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

Operating Systems

Leo Laporte: The PC and open source will outlive Windows – link.

Agnostic apps make desktop OS arguments moot – link.

Basic networking: Windows to Linux Fedora – link.

Windows vs. Linux/OSS today – link.

Linux

On the state on Linux wikis – link.

the genius behind Linux cherishes his anonymity – link.

On various attempts at coming up with a Linux distribution standard – link.

Help for Linux newcomers

ELX Biz Desktop 4.0 works right out of box, and features multimedia support and easy configuration. Hopefully a kernel 2.6 version will be out soon – review.

Will 2006 be Linux’s year? – link.

Linux.com’s “CLI Magic” series latest – Regular expressions and metacharacters, Information, please, Bash history expansion, John the Ripper. Series index here.

Tips for buying a Linux-compatible laptop – link.

Deciding when to migrate your servers to Linux – link.

A quick look at several commands – whereis, whatis, df, kernelversion, ifconfig, route, and last – that can quickly answer questions about your system or configuration – link.

A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming reviewed – link.

Notes from the Ottawa Linux Symposium – Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4.

Hackable $99 Linux handheld includes WiFi – link. Picotux: the Smallest Linux computer in the world – link.

Notes from the 2005 Linux Kernel Developers’ Summit – link.

The arrival of NX, a new technology that allows one to run remote X11 sessions across slow or low-bandwidth network connections – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Linux in a Windows World aims to solve the problems experienced by many system administrators – book review.

How to make your Linux desktop look awesome – link.

Novell bridges the OS gap, as it works on retiring NetWare and delivering a Linux-based server OS in a package that keeps a foot in both camps – link.

Linux migration tips for Windows admins – link.

How Linux will crack the home market – link.

A look at Open Sense Computing’s new Linux desktop workstation offering – review.

A PBX for everyone with Asterisk@Home, a Linux distribution dedicated to making Asterisk easy to install and configure – link.

Jeremy White on CodeWeavers’ “Installer Challenge” to improve WINE “until it can run nearly every Windows program” – link.

BSDs, other Unixes

New GNU Source Installer eases Unix source installations – link.

OpenBSD and OpenSSH team leader Theo De Raadt on industry and free software – link.

PC-BSD 0.7.8 released, PC-BSD project leader Kris Moore interviewed – link.

An early look at FreeBSD 6, which looks to be an evolutionary step from 5.x, not the revolutionary step that 4.x->5.x was – link.

FreeBSD is the unknown giant among free OSs, + a guide to PC-BSD – link.

Enterprise Unix roundup: the return of the prodigal distro – link.

m4 is a very useful, very overlooked, Unix power tool – link.

Windows and DOS

MS’s Ballmer gets high marks for guts with his speech to partners – link.

Hacking Windows (XP) Explorer – link.

Microsoft Vista is so exciting. Not – link.

XYNTService is an open source admin tool for Windows that reads a configuration file to know which applications to run – link.

Steve Ballmer lambasts IBM, Linux, SAP while exhorting partners to bet their next 10 years on Windows and Microsoft services – link. Microsoft’s plans do not Worry IBM – link.

An actively developed GUI for … FreeDOS? – link.

FreeDOS distribution GNU/DOS 2005 updates and improvements are available – link.

Mac

The “iPod halo” may have attracted up to 400,000 Windows users to the Mac so far this year – link.

OS X is making inroads in the business world – link.

OS X 10.4.2 update released – link.

Other OS’s

Pegasos I G3 to Pegasos II G4 upgrade program now active – link.

IBM posts funeral notice for OS/2. Fabled OS to die by 2006 – link 1, link 2. Discussion here. OS/2 has earned its freedom – link.

Why new OS’s will not stand a chance – link.

Palm vs. Pocket PC: PDA OS cagematch – link. PalmSource has halted all non-Linux development – link.

Linux trounces Windows Mobile in Smartphone shipments – link.

Amiga turns 20 – link.

BeOS descendent Zeta reviewed – link.

Applications

TheOpenCD, a collection of high quality Free and Open Source Software, releases ver. 3.0 – link.

Core software for Windows – link.

MythTV lets users watch live TV and record shows, search TV listings, and burn recorded shows to a DVD … in Linux – link. Simple PVR with KnoppMyth – link.

Getting started listening to podcasts – link.

Free software for busy people is a free book mostly about OpenOffice.org and Firefox – link.

DotProject is a robust Web-based project management framework written in PHP that allows users to schedule, plan, and staff projects – link.

Pac Man is back (Did he ever really leave?) – link.

Databases

The Bizgres Project releases version 0.6 release, with a few new features of interest to organizations using PostgreSQL for data warehousing and business intelligence – link.

Database vendors eye open source competition – link.

Converting you MySQL storage engine from MyISAM to InnoDB – link.

Internet applications

Is any Web browser “market share” data reliable? – link.

Opera looking to integrate BitTorrent into its browser – link 1, link 2. Opera 8.02 released – link.

A trio of open source niche browsers: Ghostzilla, BrowseX, and Amaya – link.

Firefox 1.0.6 and Thunderbird 1.0.6 released – link. Firefox 1.5, is slated for release later this summer, and development work continues on new features that include an automatic update service – link.

On the merits of text-mode Web browser Lynx – link. An annotated Lynx keymap – link.

Filtering spam in Novell Evolution – link.

LimeWire, the popular cross-platform P2P client for the Gnutella network, has been growing in popularity thanks to its promise that it contains no adware or spyware – link.

Using Bittorrent on Linux – link.

Track eBay bids with JBidwatcher – link.

Manage network bandwidth using the dummynet traffic shaper application running on a diskette-based OS PicoBSD – link.

OpenOffice.org

What new users need to know about OpenOffice.org – link.

Spice up your presentations with OpenOffice.org Impress – link.

Hooking OOo to MySQL – link.

A proposed OpenOffice.org article automated response system (humor) – link.

Sharing files between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office – link.

Desktop-oriented applications

desktop publishing with Scribus 1.3.0 – link.

Straights (and curves and network diagrams) in vector graphic editory Dia – link.

Command-line animations using ImageMagick – link.

Edit audio file tags with EasyTAG – link. Audio looping software on Linux – link. Linux audio musings – link.

Cinelerra is a freely available media editing suite for Linux – link.

Macromedia Flash Player ver. 8 public beta is out – link.

GAMGI, the General Atomistic Modelling Graphic Interface, is a tool for visualizing atomic structures – link.

MP3 is 10 years old today – link.

Programming

LiveLAMP, a bootable CD project, can turn any PC into an instant server capable of supporting up to 1,000 students doing work on over a dozen programming languages and hundreds of development tools – link.

An introduction to the Delta Debugging technique – link.

Freelance programming sites? – link.

A look at SourceLabs’ SWiK, which combines the best of a Wiki, database, social bookmarks and search engine for open source projects – link.

Making money from Free Software – link. The next wave of commercial free software, where demand is driven not by cost alone, but foremost by quality of service and increased agility – link.

“Why I’m not a programmer today” – link.

Graphical user interface, Web

Nvu web authoring system version 1.0 released – link.

Jetty, a small open source Web server written entirely in Java, is simple for both programmers and users, making it a good choice for bundled Web server – link.

If you use XML then eXist, an open source XML database, may help you to do the job effectively – link.

AJAX is ushering in a more mature Web design and development paradigm – link.

Migrating IE Web Apps to Mozilla – link.

Google Map API transforms the Web – link.

C, C++, Java, and related

What is new with Jython and a look at the latest Java scripting language, Groovy – link. Groovy’s growth spurt – link.

Eclipse fails to meet the enterprise Java developer’s needs – link.

The new C standard – link.

C++ in 2005, according to Bjarne Stroustrup – link.

Looking at Effective C++ – link.

Scripting and high-level languages

Programming using scripting languages (Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP) on Linux – link.

Getting started with Ruby – link.

A beginner’s 3-part tutorial for PHP from IBM – link.

The practicality of OO PHP – link.

Installing and configuring PHP 5 is greatly simplified using Zend Core from IBM – link.

Django for Python is yet another web framework inspired by Ruby on Rails – link. Ruby on Rails and J2EE: Is there room for both? – link.

Haskell, a very different language – link.

Security & Privacy

Executives, PDAs and security a poor mix – link.

A proposed new U.S. data security law says that if a site’s list of user IDs or e-mail addresses is compromised, each registered user must be notified via U.S. mail or telephone. How many such sites even have postal mail addresses or phone numbers for their users? – link.

Personal data quiz throws wrench into ID theft – link.

Security consultant and celebrity hacker Kevin Mitnick says “social engineering” gets an intruder further than coding, but is preventable – link.

Some travel sites continue to share your personal data with others, a study shows – link.

Number of Zombie PCs jumped more than 300% in Q2 vs. Q1, McAfee says. – link.

Typosquatters hijack U.S. credit report site – link.

Who is to blame for the security meltdown? All of us, users and vendors alike – link.

Users wising up to spyware – link.

If Linux ruled the world how secure would it be? – link. Comparing security on Windows and Linux – link.

How to hack biometrics … it is not as hard as you might think – link.

Spam, advertising

Blue Security hopes you will join thousands of others in an army capable of crippling spammers’ Web sites – link.

Ad blockers may kill off free Web content, claims Doubleclick – link.

Miscellaneous

Lawrence Lessig speaks on Microsoft, antitrust, telecomms – link. How Creative “Commonists” rocked Argentina – link.

Bill Gates says there is a shortage of qualified computer science engineers for hire in the U.S., following a 60% decline in students choosing CS as a major from 2000 to 2004 – link 1, link 2. Onshore coders’ salaries rise along with Offshore fears – link. R&D and skills crisis looms for Europe – link.

Bill Joy knocked as “conspiracy theorist” by tech zealot – link.

London’s OpenTech 2005 conference looks ahead – link.

Shimano has reinvented the lowly comfort bike to woo the La-Z-Boy generation. It has an automatic transmission – link.

“Paradoxical” concrete, flying motorcars, magnetic levitation trains that travel hundreds of miles per hour, safe rocket ships that will enable suborbital travel between continents at hypersonic speeds all in near transportation future – link.

Business

Even in a post-Grokster world, it is too early for the music business to celebrate – link.

European Parliament rejects software patents 648 to 14, but the outcome is very much a mixed result – link.

Google’s free AdSense program lets you sell advertising space relevant to your site’s content on your website – link.

The Internet

Bush administration annexes internet, says it intends to retain control of the internet’s root servers indefinitely – link. Turks set up alternative internet – link.

On the power struggle over who should control the heart of the Internet: the process by which domain names and IP addresses are assigned and administered – link.

ICANN president delivers Internet vision – link.

ICANN warns world of domain hijacking – link.

Is anybody out there? A dozen major Web sites queried using their “Contact Us” links, in an effort to get a quick personal answer – link.

Google Earth, MSN Virtual Earth combine satellite images with local search information – link.

An Internet pioneer looks ahead, sees video conferences on mobile devices, widespread use of voice recognition, and perhaps catastrophic Internet failure – link.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation celebrates 15 years in action – link.

Telecommunications

There is big money in owning mnemonic 1-800 numbers, but the FCC stands in the way … for now – link.

I.B.M. and partner may offer broadband from a wall plug – link.

NEC technology bridges WLAN, 3G networks: users could get continuous high-speed access while traveling at more than 100 mph – link.

Proposals for 802.11s wireless mesh networks standard, which can link many wireless LANs to cover a city or campus, presented to IEEE – link.

Congress braces for TV over IP regulations fight – link.

Internet telephone quality still lags, survey says – link.

U.S. wireless broadband firms terrified of WiMAX – link.

There may soon be only three nationwide mobile phone networks in the U.S., as Deutsche Telekom is considering selling its U.S. division – link.

Two of the latest Wi-Fi VoIP phones tested to see how wireless Internet calling works – link.

Encryption guru Phil Zimmermann returns with VoIP anti-snooping software – link 1, link 2.