Hello readers, and welcome to Free Software Magazine’s fortnightly newsletter, keeping you up to date with all things free software! Enjoy!
General announcements
Great news... Issue 16 has finally been released! It is jam-packed with excellent articles—it may be our largest magazine yet! We hope you’ll enjoy them! Also, for those of you who have been living under a rock for the past week, we have stopped releasing the PDFs of Free Software Magazine. While there was quite an outcry from some of our readers about this, it was a financial decision. So even though some of you will miss PDFs, the staff here at the FSM can put more energy into the magazine itself. And we are still catering to those of you who prefer to read the magazine without ads and offline—we are organising a “printer friendly” version of each article. It’s still incomplete, but it will beimproved over time so we can continue provide you all with the magazine you love!
Latest content
Making PDFs with free software—Jon Peck looks at two free software packages that can be used to create PDFs. Read more...
A killer idea for code—Anthony Taylor knows what the free software world needs—a website dedicated to free software code. Read more...
Faking the FOSS—Jabari Zakiya explores the notion of being free... or paying lip service. Read more...
Paper is dead—has PDF followed suit?—Tony Mobily’s controversial editorial announcing the possible death of PDF. Read more...
A Valentine’s guide to geek behaviours—Chris Mostek imparts his wisdom on geek/non-geek relationships for Valentine’s day. Read more...
So, why has the PDF gone?—Tony Mobily responds to the reaction to FSM dropping PDFs. Read more...
Gentlemen, start your engines!—Marco Marongiu talks TORCS.Read more...
Command line media editing—Jonathon Roberts gives a howto on DVD authoring. Read more...
The machine stops: IPV6 and the growth of the internet—Gary Richmond contemplates the connectedness of the internet and what a pain it is for those that bestow the IP address... Read more...
Using free software to build professional and life skills—Jon Peck considers the contribution free software makes to us, and the contribution we make to free software. Read more...
War and free software—Jabari Zakiya explores how tools of war can become tools of peace.Read more...
Digital image resizing with the GIMP—Are you sure you know everything needed to resize images? And can you do it properly with the GIMP? Gianluca Pignalberi tells you how. Read more...
Why Johnny can code—Anthony Taylor explains that learning to code doesn’t just involve studying—it’s hands on. Read more...
Free software vs open source—Jonathon Roberts weighs into the nomenclature debate.Read more...
mgetty—Wouter Verhelst talks sending and receiving faxes on GNU/Linux. Read more...
Do we need an Ubuntu installer for Windows?—Jon Peck debates the need for an Ubuntu installer on Windows—is it really such a good idea? Read more...
Latest book reviews released
The Definitive Guide to GCC, Second Edition by William von Hagen Want to know how to use GCC effectively? Alan Berg reads along. Read more...
Pro Apache XML by Poornachandra Sarang, Ph.D. Alan Berg gets to know Apache Software Foundation XML projects. Read more...
Book competition announcement for this fortnight
This week we are giving away a copy of Self Service Linux by Mark Wilding and Dan Behman and a copy of Embedded Linux Primer by Christopher Hallinan.
All you need to do to enter is check out the latest book competition announcement on our blogs page.
GOOD LUCK!
Thanks go to Prentice Hall for providing these fantastic prizes.
Winner of the book competition from last fortnight
To be announced...
Please comment wherever possible and don’t forget to log in so that you’ll be in the running to win the latest book competition
Poll Results—What’s your favourite email program?
Thunderbird was the definite winner, romping home with 51% of the vote. From there, the percentages take a dive... “Other” came second with 31% of the vote, followed very closely by Evolution (12%) and Kmail (11%). This dropped off further to a tie between Outlook/Outlook express and Mutt (both with 6%), and finally Pine with 1%. Read more here and stay tuned for...
This fortnight’s poll
Who should be the next president of the United States?
A little bit of fun this fortnight to raise our spirits. If the candidates for the upcoming US election were miraculously swapped with some noted IT celebrities, which one would you vote for and why? You can also let us know who you think would be most likely to win and why too.
Reminders
Comments
Your comments on articles, issues, and blog entries are very welcome. They provide other readers with insightful suggestions, further information, and the feeling that they are not alone. They also provide our authors with the feeling that they are being heard. Please comment wherever possible and don’t forget to log in so that you’ll be in the running to win the latest book competition.
Avatars
Avatars are a great way of expressing your personal identity, whether it be a photo or an image that you feel represents the you you want to be. Read more about avatars here. To add an avatar: log in, go to “my account” in the menu on the left, go to the “edit” tab and scroll down to where it says “Upload picture”. Now, hit the browse button, find the image on your computer that you want to upload and go to the bottom of the page and hit the submit button. That’s it; you now have an avatar image.
Donate
As you might know already FSM is a low profit project with all funds raised going back into producing the fine magazine you can download for free.
Think about how much you would normally have to spend buying a magazine of this quality. We provide it for free!
Your donations will help us to continue spreading the word about free software and producing more fantastic issues.
Contacting us
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Thanks
Thank you for subscribing to Free Software Magazine. You are a part of a growing community who help to raise the awareness of, and educate new users in, the joys of free software. Without you we would not have this community and without you we would not have a magazine. Happy reading!