Forge

Are you disappointed or psyched that so many new technologies draw inspiration directly from films and TV? First it was Samsung citing "2001: A Space Odyssey" as an influence for their Samsung Galaxy tablet and all the reports of "Minority Report" tech coming soon. And now Google looks like it watched too many Star Trek episodes while designing its augmented-reality glasses.… Read more

Fans of Sony's multimedia production and editing tools get some happy news today with the release of updated versions of Vegas, ACID, and Sound Forge. Vegas Movie Studio HD 10 Platinum ($99.95) is a user-friendly video-editing application packed with all the features of the previous version as well as some handy new tools. Worth noting is Image Stabilization, which allows anyone with shaky footage to quickly and simply even out the shot with a selection of optimized presets. There's also a slideshow creator, new color correction tools, GPU-accelerated AVC rendering, and a feature that lets you burn … Read more

You might not recognize the name Geeknet, but you probably know its popular tech sites such as Sourceforge, Slashdot, Ohloh, Think Geek, Freshmeat, and the recently acquired Geek.com.

When Geeknet opened a new data center in Chicago two years ago, the network operations team wanted to centralize management of hundreds of systems serving the Geeknet Web network.

Geeknet's servers run 100 percent open-source software, including CentOS Linux, and a number of open-source Web servers, mail servers, databases (MySQL, Postgres, Memchache), along with a large number of source code repositories running Subversion.

The company needed a monitoring and management … Read more

Apple has an app store, of course. So does Microsoft. Google has two, one for Android and now one for Wave. In fact, it's hard to find anyone who doesn't have an app store these days.

We're swimming in app stores. Or drowning.

I'm serious. At the Symbian conference in London on Tuesday, I attended a panel that was overrun with app stores. Nokia, Symbian, GetJar, Sony Ericsson, Handmark, and Handango were all promoting their respective app stores, each talking about how great theirs is.

They're probably right. They probably are all great. But how … Read more

We all have secrets, but growing problems like identity theft put a premium on cybersecurity. Safety need not be costly, though: Encryption programs such as CryptoForge can help you protect your stuff. CryptoForge can encode your files and messages in up to four algorithms, which are strong enough protection to let you store items on unsecured media such as the flash drives and memory sticks and send things safely over the Internet. It has a built-in file shredder that does much more than delete files and folders, too.

CryptoForge's installation wizard speeds the setup process. The 30-day trial version … Read more

Crossword puzzle and word search enthusiasts who want to try their hand at creating their own will appreciate the tools and help found in Crossword Forge. While you won't be able to print or view your puzzles without the answers displayed, you can still get a good sense of how this program works.

The interface is designed for business, with tabs for easy access to create your puzzle in steps, from the title to the background. The hardest part is coming up with the clues and answers. Crossword Forge makes the rest fairly simple, and you need only type … Read more

SourceForge on Thursday announced its acquisition of Ohloh, operator of Ohloh.net, an open-source data and community service. While the acquisition makes sense--Ars Technica dubs the move "the latest in a string of very smart moves that are rapidly turning SourceForge into the collaboration powerhouse that it originally aspired to become"--I wanted to know more about the "how" of the deal.

When did the deal take shape, and how did it come about?

To get answers, I asked Jon Sobel, group president of media at SourceForge, to provide some details.

Q: How and when … Read more

SourceForge, despite competition, remains the leading repository for open-source projects. Many of the world's best open-source projects--JBoss, MySQL, SugarCRM, and others--start there, and plenty never leave.

For these reasons and others, each year I look forward to the SourceForge.net Community Choice Awards, which allow the open-source community to vote on the industry's top projects. SourceForge has just announced that nominations are now open for the Sourceforge.net Community Choice Awards 2009.

While such direct democracy has yielded some odd choices in the past, the competition remains one of the best places to discover up-and-coming open-source projects.

This … Read more

Many open-source projects would love to offer a hosted version of their products, but lack the resources to be able to do so. SourceForge, the world's largest repository of open-source projects, is therefore stepping into the void to host open-source applications.

The company actually announced this new program in October 2008, initially with just three applications: LimeSurvey, MediaWiki, and phpBB. Since then, SourceForge has added another half-dozen or so applications, and plans to grow the service further.

In a conversation I had on Thursday with Ross Turk, SourceForge community manager, I suggested that this could be a way for … Read more