As IDC recently reported, business adoption of free, open-source software is rapidly on the rise. It’s also true that many open-source applications are being launched as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) appls, free to try online, where you often don’t need to download or install anything. Recently, on the OStatic blog, we covered a site called Click2Try, where you can immediately try out many open-source applications and Linux distributions online by running them in a virtual environment. I’ve been using the site, and it’s a really easy (and eye-opening) way to dive into useful applications before deciding to download and install them on my own machine.
Google yesterday made “developer channel releases” (alpha versions) of my current favorite browser, Chrome, available for Mac and Linux. Beware — these releases are not suitable for day-to-day browsing, as they are likely to be unstable and lacking features. The Chromium blog even posts the warning, “[P]lease DON’T DOWNLOAD THEM! Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software.” Issues include an inability to print, set the default search engine or alter the privacy settings. However, if you just want to play with Google’s blazingly fast browser and get a taste of what your Windows-owning friends have been raving about for the past few months, go ahead and try it out.
The Mac developer release is available to download here, while the Linux version is available here (requires Ubuntu 8.04 or Debian 5 or later. You’ll need to select the correct build depending on whether you have a 32- or 64-bit system).
Let us know what you think of Chrome for Mac/Linux in the comments.
I regularly install and try lots of free, open source software applications. One of my better recent finds is a customizable system monitor utility called GKrellM. Like many open source applications, its name is puzzling, but it is a useful and very customizable way to monitor processes and components on Mac, Windows and Linux systems. Lifehacker and MakeUseOf originally alerted me to the large ecosystem of plugins that you can use to customize GKrellM, which made me want to try it.
Over on the OStatic blog we’ve rounded up 25 resources for free, open source applications, tutorials, and more. Some of the citations are previous roundups themselves, so there are quite a lot of free tools to be found there. In these economic times, open source software applications are faring well, and some tools may especially appeal to web workers.
From the collection posted, here are six resources that may appeal to you, and you can find out more on them in the original post.
Need a quick break from the grind? WWD sister site NewTeeVee Station brings you Watercooler Clips, a selection from our collection of what’s good, interesting and/or of note in the online video world — whatever the web is talking about at the virtual watercooler.
Today, we offer The Website is Down’s dramatization of that most epic of clashes — the sales guy versus the web dude. Told from the perspective of the Web Guy’s monitor, this breakdown of office relations will seem all too familiar to those on either side of the screen.
Google yesterday made “developer channel releases” (alpha versions) of my current favorite browser, Chrome, available for Mac and Linux. Beware — these releases are not suitable for day-to-day browsing, as they are likely to be unstable and lacking features. The Chromium blog even 
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
