saw instructions for a different Chrome OS distribution and the logon was different.

The first thing to appear is the Chrome browser. The same browser you have on Windows or Mac. The OS doesn't automatically recognize your wifi. A small icon in the top right corner of the screen has a wifi menu. Click that and select your network. I also tested out my ethernet cable and that worked fine. Once that was done I could begin browsing the web.

All of that work and to this point I hadn't accomplished anything that you couldn't do in any other OS with any browser. The OS definitely loads really fast, much faster that the Windows 7 Starter.

There is a page that operates as an application dashboard. You can see a screen capture on the Sierra web page. A Chrome icon in the top left corner of the screen launches that page. From there I launched Facebook, Google Docs, etc and put in my logons for each. I couldn't change or add any items to the control panel. I assume that will change. For unlisted applications, like LinkedIn, I launched them in the browser and set bookmarks.

There was an important OS feature that you could test - Cut and Paste. I was able to cut and paste between the various web apps without a problem. While we take this for granted on Windows, Mac, etc, that is the type of behavior that you need an OS for.

Another important behavior is printing. This apparently isn't supported right now. I tried using the print commands in the various apps. Mostly I received error messages. In Gmail the only choice was Print to File. I didn't really expect there to be support for explicit printers. That will be a difficult proposition for Google, I think. But probably a necessary one.

I had set the date and time in Windows. The date was recognized in Chrome OS but not the correct time. There was a menu item to change time options but the dialog box did not have a way to change the time. Only the time zone.

There is no OFF button in the OS. I just used the power button. However, the next time I booted, Chrome showed a message that the system hadn't been shut down correctly. I assume there will be some fix for that.

When I pulled out the USB drive and powered up again, Windows started just fine. However, that also resets the BIOS to the original settings. That was kind of irritating. I have to repeat the BIOS adjustments every time I want to use Chrome after having used Windows. The adjustments only take a couple of seconds but you have to remember to hit F2.

So that's how I spent my Sunday afternoon. Feel free to send me a note if you have any questions about this.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/download-google-chrome-os-and-run-on-a-real-computer/

If you're not familiar with the Chrome OS you can find the official Google pitch here:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html
There have also been numerous reviews in the tech trade press.

Joe Welinske is the president of WritersUA (formerly WinWriters), a company devoted to providing training and information for user assistance professionals. Joe has been involved with software documentation development since 1984. The focus of his work is producing high quality seminars and conferences for the user assistance community.

http://www.writersua.com/index.html

Author: Joe Welinske
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
How Electric Pressure Cookers Work

When Google first introduced the Android operating system, few doubted that the search engine giant would be a major player in the smart phone market. The first release, the G1 on T-Mobile, opened to lackluster sales and there was concern that perhaps Google didn't have the focus needed to compete with Apple and Microsoft. Sales were lukewarm and it debuted on T-Mobile, the fourth rank wireless carrier in the US behind Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. In September 2009, Google's Android OS accounted for just 2.5% of the smartphone market. That number is now well over 13%. RIM is still entrenched in the first position, but their inability to offer an updated OS has seen their sales numbers drop each quarter. So how is Google taking over the smart phone market?

No doubt that Apple revolutionized how we think about smart phones. While hardware and OS are important, the ability to offer a robust selection of applications is so much more important to creating a successful platform. Google's engineers are software experts and they understand the needs of developers. Google's Android OS has seen a tremendous growth in the number of developers and more importantly the number of applications. At last check, there were well over 70,000 applications in the Android Market, Google's version of Apple's App Store. One of the significant differences between the two stores is the approval process. Google's App Market is completely open and applications do not require any sort of approval process. A $30 application fee is all that is needed to begin selling applications. Google's easy to use SDK and open App store have helped foster a bustling App Market.

It goes beyond apps and Google knows this. Customers crave the latest and greatest hardware. Google has partnered with leading manufacturers like HTC, Motorola and Samsung. Google doesn't charge a license fee for Android OS, making easier for these manufacturers to make money. By having a few manufacturers, Google has created competition between them. Ultimately, this has led to a specifications war. Since they all run a version of Google's Android OS, they need to compete on features. Consumers will ultimately choose their Android phone based upon the number of megapixels offered in the camera, the type of display used or the speed of the processor. In the past year, we've seen companies like HTC and Motorola push the envelope with 4.3 inch screens.

With an install base that increases daily, there is more incentive for developers to write apps for the Android OS. By the end of 2010, the Android Market will likely have over 100,000 available apps. With hardware manufacturers pushing the envelope and a healthy application store, expect more demand among consumers for Android phones. While RIM struggles, Google's Android OS is slowly taking over the smart phone market.

Michael is a writer for Everything Android where he writes reviews of Droid X cases and provides daily news coverage on all things Android. When he's not writing, you can often find him helping out new users in the site's Android forums.

Author: Michael Ferrerya
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Programmable Multi-cooker

The Android basically is a software podium and an operating mechanism especially for mobile devices, which is developed by Google. It permits developers to write a managed code in a language that resembles Java, and it utilizes Java libraries that are developed by Google.

It does not sustain programs that are developed in the native code. The Android podium was unveiled on 05th November 2007, and coincided with the inauguration of Open Handset Alliance. This Alliance was formed with the help of a conglomerate of around 34 software, hardware and telecom organizations that pledged to promoting open standards for mobile phones.

Google acquiring Android Inc:

Android was known to make software programs for mobile phones. When in July 2005, Google acquired Android Inc., rumors spread that Google was making an entry in the mobile phone market. Google thereafter applied for a patent for a mobile payment scheme and came to be known as Gpay. It would let the customer send a message to Google by providing payment details to some specified recipient. The user's account would then be debited by Gpay, by giving credit to the payee's account.

Google's Android may bring new risks:

Googles's Android open source cell phone operating mechanism, along with Open Handset Alliance may expose mobile operators to more security risks than any other devices that are currently selling in the market. Currently there is no central authority that can sign and test the Android applications, and this unavoidably increases the risk of misuse. But Android was meant to be designed in such a manner as to reduce the effects of such misuse.

An independent procedure is followed by the Linux based Android system for each application. This prevents malicious programs from disturbing other applications or important telephone functions. If an application program makes it essential to access the data or phone operations, for instance to read phone numbers in the address book or make a telephone call, the user needs to explicitly enable this during installation itself.

The function in the system was neatly demonstrated with the help of an Android emulator and is a division of the software development kit that is available free of cost. It was also demonstrated as to how an Android terminal was able to study a shopping list using the Google spreadsheets, and show it in an appropriate format for mobile use. The data present in the spreadsheet application could also be edited in real time using the Android application. Thus it was asserted that Android was very much adaptable to such a kind of online data processing.

For all your Intranet Solutions and CMS Software

Author: Musa Aykac
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
PCB stencil online quote

The Wave utilises the TouchWiz user interface and has a 1GHz Hummingbird CPU for high power processing speeds. The phone looks sleek and is very appealing with its edgy design and high resolution Super AMOLED display. The S8500 Wave has a digital camera, FM radio and full social network support along with high speed web connections and its only 11 mm thick!

The Super AMOLED screen measures at 3.3 inches and its capacitive allowing for multi touch functionality, the screen, user interface and operating system all manage to work in perfect harmony with each other for a free flowing experience. This fluidity is carried on through all of the phones functions and applications including the browser. The Dolfin 2.0 web browser is intuitive with flash video compatibility and a pinch and zoom feature adds extra simplicity to general browsing. The high speed Wi Fi and 3G connections make for seamless page to page loading and both the images and text is displayed clearly and sharply so you don't have to strain.

With social networking being a big a part of mobile development these days Samsung have pre-loaded the Wave with dedicated applications for the likes of YouTube and Facebook for streaming, sharing and blogging and sites like Twitter are supported also. All online accounts can be managed from your Social Hub and with the integrated calendar you can organise your events into one simple overview. E-mail integration is in place to keep you within touching distance of your inboxes; multiple accounts can be managed; personal or business.

The Samsung S8500 Wave houses a 5 mega pixel camera for all the budding photographers out there and it is capable of high grade video recording at 30 frames per second. The camera is well equipped with LED flash, digital zoom and auto focus. The HD video player can playback an array of file formats like Mpeg4, DivX and WMV, the videos look brilliant on the 480 x 800 WVGA screen and there is no sign of motion blur in playback or recording.

The Wave offers a pretty good music player with album graphics display and a quick playlist for instant listening. The Wave delivers one of the best sounds on the market with its 5.1 SRS Samsung Surround Sound. The player's basic controls are easy to use and of a touchable size and they can be accessed from any screen you may be on by dragging down a menu from the peak of the screen.

To finish, the Wave has enhanced Bluetooth technology, an app store called Samsung Store and some location services with support from Google Maps. The Samsung Wave makes easy work of social network integration, web connectivity and messaging. Entertainment has been focused on with the HD player and superior sound quality and the phones capacitive Super AMOLED touch screen will most certainly give it some extra clout when it comes to this years unit sales.

The new Samsung Wave and S3370 are available on phoneslimited.co.uk

Author: Lee Thornton
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Electric Pressure Cooker