"We found that many times when companies had chosen to migrate from UNIX to Linux, those decisions were made at a much lower level within the organization. In fact, it was often an IT administrator who was making the decisions, typically not using robust ROI (return on investment) or TCO analyses."
September 2006 Archives
In this hilarious email, Linux creator Linus Torvalds enjoys Talk Like a Pirate day to the max, allocating kernel developers pirate nicknames and talking about keelhauling bugs.
Hey, my friend managed to describe in a quite fun and interesting way how many Debian Linux users feel now that they're used to the comfort and slickness of Ubuntu. Check this out.
Neuros Technology is offering Linux hackers first dibs on the initial production run of its next-gen DVR, which runs an embedded Linux OS. The device can record MPEG-4 video from cable or broadcast TV receivers, DVD players, etc., and transfer it to portable media players, or serve as a network music player.
Pre-orders for OpenBSD 4.0 are now available in the online store. Five architectures on three CDs in a soft-shell DVD case. This new release adds support for many wireless chipsets, as well as support for the UltraSPARC III, and much, much more. Of course you will also be able to download an ISO (free). OpenBSD 4.0's song has yet to be released.
This site has the greatest time-line I think I've ever seen compiled to date. Including the history and links of some of the OS's listed, not all but a great page to see the history of the Unix/*Nix distributions you love! Not just the image posted previously!
This article shows you how to improve the boot speed of your GNU/Linux system without compromising usability. Essentially, the technique involves understanding system services and their dependencies, and having them start up in parallel, rather than sequentially, when possible.
Askhaddad.com is the complete opposite of Web 2.0. My goal is not a community, it's not user contributed content. I just want to answer people's questions, and have no one question it. Do whatever you want, use it or not.
D-Link Germany GmbH, a subsidiary of D-Link Corporation, Taiwan R.O.C., distributed DSM-G600, a network attached storage device which uses the GNU/Linux Operating System. However, this distribution was incompliant with the GNU General Public License (GPL) which covers the Linux Kernel and many other software programs used in the product.
At last, the ultimate guide to get women using the only true skill we all love and are proud of.
For a while, Debian was the community GNU/Linux darling. In its heyday, Debian was known for its strong moral point of view and its outstanding code. Numerous important distributions, such as Linspire, Knoppix, and today's most popular distribution, Ubuntu, have sprung from it. Things have changed.
The Mozilla Foundation has asked Debian Linux to either use both the 'Firefox' name and the Artwork or get rid of both. Because the Artwork has non-free Copyright License, it seems Debian (and most likely, many other Linux Distros) has no choice but to change the name of the application to something else. IceWeasel is the number one choice so far!
In a landmark victory for the GPL license, a civil court in Germany has ruled against D-Link Germany GmbH for violating the terms of the most popular free software license. The lawsuit was filed by Harald Welte, a respected Linux hacker who tracks and eliminates illegal use of software protected by the GPL through his gpl-violations.org project.
This article summarizes 5 ways to contribute to Free Software without coding.
An essay that looks at the differences of each GUI and what each is best for.
Now that Debian is not allowed to use the Firefox name without showing every patch to Mozilla, people are boycotting Firefox. That is not all that will come of this though. How will this affect Ubuntu? Could Mozilla turn into a Microsoft, only caring about trademarks? This article attempts to clear things up about the Mozilla trademark situation.
The executive summary of what follows would probably be: ensuring that a single plugin binary functions on the widest diversity of Linux/x86 distributions within reason.
Interesting. Gnash is out, and running on all my boxes. My PowerPC boxes.
Eric Raymond, a co-founder of the open-source movement, has joined the Freespire Leadership Board. Raymond recently stated that if desktop Linux is to advance, it must work with iPods and other MP3 players, and play DVDs, Windows Media, and Quick Time files, etc., and one of Freespire's key objectives is to do exactly that.
Seriously. Eric. Get a fucking clue. Please.
People, for whatever reason, listen to you. Don't sell out the 'tribe' (your words) to proprietary formats and proprietary vendors. Your iPod will work with your GNU/Linux machine.
A Taiwanese company is selling a tiny Linux-powered mini PC that has a consumer electronics look-and-feel for $99, quantity one. Seems like a neat platform for a wide range of specialized applications and projects.
The next version of the now wildly popular Linux distribution, Edgy Eft, is due for its beta release today. As the name suggests, Edgy Eft will include bleeding-edge Linux technologies, with many of the packages expected in Edgy to be beta themselves.
There are many differences and similarities between digg and Netscape. This post discusses the differences of finding stories, voting, adding stories to your favorites, the frontpage and the audience between digg and Netscape.
A man who accessed the Reserve Bank's telephone systems to find security weak spots then billed the bank for his unsolicited services told the Wellington District Court he was surprised when police questioned him about his actions.Gerasimos Macridis, 39, a researcher, represented himself in court before Judge Ian Mill.
Macridis pleaded guilty to one charge of intentionally accessing a computer system knowing he was not authorised to do so.
Police prosecutor Colin McGilivray told the court Macridis had telephoned the Reserve Bank on May 30, introducing himself as a security consultant.
He outlined problems with the bank's telephone system, then requested payment for providing the information. He also contacted Telecom and asked for payment, outlining testing he had conducted, vulnerabilities he had found and ways these could be fixed.
The Reserve Bank made a complaint to police, who searched Macridis' house on September 21 and seized his computer.
Mr McGilivray said Macridis admitted having no authorisation from Telecom to conduct his research but claimed he was not aware his actions were illegal.
Macridis has a significant number of previous fraud convictions and it appeared he was trying to obtain money through virtue of his technical knowledge, Mr McGilivray said.
In his defence, Macridis told the court he had worked as a security consultant on a casual basis for the past 11 years. He said he had previously done extensive work for Telecom and completed assignments for the Police and the Department of Internal Affairs.
He said his intentions were lawful. He told the bank its phone calls and facsimile transmissions could be intercepted from overseas.
Judge Mill described the case as very unusual. He noted Macridis' dishonesty offending ended more than 10 years ago.
He said Macridis used his talents to identify security risks and he had identified a grave risk to the Reserve Bank and its customers.
He did not pass the information on to others and did not use it for personal gain. "In my view his intentions were honourable."
Judge Mill said conviction would be out of proportion with Macridis' actions and he discharged him without conviction.
Man escapes conviction over unsought bank probe - 28 Sep 2006 - National News
Google: Happy Birthday to us! by ZDNet's Donna Bogatin -- Google wishes itself a happy eight years of search engine bliss today!
just been chatting to simon in the pub. He brought up a good point, in the web app he's building. Users don't need to register. Have a temporary account, if you like it, register, if you don't, close the browser and forget about it. Why isn't this the standard? Seems so obvious.
Vote for Alison
Go on. Please.
I'm still quite dumbstruck by your immediate beauty. Doesn't that sound odd?I mean, it was seven years ago. Seven.
Fuck. That seems scary.
I remember how great you looked.
I remember how bad I looked.Doesn't feel really like it happened. It did though. Guess that's the important part.
Focus on that. Doesn't make it all seem so bitterly desperate and hopeless then, does it?
Nothing so hopeless. Nothing so empty.
So, I'm going to be posting bits of my book, random bits, on the blog.
They'll all appear like this as I'm concerned with the layout of the words on the page. Anyway, remember it's a book, it's not me going mental or anything :)
...I wonder if you get many people coming to your site looking for youtube.com - I don't really like them very much, but I was wondering if you'd like to pop a link to my site, comedynetuk.com on your site? I will of course put a link back to yours, and together we can rule the world. Or something.Best,
matt
PS. This is genuine and I am not too crazy.
just got asked about the gimp by a college lecturer who's using it for all her work. it turns out that people might just be waiting for macromedia/adobe to port their products to free software operating systems like GNU/Linux. Don't wait for this, instead seek out alternative free (as in freedom) products to do similar jobs. inkscape rocks, in fact i've never felt so creative in an app, even under OS X. in the future, as free apps become more mainstream, we'll see more free software in education.
MOO is a new kind of printing business.There are now more than a billion people online, and most of us use the internet to engage in some kind of social activity. In doing so we help generate over 4 petabytes of unique virtual content a month
We have virtual communication like email, instant message or video. We belong to virtual communities like social networks, image sharing or interest groups. And in these communities we have created virtual identities like homepages, avatars and blogs.
But sometimes life can be a little too virtual.
MOO dreams up new tools that help people turn their virtual content into beautiful print products.
Anyway, so I went there yesterday, and some browser detection code stopped me from actually doing anything (as I'm running Firefox betas) - and so I dropped them a little line, and I just got this in my mail.
Dear Matt,Thank you for getting in touch with the MOO Print Team.
We appreciate you reporting this browser error. We are going to change the site so it no longer detects and rejects browsers ASAP.
Please feel free to contact us again if you have further questions.
Best Regards,
Brian Murphy
Service Agent - MOO Print Ltd.
How awesome is that? A company that actually responds to feedback, instead of simply replying to it. Lovely stuff.
I don't know what I feel today. Perhaps nervous, perhaps excitement, perhaps both. I'm flying down to Exeter later, not just to see Nick and my family, but also to get some ideas for the very last part of my book. I believe nice things can happen to me. I think they're about to. We'll see, but I am quietly confident that it'll be a good week.
I woke up today feel miserable though. I don't think I slept well, in fact I dreamt about having an argument with Beth over something trivial and silly. Anyway, I need to pack.
Cameron talks about the move from 800x600 to 1024 and beyond.
Let’s face it: The jump from developing for 800×600 to 1024×n is inevitable; not only inevitable, but just around the corner, too. Many of you are considering the jump. Some of you have already leaped. I suspect that some time in 2007 most of us will knock out comps optimized for 1024px resolution rather than 800px if we’re not doing so already.But perhaps just as important as when it will happen is how: What’s the proper width for a layout optimized for 1024?
With 800x600 it’s easy: Account for browser chrome and scrollbars (usually 40-50px) and then use as much of the remaining space as possible. This usually means a layout width of 750-760px.
If we use the same logic for 1024, browser chrome is still the same, so that leaves us with 974-984px as the “ideal” width. However, many users (including myself) don’t browse full screen, especially as display resolution in increased. Almost as if there’s an inverse relationship between browser width and display resolution — as the display gets wider, the browser width gets smaller (proportionately).
Additionally, in a time we all are, or should be, considering grid usage in layouts, is a random number like 974 an optimal number for dividing a layout into its necessary elements — sidebar(s), main content area, and so on? Fluid/liquid layouts are another issue, but even those have to be optimized for a minimum width.
Argh. So, I'm installing Gentoo for some reason and it's hard.
This guide contains all commands you should use to complete a stage3 installation of Gentoo.
Except, it didn't.
I'm not finished yet, but it's way complicated. Maybe I'm spoiled by Debian. Blah. I need a hand ;)
Attitude Cat relaunches - drawn properly!
Also Shaun will be working on episodes now.
In yesterday's announcement of the new Zune media player and Zune Marketplace, Microsoft (and many press reports) glossed over a remarkable misfeature that should demonstrate once and for all how DRM and the DMCA harm legitimate customers.
Microsoft's Zune will not play protected Windows Media Audio and Video purchased or "rented" from Napster 2.0, Rhapsody, Yahoo! Unlimited, Movielink, Cinemanow, or any other online media service. That's right -- the media that Microsoft promised would Play For Sure doesn't even play on Microsoft's own device. Buried in footnote 4 of its press release, Microsoft clearly states that "Zune software can import audio files in unprotected WMA, MP3, AAC; photos in JPEG; and videos in WMV, MPEG-4, H.264" -- protected WMA and WMV (not to mention iTunes DRMed AAC) are conspicuously absent.
This is a stark example of DRM under the DMCA giving customers a raw deal.
EFF: DeepLinks - Microsoft's Zune Won't Play Protected Windows Media
Yeah, my PowerBook G4 (work machine, not something I actually own, admittedly) has one of the batteries affected by the recall.
Here's the rub.
4-6 weeks to wait for another. I really hope it'll be here sooner.
I’ve been listening to mental jazz for for last few days, anything with a melody sounds weird. Really, anything that was recorded after 1940 OR isn’t some kind of avant guarde freakout just isn’t working for me right now, I’ll get over it
Just been watching Second Lives on Channel 4. By accident actually. I'm still up, preparing copies of my film, Girl Untitled for my website. Sadly, made before I properly understood the importance of free culture and so the film uses a non-free track.
Imagine a world where you can choose what you look like when you are born, where you can change sex on a whim, where you can soar through the skies at will.Imagine being able to see inside someone else's dream – and earning $200,000 a year while you do it.This is the metaverse, a place where class, gender and geography are meaningless. But who are the men and women who inhabit this brave new world? And are they the new prophets leading us all towards a virtual utopia – or just dreamers playing Matrix games.
Rob and I made some attempt to call Creative Commons and Professor Lessig on their continued promotion of both Second Life and proprietary software in general. One of the main points is that Larry is on the FSF board - I don't think it is appropriate for a member of the FSF board to promote proprietary software.
From Elizabeth: "FreeCulture.org wants you to make an anti-drm video and upload it to any video-sharing site. We'll then choose the 5 best videos and award the creators of each a Neuros OSD (a $230 value). Preference will be given to videos licensed under CC or the Free Art license. DefectiveByDesign.org will then run select videos during the week of October 3rd."
read more | digg story
The News Sniffer project aims to automatically monitor corporate news organisations to uncover bias. Revisionista monitors news websites and detects when articles change. The versions are viewable and the changes are highlighted. 'Watch Your Mouth' monitors the BBC's 'Have Your Say' website and detects when comments get censored.
read more | digg story
from BBC News:-
An animal welfare group has called for a government inquiry after two poultry workers were given community service after being filmed beating turkeys.Norwich magistrates were told that Daniel Palmer, 27, and Neil Allan, 30, both from Dereham, Norfolk, used poles "like baseball bats" to hit the birds.
People really are fucking morons. Turns out Alex went to school with one of these guys.
Oh, and they got a 200 hour community order. Nice.
Brian Malow at CC Salon SF
It's time for another CC Salon SF! If you're in the Bay Area, please join us on Wednesday, September 13, from 6-9pm (don't worry if you're late; there will be stuff happening all night) at Shine, (1337 Mission Street between 9th and 10th Streets). Shine has free wi-fi and a super cool Flickr photo booth. Note: Since Shine is a bar, CC Salon is only open to people who are 21 and older.
(Thanks Rob)
So, I've got another little Rails app to build. I'm going to try and blog the entire process.
The idea is pretty simple:-
- A system to hold articles
- Articles must be searchable
- Articles must have a WYSIWYG interface
Skimming over some of the other details, we see obvious stuff like:-
- Each article must have a unique reference number
- The ability to add articles must be restricted to a bunch of users
Even a few oxymorons like:-
- These 'site administrators' should also have the ability to change access permissions of other users of the site
- Users should not have to log into the site individually
- The default level of access for all users other than those named above should be “Read Only”
If most people don't need to login, why bother with a permissions interface? Why not just say 'if a user is logged in, he/she can add new users', and assume a user can do anything they need?
So, time to crack open emacs and get coding.
Dead stingrays with their tails cut off have been found in Australia, sparking concern that fans of naturalist Steve Irwin may be avenging his death.
Argh. Twats.
A fish at a Scottish museum has undergone surgery after visitors complained it was too ugly. A harmless but unsightly growth was removed from the goldfish, which was on show at the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
That's bad enough in itself, and then you read this...
The lump, which did not seem to distress the fish in any way, was removed along with one of its eyes.
Rule Britannia. Cunts.
Chris Rosewell (a mate from Exeter) has just started blogging. With Nick's recently started blog, that makes half the people back home blogging!
Not sure the world is ready for my Mum to start a blog just yet. Cue 'Your Mum' jokes.
Blogs and their ultimate perfect entry:
Boing Boing: Crocheted replica of subway map cracks DRM on collection of old video games.FARK: Drunk frat boy in Florida has sex with underage donkey, sues Strong Bad for negligence. Still no cure for overused in-jokes.
Slashdot: AMD, SCO patent MP3 over TCP/IP, sue ATI, EA. Microsoft probably responsible somehow.
Kottke: Elwin Festerator is the unsung inventor of the curly telephone cord. "I looked at a straight telephone cord, and I asked myself, Elwin, why can't that be curly? So I went out and got my brand-new curling gun, and I curled the hell out of it." Related link: New Yorker article on the Olympic curling team.
Engadget: Samsung releases new cell phone/mp3 player/camera/web browser/GPS/game player/wireless hub. Now in gray!
Joystiq: Will Wright to design first-person Warcraft shooter for the Wii. Jack Thompson responds with aneurysm.
Groklaw: Transcript of SCO deposition on previous court order concerning applicability of evidence to last year's motion to review earlier statements. Seriously, we love this stuff.
Daily Kos: Bush caught in three-way with Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
Little Green Footballs: Bush enjoys triumphant three-way with Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
Gawker: Paris Hilton does pretty much anything.
Cute Overload: A kitten licks a puppy while the puppy licks a bunny.
Fleshbot: Same as Cute Overload, only with coeds.
MacRumors: Apple is going to sue us for revealing that Apple is going to sue us.
MAKE blog: How to create a nuclear accelerator using a Flash drive, a Commodore 64 and a guy named Roger.
Metafilter: Unhelpful link text. Extra links added for padding that have little to do with the main topic of the entry. Are extremely loaded rhetorical questions the only thing that can save us now?
Digg: Hey, cool, someone wrote an article about Digg!
What's the ultimate blog post for your blog?
Mine: Wow! GNU/Linux powered all girl band, 'Ruby and The Rails' release their latest album, 'Songs about vegetarism, Matt Lee and Skeletor (Live in NYC)' - full album, with sources for CC-BY-SA download from CNUK.
(Via Wired News)
You probably don’t know Leigh Nash by name, but you more than likely know her voice; as the lead singer of Sixpence None the Richer, she exhorted you to kiss her in the mega-hit "Kiss Me' (and if you’re like me, she did it so many times — by virtue of the song's overoverplayed-ness — that you sometimes wanted to stuff her mouth with balled-up t-shirts instead of kissing it).
(Via jefitoblog)
So, Shaun, Piotr and I were just sitting about after work, chatting about phones. We installed PuTTY on my Symbian phone (N70) with KDE and Blueztools and then connected to CNUK, restarted apache (because we can) and then edited the footer page, adding the legend 'emacs was here'
We're too cool.
