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Linux has a strong following among those who manage corporate servers, a loyal corps of desktop users and a small but growing base of laptop users. But it's also been a big -- if stealthy -- success as a platform for gadgets. In fact, there ought to be a Linux Gadget Hall of Fame. I'll get it started with the first group of inductees: 10 of the most important gadgets of all time, each one based on Linux.

Some of us will find some kind of alleged spare time on our hands over the next few weeks. Certainly, there’s often some kind of break from “work” over the festive season. Traditionally free software developers have used such times for long coding sessions, get-togethers and “hack-fests”. Of course we’re not all hard-core (or even soft-core) hackers so here’s a few suggestions for the rest of us who might want to try something new over Christmas.

Even as the US economy collapsed this fall, Asterisk downloads rose 30 percent, according to Digium. But that's not all. The company's partner program is generating exponential growth. Here's the scoop, from The VAR Guy.

Initially setting up the XSCF facility on Sun M4000's is just as much fun as you think ;) You may have noticed (sometime in the last year or so ;) that I like to write about Sun computers and Solaris almost as much as I like to write about the many variants of Linux out there, without which I might not even have gotten interested in computing in the first place.

Sun Microsystems has announced the release this morning of VirtualBox 2.1 with several enticing additions. VirtualBox 2.1 introduces support for hardware virtualization (through Intel VT and AMD's AMD-V) on Mac OS X host systems, support for 64-bit guest operating systems on 32-bit host systems, support for Intel Nehalem (Core i7) virtualization enhancements, full VMDK/VHD support, a new NAT engine, and new Host Interface Networking implementations on Linux and Windows. Perhaps though one of the most exciting changes in VirtualBox 2.1 is initial support for OpenGL acceleration on the guest operating systems.

In this article, I'm going to present a whole variety of Linux games, across a range of genres. I'm going to review several titles in detail, complete with screenshots and grades. Next, I will talk about non-native Linux games, which can still be enjoyed using certain tools and methods. We will talk about the tools and methods, too. We'll also talk about mini-games that come bundled with distributions, Flash games, online game repositories, and more. It should be interesting. If you're a gamer, spend 5-6 minutes of your time reading. I promise you, you'll like it. So, if you are new to Linux and wondering if you can enjoy games on Linux, the answer is: very much so yes. Follow me.

Movial is shipping a new version of its mobile video communications software that offers high-definition (HD) PC-to-PC, and PC-to-mobile video-conferencing. In addition to releasing Movial Communicator PC 7.2, Movial announced it has partnered with Cypriot telecom carrier Cyta to offer Communicator-based video-calling services.

Every major web browser has been updated this week, mostly to deliver security patches. It isn't every week that sees the delivery of an update for or affecting each of the major browsers. Those of us who like or need to use multiple browsers have plenty of downloading and installing to do, so thank goodness the process is largely automated.

Six-year-old BlueStar Energy Services Inc. doesn't have the kind of systems-baggage that saddles many older organizations. Still, the Chicago-based company found itself hindered by the rigidity of its core systems, which constrained its efforts to expand its customer base and offer new services. Those barriers to growth led the company to embark on a bold effort to replace the bulk of its IT infrastructure -- including voice, e-mail and financial systems -- with open-source software. The initiative has been so successful that CEO Guy Morgan attributes much of the company's recent growth to it.

What's the crowd up to these days? Solving the world's problems -- and saving corporations a lot of money in the process. A few individuals are managing to eke out some personal gain in return for their contributions, but for the most part, the crowd is beginning to look like an incredibly large, wise, cheap labor pool. Fortunately, it's also unwieldy, which may be the crowd's saving grace.

The TangoCMS project has released version 2.2.0 of its web page content management system. Central to the release is resolving some security issues.

The largest trend in Solaris deployment these days is to wait for end-of-life and then replace the server with Linux, where possible. But now that OpenSolaris exists, should this trend continue? Perhaps we should look at OpenSolaris instead of Linux? Last week I took the stance that OpenSolaris could in fact replace Linux. In theory—in the future, if Sun plays its cards properly—this is possible. Asking if I’d deploy OpenSolaris at work, however, is a very different question.

This whole charade is geared towards one single goal: To sell more Microsoft Office based on some label that says “ODF” and helps the Microsoft lobbyists/boosters pressure governments against/away from Free software

If you have wanted to get your hands on an Intel Atom system but aren't interested in the netbooks that are out there, it's now relatively easy to find compatible motherboards out there to build your own Intel Atom system. Some of these motherboards even come with an Atom CPU already installed. In this article we have our hands on the Jetway NC92-230-LF, which is a mini ITX motherboard that is pre-installed with an Intel Atom N230 and offers one PCI slot, one DDR2 slot, Gigabit Ethernet, and 6-channel audio.

Free Linux distro Debian has been working steadily on its next version 5.0 of the OS, known as Lenny. Now developers have been called in for a vote to determine the course of its general release.

How to set up host interface networking for VirtualBox on Ubuntu. To start, NAT is by far the easiest way to get your guests connected to the interweb, but you may want to use the guests as servers. For this you need Host Networking.To configure Host Networking you need to configure network bridging, you basically go through four steps on the host machine

A tool that lets you look up any word on a Web page in Web dictionaries and references can come in handy for most Firefox users.

For many years Spamhaus has been top dog in the anti-spam world of DNSBL (Domain Name System Block List; also known as Realtime Blackhole Lists or RBLs). But Spamhaus is no longer a 100% free service. Even small nonprofits are now expected to pay at least $250 per year for a subscription to the Spamhaus DNSBL Datafeed Service. Now a new, free alternative to Spamhaus has arrived: the Barracuda Reputation Block List (BRBL), provided by well-known, open source-based Barracuda Networks. And Barracuda CEO Dean Drako says the company has no plans to charge for the service in the future. He says that BRBL (pronounced "barbell") "does cost us a little bit of money to run, but we think that the goodwill, the reputation and the understanding that Barracuda is providing the service will do us well in the long run."

Howto set up a Wireless Bridge in Debian. A wireless router is great when toting a computer with a wireless interface around, but moving a wired computer to another room or floor often means stringing an unsightly Ethernet cable through the house. The alternative is buying a wireless adapter, hoping that a Linux driver is available for it (there often isn’t). Even a wireless interface is no good when used out of range of the wireless router.

What role does the Internet Explorer Web browser play in your life? In recent days, new vulnerabilities in the flagship Windows browser have come to light. Alas, the fix is in, but pundits continue to suggest that running IE is just asking for trouble. I'm not ready to say IE is such a security risk that instead browsing the Web with Firefox, Google's new Chrome, the super-quick Opera or even Apple's cross-platform Safari is enough to save your digital bacon. Nope, it's all about what you do, where you go and what computing platform you choose to do it with. The fast is that i386-based Windows PCs continue to be the most vulnerable platforms out there because of both their ubiquity and relative lack of built-in security when compared to Macintosh OS X and the vast number of Unix-like OSes out there (including Linux, the BSDs and Sun's offerings). If you make a habit of downloading executable files (they're easy to spot in Windows because they end in .exe) without being absolutely sure they're totally legitimate and then double-clicking on them, bad things may very well happen.