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Flash Player 9 Update Release Candidate availableFlash Player 9 Update Release Candidate available
Adobe has released an updated release candidate of their proprietary software flash player. It has some new features such as support for H.264 video, but it really does not matter as the license remains totally unacceptable.
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KDE 4.0 Alpha 2 ReleasedKDE 4.0 Alpha 2 Released
KDE Community are now immensely proud to have put the second Alpha version of what will probably be the worlds most popular desktop environment in a few years.
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Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.12 marks the ned of Firefox v1.5Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.12 marks the ned of Firefox v1.5
Firefox 1.5.0.12 is now rolled out and it is the last security update which will be made for Firefox 1.5.x. Linux distributions will probably update their packages with security patches, but there will be no more official 1.5.x releases. Mozilla Corporation attitude is update to 2.x or switch browser.
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SpamAssassin 3.2.1 and 3.1.9 releasedSpamAssassin 3.2.1 and 3.1.9 released
These new versions fix a local user symlink-attack denial of service vulnerability which is possible under extremely rare configurations.
more >>>

News and headlines

Latest Linux / Computer / Technology News and Headlines

LXer Linux News
  • Linux on mobiles will put the squeeze on MS, says Zemlin
    Once it was the desktop, now mobile phones and embedded devices represent the future of Linux, according to open source fans. Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, painted a future of Linux's manifest destiny - running everything from aerospace systems to the phone in your pocket. According to Zemlin, Linux has 18 per cent of the embedded market, beating Windows on 16 per cent. The opportunity is in mopping up the 43.7 per cent of the embedded market that's currently using proprietary operating systems. As with the Linux desktop, though, there are just one or two challenges that must be overcome, he told the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON), in Portland, Oregon.
  • Report: Linux as a Hypervisor
    It's quite fascinating how many virtualization designs there are out there. Even in Linux itself there are so many different approaches. To reduce the scope a bit for this post we'll ignore all the designs that can't revirtualize the CPU to allow other operative systems to run.
  • SFLC Files GPL Violation Lawsuit Against Extreme Networks, Inc.
    The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) today announced that it has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Extreme Networks, Inc. on behalf of its clients, two principal developers of BusyBox, alleging violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
  • The power of cross-platform synchronization
    These days there are plenty of ways to back up your computer files. The options are easy when you're dealing with one computer -- just back up your files to an external hard drive and forget about it -- but when several machines are involved, each with a different operating system, things can get complicated. If you frequently work on more than one computer, having access to your synchronized files no matter where you are can also be useful. PowerFolder, a backup and file synchronizing service, helps you cover all your bases, no matter what platform or how many computers you're using.
  • Linux-powered CherryPal uses just 2W
    As the battle for ultra-slim PCs heats up, a US company has released the Linux-based CherryPal, a PC that the company claims uses just 2W of power at peak performance. The CherryPal mini-desktop runs an embedded version of Debian on a Freescale processor running at 400MHz, with 256MB of RAM and 4GB of internal flash storage.
  • Firefox add-on Glubble too clunky and restrictive as a children's Internet filter
    Glubble is a free proprietary Firefox add-on from Glaxstar that limits the activity your child can perform online by blocking access to Web sites and filtering Google search results. For parents, a tool like Glubble can seem like the perfect answer to the problem of protecting kids from the unsavory elements of the Internet. But as I discovered through my use of Glubble, the questions surrounding the idea of Internet filtering don't come with easy answers.
  • Study: OSS Communities Are Often Slackers in Security
    The most widely used open source software packages for the enterprise are exposing users to significant and unnecessary business risks, according to an open source security study from security firm Fortify Software. The study, released Monday, concludes that open source software development communities have yet to adopt a secure development process and often leave dangerous vulnerabilities unaddressed.
  • Is open source software bad for business?
    The Open Source Security Study has just been published and reveals that some of the most widely-used open source software used within the business environment are leaving users exposed to a "significant and unnecessary business risk."
  • The Importance of Purity on the Linux Desktop
    Well, the dog days of summer have begun to set in, so it's not too surprising that the Linux blogs were relatively quiet last week. Linux geeks across the nation were no doubt seeking refuge wherever they could -- it's hard to withstand flames on the blogs when you feel like you're aflame yourself!
  • Yahoo! Announces Settlement with Carl Icahn
    Yahoo! Inc. announced today that it has reached an agreement with Carl Icahn to settle their pending proxy contest related to the Company's 2008 annual meeting of stockholders. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, eight members of Yahoo!'s current Board of Directors will stand for re-election at the 2008 annual meeting. Following the 2008 annual meeting, the Yahoo! Board will be expanded to 11 members. Carl Icahn will be appointed to the Board and the remaining two seats will be filled by the Board upon the recommendation of the Board's Nominating and Governance Committee from a list of nine candidates recommended by Mr. Icahn, which includes the eight remaining members of the Icahn slate of nominees and Jonathan Miller, currently a partner in Velocity Interactive Group and former Chairman and CEO of AOL. As part of the settlement agreement, Mr. Icahn, who owns an aggregate of 68,786,320 shares, or 4.98% of Yahoo! common stock, has agreed to withdraw his nominees for consideration at the annual meeting and to vote his Yahoo! shares in support of the Board's nominees.
OSNews
  • Microsoft: 180 Million Vista Licenses Now Sold
    Microsoft rarely gives out sales numbers, but Vista is another story. Due to bad press, the company apparently wants to remind everyone that Vista is still selling well. The software giant recently announced that it would be putting resources into launching a marketing campaign that will fight back against Apple's ads and incorrect Vista assumptions and will instead tell the "real Vista story."
  • Linus Torvalds, Geek of the Week
    Linus Torvalds is remarkable, not only for being the technical genius who wrote Linux, but for then being able to inspire and lead an enormous team of people to devote their free time to work on the operating system and bring it to maturity. We sent Richard Morris off to interview Linus, and find out more.
  • Detailed Report on Apple's Claims Against Psystar
    We covered earlier about Apple suing Psystar the creator of Open Computer. Now we have more details of the complaint . Apple's complaint is now available online (registration required).
  • Debunking the Linux Virus Myth
    Linux and UNIX-like operating systems in general are regarded as being more secure for the common user, in contrast with operating systems that have "Windows" as part of their name. Why is that? When entering a dispute on the subject with a Windows user, the most common argument he tries to feed me is that Windows is more widespread, and therefore, more vulnerable. Apart from amusing myths like "Linux is only for servers" or "does it have a word processor?", the issue of Linux desktop security is still seriously misunderstood.
  • Judge: SCO Owes Novell $2.5M for Unix Infringements
    The convoluted case of SCO v. Novell dealt a heady blow to the SCO Group Wednesday, with United States District Judge Dale Kimball ordering the company to pay $2.5 million to Novell for improperly claiming, and collecting royalties for, the Unix operating system.
  • Mandriva Leaps Into Eee Territory with GDium
    Lately it's hard to avoid the buzz about these small laptops (sorry, I don't participate in the hype of calling them netbooks or whatever) - the small, cheap laptop systems that were popularized by the Asus Eee PC. Just like Xandros with the Eee, Mandriva is providing the operating system for the upcoming GDium system, produced by Emtec. The first GDium will be a netbook with a 10", 1024x600 resolution display and a battery life of four hours, weighing in at 1.1kg. The device is powered by the (for us) exotic Chinese Loongson processor, which is based on a MIPS design. Mandriva is working together closely with the GDium team to provide an optimal software experience. Available from September 2008, with a price expected to be round and about EUR 400.
  • 5 Most Popular Linux-Hackable Gadgets
    "Linux is a powerful and versatile operating system that can be utilized to hack just about any electronic hardware device. To prove it, I have here a list of popular gadgets that are already known to run Linux."
  • JUNOS: Open, But Not Open Source
    At the heart of every networking device is an operating system that enables traffic flow. In the case of networking vendor Juniper, that operating system for the past ten years has been JUNOS, a network operating system with its roots in the open source FreeBSD operating system. Juniper has updated JUNOS every 90 days since 1998.
  • For Linux security, Principle of Least Privilege Prevails
    Linux security may seem daunting, but there are a host of best practices to simplify the maze. Recently, Steve Grubb of Red Hat Inc. outlined some important security principles, including minimizing admin access, the increasing sophistication of SELinux and the importance of auditing systems.
  • Develop iPhone Apps with Ruby and Eclipse Part 3
    Although Mobile Safari is more than adequate at rendering normal Web pages, many Web developers created versions of applications aimed at the iPhone. Here in Part 3 learn what to do when the user reaches the end of the list structure and your application actually needs to display content. Part 1 discusses how to set up your server to detect and serve alternate content to Mobile Safari, and Part 2 explores actual content you might create for an iPhone or iPod touch.
Techworld.com News
  • Start-up offers new way to access websites
    RoamAbout offers new experience claims founder

    A California startup company, Vysr, is trying to improve on the web browser with a free add-on tool that lets you access services from sites without having to actually visit them.



  • Nexsan gets beastly with business data
    Storage box offers Tier 1 features on Tier 2 capacity.

    Nexsan has introduced a storage subsystem which it said could enable users to consolidate their long-term business-critical data stores into a single consolidated platform.



  • Dell offers new Ubuntu PCs
    Inspiron 1520 and XPS M1330 available now

    Dell has announced a new range of Linux machines, supporting Ubuntu 8.04.



  • Another ex-Soviet state under fire in web attack
    Georgia joins Estonia and Lithuania as cyber victims.

    Hackers took down the website for the president of Georgia in yet another attack on the governments of former Soviet states. The website was knocked offline by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack over the weekend, yet another in a series of cyberattacks attacks against countries experiencing political friction with Russia.



  • RIM fixes critical BlackBerry bug
    PDF flaw now patched.

    RIM has patched a critical bug in its BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) to stymie hackers hoping to break into company networks by tricking users of the popular smart phone into opening rigged PDFs.



  • Atom for notebooks costs 52% more than desktop version
    Users will pay for popular chip.

    Notebook users looking to use Atom-based machines might end up paying heavily for it. According to Intel's latest price list, the popular Intel Atom microprocessors made for netbooks, or mini-laptops, costs 52 percent more per chip than the desktop version of the same processor.



  • AMD says it's still in low-power chip game
    Bobcat still being developed but no plans for release just yet.

    AMD has quashed rumours that it has shelved its low-power processor for mobile devices and sub-notebooks.



  • Judge prevents chipmaker's flaws staying secret
    Security researchers can publish their findings.

    A Dutch court has denied a request from chipmaker NXP to prevent the publication of a scientific study of the security of the firm's Mifare Classic RFID technology. Researchers will continue to pursue presenting their findings in October.



  • New worm aimed to music sharers
    Danger lurking in ASF files.

    A new kind of malicious software is aimed at music-loving Windows users. The new malware, hits those who download music files on peer-to-peer networks, and inserts links to dangerous web pages within ASF (Advanced Systems Format) media files.



  • Huge rise in malware this year
    Forthcoming disclosure of DNS flaw promises more pain.

    Malware has risen by a staggering 278 percent in the first half of 2008, thanks in part to the large number of websites comprised last month, so says a new study by ScanSafe. And it warns that things are only going to get worse, especially after Dan Kaminsky goes public with details about his 20 year-old DNS vulnerability.



DesktopLinux.com PCWorld.com - Latest News Stories Linux.com :: Features LWN.net
  • Today's SFLC/BusyBox target: Extreme Networks, Inc.
    The Software Freedom Law Center has announced the filing of a GPL-infringement lawsuit against Extreme Networks Inc. "According to the complaint, SFLC contacted Extreme Networks in February, but the company continues to distribute BusyBox in violation of the GPL. The complaint requests that an injunction be issued against the defendant and that damages and litigation costs be awarded to the plaintiffs."
  • Interview: Wind River's John Bruggeman
    Once one of free software's fiercest critics, today Wind River is a cheerleader for the benefits of open source, of sharing, and of giving back to the community. John Bruggeman is Wind River's Chief Marketing Officer. Here he talks to Glyn Moody about why you can't use any old Linux for embedded systems, the respective strengths and weaknesses of the Linux-based mobile platforms from the LiMo Foundation and Google's Android, and what effect Nokia's announcement that it would be open-sourcing the Symbian operating system will have on the sector.
  • Monday's security updates
    Mandriva has updated mysql (2008.0 and prior, 2008.1: privilege escalation).

    Red Hat has updated acroread (input validation and temporary file vulnerabilities).

    rPath has updated bind (cache poisoning).

    SUSE has updated the kernel (multiple vulnerabilities) and libxcrypt (incorrect hash algorithm used; read the notice before applying).

  • The gspca drivers have been merged
    A lot of code has found its way into the mainline during the 2.6.27 merge window. One of the more notable, user-visible changes is the long-awaited merging of the gspca family of video drivers. These drivers support a large number of video devices; as of 2.6.27, Linux will support most of the webcam devices available on the market.
  • Updated Fedora 9 Re-Spin released
    A new version of the Fedora 9 respin has been released by the Fedora Unity Project. "Fedora Unity has taken up the Re-Spin task to provide the community with the chance to install Fedora with recent updates already included. These updates might otherwise comprise more than 1.91 GByte of downloads for a full install, and an additional 265.69 MByte for pulled in dependencies."
  • An update to Friday's security advisories
    The following Fedora advisories are all cascading changes caused by the Firefox fixes: epiphany-extensions (F8, F9), epiphany (F8, F9), devhelp (F8, F9), xulrunner (F9), yelp (F8, F9), liferea (F8), cairo-dock (F8), ruby-gnome2 (F8), galeon (F8), kazehakase (F8), chmsee (F8), Miro (F8), openvrml (F8), gnome-python2-extras (F8), gnome-web-photo (F8), blam (F8), gtkmozembedmm (F8)
  • LWN Comment Features Update
    fancyLWNComments is a Greasemonkey script that makes comment threads a bit more pleasant. It has been updated to work with the recent site changes at LWN.
  • Security advisories for Friday
    Fedora has updated firefox (F9, F8: multiple vulnerabilities), seamonkey (F9, F8: multiple vulnerabilities).

    Mandriva has updated firefox (multiple vulnerabilities).

    rPath has updated bind (DNS cache poisoning).

    SUSE has updated moodle, clamav, zypper, mercurial, poppler (various issues).

  • SCO - Linux' Worst Nightmare Is Back (OpenSource Magazine)
    It is with some trepidation that your editor points out this OpenSource Magazine article, which might better be titled "Maureen O'Gara is back." But it is bizarrely different view of the ruling in SCO v. Novell; it's worth knowing that this kind of thought is out there. "The court also said Novell couldn't run interference for Linux and stop SCO from seeking royalty payments for alleged UnixWare and OpenServer infringement by Linux users under its infamous SCOsource licensing program. Armed with that decision, it's merely a matter of time before SCO starts seeking those payments."
  • Linus Torvalds, Geek of the Week (simple-talk)
    Simple-talk has an interview with Linus Torvalds. "But what can make a big deal to what is the best way of doing things is simply hardware changes or changes in what users do and how they interact with their computers. And while I don't see any big fundamental shift in how things are done, I think that is ultimately what may make Linux obsolete. -not in the near future, though. Software and hardware have an amazing inertia, and ways of doing things tend to stay around for decades. So I'm not exactly worried."
Linux Journal - The Original Magazine of the Linux Community
  • Man vs. Myth: Greg Kroah-Hartman and the Kernel Driver Project

    Don't tell Greg Kroah-Hartman that Linux hurts for device drivers. He's heard too much of that rap, and he's already done plenty to stop it. We should thank him and help pick up the ball. I'm doing both here.

    read more

  • Turn Make Options into Tool Flags

    Often times when developing programs there is a need to build the program in/for multiple configurations. Many times, autoconf and its resulting configure script do what you need. Other times you can just change a #define in your code. But sometimes, autoconf isn't an option and changing a define doesn't quite work (say you need to pass your defines/undefines to m4 or some other tool that can't handle include files). The solution is probably to change your makefile. The method presented here results in a fairly compact change to your makefile.

    read more

  • Linux Product Insider: "Robot, Gizmo & Gadget Show"

    This "Linux Product Insider" features the Robot, Gizmo & Gadget Show, Microway's NumberSmasher vSMP servers, Excito's Bubba Two Home Server, Van Lindberg's Intellectual Property and Open Source and Running Xen: A Hands-On Guide to the Art of Virtualization.

    read more

  • Do we really have options?

    I was going to explore the new trend of green IT or perhaps talk about the morality of threatening or blackmailing (your choice) software companies into fixing security holes, but an article in Computerworld about a hospital selecting a Linux-based email sys

    read more

  • Audio/Visual Synthesis: The New Arts, Part 2

    In this second part of my survey I focus on the tools that achieve this new synthesis of arts. Alas, due to space constraints I am unable to include all the software I would like to have reviewed, but perhaps a future article will deal with those programs. Meanwhile, I present to my readers these brief profiles of Pd, Fluxus, and AVSynthesis. Each of these programs takes a different approach to the practical concerns of blending images (moving or still) with sound (realtime or recorded).

    read more

  • Linux Journal Flickr Pool Roundup

    Linux Journal's Flickr pool regularly brings in fun photos from readers around the world. We encourage you to add to the pool anything "Linux-ey" (up for interpretation but frankly that's half of the fun). Here are some of the most recent additions:

    read more

  • Review: HP 2133 Mini-Note

    Shawn Powers reviews the HP Mini-Note portable computer.

    Thanks to our sponsor: Silicon Mechanics

    Silicon Mechanics is a leading manufacturer of rackmount servers, storage, and high performance computing hardware. The best warranty offerings available are backed by experts dedicated to customer satisfaction.

    read more

  • Who are the Open Source All-Stars?

    As I watched the opening of last night’s All-Star Game, I could not help but think of an article I read several days before where the inventor of DNS, a man named Paul Mockapetris, was telling us how serious we should be taking the DNS security issue that had been announced.

    read more

  • Exploring Space with Celestia

    I, as well as my 4 year old son, have always had an interest in Astronomy. My son puts planet puzzles together and looks at picture books. I'm proud to say that he can name all the planets in order, and astonished to realize that he knows that Pluto isn't considered a planet anymore. I've read books on Astronomy; I've been to planetariums and observatories.

    read more

  • An open letter to Adobe

    Hello, oh great and powerful Adobe people.

    Thank you so much for releasing Flash Player 10 beta 2 for Linux. Thanks even more for (finally) building in support for video4linux2 Webcam technology. You have no idea how much we appreciate that. The only problem is that many (if not most) of us can't use it. You see, it crashes our browsers within seconds.

    read more

The Register
  • Scientists ponder future moon mission activities

    One of these days, Alice...

    A clever fellow once observed that the Moon is a harsh mistress. Humanity's subsequent jaunts up to the place indicated it was a pretty solid hypothesis. The Ritz-Carlton it is not.…

  • US court sides with Janet Jackson's breast

    No fine for 'Nipplegate'

    America's puritanical streak goes only so far. Today, a US appeals court vaporized the $550,000 fine the FCC famously slapped on CBS for showing the country a majority of Janet Jackson's right breast.…

  • Linux on mobiles will put the squeeze on MS, says Zemlin

    Manifest destiny again

    OSCON Once it was the desktop, now mobile phones and embedded devices represent the future of Linux, according to open source fans.…

  • Researcher's hypothesis may expose uber-secret DNS flaw

    Responsible disclosure debate rages on

    Two weeks ago, when security researcher Dan Kaminsky announced a devastating flaw in the internet's address lookup system, he took the unusual step of admonishing his peers not to publicly speculate on the specifics. The concern, he said, was that online discussions about how the vulnerability worked could teach black hat hackers how to exploit it before overlords of the domain name system had a chance to fix it.…

  • Intel slashes Xeon, Core 2 Duo prices

    Not to mention a Core 2 Quad

    A week after trumpeting a healthy second quarter profit leap, Intel has slashed the prices of several server and desktop processors.…

  • CherryPal launches $249 mini PC into ad-backed cloud

    Buzzword chimera the size of a paperback

    Start-up CherryPal is taking pre-orders today for its partly cloudy "desktop" that mashes web-hosted computing, going green, open source, and social networking into a 10 ounce box.…

  • Researchers release 'cold boot' attack utilities

    A way around disk encryption

    The security researcher who demonstrated the 'cold boot' attack has released the source code for the hack. The attack, first demonstrated in February, uses a set of utilities to lift crypto keys from memory even after a reboot.…

  • American physicists warned not to debate global warming

    Climate row heats up

    Bureaucrats at the American Physical Society (APS) have issued a curious warning to their members about an article in one of their own publications. Don't read this, they say - we don't agree with it. But what is it about the piece that is so terrible, that like Medusa, it could make men go blind?…

  • DDoS attack floors Georgia prez website

    Black deeds on the Black Sea

    A denial of service attack hit government websites in the former Soviet republic of Georgia over the weekend amid growing diplomatic tensions between the country and Russia.…

  • Japan kicks off electric car format war

    Prius-ray vs Dominant Volt Drive?

    Japanese motor globocorps jockeying for position in the electric car market of tomorrow will unite to present a worldwide standard for automotive Li-ion batteries and related technologies, according to reports. The alliance will include Toyota, Nissan and Matsushita, but Honda - which appears to favour hydrogen fuel cells over all-battery vehicles - has not been named in connexion with the project.…

eWeek - RSS Feeds
  • Brocade Acquires Foundry Networks
    $3 billion transaction puts networking market leader Cisco Systems on notice that it has a powerful new competitor on the horizon.
    - Brocade Communications Systems took a major step toward leveling the networking playing field against market superpower Cisco Systems July 21 by acquiring Internet router/switch maker Foundry Networks for about $3 billion in cash. Under the agreement, Brocade will pay a combination of $18.50 ...

  • Big 'Clouds' Much Less Manageable
    Scaling up is hard to do. As an alternative, enterprises can look for smaller providers or even build their own custom clouds.
    - People are talking about the Amazon s3 fiasco of the evening of July 20 and what the implications of this breakdown might be, short-term and long-term. Amazon's popular storage service was beset by unexplained outages for anywhere from two to six hours Sunday night. Users of Amazon Simple Stora...

  • The Latest in Cloud Computing
    Cloud computing - the latest handle attached to the idea of hosted Web services used by consumers and businesses - is beginning to get considerable traction now that there are more companies offering services online. Consumers have always bought books and music, auctioned off unneeded items, or found jobs and home using services running on the Internet. But now they're storing personal files, meeting future mates and running entire businesses using services to which they can subscribe. This all means that people and enterprises don't have to set up their own IT systems anymore to get work done.
    - Video Content....

  • FACTBOX: Nokia, Qualcomm Trial
    A key court case in a long-winding patent dispute between the world's top cell phone maker Nokia and U.S. technology company Qualcomm starts July 23 in a Delaware courtroom.
    - HELSINKI, July 21 (Reuters) A key court case in a long-winding patent dispute between the world's top cell-phone maker Nokia and U.S. technology company Qualcomm starts in a Delaware court on Wednesday. Nokia filed the case in August 2006, saying Qualcomm had breached its contract to license ...

  • Nokia, Qualcomm Licensing Trial Begins
    Nokia, the world's largest cell phone maker, and wireless chip supplier Qualcomm go to court July 23 in hopes of resolving a licensing fight that involves hundreds of millions of dollars and has spawned lawsuits on three continents. Qualcomm's case against Nokia is based on a 1992 licensing agreement that allowed Nokia to use Qualcomm's patents in its phones. That license expired in 2007, after Nokia paid Qualcomm $1 billion in fees and considered it to be paid up. Qualcomm disagreed and is seeking payment.
    - WASHINGTON (Reuters) Nokia, the world's largest cell-phone maker, and wireless chip supplier Qualcomm go to court on Wednesday in hopes of resolving a licensing fight that involves hundreds of millions of dollars and has spawned lawsuits on three continents. The case is based on a 1992 licensing ...

  • Microsoft Windows Home Server Update Arrives
    Microsoft Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 is available for download and will start automatic rollouts by early August. The Microsoft Windows Home Server update includes support for home PCs running 64-bit Windows Vista and enhanced remote access.
    - Microsoft on July 21 will make Windows Home Server Power Pack 1 available for download on its Web site, and will start automatic rollouts of the update by early August. quot;This is an incremental release [with] a range of enhancements, quot; said Joel Sider, senior product manager for the WHS ...

  • Open-Source Databases MySQL, PostgreSQL, Adoption Rising
    Open-source databases MySQL and PostgreSQL are gaining steam, but rip-and-replace situations where MySQL and PostgreSQL replace Oracle Database, IBM DB2 or Microsoft SQL Server databases remain rare.
    - The open-source database market is continuing its upswing, and shows no signs of slowing down. A market update by Forrester Research puts the value of the open-source database market at $850 million, which includes software licensing, technical support and services. By 2010, the authors of t...

  • Enhancing Web-Based Video Surveillance
    Envysion's loss prevention solution links existing digital video systems to Web browsers.
    - Envysion, which makes PCI-compliant Web video management technology, is adding new features to its managed video surveillance solution. Announced July 21, the features allow users to perform activities such as event search and filtering, reporting and alerting, and video collaboration. quot;We ...

  • eWeek Newsbreak, July 21, 2008
    Between the Aug. 8 opening events and the Aug. 24 closing ceremonies NBC will film 4,000 hours of footage and broadcast nearly 3,000 hours of it on its family of TV networks and Web site. To film, edit and broadcast all the footage in a timely manner, NBC partnered with Isilon Systems and Omneon Video Networks. Together they developed a complex editing process using big storage infrastructure and tagging technology; Intels Centrino is Intels fifth mobile platform for notebooks and the chip maker claims it will increase laptop battery life while delivering speedier performance and faster wireless connectivity; Repsol, a top ten oil producer teamed with the IBM and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center project to produce more accurate drilling and exploration maps. More accurate maps make drilling cheaper and faster. Respol is using the power of the IBM PowerXCell 8i processor to speed up the imaging algorithm used to render the maps; and Apple opened the doors to its iPhone App store last week, unleashing more than 500 applications for iPhone users. With all the options you might forget its a phone or the offspring of a music player.
    - Video Content....

  • Google Issues Lame Response to Android SDK Gaffe
    Google erred on the conservative side by offering its new Android SDK to only the 50 winners of the Android Developer Challenge. My guess is that Google's Android mission will now be full disclosure of the SDK and its overall open-source development practice.
    - Google made a critical faux pas July 14 when it sent out a new Android software development kit to only the 50 winners of the Android Developer Challenge. How very un-open source of it. But Google might have even erred more greatly in responding to the issue, as a spokesperson told me July 18:...

DailyTech News Feed RootPrompt -- Nothing but Unix
  • Stop VIM Autocommenting (29 May 2008)
    Has anyone else noticed how the newer versions of VIM attempt to be smart? Yeah, they think that just because you typed a comment on one line that you want to comment the next line, and the next, and the next. I don't know about you, but I'll tell the program which lines I want to comment, not the other way around. Link
  • Redundant Array Of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) (29 May 2008)
    The storage capacity and data retrieval speeds of Hard Disks have increased multiple folds in last few years. However for large business organizations, which not only need to store terabytes of invaluable data but access them frequently as well. These organizations cannot afford to let their systems go offline even for a short duration of time. Moreover they cannot even think of losing even small amount of data due to disk failure or for that matter any other reason.
  • Picking the right Eclipse distribution for you (29 May 2008)
    Which Eclipse distribution is right for you? Compare the CodeGear JBuilder 28 Turbo trial version, nexB EasyEclipse, Europa bundles, and Innoopract's Yoxo On Demand distros. Many of these Eclipse distributions already contain the plug-ins and tools you need to start working right away.
  • Watching Live-TV On Your Ubuntu Desktop With Zatto (28 May 2008)
    Zattoo has developed a software program that allows you to watch TV on your computer. All you need is a broadband connection and a current operating system (Windows XP or Vista, Mac OS X, or Linux). The service is legal and free of charge. Full Story
  • Manage Widget Geometry in PyGTK (28 May 2008)
    Several container widgets exist in GTK+, and with the toolkit's API, you can create user-defined containers. This API is also exposed to PyGTK. In this article, learn how to create a "weighted-table" container in PyGTK. The implementation introduces you to the basic model of GTK+ geometry management and gives you a feel for what to consider and expect when implementing container widgets.
  • How To Install A TeamSpeak Server (28 May 2008)
    This tutorial describes how to set up a TeamSpeak server on an Ubuntu Server system. Teamspeak has the ability to make more than one server by setting different ports for each server. The user that controls all these servers is called the SuperAdmin, he has the ability to make more servers and users with or without their rights.
  • Changing The Language & Keyboard Layout (13 May 2008)
    This document describes how to reconfigure the default language and the keyboard layout on various distributions so that they suit your location. I made this howto for our VMware images where the keyboard layout is always set to German and a few users have problems to configure the language and keyboard layout on these images.
  • How to: Asus Eee PC protection with privacy filter (13 May 2008)
    This article will show you how to make your Asus Eee PC secure from prying eyes by using a privacy filter. 3M Privacy Filters help block the screen view from anyone viewing the computer from a side view. Their unique microlouver privacy technology allows just persons directly in front of the computer to see on screen data clearly. Story
  • Unison - file synchronization tool (13 May 2008)
    Unison is a file-synchronization tool for Unix and Windows. It allows two replicas of a collection of files and directories to be stored on different hosts (or different disks on the same host), modified separately, and then brought up to date by propagating the changes in each replica to the other. Full Story
  • Debug and tune apps on the fly with Firebug (13 May 2008)
    In this article, learn to use Firebug, a free, open source extension for the Firefox browser that provides many useful developer features and tools. Using Firebug, you can monitor, edit, and debug live pages, including HTML, CSS, JavaScript code, and network traffic.
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KDE Dot News
  • KDE-Bindings / Kross Meeting
    Last weekend we hosted the KDE-Bindings and Kross meeting here at the KDAB Office in Berlin/Kreuzberg with the goal of organising, community building and of course hacking. It was the first meeting of its type for a bindings crew, with eight people representing Ruby, Python, C#, Lua and PHP. The projects do not all share code bases, and so it was an opportunity to present and review the details of how the implementations worked.

    Mauro Iazzi, Thomas Moenicke, Arno Rehn, Cyrille Berger, Aleix Pole
    Richard Dale, Sebastian Sauer, Simon Edward

    Python and Ruby are in a very good shape and stable for being used in application development using Qt and KDE facilities, while Qyoto, the C# binding is well on its way to providing the same level of completeness and stability. PHP will try to fill the gap between Desktop and Web Applications using the powerful technologies in the Qt toolkit, such as QtWebKit for instance. An interesting new star on the bindings horizon is Lua, which is widely used for scripting some well known computer games and other applications.

    As a result of the meeting, we were able to get the Lua bindings running the cannon game tutorial t7, which is an important milestone in the progress of a Qt language binding, as it uses custom signals and slots. Furthermore, Lua bindings have been moved into KDE playground this week. Another technology we were working on was a Smoke to Kross bridge that allows one to share objects between e.g. Ruby bindings and Krossruby. Using it, a developer can show GUI elements using QtRuby and the underlying QObjects and QWidgets can be picked up on the Kross side. The issues discussed included how to organise modules and documentation, improving the design of the template based QList and QMap marshallers for the Smoke lib, and which modules for the new KDE APIs we should target.

    An amusing demonstration of the power of some of the KDE bindings technology happened when Sebastian asked Richard for an estimate about the effort of make QtRuby applications scriptable with QtScript. He just came out with a Smoke2 module only 10 minutes later, and after an additional 10 minutes he wrote a corresponding extension for QtRuby, and we were quite amazed. More work was also done on the Kross plugins for Krita and KDevelop. On balance, it was a great meeting with great people and a nice ambiance at the KDAB office.

    Now we are looking forward to Akademy and more bindings discussions there. If you are interested in developing support for programming languages in KDE or writing documentation, just hop on Freenode in the #kde-bindings or #kross channel, or write an email to the kde-bindings mailing list, and we will be very happy to help get you going.

    Thanks to KDAB for sponsoring and hosting, and thanks to the KDE e.V. for supporting the event.

  • Alitheia Online Demo Available
    The SQO-OSS project aims at developing a software quality assessment platform to Free Software developers. SQO-OSS is a project funded through the European Commission's Framework Programme 6 and consists of a number of European organisations with knowledge relevant to build such a platform, among which KDE e.V.. After more than one and a half years of research, design and development the SQO-OSS developer now have made available a first demo showing some capabilities of the Alitheia system. Alitheia stands for the ultimate and business-like truth. Read on for more details.

    The significance of Alitheia 0.8.1 is the core being in a reasonably stable state and able to run metric plugins. Results of those plugins are being displayed in the webinterface. Some sample projects are available in the demo. Do note that the demo only shows the front-end of the system and little about its back-end, administration system. More information about the SQO-OSS project can be found on its webpage. If you want to get in contact with the developers of SQO-OSS you can subscribe to the SQO-OSS devel mailinglist or drop by on #sqo-oss on irc.freenode.net.

    If you have any questions, such as how to develop your own plugin that combines metrics based on KDE's bug database, subversion repository or mailinglist archives, the places listed above are the right places to get started.

  • KOffice Releases Ninth Alpha of KOffice 2.0
    The KOffice team announces the availability of the ninth alpha release of KOffice 2.0. With KDE4 becoming more stable by the week, KOffice development is picking up at a fast pace and developers who previously had trouble keeping up are now getting active again, leading to a much increased rate of commits for KOffice. Both the NLnet sponsored Girish Ramakrisnan, who is working on OpenDocument support, and the KOffice Google Summer of Code students are delivering solid work.

    Apart from much invisible, but very important work on improving core funcationality like ODF support, text handling and other infrastructure, important visible areas of progress in Alpha 9 are:

    KSpread has regained support for printing. It is possible to print a range of sheets or a selection of cells.

    The Kexi report generator can now generate reports in html and ODS, the OpenDocument spreadsheet file format, which KSpread and OpenOffice Calc can read.

    Vector layers in Krita can contain text and vector shapes. Editable, rich text in Krita is now a reality. Even nicer, it has become possible to add filter layers and masks to Krita, delivering live filter effects on vector shapes.

    The text shape object, which is the basis for KWord and provides editable rich text in all KOffice applications has gained a visual way of changing the paragraph layout.

    KOffice-wide, a new implementation of guides provides snapping to guides and dragging of guides for all flake shape objects.

    The Google Summer of Code students have been hard at work: Lukas Tvrdy has implemented the core of a chinese painting brush engine. Benjamin Cail has ported most of the .doc import filter to make it convert to odf instead of the old native KWord file format, cleaning up and improving our ODF code along the way. ODF support is really being focussed upon with both Piere Ducroquet and Carlos Manuel Licea Vázquez putting in a lot of work. Piere has been implementing document variables and Carlos has made a lot of progress converting KPresenter to use ODF natively instead of its own old file format. Lorenzo Villani is very productive and has already shown off his Kexi web forms work on his blog, until his computer started smoking! The calligraphy tool Fela Winkelmolen is writing for Karbon is coming along very nicely and is already completely usable. Fredy Yanardi, finally, is shouldering a lot of development work on Kpresenter, focussing on the presentation notes feature.

    But all KOffice developers have been working really hard on improving all components of KOffice. Please go to the changelog for more details! Or install KOffice on the operating system of your choice.

    For more screenshots, please visit our visual changelog. The KOffice team would really welcome volunteers to maintain the visual changelog!

    The KOffice team intends to continue delivering montly alpha releases until we have implemented all features in our feature plan: thereafter we will deliver beta releases until those features are stable. Coincidental with the release of Alpha 9, KOffice has entered the feature freeze stage.

  • 4.1 Release Candidate Out For Testing
    Today, we are passing the last milestone on the way to KDE 4.1, a release that will be suitable for a larger audience than 4.0 has been. While it is not yet up to the features that people are used to from KDE 3.5, KDE 4.1 provides a significant amount of improvements over KDE 4.0, which some said was a bit of a bumpy ride. Sources and available packages are linked on the release info page. KDE 4.1-rc1 is the only release candidate for KDE 4.1, which will be released on July 29th.

    The development in trunk/ in Subversion has already been opened for feature development, which is going into KDE 4.2 (to be released in January), but developers are strongly encouraged to concentrate on bugfixing in the 4.1 branch for now. Do give RC1 a spin, file bugreports and fix things, there is only a week left until 4.1 is being tagged. Do have your changes in the 4.1 branch reviewed by your peers, though. Note that some users might still be suffering from performance problems with NVidia graphics chips. There is a page on Techbase that gives some more information about it. Make sure you report bugs via KDE's Bugzilla so they can be addressed and do not get lost.

  • In Memory of Uwe Thiem
    I'm very sorry to let everyone know that Uwe Thiem, a long term contributor to KDE, passed away yesterday at 14:45 of kidney failure. Uwe was one of the longest contributors to the KDE family and was one of the original members of the core development team. He moved on to become the main KDE representative in Africa. Uwe was one of the first people to write a book on KDE development, which helped many people who have become regular contributors today, and was still writing about KDE last week. Aaron Seigo spoke for us all when he said "Uwe had a deep love for and belief in Africa and the role that technology can, and should, play on that continent. He put his back into it and was a great advocate for Free software in his area of the world". Our thoughts go out to his family and friends at this irreplaceable loss, we are all a little less than we were yesterday.
  • KDE Commit-Digest for 8th June 2008
    In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Global keyboard shortcuts for applets, and an Amarok and "python expression" runner in Plasma. A Java test applet and various interaction improvements in Plasma. Simple network and CPU monitors in the system-monitor Plasmoid. Initial import of PeachyDock, a Plasma-based alternative panel. The Oxygen window decoration gets the "on-all-desktops" button. Continued development toward Amarok 2.0. KDevelop gets a new context browser, and various other improvements. Initial work on SVG theming in Parley and Step. Support for OpenGL rendering in Palapeli. Enhancements for KDiamond 4.2. Nonogram switches to its own package format, with the import of a collection of game files in this format. Planned developments start to materialise in KColorEdit. Map-based searches in Digikam. Digikam-related libraries move to kdegraphics for KDE 4.1. Enhanced printing support (selections, zooming) in KSpread. KThumb, a simple command-line utility for managing freedesktop.org thumbnails. Optimisations in Kate, Dolphin, and kjs-frostbyte. Ruby bindings for various KDE facilities (QtWebKit, NEPOMUK, etc). Decibel strips some of its KDE dependencies, and moves to kdesupport. KDiskManager is removed to make way for a replacement. Mailody moves to kdeextragear. KPilot, KMobileTools, and the Kontact Planner summary plugin are disabled for the KDE-PIM 4.1 release. Read the rest of the Digest here.
  • 11 Myths about KDE
    As a response to recent negativity on the Internet, we've been working with Groklaw to get a story running detailing facts about questions such as "Releasing KDE 4.0 was a mistake", "I am forced to use the kickoff menu", "The whole KDE4 desktop interface is radically new". among others. Thanks go out to Pamela Jones for giving the KDE community a chance to rectify certain points that have recently been said in public. This way, we hope to make it easier for journalists to put KDE's direction, recent decisions and put simple myths into the right light.
  • KDE and GNOME to Co-locate Flagship Conferences on Gran Canaria in 2009
    The KDE e.V. and GNOME Foundation today announced that they will hold their yearly conferences, Akademy and GUADEC in 2009 in Gran Canaria. The conferences will be separate events, but co-located and hosted by the same organizers, the Cabildo of Gran Canaria and its Secretary of Tourism, Technological Innovation and Foreign Trade. "The GNOME community is very excited about the co-hosted GUADEC and Akademy" says Behdad Esfahbod, president at the GNOME foundation, "GUADEC has traditionally been a very important chance for our community to meet in person, build great working relation