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When Microsoft introduces its long-awaited Windows Vista operating system this month, it will have an unlikely partner to thank for making its flagship product safe and secure for millions of computer users across the world: the National Security Agency.

[This one is posted only as an example of the drawbacks of closed software - hkwint]

High performance interconnects used for Linux HPC clusters are often compared using artificial benchmarks. The important question is how well these artificial benchmarks translate into real-world performance. This article attempts to answer this question buy taking a look at the real-world performance for Mellanox for Qlogic Interconnects.

The Linux community is heading for a clash between three disparate groups with very different goals and agendas. We've already seen some light skirmishes between them already. Sometimes these groups will align for the purposes of advancing their own views, but for the most part, these three groups will either destroy Linux as we know it or have to learn how to get along.

In this article, you, learn how to use a finite state machine to design complex behavior for a simple Web widget -- an animated tooltip that fades into and out of view.

Open-source systems integrator Optaros Inc. today released a guide listing and reviewing what it considers the 262 best open-source applications for companies. The catalog, available on Optaros' Web site, rates software on a scale of 1 to 5 on factors such as functionality, the vibrancy of the developer community behind it, the software's maturity and stability, and its projected trajectory. Those factors are then used to calculate the software's readiness for use by midsize and large corporations.

Adobe has extended its support to open source community. The company has contributed source code for the ActionScript Virtual Machine, the standards-based scripting language engine in Adobe Flash Player, to the Mozilla Foundation. Using the source code, Mozilla will host a new open source project, called Tamarin.

SONY has been convicted of misleading the French public and told to pay damages to a consumer watchdog for selling downloadable songs that only run on its own music players.

Obtaining bulk orders from developing world governments and institutions remains the main priority for the organization marketing the linux-running, crank-powered laptop. However, a scheme is currently being worked out to allow the general public to purchase the machine starting in 2008.

A new month, a new set of display drivers. Coming out of the AMD camp today is Catalyst 7.1 and fglrx 8.33.6. There are a few noteworthy changes in this ATI Linux driver release, which is what we have detailed in this article along with our usual set of graphics benchmarks. This Linux driver is also the first that provides preliminary support for the Radeon X2000 R600 series for both notebook and desktop components.

Still seething over that bad book publishing deal you entered into in 1981? Good news: you might be able to rescue your manuscript and do something lucrative with it, thanks to Creative Commons (CC) and obscure portions of US copyright law. CC is beta testing a Web-based tool on its ccLabs site that helps authors through the tricky legal maze required to terminate a copyright transfer.

Use Linux or Microsoft Windows, the open source sndpeek program, and a simple Perl script to read specific sequences of tonal events -- literally whistling, humming, or singing at your computer -- and run commands based on those tones. Give your computer a short low whistle to check your e-mail or unlock your screensaver with the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

To quote from the book's preface: "Building PCs isn't just for techies any more. It used to be, certainly. Only gamers and other geeks actually built their PCs from the ground up. Everyone else just called the Dell Dude and ordered a system. That started to change a few years ago. The first sign was when general merchandisers like Best Buy started stocking upgrade components." Someone told me years ago that building a PC was like building something with Legos. While I don't think it's a perfect analogy, it comes close. Building a PC or small server is well within the grasp of anyone who can use a screwdriver and likes to tinker. Building the Perfect PC, 2nd Edition makes it a snap.

He was setting up a router for the legal team, so they could get their email there, because the lawyers were struggling with it, and lo and behold, the software that came with the router overrode his preference -- set for Mozilla's Firefox -- and insisted on launching IE instead. Not only that, but although he tried to override it, his system insisted on running IE instead of Firefox henceforth.

The old stable release Debian GNU/Linux (codename 'woody') has been archived. The official source for this distribution is the dedicated archive host called archive.debian.org. It is no longer available on regular Debian mirror servers.

AOL has announced plans to enter the portable media player business with a Haier-manufactured player that looks like it was put together by the company's East German industrial design division, and then forged from plate iron in a Soviet-era smelting factory -- in fact, this product is the fruition of AOL's acquisition of the zany WildSeed guys a while back.

Australia's biggest Linux conference will kick off next week and the organiser has promised that attendees will get a lesson in how to control and monitor everyday objects -- including a toilet flush -- using the open source operating system.

It almost seems like you can't swing a programmer around without hitting another open source project. I spent some time with Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale yesterday morning, and between an extensive Second Life demo and philosophical ruminations on Las Vegas architecture, he said that they would be announcing that the source code to the Second Life client would be released to the public under the GNU General Public License version 2. This is your chance to build that gravity inverter you've been dreaming of.

We can’t all afford four-figure priced twelve megapixel digital cameras with wide angle lenses. We can, however, all use free software to embellish the photographs taken by our modest equipment and belie their resolution and viewing angle. Set the GIMP aside for a moment and launch Hugin, a powerful cross-platform GTK frontend that will help you quickly and easily stitch individual photographs into one, large, seamless panorama.

Scribes is a text editor for GNOME that focuses on usability. After 30 minutes of usage, you will either love it or hate it.

Opera Software may well be putting its browser users at risk by not properly disclosing security vulnerabilities to vulnerable users.