ABOUT two years back, someone reached out to me because of our digital tourism initiative. He introduced himself as the open source software specialist of Microsoft Philippines. I choked on my midnight coffee. Until recently, one does not find the phrase open source in the same sentence as Microsoft, unless in opposition. Among the manyContinue reading “A different Microsoft”
Category Archives: Open source
Elementary OS, my dear PC
IT used to be that you’d never find the words “Linux” and “easy to use” in the same sentence. Linux, to the unfamiliar, is an operating system – the basic software that allows you to use your computer. It’s like Windows (although that comparison probably made a lot of its developers and users cringe). TheContinue reading “Elementary OS, my dear PC”
Stop paying for (or pirating) Microsoft Office, get LibreOffice
LibreOffice released version 4.0 of its office productivity suite a few days ago and early reviews and feedback point to a solid release. LibreOffice is the free and open source equivalent to Microsoft Office. Unlike Microsoft Office, which costs as much as P10,995 for a single license under the Home and Small Business edition, LibreOfficeContinue reading “Stop paying for (or pirating) Microsoft Office, get LibreOffice”
Open source for the win
ON Christmas Eve, I cobbled together a network-attached storage (NAS) at home to enable everyone in our house to have a shared directory for school, work and personal files. This shared directory is also accessible from outside the house – like a rudimentary personal “cloud” for our family. It wasn’t complicated — you can goContinue reading “Open source for the win”
Running multiple WordPress sites? Here’s a service and plugin you should use
The maintenance of multiple WordPress sites can be tedious and time-consuming. The necessary tasks of updating plugins and themes and backing up your files and database site-by-site can take up a large chunk of your time, depending on the number of sites you manage. This is time better spent writing and blogging. WP Remote simplifiesContinue reading “Running multiple WordPress sites? Here’s a service and plugin you should use”
2 crazy ones
TWO giants of technology died in recent weeks in widely contrasting fashion. Many mourned the passing of the genius who was Steve Jobs, only a few marked the demise of the genius who was Dennis Ritchie. But despite that disparity, in life as in death, there is a thread that binds Jobs and Ritchie –Continue reading “2 crazy ones”
WordPress rides the open source juggernaut
Eight years after it was started by a 19-year-old college freshman as a blogging software, WordPress now powers 14.7 percent of the world’s top one million websites. It is used in 55 million websites. In his annual State of The Word address last week, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg also said the open source content managementContinue reading “WordPress rides the open source juggernaut”
CE-GNU-LUG keeps, spreads the faith
LITTLE John looms large in the Cebu open source community. In installfests, he towers. My first encounter with John Clark “Little John” Naldoza and his merry band of local open source advocates was in an installfest, a gathering hosted by a Linux users’ group (LUG) where people can bring their computers for installation of aContinue reading “CE-GNU-LUG keeps, spreads the faith”
Copyright? Try copyleft
STOP the “culture of copying” among Filipinos, Intellectual Property Office (IPO) Philippines Director General Ricardo Blancaflor said in his speech during the Cebu Creative Industries Summit on June 21. Blancaflor pressed on the need to respect copyrights, saying creative industries rely on intellectual property. Creative industries, he said, posted a yearly growth of 14 percentContinue reading “Copyright? Try copyleft”
Showing Windows the door: the case for open source
THE warnings are ominous. The Pilipinas Anti-Piracy Team (PAPT) is strengthening its campaign against pirated software and cautioning businesses that refuse to have their software inspected that they will “face legal sanctions unless they show proof that they are using licensed software.” The warnings come even as PAPT found rural banks, universities and hospitals usingContinue reading “Showing Windows the door: the case for open source”