open source

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Tutorials

  • Automate image editing with GIMP

    For a project I was recently working on I needed to remove the white background from several hundred images in PNG format and replace it with transparency. I know you can automate Photoshop but that's like getting into a Sherman tank to go shopping at your local supermarket. Another constraint (other than my reluctance to wrangle Photoshop) was the need to be able to do this in the future as part of a process to be built into a virtual machine running Linux.

  • Open source FreeOTFE encrypts disks handily

    FreeOTFE may sound like a political bumper sticker, but it stands for "Free On The Fly Encryption." The "Free" part is self-explanatory; "On The Fly Encryption" refers to the encrypting/decrypting of data as it is written to or read from your hard disk.

  • Overclock your smartphone, if you dare

    WARNING: Overclocking is not for the faint of heart. Do not attempt to hack your phone unless you understand and accept the risks of turning it into a useless "brick."

  • Is your business compliant with open source licenses?

    There are many ways that vendors of proprietary products try to scare business customers away from open source software, and one of the more commonly heard examples involves vague fears about compliance with open source licenses. There's nothing like the specter of a good lawsuit to scare a company back into a paid vendor's welcoming arms.

  • How to choose a desktop Linux distribution

    With all the many reasons to use Linux today -- particularly in a business setting --it's often a relatively easy decision to give Windows the boot. What can be more difficult, however, is deciding which of the hundreds of Linux distributions out there is best for you and your business.

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