Commentary and Columns

As one of the long-standing columnists to FSM, I have been award 'trusted' status, which gives me a personal arena in which report news, views, and comment in the world of Free and Open Source Software. These are around the 1000 word mark.

Some of my previous columns include:

I also write the yearly FOSDEM diary.

Articles

On occasion, I also write longer articles for the magazine itself. These can be as many as 5000 words, and provide in-depth knowledge on a particular subject area.

Home automation in GNU/Linux

  Home Automation is anything that your home does for you automatically to make living there more enjoyable or productive. It covers many areas, including remote and timed control of lights and electrical home appliances, distributed media services, and communication. Over the last 10 years, many hardware manufacturers have presented their own proprietary solutions to these problems. Unbeknownst to them, a groundswell of developers from around the world has been providing similar solutions to the free and open source community.
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Free software is cheaper: case study while creating a podcast

  I have a podcast.The Beer Crate, since you asked.which is written and produced using free software, and released under the CC by-nc-nd license. It.s a fun little hobby that keeps me off the street, and gives me an excuse to drink and review beer. But had free software not existed, how much would it cost to produce and host a show using proprietary software? I set out to investigate.
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From power to prompt

  The login prompt is a nice place to be. We're poised, fingers on keyboards, ready to send mail, surf the web, or do a little programming. However, from power on to login prompt there is a long road for our Penguin-powered PC to travel. But the journey is an interesting one, with many interesting sites along the way. Each one adds to our understanding of Linux, which in turn helps us upgrade, streamline and fix our system.
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GP2x

  Games under GNU/Linux have usually been a lacklustre affair. For every Tux Racer, there are a hundred sub-standard Pac-man clones you.d be embarrassed to advocate. For every commercial version of Quake, there.s a hundred other worthy games the publisher elected not to port to GNU/Linux. Without good games, there.s no market, and without the market, no effort is spared. And so the cycle continues. In this article, I will look at two of the areas in which GNU/Linux games have succeeded, and a new device that combines them both, which could help expose GNU/Linux to the populous.
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Pro Apache Ant - Book Review

 This book covers the popular Java-oriented build tool, Ant. It is a combination of reference manual and user guide, which demonstrates how to create Ant scripts that can compile projects, test them, and perform the many other manual tasks involved in the build pipeline, above and beyond standard compilation phase.device that combines them both, which could help expose GNU/Linux to the populous.
Pro Apache Ant Review

ImageMagick - Book Review

 TThis book details the functionality of the ImageMagick package (primarily convert), by covering its command line usage, along with most of the valid options available and example images depicting the before and after effects.
ImageMagick Review