W.I.L. Tech-News Highlights for March 2006

Operating Systems

Switch back and forth between Linux and Windows without manual intervention by following these step-by-step instructions – link.

There is no reason not to be dual booting Linux and OSX – link. Windows-Linux dual boot tutorial – link.

The desktop is changing … but to what? – link.

Ubuntu, Mac OSX, and Windows XP compared and contrasted – link.

Linux

IBM has a series of tutorials to help you prepare for system administrator certification and the topics in LPI exams 201 and 202 – link.

Maddog Hall on Linux, saving money and ruling the world – link.

Top 10 reasons to use Linux – link.

Linux kernel 2.6.16 released – link. What is what in Linux 2.6.16 – link.

Seattle’s Penguin Day brought together nonprofit organizations and FOSS advocates looking to support this other community – link.

Help for Linux newcomers

Linux works even for total newbies – link.

Kanotix Live-CD provides a gentle intro for Linux beginners – link.

Linux is an easy alternative for those sick of Windows – link.

Linux In Easy Steps is colorful and friendly but lacks depth – book review. (The reviewer prefers Marcel Gagné’s Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!, 2nd Edition – book review.)

Moving Windows fonts to Linux – link.

Basic Unix shell commands – link. Command the power of the Unix command line – link.

Why Linux user groups matter – link.

How open source is faring in big box retail stores – part 1, part 2.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) has the potential to be a relatively interesting distribution, and might just yet help 2006 to be the year of Linux on the desktop … for real, this time – link.

Rubix Linux 1.0, a distribution that combines a Slackware core, the KDE desktop, and Arch Linux’s “pacman” package management software, is out – link.

Dyne:bolic is a multimedia-centric Linux distribution on live CD. Recording, mixing, streaming, and broadcasting audio and video content is its stock in trade. Latest version is 1.4.1 – review.

Automatix automatically installs a laundry list of applications, plugins, and utilities that are helps turn a barebones Ubuntu install into desktop perfection – link.

A live CD from the Kororaa Project provides an easy way to see and use Xgl, the X server graphics technology that is the hottest thing to hit the Linux desktop since the blinking cursor – link.

andLinux is a complete Linux distribution that runs seamlessly in Windows, using CoLinux – link.

Trustix Secure Linux lives up to its name – link.

For those who are familiar and comfortable enough with Suse 10 or Linux in general, Suse Linux 10 Bible could take your Linux experience to the next level – book review.

A web site which allows users to build pre-configured Debian GNU/Linux servers, tailor-made for their exact needs – link.

Linux audio performance in the gaming environment tested with various sound cards – link. Discussion here.

Release 0.9.9 of Wine, a free implementation of Windows on UNIX, is out – link.

KDE creator Matthias Ettrich interviewed – link.

SimpleKDE is a cut-down KDE – link. Repeat after me: No more Linux desktop forks – link.

YaKuakeis is an easy access console for KDE – link.

GNOME 2.14 contains few major innovations that are visible to the user, but does include another round of improvements in usability (especially speed) and the continued development of the desktop administration tools, as well as numerous small improvements in productivity software – link.

Komposé is a Mac-inspired utility that aids Linux window management – link.

Running the command line interface as your desktop environment – link.

Linux.com’s “CLI Series” latest – Securely deleting files with shred, Monitoring bandwidth from the command line, Tracking system performance with sar, Playing music from the command line with mp3blaster. Series index here.

An interview with Falko Timme, whose step-by-step Linux administration tutorials have gained a large readership – link.

Degunking Linux is actually a useful systems administration manual for intermediate Linux users or Windows tinkerers – book review.

A report from LinuxForum 2006 – link.

Virtualization in Xen 3.0 – link.

Testing bleeding edge Linux development distributions – link.

Deploying Linux: Should you pre-compile binaries or roll your own? (usually the later) – link.

Linux and smart phones – link.

Better Linux sales are not enough to halt Novell’s slide – link.

Different Linux sysadmins’ toolboxes – link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4, link 5, link 6, link 7, link 8, link 9 link 10, link 11, link 12.

andLinux POC 2.1 is a complete Linux system designed for developing applications and runs on Windows 2000 based systems (2000, XP, 2003, Vista) – link.

Self-Service Linux provides system administrators, computer forensics pesonnel and developers with a guided tour of advanced techniques for tracking down the sort of intractable problems that no amount of Googling can solve – book review.

BSDs, other Unixes

What is UNIX, anyway? – link.

Where the UNIX OS’s are breaking new ground – link.

Software RAID on OpenBSD using RAIDframe – link.

OpenBSD asks for donations. Pre-orders for OpenBSD 3.9 are also now available – link.

OpenBSD’s Theo de Raadt interviewed – link.

Solaris Express is the latest version of SunOS, which draws its roots from BSD 4.1 – review.

Sun CEO Scott McNealy makes a proposal to HP to merge their respective UNIX platforms – link.

Windows and DOS

Microsoft delays a special slimmed-down version of Windows XP for legacy PCs, which is based on the Windows Embedded code base – link.

A theoretical solution to the Intel-Macs-Won’t-Boot-Windows problem – link.

Installing Windows XP on an Intel iMac – link. Duel-booting Vista and Macinteltoshes will be impossible – link. Why XP will never officially work on a Mac – link.

IBM researchers are developing in their free time legacy BIOS support for Intel Macs, BAMBIOS, which looks like a very promising project to bring Windows and non-EFI Unices to the Mac platform – link.

An inside look at Windows Vista – link.

Vista set to swallow 800MB of RAM and 7GB of disk space – link. Vista gamers need 2GB+ of memory – link.

OpenGL will be enabled on Windows Vista, vs. previous plan to force OpenGL to be translated to Direct3D, reducing performance by 50% and locking the OpenGL version to 1.4 only – link.

A superficialcomparison of Vista vs. OSX 10.4/10.5 – link.

Mac

Apple’s high-water mark? – link.

The Macintosh through Linux eyes – link.

Other OS’s

Plan 9 still alive – link.

MenuetOS drops 32 bit development, users then pick it up! – link.

Screenshots show Haiku’s progress – link. Where Haiku is at, Part II – link.

Interview with Sven Jorg, lead developer of the BNX project, a mating of Haiku’s open source BeOS servers with a specially-licensed, real-time kernel from QNX – link.

OS Group of Dresden University releases live demo CD of their custom operating system project, TUD:OS, a microkernel-based operating system targeted at secure and real-time systems – link.

Sony PS3 the Holy Grail for alternative operating systems? – link.

Applications

Using Linux to manage a large audio collection – link.

“Software released under an open source license” is no longer news – link.

The Docebo project combines a learning management system (LMS), content management system (CMS), and knowledge management system (KMS) in one suite, available under the GPL – link.

How to choose an open source CMS (Content management system) – link.

GanttProject is an easy-to-use, free, Java-based project management application. Version 2.0 was recently released – link.

An open source virtual office for realtors – link.

Databases

SQLite creator (who still writes most of the code) Richard Hipp interviewed – link.

Get to know Firebird RDBMS in 2 minutes – link.

Five (invalid) reasons why you should never use PostgreSQL – link.

Why PostgreSQL can best SQLServer, Oracle – link.

Why use a big bucks database instead of PostgreSQL? – link.

Internet applications

Introduction to Syndication, (RSS) Really Simple Syndication – link.

Extract data from the Internet with Web page scraping – link.

Opera 9.0 Technology Preview 2 – review.

Opera is now Acid2 compliant – link.

Mozilla Firefox 2 Alpha 1 available – link.

Mozilla’s Google $millions a tax dodge? – link.

Windows email programs still do not deliver, although Thunderbird is definitely superior to Outlook Express – link.

Using Thunderbird as a context management tool – link.

Average Joe makes a wiki with Mediawiki – link.

A first look at wikiCalc, a Web-based spreadsheet application created by Dan Bricklin, co-creator of VisiCalc – link.

Using wikis and blogs to ease administration – link.

Google is offering free Web pages with an easy-to-use home page creator that you do not have to download, and you can use the utility even from a Linux desktop if you use Firefox – link.

Office applications

The other big Linux office suites (ApplixWare, GNOME Office, and Office) given quick reviews – link.

The next generation office suite may or may not be OpenOffice.org – link.

OO.o 2.0.2 is available. Release contains some new features, fixes many small bugs, and resolves numerous issues – link.

How OpenOffice 2.0 stacks up against Microsoft Office – link. Office may out-feature OpenOffice, but … – link.

Document control in OO.o Writer – link. Hidden treasures in OO.o 2.0’s chart tool – link.

KOffice 1.5 beta reviewed – part 1, part 2.

Michael Robertson fires first salvo of software revolution with ajaxWrite – link.

Users wary of changes in MS Office 2007 – link.

Viewing MS Word files at the command line – link.

LyX 1.4.0 is released – link.

Desktop-oriented applications

kdissert is a free Linux “mind mapping tool” that is invaluable for anyone who has ever had to organize their ideas for a report or presentation – review.

Switching art students from OS X + proprietary, expensive appliations to Linux + free open source applications – link.

PageStream multi-OS desktop publisher goes gold – link.

Is it time to fork the GIMP? – link.

Resynthesizer is a texture-synthesis plugin for the GIMP. You can use it for simple things like creating seamless, tileable textures, and you can also have it remove any object from a picture and automatically replace it with a synthetic background, with impressively professional-looking results – link.

KDE bigwig Boudewijn Rempt is the author of Krita, the premier free software painting application – link.

Xara releases Xtreme open source (GPL) code at Libre Graphics meeting – announcement, link.

View and edit graphic files with multi-OS XnView – link.

The Open Graphics project is working toward the development of a completely open 3D graphics adaptor for use with free systems. Its first set of schematics is set for release – link.

Smart Unicode typefaces released under free license – link. Smart font technology comes to FOSS via Graphite – link.

SVG Document templates, which can be opened and edited with various SVG-editing programs, 1.0 released – link.

DjVu is a highly compressed image format that is highly suitable for archival material – link.

The 29th release of PythonCAD, an open source CAD package, available – link.

Few Linux, FOSS alternatives at tax time – link.

MythTV describes itself as a “homebrew” personal video recorder (PVR), but with its many available plugins, it becomes a complete open source home entertainment system that lets you to watch and record TV programs, watch movies, view photos, listen to music, play games, and more – link. Some lessons from trying to build a MythTV system – link.

DVD-R Tools has been formed to fill a void in the Linux DVD authoring landscape – link.

Thoggen is a new DVD ripper/backup-tool for Linux that encodes video into the free Ogg Theora format – link.

Programming

What programming languages you should actually care to learn (a Tour de Babel) – link.

Source of computer books which are available for free download – link.

The speed of software halves every 18 months? – link.

GCC 4.1 released – link. GCC 4.0.3 released – link.

What corporate projects should learn from open source – link.

Borland’s Delphi goodbye (a dirge of sorts) – link.

Ten of the biggest mistakes developers make with databases – link.

Graphical user interface, Web

Applications provide an incredible display of what XUL (Mozilla toolkit) can do (only work in gecko browsers) – link.

Downloadable version of the book Cross-Platform GUI Programming with wxWidgets is available – link.

How to deploy a GTK+ application – link.

GUI toolkit FOX v1.6.0 released – link.

20 rules for smart and successful web design – link.

137 online tools for the webmaster – link.

The future of HTML: XHTML 2.0 - part 1, part 2. Discussion here, link.

Certifyr will tell you exactly how Web 2.0 compliant you are.

A (re)-introduction to JavaScript – link.

Javascript in 10 minutes – link.

ZK is an open-source Ajax Web framework that enables rich UI for Web applications with no JavaScript and little programming – link.

AJAXing the Web – link.

Foundations of Ajax is a great starting point for developers wondering how they can incorporate Ajax into their own Web-based projects – book review.

30 tutorials for all levels of Ajax development – link. And other introductory one – link.

Assembly language, C, C++, Java

The real power of programming in assembly: 2 minutes of graphics and music in less than 64KB of code – link.

Interviewing C++ developers with extreme prejudice – link.

What is Java? – link.

Sun-approved open source Java making progress – link.

Scripting and high-level languages

An introduction to awk – link.

Revisiting the re-tailored COBOL universe – link.

Paul Graham’s On Lisp download is available for free – link.

System administration with Open Object Rexx – link.

5 minutes to finding issues in production PHP Web applications – link.

A round up of over 50 simple PHP tutorials for the beginner – link.

Exploiting Amazon Web Services via PHP and SQLite – link.

Keeping PHP from prying eyes by obfuscating the code – link.

Reports from PyCON 2006 Python conference – link.

Python “benevolent dictator for life” Guido Van Rossum interviewed – link.

Experienced programmers will get more out of Beginning Python than beginners, but the book is definitely worth buying if you have any interest in Python – book review.

Python IDEs PyDev 1.0.2, SPE 0.8.2.a, Komodo 3.5.2, and Wing IDE 2.1 beta 1 reviewed. Komodo and Wing are polished, solid choices, while SPE is the best free option – link. A new Python IDE consolidation effort (PYxIDEs) is underway – link.

Types and objects in Python – link.

Pythomnic development environment for Python version 1.0 released – link.

Nokia releases Python for S60 source code – link.

Linux Journal starts a new column on Ruby, “The Gemcutter’s Workshop” – link.

An open source Ruby on Rails shopping cart – link.

Introduction to the installation and deployment of Ruby on Rails – link. Installing Ruby on Rails with Lighttpd and MySQL on Fedora Core 4 – link.

Tcl the misunderstood – link.

Is Visual Basic a good beginner’s language? – link. Visual Basic 2005 Jumpstart does not seem focused or particularly thorough, but still contains a lot of useful information – book review.

Security & Privacy

An introduction to Elliptic Curve Cryptography – link.

Linux supporters fiddle while OpenSSH burns – link.

The 7 myths about protecting your Web applications – link.

Preventing DDoS attacks – link.

The pathogenesis of Dark Traffic attacks – link.

10 of the best live Linux CDs for pen-test, forensics & recovery – link.

How to install Linux firewall IPCop and create a small home office network – link. Creating a DMZ for hosting your own Web or mail server and the Copfilter proxy for filtering Web and email traffic – link. Guarding the SOHO perimeter with Snort on OpenWrt – link.

Beta version Zfone, the encryption software for VoIP communications written by PGP author Phil Zimmerman, is out – link.

Encrypt filesystems with EncFS and Loop-AES – link.

Securely deleting files with shred – link.

Microsoft developer and cryptographer says Vista will not get a backdoor – link.

A Department of Homeland security initiative called the “Open Source Hardening Project” finds that LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, + PHP/Perl/Python) was a “winner” in terms of having a low number of defects per 1,000 lines of code – link 1, link 2, link 3.

Plagiarism detector banned by Canadian University over privacy concerns and intellectual property right issues – link.

Conventional wisdom is that sudo is the most secure way to run Unix root commands, but a closer look reveals a picture that is not so clear – link.

Security enhanced Linux distro Openwall developer interviewed – link.

The Ethereal protocol analyzer project’s approach to security is laudable – link.

GPG signature verification trouble – link.

Code signing product suite allows developers to then add a digital signature to the code. If the code is corrupted or tampered with in any way the signature fails – link.

Packet-sniffing techie uncovers spousal infidelity – link.

Russians flog eBay data for $5 – link.

Holes, patches, defenses

Forgotten password clues create hacker risk on eCommerce Web sites – link.

Passclicks is a new way to login to websites without users having to remember thir old style textual password – link.

Cybercrooks spur anti-virus market growth – link.

Zombie PCs menace mankind, says Symantec – link.Meet the botnet hunters – link.

Test shows how vulnerable unpatched Windows is – link.

A pair of security bugs in cryptography software could allow an attacker to insert content into a digitally signed message or forge signatures on files – link.

Say Hi to the mouse click capturing Trojan – link.

Security hole digs into Microsoft – link.

Spam, advertising

Are spam blockers too strict? – link.

Software remedies to Spam and “permissive mailing” are breaking down the utility of email for the common man – link.

A comprehensive list of methods on how to hide email addresses in source code from spam bots – link.

Miscellaneous

Open source election systems desirable, unavailable – link.

40 things that only happen in movies – link.

Rising tide of ocean plagues – link.

Business

The Economist has published a lengthy report on open source business. – link.

A talk with Eben Moglen, legal counsel for the Free Software Foundation – link.

Does a reinvented Novell matter anymore? – link. Novell BrainShare 2006 Day one featured some interesting stuff – link. Novell focuses on open source – link. BrainShare wrapup – link. Novell CEO Jack Messman interviewed – link.

Patent terrorists ruin an industry – link. Software patents and the EU – link.

SGI faces dismemberment, nVidia interested in bits – link.

Wall Street’s frustration with Amazon.com is growing, and recently, it has broken out into open insolence – link.

Paypal is outdated, Google should replace it – link.

The Internet

The next Web? – link.

How to host a subdomain on another server or hosting company – link.

Google to settle click-fraud case – link.

Google wins Usenet copyright case – link.

Kosmix plays politics with search – link.

LaLa.com provides a site where you can find and trade legitimate CDs with other members. It has the addictive quality of successful music sharing sites, is legitimate, and raises profound questions about what the value of physical goods – link.

On AOL’s idea of taxing email – link.

Is it too easy to complain about Web-posted articles? – link.

Telecommunications

AT&T back together again – link.

On Research In Motion’s (RIM’s) pathetic and contemptible defense against having its proprietary BlackBerry email network closed down – link.

Canadian ISP wants to charge VoIP “quality of service enhancement” fee – link.

Get broadband wireless with Verizon EVDO and Linux – link.