W.I.L. Tech-News Highlights for July/August 2006

Operating Systems

Linux

Help for Linux newcomers

The state of the 2006 Linux desktop – link. What is needed to make this a real year of the Linux desktop? – link. Eric Raymond on desktop Linux – link.

Desktop breakthrough: Lenovo preloads SUSE on ThinkPad – link. Buying a preinstalled Linux desktop or laptop – link.

New Linux community website opens – link.

Linux Phrasebook offers a concise, pocket-sized reference that, like a language phrasebook, can be used on the fly. It is also a useful reference book for desktop Linux users who want to learn a bit about using the command line – link.

Xandros 4, is, by a wide margin, the best Linux desktop to start Windows users on – link. Xandros tempts Windows 98/ME users with Linux upgrade rebate – link.

MEPIS’s new Ubuntu-based distribution makes an outstanding beginner’s Linux – link.

Linspire’s “Click 'N Run” service now free – link.

Two more roll-your-own Linux options, Instalinux.com’s free service SystemDesigner and a high-end corporate choice, rPath’s rBuilder, reviewed – link.

Results from the 2006 Desktop Linux Survey, Part 1, shows Ubuntu as the clear leader – link.

Three free desktop Linux distributions, Ubuntu, openSUSE, and Freespire, reviewed – link 1, link 2.

Linux “phrase book” offers on-the-fly CLI tips – link.

Linux.com’s “CLI Series” latest – Using command history in the bash shell, Creating basic front ends with dialog and Xdialog, The five Ws (who? what? where? when? why?), Feh for image viewing, Make instant Web banners from the command line, Enhance your YouTube viewing pleasure, Installing Debian using debootstrap. Series index here.

Special report on LinuxWorld San Francisco 2006 – link. LinuxWorld coverage – day 1, day 2, day 3, wrapup.

A simple Linux backup method – link.

Reincarnating a discarded laptop with Linux – link.

The Linux Standard Base (LSB) gets some applications – link.

Linux printing standards groups unite – link.

Intel open-sources Linux drivers for 4th-generation graphics architecture – link.

KDE 3.5.4 released – link.

Enlightenment 17 quickstart guide, and version 0.16.8.2 released – link.

RealNetworks and Novell are teaming up to deliver Windows Media support to the Linux desktop – link 1, link 2.

O’Reilly’s LPI Linux Certification in a Nutshell, Second Edition is modeled after the Linux Professional Institute’s job-based certification program, which currently focuses on two-year (Level 1) and four-year (Level 2) experienced candidates – link.

Linux heavies plan lightweight virtualization – link.

Linux jobs abound, tech job service says – link. LPI adds open-source job placement service – link.

BSDs, other Unixes

Using DesktopBSD – link.

DragonFly 1.6.0 released – link.

The future of NetBSD – link.

Take a closer look at the most secure Unix OS, OpenBSD – link.

PC-BSD a beginner-friendly OS – link. PC-BSD 1.2 beta released – link.

Retool your Linux skills for commercial UNIX – link.

Windows and DOS

Microsoft Names Windows 98, ME execution day (July 11) – link.

Desktop migration specialist Versora releases version 2.0 of its Progression Desktop Windows to Linux desktop migration software, a tool that helps users to transfer files and settings from their Windows system to a Linux system – link.

“Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs” is a kick in the teeth for users – link.

Windows XP patches ready to download – link.

Microsoft buddies up with open source rival XenSource – link.

Other OS’s

GEOS managed to offer nearly all the functionality of the original Mac in a 1 MHz computer with 64 KB of RAM. It was written using immense knowledge of the hardware and the tricks one could use to maximise speed – link.

Amiga cousin MorphOS, its bumpy history, its still-compelling features, and the current state of MorphOS development – link.

ReactOS attempts to reproduce Microsoft Windows as a viable open source project, even down to the faults of the platform – link. ReactOS 0.3.0 released – link.

Syllable is built for speed, with low hardware requirements. With speed, simplicity, and security, what is not to love? – link.

Applications

PortableApps brings open source to USB. Project leader interviewed – link.

XAMPP is a full-featured Apache, MySQL, PHP, and Perl stack that works on Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, and Solaris. It can give you a fully integrated server environment within minutes – link.

How to recover lost files after you accidentally wipe your hard drive – link.

“Exchange killers” are successfully stalking Microsoft messaging – link.

Databases

When and where to use a native object database like db4o instead of a relational database – link.

phpMyAdmin is a great alternative to learning MySQL commands by heart – link.

OpenReports is a GPLed, Web-based Business Intelligence report generation system. Version 2.0 is now out – link.

Internet applications

Firefox 2.0 beta 2 boasts enhanced look, features – link. Mozilla releases Firefox 2 beta 1 – link. Why is Firefox So darn popular? – link.

SeaMonkey suite, now at version 1.0.4, holds up well, but it is losing ground rapidly to Firefox and Thunderbird. What is really impressive is that it exists at all – link.

Is Microsoft incompetent and tone-deaf to customers, or simply counting on IE’s non-compliance remaining a de facto standard? – link.

IE7 should not be tarred with the same brush as IE6 – link.

Opera 9 reviewed – link. Opera reveals version 10 vision – link.

Firefox 2 Beta 1, IE7 Beta 3, Opera 9 compared – link. Opera 8.0 vs. Pocket IE – link.

Thunderbird 2.0 preview examined – link.

Three small, simple wikis – link.

At long, long last, Lotus Notes is coming to Linux – link.

A comparison of Mail Transfer Agents – Part 1, Part 2.

Office applications

OpenDocument Format explained – link.

Using LyX, an GPL desktop publishing application that, with a bit of work, can create a professional-looking book that is indistinguishable from a book produced by a mainstream publishing house – link.

Minimalist text-based tools for writers – link.

Tomboy for quick and dirty notetaking and for organizing information without maintaining a collection of text files – link.

Some tips to help you improve your presentation skills – link.

Mac OS X-friendly OpenOffice to go public next month – link.

A pair of lightweight, low-resource applications for calendaring and address book management – link.

GnuCash 2.0.0 goes gold – link.

Printing Avery labels with Linux – link.

Desktop-oriented applications

Microsoft Expression suite compared with Dreamweaver – link.

Linux Libertine Open Fonts project offers free Times Roman alternative – link.

Processing RAW image files on Linux – link.

10 ways to make your digital photos last forever – link.

Interview with Mike Melanson, lead engineer on the Linux Flash Player team – link.

How to convert YouTube videos to DivX or XviD – link.

Open source Mac media center alternatives – link.

Remind is a GPLed calendar and alarm application that is a good way to keep track of your appointments and commitments on your computer – link.

Programming

10 questions asked of and answered by a bunch of great and/or famous programmers – link.

Borland announces the return of the Turbo line of products. With free and cheap versions, it is aimed at students, hobbyist developers, occupational developers and individual programming professionals – link.

Manage source code using Git – link.

Customize your Emacs experience – link. Picking the best non-Unix Emacs for our daily work routine – link.

Graphical user interface, Web

Qt 4.2 Technical Preview released – link.

Gtk+ 2.10 released – link.

Gideon Designer for GTK+ 2.8 is out. Gideon is a modern professional RAD tool for GTK+ – link.

Cairo, a 2D graphics library with support for multiple output devices, releases version 1.2 which adds PDF, PostScript and SVG backends to the previous xlib/win32, and image backends – link.

How do you code an AJAX Web page? – link. What is spreading “the AJAX Wildfire”? – link. Six AJAX toolkits reviewed – link.

What Is RDF? (updated version of original article) – link.

C / C++ / Java family

Java to be open sourced in October – link.

Why Java should be split again – link.

Scripting and high-level languages

FreeBASIC, a free and open-source 32-bit BASIC compiler, version 0.16 released – link.

OOoBasic crash course – Creating a lookup macro, Beautifying words and making them smarter, Replacement therapy.

Erlang, a dynamic, asynchronous message-passing language – link.

Basics of functional programming using Haskell – link.

Understanding the PHP Zend framework – Part 1: the Basics.

Lead PHP developer quits – link.

Whether you opt for Perl or PHP in LAMP, you win – link.

Yahoo! launches Python Developer Center – link.

Stani’s Python Editor is a cross-platform IDE for Python written in Python – link.

A look at the methodology behind some successful Ruby language projects – link.

REST on Rails is an elegant approach to Web services – link.

Major Security hole found in Ruby on Rails – link.

Security & Privacy

Protect your applications with AppArmor – link.

An interview with two fascinating geek/security pros. If you called them “granny hackers” they would probably not be offended – link.

European researchers have come up with a firewall that they think can ward off a DDoS attacks on a network – link.

U.S. Homeland Security’s database in tatters – link.

U.K. Home Office is pushing for sweeping powers to ban suspected hackers from using the Internet, but security experts are concerned that civil liberties could be infringed – link.

Safely connect from anywhere to your closed Linux firewall – link.

Researcher creates malware that remains “100 percent undetectable” – link. Debunking Blue Pill myth – link.

The One Laptop Per Child project and BIOS upgrades – link.

Killing spam with Postgrey, Postfix – link.

Miscellaneous

Beware of “infomania” – link.

Yes, winning is still the only thing. But its face is changing – link.

Tracking the Congressional attention span – link.

Aspartame is the world’s best ant poison – link.

Business

How to capture boomer and senior markets online – link. How to market to aging boomers – link.

Hilary Rosen singing a new song? – link.

Nanotech lures bankers, VCs with promise of $1 trillion market – link.

Amnesty International slams U.S. tech firms – link.

Novell needs a new deal. How about you, Larry? – link.

The Blackboard patent suite: Where’s Waldo/Billy G? – link.

The Internet

Berners-Lee calls for Web 2.0 calm – link.

The OpenDNS system wants to be a more user-friendly name resolution service than those provided by ISPs, with technology to keep fraudulent sites out of its listings, correct some typos and help browsers look up web pages faster – link.

Bogus clicks undermine online advertising – link.

Telecommunications

Five things you must know about VoIP – link.