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IBM's latest Lotus Symphony suite plus growing relationships with Red Hat and Canonical could put new competitive pressures on Microsoft Office. Here's the scoop from The VAR Guy.

Easy Peasy (netbook optimized Ubuntu Linux) which was released a few weeks ago will have a few nice new features in the upcoming 2.0 release.

Dynamic, attractive, and rich interfaces have always helped in creating compelling web applications. However, in recent years, the popularity and support for asynchronous browser-to-server communication, combined with the strong client-side capabilities of JavaScript and XML, have resulted in exciting user interfaces with unprecedented functionality. In this article we will see that how AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), as the rich user interface design is commonly called, has gained wide acceptability in traditional web applications, and portals are no exception to this.

This article explains how you can cache your web site contents with Apache's mod_cache on Debian Etch. If you have a high-traffic dynamic web site that generates lots of database queries on each request, you can decrease the server load dramatically by caching your content for a few minutes or more (that depends on how often you update your content).

The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of "The Answer", (a.k.a KDE 4.2.0), readying the Free Desktop for end users. KDE 4.2 builds on the technology introduced with KDE 4.0 in January 2008. After the release of KDE 4.1, which was aimed at casual users, the KDE Community is now confident we have a compelling offering for the majority of end users.

Linux.conf.au came to a close Friday after dozens of excellent talks, great social events, and the unexpected shaving of Bdale Garbee for the Tasmanian Devil.

Bill Tancer's book first hit me as a strange cross between a voyeur's look at the Internet and Orwell's 1984. I got the distinct impression as he was detailing just what he could learn from tracking our web searches, that "Big Brother" had arrived. That's something of an exaggeration, since all of the personal information is stripped out of Tancer's data (hopefully), but I found it amazing what he said he could learn about people, just by looking at patterns in searches.

If Mozilla has its way, you'll soon be able to watch streaming video on sites all over the web without ever having to use a plug-in. The software maker announced Monday that native support for the open-source Threora video format will be added to Firefox 3.1, the next version of its popular web browser. Theora files can be embedded directly into web pages just like images and viewed in any browser that supports Theora playback -- no plug-in to download, so special software to install.

Adding nfs management to an existing vcs cluster without having to take vcs offline. Today we're following up on yesterday's post regarding adding NFS management to an existing VCS cluster.

In late December, AMD had released open-source R600/700 code used to begin supporting 2D and 3D acceleration for the latest ATI graphics processors under Linux using an open-source stack. This code in its initial form just provided basic but fast 2D acceleration and on the 3D side was only able to draw triangles. This month an AMD Video BIOS Disassembler was released by Novell, which is one of AMD's open-source partners. This evening, however, AMD has released its R600 3D specifications to the general public.

Like Cisco's AXP, HP will use Linux as the core underlying operating system on which application vendors will deliver their solutions. A Linux 2.6 kernel will sit on top of HP's new ProCurve ONE Services zl Module, which is a blade that plugs into the ProCurve Switch 5400zl and 8200zl series switches. An HP spokesperson explained to InternetNews.com that the Linux OS is being used as a service OS to provide application installations, diagnostics and the checking of application licensing credentials. The applications themselves bring their own OS, just as if they were an appliance.

In the midst of the current financial crunch, the popular, free Linux distribution Ubuntu has never looked more attractive. If you've considered switching, a free copy of the Ubuntu Pocket Guide is the perfect place to start.

MEPIS and Mandriva are moving closer to new releases of their Linux distributions, and a French project called Jolicloud has posted a screen (pictured) from its upcoming netbook distro. MEPIS posted SimplyMEPIS 8.0 RC2, and Mandriva released its second alpha for Mandriva Linux 2009 Spring.

Figuring out how your customers use your products — and by extension, how to improve user experience — can be a tricky process to navigate. Focus groups have their flaws, surveys suffer from selective memory, and peeping over shoulders could plant one in the penitentiary. The browser-makers at Mozilla, though, are hoping to put an Open Source spin on the process, expecting to release within the next few weeks a plugin to gather usage data from volunteers.

Linux had its chance there for a while in netbooks, but has now been duly "kicked to the curb" by Microsoft, never to surface again. This according to Robin Harris, apparently an expert in storage, who in an amusing, penguin-baiting rant published by ZDNet, ventures his opinion on desktop Linux.

In Part I Eric Geier showed us several options for remoting between Linux and Windows machines, and settled on VNC. Today we'll learn how to configure routers for connections over the Internet,and how to safely encrypt our remote graphical desktop sessions.

The European Commission could force Microsoft to bundle Firefox with future versions of Windows. The revelation came as part of Microsoft's quarterly filing with the Security and Exchange Commission. Among the statements is a clause outlining the penalties being considered by the European watchdog, which recently ruled that Microsoft is harming competition by bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. The most interesting situation outlined in the filing would see either Microsoft or computer manufacturers forced to install Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari by default alongside Internet Explorer on new Windows-based PCs.

Akaza Research announces the first annual OpenClinica European Summit. The event will be held on April 14, 2009 in Brussels, Belgium and bring together users, developers, and leading service providers of the OpenClinica open source electronic data capture (EDC) software. This event is for users, developers, and other interested parties to share information about the OpenClinica open source electronic data capture platform. Early bird registration deadline is January 30th.

The Java™ platform will be celebrating its 14th birthday soon and one side-effect when a successful and ubiquitous language reaches this kind of milestone is the widespread proliferation of libraries, tools, and ideas — this bonus can leave many newcomers to the Java language adrift in a sea of material. In this article, the author (a solid contributor to that overwhelming sea) tacks through the vast tides and presents a list of the key resources any up-and-coming Java developer should have.

Details are scarce, unless Russian is your language of choice, but one news outlet is reporting that Russia plans to develop its own national operating system. The move is designed to reduce the country's reliance on foreign software and licensing agreements. And the alleged "open-code" solution, likely a Linux/GNU derivative, will give Russia a greater degree of customization, as well as increased control over how the potentially free operating system is used and accessed.