Author Archives: Jack M. Germain
MongoDB’s Eliot Horowitz: The Database Renaissance Has Begun
- Oct
- 08
- Posted by Jack M. Germain
- Posted in Software
NoSQL technologies are giving the database landscape a new look as they steadily push a shift from the relational database model. Young entrants to the alternative technology, such as MongoDB, have been gaining traction despite an admitted need to mature with more needed features. “For MongoDB as a part of the NoSQL space, it is a matter of maturity,” said Eliot Horowitz, CTO of MongoDB.
read moreKdenlive Delivers Near-Pro Video Editing – If You Have the Right Stuff
- Oct
- 03
- Posted by Jack M. Germain
- Posted in Reviews
Kdenlive is a multitrack, nonlinear video-editing suite packed with some of the most recent video technologies. This application can be a great tool if you have serious video work to do, but you need to fully test it before attempting any mission-critical editing tasks. Kdenlive takes some effort to learn. That’s especially the case if you have little experience with other video-editing software.
read moreCoverity’s Zack Samocha: Software Quality and the Open Source Advantage
- Oct
- 01
- Posted by Jack M. Germain
- Posted in Exclusives
Software quality is a topic close to most developers’ hearts, whether they work with open source or proprietary code. Assessing quality, however, isn’t always a simple matter. As a result, several efforts have sprung up to tackle the challenge, including the Coverity Scan project. Coverity began work in 2006 on the open source project, which is a joint endeavor with the Department of Homeland Security.
read moreZevenOS’ Neptune Distro: Linux the Way You Want It
- Sep
- 25
- Posted by Jack M. Germain
- Posted in Reviews
If you are looking for a really decent, snappy and lightweight KDE distro that installs easily onto a flash drive, check out ZevenOS’ Neptune. Our Picks and Pans column has been devoting considerable time lately to playing with countless Linux distros. Rarely have I found truly bad distros — after all, Linux is Linux.
read moreZevenOS’s Neptune Distro: Linux the Way You Want It
- Sep
- 25
- Posted by Jack M. Germain
- Posted in Reviews
If you are looking for a really decent, snappy and lightweight KDE distro that installs easily onto a flash drive, check out ZevenOS’s Neptune. Our Picks and Pans column has been devoting considerable time lately to playing with countless Linux distros. Rarely have I found truly bad distros — after all, Linux is Linux.
read moreAlienVault’s Barmak Meftah: Time to Put Hackers on the Defensive
- Sep
- 24
- Posted by Jack M. Germain
- Posted in Exclusives
As CEO of AlienVault, Barmak Meftah faces enemies every day who play out their attacks from faraway lands using seemingly unbeatable weapons. One of the weapons AlienVault uses with the support of the open source community is a global report called the Open Threat Exchange that tracks threats to computer networks. The results make it possible to identify trouble spots and take corrective action.
read moreOpenPGP Studio Keeps Prying Eyes Off Your Personal Data
- Sep
- 18
- Posted by Jack M. Germain
- Posted in Reviews
GoAnywhere OpenPGP Studio is an easy-to-use, cross-platform desktop tool by Linoma Software that protects files using the OpenPGP encryption standard. Why opt for this relative newcomer instead of other, more mature open standards-based encryption solutions? If for no other reason, OpenPGP Studio is “pretty good protection,” which is the basis of the OpenPGP standard.
read moreWireless Aside, Cr OS Linux Delivers the Best of Two Worlds
- Sep
- 11
- Posted by Jack M. Germain
- Posted in Reviews
The Cr OS Linux distribution is an interesting blend of the Cinnamon desktop with a special edition of the Chromium Web browser. The approach Cr OS Linux takes gives you a taste of Linux Mint with a chaser of a not-quick pure Google Chrome OS. Cr OS is a fully functional Linux distro. It has its own repository and package manager to provide software updates.
read moreTreasure Data’s Hiro Yoshikawa: Taking the Open Road With Big Data
- Sep
- 10
- Posted by Jack M. Germain
- Posted in Exclusives
Businesses and government agencies are in a race to gather, quantify and clarify an ever-increasing stream of data. Housing the bits and pieces of their digital treasures can be just as much of a problem as deciding whether to trust traditional relational platforms or adopt more flexible databases designed to handle unstructured data.
read moreCherryTree Takes the Pits Out of Pruning Your Notes
- Sep
- 04
- Posted by Jack M. Germain
- Posted in Reviews
Keeping track of my bits and pieces of information across several computers running Linux and Microsoft Windows has long been a problem. CherryTree is a sweet solution that keeps my information local and cloud-free. CherryTree is an outliner-style hierarchical note-taking application that features rich text and syntax highlighting. It stores data in a single XML or SQLite file.
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