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Microsoft is calling on the Great British public to join its campaign to get the XML Office format adopted as an international standard.

The first thing that naturally comes to mind is Linux and then maybe the Apache Web server project. But all across the landscape, there are a number of less-ambitious, open-source efforts under way that hold a lot of promise for solution providers looking to shore up their profitability. One class that is beginning to get plenty of attention is all the work being done around the Asterik voice over IP telephony project that is now being packaged for commercial use by companies such as Digium. The Digium offering is an appliance based on a Linux distribution created by rPath that has already received a number of positive reviews in terms of its ability to compete with proprietary offerings from Avaya and Cisco.

SimplyMEPIS 6.5 for 32 and 64 bit Intel and AMD based PCs and MacTels has been released by MEPIS. 6.5 started as a minor update to the Ubuntu pool compatible 6.0 release of SimplyMEPIS but the project quickly expanded to add the 7.1 X window manager, newer display and wireless drivers, Mac Intel support, Amarok music player with music store and mtp support, and the experimental Beryl 3D desktop.

We’ve written about portable apps quite a number of times in the past, but why bother with just apps when there’s a whole OS that’ll fit on a 50MB USB stick? Damn Small Linux, sometimes abbreviated DSL, is a 50MB mini desktop Linux distribution.

Enable Web client to directly access server-side relational data without compromising enterprise security with IBM Database Connectivity for JavaScript. Web 2.0 applications can thus use this to access relational data as a first-class construct instead of through ad hoc protocols.

This review takes a quick look at the just-released, Ubuntu-based SimplyMEPIS 6.5 Linux distribution. DesktopLinux.com columnist Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols finds it easy to install and configure, and a solid desktop platform to use, but notes that Beryl 3D graphics support can be challenging to get working.

At this point, I've run about 15 or so live Linux CDs with varying degrees of success. And yes, I have manually configured a static networking connection before -- Fluxbuntu's "command line interface is EVERYTHING" philosophy sent me to the Web for instructions on how to do so. But I'm not a full card-carrying geek, so I'm not all that crazy about going to the command line with no help whatsoever just to get freakin' Internet flowing into the box with a live CD I've never run before on an OS I've also never run before.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has fixed several critical Kerberos 5 flaws attackers could exploit to cause a denial of service, bypass security restrictions and hijack targeted machines.

TIBCO's GITAK (General Interface Test Automation Kit) has now been open sourced by the company. This gives developers a free tool for building automatic quality assurance testing routines for enterprise applications components.

An open source initiative to reverse gains for Microsoft web server software appears to be using edited server headers to try and improve the showing of the Apache web server. Sites using the Open Source Parking service report that they are running on Apache, but appear to actually be hosted on lighttpd. Both Apache and lighttpd are open source web servers, but Apache leads in the Netcraft survey with a 59 percent market share, while lighttpd is a newcomer with just 1.2% share.

Current Web browsers weren't designed to easily and securely get content from multiple sources into one page. Discover how developers have stretched the available tools to fit the task and how doing so has put strain on the resulting applications with respect to security and scalability. Also, learn about several browser improvements being proposed to remedy the situation and how to become part of the conversation.

A hackergotchi is a picture of a person's head that's used as an avatar for identification on a blog. Any region below the neck is cut out, as are any portions of the picture that don't include the head. You can create a hackergotchi easily with a digital camera and the GIMP.

The Minitel, a French government-sponsored minicomputer that was wired into 14 million French homes at its peak in the mid-1990s, had a limited service offering, a black-and-white screen and slow connection speeds that doomed it to near-extinction in the face of the Internet. Now, a French Internet service provider, Neuf Cegetel, has taken inspiration from the Minitel to develop a computer based on a similar low-cost model, aimed at people who are unable or unwilling to buy a computer. In a gesture to high-technology enthusiasts, however, the system uses the open-source software beloved by many engineers and programmers.

How to install OTRS (Open source Ticket Request System) in Debian

Galternatives - Graphical setup tool for Alternatives Configuration in Ubuntu

The Free Software Foundation has released the second draft of version 3 of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). In addition to general editing, the new draft ties the LGPL more closely to the GNU General Public License (GPL), introduces the concept of a "linked version," and adds a new option for distributing combined works.

A fairly detailed article entitled"VistA Electronic Health Record (EHR) System: The Market Today and Tomorrow" was recently published in Virtual Medical Worlds. See the articlehere.

South African state power utility Eskom backs open software as it sponsors a new open source centre under the Joburg Centre for Software Engineering.

One Linux Advocate, finally tiring of his friends "helping" him, issues a challenge. "You think I'm missing out by not running Windows Vista?" "You say it's superior even though one nanobyte of Linux code has never touched your hard drive?" "OK, I'll try it...but one one or two conditions..."

The Meraka Institute has been appointed the official South African affiliate for the Linux Professional Institute, ending months of speculation after the Shuttleworth Foundation ended its relationship with the LPI.