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It happens to everyone sooner or later: a split second after you hit Enter you realize your mistake, but it's too late; you just deleted a valuable file or directory for which no backup exists. Fortunately, you remember that files are never really deleted, at most overwritten by new content. So, you remount the disk read-only as fast as possible. But now? If you Google for "undelete ext3", almost every article you find will be users asking if it's possible and the answer is every time: no. On February 7th, 2008, I accidently deleted my whole home directory: over 3 GB of data, deleted with rm -rf. The only backup that I had was from June 2007. Not being able to undelete was unacceptable. So, I ignored what everyone tried to tell me and started to learn how an ext3 file system really works, and what exactly happens when files are deleted... Three weeks and nearly 5000 lines of code later, I had recovered every file on my disk.

Have you ever left your terminal logged in, only to find when you came back to it that a (supposed) friend had typed "rm -rf ~/*" and was hovering over the keyboard with threats along the lines of "lend me a fiver 'til Thursday, or I hit return"? Undoubtedly the person in question would not have had the nerve to inflict such a trauma upon you, and was doing it in jest. So you've probably never experienced the worst of such disasters....

[Yes, I know this is from 1986. It's still a great read - Sander]

The rising generation of programmers isn't being fed .Net and Windows. It's growing strong on Linux and its associated LAMP stack, as Robert Guth of the Wall Street Journal notes. Microsoft thinks it has an answer to this trend toward Linux. It is very telling how far from reality Microsoft is by its response:

Every six months, the GNOME team prepares a new and revolutionary release of the ever popular GNOME desktop environment. Today, we are proud to introduce you to the latest and greatest features of an 100% FREE and open source desktop. Whether you are on a Solaris machine or the latest Ubuntu distribution, GNOME is there and with every new release it makes your life... Simply Beautiful! Let's have a look at the new features of GNOME 2.22.

The Banshee development community has been working for months on a major refresh for the popular music player. The first Banshee 1.0 alpha was released today, providing users with an early look at Banshee's new features and vastly improved user interface.

From iPods to navigation systems, some of today's hottest gadgets are landing on store shelves with some unwanted extras from the factory -- pre-installed viruses that steal passwords, open doors for hackers and make computers spew spam. Computer users have been warned for years about virus threats from downloading Internet porn and opening suspicious e-mail attachments. Now they run the risk of picking up a digital infection just by plugging a new gizmo into their PCs.

So here it is: video. Today we’re proud to announce the general release of video calls in Skype 2.0 for Linux. As you may already know, the best things in life are often free and now you can make (and receive) free, great quality video calls on Linux.

Lately, Linux has been receiving quite a bit of notice. Between the ASUS EeePC, the One Laptop Per Child project, Dell’s new Ubuntu line, Intel’s Classmate PC, and Everex’s Green PC, Linux has been getting a lot of attention from computer manufacturers. It seems every new computer in the last year has had Linux, but to most people that doesn’t mean anything. It probably leaves you wondering, “what’s this Linux thing everyone’s talking about?”

About three months ago I was looking for a wiki for a private project and used WikiMatrix to figure out what wiki software best met my needs. My main requirements were that the software was open source, easy-to-use, and there was a free hosted version to play around with. Unfortunately, there were a lot of choices that met these criteria so I slogged through a bunch of options with little luck and even some that fell outside my criteria. After a pretty exhaustive search I came upon Deki Wiki an open source Wiki platform by MindTouch.

The European Commission will take a more pro-active approach to its own use of Open Source. In a document published last week, the EC states among others that the Commission will prefer Open Source software for its new IT projects: "For all new development, where deployment and usage is foreseen by parties outside of the Commission Infrastructure, Open Source Software will be the preferred development and deployment platform."

The Navy will acquire only systems based on open technologies and standards. Vice Adm. Mark Edwards, deputy chief of naval operations for communications, broke the news March 5 to a Navy IT Day audience in Vienna, Va., sponsored by AFCEA International. “The days of proprietary technology must come to an end,” he said. “We will no longer accept systems that couple hardware, software and data.”

Red Hat will need to walk a fine line in the middleware market. Even as the open source company continues to build its channel, Red Hat today opened its wallet to acquire a middleware consulting firm that specializes in JBoss applications. Does that mean Red Hat is ready to compete with partners?

Ubuntu Brainstorm is continuing to produce many good ideas. Some of the best this week include running background tasks only while the screensaver is on, checking for hardware compatibility before installing, and more.

Leader in mobile open source adopts and helps ratify new license that closes ASP loophole

Whether you’re a returning guest or a just thinking about attending, the Red Hat Summit is fast approaching. Check out this year’s Summit preview video, and when you’re done, hit the event website and get the details. We’d love to see you there. And get some chowda.

One day, Google believes, software developers will love its "non-existent" Android handset just as much as they love the iPhone - and maybe more. Speaking this morning at eComm, a conference dedicated to "emerging communications," Google mobile platforms guru Rich Miner acknowledged that for the moment, Apple may have an advantage. After all, Steve Jobs and company have actually shipped a piece of hardware, while the first Android handset won't arrive until "the second half of this year." But Miner also told the crowd that Stevo hasn't treated developers as well as they deserve.

In the closing days of 2007, open source voice-over-IP (VoIP) project WengoPhone found itself without a sponsor. The project's creator and underwriter, Wengo, announced it was halting its support after more than three years of development. Fortunately, longtime contributor MBDSYS offered to take over maintainership of the project, and has begun the transition, setting out a roadmap and reinvigorating the developer base.

The other day, Wal-Mart let it slip that it would no longer be selling Linux-powered computers in its stores. The retail giant will, however, continue to sell Linux desktop and laptop systems via its online store. On March 10, Wal-Mart spokesperson Melissa O'Brien told the Associated Press that Wal-Mart had decided not to restock its in-store gOS Linux-powered Everex Green gPC TC2502. "This really wasn't what our customers were looking for," O'Brien said.

In many organizations, copiers get little respect. Often relegated to a break room or storage closet, they are underutilized and underappreciated, and get no attention from the IT department. Yet, multifunction copiers can play a critical role in reducing operating costs and become a hub for document processing.

Amarok is a popular audio player under Linux. It can manage external storage devices, transfer music to your iPod, display lyrics, and play various formats. Although Amarok supports scripts to extend its functionality, not many users know about the powerful features that these simple plugins can provide.