Ossoftware's Blog

The best media player on the planet.

ossoftware — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:12:45 +0000

Choosing a media player entirely depends on what you want from the player. It’s a big difference whether you are looking for a player that holds maximum codec’s, or if you rather want a player that performs optimally on different operating systems.

After a frisk through a bunch of players, three names came forward; Windows Media Player, VLC player and Real player. Most people are off course used to the windows media player, which is the default player on Windows, but which of these is the best one ? Well the answer is certainly the VLC player. It’s a free open source multimedia player supporting an extensive range of audio and video format files. VLC has even the ability to play a incomplete or damaged video download, something impossible for the others.

But as I said before, everyone will have their own best player, it all depends on what you are expecting from it.

Manuel Meurisse

Source

From point A to point B.

ossoftware — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:09:00 +0000

There is no need always writing about a serious subject, so let’s get started with Pingus, a computer game in which your goal is to get your fellow penguins from point A to point B safely, making sure not too many of your buddies fall of the cliffs or get stuck in the water.

Pingus is created at the end of 1998 with the intention to create a free Lemmings ( a puzzle game ) clone. The ‘free’ in this sentence means you can have the sources and allowed and encouraged to improve them or distribute them. Over the years, the original goal has become something more than just a clone. The game has now a built-in level editor, some new actions and a multiplayer mode. Despite all this improvements, the graphics of this 2-D game stay sharp and the audio is a bit disappointing, the main reasons why the game is only being played during a study break or something like that.

Manuel Meurisse

Source

Mozilla, the success of open source.

ossoftware — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 20:02:35 +0000

In 1998, a global community was created to host Netscape Communicator as “open software, called Mozilla. It was the first time in history that a software powerhouse was giving away the source code. Everyone was now allowed to share and improve the software freely.

Only ten years later, one- hundred percent of Mozilla software is open source. The organization, who has a mission to promote openness and innovation on the internet, created the Firefox web browser which has now over 180 million users. The web browser goes up against Safari, probably well known by Apple users, and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, owning 20% of the worldwide market share. Mozilla, also a public benefit organization says their creations belong to everyone. Not only the products are completely free for everyone, the entire code base as well is a shared public resource.

In the end, their technology is all focused on one single goal : improving the Internet.

Manuel Meurisse

Source

Google announces Chrome OS

ossoftware — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:30:25 +0000

End 2010, Google will release its own Linux-based operating system: Chrome OS.

Google distinguishes itself from other operating systems by bringing the internet into prominence more than ever. The entire OS is meant to run on-line, which means that even programs wouldn’t need to be installed on the computer, but run via internet servers. The same thing with user data, like photo’s, documents,… This would imply a much faster computer, starring the internet browser in a leading role. The fact that the entire OS is mainly based on the internet shouldn’t be a big surprise, knowing that Googles income largely comes from the internet.
The Linux-community will really take advantage with Chrome being open source. Each improvement Google makes to Chrome OS, can be used in other Linux distributions.

Frederik Van Gansen

Linux source code increases with 30%

ossoftware — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:26:52 +0000

Despite its market share of approximately 1% in the desktop market (with the percentages of Windows and Mac 95,52% and 5,12% respectively), the Linux Foundation has a very vivid development community.

Unlike other operating systems, Linux is not being developed by one corporation. Every Linux kernel is being developed by approximately 1000 developers working for more than 200 different corporations. From 2008 to 2009, the Linux source code increased with 2,7 million lines of code, which brings the total to more than 11,5 million. With an average of 10 923 lines of code added a day (and 5547 removed due to be out-of-date) this means an increase of more than 30%.
According to the Linux Foundation a reason for this growth is the increased demand for Linux, especially for the booming netbook market.
Frederik Van Gansen

Linux

ossoftware — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:19:07 +0000

Linux, one of the most prominent examples of Open Source Software (OSS), is a name that sounds familiar to most of us. But what exactly is Linux?

Linux is a computer operating system (like Windows or Mac) based on the Linux kernel (comparable to the engine of a car) originally written in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, a Finnish software engineer. Because Linux is open source, the source code has always been accessible and since then, thousands of developers have improved it. Throughout those 18 years, Linux has evolved from a simple operating system, only understandable by experts, to a complete, well known and easy-to-use operating system.

Nowadays Linux has taken a wide variety of forms. From mobile devices to complex server parks, for every branch there is a Linux distribution. However, unlike most people think, Linux isn’t always free. We can distinguish commercially distributions (which costs money) and community-driven distributions, written be literally thousands of volunteer programmers , which can be downloaded freely.
Frederik Van Gansen

Internet Explorer losing market share

ossoftware — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:55:53 +0000

To come back on our discussion about the browsers, we’ll now discuss the market share of all browsers in the United States of America (Data from July 2008 untill July 2009). Just as we said earlier, we can see that Internet Explorer (version 6.0, 7.0 and version 8.0) still controls the greatest part of the market (54,4 % in July 2009). But notice the difference between the percentage in July and the peak of 65,8 % in March that same year.

Since March, Internet Explorer has lost a 11,4 % to other browsers. Firefox 3.0 on the other hand, has known a long-term rise by 17 % since July 2008, now capturing a 27,6 % of the market share. We also notice that other ‘well-known’ Web browsers like Safari and Chrome still lay in the shadow of these 2 ‘giants’ altough we can see a rise of the dotted graph wich includes Safari 4, and Chrome 2.0 (newest versions). So, Internet Explorer 7.0 still holds the leadership at the moment but the popular browser will be passed by another leader soon or later. The question is: will Firefox or Internet Explorer 8.0 be the new number 1?

Nicolas Van Den Noortgate (Source)

The best Web browser?

ossoftware — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:40:03 +0000

Many people, just like I do, wonder if they should use Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari or just stick to Internet Explorer, lately updated to version 8, as their Web browser. As we can see in some statistics (Market Share) most people still use Internet Explorer as their main Web browser, which is not unusual if you know that Internet Explorer is pre-installed on every PC/laptop using Windows. Safari is another pre-installed browser, attached to MAC OS from the multinational Apple. Other, like Firefox or Chrome, are browsers we can download via Internet. But which is best?

Well, many studies have been taken concerning speed, security, possibility of add-ons,… but the best performance in these domains were all given by a different browser. If you’re looking for a browser that works very fast you should use Chrome (altough it’s just milliseconds faster than the other browsers). If you want the best security, you should take Internet Explorer. Is ‘innovation’ and the possibility to add ‘add-ons’ appealing to you, then Firefox is something for you. As we can see, the choice of a browser will depend on the preferences of each person. At this moment, there is no such thing as ‘Thé Web browser’.

Nicolas Van Den Noortgate

From exclusive rights to ‘Open Source Software’!

ossoftware — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:58:50 +0000

In earlier days, you bought a PC, along with all the pre-installed software on it. In the meantime, the software vendors were creating new software or just adjusting the existing software for better results. And before you knew it, your PC was not up-to-date anymore. So, if people wanted to remain up-to-date, they went to the shop and bought the new software that was created by the software vendors. That was the only solution because only the software vendors had the exclusive rights and the source code to apply changes at their software, which was their strenght. People were not able to adjust their software programs by themselves because they didn’t have access to the source code, so they kept on buying updates and new versions. So by selling these new versions over and over again vendors were making a lot of money.

But nowadays we have the ‘Open Source Software’, software created in such ways that everyone has access to the source code, giving the user the possibility to apply changes at the software, according to his preferences. In this ‘not-profitable’ way , volunteers all over the world collaborate on continual enhancements to software. So, the costs are lowered and the software quality will be improved.

Nicolas Van Den Noorgate ( Source)