Gnome 3 on OpenBSD 5.2

The best Gnome 3 experience on BSD can be found where you’d least expect it. It is no secret that I am becoming quite fond of PC-BSD: it is stabilizing nicely and offers a feature-rich BSD at one end and an amazing selection of window managers at the other. One thing it’s missing however is Gnome 3. Love it or hate it, Gnome 3 is boldly exploring “modern” desktop territory with the Gnome Shell which aggressively provides both elegant eye candy and swift navigation. Surprisingly, the best place to experience Gnome 3 on BSD is perhaps where you would least expect it: OpenBSD
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Valve Sued In Germany Over Right To Resell Games

This obviously isn’t a new question for us here at Techdirt. It’s been a point of logical frustration for consumers that content producers often seem to want their output treated like property when it suits them, but as a service or license when it does not. This leads to, at the very least, the appearance of double-dipping on the part of content producers. For gamers, where used games are such an intregal part of the marketplace, the frustration often boils over. In my estimation, it’s quite difficult to draw up a logical proof for limiting the rights to a product for the consumer while strengthening the rights for the producer. Such an arrangement is simply too one-sided in who is giving up whose rights.
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Will OUYA Spell Oh No for Nintendo Wii U?

The OUYA (a $ 99 game console based on Google Android) could take the best of the mobile gaming model and move it into U.S. living rooms. Can traditional business software developers learn from this strategy? Absolutely yes. Here’s why.
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Psychonauts now available for Linux DRM-Free!

Psychonauts from Double Fine is now available for Linux DRM-Free via their web store.
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This week at LWN: LightZone reborn as free software

One of the first high-quality raw photo editors available for Linux desktops was LightZone, but although it was (initially) free of charge, it was a proprietary product. Unfortunately the small company behind it eventually folded, and both the free and paid versions went away, as did the updates required to support newer cameras. The company shut its doors for good in 2011, but the software has made a sudden—and unexpected—comeback as an open source project. Fans of the original will be pleased, but the nascent effort still has considerable work ahead before it grows into a self-sustaining community project.
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Introducing the Open Source Rookie of the Year… Whoa, it’s Microsoft

It’s déjà vu all over again for Microsoft, as Black Duck Software has named Redmond’s TypeScript project among its 2012 Open Source Rookies of the Year – despite Microsoft spending nearly a decade trying to figure out this crazy communist software manifesto. Back in 2001, Microsoft labeled open source a “cancer,” “un-American,” and a threat to rich software capitalists everywhere. By 2003, however, it was limping along the right track with the introduction of its Shared Source Initiative, and not long after started releasing open-source code of its own and creating its own open-source software lab. So why is Microsoft still considered an open-source rookie in 2013, 10 years later?
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Oracle releases emergency patches for Java

Oracle has released a large package of security updates for Java which addresses 50 vulnerabilities in Java both in the browser and in the server. The “Critical Patch Update February 2013″ (CPU) for Java had been scheduled, says Oracle, for 19 February, but due to one of the vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild, the company brought the release forward. Oracle advise users to install the update as soon as possible because of “the threat posed by a successful attack”. This probably explains why Apple disabled Java at the end of the week, as they most likely knew the update was arriving early.
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Turpial: The Best Twitter Client For Linux

If you’re a Linux desktop user like myself you may have experienced problems finding for a decent Twitter client. In many distributions the default is Gwibber, it’s even integrated into the Unity desktop for Ubuntu. I’ve used it on and off for years but it’s monumentally slow, buggy and unstable. Whenever I try Gwibber it hangs and I get the classic Compiz grey window while I wait for the machine to stop having a panic attack. All I’m trying to do is refresh my messages. Out of frustration and purely by chance I stumbled across the answer, Turpial. A lightweight Python app for the Linux desktop. Finally I can take Gwibber out the back and shoot it.
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Distribution Release: Linux Lite 1.0.4

Jerry Bezencon has announced the release of Linux Lite 1.0.4, an Ubuntu-based distribution with a customised Xfce desktop: “Linux Lite 1.0.4 final for 32-bit processors with PAE support has been released. If you already have the CVF version installed, there is no immediate need to install this final….


DistroWatch.com: News

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Virtual Hosting With PureFTPd And MySQL (Incl. Quota And Bandwidth Management) On Fedora 18

Virtual Hosting With PureFTPd And MySQL (Incl. Quota And Bandwidth Management) On Fedora 18

This document describes how to install a PureFTPd server that uses virtual users from a MySQL database instead of real system users. This is much more performant and allows to have thousands of ftp users on a single machine. In addition to that I will show the use of quota and upload/download bandwidth limits with this setup. Passwords will be stored encrypted as MD5 strings in the database.

HowtoForge – Linux Howtos and Tutorials – Linux

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Super Grid Run Android Game Review

There seems to be a lot of cool retro games making its way to the Android platform lately. One of the newest games in this genre is Super Grid Run which is developed by Refresh Creations Ltd. The game graphics reminds you of those old DOS based games in the late 80’s or early 90’s.

super grid run

Super Grid Run can now be downloaded at Google Play for $ 1.09. You will need a device running on at least Android 2.0.1 and a storage space of 14 MB.

The game play is quite simple. All you have to do is to control a spinning cube that’s traveling forward. You will need to avoid the various obstacles that appear on screen. The controls are quite easy since all you have to do is tap on the portion of the screen where you want the cube to go and it goes there. There are also various bonuses which you can pick up along the way.

What appears to be an easy game will turn out to be challenging once you progress through the levels. The game play speed increases and the obstacles appear quite often once you are at the higher levels. There are three difficulty levels to choose from which are easy, normal and extra. Even if you choose easy mode things can escalate pretty fast and you’ll be wondering if you are playing in the extra mode.

As far as bragging rights goes there is a leaderboard where you can submit your name and high score for players all around the world to see.

This title will definitely appeal to players who are looking for a challenging and fast paced game. Some of the features of this game include

  • 3 Difficulty Levels from Easy to Insane
  • Global Cross-platform High Scores
  • Amazing Chiptune Music
  • New Future Game Modes Coming Soon

If you are looking for some high intensity retro action then check out Super Grid Run at Google Play now.

The Droid Guy

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How To Get Unity Launcher Window Dodge In Ubuntu 12.10 Or 13.04

The patch that adds the old window dodge autohide behaviour for the Unity Launcher hasn’t been updated for Ubuntu 12.10, but an old script that implements the same behaviour, with some limitations, now works with Ubuntu 12.10 and even 13.04.
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