Pear OS dies on the vine, but not for long

Yesterday afternoon, David Tavares (creator of the Pear OS distro) announced he halting development of the OS. From a statement he has released, it appears that Tavares came to an agreement with an unnamed company to hand the distro over to them. Whether money was involved or how much is unknown at this time. The full statement can be found at the end of this post.

Pear OS´ main claim to fame is that it brings the look and feel of Mac OS and iOS to Linux. While other Linux distros, such as Ubuntu, can have the mac OS look and feel it required the installation of multiple themes and applications. Pear OS was one of the few distros that delivered it in one package. Another such distro is elementary OS.

Tavares´ announcement has been met by much outcry and anger. People have suggested that Tavares was pressured by Apple who did not like someone copying their look and feel. Others suggested that Tavares was just creating an excuse to end development. Almost everyone seems to fear that this news means the end of Pear OS in much the same way that Palm bought BeOS only to close down the project.

Several people responded to the announcement by calling for a fork to be created to keep the project alive. Pear OS user Brenden Gonzalez has already begun efforts to create a fork of pear OS, which will be based on Ubuntu 13.04 until 14.04 becomes available. If you are interested in giving Brenden a hand, drop him an email.

Below is the official statement on the Pear OS website.

Pear OS and Pear Cloud are no longer available for download.
 Its future is now in hands of a company who wants to remain anonymous for the moment. The concept has pleased them it and now wants to continue and improve the system for their own products. I can not give a name but it is a very large company well known ...
 I want to thank all users, moderators and other developers who have made Pear OS it is today, that without this adventure would not have been possible.
 I'm going in another direction.
 Pear Cloud users must recover their files on Pear Cloud servers. In 10 days, the files will be deleted and the server will be offline. 
 Another big thank you to all and I hope to return to the scene of open source very quickly.
 Cordially.
 David

We will continue to report on this story as more information comes in.

Update: You can check out the new Clementine OS here.

Transfer Files Securely to Your Android Device with FTP

The first thing that most people do after purchasing a tablet is to fill it with music, videos and such. While iOS devices can be very problematic in that department, Android devices are much easier to handle. The easiest method is to connect your Android device to your PC via USB and copy files using Windows Explorer (or any alternative). Another popular method is an app named AirDroid that allows you to manage your Android device remotely with your web browser. However, I've come across a better method: FTP (File Transfer Protocol).

To start, you need to install an FTP server on your Android tablet. The best one that I have come across so far it called primitive ftpd. You can get it from the F-Droid app catalog, which consists of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Here is the link to primitive ftpd on F-Droid.

Once you have installed primitive ftpd, you'll have to isntall an FTP program on your PC. The best program is FileZilla. Once you get that installed, you can change the username, password and port number in primitive ftpd. (I'd recommend doing this for security reasons.)

To move files, open the primitive ftpd app, press start, log into your tablet with Filezilla and get downloading and uploading.

Let me knowif this  is helpful.

Microsoft announces their next version of Windows

Microsoft's Newest Partner

Microsoft announces their newest partner. (Just kidding!)

Microsoft Surface Ads: Out of Touch and Pointless

    In recent years, it has become more and more obvious that Microsoft is getting more and more out of touch with their customers. One of the best examples is their release of Windows 8, which is a huge departure from all previous versions with a huge learning curve.

    One of the worst things to come out of Microsoft recently are the advertisements for the Microsoft Surface tablet. Guess what major feature these ads cover? How you can make them click. That's right, the major features of the Surface tablets are not being able to run Windows programs on a tablet, the power of a laptop in a tablet and being able to open Office documents on the go. No, the best feature is that it clicks. Watch the videos below and you will see what I mean.

     The bottom line is that Microsoft is full of old men trying to act hip and with it. So when they want to connect to the younger generation they pull our the mod music and the dancing and start clicking. Dumber and dumber.

Help Me Sell My Nook Color

Sorry for the crappy picture, but my iPod does not take very good shots.

Hi, guys. I bought a Nook Color a couple of months ago. I've decided to upgrade to a Nexus 7, but in order to do so I need your help. I just posted the Nook on Ebay. I installed Cynogenmod on it after I bought it, but I have since reflashed it to the original software. I updated the software to the latest version (1.4.3). I tested it to make sure that it works by downloading a couple books and apps. (I since erased and deregistered.) It also comes with a screen protector installed and a cover. I'm also throwing in a 16 GB microSD card because the Nook only has 1GB for non-Barnes and Noble content.

Why am I selling it? Because it works great as an ebook reader, but not so good as an Android tablet. If you want a device to read book and listen to music, that has all the extras that all tablets need (i.e. screen protector, cover, and extra memory), then give this auction a look. If you are not interested, but know someone who might be, send them this link.

You can find the auction here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=221171260112.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Facebook Uses Firefox Integration to Fight the Exploding Growth of Google Plus

Back in April, I wrote an article entitled What Browser Should Facebook Buy? about the need for Facebook to use a browser to direct traffic to the social network. It is important for them to do this because Google will eventually leverage Chrome to do just that. In that article, I stated that Facebook had two options: build or buy. It turns out that there is a third option: integrate.

Starting with Firefox 17, Facebook has been integrated into the browser. This feature is called Messenger for Firefox. It adds the ability to chat, check notification, and friend requests. You can turn it on by going here if you have Firefox 17/