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The Linux OS makes listening to your music collection quick and simple. For instance, Xine, MPlayer and Amarok let you track and play your musical selections with a point and a click. In fact, we have reviewed these and other audio players in this space. Not so easy to manage, however, is labeling y...

Skype's code has been hacked and its innards published on the Web by Efim Bushmanov, a self-described freelance researcher in the tiny Komi Republic, about 870 miles from Moscow. His aim, he said, was to make Skype open source. Another goal: to find "friends who can spend many hours for completely r...

Google has reportedly pulled several Android mobile applications that were lousy with malware from its official Android Market. This follows a report earlier this week from Lookout Mobile Security, which claimed it found dozens of apps in the market that contained malicious code. The suspect apps ap...

Constantly testing software and tinkering with a variety of Linux operating systems puts my multiple test-bench computers to constant use. Granted, Linux comes with a lot fewer security risks. But dealing with unknown factors and beta glitches can be time consuming to correct when they take down an ...

Based on initial sales reports and some tablet market flip flops, the few Android tablets that have hit the shelves so far seem to have crashed and burned. Early sales figures indicate that no Android tab is coming close to being the much-awaited Apple iPad alternative. But will time heal all? Does ...

It is rare that I lament about a task I cannot do in Linux better than when I used that Redmond OS that rhymes with lindows. But you can hear me pining for those commercial and shareware programs every time I have to create a printing job around business cards or mailing labels on my Linux rigs. Fo...

Much has been claimed by Google ever since the infant days of its Android mobile operating system. The claim it has seemed to champion the most is that its platform is open by nature. One of the biggest complaints about iOS has been Apple's lockdown policy, so naturally, Google would want to make it...

Google has begun rolling out a patch to fix a security flaw in versions 2.3.3 and earlier of its Android mobile operating system. That flaw affects all Google services using the ClientLogin authentication protocol. It lets hackers access any personal data available through Android's application prog...

"Data" -- it's the new buzzword in the open source world, according to Tuesday's keynote speakers at the Open Source Business Conference, being held in San Francisco. "The kind of data we're collecting today is way harder to store and process than it used to be," said Mike Olson, president and CEO o...

I've gotten the impression over the years of working with people who use any operating system that most of them do not want to get involved with tinkering. I understand that, especially with the Linux platform. It is very configurable, but much of its have-it-your-way appeal is reached outside the G...

A battle to set the model for cloud infrastructure is raging, according to Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO of Red Hat. "We're at a fork in the road," Whitehurst told a packed room of more than 200 people at the Open Source Business Conference Monday. "Now is the time that we're going to choose the...

This week's Google I/O conference ushered in an array of new and future developments from the Web search leader, touching on everything from new ideas for laptop computers to Google's own online music storage system. Google's Android mobile OS received several moments in the spotlight as well. One n...

Mozilla.org's SeaMonkey Project was my first exposure to Web browsing when I started dabbling in the Linux OS. I have since played around with other browsers, including my workhorse favorite, Firefox, by the Mozilla folks. But I keep coming back to SeaMonkey for its simplicity and charm. SeaMonkey's...