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In Depth: Best web browser for Linux: 5 tested

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Best Linux browser: 5 tested</h3>
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How the mighty have fallen. During the early days of what some might, slightly hysterically, have called the 'browser wars' the two companies vying for browser dominance were Netscape and Microsoft.</div>
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While this feud might have only directly affected Windows users, Netscape's demise and Microsoft's dominance in the late nineties left Linux users with oft-neglected browsers that sometimes struggled with web pages that had been designed solely with Internet Explorer in mind.</div>
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The defeat of Netscape lead to the creation of Mozilla's Firefox, whose open source ethos complemented Linux's raison d'</div>
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In Depth: Best web browser for Linux: 5 tested

Best Linux browser: 5 tested How the mighty have fallen. During the early days of what some might, slightly hysterically, have calle...

TUAW Talkcast, July 31, 2011: Practically August edition!

TUAW Talkcast, July 31, 2011: Practically August edition!

Like it or not kids, we've come up on another Sunday night, and you know what that means: Talkcast Time! We have some fake Apple stor...

Motorola’s Brand New Android Camera Interface is The Bomb

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<img alt="" class="aligncenter" height="233" mce_src="http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4606/0036540x3881.jpg" src="http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/4606/0036540x3881.jpg" style="border-width: 0px; clear: both; color: #444444; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 12px; max-width: 640px;" title="0036-540x388" width="324" />Let me tell you about what Motorola has going on with their two latest devices, the DROID 3 and the PHOTON 4G. More specifically let me tell you in text what’s going on with the PHOTON 4G because I’ve already recorded a video of what’s going on with the camera on the DROID 3 [full review available here on Android Community] and you can see that below for yourself. Both cameras on these mobile devices are essentially the same, slight details moved around between the two but the same new elements in place. On the Photon 4G, which you can see a full review of early this morning both on Android Community and SlashGear, there are three pieces of new functionality, two of which are utterly awesome, that make its camera unique.</div>
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The first of three new features is a mute button – right there on the screen for when you’re recording film and you want to stop your sound recording for as long as you like. Ever been at an event like a rocket launching and the sound is so deafening that your microphone would never be able to pick up anything distinguishable anyway? Tap that mute button and you’re good to go. Next is the lamp. Just as easy as it is to tap the mute button, you can tap the lamp button and your two LED lights on the back of your device will be lit up as long as you like.</div>
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This means that the lights on the back of your device that are normally reserved for flashing during a photo (or lamping if you’ve got a lamp app outside the camera) will now be able to be used as a flashlight inside your recording of a video. Finally, there’s a manual digital zoom. This isn’t especially helpful as zooming in this way only serves to pull your same sized screen off the viewer and not technically zooming at all, and that’s completely lame save for you WANTING to do such a strange thing, but it SEEMS cool anyway.</div>
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And that’s just the beginning! Check out how these elements work aside the new photo gallery on the DROID 3 in this demo video:</div>
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Then check out this example video recording from the DROID 3:</div>
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Then check out this example video from the PHOTON 4G:</div>
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Pretty awesome!</div>
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Motorola’s Brand New Android Camera Interface is The Bomb

Let me tell you about what Motorola has going on with their two latest devices, the DROID 3 and the PHOTON 4G. More specifically let me t...

Get Your Google+ Invite from AndroidCommunity!

<p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="aligncenter" height="149" src="http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/3874/screenshot20110630at122.png" title="Screen shot 2011-06-30 at 12.27.46 PM" width="324" />Google just launched their new social networking plan and they are calling it Google+. With the million of Android owners and Gmail users and the rest of the population using some sort of product of Google, they seem to be in a good spot right about now. Google has already developed a great mobile application for Android and an iOS version is on the way, then the rest is done all via the web. Get your Google+ invite and start sharing thoughts or pictures with all your friends and family just like on any other platform. For now Invitations are closed and the program is in Beta, but once they start allowing invites again we’ll take care of you.</p><br/><p style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-39944 aligncenter" height="219" src="http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/5426/googleyou540x365.png" width="324" /></p><br/><span> </span><br/><br/>In case you guys missed it yesterday the program was still considered in closed beta until someone realized there was a Invite button on the lower right side of the screen while viewing your stream from the web. We all thought they opened the flood gates and everyone started inviting all their friends and family and it quickly became over capacity, but there was no birds holding up a whale over here at Google+. Instead it was quickly shut down and Vic Gundotra posted a little comment crushing everyone’s dreams of joining Google+ last night.<br/><br/>While the buzz is still strong we’re assuming Google will be opening the doors again any time now, and we will be ready for them. So for all of our faithful readers that would like to join we will be ready to invite you or at least get you on the growing list of invites for Google to approve. If you would like to leave your Gmail email below in the comments we will be sure to try our hardest to get you invited once the light hits green again.<br/><br/><strong>UPDATE:</strong> all comments will now be “held for moderation” which means we’ll be the only ones who get to see them. If you commented before this change, your email was collected by us JUST for this Google+ invite post, and for nothing more, and will not be displayed below — this was done due to concern over SPAM, which we do indeed hate!<br/><br/>Check out the other stories we have up regarding Google+ while you’re waiting.

Get Your Google+ Invite from AndroidCommunity!

Google just launched their new social networking plan and they are calling it Google+. With the million of Android owners and Gmail users an...

Opinion: Open source 'community' doesn't exist

<img src="http://cdn.mos.techradar.com//Review%20images/PC%20Plus/PCP%20293/PCP293.insight5.graham-200-200.jpg"><br /><P>Many users, forums and magazines like to speak of the open source community. </P><br /><P><br /><P>It's the glue that holds free software together. Without it, we're told, there would be no open source, no Linux and therefore no future. </P><br /><P>Books have been written about nurturing it. Websites thrive on serving it, and its chambers are the first port of call for many a lost Linux user. But community is a double-edged sword. </P><br /><P>For each of the hundreds of individuals who have made contributions to the Linux kernel, there are endless posts, comments and rebuttals. For every person who writes a message of help and encouragement, there are more who prefer to berate and belittle users who don't fit their expectations of what a community should be. </P><br /><P>Unfortunately, this is a sub-culture that won't go away. The result is that there's no real community, and this is because 'community' is too lose a term to describe the many different kinds of people who use open source software. </P><br /><P>It's a word that may help the open source propaganda machine, but it doesn't help the sustainability and growth of free software. There is no such thing as a single, homogeneous Linux group.</P><br /><P>It's a term that implies a shared goal and some kind of kinship, when there is none. It's a term that implies cooperation and cohesion, when there's just too much conflict and disagreement for this to happen. </P><br /><P>Instead, there are disparate groups of individuals, businesses and enterprises, as with any other operating system. </P><br /><P>Each group may contain those noble elements of kindness that have helped to make Linux such a success, but to describe the entire collection as a community is wrong. </P><br /><P><STRONG>Flock of starlings</STRONG></P><br /><P>There's a certain group of users, for example, that behaves like an immense flock of starlings at dusk. Its members fly with seemingly random abandon, casting their malevolent shadow over social networks, online forums, advocacy sites and blogs as they move together. </P><br /><P>There's no obvious leader or motivation in their movement. Their language is filled with RTFM, STFW and LART, and it has much in common with the partisan chatter of the 1980s computing era.</P><br /><P>It feels more like 'C64 versus Spectrum' and 'Atari ST versus Amiga' than the furtherance of an open source operating system. </P><br /><P>This might be news to Windows, OS X and general PC users, who thought his kind of thing disappeared years ago. To see an example, just ask a simple question on almost any Linux forum or, even worse, dare to state your opinion. </P><br /><P>What's interesting is that there seems to be a parallel between new research into how birds flock together and how this demographic of Linux users behaves. This might sound crazy, but a paper published by researchers in the York Centre for Complex Systems Analysis at York University suggested that birds react only to the seven others closest to them and limit their processing to a very limited set of information, such as the position and heading of those birds. </P><br /><P><STRONG>No real community</STRONG></P><br /><P>The flock is a community in appearance only, which would help to explain the occasional headless, and heedless, behaviour of open source commentators when they descend upon a subject, post or point of view. </P><br /><P>Linux seems to have more than its fair share of zealots, and I think this is for two reasons. Firstly, many of its original users chose Linux because they were anti-something. </P><br /><P>Early on, Linux was an island for the disenfranchised. Whether this was against competition, the price of software or the uniformity in the industry, starting on such a negative footing was never going to be productive. </P><br /><P>Secondly, as an underdog, Linux needs vocal supporters, and those who shout the loudest are going to get heard. This has left us with the fragmented group of users we have now. </P><br /><P>To become more cohesive, this non-community needs to tolerate different opinions. It needs to be able to take criticism without resorting to fanaticism. And it needs to change its attitude towards new users and the direction Linux is going in. If someone can't respond positively, maybe they shouldn't respond at all. </P><br /><P>New users, alongside potential users, are the most vital group if we want Linux to grow, and its stagnation over the last few years is evidence that the current strategy isn't working. Open source needs to return to the concept of nurturing inclusion and passionate users. </P><br /><P>Only then will it become a viable alternative to the increasingly locked-down world of its rivals. And only then will the various flocks of migratory communities settle on some rock and finally make a difference.</P><br /><P></P>

Opinion: Open source 'community' doesn't exist

Many users, forums and magazines like to speak of the open source community. It's the glue that holds free software together. Without it...