W.I.L. Tech-News Highlights for February 2005

Operating Systems

The triumph and tragedy of Ray Noorda – link.

Bill Gates and other Communists – link.

Some thoughts on “Database Filesystems” – link.

Back when OS’s were lean – link.

Five features OS’s should have – link.

The boring state of operating systems today – link.

Using MySQL to benchmark OS performance – link. Comparing MySQL performance – link.

Intel’s Vanderpool Technology holds promise, some pitfalls – Part 1: about virtualization, Part 2: the problems, Part 3: how Vanderpool works, Part 4: VT in the real world.

Xen, which lets multiple OS’s run on the same computer, lures big-name endorsements – link 1, link 2.

Linux

Linus says a little fragmentation is good – link 1, link 2.

GNOME is a paragon of usable, restrained, unimaginative, corporate development. KDE is lively, nimble, cluttered, and a little crazy. What happened? – link.

How SCO’s threats rallied Linux – link. “General counsel’s office for the entire movement” announced – link. Captain McBride and the SCO Titanic – link.

The politics of GNU/Linux past and present – Part 1, Part 2.

Countering Microsoft’s attempts to define Linux for the masses – link.

Help for Linux newcomers

TUX, “the first and only magazine for the new Linux user”, issue 1 is out – Free subscription; Subscriber access.

A beginner’s guide to getting started with Linux (uses Knoppix) – Part 1: Getting Familiar.

“Best practices” of Linux desktop migrations and associated technical issues – link.

Setting up a Linux desktop in a small office – link.

Coasterless DVD burning on Linux for beginners – link.

LinuxWorld show shines light on desktop Linux – link.

Desktop Linux is still in a dismal state, as the Desktop Summit in San Diego made clear (progress notwithstanding) – link. Readers respond – link.

Linux Desktop Summit showed what fun can really be had in a Linux universe – link.

LWN.net’s “Grumpy Editor” plugs in his camera into his Linux box – link.

Linux-related site reviews

The GNOME Journal is a very interesting and appealing site. Hopefully it will soon start publishing more frequently! – site review.

Mad Penguin is a way of life, an attitude, a religion. Guiding force Adam Doxtater interviewed – link.

If you are really new to Linux, then ReallyLinux.com will help you navigate the sometimes choppy, sometimes murky waters of change – link.

A comparison of lightweight Window Managers – link.

File managers for Linux – link.

Linux.com’s “CLI Magic” series latest – Lynx, OpenSSH, Three Clocks, HTML Tidy, Netcat. Series index here.

How I learned to stop worrying and love the command line – Part 1.

Linux comes with several good utilities for getting detailed information on what is inside the box – link.

Monitor calibration Under X – link.

KDE tips and tricks – link. KDE 3.4 release candidate announced – link 1, link 2.

GTK+ will now depend on the Cairo vector graphics library which is designed to provide high-quality display and print output – link.

Gnome 2.12 to include the ClearLooks theme as default – link.

IBM’s “Linux Client Migration Cookbook” reviewed – link.

A Linux Island in a C:\ of Windows (setting up a Linux VM on your workplace desktop) – Part I, Part II, Part III.

Novell’s SUSE Linux-based Openexchange Server is powerful and versatile, providing a good Exchange replacement, and an all-encompassing, easily licensed, inexpensive server software stack for small/medium business networks – review.

German national railway moves 55,000 Notes users to Linux – link.

Installing and securing VoIP with Linux – link.

Choosing the right Linux certification – link.

Must-have applications for managing an enterprise Linux shop – link.

Linux desktop under attack, on the march – link.

Linux Club Italia is both a cultural association and a pub in Rome, which offers good drinks, food, and music ... and is also the home of all the Free Software-related projects of the association – link.

Some thoughts on the current state of 64-bit Linux distributions – link.

Open Source Development Labs comes up short in their effort at a set of desktop Linux specs – link.

QEMU is a generic and open source processor emulator which achieves a good emulation speed that runs on Linux 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels – link.

Report from LinuxWorld Expo: the hardware side – link.

Linux World 2005 notes – ExtremeTech, Linux Journal, Linux Today.

Is Linux security a myth? – link.

Microsoft admits targeting WINE users – link.

Linux gains popularity in China – link.

BSDs, other Unixes

NetBSD prime movers interviewed, following release of version 2.0 – link.

FreeBSD and NetBSD compared – link. FreeBSD takes off the gloves vis a vis other BSDs – link.

More FreeBSD for Linux users – link.

FreeBSD tips and tricks for 2005 – link.

A guide to FreeBSD on the desktop – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8. Discussion here.

First look at Solaris 10 – link.

Windows and DOS

Darius’s Guide to Windows 2k/XP Desktop Security – link.

Convert a Windows system to dual-boot Linux on a 2nd drive – link.

Radix Protector is a USB stick or PCI card solution that enables one to quickly restore one’s Windows system to previously set point – review.

New Windows authentication scheme is not unreasonable – analysis.

The Windows XP Tweaking Companion is the complete Windows XP and system optimization guide, and is available for free – link.

Gluing together Cygwin’s odds and ends to make life on your GNU-by-way-of-Windows desktop more comfortable – link. Discussion here.

What if ... David Weise had not gotten Windows applications running in protected mode? An alternative-universe speculation – link.

WindowBlinds 4.5 spruces up your Windows desktop, and it is less resource-intensive than standard Windows GUI code as long as you do not use extremely fancy skins – review.

PC crippled by Windows XP Service Pack 2 – link.

Detailed preview of Windows XP Pro x64 Edition RC1 – link.

Mac

Jef Raskin, creator of the Macintosh, dies at 61 – link 1, link 2.

Apple says video’s future is Tiger (OS X 10.4), QuickTime 7, H.264 – link.

Guest PC emulator for Mac OS X available – link.

Apple releases Mac OS X 10.3.8 update – link. Discussion here.

A plug for OS X as a workstation OS – link.

From GUI-hater to OS X – link.

Other OS’s

Samba ported to SkyOS. First issue of SkyOS newsletter issued – link.

SkyOS GI3D allows for screensavers and translucent rendering – link.

Syllable Conference (SYL-CON1) takes place – link.

Applications

Free Software Magazine issue #2 is available – link. Interview with Tony Mobily of Free Software Magazine – link.

It is time to integrate open source graphics applications (a la Adobe and Macromedia) – link. On the advantages and problems with this approach – link.

GRASS Geographical Information System is one of the most under-hyped open-source applications in existence – link.

There are lots of interesting Mono/GTK# applications out there – link.

Project GNUtemberg, a free software print-on-demand project – link.

Mozilla chairman Mitch Kapor speaks out on the role of open source and Microsoft – link.

Browsers

Browser speeds, standards compliance compared – link.

AOL to test “more secure” Netscape browser: version 8 browser to debut this month – link.

Firefox 1.0.1 security/bug-fix update released – link. Discussion here.

Firefox plugin delivers HTML-style audio and video browsing – link.

Opera 8 beta 2 beefs up defenses against phishers – link.

Opera tells MS to get real about interoperability – link.

Web page translation is available from within Konqueror – link.

Summary of upcoming Mozilla releases – link.

Internet applications (non-browser)

Beehive Forum 0.5 online community software (combined with PHP and MySQL) is second to none when it comes to user management, interface, and admin tools – review.

gFTP handles more than just FTP – link.

Connecting to the Internet with Kppp – link.

Mozilla Thunderbird email client takes flight. What is the Outlook? – link.

KMail is one of the best e-mail clients – link.

The history and future of SMTP – link.

OpenOffice.org news

The basics of OpenOffice.org fields (containers for information that is updated automatically i.e., variable holders) – link.

Basic button-pushing with OO.o macros – link.

In a battle of the Linux word processors, OpenOffice Writer is compared with TextMaker – link.

Tips and workarounds to get you through the sometimes frustrating process of creating cross-references in Writer documents – link.

Desktop-oriented applications

A quick primer on getting up to speed on vector-graphic editor Inkscape, version 0.41 of which has just been released – link.

Linux as a publishing platform – link. Scribus in the commerical DTP world – link.

The GIMP as a Photoshop alternative – link. The GIMP at a crossroads vis a vis splitting publishing and Web design functions – link.

Automate procedures in Photoshop Elements 3 using Actions – link.

Pinnacle’s Liquid Edition Pro 6 video editing software with breakout box is a featured-packed hardware/software combination – review.

Mozilla releases first public beta of Sunbird, a calendar application based on the iCal standard – link.

GNOME Photo Printer: A nifty little app – link.

MythTV is a suite of programs enabling one to build the mythical home media convergence box on your own using Open Source software and operating systems – link.

Converting CDs into audio files on Linux – link.

Playboy: The Mansion is one part Rollercoaster Tycoon, one part Evil Genius, two parts The Sims, with at least a couple of teaspoons of voyeurism added in as well – review.

Google’s new tool bar described as “evil” – link.

Programming

The era of proprietary computing is over – link.

The social structure of open source development – link.

The paradox of free/open source project management – link.

Software Freedom Law Center debuts – link.

Is UML past its sell-by date? – link.

The Best of Verity Stob provides painfully funny, literate parodies and observations from surviving 17 years of DOS/Windows development hell – book review.

A look at two open-source refactoring tools, Eclipse for Java and Bicycle Repair Man for Python – link.

Writing your own Unix/Linux shell – link.

Graphical user interface, Web

FOX, a platform independent GUI toolkit, version 1.4 is out – link. The 1st stable release of TnFOX is out – link.

GTK+ the first major toolkit to add support for Cairo 2D vector graphics library – link.

The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks – book review.

Opera enters handset UI business – link.

Very dynamic Web interfaces – link.

Open source XML editors examined – link.

Build a simple pop-up MP3 player for your site using JavaScript – link.

Delphi turns 10 – link.

Scripting and high-level languages

Linux, the DOS version of PowerBASIC, and interoperability with Windows – link.

Nokia blesses mobile Python – link.

Python used as modding language for Battlefield 2 – link.

Open Source IBM Object Rexx is born – link. Rexx links – here.

Luban is a component oriented scripting language “positioned somewhere between Perl and Java” – link.

Is Zend taking PHP in the wrong direction? – link.

Paper on the implementation of Lua 5.0 available – link.

Security & Privacy

Steal This File Sharing Book must be the worst nightmare of deluded music big boys everywhere. Figure that much of the information in it will likely have a shelf life of about two years – book review. Cryptographers tell Hollywood to prepare to fail on DRM – link.

Standard that is key to virtually all secure online communications is broken, although there is no immediate danger – link 1, link 2.

You can click, but you can’t hide, as Lokitorrent users discover – link.

Beware the unexpected attack vector – link.

Microsoft warns governments of bugs early, lets the rest of the world suffer until it is good and ready to inform them – link.

FBI, not its software outsourcer, is largely responsible for botched $170 million systems upgrade – link.

World’s most compact GPS tracking device is available – link.

Refurbished hard drives full of personal records, passwords, and other confidential data – link 1, link 2.

Open Source browsers damage businesses, says Microsoft “security specialist” in a satire that almost sounds true – link.

Feds square off with organized cyber crime – link.

Record attendance expected at RSA conference – link. The Register’s complete RSA 2005 coverage – here.

A look at some of the best equipment from RSA 2005 – link.

Computing techniques used to identify cheaters in Las Vegas are being applied to wider computer security and fraud detection problems – link.

RFID chips in keyless entry systems and ExxonMobil’s Speedpass can easily be hacked, study finds – link.

New survey finds that you may have more to worry about from careless paper management than from evil online forces – link.

One way to make computers safer from viruses is to fix their flaws on the assembly line – link.

PC holes, patches, defenses, scams, spam

Want to protect yourself and your computer? Here is a 10-point plan – link.

How secure is your computer? “Honey pot” experiment shows WinXP machines without the latest security pataches are at risk – link.

Virus writers are more innovative than big software firms – link.

Windows Security Center may say your PC is protected, even when it is not – link.

Verizon’s misguided attempt to block spam hurts many innocents – link.

Spyware-removal tools from ISPs may confuse people as much as it protects them – link.

Adware infections net the purveyors of slimeware software around $3 a year for each infected PC – link.

Security experts warn of “scary” new web scam, which shows how far fraudsters appear to be willing to go to hoodwink consumers – link.

Symantec CEO affirms strategy shift, says security products must detect attacks before they hit – link.

It can be hard to tell if your PC is infected. Here is what to do if you suspect the worst – link.

How Paris Hilton’s T-Mobile account got hacked (ridiculously easily) – link.

SpamAssassin compared with Postini – link.

Miscellaneous

Celebrating the body beautiful – link.

Bid now for a piece of computer history – link.

South America warms to Open Source – link.

Carovana X is an Italian-led initiative to help some Senegal communities. The members of this project are raising funds, assembling used computers, refurbishing them with Linux, and also collecting medical equipment and other first-necessity items – link.

Know what you don’t know and write what you do – link.

We could be looking at a generation in 50 years time which has no family photo album – link.

Beekeeping’s advocates swear there is no sweeter pastime – link.

Doonesbury savages copyright utopians – link.

Business

So you want to be a consultant – link.

Why Napster will be a fully-integrated flop – link.

Michael Robertson, founder of MP3.com and head of Linspire, plans to launch a new music download company and service called MP3tunes, where every song is in ultra-high quality MP3 format – link. Announcement here. Linux maker sprouts MP3 server – link.

Michael Robertson of Linspire, MP3.com and SIPphone fame is a money-hungry, freedom fighter. Authentic? Hard to tell, but fun to watch – link.

Google’s first ever analyst meeting leaves Wall Street’s finest perplexed – link.

NY Times Co. buys About.com for $410 million in cash – link.

New Flash infested Netscape.com portal beta annoys – link.

Low-key leaders are essential to open source success – link.

The emerging economic paradigm of open source – link.

An analysis of HP’s future strategy, post Carly Fiorina – link.

IBM: A growth engine sputters – link.

Open source is disrupting the fourth estate – link.

Why distribution, as opposed to low cost, is real advantage of open source – link.

The Internet

Lycos launches a search engine that indexes dating sites only – link.

Two online networking tools, Plaxo and LinkedIn, are tried out – report.

Socially inadequate? Meet V-girl – link.

University of Southampton launches semantic web interface – link.

Dismantling FUD aimed at Wikipedia and other free knowledge resources – link.

Science

Super solar homes everyone can afford – link.

Aussies deploy poisonous cane toad-blasting audio killing machine – link.

“Rocket fuel” found in U.S. breast, cow’s milk – link.

Global warming cleared on Antarctica ice shelf collapse rap – link.

Telecommunications

New broadcast indecency rule fines are well off the mark of the truly significant industry issues – link.

FCC “crosses the line” with broadcast flag, court rules – link.

U.S. telcos Sprint for the line – analysis.

StanaPhone = Skype’s big competitor? – link.

Greetings from South Korea, where broadband is cheap, and the gaming is easy – link.

WiMAX turns the screw on 3G – link. The pros and cons of WiMAX – link.

Wi-Fi alliance to beef up security – link.

3GSM World Congress 2005 coverage – The Register, Tom’s Hardware.

Cell phones in flight coming soon? – link.

Vonage says unnamed broadband provider prevented customers from using its service – link.