During the early years of GeekTimeLinux, Dave had several friends who helped write for the web site. Doing that again would be the way to keep the site alive and fulfill its’ original mission, which was to promote Linux as an operating system and share information with new users to make it easier to use and promote. If you have ideas along that topic, post here as a comment and I will eventually work through them and contact you if it seems like a viable option.

I know Dave would like to have this site carry on and with help, we can get it back to being more of what he had in mind in the early days.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Telegraph is reporting that T-Mobile’s parent, Deutsche Telekom AG, could submit a bid for Sprint within the next few weeks. Sprint’s current market value is $10.8 billion with debt of $21 billion. Sprint shares climbed 10 percent Monday in the wake of the reports.

Sprint is the third-largest U.S. wireless carrier behind Verizon with 80 million subscribers and AT&T with 78 million subscribers. T-Mobile is the fourth-largest. If Sprint and T-Mobile merged, they would battle with AT&T for second place.

Musical Networks

Such a merger would have economies of scale in terms of gross subscriber numbers, but not in terms of networking technology, according to Avi Greengart, an analyst at Current Analysis. That’s because the two companies promote multiple wireless standards.

Sprint’s Nextel brand phones run on the iDEN network while Sprint-branded phones run on CDMA. Meanwhile, Sprint is promoting Wi-MAX for its 4G agreement with Clearwire. T-Mobile uses GSM for 2G and GSM in the 1700 band, which is fairly unique globally, for 3G.

“If T-Mobile acquired Sprint, they’d have a tremendous amount of spectrum assets, but they’d have them all over the place being used with lots of different interface technologies,” Greengart said. “Figuring out strategically which ones to keep and which ones to ditch and how to get from point A to point B would be a mess.”

According to Zacks Investment Research, T-Mobile’s larger competitors deliver services more cost-effectively. The result is that T-Mobile is losing market share. T-Mobile had 15 percent market share in 2007. That declined to about 12 percent at the end of 2008.

Meanwhile, Sprint has struggles of its…

Linux 2.6.31's best five features
Computerworld
Lately, most of the improvements in the Linux kernel have been for server users. In the latest release though, Linux 2.6.31 …

]]> http://geektimelinux.com/2009/09/14/linux-2-6-31s-best-five-features-computerworld/feed/ 0 http://geektimelinux.com/2009/09/14/open-source-ham-%e2%80%93-is-that-like-free-range-chicken/ http://geektimelinux.com/2009/09/14/open-source-ham-%e2%80%93-is-that-like-free-range-chicken/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:09:33 +0000 Admin tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/58d3c399b0348371 If you have not stopped by the #linuxjournal IRC channel yet, I would encourage you to do so. You never know who you will meet or what sort of new ideas will germinate. For example: the other day, while having !coffee and a danish, I was chatting with our fearless Editor-in-Geek, Carlie, and she was commenting that someone had left the radio on. No, not that radio, the Amateur radio. This got my attention as I was not aware Carlie had her ticket (she does not – I am working on her – browbeating is the term my XYL uses, but I digress). As many of you know, I too am an Amateur Radio operator – a ham. [I should note that personally, I don't like the term...it does not mean anything, but it is what most folks know us as so...]. And we started chatting.

The 160GB is now priced at $229, which had been the price for the 40GB system.

The move comes only a few days after the event last week where Apple released new iPods and revised iTunes software. Some industry observers have speculated that Apple TV will soon evolve into a more varied product line, as iPods have done, and as competing products and services are emerging regularly.

Net-Based Movies on TV

Apple TV allows a user to rent or buy high-definition TV shows and movies for viewing on a TV set, as well as listen to iTunes music, watch podcasts, or see photos. Content can be obtained from Apple’s iTunes Store, YouTube, Flickr, MobileMe or any computer running Mac OS X or Windows.

While Apple’s next moves in this category are being monitored closely, the trend toward watching Net-based movies and TV shows on TV sets is growing rapidly. There are reports that Microsoft will soon allow streaming and instant-on high-definition movies on the Xbox 360.

A variety of TV manufacturers have also announced deals with online video services in recent months. Earlier this month, Mitsubishi said two of its new TVs, each with an Ethernet port for high-speed Internet access, will feature the VUDU service.

As Apple lowers and streamlines its add-on box lineup, VUDU is moving out of the separate-box category, concentrating on embedding its service into consumer devices. In the Mitsubishi sets, for instance, VUDU is part of the sets’ circuitry and software. VUDU offers more than 16,000 titles, including 2,200 HD movies, and the service also offers access to YouTube,…

Linux Mint Xfce Community Edition Released
ZDNet UK
A Community Edition of Linux Mint using the Xfce desktop was announced over the weekend. This combines two of my favorite things in Linux – the Mint …
Softpedia Linux Weekly, Issue 62Softpedia
Linux Mint 7 XFCE releasedThe H
Lubuntu: Floats Like a Butterfly, Stings Like a BeeEthiopian Review
Softpedia
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]]> http://geektimelinux.com/2009/09/14/linux-mint-xfce-community-edition-released-zdnet-uk/feed/ 0 http://geektimelinux.com/2009/09/14/ubuntu-gaming-made-easy-with-playdeb/ http://geektimelinux.com/2009/09/14/ubuntu-gaming-made-easy-with-playdeb/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 10:01:42 +0000 Admin tag:google.com,2005:reader/item/2a3f6a957218cec0 Playdeb is a gaming repository for Ubuntu – aimed to provide titles already available on getdeb.net in an easier to install and update format. This article show you how to install Game from playdeb.net on ubuntu 9.04 jaunty jackalope.