OSSPACK

LinuxPlanet Classics: "No," the technician explained, "Linux is probably causing this problem and it needs to come off the machine." Michael Hall's classic battle with Dell tech support was first published in July 2001. Has anything really changed?

Linux Magazine: "Quick quiz. What do Mainframes and virtualization have to do with each other? Give up? In a single word: Everything."

I’m not to thrilled to read this:

Mr. von Tetzchner said that Opera’s engineers have developed a version of Opera Mini that can run on an Apple iPhone, but Apple won’t let the company release it because it competes with Apple’s own Safari browser.

This isn’t news, it’s been known for a while. I’m honestly wondering why Opera invested the development time with this in mind.

Apple’s going to learn the hard way that if it doesn’t drop this clause it’s going to be subject to Android’s wrath. Android is going to take some time to gather steam (I’d guess at least 18 months before it can catch up to the iPhone due to it still being pretty clunky and limited in availability) but when it does it catch up, it could be problematic.

It would be great to see a iPhone version of Fennec, but until Apple wises up, it’s not going to happen.

I predict just like Apple initially had a “no third party applications” policy, this too will change once it becomes obvious that this will end up hurting them in the long run. The question remains: how long will that take?

Another short film in the series that brought you Man Falls From Airplane and Lands on Printer:

About 30 years ago, we Earthlings sent a probe to check out Mercury, the tiny planet closest to the sun, and concluded that it was just a big hot rock. But after poking around on the moon and Mars for a few decades, we decided to take another look at Mercury.

nerdyH writes "Motorola will ditch its MotoMAGX Linux stack and UIQ Symbian stack in favor of Google's Android Linux/Java stack and Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7, it announced today. The news comes after five years selling millions of Linux phones in Asia, and after a year during which many of Motorola's top US phones used the homegrown Linux stack. Motorola's current Linux phones in the US include the RAZR2 v8, E8, EM30, U9, ZN4, and ZN5." This also comes alongside news that Motorola's financial hardships are causing them to cut 3,000 jobs. It also puts into perspective their recent plans to hire hundreds of Android developers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

nerdyH writes "Motorola will ditch its MotoMAGX Linux stack and UIQ Symbian stack in favor of Google's Android Linux/Java stack and Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7, it announced today. The news comes after five years selling millions of Linux phones in Asia, and after a year during which many of Motorola's top US phones used the homegrown Linux stack. Motorola's current Linux phones in the US include the RAZR2 v8, E8, EM30, U9, ZN4, and ZN5." This also comes alongside news that Motorola's financial hardships are causing them to cut 3,000 jobs. It also puts into perspective their recent plans to hire hundreds of Android developers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In April I hosted a rural technology conference called HICK Tech. The keynote presentation was delivered by Flickr's Director of Community, Heather Champ. Her presentation, Shepherding Passionate Communities, was absolutely amazing and inspiring. It is, of course, also filled with beautiful photographs. Thanks again to Heather for making the trek up to Owen Sound and delivering this presentation (at 6AM local time no less). I really think this presentation is a must-see for everyone involved in online communities.

(Whoops embedded video isn't working on the syndicated version of this post...go straight to Shepherding Passionate Communities instead.)

If you're on dial-up, or would like to have a copy of this presentation (and the audio recordings from all other conference sessions) on DVD, you can buy a copy from the HICK Tech Web site.

PS Heather will be delivering this presentation at the Do It With Drupal conference. You should go.