NVDA can now connect to a HIMS Smart Beetle braille display via Bluetooth.You can turn off the braille cursor and change its shape using the new Show cursor and Cursor shape options in the Braille Settings dialog.New braille translation tables: Polish 8 dot computer braille, Mongolian.The stripped-down operating system is intended specifically for virtual appliances.Highlights of this release include the ability to optionally lower the volume of other sounds improvements to braille output and braille display support several significant fixes to Microsoft Office support and fixes to browse mode in iTunes. SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS (pronounced "juice"), the beta "Just enough" operating system from Novell is a lightweight and barebones version of the company's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. OpenSUSE is probably best for power users, those who can take advantage of the virtualization support and those with more experience using Linux. There is some business advantage to consider OpenSUSE instead of Ubuntu or Fedora because of Novell's relationship with Microsoft, such as the tweaks to that make document conversion and migration easier, as well as the hypervisor adapter support. OpenSUSE is powerful, and improvements in usability, performance and stability should attract and win back users from other Linux distributions. Novell didn't launch a new version of its SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop in 2008, but it did shepherd the OpenSuSE community that delivered OpenSuSE 11. For anyone or any business not tied to Microsoft legacy desktop applications, Ubuntu 8.10 may realistically be considered a smarter choice in many scenarios. Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition, nicknamed "Intrepid Ibex," provides so much functionality and ease of use, at zero cost of acquisition, that it is really impossible to ignore.
There's also better Bluetooth integration, especially for Palm devices. GNOME 2.22 in Fedora 9 has better file system performance, security improvements and the ability to manage power right at the login screen (quite handy on a laptop). On the desktop front, Fedora 9 Beta offers GNOME 2.22 and KDE 4.0.2 as the defaults. Test Center highlighted three intriguing aspects for Fedora 9: the new desktop schemes, the new package management system and back-end improvements to memory usage and performance.
The best-known site using that code, Identi.ca, allows communication through browsers, e-mail and SMS messaging - giving a powerful, free alternative to those seeking to build their own social networking or microblogging platforms. If microblogging site Twitter became the social networking smash of 2008, 2009 could be a great year for the open-source microblogging platform called Laconica. Features like its "awesome bar" are also helping it continue to gain market share against Microsoft Internet Explorer, even as it's fending off new challenges from Google's new Chrome browser. By launching and upgrading its IBM Lotus Symphony suite of productivity apps based on, IBM is once again using the Lotus brand to take aim against Microsoft on the desktop.ĭie-hard Firefox users showed thanks for the Mozilla community's efforts to eliminate memory leaks and other annoyances in the most recent iterations of the open-source browser.
IBM has taken great pains to position itself as more of a middleware company than a desktop productivity software company, but diverged from that path a bit in 2008. With an acquisition cost of between $150 and $200 less than Microsoft Office 2007, it could have a big year in a down economy in 2009. The popular - and free - open source productivity suite hit its milestone 3.0 version in 2008, making it more clear than ever that its functionality and compatibility with Microsoft Office (including OpenOffice Impress, which is PowerPoint compatible) make it a force to be reckoned with. So here's the article reproduced verbatim, sans ads, just as a giant middle finger extended in the direction of CRN and all the other assbags using this format these days.