The US-manufactured lan1841 from Soekris Engineering, Inc., is a short standard-profile PCI Express board featuring four independent Intel 82574L Gigabit Ethernet controllers for systems where the highest number of ports is required. The lan1841 is designed to work either with the Soekris net6501 for communications applications or as a standalone PCI Express LAN card. Together with the Soekris' net6501 series featuring a 1U 19" rackmount case, the net6501 PCI-Express riser and two lan1841s, users can configure a reliable, low-power rackmount unit with 12 ports. Alternatively, those looking for a four-port PCI Express Gigabit LAN card at a reasonable price for use with other hardware will find their needs met as well. The lan1841 features a three-year warranty.
The essence of what's novel in the OpenERP 7.0 open-source business suite boils down to the concept of “Integrated Apps”, which the company says “bring together the best of the ERP and the standalone app world”. The idea is that as customers proceed to install applications, the new ones will integrate automatically with existing ones. Other aspects of the complete product redesign include a full-featured library of open-source business apps and out-of-the-box use with no prior configuration, all driven using “a stunning user interface”. OpenERP 7.0 comes with new modules including touchscreen POS, contract management, fleet management apps, LinkedIn and Google docs integration, social collaboration between apps as an alternative to traditional e-mail, innovative kanban views to manage sales pipeline and projects, and an integrated customer portal, among others. The portal includes hundreds of modules developed by the community. OpenERP 7.0. is available either as an on-site deployment or via OpenERP's SaaS platform.
The miracle that is open-source has given us stunningly powerful free software like the Blender 3-D graphics tool. Harness the power of Blender with the new book Blender Master Class: A Hands-On Guide to Modeling, Sculpting, Materials, and Rendering by 3-D artist and animator Ben Simonds. Simonds' goal with Master Class, which is filled with eye-grabbing full-color artwork, is to inspire and equip new users to create their own masterpieces. Simonds walks readers through three complete projects: a muscle-bound gargoyle, a futuristic robotic spider and ancient temple ruins overgrown with jungle. In the process, readers master the Blender interface and learn how to model and sculpt amazing models. Other topics include working with reference and concept art in Blender and GIMP, utilizing textures from GIMP, mastering the art of creating materials and lighting for scenes and rendering and compositing images to create striking images.
Counting sheep to get to sleep has never been so passé with the release of AcousticSheep LLC's Bluetooth SleepPhones Wireless, the company's latest addition to its line of doctor-designed miniature headphones integrated into comfortable, washable sports-style headbands. AcousticSheep assures users of SleepPhones that they will “fall asleep faster and drug-free” while using the product. Although AcousticSheep already offers similar wired products without hard earbuds not only for sleeping but also for exercising, this new product eliminates cords entirely by playing back media from any Bluetooth-enabled device. SleepPhones Wireless was selected as an Innovations Award Honoree from the Consumer Electronics Association in advance of CES 2013.
Hardware-maker Velocity Micro's design philosophy is to provide products that are “aesthetically pleasing, blazingly fast, competitively priced and designed and built in the USA”. Although Velocity has yet to add “powered by Linux” to the list, the company recently released the Cruz D610 and Cruz Q610, affordable Android 4.1 tablets powered by dual-core and quad-core ARM processors, respectively. Both devices feature a 10" capacitive touchscreen, camera (D610 front-facing, Q610 front- and rear-facing), Google Play, Flash, custom software suite and access to Kindle for Android and the Amazon app store. The company says that these new tablets achieve this year's goal to blend the enthusiast level and the mainstream to create products with mass appeal.
News from the DIY Android desk is the availability of Carlos Sessa's Android Hacks, a new Manning Publications book of 50 short and simple programming hacks that are destined to “save you time, stretch your skills and maybe even make you smile”. The 50 “little gems” are organized into categories such as Layout, Animation, Patterns and UX, and each covers just a few pages, including annotated source code. Some examples of the hacks include creating a wizard form using a Gallery, using Scala inside Android, adding an MP3 to the Media ContentProvider and batching database operations. Most hacks work with Android 2.x and greater.
The tried-and-true Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) open-source enterprise platform recently was upgraded to version 6.4. The new release, which continues in RHEL's tradition of delivering technology that is tested and stable, includes updates to the platform's existing feature set and provides new functionality in the areas of identity management, filesystem, virtualization, storage and productivity tools. Identity management is improved via SSSD enhancements that strengthen the interoperability experience with Microsoft Active Directory. Filesystem enhancements from pNFS deliver performance improvements with the addition of Direct I/O for faster data access. Virtualization is more robust, thanks to the inclusion of the Microsoft Hyper-V Linux drivers and other improvements. Storage management is now easier thanks to new system log features that simplify the process of locating specific devices. Productivity-tool upgrades include interoperability improvements with Microsoft Exchange, calendar support in Evolution and support for newer Wacom tablets.
The headlining new feature in IntelliJ IDEA 12, the latest volume of JetBrains' Java IDE for Web, enterprise and mobile development, is a brand-new, much faster compiler. JetBrains says that it pulled out all the stops, rebuilding the compiler from the ground up and moving it to a separate process. The result is that projects can be compiled automatically in the background on every change a developer makes, so that it can run it almost instantly any time. IntelliJ IDEA also embraces the latest versions of Java, including its previews and new features that every developer is eager to try. With v.12, JDK 8 already can be enjoyed with code assistance for new syntax, such as lambda expressions, method references and default methods. Also in the new edition, support for Android is expanded with a new Android UI designer. Aesthetically speaking, IntelliJ IDEA 12 explores the “darker side” of productive coding by unveiling a stylish new dark look and feel, dubbed “Darcula”. JetBrains says that Darcula makes the interface clearer and more functional, minimizing distraction so users can focus more on the code and less on the IDE.
