Linux boost at Maastricht University with Android tablets

CC-BY-SA WikiMedia Commons.

I learned yesterday that all employees with a longer contract will be equipped with an Android tablet. That is great news for this blog, because Android uses the Linux kernel. It means two things:

1. adoption of Linux at Maastricht University gets a boost
2. this blog becomes a lot more relevant and it is probably time to start a blog series about Android apps that will benefit researchers at Maastricht University

My first suggestions:

• Evernote (for meetings)
• OpenStreetMap (for travel, 10 free offline country maps; offline route planning)
• Plume (Twitter client; for tweeting at conferences; see doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003789)
• Rainy Days (for home-work travel)
• Feedly (to read Table of Contents of journals)
• Coursera (MOOCs to learn something outside your own domain) and DuoLingo (to learn your fifth foreign language)

Of course, don't forget the apps for the online services you likely use already, like DropBox, Google Drive, a good webbrowser (Chrome or FireFox) etc. You may also be interested in the app our UM Library recommends for electronic reading of journals, Browzine.

So, the remaining questions really is, which app does ICTS recommend for reading our university email?? And, will that still require super powers for Microsoft to delete everything on your Android device if you accidentally (or your kid, dog, cavia) types the wrong security unlock code too many times??

Linux in Maastricht: not just me

This blog has been a bit silently lately. Fairly, I have been running Linux at Maastricht University for 2.5 years now, without much problems. Perhaps the least pleasing thing is the lack of UM-styled templates and the horrendous quality of the Outlook web interface.

But, I am not alone in using Linux in Maastricht. Here are a few things I recently ran into:

1. M.Sc. Public Policy use Linux in their teaching, and in this post they describe how to install LaTeX on a variety of Linux operating systems. Unfortunately, the commenting system is hidden to the general public, so that I cannot ask them if they know writelatex.com, and whether they know beamer templates for the UM style.
2. Apparently, UM has done research into the Linux kernel and kernel development in the past. The two papers are listed below.

van Wegberg, M. & Berends, P. The open source code movement: the linux operating system. Multi-Organizational Partnerships and Cooperative Strategy 283-287 (2000).

Ghosh, R. A. & David, P. The nature and composition of the linux kernel developer community: a dynamic analysis. SIEPR-Project NOSTRA Working Paper (21st February) (2003).