OLPC in Australia

May 27, 2009 GMT

Kathryn Edwards, a journalist for Computerworld Australia, posted an article about OLPC in Australia: OLPC boosts outback education with laptop deployment According to Kathryn's article, OLPC Australia plans to roll out 400,000 laptops to all the primary-school-aged children living in remote Australia. She writes, "Executive director of OLPC Australia, Rangan Srikhanta, says the organisation is hopeful the laptops will help the school children preserve and sustain their local culture, language and way of life."

Linux Today article: When Will it Really Be the Year of Linux?

May 18, 2009 GMT

Linux Today's Carla Schroder asks When Will it Really Be the Year of Linux? Her answer is: It already is. It already has been. It will continue for the forseeable future. I couldn't agree more. My daughter Cleo has been running Linux at home for quite some time now, although she didn't go out and pick it as her operating system – Mom did. I told my daughter that she was ahead of her time and soon all her classmates would be familiar with – hopefully even thrilled with – Linux and open source. At first Cleo was annoyed about learning to use fonts and programs that weren't the same as what was offered at school. Then she got used to her new system and programs and warmed up to...

Women Who Tech: Tools Galore Panel highlights

May 15, 2009 GMT

Did you miss the Women Who Tech Telesummit this week (maybe because the July issue of your magazine went to print that day, for example)? If so, check out panel moderator Amy Sample Ward's blog for the slideshow and notes from the panelists.

BBC News Article: Why XX must think like XY to earn more K

May 15, 2009 GMT

Marilyn Davidson, a professor of work psychology at Manchester Business School, wrote an excellent article about salary differences between men and women: Why XX must think like XY to earn more K Before reading the article, you can take a little quiz to see whether your answers show more of a male or female tendency. Marilyn's article reinforces salary negotiation and assertiveness suggestions from my recent Her PR Problem article. Based on students responses to her questions about what they expect to earn vs. what they deserve to earn, Marilyn writes, "On average the men think they deserve £10,000 more a year than the women – that's 25% more than the women think they're worth...

GNOME and the openSUSE Community Week

May 13, 2009 GMT

The GNOME Foundation's Stormy Peters interviewed Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier and Vincent Untz about this week's openSUSE Community Week. If you're wondering what a community week is, how to join, how many people are participating, or what the openSUSE Community Week schedule looks like, check out Stormy's post.

Linux.com: Increase Your Guru Status

May 13, 2009 GMT

Linux.com relaunched this week with a clever twist: The Linux Guru Directory encourages site visitors to contribute content, answer questions, submit reviews, and actively participate to gain Guru status. In her blog, Linux Foundation's Amanda McPherson says, "The top user every year receives a dream laptop signed by no other than Linus Torvalds." Amanda also says that the new site isn't just for news. She says, "While we’re not a news site, we feature news and content from around the Internet, including content from our workgroups." The new site already has a case study, Linux career guide, a Switch to Linux guide, and community blogs. Here's the part where I...

Case Study: French Gendarmerie Moves to Ubuntu

May 13, 2009 GMT

In March, we wrote about the French national police force's effort to save about US$ 50,000,000 by moving to Ubuntu. More recently, Dee-Ann LeBlanc posted a case study on the switch to Ubuntu, called Linux Picked in Gendarmerie Lineup. Dee-Ann writes, "The goal was never specifically to migrate away from Windows, or to Linux. Instead, the goal was to free themselves to change any piece of software easily, and they included operating systems as one of those software components." In addition to explaining what led up to the move, Dee-Ann does a nice job of summarizing how the process went and how much money the police force has saved so far.