There was a time, when open source software was synonymous with being cheap or on the fringe. In other words, companies embraced closed source options, because that was the thing to do -- there were not many options. Quite frankly, I do not blame businesses for playing it safe.

Today however, open source software and technologies, including Linux, are viable and attractive options. Companies like Red Hat have paved the way for others to move open source from the fringe to the spotlight. Today, major player HP acquires a company named Eucalyptus to bolster its open source technology in the cloud.

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There are so many Linux distributions to choose from. Depending on your perspective, this can be a good or bad thing. You see, for many, using Linux is about choice -- you get to choose the distro, packages and environment. There is truth to this; however, many others, including myself, often wonder if the community's efforts are too fragmented. In other words, when talent is spread thin, progress may be slowed.

One distro which should not be discussed in this debate is Gentoo; it has been around for 12 years and is not some recently launched project. Hell, Google chose this distro as the base for Chrome OS, so it must be good; seriously, the search-giant's operating system is pretty darn stable. Gentoo Linux has reached version 20140826 and it looks like a winner.

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SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a monitoring system which reports on various reliability indicators, and sometimes highlights imminent hardware failure of HDDs and SSDs.

These predictions can sometimes be questionable, but SMART still has plenty to offer, and the open source HDD Guardian (also available in a portable edition) provides a simple and straightforward way to find out more.

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The Linux desktop community has reached a sad state. Ubuntu 14.04 was a disappointing release and Fedora is taking way too long between releases. Hell, OpenSUSE is an overall disaster. It is hard to recommend any Linux-based operating system beyond Mint. Even the popular KDE plasma environment and its associated programs are in a transition phase, moving from 4.x to 5.x. As exciting as KDE 5 may be, it is still not ready for prime-time; it is recommended to stay with 4 for now.

In the midst of disappointing releases from the big names, relative newcomer KaOS keeps plugging away and focusing on getting better and being on the forefront of all things KDE. Today, KaOS 2014.08 is made available and it looks amazing. The exciting news is that KDE 4.14.0 is present, making it very modern and stable.

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There are many ways to exchange data between applications, but the clipboard is probably the simplest. Copy here, paste there: easy.

The open-source HaveClip takes this idea to the next level by synchronizing clipboards across your network. Copy text, an image, maybe a file on one computer -- Windows, Mac or Linux -- and it’ll be (almost) immediately available from another.

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The UK government has formally announced that all government departments are to use the open document format [ODF] for documents immediately in a move that is part of the government’s total savings target of £1.2 billion.

A press release stated that the ODF standard is being used for sharing and collaborating on government documents whereas PDF/A or HTML is becoming the standard for viewing government documents.

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As a teenager, I wasted much of my life and loved every minute of it. Rather than do anything productive, I would vegetate in front of the TV watching movies like Smokey and the Bandit on WPIX. The concept of actually learning something outside of school was foreign -- who wants to learn during their free time? In my defense though, the 90's didn't offer much outside of TV and AOL chat rooms.

Nowadays however, teens are afforded some very cool opportunities, including Google's Code-In. If you aren't familiar, it is a program for teens aged 13-17 to both learn about and participate in open source technologies. Today, Google announces that it has improved KDE with the help of some of these teens.

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Trust in government is not exactly at an all-time high. Sure, there are oppressive governments such as Iran and China that filter and block web content, but even the USA has a spotty record. With all the news of PRISM and other spying programs, it is hard to tell which way is up anymore.

One way to solve this dilemma is through transparency and honesty. Unfortunately, as long as governments use closed-source software, it is hard to audit and trust the actions. Today, Canonical announces that not only has Munich taken an open approach to computing with Ubuntu, but the city is saving millions of euros too. Using open-source software and saving money? Hell, maybe all governments should make the switch to Linux.

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Windows is a highly configurable operating system, with hundreds of settings and options available. But taking full advantage of this can be a challenge, as many settings are buried deep in the Registry, while others are scattered around a host of programs and applets.

Windows Tweaker aims to help by giving easy access to 100-plus system tweaks (on Windows Vista and later) from a single interface. It’s portable, open source and entirely free of adware and other annoyances, so we downloaded the latest version 5.0 to take a look.

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I love using and tinkering with Linux -- it is a very rewarding hobby. However, I am quite busy most days and don't have as much time for tinkering and playing around as I would like. Still, I enjoy using Linux-based operating systems for general use, and for that I demand something easy and mindless. There are so many distributions to choose from (some may argue, too many), but lately I just go with dependable and easy-to-use Mint.

I am a huge fan of Gnome 3, but I will concede that it isn't the most productive environment when working with a large monitor. While Cinnamon is great, it cannot be customized to my liking and is overall not as pretty as the superior KDE. Today, the Mint Team announces the availability of Linux Mint 17 KDE and I am excited.

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Even though it has gone to the effort of switching to another rendering engine to reach more users, Norwegian software company Opera, in mid-2013, ceased to further update the Linux version of its browser, leaving users without new features, bug fixes and security patches. In the meantime, Opera's main competitors, like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, continued to give them the level of support that they deserve.

Now, after close to a one-year hiatus, the company behind the well-known browser announces the availability of Opera Developer 24 for Linux (and, of course, OS X and Windows). It is an unexpected release, and also great news for those hoping to witness the browser's triumphant return in the land of the open-source kernel.

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Accurately transcribing audio and video files can be a long and difficult process. No matter how fast you can type, it seems there’s always someone who can talk faster. And then mumble half of what they say, leaving you frequently rewinding to try and figure it out.

There is no simple solution to this, but specialist transcription software should at least save you some time. It doesn’t have to be expensive, either -- the open source easytranscript offers some useful starting features entirely for free.

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Firefox is like a good friend I haven't seen in a very long time. Sure, I still care about Firefox, but I don't care to use it every day. There is nothing wrong with it, but it no longer offers a compelling reason to choose it over competitors. Even Internet Explorer 11 has proven to be a great browser. You know that old joke, where people would say they only used IE once, to download Firefox? Well, the tables have unfortunately turned.

Mozilla is in trouble and no one is happy about it. Everyone thinks fondly of the Firefox browser. It is just worrying that the company's major source of income is Google, the maker of a competing browser. Also, there was the whole CEO scandal, that caused many people to question the leadership at the organization. But ultimately, the question is, if the Google cash-cow stops, where would money come from? Today, Mozilla may have an answer, albeit partial, by partnering with the New York Times, Washington Post and Knight Foundation. Wait, what?

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As one of the contributors to Black Duck’s eighth annual Future of Open Source Survey, the industry’s leading indicator of open source software (OSS) industry trends, JFrog was pleased to be able to help show the world the true impact of open source software. This was the first year that we decided to take part in the survey. We felt that it was a natural partnership, since our work revolves around regularly interacting with the OSS community to help create and distribute open source software.

As the survey reported, 56 percent of corporations expect to contribute to more open source projects in 2014 -- something we’ve already seen firsthand. By working directly with software developers, we have been able to witness the next wave of open source. We’re seeing companies like Twitter, Netflix, and Ericsson actually willing to pay developers to participate in the OSS community, and both develop and use open source in their own frameworks. With 55 percent of this year’s respondents also indicating that OSS helped create new products and services, there has clearly been a change in the way enterprises look at open source; it has truly become a crucial element in the development of new, innovative technologies.

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Ah Linux, we meet again. I am on a perpetual journey to find the perfect Linux distro. Sadly, I am finding it not to be elusive, but downright non-existent. You see, operating systems based on the open-source kernel are very fragmented in experience. It is hard for the stars to align and have everything you want be represented. Maybe you like the available environments for a distro, but hate the package manager. Or maybe you love the community support, but find the release schedule too slow.

While not perfect, Linux Mint is what I have found to be the best choice for many, including myself. It is based on Ubuntu, so it has the awesome APT package manager, while also supporting Cinnamon, Mate and other environments. The tweaks and polish that the Mint team delivers makes it a robust and familiar experience. Well, fire up your torrent and ISO writing software and grab your nearest blank DVD or flash drive -- Linux Mint 17 is finally here!

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