Linux

Often, there are static websites spanning several links that you refer to frequently, maybe a manual or a help page, or an encyclopedia, etc. Firefox’s “Save As” feature is okay but often it breaks the page design, and there’s no option to backup other pages linked to the site.

HTTrack a free(GPL) utility to back up any webpage with sufficient number of linked pages and store them offline for easy browsing, which is fast and saves the world a little bandwidth. This little software is extremely powerful and configurable, and you can change options as the path where the downloaded files are stored, and what images/js to download, etc.

It works by building recursively all the directories, effectively “mirroring” a website, and you can browse the site as if you were viewing it online. This is also great for redistributing websites and backing them up.

Links:
HTTrack Website
Screenshots
Download [windows+linux]

Popularity: 7% [?]

Just as iphone craze, mania and every other form of thing seems ‘coolness’ is happening, OpenMoko.com quitetly released a lets say alpha? version of what could be the next big thing - the linux phone.

This excerpt from here should say it all…

“Sean Moss-Pultz has just announced on the OpenMoko mailing list that the Neo1973 is finally available for purchase. OpenMoko.com is now taking orders via credit card. OpenMoko intends to ‘free your phone’ through a hardware-independent and open source user interface backed by the Linux kernel. This device could very well stand as a competitor to the more expensive Apple iPhone, but at a fraction of the price and with no vendor lock-in.

Although the devices in this release cycle (GTA01) are mainly intended for developers, the up-and-coming devices targeted to the consumer market (GTA02) will also feature WiFi capabilities, a 3D acceleration unit, and 256MB of on-board flash. Both units will use the MicroSD card interface for removable storage and have USB client / host capabilities. For a full feature list, check out OpenMoko.com or the OpenMoko Wiki.”

Popularity: 10% [?]

Since Shrek stepped into the scene, animation movies genre became stronger than ever, not many very sure despite previous highly grossing movies that this could actually be a full fledged field of film making.

Ever thought how he has made? What kind of technology did they use? especially what operation system did they use?

Tabbing through various articles linux journal had this interesting post and what happens to be the cover story of their monthly journal, this post sheds some details on how the ogre really came to life.

Why don’t the movie studios contribute some of their millions of lines of Linux code to open source? Many studios have developed proprietary Linux video playback and editing software, an area where open source is deficient. Could they give that to open source?

I remember asking a friend, that if these OSs are free and Open Source, really who pays for thier development? It never hit me that nearly 90% of the webservers run Linux. :O wew!

I liked that this article also focused on some of those issues.

Read: DreamWorks Animation “Shrek the Third”: Linux Feeds an Ogre

Popularity: 12% [?]

Linux has dumped it’s old image of being text terminal and weak graphics. Many now even consider it to have more eye candy than other competing operating systems like Mac OSX and windows, with beryl and compiz. The next major release of KDE(K Desktop Environment) comes with several heralded advancements, one of them being the Oxygen graphics and iconset. This has been heralded by many as one of the biggest opensource graphics projects, and has been kept at utmost secrecy for some reason. Though minor previews are available. Keep watching for more updates on linux eye candy.

Links:

Latest preview of Oxygen Icons: Link
Oxygen icons preview page(old): Link
Amarok 2 SVN with partial Oxygen Icons: Link

Popularity: 30% [?]