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tOSSad project has successfully ended |
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Monday, 02 April 2007 |
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tOSSad project, which has started two years ago has published its final reports to the public. This project was funded by the European Commission under its IST Priority of the 6th Framework Programme.
Complete collection of 15 documents, comprising over 600 pages, sheds light on the general economic and social benefits of Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS). The reports propose ways to overcome national barriers of F/OSS adoption, discuss how to improve the usability of F/OSS in a distrubuted project development environment, outlin a F/OSS curriculum for educational purposes and offer hands-on tips on setting up a Linux laboratory for schools.
tOSSad project, led by Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, now tries to disseminate its results throughout various media to help leverage the F/OSS ecosystem in European countries. All tOSSad reports are available for download from www.tossad.org/publications. A readers guide provides a brief summary of the most important reports. |
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Open Source Resource Center "Resources" |
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Tuesday, 20 March 2007 |
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"This open source training toolkit has been developed by the Open Source Resource Center (OSRC). Used as the basis for OSRC's training workshops, it contains step-by-step manuals related to open source applications for databases, application servers, desktop applications, office productivity suites, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, and open source desktop applications for the Microsoft Windows platform. A set of CDs, including two Linux distributions and other applications, forms an integral part of this open source training toolkit."
To see what Pakistani Linux gurus are up to, see here. Sorry for direct copying.
Enjoy.
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Filiz has passed from Qual |
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Thursday, 01 March 2007 |
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Filiz has also passed from qual exam, leaving with lots of thesis ideas (to be eliminated wildly in the upcoming weeks). Congrats to my wife, as she has shown a reputable success up to now.
I'll be in Bilgi University for Open Days Organization between 3-4 March, and then in Ankara for a workshop about information security (5-6 March). Meanwhile, my friend Lorenzo Pallara, who is working in CINECA (Italy) about set top boxes and embedded Linux for a long time, is visiting Istanbul. As opposed to my visitigin him Bologna, this time I'll take them to a good Bosphorus restaurant, having some RAKI and BALIK (yum!). |
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Qual exam: One more barrier left behind |
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Monday, 22 January 2007 |
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After 11 hours of written examination scattered in two days plus a stressing oral examination, I finally managed to pass from qual exam. It's time to work on the doctoral thesis immediately, and finish this new, challenging task in one year. Hurray! |
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Friday, 12 January 2007 |
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I'll be here and there in February. Let's see where and why.
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Linux administrators and project managers wanted |
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Thursday, 04 January 2007 |
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I've received two open positions last week:
- Project manager, with knowledge in Linux systems (Ankara)
- Linux system administrator (Istanbul)
Please send your CV to me (gorkem _at_ gorkemcetin.com) for further info. |
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Tuesday, 02 January 2007 |
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(This news is in English only). For some time (i.e around 6 months), I've been trying to finalize one of the chapters of the 3rd version of Hacking Exposed Linux book. In fact, this is a major re-write of the book lead by ISECOM, as noone of the old chapters will be included in the new book. New version focuses more on current high-tech security considerations of a Linux system, network and I/O devices, rather than old, fuzzy and already-known information bits stemming from late 90's. So stay tuned and cross your fingers for the next version. |
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Monday, 01 January 2007 |
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(This news is in English only).
Eventually trying to get some fresh air on my way to qual exam and hoping that this will be my last big life-career-barrier, I tried to have a broad look at what is going on around in F/OSS world. There was nothing special or new by means of context or new ideas, however this will be an opportunity to drive a project which will be of benefit for both asia-pacific countries and European F/OSS community/sector: FP7 includes a call which focuses on this aspect. A cite from the ICT Workprogramme 2007 says,
Open Source Software with particular focus on Asia, ACP and Latin America. To promote interoperability and the emergence of global open standards and practices. The objective will be to concentrate on OSS-based tools, services or applications of high potential for societal impact and wide diffusion of ICTs and to address in particular issues such as security, dependability, quality of service, maintainability and affordability.
That deserves a focus upon as F/OSS is becoming a dominant actor in in Malaysia (check my talk about Pardus in Kuala Lumpur), India (check IOSN also), Caribbeans, Peru, Venezuela etc. We'll see what we can do here, please drop me a note if you are interested in giving a proposal for this call.
I've not heard anything from NGO in a box project for quite some time, but it looks like they have proceeded well, offering boxed sets which will help NGOs set up their Linux/FOSS based infrastructure without hassle.
Say it a coincidence or not, I've found myself getting interested in web-based "operating systems", and at the same time, Frantic Industries has made a review about 10 online OS's. This is becoming more addictive after Umut has shown me his 2nd generation Claros, which now is a full communication suite with mailing suite, calendar, chat, note taker, fully based on Java and AJAX technologies. Claros Chat is already one of the web based Google connectivity applications around, I strongly urge you to check. In our OPEN TC project, we have decided to benefit from Claros 2.0 webmail system (sorry, no screenshots yet) to build a message exchange infrastructure on a Xen based system fully exploiting Trusted Platform Module (TPM) infrastructure.
PS: Last but not least, Battlestar Galactica series is becoming my best choice after According to Jim. BSG was shown the first time in 80's on Turkish TV, and by far the most interesting SCI-FI series that time. It's interesting to see a more in-depth, fascinating and attractive version after 20 years.
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BIG DAY: Pardus 2007 is out! |
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Monday, 18 December 2006 |
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Download here!
What's New in Pardus 2007 ?
Multilingual installer
// It is possible to install Pardus in Turkish, English, Spanish, German or Dutch. It is now much easier to install Pardus 2007, thanks to renewed YALI and Kaptain Desktop...
Smaller packages, faster updates
// Thanks to the improvements to the Pardus package manager PiSi, applications use less space on disk and download over internet much faster...
Package manager
// The intuitive and cute graphics interface of PiSi makes update and installation of software much easier.....
Fast start-up
// The new init system developed using the Pardus configurarion framework ÇOMAR makes the start-up much faster compared to other operating systems....
New and up-to-date applications
// More than 640 packages are installed with the CD, and more than 1000 available over the internet. Since Pardus 1.0 more than 770 packages were added to the repo ....
Others
// More than 1600 bug fixes since Pardus 1.0, USB start-up, new network-manager, new icons in Tulliana icon set, ...
And what remains the same
Pardus, with with internet tools, office suite, multimedia (picture, music, video, etc) players, games and numerous applications to satisfy all the needs of desktop users, all squezed in a single CD...
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2 submissions accepted for HCI International 2007 |
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Sunday, 17 December 2006 |
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It was quite a busy week for me. After having a successful workshop in Bologna about open source software usability, I was informed by Sandra Frings that our paper entitled "An analysis of involvement of HCI experts in distributed software development: Practical issues" was accepted to HCI International 2007. It was a paper written by Sandra, me and Damiano. Probably among us, Damiano will be presenting the paper in Beijing, China in July. Glad to hear from the reviewers that the paper shows an "interesting and timely study; a good contribution with clear focus and objectives".
Moreover, another paper written by me and my PhD advisor is also accepted to the same organization, under the title "Out of Box Experience Issues of Free and Open Source Software", with a note from the reviewer: "An interesting paper covering an active area of research, addressing a subject at the core of the conference." I'll be presenting this paper, and organizers have reminded that the full paper should be finished until February 26. Looks like January and February will be a nightmare for me.
And the last, but not least, I'll be also attending the Free Software World Conference to be held in Badajoz, Spain. The agenda is not fixed yet, so stay tuned. |
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