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

Operating Systems

New virtualization software makes computing cheaper and more efficient, and accelerates the power shift from sellers to buyers – link.

Linux

Linus compares Linux and BSDs – link. BSD cognoscenti on Linux – link.

What Linux really can really be counted on to do – link.

Opinion: Apple a day won’t keep Linux away – link. Linux and tornado chaser communities have certain common characteristics – link.

Open source, with Linux as the flag-bearer, seems to be everywhere – link.

MS salesmen will lie through their teeth to stop customers from switching to Open Source – link.

Making Desktop Linux happen – link.

Final voting in 2005 Linux Journal’s Readers’ Choice awards – link.

Help for Linux newcomers

Basic guide to dial-up Internet with Linux – link.

Linux filesystems and partitioning primer, and how to set up a dual-boot environment – link.

Beginner’s guide to Linux distros is a useful starting point – link 1, link 2.

Beginner’s introduction to the KDE desktop – link.

GNU/find for Dummies – link.

Computing without Windows – link.

Linux and non-MS OSes: a switching to Linux checklist – link.

A review of three Linux-based system rescue CDs – link.

How to build your own Linux distribution – link. Discussion here.

Debian and Fedora are two very different distributions. But they are responding to many of the same pressures, so it would not be entirely surprising to see them look more alike in the future – link.

Is the importance of commercial Linux distributions waning? Examining conventional wisdom – link.

The 2.4.31 kernel is out – link.

The 2.6.12 kernel is out – link. Kernel 2.6.13 discussions – link.

Linux Open Design 2.6 is a richly hyper-linked graphic and textual blueprint for the entire Linux Kernel, Security, Memory Management, File System, Cryptography, Initialization, Drivers, and Architecture and Inter-Process Communications (IPC) Subsystems – link.

Linux.com’s “CLI Magic” series latest – Customizing your bash environment, Hexdump unlocks mysteries, Use Extended Attributes for better file management, locate, slocate, and rlocate. Series index here.

Command-line interactive programs in UNIX shell-scripts – link. Using Rexx for easy desktop Linux scripting – link.

Pipes and filters explained – link.

The FreeNX protocol examined – link.

Nokia shifting to Linux as it joins with Apple to challenge Microsoft – link.

Building a Linux virtual server – link.

A Festival of speech synthesis for Linux – link.

A sneak peak at KDE 3.5 (and Qt4) – link.

Top 10 problems with the RPM package format – link.

The state of XGI Linux display drivers – link.

Interview with the author of Deploying OpenLDAP, the free and Open Source solution directory server – link.

BSDs, other Unixes

FreeBSD 5.4 reviewed – link.

FreeBSD 6.0 code freeze is about to begin – link.

Looking at FreeBSD 6 and beyond: a Q&A with developers John Baldwin, Robert Watson and Scott Long – link.

OpenBSD leader Theo de Raadt interviewed – link.

Theo De Raadt cannot understand why people pay $50,000 for an antihacker firewall from Cisco Systems or Check Point when they could arguably get better protection using his free software – link. Discussion here.

The NetBSD-Office Project, an approach to provide NetBSD users a common, preconfigured and ready to use Office Environment, is released – link.

PC-BSD 0.7.5 reviewed – link.

A few notes on the OpenSolaris release – link 1, link 2.

Windows and DOS

Microsoft is in a trap of its own creation when it comes to virtualization – link.

Windows 2000 is Microsoft’s most successful failure – link.

Windows rapidly approaching desktop usability – link.

Introducing GNU/DOS, a FreeDOS distribution for desktops which includes some FreeDOS utilities, many GNU utilities, vim, Arachne, and OpenGEM – link.

Microsoft rivals bristle at high price for protocol licenses – link.

Windows + RSS = Something Good? – link. On Microsoft’s announcement that it will incorporate RSS support in Longhorn, and the upcoming IE7 release (in an XP service pack) – link.

Mac

It’s true: Apple to move to Intel processors – link 1, link 2. What is all the fuss about? – analysis. On the Apple-to-Intel transition – link.

The Osborne Effect spooks Apple – link 1, link 2.

Life with Mac OS X Tiger … a report from the front – link.

Mac OS X 10.4.2 update to patch dozens of Tiger glitches – link.

Apple moves step closer to the PC with its switch to Intel CPUs – editorial.

Intel-Based Macs may run Windows, but Apple says it will stop the Mac OS from running on non-Apple machines – link.

“Mad as Hell”, making the switch from Windows to the Mac, and subsequent bumps in the road along the way – link.

Other OS’s

Experience the ‘80s again with Ubiquitous Amiga Emulation. Give it a try if you want to see what a past generation of programmers could do with the cutting-edge desktop hardware of its day – link.

A detailed history of the Amiga – link. How QNX failed the Amiga – link.

AROS status update – link.

Interview with QNX’s Vince Davis – link.

Applications

The 100 best products of 2005, according to PC World, announced – link.

Anyterm is a terminal emulator package that runs as a local Javascript application on a web browser – link.

The Red Hat Directory Server (ex-Netscape) is fast, with an impressive array of capabilities, and could bring an end to the era of expensive, proprietary high-end directory servers – link.

ClarkConnect, the best small business server you have never heard of – link.

Version control for non-programmers with Subversion – link.

WebGUI content management system works wonders for Oregon church Web site – link.

Open Clip Art Library, a collection of SVG and PNG graphic images, release 0.14 is out – link.

db.* proves it is a database survivor – link.

Internet applications

A sneak peak at Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird 1.1 – link.

Making Firefox integrate with your email client … or virtually any program on your system – link.

What is Firefox prefetching? – link.

Opera 8.01 now available for Mac OS X (and other OS’s) – link. Opera 8.01 contains a fix for the Javascript error which is plaguing other browsers – link.

Curtain rises on Windows Mobile Opera – link.

Konqueror passes ACID2 Test – link.

Deepnet Explorer 1.5 is a more secure version of IE that foils the phishers, and includes lots of other features Microsoft could not be bothered with – link.

Extensions add wings to Thunderbird – link.

Novell ports MS Outlook-clone Evolution to Windows – link.

AOL’s free AIM.com email offering is surprisingly good – review.

A survey of RSS aggregators – link.

WS_FTP Pro 2006 business-oriented FTP client is a secure way to transfer files. Features include security (SSL, SSH, and PGP) and advanced file management – review.

A look at the commercial success of LimeWire, an open source Gnutella client – link.

NSD is an alternative to the widely deployed BIND name server – review.

Office application news

AbiWord 2.2.8 released, with a lot of bugfixes, polish, and cleanups as the end of the 2.2 release cycle approaches – link.

KOffice 1.4 released – link 1, link 2.

LaTeX is not for everyone, but it could be for you – link.

OpenOffice.org 2.0 beta reviewed – link.

OpenOffice.org Writer (2.0 beta) vs. Microsoft Word (2003) updated: At its worst, OOo Writer is an adequate alternative for Microsoft Word, while most of the time it is a superior one – link.

OpenOffice.org Writer table formulas explained – Part 2.

Fixing the problems with OpenOffice.org extensions – link.

Indian OO.o roll-out continues – link.

Other desktop-oriented applications

Recent graphics design application reviews from Tom Arah: Acrobat 7, Canvas X, Adobe Creative Suite 2, Corel Designer 12, Adobe InDesign CS2, Adobe Illustrator CS2, Photoshop CS2, Poser 6, Vue 5 Infinite, Xara 3D 6.

Recent graphics design articles from Tom Arah: Understanding bitmap image modes, Extending bitmaps, 3D Procedural Materials, Reliable and creative Web video with Flash.

What Adobe’s proposed buyout of Macromedia will mean for the creative community – link.

Adobe’s Creative Suite 2 Premium is a class act – review.

Adobe Photoshop CS2 provides plenty of reasons to upgrade, while while integrated Bridge file browser is definitely a 1.0 application – review.

GPLFlash lives again – link. Discussion here.

Blender 2.37, which adds soft body support, force fields, and deflection for realistic cloth, skin, and other effects, is out – link.

Quark CEO abruptly resigns – link.

GePhex is a real-time video effect framework – link.

Tuxcards and KnowIt are open source two-pane outliners that can be used as quickly searchable notebooks, or collections of Web clippings, to-do lists, or projects in progress. Both make fine text databases, and both are handy for the planning of complex documents – link.

Streaming music with SlimServer – link.

10 free games worth downloading – link.

Programming

Why “crunch mode” does not work – link.

If bad software developers built houses … – link.

How to make money from Open Source – link.

IP software compliance tools: who needs them and why? – link.

LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl) made easy with XAMPP (which runs on Windows too) – link. Microsoft looks to extinguish LAMP – link.

SNAPPIX minimizes the ramp-up time required to start learning and using Open Source software – link.

Bazaar-Ng is a next-generation version control system that is in the early stages of development – link.

Data Crunching is a good book, which you should read it if you regularly do routine data manipulation and extraction. And yet … – book review.

HLA is a high level Assembly programming language for Linux users – link.

Graphical user interface, Web

Trolltech releases Qt 4.0 – link 1, link 2. Qt 4 Designer reviewed – link. The Qt 4 Resource Center features articles regarding the next generation of Qt – link.

Bookmarks for web-developers, a list of useful tools supposed to make the life of web-workers easier, includes over 500 manually selected resources, tutorials, references and examples related to web-development, is announced – link.

Spring into HTML and CSS – book review.

Why Open Source should be important to all Web developers – link.

JavaScript 1, 2, and in between – link. Discussion here.

Bluefish is a keeper for HTML editing – link. Discussion (with a strong counterargument in favor of Quanta) here.

C/C++/Java family

The New C Standard - An Economic and Cultural Commentary, “a detailed analysis of the International Standard for the C language”, is available free over the Web – link.

Effective C++, Third Edition – book review.

The GNU Compiler for Java comes of age – link.

Scripting and high-level languages

If you want to learn Ruby on Rails, Agile Web Development with Ruby on Rails is a great choice, and will probably be the definitive book on the subject – pre-release book review.

An introduction to the powerful Ajax support that is part of the Ruby on Rails web application framework – link.

Rails Day 2005, a contest to see what websites entrants could come up with in just 24 hours using Ruby on Rails, deemed a success – link.

PHP marks its 10th anniversary – link 1, link 2.

Will PHP Data Objects be PHP 5.1’s killer feature? – link.

Free public beta of REALbasic 2005 for Linux available – link 1, link 2.

Sample recipes from Python Cookbook, 2nd Edition – link 1, link 2.

PySWT is a Python binding to the IBM Eclipse SWT library – link.

Python’sstandard logging module helps you trace what your program is doing – link.

With Zope 3.1 imminent, and following the creation of a foundation to hold Zope code copyrights and Zope tradement, Zope Corp. head interviewed – link.

Python/Zope-based Plone content management system is one of the best collaborative tools for enterprise intranets – link.

How Rexx could play an important role in Linux’s challenge to the Windows desktop – link.

Security & Privacy

The chatter always seems to be the same: tighten the firewall, use encryption, update your signatures … but for most organizations, there is still a lot more work to be done. And most importantly, the industry is only now beginning to address the really juicy problems – link.

Identity thieves drain state unemployment benefit funds – link.

Securing your wireless network against crackers – link.

A 10 step approach to securing a Linux server – link.

Buffalo Technology’s AOSS and Linksys’s SecureEasySetup wireless LAN security systems compared – review.

How a not-entirely-artificial problem of getting wireless internet access where measureas are in place to stop it was solved – link.

How do you handle portscanning attacks? – link.

Hackers plot to create massive botnet – link.

Gartner lambasts security FUDmongers, lists the 5 most over-hyped security threats – link 1, link 2.

Advice on company document shreading policies – link. Keeping company email under lock and (public) key – link.

Open Source steganography programs for Windows and Linux that can hide data in image and audio files – link.

Anti-spam success drives malware authors downmarket – link.

Holes, patches, defenses

Details on how a sophisticated Web attack works: Bagle variant helps to turn PCs into zombies – link.

Spammers are teaming with hackers and virus writers to create zombie PCs. Here is how to wake yours from the dead – link.

Virus writers responsible for the recent rash of Mytob worm variants could be working on creating a super worm, a security researcher warns – link.

DShield: a community approach to intrusion detection – link.

Microsoft buys Sybari anti-virus software, then discontinues sales for Linux and Unix platforms. Take aim at foot, pull trigger? – link.

Computer Associates buyes personal firewall vendor Tiny Software – link.

Miscellaneous

Supercomputer mauls chess grandmaster – link.

What is the best geek joke you know? – link.

If you don’t like sex, or violence, or technology, or black humor, you will not really enjoy The Escapist. Otherwise, it has some plusses – book review.

The Center for Democracy & Technology takes on infringement … and sells out to the entertainment industry – link.

Fountain Of Youth – link.

Proposed U.S. patent reform discussed – link.

Business

Microsoft, Sun and IBM all show they need Open Source – link.

Google to take on Paypal – link. Google not taking on PayPal (for now) – link. PayPal founder on Google’s Wallet – link.

Google woos book publishers, uses publishing conference to promote, as well as defend, its Google Print service – link.

Google sued by “click-fraud” opportunist – link.

Paid music downloads are increasing, but most songs are obtained through file swapping. – link.

Darknet: Hollywood’s War Against the Digital Generation provides some much-needed pushback to Hollywood – book review.

Ante upped in war on file-sharers as Supreme Court sides with Hollywood to hammer Grokster – link 1, link 2. Supremes protect P2P technology, then punt – analysis. After Grokster: why (almost) everything we are told about P2P is wrong – link. Grokster: Confusing sin and sinner – link.

The Internet

Yahoo ditches fees on U.S. Web auctions – link.

Restricting adult content to .xxx top-level domain could create a virtual red-light district – link.

Mercora IMRadio lets you share your music with friends and other people on the network by Webcasting a stream of music – link.

LA Times cans wikitorials – link. If you build it, the a**holes will come – link.

Telecommunications

Skype Out is a bargain – link.

Olympia’s Du@lphone 9211 IP combined cordless and VoIP handset is fit for every broadband connected home – review.

Mauritius is planning to become one of the best wi-fi covered countries in the world – link. Discussion here.

Voice over Wi-Fi on the way, perhaps within 2 years – link.

Cable and DSL providers battle cities that want to offer broadband access to residents – link. Senators back municipal broadband – link.

The best (and worst) ISPs – link.

The PBX is dead; long live VoIP: Asterisk threatens to turn the business telephone system industry on its head – link 1, link 2.

A mass migration to alternative telephony (mobile, VoIP) is forecast over the next five years, with a quarter of Western European households expected to ditch their landlines, predicts report – link.

U.S. Supreme Court has sides with FCC, and by extension, with cablecos, by decreeing that cable infrastructure need not be open to competitors who wish to lease it, the way telecommunications infrastructure is – link.