3 Students Accepted for Google Summer of Code 2018

Since 2006, we have had the opportunity for Google to sponsor students to help out with Krita. For 2018 we have 3 talented students working over the summer. Over the next few months they will be getting more familiar with the Krita code base and working on their projects. They will be blogging about their experience and what they are learning along the way. We will be sure to share any progress or information along the way. Here is a summary of their projects and what they hope to achieve.

Plasma widgets – Beltway Bandit Unlimited

The concept of addons is an interesting one. At some point over the past decade or two, companies developing (successful) software realized that bundling an ever-growing code base into their products in order to meet the spiraling tower of requests from their users would result in unsustainable bloat and complexity that would not warrant the new functionality. And so, the idea of addons was born. Addons come in many flavors – extensions, plugins, applets, scripts, and of course, widgets. A large number of popular programs have incorporated them, and when done with style, the extra functionality becomes as important as the core application itself. Examples that come to mind: Firefox, Notepad++, VLC, Blender. And then, there’s the Plasma desktop environment. Since inception, KDE has prided itself on offering complete solutions, and the last incarnation of its UI framework is no different. Which begs the question, what, how and why would anyone need Plasma widgets? We explore. [...] Conclusion A good mean needs no seasoning, indeed. And Plasma is a proof of that, with the widgets the best example. Remarkably, this desktop environment manages to juggle the million different usage needs and create a balanced compromise that offers pretty much everything without over-simplifying the usage in any particular category. It’s a really amazing achievement, because normally, the sum of all requests is a boring, useless muddle. Plasma’s default showing is rich, layered, complex yet accessible, and consistent. And that means it does not really need any widgets. This shows. The extras are largely redundant, with some brilliant occasional usage models here and there, but nothing drastic or critical that you don’t get out of the box. This makes Plasma different from most other addons-blessed frameworks, as they do significantly benefit from the extras, and in some cases, the extensions and plugins are critical in supplementing the missing basics. And so, if you wonder, whether you’ll embark on a wonderful journey of discovery and fun with Plasma widgets, the answer is no. Plasma offers 99% of everything you may need right there, and the extras are more to keep people busy rather than give you anything cardinal. After all, if it’s missing, it should be an integral part of the desktop environment, and the KDE folks know this. So if you’re disappointed with this article, don’t be. It means the baseline is solid, and that’s where you journey of wonders and adventure should and will be focused. 

My KDE PIM Update

This blog post is long overdue, but now that I’m back home from the KDE PIM Sprint in Toulouse, which took place last weekend, there’s some more news to report.

KDAB at QtDay 2018

QtDay is the yearly Italian conference about Qt and Qt-related technologies. Its 2018 edition (the seventh so far!) will be once more in the beautiful city of Florence, on May 23 and 24. And, once more, KDAB will be there.

Google Summer of Code 2018 with KDE

It’s been 2 days since the GSoC accepted student list was announced and I’m still getting goosebumps thinking about the moment I saw my name on the website. I started contributing to open source after attending a GSoC session in our college by one of our senior and a previous GSoC student with KDE: Aroonav Mishra. I was very inspired by the program and that defined the turning point of my life. [...] Then I came across GCompris and it caught my eye. I started contributing to it and the mentors are really very helpful and supportive. They always guided me whenever I needed any help  or was stuck at anything. Under their guidance, I learnt many things during the period of my contributions. I had never thought I would get this far.

What’s New in Calculate Linux 17.22.2

Calculate Linux 17.12.2 KDE Edition is the latest release of Linux distribution based on Gentoo, Calculate Linux 17.12 series. This release uses KDE plasma 5.11 as default desktop environment, along with KDE Frameworks 5.43 and KDE Applications 17.08.3. Powered by the long-term supported Linux 4.14 series, which means that it offers support for the latest hardware components available on the market. Also include graphical tool for network acces to the Calculate utilities 3 server, Calculate Console 3.5 series.

Red Hat Accelerates Software-Defined Storage Adoption with Red Hat Storage One

Centre Asset Management, LLC Buys Red Hat Inc, Anadarko Petroleum Corp, Dover Corp, Sells Parker Hannifin Corp, Comcast Corp, Microchip Technology Inc

Fedora at Bratislava OpenCamp 2018

A few months ago I was invited to represent Red Hat and Fedora at a new conference in Bratislava – OpenCamp. All the Open Source/Linux conferences in Slovakia I’ve been to were rather small compared to Czech ones. But OpenCamp was promising a new fresh start. So I registered a Red Hat/Fedora booth and also submitted a talk on the present and future of Linux desktop.

Fedora Infra Hackfest 2018

14 Biggest Features Of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver

Ubuntu 18.04 is scheduled to arrive today. When Canonical will offically release the OS, we’ll be updating this article with download links (they’ll be available here). Till then, get to know about all the biggest Ubuntu 18.04 features.

A Modular and Open Source Router is Being Crowdfunded

A company from the Czech Republic is trying to raise money to bring a modular and open source router to the public. It has a number of features that can’t be found in the current line up of routers available for purchase.

Thin, Skylake-based signage player starts at $720

Advantech’s slim-height “DS-081” is a fanless digital signage player with 6th Gen U-series chips, dual 4K-ready HDMI ports, dual GbE ports, SATA and mSATA, and mini-PCIe expansion. We found out about the Intel 6th Gen “Skylake” based DS-081, which Advantech calls “the world’s slimmest digital signage player” based on a Skylake CPU, from an announcement that Beabloo had certified the device for its Beabloo digital signage software platform. Beabloo had previously certified a similar DS-080 model, which runs on Intel’s 5th Gen Broadwell chips. Like the DS-080, the $720 and up DS-081 has a slim, 19mm vertical profile and runs Windows 7/8.1/10 and WES7, as well as Linux “by project.”

8 Free And Best Android Money Manager App List To Manage Finances In 2018

10 Best Android Weather App And Widget List | 2018 Edition

Open source QKSMS gets updated for first time in 2 years

QKSMS is an Android SMS app available in the Google Play Store. Although it made our list of the top-ten texting apps for Android, the app has been dormant for nearly two years. Now, the main developer issued a huge update to the app and promised to reboot new development.

OnePlus 6 Confirmed to Launch on May 16 with a Notch Design

The Best Podcast Clients for Android

Hijack of Amazon’s internet domain service used to reroute web traffic for two hours unnoticed

Between 11am until 1pm UTC today, DNS traffic — the phone book of the [I]nternet, routing you to your favourite websites — was hijacked by an unknown actor.

Suspicious event hijacks Amazon traffic for 2 hours, steals cryptocurrency

Amazon lost control of a small number of its cloud services IP addresses for two hours on Tuesday morning when hackers exploited a known Internet-protocol weakness that let them to redirect traffic to rogue destinations. By subverting Amazon's domain-resolution service, the attackers masqueraded as cryptocurrency website MyEtherWallet.com and stole about $150,000 in digital coins from unwitting end users. They may have targeted other Amazon customers as well.

PyRoMine malware disables security & mines Monero using NSA exploits [Ed: Microsoft Windows works for the NSA. Now it works for any cracker out there.]

Email security in 2018