Showing all newswire headlines

Databases are powerful tools, and -- like all powerful tools -- they can be abused if you don't know how to use them properly. Here are the five most common problems in database design, in the PHP code that accesses databases, and how to avoid them.

Recently releasing the 2.4.33-rc3 kernel, Marcelo Tosatti [interview] also announced a new 2.4 Linux kernel maintainer, "Willy Tarreau has stepped up to maintain the mainline v2.4 tree, and will do so starting from v2.4.34. He has devoted great effort to help maintenance for the past few years. His -hotfix tree is quite popular amongst v2.4 users, for instance. I feel very confident in his competence for the job, knowing his good common sense and great technical/communication skills." Willy began maintaining his -hf patchset against the stable 2.4 Linux kernel in February of 2005 [story].

In response to Marcelo's announcement, Willy replied, "hmmm... Like I once told you, I felt like you were trying to sell me your car, but you seem to have maintained it in very good state so I am confident it will not break after a few miles. I still hope that if I have any problem with it, you will come with your breakdown truck to rescue me :-) I hope I will get criticisms if I do things wrong. It's frustrating to work without feedback (either positive or negative)."

LinuxGenius, LLC, the makers of the popular LinuxCBT Open Source training series, is proud to release: UnixCBT featuring Solaris 10 Edition.

Source code addicts are getting their fixes better than ever. Google has launched a code repository, prompting grand-daddy Sourceforge.net to zoot up its offering, while new search engine Krugle offers a new way to find code.

Thousands of users are deploying open source storage software in an effort to avoid pricey proprietary products such as array clustering and disk eraser applications and to get some long-term protection through the availability of source code.

Myths and legends laid to rest The net is full of Apache knowledge. Tips and tricks, discussion fora, experts of all kinds, and innumerable "how-tos" and tutorials on a range of subjects. Some of these are worth reading; others may be otherwise.

[Don't be fooled by the word "zombie". It's about .htaccess, AddType, Limit and case-sensitivity in URLs. Dumb headline. -- grouch]

[Nate Angell] is an active member of open source communities including Sakai, Open Source Portfolio, and the web content management platform Drupal. Angell and members of Portland State’s team regularly help other campuses and institutions implement enterprise open source technologies. Here, Angell offers a number of intelligent ways to help open source implementations succeed.

Monday, July 31, 2006: India will host the Fourth International GPLv3 Conference in Bangalore on 23 and 24 August 2006. A part of the world-wide drive to create awareness about the upcoming version three of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3), the two-day conference is expected to draw delegates from across the communities -- legal, bureaucrat and academia. While the first day will see Richard M. Stallman and Eben Moglen, the original architects of the GPLv3 license, communicating latest updates on the GPLv3 final draft, the second day holds panel discussions on localisation, awareness and adoption of GPLv3 and threat of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM).

Admins, as a general rule, spend far too much time and energy trying to keep spam out of the networks. Until technology is developed to reach out and touch spammers — forcefully — spam will be an unfortunate and expensive fact of life. Fortunately, some simple hacks can be applied at the server level to derail a significant amount of spam. For Postfix admins, for example, there is the Postgrey Greylisting Policy Server.

Linux has had NTFS support for many years now, but as a reverse engineered filesystem, progress hasn’t exactly been fast.

A Mozilla Firefox exploit has been found that can hijack the Web browser and monitor submit-and-click events.

The new domain thedebianuser.org is still in its infancy, but at least its focus is pretty clear: it targets Debian users, which includes pretty much everyone from new converts to Ubuntu users to Debian Developers. After all, we are all users.

Flex and Bison are powerful tools for developing lexical and grammar parsers, in particular language compilers and interpreters. Although it is easy to generate programs using Flex and Bison, it is a bit harder to make those programs produce user-friendly syntax and semantic error messages. This article examines the error-handling features of Flex and Bison, shows how to use them, and details some pitfalls.

Traditional printed books beat ebooks in almost every respect except one: portability. While it's nice to relax on the sofa with a book in your hand, lugging a 500-page hardcover volume when you are on the move isn't all that appealing. But if your favourite book is available in an electronic format, you can easily turn it into an ebook and read it on your Pocket PC or Palm OS device.

Oracle's chief hints at possible redistribution of Red Hat Linux by the database giant.

MEPIS LLC, the popular Ubuntu-based Linux distributor, has finally released its distribution source code under the GPL. Warren Woodford, the Morgantown, WV-based company's CEO, is not one bit pleased with being forced to do so.

[What's interesting to me is that Woodford calls a requirement to include all the sources a 'restriction'. Frankly, I find the "limited agency relationship" comment bizarre. People already can give copies of GPLed software to their friends without being accused of violating the GPL. The only thing needed is the written promise of source code somewhere on the media. - dcparris]

Pervasive Software has decided to exit the business of providing support for the PostgreSQL open-source database, one of the first failures in the current rush to open-source business models.

Software in the Public Interest is pleased to announce that it has appointed new Officers following the election of three new members to the board of directors.

In a change of heart, Novell has ceased distributing proprietary software modules such as 3D video drivers that plug into the Linux kernel.

[I looove it! Now if Novell will start banning its own non-free repertoire, or more accurately, freeing it up... - dcparris]

"Open source is not just a matter of altruism--it's also good economic sense," said Sun Microsystems' Simon Phipps (pictured) in a recent speech. "Sun has now contributed more lines of open source code than any other organization, including the University of California, Berkeley," he said.

[Interesting. Some will want to brush up on their reading comprehension skills before attempting this one. - dcparris]