sources

With Macs and MacBook Pros you get used to listening to audio from the built-in speakers, but what if you want better audio? For a quick, easy, and free solution try SoundSource. This app will allow you to use your external speakers without any hassle.

SoundSource enables you to switch your audio input and output sources with a single click. It's a free app and very quick to download. Once opened the app adds a menu-bar item, rather than an icon in the dock below. A small headphone icon will indicate when the app is working. The interface is … Read more

Even the busiest people can use a little coaching now and then, but most of the time they're on their own. Task Coach is a free, open-source task and to-do list manager that can help you manage the most hectic schedule and just about any kind of task. For example, you can drag an e-mail message from Outlook, Thunderbird, and other e-mail clients and drop it right into Task Coach to view, attach a task or subtask, or create a new task or reminder. It can track time spent on tasks, export task data as CSV or HTML, and … Read more

CSS Variables, a handy technology to ease Web page programming, could be one casualty in Safari with Google moving its resources to its browser engine, Blink.

Google engineers wanted to "fork" the WebKit browser engine project that underlies both Safari and Chrome so they could accelerate the pace of Chrome development and adopt changes too extensive to fit into a single open-source project. Even though splitting Blink away from WebKit may make each browser engine more nimble, it also means it's harder to cooperate.

That's because common features must be developed and maintained by duplicate teams … Read more

The WebKit browser engine is becoming a less flexible foundation for open-source projects with the departure of Google from the project this week and Apple's consequent paring back of the project.

WebKit is a broad project that includes participation from many interested parties -- not just Apple and Google, but also BlackBerry, Samsung, Amazon, Oracle, Adobe Systems, and the programmers involved with the KDE and Gnome user interfaces for Linux. Indeed, the open-source project began as KDE's KHTML engine for the Konqueror browser before Apple got involved.

Google's Chrome team left WebKit this week, forking the open-source … Read more

Working with multiple e-mail addresses and inboxes often requires a management client. Mozilla Thunderbird for Mac, despite its dated look, performs well as an open-source e-mail manager.

As an open-source project, this program is available as freeware with no restrictions or payments required. Download and installation occurred quickly and without any problems. After initial setup, which prompted us as to whether the program should be the default email client, Mozilla Thunderbird for Mac welcomed us with a well-designed main interface. Aesthetically, the graphics were dated and would have been appropriate for a program several years old, as opposed to a … Read more

Blink, Google's new fork of the WebKit browser engine, is alive.

Yesterday, Google announced the project, which splits its browser work from Apple's in the open-source WebKit project. Today, Blink is up and running.

The first updates -- including a new list of 36 Blink "owners" who have authority to approve changes -- are arriving.

"Chrome 28 will be the first blinking release," Chrome programmer Mike West said in a Hacker News comment. The current stable version of Chrome is version 26; new versions arrive about every six weeks.

"The repository seems to … Read more

Today, Google launched Blink, its fork of the WebKit browser engine, and members of Google's Chrome team clearly are excited about their liberation.

With the fork, Google will concentrate its core browser development efforts on Blink, which will gradually diverge from the WebKit project on which it's based. You can read more about the context and history leading to Blink in CNET's coverage, or read the official Blink blog post and Blink FAQ for the party line.

But to get a feel for the emotion involved, check the commentary from the Chrome team members themselves. They're … Read more

A years-long marriage of convenience that linked Google and Apple browser technologies is ending in divorce.

In a move that Google says will technologically liberate both Chrome and Safari, the company has begun its own offshoot of the WebKit browser engine project called Blink. Initially it uses the same software code base that all WebKit-based browsers share, but over time it will diverge into a totally separate project, Google announced today.

The move marks the end of years of direct WebKit programming cooperation between the two rivals. WebKit is an open-source project, meaning that anyone can use and modify the … Read more

Google today is "taking a stand on open source and patents," vowing not to sue anyone on specified patents unless first attacked.

The company, which today announced its Open Patent Non-Assertion Pledge, said to start with, it has identified 10 patents related to MapReduce, a model for processing large data sets. It has pledged not to sue any user, distributor, or developer of open-source software based on patents related to MapReduce.

Duane Valz, Google senior patent counsel, said in a blog post that Google wants to ensure open source software remains open: