Once you've dived into William E. Shotts Jr.'s The Linux Command Line: A Complete Introduction, you may find your mouse gathering dust, says the book's publisher No Starch Press. In order to appreciate Linux's premier advantages fully—its power, customizability and rich UNIX-supercomputer heritage—every new user should fire up the Bash shell and explore what's possible with the command line. Shotts takes readers from first keystrokes to writing full programs in Bash. Along the way, they will learn the timeless skills handed down by generations of gray-bearded, mouse-shunning gurus: file navigation, environment configuration, command chaining, pattern matching with regular expressions and more. In addition to that practical knowledge, Shotts reveals the philosophy behind these tools and the rich heritage that desktop Linux machines have inherited from their UNIX forebears. Shotts' hope is that his readers eventually will find that the command line is a natural and expressive way to communicate with a computer.
Data is getting bigger and more complex by the day, and so are the choices in handling it. Cutting-edge solutions for managing this complexity range from traditional RDBMS to newer NoSQL approaches, seven of which are explored in Eric Redmond and Jim Wilson's new book Seven Databases in Seven Weeks: A Guide to Modern Databases and the NoSQL Movement. The book is a tour of some of the hottest open-source databases today that goes beyond basic tutorials to explore the essential concepts at the core of each technology. With each database—Redis, Neo4J, Couch, Mongo, HBase, Riak and Postgres—readers tackle a real-world data problem that highlights the concepts and features that make it shine. Readers also explore the five data models employed by these databases: relational, key/value, columnar, document and graph to determine which kinds of problems are best suited to each, and when to use them.
Go green and save green with Xi3 Corporation's TAND3M Software, an application that enables two people to share and use one (Linux or Windows) Xi3 Modular Computer for all computing functions simultaneously. Xi3's CEO says that by taking advantage of the underutilized resources of the Xi3 Modular Computer, the operating system and the other applications, computing costs are cut in half without a drop-off in performance. Each Xi3 Modular Computer needs only 20 Watts to operate, and the addition of TAND3M Software halves the electricity needs to a mere 10 Watts per seat. Such low power use is due in large part to Xi3's unique architecture that separates the traditional computer motherboard into three distinct pieces: one for processor and memory option, a second for display and power options, and a third for I/O or special connectivity options. Xi3 says that its patented design and architecture solves many of the problems blocking the progress of advanced computing.
Intel subsidiary Wind River Software wants to help you jumpstart your Android device development with its new Wind River Solution Accelerators for Android. The three specialized software offerings—one each for user experience, connectivity and medical-specific devices—can accelerate Android device development and reduce engineering time and cost to help developers turn around high-quality devices faster than ever. Modular in nature, the offerings give developers flexibility to pick and choose software components to fill in gaps in expertise and instantly integrate complex, differentiating features. The user-experience module accelerates boot times and supports features like multi-windowing screen navigation, multimedia functionalities and advanced firmware management. The connectivity module supports multimedia interoperability capabilities via the DLNA standard, SyncML support and FM radio capabilities. The medical module helps medical device manufacturers leverage Android's platform richness and flexibility for innovation.
Although the organizations that already use Apache Hadoop make up a Who's Who of the Net, this open-source framework for reliable, scalable, distributed computing officially has achieved the level of enterprise-readiness to earn a 1.0 designation. A foundation of cloud computing and at the epicenter of “big data” solutions, Apache Hadoop enables data-intensive distributed applications to work with thousands of nodes and exabytes of data. The framework enables organizations to store, process, manage and analyze the growing volumes of data being created and collected every day more efficiently and cost-effectively. It can connect thousands of servers to process and analyze data at supercomputing speed. Version 1.0 reflects six years of development, production experience, extensive testing and feedback. New features include support for HBase, strong authentication via Kerberos, Webhdfs, performance-enhanced access to local files for HBase and other features and fixes. The Apache Software Foundation directs the development of Apache Hadoop.
Corel, whose support for Linux goes way back in interesting ways (remember Corel Linux OS?), has announced the release of its new AfterShot Pro, an application the company markets as “a total photographic workflow solution for professional and enthusiast photographers”. Key product features include RAW workflow; flexible photo management; batch editing; robust metadata tools; easy integration with other image editors (such as Corel PaintShop Pro and Adobe Photoshop); advanced, non-destructive editing; and “breakthrough performance”. AfterShot Pro, which runs on Linux, Mac OS and Windows, is positioned as a powerful and affordable alternative to products like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and ACD Systems ACDSee Pro.
If you thought Opera was just a niche browser company, think again. The company recently released its newest offering, the Opera TV Store, a HTML5-based store solution for connected TVs. Opera says that its goal with the TV Store is “to bring apps to the world of TV in a huge way” by providing users with a “lean-back Web experience” and to provide developers, content providers and manufacturers with “convenient, cross-platform technology”. The store is optimized for HD-Ready screens and standard remote controls, so users simply can fire up the cool apps, including video, games and news. The Opera TV Store can be installed by OEMs on any set-top box, Blu-ray player or HD-Ready TV, and manufacturers can harness the power of TV apps on any device running the Opera Devices SDK. Opera also says that “OEMs can rest assured that their users will get the best possible experience, without having to worry about the content themselves.”
After an intense, four-year-long slog, the developers of Scribus—the multiplatform, open-source, professional desktop publishing application—have released the new stable version 1.4. The upgrade integrates a whopping 2,000+ feature requests and bug resolutions. The most notable new feature is that Scribus 1.4 is now based on Qt4, which developers say enables it to run equally reliably on all supported platforms. Other feature highlights include improved object handling, advanced options for text and typography, undo/redo for nearly all text-related actions, usability improvements, new features for vector objects, better fill handling, additional color palettes, a rendering frame, more vector import filters and much more.
