OpenSUSE Starts Steering its Own Course
openSUSE Elects Community Board

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
Friday, October 31, 2008 05:50:59 PM

It's not easy for a Linux company to let go the reins of control over its community Linux distribution. Just ask Red Hat, which started to let go of Fedora and then decided to keep managing it (Red Hat keeps its grip on Fedora). But, now Novell is loosening its apron strings on its community Linux openSUSE.

The first step was to allow a community-elected board to take charge of the project. While Novell still has a large say, the company appoints the chairman and half of the board's members come from Novell, the community of openSUSE developers does get a larger say in the popular distribution's direction.

From the non-Novell side of the community, Pascal Bleser and Bryen Yunashko are the newest members. While, from Novell, Henne Vogelsang and Federico Mena-Quintero have been elected to the board. Novell appointed Michael Löffler, the openSUSE Product Manager, as the new board's chairman.

Novell is pleased by these first steps. Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier, the openSUSE Community Manager, said "I think this is an important milestone for the project. As you know, the previous board was handpicked by Novell -- and I think that the company made good choices for the "bootstrap" board, but it's necessary for the project to elect its own members for the community to really feel like it's being well-represented."

Yunashko, a consultant and developer, is looking forward, as a member of "the first Community-elected Board" to "focusing on laying the groundwork for the present, as well as future, Boards, clearly defining our role within the community and exploring ways we can continue to close the gap between Community and Novell. That's not to say that there is a huge gap because I think currently the Community and Novell do work well together. But there's always room for improvement in any organization."

Specifically, Yunashko wants to improve openSUSE's usability to end users and, in particular, improve its "accessibility through computing, otherwise known as a11y ."

Original story

Friday, October 31st, 2008 by Joe Brockmeier

After work on the remaining show-stopper bugs we found this week, we have solved the blocker bugs, but were unable to generate all the necessary media and have it propagated to the mirrors in time for a Friday release per our release policy.

We are confident that we will be able to release on Monday, however, so please check back Monday for the release announcement. Or subscribe to the openSUSE announce mailing list (opensuse-announce+subscribe@opensuse.org) to receive the announcement as soon as the release is ready.

Thanks again for your patience. We look forward to this beta and moving closer to 11.1!

Full story

HP Netbooks Sport Their Own Linux Interface

Oct 30, 2008

Hardware giant Hewlett-Packard has now confirmed rumors that it is venturing into a Linux solution of its own. We're not talking about a complete Linux distribution, but rather a graphical interface built on top of Ubuntu.

HP's so-called Mediastyle interface (not at all unlike Apple's TV interface) is meant to hide Linux from its users. It offers quick access to music, IM, photos, videos and, naturally, email and the Web. The Linux model adds MIE to its name, meaning Mobile Internet Experience. HP is thereby trying to shy as much as possible from the "Linux" name. Hence the statement from Carlos Montalvo, VP of marketing for the Personal Systems Group at HP, in an article in news.cnet that "It's important we made sure that Linux does not manifest itself to the user."

Pictures of the Mediastyle interface have started to appear on the Web and Laptopmag.com has released a video. Looks pretty good.

The first HP Mini 1000s should start appearing in December and the Linux MIEs around January. Prices should start below $400, with the MIE at about $379.

Full story

Intel CEO: Linux to Dominate MIDs

OpenOffice_org 3.0 final available
( openSUSE Build Service 'One-Click' Install )

Thursday, October 30th, 2008 by Petr Mladek

I'm happy to announce that the build 3.0.0.3.5 passed testing and OpenOffice.org 3.0 final packages are available in the Build Service OpenOffice:org:STABLE project.

Note that OOo is very complex application. We are sure that some annoying bugs will be found within the following weeks. Please report bugs into bugzilla. See also known bugs below. I would like to update the package once again within next two weeks with some important fixes that will be available in the meantime.

Note: openSUSE-11.1-betaX and FACTORY include totaly reworked packages where the build is split into many source packages. It is a bit broken right now. We would like to put it into the Build Service as soon as possible but it will take some time to fix the build on older distributions again. Please be patient.

Where to Get It

The packages are provided by the OpenOffice:org:STABLE installation repository (ed. or use the openSUSE 11.0 one-click 'Install' button below).

Full story

openSUSE 11.0 One-Click 'Install'

PC makers move closer to a post-Windows world

The Linux version of the HP Mini 1000 will sell for $379 when it arrives in January. While the laptop itself won't sink Microsoft, it's one more example of how powerful PC companies are relying less on Windows, and doing more software themselves. Image: HP

In January, Hewlett-Packard will introduce a glossy black mini-laptop at retail for a mere $379. When it does, it will become the first major computer maker this decade (besides Apple, of course) to push a non-Windows PC in stores.

This Linux-based version of the HP Mini 1000 will not slay Microsoft (MSFT) Windows. But it will add to a growing sense that the iconic operating system's best days are behind it.

Since we first began to fall in love with the personal computer -- before we met YouTube and Google (GOOG), cable and DSL - Microsoft Windows has pretty much run the show. We've become so accustomed to our Microsoft-controlled existence that jokes about the Start menu and the Blue Screen of Death have become part of our national conversation. That's the genius of Apple's (AAPL) hilariously mean Mac vs. PC commercials; as viewers, we connect with the message about the portly PC guy because we feel like we know him. In a way, we do -- we've lived with him in the den or the home office for decades now.

Today, evidence is mounting that Microsoft's dominance in computing isn't what it used to be. It's not just the Windows Vista flop and those damning commercials, either: Apple's Mac OS is gradually taking share from Windows; and HP (HPQ) and Dell (DELL), the world's largest PC makers, are investing in bigger homegrown software teams to do work they once left to Microsoft. Look at the high-growth computing markets for smartphones and low-cost mini-laptops, and the shift is even more striking; the most popular smartphones from Research in Motion (RIMM) and Apple of course don't run Windows, and more than 35% of today's mini-laptops run a non-Windows operating system.

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It's Time for a FOSS Community Code of Conduct

Personal abuse, quotes taken out of context, misrepresentations, outright lies -- if you have any visibility in the free and open source software (FOSS) community, the chances are that you regularly face all these kinds of attacks. You can try to answer them, but the people responsible seem to have endless energy for debate.

In the end, you have to fall silent for lack of time, leaving the attackers crowing over your defeat, and yourself wondering where the attack came from and what you do about it.

You can see this growing viciousness in the hostile reaction to KDE last spring, or in sites like the just-defunct Linux Hater's Blog, as well as the articles of professional and semi-professional journalists who demonize anyone who fails to agree with them completely. More often, though, you see it on mailing lists or in the comments on news sites.

Aaron Seigo of KDE described the problem the other month in his blog:

Every so often someone with a real crank on will start following me around the intrawebs posting their hallowed viewpoint on me. It seems to happen to everyone with an even moderately public profile. Usually they get stuck on one message and then post it consistently everywhere they can as some sort of therapeutic outpouring of their inner angst. Most people don't last more than a couple weeks at this, though I've had a couple of people with real commitment dog me for a year or more.

Seigo admits that, being visible, vocal, and outspoken, he makes an easy target. It's not that he objects to views he doesn't agree with, he says, but that "I don't have time for pointlessness."

Full story

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Look, it boils down to bad behavior.  What you do in life, your comportment, dictates how you will be perceived, received and treated.  Act nicely, and try always to not respond in kind when someone has acted inappropriately toward you.  Basic good manners are lacking in most if not all of these on-line exchanges that might not otherwise occur in close quarter face-to-face encounters. 

If it helps, make pretend you are talking to your Mother or get a hold of a book on good manners and read it.  There. Be nice now, OK?

--Dietrich

Click here to play
We're open. Have at it.

Posted October 28th, 2008 at 12:22 pm by Jay Rossiter, Yahoo! Open Strategy

Filed in: Trends & News

Back in April, we rolled out our vision for a more open Yahoo! -- with "open" defined as rewiring Yahoo! so we could 1) open our network to outside innovation, 2) unlock the power of your social relationships, and 3) mesh your Yahoo! experience with other sites to bring you the best of the Web.

Today that vision takes another important step forward. We're officially cutting the ribbon for talented developers everywhere, who are now welcome to come in and access our tools and data so they can build applications for a more customized, social, and relevant Yahoo! network and beyond.

I won't bore you with the plumbing -- you can head over to our developer network for those details -- but let me summarize the potential impact on you the user as developers dig in and begin to build their applications.

Most obvious will be the social aspects. At a high level, we're rolling out a social platform that will draw on the hundreds of millions of connections on Yahoo! - everything from random encounters with someone who commented on the same photo as you, to deep connections you have with friends who know nearly everything about you. By using the social contacts you already have on Yahoo! -- through Mail, Messenger, Flickr, Finance, Fantasy Sports, etc. -- we'll make those social connections more active and useful. Most importantly, by enabling developers to make your social connections specific to the Yahoo! service you're using, we believe you'll enjoy some incredibly unique and creative new experiences that we would never have thought of.

Get a Linux-powered HP Netbook for $299 shipped

In the market for a Netbook? Amazon has the baseline HP 2133 on sale for $299, down from $499. Right away that solves one of the HP's main problems: its high price. Best of all, this is a new unit--not a refurb--and you don't have to deal with any rebates.

The HP 2133 is the one Netbook I've actually reviewed, and I liked it well enough, except for two issues: price and performance. But my eval unit came with Windows Vista and a $799 price tag; the model Amazon is selling has SUSE Linux and costs $299. By all accounts, Linux runs much faster on the 2133 than Vista, so it should be much more usable.

Full story

October 28th, 2008

Why I don't like Canonical

Very important to preface this with: it's my own personal opinion, written on my own personal blog. This obviously relates to Mandriva and is informed by my own experience working there, but it is not the official opinion of Mandriva, and please don't read it as such. If you want Mandriva's opinion, ask our PR folks for an official statement, and it will not look like this.

So, I've just been (implicitly) quoted bashing the Mark Shuttleworth / Canonical business model. (The rating on my ZDnet post is a stunning -21 as I write - my most negatively rated comment anywhere ever - but, strangely enough, no-one's replied to refute my argument). I thought it was worth expanding my point from my own tiny pulpit.

I've written before about what I think about Ubuntu. It's a good distribution. It does a lot of stuff right. Around 2004 it was better than MDK / MDV in many ways. I don't think it was ever better in every way, and I think MDV is a better product now, but that's by the by. This is about Canonical, and Mr. Shuttleworth.

First, the facts:
Full story

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This is an interesting opinion piece. It is true that Canonical has nothing but expenses and it poses a good question--what happens if Canonical's benefactor Mark Shuttleworth decides to leave? Where's the stability in that? Companies like RedHat and Novell SuSE have a business plan to follow and are publicly traded profit-oriented companies vs. ill-defined expense-oriented Foundations.

Your thoughts?
--Dietrich

Zimbra targets .edu with new hosted collaboration suite

By David Chartier | Published: October 28, 2008 - 11:34AM CT

Zimbra Hosted has become the first public product to find its home in Yahoo's recently announced cloud computing infrastructure. With this new hosted version of its e-mail and collaboration suite, Zimbra is now directly competing with Zoho, Google Apps, and Microsoft Office, though for the launch, the company is focusing on the education market.

While Zimbra boasts an education client base of more than 500 institutions, the majority of them, thus far, are running Zimbra on local servers due to many of the same privacy and data security concerns that they share with businesses. Due to tightening budgets and maturing cloud computing products that promise less overhead and reduced operating costs, though, Zimbra is trying to expand further into the education market.

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Interview with Linus Torvalds of The Linux Foundation

Today Amazon has launched a new storefront called WindowShop, which presents some of the store's newest and most popular movies, books, and video games in a way that makes browsing the online megastore actually fun. Each product is displayed as a tile on a large grid, which users can pan across until they find something they're interested in.

The site seems geared towards shoppers who are just looking for ideas, as there isn't a search feature. Users can scroll through the site using their arrow keys, zooming in on individual products by hitting the spacebar. Each product includes a demo video (in the case of movies, songs, and video games) or an excerpt (from books).

Full story

For better or worse, Linux has always had a reputation as being the geeks' OS - endlessly flexible if you're on one side of the divide, endlessly complicated on the other.

With netbooks, this isn't the case. Neither the Windows nor Linux systems on the market are really being sold as computers as such, but a handy device that people buy for specific functions. They're email terminals. They're word processors. They're handy portals to the web. The operating system powering these applications is no more important to the end user than the one that makes their Xbox 360 work behind the scenes. Instead of flexibility, it's all about function.

This is great news for Linux.

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Deep inside a nameless government department -- you will probably guess its identity, but nobody can say it officially -- a Linux desktop revolution has taken hold. For this particular organisation, however, the big deal is not the fact that Linux is involved, but the way in which it is being used.

Because information is classified according to security level -- and can only be accessed by networked devices cleared for each security level -- the department had to give many users two, three, or more individual desktop PCs of varying security levels.

The result was an administrative and productivity nightmare that not only ate up desk space for paperwork and family happy snaps, but kept users jumping between PCs depending on the task at hand.

It also posed problems for software developers, who have embraced the idea of a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for testing new applications because it restricts each application to its own "sandbox" where it can't harm anything else.

Full story

Ubuntu's Shuttleworth: "I don't think anyone can make money from the Linux desktop."

A popular question in desktop circles is "Can anyone make money from the Linux desktop?" Canonical CEO and Ubuntu founder, Mark Shuttleworth's answer is "I don't think anyone can make money from the Linux desktop."

Yes, that's right. The man behind what's almost certainly the most popular Linux desktop doesn't think he, or anyone else, can make money from the Linux desktop. Furthermore, he never really has.

In a press call about the October 30th arrival of the next version of Ubuntu, Ubuntu 8.10, Shuttleworth said that Canonical has always seen the desktop as a "zero revenue" product.

The point is, Shuttleworth continued, "I've never seen selling shrink-wrapped packages of free software as a workable idea." Instead, Shuttleworth sees "The only way to build business around software is with [added costs] services."

Shuttleworth added that he thinks Microsoft is shifting over to services for revenue as well. He said, "I've heard creditable reports of Microsoft offering XP at no cost to OEMs."

Full story

Nokia Is in the Personal 'Computer' Business
By Darryl K. Taft
2008-10-27

A Nokia official says smart phones are every bit as capable as personal computers and are more "personal" than any PC has ever been. Smart phones are also the device users are most likely to use to access the Internet. With smart phones like these, who needs a computer? (Photo inset: Nokia N95)

LONDON-Nokia is in the personal computer business and don't you forget it.

Kai Oistamo, executive vice president of devices at Nokia gave a keynote at the Symbian Smartphone Show here on Oct. 22 titled "The Future of Computers." It was originally titled "The Future of Smart Phones," but Oistamo said he changed it because "it is time to recognize that what we have in our hands today are not smart phones but full-fledged computers."

Indeed, "With the processing power, onboard memory and broadband access" that phones today possess, "mobile phones have entered the day when they are really personal computers-much more personal than a PC has ever been," Oistamo said.

Moreover, Oistamo said mobile phones are becoming the main source for consuming media as well as creating media on the Internet.

"This is the hot spot for innovation and Nokia has been the pioneer of creating these kinds of devices," Oistamo said. "We're at the heart of the Internet revolution."

Full story

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I couldn't agree more. In fact, I recently listed some of the many things you can do with an N95 here.

--Dietrich

Would The Internet Exist Without Linux?

The internet as we know it today predominantly runs on Linux. There's an extremely high probability that the internet connection you're using right now is connected thru a Linux server - and routed thru many other Linux servers along the way.

Below is a graph showing the market share for top servers across all domains from August 1995 to September 2008 - from news.netcraft.com.

You'll notice that Apache has a huge lead over anything else out there. The only other type that comes anywhere near it is Microsoft.

While it's true the HTTP server from Apache has a Windows version, the one used the most without any hint of doubt is the *nix release.

Why was it that Linux (and Unix) paved the way for the modern internet and not something else?

Two reasons:

1. Cost.
2. The ability of Linux to "act enterprise" without needing enterprise-grade computer hardware.

Full story

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Happy Halloween Folks! (You too Tim!)
--Dietrich

We knew more Inspiron Minis were in the works, and Dell's just officially announced the next member of the family, the Inspiron Mini 12. Yep, the same machine we first spotted all the way back in June, and nothing much has changed in the meantime -- you're looking at either a 1.3GHz Atom Z520 or 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor (a step up from the usual 1.6GHz Atom N270), up to an 80GB drive, 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth / WiFi, and that 12-inch, 1280 x 800 display, all in a 2.72-pound package less than one inch thick. The bad news? It's Japan-only for now, but it'll hit the States late next month with a starting price under $600. That's a pretty hot price / performance ratio on paper -- if this thing performs like it should, it could potentially take away sales from more full-featured ultraportables like the Envy 133 and the MacBook Air. We'll see how it goes -- the netbook market suddenly got interesting again, eh?

Update: It's worth pointing out that this netbook runs Vista Home Edition, albeit sluggishly according to APC (XP and Ubuntu variants by end of year). It also ships standard with a 3-hour 3 cell battery or optional $79 6-cell battery for up to 6-hours of power.

Read - Dell announcement
Read - Laptop hands-on
Read - APC hands-on
Read - Dell Q+A

Original story

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Runs on Vista Home Edition?  May I say, WOW? I trust Dell will offer Unbuntu as well.
--Dietrich

Microsoft Bug: Patch Now, Patch Fast

If there's anything that Microsoft is telling its users, it's to patch their systems, and fast.

After Microsoft released an out-of-band update for a critical Windows vulnerability that allows hackers to execute a malicious Internet worm on users' computers, security experts are strongly recommending that users apply patches immediately. Specifically, the remote execution vulnerability allows hackers to write worm code--malicious self-propagating code that doesn't require any user interaction--by crafting a special RPC request. A successful attack would enable the hacker to take complete control of a victim's computer, and ultimately steal sensitive financial information from their victims. In addition, once a user's system is affected, the malicious code has the ability to rapidly self-propagate and infect every other unpatched computer in the network.

The flaw, which affects almost every Windows operating system, is rated "critical" for many of the earlier versions of Windows, including Windows 2000, XP and Server 2003. However, the bug was given the less severe rating of "important" for Windows Vista and Server 2008.

Security experts maintain that the exploit code has actively been used in the wild, with exploits stemming from hackers who have already reverse-engineered the patch.

Full story

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Windows XP Folks, if you haven't been diligent with your software updates, now would be a good time to get religion and go straight to update immediately.  This particular bug found by Microsoft is so important that an out of cycle patch was released to ensure that it gets on your system.  The nasty issue is that there is already an exploit in the wild which would without your doing anything other than being connected to the internet instantiate via a remote procedure call a 'backdoor' worm on your computer, all within a matter of minutes of your connecting to the internet.

So, please, update your Windows XP computer now!

--Dietrich

Symbian Boosts Developer Options with Ruby

By Darryl K. Taft
2008-10-22

Symbian adds a new Ruby edition to its group of supported languages for developers. Ruby rounds out a broad development environment for Symbian that includes Java, C++, Python, Flash Lite, Silverlight and .NET, among others.

LONDON--Symbian announced the release of Ruby for the Symbian OS, enabling developers to use the Ruby language to create applications for Symbian-based handsets and devices.

At the Symbian Smartphone Show here, Symbian announced that Symbian Research and Pragmaticomm have collaborated to provide the availability of Ruby Version 1.9 for Symbian OS. In addition, Symbian is releasing Ruby for Symbian OS to the open-source software developer community.

 

According to the notes accompanying the release, Symbian officials said:

"Ruby is a powerful dynamic language that reaches the heights of the pure Object Oriented Programming paradigm and gives a wealth of language features like exceptions, blocks, closures, regular expressions, collections, meta-classing and much more. Ruby is enjoying a growing popularity in different developer communities."

Full story

This is superb.  Enjoy.--Dietrich

Seven Ways that GNU/Linux Tops Vista

These days, anyone who believes that they need a command line to work in GNU/Linux is in for a surprise. Not that the BASH shell isn't a powerful and surprisingly easy to use command line, but, after years of playing catch-up, GNU/Linux is now a match for the latest version of Windows on the desktop.

In fact, in many ways, GNU/Linux is more than a match for Windows Vista. In some cases, Vista can equal GNU/Linux if you are willing to delve deeply into the registry or install additional software, but here are seven ways that GNU/Linux outperforms Vista on first boot.

Full story

October 24, 2008, 5:29 pm

Microsoft's Vista Problem, by the Numbers

By Steve Lohr

Microsoft reported a reassuringly solid quarter in tough times on Thursday, but its Windows business looked weak.

The big Windows unit reported a 2 percent rise in revenue and 4 percent decline in operating income. That is well below the norm for Microsoft's lucrative personal operating system business -- and well below the company's stellar performers like server software, up 20 percent, and the Office unit, up 23 percent.

The Windows problem? It is not selling enough of its Windows Vista software, the operating system introduced in January 2007. In the conference call Thursday afternoon, Christopher Liddell, Microsoft's chief financial officer, said the mix of Windows sales had tipped more toward low-cost PCs in both mature and emerging markets, which come with lower-margin versions of Windows and often not Vista.

The notable new thing in low-priced PC market is the netbook category -- smaller PCs with scant memory and intended mainly for surfing Web sites and handling e-mail, costing as little as $300. Mr. Liddell acknowledged that some of the growth in netbooks is "cannibalization" of sales of traditional PCs.

Full story

ASUS CEO Reveals Eee PC Sales Numbers, Plans for Touch Eee PCs and More Eee Family

Products October 20th, 2008 by Joanna Stern

Earlier this week the ASUS Eee PC celebrated its first birthday (with a full birthday party and cake at LAPTOP Magazine). It was one year ago that the Taiwanese company began selling its first sub-notebook (which would form a new category known as netbooks). The little Eee PC 701 not only would spur on a whole Eee brand for the company and line of different sized Eee PCs, but it would push the competing notebook manufacturers into the netbook market as well.

As the Eee PC, and arguably the first consumer netbook, turns one we checked in with ASUS CEO Jerry Shen who has spearheaded the company's Eee brand and its push into the netbook market. A year later, Shen isn't fearful of the onslaught of netbooks hitting the market from the likes of Samsung, Lenovo and Dell and only thinks the market is just starting to take off. Why? Well he shared the following in the hour long interview:

We have heard that return rates have been higher for Linux-based netbooks. Can you share information on sales of the Linux Eee PCs versus Windows XP versions? What about return rates overall for Eee PC netbooks?

I think the return rate for the Eee PCs are low but I believe the Linux and Windows have similar return rates. We really separate the products into different user groups. A lot of users like the Windows XP, but in Europe a lot of people want the Linux option. Actually in Linux we support the Easy Mode and in Q4 of this year we are going to start selling Windows XP with an Easy Mode.

Full story

Amazon EC2 in Full Production

ARM To Enter Netbook Market

*All* Russian Schools to Use Free Software

October 23, 2008

Posted by: Glyn Moody

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I've often lamented how few schools in the UK use free software, and how difficult it is to break the lock that Microsoft has on the entire educational system. The pathetic state here is highlighted by contrast with Russia, which is making amazing strides in rolling out open source to schools.

It began with a few pilot projects, and apparently these have been so successful that the Russian government has now decided to make it the standard for *all* schools:

До конца 2009 г. на всех школьных компьютерах будет установлен пакет свободного программного обеспечения (ПСПО). Об этом, как передает «Прайм ТАСС», сегодня сообщил министр связи и массовых коммуникаций РФ Игорь Щеголев на пленарном заседании «Информационное общество и современные технологии доставки информации» в рамках международной выставки «ИнфоКом-2008».

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If you don't mind living on the 'bleeding edge' of technology as I do you can try installing Mozilla's Minefield, the latest nightly build of their Firefox 3.x development effort, currently 3.1b. 

Here are directions for installing the 64-bit version into openSUSE 11.0 to your $HOME directory:




1) Download the zipped tarball firefox-3.1b2pre.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2

2) Open a terminal window and extract tarball with:
 

tar xjf firefox-3.1b2pre.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2
(all files will be extracted to /home/$USER/firefox)

3) Link your branded openSUSE Firefox plugins to Minefield

a) cd firefox/plugins
b) for i in `ls /usr/lib64/browser-plugins/*.so`; do ln -s $i; done
(typing about:plugins in your awesome bar should show all plugins)

4) Add a link in your search path to preference Minefield over Firefox with:

cd ~/bin && ln -s ../firefox/firefox
(your search $PATH looks in $HOME/$USER/bin first so it will find Minefield!)

5) Enable the JIT compiler with:

a) type about:config in your awesome bar
b) click on "I'll be careful, I promise!"
c) type in the filter field: javascript.options.jit.chrome
d) double-click to toggle the boolean false to 'true'

That's it.  By default, if you click your Firefox icon, it should find Minefield in the search path first and load all of your custom settings from /$HOME/$USER/.mozilla.

Rock On!
--Dietrich

A Robot Network Seeks to Enlist Your Computer

By JOHN MARKOFF

REDMOND, Wash. -- In a windowless room on Microsoft's campus here, T. J. Campana, a cybercrime investigator, connects an unprotected computer running an early version of Windows XP to the Internet. In about 30 seconds the computer is "owned."

An automated program lurking on the Internet has remotely taken over the PC and turned it into a "zombie." That computer and other zombie machines are then assembled into systems called "botnets" -- home and business PCs that are hooked together into a vast chain of cyber-robots that do the bidding of automated programs to send the majority of e-mail spam, to illegally seek financial information and to install malicious software on still more PCs.

Botnets remain an Internet scourge. Active zombie networks created by a growing criminal underground peaked last month at more than half a million computers, according to shadowserver.org, an organization that tracks botnets. Even though security experts have diminished the botnets to about 300,000 computers, that is still twice the number detected a year ago.

The actual numbers may be far larger; Microsoft investigators, who say they are tracking about 1,000 botnets at any given time, say the largest network still controls several million PCs.

"The mean time to infection is less than five minutes," said Richie Lai, who is part of Microsoft's Internet Safety Enforcement Team, a group of about 20 researchers and investigators. The team is tackling a menace that in the last five years has grown from a computer hacker pastime to a dark business that is threatening the commercial viability of the Internet.

Full story

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Not to worry you or anything--the above article should be read in its entirety and taken with a 'grain of salt'.  It fails to mention that Apple and Linux users enjoy relative safety on the internet and are inert to the security issues which Microsoft products face. 

You have to wonder why the author neglects to mention 'alternatives' to Microsoft products.  At least I do.

--Dietrich

If you follow along on the IT Tech blogs as closely as I do, you occasionally come away with a headache or a serious case of multiple personality disorder.  I spend several hours a day pouring over the technorati with my trusty Bloglines to cull the best highlights of the day and attempt to divine technology trends.  Also, as the name of this blog indicates, I advocate Linux for IT professionals.  In my many years of taking in stride the vicissitudes of life, I have succeeded in keeping myself somewhat grounded with a mental reminder, when needed, from Alfred E. Neuman: "WHAT - ME WORRY?" 

Take a deep breath and follow along with my thought process, Ad-lib, if you will.

Microsoft Vista

Protaganist: It's great.
Antagonist: No it's not.
Zealot: Yes it is and you are an idiot.  You are wood pulp.


Jack Nicholson: You can't handle the truth!

Mike Cox: "My rep says...." (I definitely need more Mike Cox)
Ballmer: "We're not going to have products that are much more successful than Vista has been." (Is he in denial?)

Fact is, you can still get infected in five minutes with a very nice Fast-flux botnet with or without Anti-Virus Anti-Malware protection.

What to do? Switch to Linux.

What - me worry? No.  Not one bit.

--Dietrich

Linux Carried Along on Netbooks Wave

Oct 20, 2008

According to IDC, the number of computers sold grew 27% from the previous year. Around half of them consisted of the mini-notebooks known as netbooks. In the third quarter of 2008 around 2,000,000 netbooks in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) found their way out of warehouses. The draw of these devices is not supposed to let up despite the current world economic crisis, at least in the number of units sold, even if price competition and monetary exchange rates make the predictions less optimistic. The Linux contingency of these netbooks is considerable and helps propel it further into the world market.

PC vendor Acer leads total sales in the EMEA market in the third quarter with 21% and has thus surpassed HP, the leader as recently as the last quarter of 2007. Noteworthy is that the Korean company, with its Aspire One, has moved from second place within three quarters, according to analysts. Third place goes to Dell, which lost a few percentages, and Asus pushed its way to fourth place from the previous fifth with a current 3.7%. HP has meanwhile moved out of the top four.

Acer and Asus thus have the lion's share of netbooks between them, at 80% according to IDC.

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Antitrust case against Apple still on, says Mac clone maker

Mediation ordered by judge a 'nonstory,' attorney says

October 21, 2008 (Computerworld) Contrary to media and blogger reports, Apple Inc. and Mac clone maker Psystar Corp. have not suspended their legal wrestling, a lawyer for Psystar said today.

The fact that the two parties have filed documents with a federal court promising that they would take their dispute to Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), a legal process that can include mediation, is "a nonstory," said Colby Springer, an attorney at Palo Alto, Calif.-based Carr & Ferrell LLP, who is on the team representing Psystar.

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Is the Mac Mini Dead?

October 21, 2008

The Mac mini may be pronounced dead as soon as today's Apple earnings conference call, as two major retailers in Europe have confirmed to me that they can't order any more of the little computers. While this could signal an updated model coming in, they have been told by Apple to expect no more of it. Their impression is that--once again--the Mac Mini may be dead dead DEAD for real, even while you can still order it at the Apple Store.

It would be weird to see it go in this time of crisis, but being their worst-selling computer, I'm not surprised.

The Mac mini was first introduced in January 2005 at the Macworld Conference & Expo. Labeled by Steve Jobs as the "most affordable Mac ever" it was well received by the critic and public. Apple positioned it as a cheap alternative to the Mac Pro for every PC user who wanted to switch to the Mac without having to buy new peripherals.

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