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NewsVac: News from around the Web
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OpenSolaris Project: Hadoop Live CD
1 hour, 42 minutes ago
Organizations routinely collect a huge amount of data, including web crawls, email messages, and scientific data. Processing these datasets with traditional relational database models or streaming algorithms is no longer scalable. A new data processing model, MapReduce, addresses this challenge by leveraging large clusters of hundreds or thousands of heterogeneous servers. -
Google Chrome Considered Harmful
3 hours, 42 minutes ago
IconIt appears that Google scored a PR success with their Chrome browser. In short, the promise is a web experience where web pages are allowed to behave more like desktop applications. -
Lists vs. Strings: Perl List Permutations For Linux Or Unix
5 hours, 42 minutes ago
I think I promised yesterday that all posts having to deal with Number Pools And Guaranteed Combinations Within Fixed Lists would have that string in their title, but, upon further reflection, it seems like it would make every title waaaay too long, and none of the parts would get indexed correctly, since Google might discard them as duplicate content based on the title tag. -
ATI to Show Linux Some Love
7 hours, 42 minutes ago
According to recent reports, AMD's graphics subsidiary is set on becoming more Linux-friendly. The company plans to release new Catalyst drivers for Linux-based operating systems, which will allow playback of protected high-definition content on a Linux OS. The new drivers should become available sometime in October 2008, thus enabling the company to address the market of Linux-based computers by bringing to the table a feature currently unavailable. -
Google on Chrome EULA controversy: our bad, we'll change it
9 hours, 42 minutes ago
Google's new web browser Chrome is fast, shiny, and requires users to sign their very lives over to Google before they can use it. Today's Internet outrage du jour has been Chrome's EULA, which appears to give Google a nonexclusive right to display and distribute every bit of content transmitted through the browser. Now, Google tells Ars that it's a mistake, the EULA will be corrected, and the correction will be retroactive. -
Dell's Ubuntu-powered mini-laptop arrives tomorrow
11 hours, 42 minutes ago
Sources tell me, OK friends actually, that tomorrow, September 4th, is the long-awaited day that Dell will announce the release of its Inspiron 910... whoops they changed the name on me, it's the Inspiron Mini 9 -- mini-laptop. It will come with your choice of (Boo!) Windows XP Home SP3 or (Yea!) Ubuntu 8.04. -
zim - a desktop wiki for Ubuntu Linux
13 hours, 42 minutes ago
Zim is a WYSIWYG text editor. It aims at bringing the concept of a wiki to your desktop. For example every page is saved as a text file with wiki markup. Pages can contain links to other pages, and are saved automatically. -
Managing Users In Active Directory From Linux - adtool
14 hours, 12 minutes ago
Last week I found a truly excellent tool for adding, modifying and managing user in Active Directory from Linux. It’s in Ubuntu. -
EFF: We're concerned about Google's Omnibox
14 hours, 42 minutes ago
Privacy advocates are starting to sound the alarm over a feature in Google's Chrome that sends anything typed in the browser's Omnibox back to Google. -
Red Hat acquires way into Windows game
15 hours, 12 minutes ago
Just four days after Red Hat closed its second quarter, the company has announced the acquisition of Qumranet, an open-source virtualization company, positioning the open-source leader to close many more successful quarters to come. -
Nvidia, AMD gaming graphics buck green-PC trend
15 hours, 42 minutes ago
There is an ungreen revolution taking place in enthusiast game PC circles. The eye-opening graphics possible on today's game PCs come at a cost: light-dimming power consumption. The trend, rooted in the perennial quest for more speed, bucks the overall greening of the PC industry. -
Technology lobbyists gather at Republican convention
16 hours, 12 minutes ago
The streets of the twin cities were relatively quiet Wednesday afternoon: convention attendees were busy wandering from one private event to another. For technology lobbyists, the choice was Chambers, a self-described luxury art hotel here. -
Linux in U.S. Schools: Why the Resistance?
16 hours, 42 minutes ago
Contrary to popular opinion, there are a number of effective low-cost options for the classroom. -
Using FIGlets for open source CAPTCHA with PHP
17 hours, 12 minutes ago
Captcha images are commonplace on Web site applications and forms. With its latest framework, Zend is introducing a new Captcha Form Element that can provide multiple types of Captcha mechanisms. Among them is Captcha integration for something called FIGlets, group of large characters built out of ASCII characters that outline a letter or word. "We've finally found a use for them other than just drawing pictures," Sinclair explained. "You can use them for Captcha now and it's hard for machines to figure out the characters." -
An Open Source Mashup for Amazon EC2
17 hours, 42 minutes ago
Great article showing you how to get started with Amazon EC2. The author walks through the development of an open source mashup using Javascript/AJAX. Also highlighted is a solution to cross-domain scripting constraints faced by AJAX developers, using Tinyproxy and Apache. Javascript used in the mashup application is based on Elasticfox, a popular Firefox extension which lets you manage EC2 resources. - More News
Linux.com : Features
Use LatencyTOP to find out where process latency is coming from
The latency of the execution of a particular task can be affected by what tasks a system is running, the condition of the network the machine is connected to, and how well the various server machines on the network are performing. LatencyTOP is a command-line tool and kernel patch that lets you see what is causing latency in the applications on your system.
KDE Community Working Group takes care of the community
If the rocky reception of KDE 4 has done anything, it has forced the KDE project to realize it needs to listen to users more closely. One of the first results of this realization is the new Community Working Group (CWG). Announced at Akademy, the recently concluded annual KDE conference, the CWG was described as designed "to act as a central point of contact by being available to communicate user needs and concerns to developers, and developer intentions and plans to users." The CWG is still being organized; to find out more about its plans, we contacted Anne Wilson and Juan Carlos Torres, two of the group's five initial members.
Power monitoring and logging with Apcupsd and Cacti
For some time I have been using the American Power Conversion (APC) uninterruptible power supply (UPS) daemon Apcupsd to interface my desktop computer with my APC Back-UPS ES 550. Available for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, and Solaris 10, Apcupsd reliably warns me when the power goes out and gives me time to get my box properly shut down before data is lost, or does so automatically if I am not there to supervise.
Document management with Epiware
Out of the many available open source document management packages, Epiware GPL is noteworthy because it includes project management features: if your work has to do with producing written matter, you can not only manage the documents themselves, but the development project as well. Epiware is a Web-based application, so clients need just a Web browser to use it; check out the online demo if you want to get a taste of it.
Display your geolocation data with Viking
Viking is an open source application that allows you to import and edit your Global Positioning System (GPS) points of interest and tracks. It can overlay the points and tracks on your choice of Google Maps, Terraserver, OpenStreetMap, or NASA's BlueMarble map tiles so you can see what you are doing.
Evergreen takes root at Kent County Public Library
Adopting an open source library automation system allowed a small group of libraries on Maryland's eastern shore to save money and create a more intuitive, user-friendly catalog system for both librarians and patrons.
GNOME Debian Package Finder: Rough and ready package search for the desktop
If you do your Debian package management from the command line, you are probably aware of utilities that search the cache of available programs, such as apt-cache, apt-file, and dpkg. Possibly, too, you have cursed the limited search information available in graphical interfaces like Synaptic, which does not extend much beyond searching for the description, name, versions, and dependencies. Now, the GNOME Debian Package Finder (gpfind) is in the process of bring much of the command-line search capacity to the desktop -- although, at version 0.1.6, it is still too rough to replace its command-line equivalents for most users.
Sharing files with wdfs and FUSE
I move from computer to computer constantly -- desktops, laptops, testing machines -- and rather than worry about synchronizing the assorted hard disks content, I prefer to keep one central copy of my documents that I can access anywhere. I do that using wdfs, the WebDAV file system for FUSE.
Keep an eye on your system logs with phpLogCon
phpLogCon provides a user-friendly Web interface to your system logs. It can handle logs from both Linux and Windows systems, so an administrator can log in to a single phpLogCon site to see what is happening on all the machines on a network.
Book review: Ubuntu for Non-Geeks
Ubuntu has experienced its share of success, but it's still relatively unknown amongst non-technical people. Many aren't aware that an open source operating system actually exists, and those who are lack the education required to move comfortably from Microsoft Windows to a Linux-based desktop. Ubuntu for Non-Geeks: A Pain-Free, Project-Based, Get-Things-Done Guidebook, by Rickford Grant, introduces non-Linux users to the world of Linux and shows them how to be productive in a complete Linux environment.
Finnix: Compact Linux distribution for system administrators
Finnix is a live CD distribution designed to assist system administrators in such tasks as system recovery and network monitoring. Based on Debian testing and Linux kernel 2.6, Finnix helps with filesystem and partition manipulation as well as with data recovery, installation of other operating systems, and boot record repair.
Actor/author Stephen Fry endorses free software
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has kicked off a month-long celebration of the GNU Project's 25th anniversary with a video in which British actor and comedian Stephen Fry expresses his support for free software.
Taming your daemons with PSMon
The PSMon utility lets you specify which processes should be running, how much of resources such as CPU or RAM each is allowed to use when it runs, and how many instances are able to be run. PSMon will then ensure that these processes are running and kill off a process if it starts to use too many resources, and possibly restart a process if it has crashed.
Happy Labor Day
Today is Labor Day, a legal holiday in the US that also serves as our unofficial "last gasp of summer" three-day weekend. We'll be back on a regular posting schedule tomorrow.
Ask Linux.com: Lost passwords, lost files, and terminal tricks redux
This week in the neverending drama in the Linux.com forums: resetting lost passwords, making your own SSL certificate, and the return of an old favorite for those of you who want more excitement at the command line. Plus, a heaping bowlful of nutritious unanswered questions.
Wish list: 10 improvements for KDE 4.2
KDE 4.1, released last month, brought a great number of improvements to the popular desktop environment. It's the best desktop I've ever used -- but that doesn't mean it couldn't be better. 2009 will see the release of KDE 4.2. Here are 10 features that would be great additions to a future KDE release that I hope the developers will consider.
Gerald Carter of Likewise talks about LDAP for Linux (video)
Some GNU/Linux desktop deployments require secure authentication from a Windows Active Directory server. Gerald Carter, a long-time member of the Samba team and an enthusiastic free software developer, now works for Likewise. You can learn from this discussion if you are considering becoming a software developer, are looking for a good business model for your free software-based company, or are looking to manage your network more securely.
Track your investments with Grism
My dad has been pestering me for some time to find him an open source tool that he could use to follow the market trends. He's been thinking about investing a little something in the market, but not without due diligence. Grism, written in Ruby, is the tool my dad now uses to easily follow the changing market trends. It allows you to create watchlists and portfolios and offers charts to help you gauge the performance of particular stocks.
EVDO and VoIP for remote audio transmission
A cellular plan using an EVDO modem can provide a connection with bandwidth of approximately 3Mbps to the client and 1.5Mbps up to the provider (comparable to DSL) for a much lower cost than alternatives such as satellite. For applications requiring high-quality audio transmission from remote locations, such as the radio remotes we do at the radio station where I work, a Linux laptop with an EVDO modem and VoIP software offers an inexpensive and reliable solution. Here's what you need to get started.
Automatic backup for sporadically connected clients with Box Backup
If you're a frequent business traveler who keeps important company files on your laptop, using a centralized management solution to back up files automatically during a fixed time interval won't work. Instead, consider Box Backup, which backs up files from a laptop directly to a backup server over an encrypted link.
