We Review A Toshiba NB505 Netbook Running Kubuntu 11.10

We Review A Toshiba NB505 Netbook Running Kubuntu 11.10

Interested in a netbook but not sure which brand to get? Want to know if you'll be able to run Linux on it?

Check out our review on the Toshiba NB505!

Christ-Centered Computer Refurbishment

Christ-Centered Computer Refurbishment

Ever wondered what you should do about your old PC? You know, the one you want to get rid of, but don't know where to go or who to give it to? Why not give it to Christ?

Give it to some guys who help Christians and spread the Gospel as they do it.

How To Install a Church Office Server

How To Install a Church Office Server

Ever wanted to set up a server at church to run the network, share files, and provide some sort of membership management software?

Follow the instructions in the new HowTo to get your server up and running!

Security Best Practices

Security Best Practices

How good is your security? Are there any aspects of security you might have overlooked? What part does open source software have to play?

Find out more about security, from an open source perspective.

27 Jan

Review: Kubuntu 11.10 on a Toshiba NB505 Netbook

in Graphics, Kubuntu, Linux, NB505, Netbook, Review, Suspend, Toshiba, Webcam, Wireless

Toshiba NB505 Running Kubuntu 11.10 Linux

My family flew over to the USA to visit my wife's family in October 2011, and I couldn't pass up an opportunity to buy something technological for a lower price than I can get it in South Africa. One of the things I'd been wanting to buy for a long time was a netbook.

With this in mind, I did some searching and some research and decided to buy the Toshiba NB505 from Amazon.com. A number of the reviews on Amazon mentioned using Linux (usually Ubuntu) on the netbook, and they all said that it ran well. With this key piece of information, and a friend's recommendation of a similar model from Toshiba, I decided to save up some money and buy the NB505.

24 Jan

Making Money With Open Source Software

in .NET, Article, Microsoft, Money, Open Source Software, Proprietary, Windows

Making Money With Open Source Software

Most people I've met, when I talk about Open Source Software, have a hard time understanding why people would choose to give their software away for free. One of the questions I hear often is, "But then how do you make money?"

Actually, you have it all wrong. Very few applications written by developers today are ever sold. Most applications are "in house" - in other words, they are written internally by a business to fulfill the needs of the business, as opposed to being written to be sold.

22 Jan

Top stories for the week ending 21 January 2012

These are the top stories from the past week's editions of Christians in OSS Daily.
Please note that these stories are automatically selected, and therefore do not necessarily reflect the beliefs and values of the Christians in OSS blog.

Microsoft to Prevent Linux Booting on ARM Hardware?

Microsoft to Prevent Linux Booting on ARM Hardware?

Fears that Microsoft would abuse the Windows 8 UEFI feature are coming true. Microsoft are blocking Linux from booting on ARM Hardware certified for Windows 8. The backstory Late last year Microsof...

Posted on 14 January 2012

Facebook Chat, New Features Land in Latest Release of Smuxi IRC App

Facebook Chat, New Features Land in Latest Release of Smuxi IRC App

IRC Clients are hardly the most glamourous of applications but for many of they they’re an important tool of daily life. Smuxi, my personal favourite IRC client, has a new release available. It add...

Posted on 15 January 2012

Lubuntu 12.04 News Roundup

Lubuntu 12.04 News Roundup

The hands behind everyone’s favourite lightweight Linux distro ‘Lubuntu’ are hard at work crafting the next major release. Lubuntu 12.04 won’t have LTS (Long Term Support) status like its siblings ...

Posted on 16 January 2012

5 Rules for More Effective Better Presentations

5 Rules for More Effective Better Presentations

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to my free email updates. For a limited time, I will give you a copy of my brand new e-book, Creating Your Personal Life Plan, just for...

Posted on 17 January 2012

The Ben NanoNote – The World’s Smallest Linux Laptop?

The Ben NanoNote – The World’s Smallest Linux Laptop?

Measuring at less than 100mm wide and 17mm thick with a dinky 3″ screen, the Ben NanoNote might just be the world’s smallest Linux laptop for the traditional definition of the word. While pulling t...

Posted on 18 January 2012

GNOME’s Revamped ‘Web’ Browser Is Minimal, Mighty

GNOME’s Revamped ‘Web’ Browser Is Minimal, Mighty

GNOME’s work on a revamped and repurposed ‘Epiphany’ web browser – which seeks to make the browser a core part of the GNOME experience – is coming along nicely. The redesign of Epiphany, which is r...

Posted on 19 January 2012

Unity’s Dash to Ditch Giant Shortcuts

Unity’s Dash to Ditch Giant Shortcuts

Not a fan of the 8 giant shortcuts in the Unity Dash? Ubuntu 12.04 might just show you something different…Ubuntu developers are testing a new layout for the Unity ‘Home Lens’.In place of the icono...

Posted on 20 January 2012

[How To] Easily Install The Slickest Software Center on Linux

[How To] Easily Install The Slickest Software Center on Linux

Installing software just got easier: The Linux Deepin Software Center is now available to install in Ubuntu 11.10.The software store is easily the gems in the crown of Ubuntu-based Chinese Linux di...

Posted on 21 January 2012

15 Jan

Top stories for the week ending 14 January 2012

These are the top stories from the past week's editions of Christians in OSS Daily.
Please note that these stories are automatically selected, and therefore do not necessarily reflect the beliefs and values of the Christians in OSS blog.

Help Test New Screen-Recording App ‘Eidete’

Help Test New Screen-Recording App ‘Eidete’

A new elementary-style screencasting tool is seeking wider testing. Eidete, which is in heavy development, makes use of elementary project technologies like Granite and Contractor. The result is an...

Posted on 7 January 2012

How Manhood and Womanhood Are Different

How Manhood and Womanhood Are Different

John Piper and Darrin Patrick recently discussed the Bible's teaching on biblical manhood and womanhood. In this 15-minute video they get to the heart of our cultural epidemic and chart the way for...

Posted on 8 January 2012

Cinnamon Desktop Gets First Custom Theme

Cinnamon Desktop Gets First Custom Theme

A theme designed specifically for the new GNOME 3-based Cinnamon desktop is available to download. ‘Cinnamon Minty’, created by satya164 , evokes the colour-scheme of Linux Mint – whose founder is ...

Posted on 9 January 2012

Download the Official Ubuntu TV Wallpaper

Download the Official Ubuntu TV Wallpaper

Mmm. Despite all today’s news about Ubuntu’s latest extension into our lives (Ubuntu TV if you haven’t been paying attention) part of me is still left… wanting more. And, as I can’t get Ubuntu TV i...

Posted on 10 January 2012

A First Look At CTL’s Ubuntu Product Lineup

A First Look At CTL’s Ubuntu Product Lineup

CTL Ubuntu Lineup I had the opportunity yesterday to visit CTL Corp located in Portland, Oregon and sit down with Erik Stromquist, Executive VP and COO and Michael Tupper, Director of Business Deve...

Posted on 11 January 2012

Corel ‘AfterShot Pro’ Brings Lightroom Competitor to Linux

Corel ‘AfterShot Pro’ Brings Lightroom Competitor to Linux

Corel’s newly-launched AfterShot Pro brings Lightroom competitor to Linux The multi-platform application is based upon technology from Bibble Labs whom Corel acquired in early January. AfterShot Pr...

Posted on 12 January 2012

Does God Care Whether Tim Tebow Wins on Saturday? - Owen Strachan - Entertainment

Does God Care Whether Tim Tebow Wins on Saturday? - Owen Strachan - Entertainment

A Christian theology professor tries to answer the question that's dominated conversations in bars, dorm rooms, and the pages of ESPN. AP ImagesTim Tebow succeeds on the football field because of e...

Posted on 13 January 2012

Microsoft to Prevent Linux Booting on ARM Hardware?

Microsoft to Prevent Linux Booting on ARM Hardware?

Fears that Microsoft would abuse the Windows 8 UEFI feature are coming true. Microsoft are blocking Linux from booting on ARM Hardware certified for Windows 8. The backstory Late last year Microsof...

Posted on 14 January 2012

10 Jan

Recycling Computers for Christ

in BibleTime, Christ, Christian, Computers, Freecycle, Interview, Recycle, Refurbish, Ubuntu, Witness, Xiphos

Computers4Christians Refurbished Computers

Ever wondered what you should do about your old PC? You know, the one you want to get rid of, but don't know where to go or who to give it to? Why not give it to Christ? Well, not physically... give it to some guys who are trying to help Christians and others who are needy, and spread the Gospel as they do it.

08 Jan

Top stories for the week ending 7 January 2012

These are the top stories from the past week's editions of Christians in OSS Daily.
Please note that these stories are automatically selected, and therefore do not necessarily reflect the beliefs and values of the Christians in OSS blog.

Goal-Setting: The 90-Day Challenge

 The 90-Day Challenge

It’s that time of year again. New Year’s resolutions, diets, exercise—and goal-setting. I continue to be surprised at how few people take time to write down their goals. Despite the fact that numer...

Posted on 31 December 2011

How To Recharge Your Worship Team with Fresh Momentum

How To Recharge Your Worship Team with Fresh Momentum

In case you haven’t noticed, Church ministry is hard.Always a leadership decision to make. Always an event underway. Never a dull moment.You’ve probably been caught in the cyclone.What am I doing w...

Posted on 1 January 2012

Tentmaking Ideas | ChurchMag

Tentmaking Ideas | ChurchMag

Are you a digital tentmaker?John Saddington wrote an excellent post on his journey as a digital tentmaker and what being a digital tentmaker is all about. I remember the first time I heard the term...

Posted on 2 January 2012

Unity YouTube Lens Updates with Browser Free Video Playback

Unity YouTube Lens Updates with Browser Free Video Playback

Remember that rather handy YouTube Unity lens we covered a few days back? Well it’s just gotten better! What is the YouTube Lens? The Lens and Scope set lets you browse and search YouTube’s million...

Posted on 3 January 2012

How Do You Kill 11 Million People: An Interview with Andy Andrews [Video]

 An Interview with Andy Andrews [Video]

Hello there! If you are new here, you might want to subscribe to my free email updates. For a limited time, I will give you a copy of my brand new e-book, Creating Your Personal Life Plan, just for...

Posted on 4 January 2012

Recommended Reading

Recommended Reading

Future students often ask “what books should I be reading while preparing for the seminary journey?” That’s a great question! Most importantly, you should be carefully reading God’s Holy Word. Beyo...

Posted on 5 January 2012

Ubuntu One Files App Launches on iOS

Ubuntu One Files App Launches on iOS

The Ubuntu One Files app is now available to install from the Apple App Store. Ubuntu One Files gives on-the-go access to music, photos, files and folders stored in your Ubuntu One cloud. In-app op...

Posted on 6 January 2012

Help Test New Screen-Recording App ‘Eidete’

Help Test New Screen-Recording App ‘Eidete’

A new elementary-style screencasting tool is seeking wider testing. Eidete, which is in heavy development, makes use of elementary project technologies like Granite and Contractor. The result is an...

Posted on 7 January 2012

07 Jan

How To Install a Church Office Server

in Church, DHCP, DNS, How To, Internet, Linux, NFS, Office, Router, Samba, Server

How To Install a Church Office Server

As per the site title, this blog is all about Christians and open source software, and how to use OSS in church and Christian organisations. We've discussed introducing and ultimately converting your church to OSS, and asked you what OSS you use in your church.

After blogging about these things, I thought it might be a good idea to write up a How To for those folks who use Linux on a regular basis, and want to set up a central Linux server at their church office.

My server setup at home works pretty well, so I am going to tell you how to make a similar setup.

The Details

  • DHCP for assigning IP addresses to computers on the network
  • DNS for caching of domain names, and serving the local server's internal domain name
  • Samba for filesharing
  • CUPS for a shared printer
  • Arno's IPTables Firewall
  • Apache HTTP server for web based app(s)
  • Jethro PMM for membership management

01 Jan

Top stories for the week ending 31 December 2011

These are the top stories from the past week's editions of Christians in OSS Daily.
Please note that these stories are automatically selected, and therefore do not necessarily reflect the beliefs and values of the Christians in OSS blog.

Cinnamon Project Keeps ‘GNOME 2′ Style Desktop Alive

Cinnamon Project Keeps ‘GNOME 2′ Style Desktop Alive

Like the classic hit song constantly remade to stay modern, fans of the traditional GNOME desktop are keen to keep their preferred desktop layout fresh and available to new audiences. And so was bo...

Posted on 24 December 2011

How To Transfer Videos From Ubuntu To Kindle Fire Using Miro

How To Transfer Videos From Ubuntu To Kindle Fire Using Miro

Kindle Fire is a pure Amazon device, where the format support and storage capacity forces user to buy content from Amazon. I in fact like that Kindle Fire supports VP8, the video format open source...

Posted on 25 December 2011

Android Approved By Pentagon For DoD Usage, Major Setback For iPhone

Android Approved By Pentagon For DoD Usage, Major Setback For iPhone

The Pentagon has approved a version of Android running on Dell hardware to be used by DoD officials, along with the BlackBerry. The approval of Android by the DoD is a major setback for Apple's iPh...

Posted on 26 December 2011

Increasing the Gospel’s Reach as the World Reaches 7 Billion

Increasing the Gospel’s Reach as the World Reaches 7 Billion

One October 31st, the world population broke 7 billion.That would be:7,000,000,000Although the world’s population is bigger than it’s ever been (and getting bigger every second), technology makes t...

Posted on 27 December 2011

[How To] Set Up Blue Yeti Mic in Ubuntu

[How To] Set Up Blue Yeti Mic in Ubuntu

Amongst the items I asked Santa Claus for this year was a shiny new microphone to improve the quality of voice-overs in our YouTube videos. The Blue Yeti was the device the famous white-bearded one...

Posted on 28 December 2011

The Importance of a Leader’s Heart

The Importance of a Leader’s Heart

Three years ago, I was in New York City on business. I was having a relaxing dinner with David Dunham, one of my colleagues and a dear friend. Suddenly, as we were finishing our meal, I started to ...

Posted on 29 December 2011

So Long Productivity – YouTube Lens Puts Browser-free Searching of Videos in the Unity Dash

So Long Productivity – YouTube Lens Puts Browser-free Searching of Videos in the Unity Dash

The fantastic folks over at Spanish blog ‘Ataraeo‘ have put together a nifty a lens for browsing YouTube’s library of videos straight from the Dash. The package, a YouTube ‘Scope’ (the search engin...

Posted on 30 December 2011

Goal-Setting: The 90-Day Challenge

 The 90-Day Challenge

It’s that time of year again. New Year’s resolutions, diets, exercise—and goal-setting. I continue to be surprised at how few people take time to write down their goals. Despite the fact that numer...

Posted on 31 December 2011

25 Dec

Top stories for the week ending 24 December 2011

These are the top stories from the past week's editions of Christians in OSS Daily.
Please note that these stories are automatically selected, and therefore do not necessarily reflect the beliefs and values of the Christians in OSS blog.

Everything You Need Know About Church & Technology

Everything You Need Know About Church & Technology

ChurchMag is all about Church and technology.It’s what we do.We present to you the infographic of all infographics.If you care about Church technology, and I know you do, pass this along![Click for...

Posted on 17 December 2011

How To Connect Your Android Device To Linux (Ubuntu, openSUSE)

How To Connect Your Android Device To Linux (Ubuntu, openSUSE)

Android now uses MTP instead of mass storage which means you can't just plug your Android device to your Linux box and access the content. Since the MTP support in Linux is bad, it could be frustra...

Posted on 18 December 2011

Midori Gets Faster Startup, GTK3 Improvements in Lastest Release

Midori Gets Faster Startup, GTK3 Improvements in Lastest Release

A new release of lightweight webkit web browser Midori is available for download. The update, which bumps the browser to version 0.4.3, sees Midori gain a number of improvements, amongst which are:...

Posted on 19 December 2011

More Patent Trouble For Google As BT Alleges Infringement

More Patent Trouble For Google As BT Alleges Infringement

The world of patent litigation seems less and less connected to the real world as the rate of change and development outpaces the rate at which companies can patent new technologies, or even, as BT...

Posted on 20 December 2011

Saturday Sunday Share #20 | ChurchMag

Saturday Sunday Share #20 | ChurchMag

Do you have something new you’d like to share?Would you like some feedback on a current project you’re working on?The guys at 8BIT are always throwing ideas around to each other, getting feedback o...

Posted on 21 December 2011

Linux Deepin Software Centre to be made Available for Ubuntu

Linux Deepin Software Centre to be made Available for Ubuntu

Ubuntu users envious of Chinese Linux distro’s slickly-styled ‘Software Centre’ won’t nee to be green-eyed for too long: it’s coming to Ubuntu.  Aenon Sun, an employee of the company who support th...

Posted on 22 December 2011

Why Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Matters

Why Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Matters

John Piper and Darrin Patrick recently discussed the Bible's teaching on biblical manhood and womanhood. In this ten-minute video they share about their journey to embrace biblical complementarity ...

Posted on 23 December 2011

Cinnamon Project Keeps ‘GNOME 2′ Style Desktop Alive

Cinnamon Project Keeps ‘GNOME 2′ Style Desktop Alive

Like the classic hit song constantly remade to stay modern, fans of the traditional GNOME desktop are keen to keep their preferred desktop layout fresh and available to new audiences. And so was bo...

Posted on 24 December 2011

20 Dec

Does Your Church Use OSS?

in Article, Church, Linux, Open Source, Software, Windows

Instead of me writing an article, I thought it might be time to ask those who read this blog about their church's open source usage. So, in no particular order, here are some questions:

  • Does your church use open source software?
  • Does it use OSS on Windows, or a full OSS stack (e.g. Linux/*BSD)?
  • What open source applications does your church use?
  • Does your pastor know he's using OSS?
  • If you use OSS other than the usual suspects (Firefox, Thunderbird, etc), then what do you use it for?

At a guess, I'll say that most churches are probably in the "we use Firefox on Windows" category.

Copyright © 2009-2011 Raoul Snyman. All original content is licensed under the CC BY-SA license.