Ubuntu helping in the fight against AIDS

By boredandblogging | Published: 2007-03-15

iDart, or the intelligent Dispensing of Antiretroviral Treatment, is a pharmacy system written in Java that is used at antiretroviral (ARV) pharmacies. Initiated in 2004 as a partnership between Cell-Life and the Desmond Tutu HIV foundation, iDart is in use as five different locations around South Africa aiding in the treatment of over 8,500 HIV+ patients.

Cell-Life announced that it has created an iDart-in-a-box system which was originally implemented and distributed as software for Microsoft Windows. Due to issues with reliability and security, Cell-Life has decided instead to do a complete system utilizing Ubuntu Linux. The iDart-in-a-box includes a mid-range PC, a Zebra label printer, an HP DeskJet report printer, barcode scanner, a UPS and a GSM modem. The cost for this system lies within the hardware as there are no software licensing costs, and one of these systems can be purchased for approximately R10,000 (1,350 US$)

Cell-Life plans to further its commitment to supplying community health clinics with systems that work, all of the time, and with Ubuntu.

To read more about this story please view the entire article at Tectonic. To learn more about the iDart-in-a-box please review the iDart system overview and feel free to download the software as well.

Ubuntu conference in Croatia

By boredandblogging | Published: 2007-03-14

On March 31 2007 Zagreb will host the first Ubuntu conference in Croatia. During this conference you will be able to find out everything you wanted to know about Ubuntu Linux and discover business possibilities while talking with representatives from Canonical and Croatian companies dealing with Ubuntu.

Lecturers will include Mario Splivalo (Ubuntu-hr), Filip Skoblar (Ubuntu-hr), Senko Rašić (Rei and Ubuntu-hr), Anthony Mercatante (Kubuntu developer), Christopher Kenyon (Canonical), and Ante Karamatić (Init and Ubuntu-hr).

More details and instructions on how to register for the conference are available here.

Feisty translations now open!

By boredandblogging | Published: 2007-03-12

Ubuntu Feisty translations are now open in Launchpad!

The Launchpad team have imported existing translations both from Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy) and directly from upstream projects. You can see how much of each language remains untranslated on the Feisty translations overview page.

During the import, there were some problems converting from OpenOffice.org’s language pack format to the .po format used by Launchpad. Unfortunately, this means that OpenOffice.org isn’t yet available to translate. We’re sorry for the pain this will cause. We have, though, created a workaround to fix the import problem and OpenOffice.org should be ready for translation later this week.

If you have any questions or comments, please join us in #launchpad or on the launchpad-users mailing list.

Matthew and the rest of the Launchpad team.

Ubuntu Weekly News: Issue #31

By boredandblogging | Published: 2007-03-12

Issue #31 of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, covering the week of March 1st to March 10th, is now available. In this issue you can find these stories:

  • Linspire now based on Ubuntu
  • Statistics of Ubuntuforums
  • Ohio US Team approved and official
  • Weekly Quiz Update
  • Upcoming meetings and events
  • 6.06 & 6.10 updates and security notices
  • Bug Stats
  • Highlighting the Xubuntu Testers

If you have a story idea for the Weekly News please submit it via email or on the wiki!

The Weekly News is brought to you by the Marketing Team.

The French Parliament switches to Kubuntu

By boredandblogging | Published: 2007-03-10

The French Parliament looks to be the next big organisation to switch to one of the Ubuntu family, in this case Kubuntu. Recently the Parliament produced an official government report that recommended the use of free software over proprietary software. The switch to free software is expected to provide a substantial savings to the tax-payers according to the government study.

Following this recommendation two companies, Linagora and Unilog, have been selected to provide the members of the Parliament as well as their assistants new computers containing free software. This will amount to 1,154 new computers running Kubuntu prior to the start of the next session which occurs in June 2007.

More detailed information can be read in French at ZDNet.fr and latribune.fr. There is also an article available in English from November 2006 pertaining to this same exact report at ZDNet.com.