Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Windows worms and Trojan horses infect the entire US military, it seems, and Carla Schroder wonders why isn't this a huge scandal? Why does Microsoft always get a free pass despite causing billions of dollars of damages? Other musings cover corporate rootkits, security vendors looking the other way, and aren't there any adults in corporate land?

If I play video games they're usually pretty low tech ones. One of the few games I miss from the old days is Duke Nukem, and I'm talking about the Duke before he went 3D. If you have an old DOS game that you'd like to run, or for that matter any old DOS program, check out DOSBox. Even if you don't have any DOS programs that you'd like to run, you might want to try downloading some of the old DOS games that are now available free online.

The Financial Times' Richard Waters wrote an excellent analysis of Sun's open-source strategy on Monday, and in the process reminded me of something that should have been obvious: Open source is the very thing that has crippled Sun, yet Sun is looking to open source, to hobble its competitors and revive its future. We often talk in the technology industry about the need to cannibalize your own business before someone else does it to you. Sun may be a little late off the starting blocks, but it's fascinating to watch its race against time.

New Delhi resident Raj Mathur is living proof that a Free and Open Source Software advocate can earn a decent living working with clients who are using or planning to use FOSS. Raj has also been a member of the Open Source Initiative board of directors and is a leading member of his local Linux users group. He's also contributed to more than a few Free Software projects over the years. Raj is a "heartbeat of GNU/Linux" kind of guy -- not famous, but a stalwart soldier in the worldwide FOSS army. (And a nice person, too.)

There are lots of internal rivalries within Microsoft. One of the most constant is the battle between the Windows/Office teams and the open-source team at the company. Microsoft’s open-source team is continuing to try to build bridges with open-source providers — emphasizing Microsoft’s interest in making open and closed source products more interoperable in order to help customers. Microsoft Chief Software Ray Ozzie has made open-source interoperability one of his cornerstone platforms since he joined the company in 2005. At the same time, however, Microsoft’s Windows and Office teams are continuing to use total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) and customer case studies to prove that Linux and Open Office end up costing customers more than free/open-source software.

LinuxPlanet Classics: Multicast has become a buzzword more than once in history. IP multicast means that one sender is sending data to multiple recipients, but only sending a single copy. It's very useful for streaming media, so let's follow Charlie Schluting on a tour of this excellent protocol as we continue the wonderful Networking 101 series.

Oracle has contributed data integrity protection code, partly developed with the hardware vendor Emulex, to the Linux kernel, the vendors announced Tuesday. The code helps maintain "comprehensive data integrity" as information "moves from application to database, and from [the] Linux operating system to disk storage," according to a statement. It also lowers the possibility that erroneous data will get written to disk. The companies' effort is meant to help data center administrators track and address corrupted data quickly, lowering costs and downtime, said Scott McIntyre, vice president of product marketing at Emulex, in a statement.

I just wrote a bit of Python to generate some reports from the contents of a database. The one program that was more than just "display the data" was the one to print the transaction log. It included some sub-totals for various fields and paginated output. The one task remaining was to give it some options. That is, to pass it some criteria that would modify the report. Specifically, I wanted a start and end date and the ability to change the sort order from the default which was transaction date.

Good OS, developer of the gOS operating system, announced its latest endeavor Monday, dubbed "Cloud." The new operating system, unlike most OSes, actually boots into a browser. From there, the user may surf the Web or go to a traditional Windows or Linux operating system. The new OS integrates a Web browser with its compressed Linux OS kernel for immediate access to the Internet, integration of browser and rich client applications, and full control of the PC from within the browser, Good OS said. "The Cloud OS and Good OS are interesting, and they definitely mark a trend toward a more lightweight, nimble, browser-based OS approach for mobile Take the FREE Motorola AirDefense WLAN Security Assessment. Click here. devices, particularly netbooks and MIDs (mobile Internet devices)," Jay Lyman, an analyst at The 451 Group, told LinuxInsider.

If any process ever cried out for a graphical interface, it is using NDISwrapper to enable wireless devices to run on GNU/Linux using Windows drivers. The process is often torturous, especially for first-time users, who are unsure whether any problems are due to NDISwrapper's limitations or their own inexperience. By organizing and explaining the process, KNDISwrapper promises to remove much of the labor. But, so far, it only partly delivers on that promise by neglecting the hardest part of working with NDISwrapper -- finding the right Windows driver.

Everyone knows and loves rsync, the command that lets you clone a directory tree to another disk or system with the ability to keep the clone fresh in an incremental and bandwidth-efficient manner. Sometimes, however, you want to sync in the reverse direction. With bidirectional filesystem syncing tools, there is no primary filesystem -- you just tell the tool to make sure both target directories, or clones, are identical. Here's a hands-on look at two tools designed to accomplish that task: DirSync Pro and Unison.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am not a fan of the term “intellectual property”, and that I prefer the more technically correct term “intellectual monopolies”. Despite that, I strongly recommend a new book from someone who not only approves of the term “intellectual property”, but of its fundamental ideas. I do so, however, because this avowed fan also has serious reservations:

The Eclipse Foundation has published a roadmap putting a strong emphasis on Web 2.0, cloud computing, and rivalry with Windows — particularly Vista. New projects must be consistent with the roadmap, Eclipse said. "This does not mean that every new project must be explicitly envisaged by the roadmap," it said, but "It does mean that new projects cannot be inconsistent with the stated directions of Eclipse."

The market share of Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer dropped under the 70% mark last month for the first time since Web metrics vendor Net Applications Inc. started keeping tabs on browsers, the company said today. IE slipped to a 69.8% share, down from October's 71.3% and off 7.6 percentage points in the past year. Rival browsers from Mozilla Corp., Apple Inc. and Google Inc., meanwhile, cashed in on IE's slide and posted gains for the month, according to Net Applications' data, which is culled from visitors to the thousands of Web sites the company monitors for clients. Mozilla's Firefox, which briefly popped above the 20% share bar during October, solidified that surge in November to end the month at 20.8%, an increase of 0.8 percentage points, the largest one-month increase since March 2007.

Mobile phone operating systems and a reheated web browser war: that's how we'll recall the year 2008 when it comes to software. From brand new to revamped browsers and mobile platforms and apps, 2008's been good to technophiles who like their data in the cloud and accessible wherever they are. Let's take a look back at this year in software, and some of the best new and improved applications, web services, and mobile platforms that were born in 2008. Looking back at the last 12 months, these are the apps that get a gold foil-wrapped chocolate coin from us this year.

Corporate austerity is reaching one of the most extravagant spenders of the boom years. Google Inc. has begun to tighten its belt. For much of its 10-year history, Google spent money at a pace that was the marvel of Silicon Valley. It hired by the thousands and dished out generous perks, including three free meals a day, free doctors, ski trips and laundry facilities, and subsidized personal trainers. It let engineers spend 20% of their time pursuing pet projects. The company's goal was to develop new products that would reduce its nearly total reliance on selling ads connected to Internet searches.

One of the most exciting aspects of the PlayStation 3 Latest News about PlayStation 3 is that it allows users to install an alternative operating system. You can't overwrite Sony's (NYSE: SNE) Latest News about Sony GameOS or access privileged resources, but you can run your own applications on the new Cell Broadband Engine processor (called the "CBE processor" or the "Cell" for short). The Cell is the mighty brain of the PlayStation 3, and this article explains how to access it by installing Linux Linux MPS Pro.

Database maker Oracle and host bus adapter maker Emulex today announced that they have contributed code to eliminate silent data corruption to the open source Linux operating system. The two also said this code has been accepted in the 2.6.27 kernel, which is the latest stable release. Back in April 2007, Oracle, Emulex, disk maker Seagate, and disk array maker LSI Logic announced that they would be extending a standard called T10 Data Integrity Field (DIF) so it would reach from software applications through storage arrays and their related file systems down to the disk drive. The data integrity effort, says Oracle, is about making sure that data does not become corrupted as it moves from the application servers to the database and then from the Linux operating system into the disk storage attached to it.

Nanchang, the capital of China's eastern Jiangxi province, has required Internet cafe operators to replace pirated server software with licensed versions. Cafes that don't will lose their license to operate, but some are grumbling about the cost of installing legitimate software. "What has the world come to, when no leaders will come forward to speak out on behalf of Internet owners like us," wrote one user on a Jiangxi discussion forum (in Chinese). "When you talk to officials from the Culture Department, they tell you, 'If you're willing to pay, pay; if not, you have the option not to pay.' Hearing words like that turns your heart cold. We really can't make a living," the user said.

Linux game programmer Ryan "Icculus" Gordon has released a native Linux client for Prey, a two-year-old first-person shooter (FPS) game from Human Head Studios. The client requires users to purchase a copy of the title for Windows PCs. Gordon first posted a "demo" of his Prey client for Linux back in October, inviting users to send feedback. Then, last week, he announced an initial release on his website, here. He appears to have subsequently released an updated installer said to fix "all known issues."