VLMC- VideoLAN Movie Creator- Coming soon!

This just in! The VideoLAN organization, makers of VLC, have decided to throw their hat into the video editing ring, and plan on releasing a cross-platform (Mac, Linux, Windows) video editor called VLMC, or VideoLAN Movie Creator. The project is still in its early stages, but if you're a developer-type, and you wanted to access the current working tree, you can fetch the current working tree with Git:

git clone git://github.com/VLMC/vlmc.git

Despite its early status, I will be playing close attention to this project, given the quality of VLC.

New Linux Journal Article: KDE4 Custom Slide-show Wallpapers

Recently, LinuxJournal.com published the fourth (and most likely last) article explaining the creation of transitioning (slide-show) backgrounds in KDE4. The article series now covers GNOME, XFCE, KDE3, and KDE4. This marks the seventh article that I've written for linuxjournal.com.

New Linux Journal Article: XFCE Slide Show backgrounds

Hello again!

I've been published again on Linux Journal's website. The article is about creating transitioning backgrounds in XFCE. XFCE was relatively easy to configure, but my hacks to add functionality were a little temperamental. This marks the third article I've written about the slide show backgrounds in Linux. Enjoy!

Muppets create youtube channel- over 13 million views in first month!

The internet, at its best, is a true meritocracy. Something that is of high quality will naturally rise to the top if given the opportunity to do so.

Enter the Muppets.

In mid-November, the Muppet Studio rolled out their own youtube channel. In less than a month, it has already received over 50 thousand subscribers and 13 million views.

Here is an example of the muppets videos that have recently gone viral:

Congrats, Muppets Studio. It's good to see you again.

New Linux Journal Article: Slide Show backgrounds in KDE3

In response to the article that I posted on linuxjournal.com about transitioning GNOME wallpapers, the web editor suggested that I show people how to create desktop background slide shows in other desktop environments, as well.

Next stop: Slide show backgrounds in KDE3. Enjoy!

The Pandora Console is nearly here!

In anticipation of the upcoming OpenPandora console release, some videos of the OS and final case have recently been posted. I will share them with you.

OS Snippet #1:



OS Snippet #2:



OS Snippet #3:



Here is one of the first assembled Pandora consoles:



Multiple Pandoras in action, at a variety of different tasks:



EvilDragon's Pandora Prototype:



N64/Analog "nubs" demo:



D-Pad demo with Picodrive:



These are very exciting developments. I am among the people who pre-ordered this console, and I have been waiting patiently for it to arrive. Good things come to those who wait. I look forward to getting my Pandora console in the near future!
Visit Pandora Press for more Pandora Console info from the unofficial blog.
The official Pandora Console page is located here.

New Linux Journal Article: Custom Transitioning Wallpaper backgrounds in Gnome

I was recently published on Linux Journal about creating a slideshow that runs as a background in the Gnome desktop environment.

For those of you that learn more with videos, I was able to find a video of someone manually editing the XML and creating a custom slideshow background.



Enjoy!

Intel announces 48 core CPU! Dubbed "Single-chip Cloud Computing".

Intel recently announced a 48 core processor, dubbing it "Single-chip Cloud Computing". We are reaching the point where our children will look at us and ask "Back in the olden days, did you really have to use a computer with only one computing core? It must have been so slow!"

Here are some videos that explain the technology:








Note in the first video (starting around 1:40), they mention the motherboard and operating system setup for testing a chip such as this:
"...We also developed a Linux operating system for this platform based on the full-featured standard Linux kernel where we applied the necessary changes for the specifics of this experimental platform..."
Score one for Intel, but give the assist to Linux.

Props to HotHardware for their excellent coverage of the news.
For more videos, check out Intel's YouTube channel.

Seeing the developments in Linux private cloud computing, such as Ubuntu's Enterprise Cloud and ParaScale's Cloud Storage Solutions, chips such as this one will help pave the way for task specific operating systems and appliances in addition to coding projects that will take advantage of the massively parallel power that these chips possess. We live in exciting times...

Virtualbox releases version 3.1!

Hello all!

Yesterday (Nov. 30th), Sun announced its first major update to VirtualBox 3 with the release of version 3.1. The major new features include:

• Teleportation (aka live migration); migrate a live VM session from one host to another (see the manual for more information)
• VM states can now be restored from arbitrary snapshots instead of only the last one, and new snapshots can be taken from other snapshots as well ("branched snapshots"; see the manual for more information)
• 2D video acceleration for Windows guests; use the host video hardware for overlay stretching and color conversion (see the manual for more information)
• More flexible storage attachments: CD/DVD drives can be attached to an arbitrary IDE controller, and there can be more than one such drive (the manual for more information)
• The network attachment type can be changed while a VM is running
• Complete rewrite of experimental USB support for OpenSolaris hosts making use of the latest USB enhancements in Solaris Nevada 124 and higher
• Significant performance improvements for PAE and AMD64 guests (VT-x and AMD-V only; normal (non-nested) paging)
• Experimental support for EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface; see the manual for more information)
• Support for paravirtualized network adapters (virtio-net; see the manual for more information)

In addition to the major features, a slew of minor fixes have been included, such as fixes in the 3D support of guest OSes while playing games such as Unreal Tournament.

As always, see the Changelog and the user manual (in PDF or HTML) for all the details. I am incredibly impressed with the pace of VirtualBox's development. Every time I turn around, they add another cool feature.

Ars Technica has a review of version 3.1, as well.