Yesterday marked Linux’s seventeenth birthday. While the open source OS hasn’t been available in useable form for nearly that long, the anniversary marks the day creator Linus Torvalds’ first announced that he was “working on a free version of a minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers.”

As we all know that “minix-lookalike” eventually — with the help of thousands of other contributors — turned into the Linux kernel.

So far, 2008 has been a banner year for Linux. With the growth of the ultraportable PC, or “netbook,” market, Linux is now in the hands of many who would never have otherwise encountered it.

Unfortunately, for many of those people, Linux ends up being a disorienting and very different experience from that of the Windows OS they’re used to. In a recent interview with LapTop Mag, MSI’s Director of U.S. Sales Andy Tung says that return rates for Linux-based versions of MSI’s popular Wind netbook are four times higher than the Windows version.

Of course even Linux advocates are well aware of the OS’s shortcomings, so while Tung’s statistics may be some fairly damning evidence, his data isn’t really anything new. And the problem seems to be less of a specific problem with Linux and more a sign that old dogs aren’t the only ones who hate learning new tricks.

For its part, Tung says MSI is “working on some of the issues with the SUSE Linux and even continue to explore other flavors of Linux.” He goes on to add that MSI has also discussed using “Ubuntu with a Mac OS type of look and feel.”

Whatever Linux’s fate is the netbook market, one thing is for sure — seventeen years on and Linux continues to make inroads, even if those roads are still a bit bumpy.

Slashdot has more on Linux’s birthday.

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Now that Apple has removed the iPhone NDA, which prevented developers from talking about the nuts and bolts of their iPhone apps, a number of tutorials have started to trickle on to the web. One of the best we’ve seen is Matt Long’s simple, easy-to-follow write-up on developing a basic iPhone application.

For those of you more inclined to video tutorials, Long also has a nice video walk through available as well.

Keep in mind that Long’s tutorial is pretty high level and assumes a certain familiarity with both the Cocoa development framework and the model-view-controller paradigm. You’ll also need to have Apple’s developer tools and all the requisite iPhone SDK tools installed.

Still, as long as you have at least some programming background, it shouldn’t be to hard to follow. Long himself is a former Windows developer, proving that it isn’t all that difficult to jump into the Mac/iPhone development world.

[via Daring Fireball]

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Flickr has added a new and very odd way to explore photos on the site — via a rainbow vomiting Panda Bear.

The feature itself isn’t anything too exciting — it scrolls through images based on Flickr’s “interestingness” criteria — but the interface is perhaps the most bizarre design choice we’ve ever seen.

We’re not sure what’s in the water over at the Flickr headquarters, but we want some.

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Back when the iPhone SDK was first announced one of the most wanted apps was a VOIP client, so we could free ourselves from the tyranny of AT&T’s per-minute calling plans. While Apple nixed that idea very early on, saying that VoIP over AT&T’s EDGE or 3G networks would be against the terms of service, it did say that a VoIP app that only ran over wifi would be just fine.

That’s exactly what the new application, Fring, allows you to do — make VoIP calls whenever your iPhone/iPod Touch is connected to wifi. Fring works with Skype, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk, Twitter, AIM and Yahoo! buddies lists.

Of course Fring is not the first app to bring VoIP to the iPhone, Truphone gets that honor, but because Truphone doesn’t support Skype — undoubtedly the most popular VoIP service — its usefulness is somewhat limited. Fring on the other hand supports Skype, though of course to call non-Skype phones, you’ll need to purchase SkypeOut/SIP credits.

In addition to the VoIP aspect, Fring also allows for IM conversations over all the networks mentioned above, making it a kind of Adium for the iPhone.

I haven’t had a chance to actually test Fring, but The Unofficial Apple Weblog reports that call quality is “slightly echo-y, but perfectly audible.”

Fring is free and you can grab a copy from the iTunes App Store. Although the app’s VoIP service will work with EDGE/3G on other phones, the iPhone app’s VoIP capabilities are limited to wifi, something that isn’t entirely clear when reading through Fring’s site.

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The new look for Google Spreadsheets is now live. As the Docs team announced, there’s a completely new interface. And it’s looking a lot more like its desktop step-brother, Excel.

Most notably, Spreadsheets now has a full menu across the top: File, Edit, Format, and so on. The team ditched the strange tabbed method where each section had its own toolbar. Instead, the toolbar is reserved for the most common commands, mostly formatting-related.

The interface reshuffling also makes Spreadsheets look a lot more like its Docs siblings. The Word-like app gave the tabs the heave-ho in March.

Though there’s something to be said for web and desktop interfaces not needing to be the same, in this case organizing the options within pull-down menus makes sense. Everything feels like its within the same frame of reference. The entire toolbar changing always threw me off.

Plus, it’s now easier for Google to add new features. For example, the interface for manipulating a form is so easy now, because it can be another pull-down. You can even see the number of responses right in the menu.

Spreadsheets was already a part of my daily routine, replacing Excel for all except the largest, most complicated documents. These changes bring Microsoft’s offering even closer to my trash bin.

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The first 73 panels of the annual geekfest conference SXSW Interactive have been announced. Organizers say it’s just a taste of the eventual 180 talks. The list is split into categories: Advertising, Business, Community, Content, Human Issues, Mobile, New Tech, Programming, Interface Design, and the ever-exciting “other.”

Among the programming-related panels that jump out at me:

At SXSW the public gets a say in the content via a panel voting system, which closed in early September. An advisory board and SXSW staff also helped make the choices.

For those that are more into the evening activities, keep an eye on this Upcoming search.

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If web t-shirt selling hadn’t already jumped the shark, surely it will with CNN headline shirts. The cable news network takes what appear to be its most humorous web headlines and prints on demand for t-shirts. Nevermind that CNN is supposed to have real news, the sort of stuff that shouldn’t be shirt worthy. And most of it isn’t.

This is something you might expect of satirical news site The Onion. While the site with funny headlines does sells shirts, it only includes vague references to its own stories. Too bad.

Maybe The Onion (or you–really anybody can do better than CNN) should use CNN’s provider Spreadshirt to make its own shirts on demand.

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Google’s Picasa photo editing tool for Linux has caught up to its Windows sibling with a new beta 3 release. The latest version of Picasa for Linux packs in all the features from the recent Windows beta, save one — there’s no slideshow movie feature.

The lack of slideshow movies is due to shortcomings in Wine, which powers Picasa for Linux. But the latest version packs in enough new features to keep most users happy.

The most notable of the changes are vast improvements to the way Picasa integrates with other apps. For instance, it now uses your preferred file manager to show files on disk and can use your default e-mail program to send photos directly from Picasa.

There also new support for the camera detection features in both GNOME and KDE flavors of Linux, so whenever you plug in your camera, you’ll be prompted to open Picasa.

And yes, the rest of the new features from the Windows release are all here — faster performance, automatic web syncing, all the new retouching tools and more. Our personal favorite: you can now move entire folders around on your hard drive from within Picasa 3.

Mac users, however, will have to wait. Google still hasn’t released any more details about the long-awaited release of Picasa for Mac OS X. Since there were some rumblings that a release could be right around the corner as far back as the Macworld conference and expo last January, a release can’t be too far off.

The facial recognition “Name Tags” feature is a component of Picasa Web Albums, the online sharing component tied to the Picasa desktop software, so all Picasa Web members should have access to that feature regardless of which operating system they’re using.

For a complete rundown of everything that’s new, check out the release notes. You can grab the latest version here.

[screenshot via Google]

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As part of what seems to be a quest to make iTunes the single most user-unfriendly app in the Apple repertoire, the latest version removed a slew of user preference, including the ability to control the names of your music files.

As of iTunes 8, the app automatically adds a the album track number to the filename. For most people, this may not be an issue, but if you use iTunes in conjunction with other apps, like our favorite, Songbird, it’s maddeningly frustrating. Luckily Rob Griffiths over at Macworld has a fix.

Unfortunately the fix involves some command line tinkering and forcing iTunes to rebuild your library (which is time consuming if you have a good size collection of music), but it does get the job done.

Here’s how it works: First, fire up Terminal.app and enter these two lines:

Now open iTunes and head to Preferences >> Advanced and uncheck the option “Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized.” Hit okay and then open preferences again and check the option to rename your files. ITunes will now rename your files without the track number.

Note that this will rename all your files, so it would be a good idea to make a backup before you proceed.

ITunes 8 also removed some other user options, because of course, Apple knows best. If you’d like to get back some of those controls, check out Giffiths’ guide on the Mac OS Hints blog, which includes a way to disable the annoyingly omnipresent links to the iTunes store.

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The first beta for the next major version of Ubuntu Linux is now available for download and testing. While it isn’t finished yet, the beta version of “Intrepid Ibex,” as this release is known, promises a number of important improvements for the popular Linux distribution.

The first beta of Ubuntu 8.10 follows in the footsteps of Ubuntu 8.04, nick-named “Hardy Heron,” with incremental upgrades that, while not necessarily flashy and obvious, make for a much nicer user experience.

Perhaps the most noticeable change in Ubuntu 8.10 is the new GNOME 2.24 desktop, which brings tabbed Nautilus windows and some new apps like Empathy, a new instant messaging client. Ubuntu, however, seems to be sticking with Pidgin as the default IM client, to enable Empathy you’ll need to install it via Add/Remove.

You’ll also notice some new applets in GNOME 2.24, including a much improved Deskbar search app which can now perform calculator operations, search Google and even update Twitter.

For more details on everything that’s new in GNOME 2.24, be sure to check out our earlier review.

Update Twitter using the GNOME Deskbar

Some of the less obvious, but equally nice improvements in the 8.10 beta include an upgrade for X.org, which offers better support for hot-pluggable input devices — tablets, keyboards, mice, etc — and should stop most people from needing to muck with the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

It’s a tiny change, and may be unique to the beta, but long time Ubuntu users will notice that the login chime has been changed — no more drumming sounds of the African Savannah.

Ubuntu’s new default Guest account

Also new in 8.10 is the inclusion of guest accounts for the fast user switching feature. The guest account creates a temporary password-less user account with restricted privileges; guests cannot access any home directories or permanently store data, which makes it a safe way to let your friends check their e-mail without needing to worry that they’ll mess something up.

Ubuntu 8.10 also features the latest version of Network Manager, the graphical interface for setting up and tweaking both Ethernet and wireless network connections. The manager has a host of new features, including a very easy way to manage of 3G connections — good news for those hacking Ubuntu onto their GSM-enabled netbook.

As with all Ubuntu releases, the alternative distros have also released beta versions. Perhaps the most significant is the release of Kubuntu, which is based on the KDE desktop instead of GNOME, and includes the latest stable version of KDE 4. See our earlier coverage for more on what’s new in KDE 4.1.

If the new features have you wanting to upgrade, head over to the Ubuntu downloads page and grab an ISO image, but be warned: this is a beta and bugs do exist. Unless you’re looking to just do some testing, we suggest holding out for the final release, which is set to arrive later this month.

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