The KOffice team is extremely pleased to finally announce version 2.0.0 of KOffice. This release marks the end of more than 3 years of work to port KOffice to Qt 4 and the KDE 4 libraries and, in some cases, totally rewrite the engine of the KOffice applications.
I have been hearing more Muslims everyday talking about “reforming” Islam. I have read article after article (that means two articles), claiming that Islam is in the beginning, middle, or end of a reformation. Really? Reza Aslan, author of No god but God reportedly said this:
I believe we are living in the time of the Islamic reformation. In fact, I think we are living in the twilight of that reformation.
For me, the word reform is defined by its inevitability. This process cannot be stopped; it can be slowed down for a time but reform is inevitable. It’s an historic reformation taking place within Islam — it’s adapting itself to the realities of the world around it.
I think we’ll see the same process we saw in the Christian reformation from doctrinal absolutism to doctrinal relativism; toward a truly indigenous Islamic enlightenment.
And it’s up to us as Muslims in the US to give voice to that for our brothers and sisters who don’t have the voice or the same ability to speak out as we do.
Reza, I love you as my brother in Islam, but I think you missed the mark. I want to write a refutation right here and now, but I think this will need some time, research, and consideration. Look for an article in the coming weeks.
Nevertheless, I will leave this for everyone, especially Muslims, to ponder:
reform (\ri-ˈform)
transitive verb
1 a: to put or change into an improved form or conditionb: to amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses2: to put an end to (an evil) by enforcing or introducing a better method or course of action
From Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary
I am no linguist but “reform” seems to refer to “fixing” something that is fundamentally flawed. And “doctrinal absolutism” is something that is alien to Islam, aside from the most extreme fringes. More on this later.
One of the weird things I have noticed about myself is that when I maximize my web browser, I feel trapped. Now that I have two monitors, I have been trying to adjust myself to the reality that I can have a maximized browser and still have an entire open desktop space. Baby steps…
I can remember turning on my computer, dialing into IndyNet, and opening the World Wide Web inside of a terminal window. My first web experience was through a text browser. At $10 a month, that was all I could afford. Eventually, I learned to hack it and give myself access to the graphical side of the web and my first experience with Netscape Navigator.
Back then, web sites usually consisted of long single pages with mostly text, a few static images scattered about, some horizontal rules, and maybe an animated GIF, if you were lucky. For those of you too young to remember, I am not reminiscing about the 70s or even the 80s. It was not until the 90s when the World Wide Web burst onto the scene, drawing people away from their television sets for the first time in a way that nothing else before it could.
You would be hard-pressed to go anywhere or even watch television without hearing some reference to “Twitter”, “tweets”, or “tweeting”. From your cousin in Iowa to Shaquille O’Neal, all types of people from all walks of life have taking a liking to Twitter.
Whether or not Twitter will become a technological standard as email or just a passing fad, remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that if you want to use Twitter while it is hot, you will probably want some type of client so that you do not always have to open your web browser and go to Twitter.com.
For KDE there are a few options, but there is one that I have found to be superior to them all. Keep reading, or if Twitter has convinced you that you can only process 140 characters of information at one time, scroll to the end of this article.
Read the rest at Make Tech Easier
One of the most innovative and simultaneously controversial features of KDE 4 is the Plasma widget, Folderview. Simply put, it allows a user to display the contents of a file system folder within a widget on the desktop.
Beyond just displaying files on your computer, Folderview can be used to launch applications, display remote file systems, filter large folders for particular types of files, or serve as a traditional desktop.
Read the rest at Make Tech Easier
Rupert Murdoch has once again made headlines (pun intended) by telling CNN that visitors to the web sites belonging to some of the numerous newspapers that his News Corporation owns will soon have to pay to access certain content. Instead of having free access to the Wall Street Journal or the New York Post, a visitor would have to “pay handsomely”, according Murdoch.
I know the man is old, but is he really that out of touch with technology and the development of new media? Does he really believe that people cannot live without his newspapers?
When a news organization is failing, as many newspapers are, why would it benefit them to make it more difficult to get news to people who could use it? Their goal should be to gain readers, not drive away the few they have left.
If a person has to pay to find out a piece of information on one site, they will simply find it on another site for free. Instead of arrogantly thinking that they can just muscle people into giving them money, they should try earning it. Give people a real reason to come to your web site. Come up with something innovative that makes your site worth their time.
We live in an age where media is interactive, collaborative, and, most importantly, open to all. If News Corporation or any other mega-news conglomerate fails to realize that, it might very well be the last mistake they make. And maybe the world will be a better, more truthful place without them.
May 6th, 2009. The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.2.3, another bugfix and maintenance update for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop. This is a monthly update to KDE 4.2. It ships with desktop workspace and many cross-platform applications such as administration programs, network tools, educational applications, utilities, multimedia software, games, artwork, development tools and more. KDE’s award-winning tools and applications are available in more than 50 languages.
See the full announcement.
The producers of the new SGU series have opened up a little more and revealed some of their thinking on the new show. I should preface this by saying how skeptical I am about the potential success of this show. I was an avid SG-1 watcher, but I was skeptical when Stargate Atlantis came out. To my surprise SGA was actually good. The “lost in space” premise of SGU, however, leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Hopefully, I will be pleasantly surprised.
“The style is very different from what we’ve done in the past,” Cooper said. “It’s far more mobile than we’ve done in the past on SG-1. The concept is that we wanted to shoot this a little bit like a documentary crew would shoot a ride-along to a space ship out in the universe — that maybe we could get audiences to embrace the science fiction elements and the characters in a realistic way if we shot the show using the ‘language’ of documentary and reality.
What the flip? OK, my skepticism just escalated. Please tell this does not mean a wobbly camera running through the forest chasing aliens. Please, tell me that. Please?
I tried to upgrade my Eee PC 900 to Ubuntu 9.04, but it introduced a serious problem. Apparently, there is a flaw in the Intel i915 driver that Ubuntu packaged with this version of Linux (the kernel). There is more information at this bug report.
I am about to start trying to fix this now, but in the meantime, consider yourself forewarned. From what I have heard, this bug seems to only affect the 900 model, and the newest array.org kernel is not yet available for Jaunty.
