Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Red Hat announced that a European branch of the the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has implemented its Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Red Hat Network. NYSE Euronext is using RHEL for key components of its "mission-critical," high-speed financial trading environments, Red Hat said.

Linspire has announced that its "one-click" software installation service for Linux desktops now supports Transgaming's Cedega 6.0 emulator. Released about a year ago, the emulator lets Linux users play Windows games full-screen or in a window, while simultaneously web browsing or doing other computing activities.

A recently disclosed vulnerability in widely used Linux distributions can be exploited by attackers to guess cryptographic keys, possibly leading to the forgery of digital signatures and theft of confidential information, a noted security researcher said today. HD Moore, best known as the exploit researcher who created the Metasploit penetration testing framework, called the vulnerability in Debian and Ubuntu systems "ugly" and said it will be a big job for administrators to find every flawed key, then reissue them.

Dreamlinux is a Debian-based distribution that offers you a choice of GNOME or Xfce window managers as well as an extremely simple installation and scripts to install popular programs not found in the Debian repositories. With included programs for communication, graphics, and music, plus OpenOffice.org, it covers most general desktop needs, and installation and configuration are a breeze. Besides a few minor bugs that didn't cause any problems, my experience with Dreamlinux was entirely positive.

Verizon Wireless today declared Linux as its mobile operating system of choice and said it would introduce Linux-based phones developed through the LiMo Foundation in the U.S. in 2009. Kyle Malady, vice president of networks at Verizon Wireless, said that the decision to support Linux, however, doesn't preclude Verizon from selling phones based on a range of operating systems, including an evolving Linux-based Android operating system, offered by the Open Handset Alliance (OHA) backed by Google Inc.; Windows Mobile; BlackBerry by Research In Motion Ltd.; and others.

The "first major" Flash Player update since Adobe Systems completed its 2005 acquisition of Macromedia is due to be made available today as a beta. The Flash Player 10 beta features a brand-new Just In Time (JIT) engine to load pixel bite code into the Flash Player engine. The JIT engine will support a planned expansion in graphics and effects rendering, with users themselves expected to create their own filters. Flash Player 10 will incorporate Adobe's Pixel Blender - a language and toolkit previously codenamed Hydra - that'll let users build their own pixel filters.

There’s nothing worse than hearing how an entire school district is switching operating systems from Mac to Windows (or vice versa) because that’s what the “business” world relies on or some other blather. The costs associated with the transition are enormous and the whole ‘to do’ is unnecessary, because features on applications mimic one another. Additionally, it seems one option is Linux, which is open source and free.

I left Windows a little over a year ago and have not regretted it. Bill Gates has plenty of money without me. I admit it was a scary step to take. I had never before tried another operating system, other than the occasional Mac that someone else owned. I have known about Linux for years but had always been fearful of trying it out. I thought you needed to be a geek to really know how to run it and that Linux was lacking a good graphic user interface - an area that Windows is known for. I was also concerned about the lack of good software because most programmers write for Windows.

Every now and then one should have a look at some unabashed fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) material. It's good to know what the other side is saying, the level of unintended humor is often high, and, on occasion, one even learns something. Your editor's suggestion for FUD of the week is this Embedded.com article by Dan O'Dowd. Therein, one will learn about the impending death of embedded Linux as told by the companies which sell embedded Linux.

JavaScript VirtualKeyboard provides a virtual keyboard entirely written in JavaScript with more than 130 supported keyboard layouts allowing you to enter text in a variety of languages. Two uses for JavaScript VirtualKeyboard suggest themselves immediately: integrate it into your Web site to allow clients to enter internationalized text, and run it directly using the online demo when you have to enter internationalized text yourself from an Internet café.

In another “not quite Windows Live but still cool” post, Moonlight, an open source implementation of Microsoft Silverlight for Unix systems, is now available in both Silverlight v1.o and 2.0 builds. Silverlight, while it still has a long way to go to become as widely adapted as Adobe’s Flash, is leading the charge for Microsoft to become a more open eco-system for development.

We first heard about Splashtop back in October, when the instant-on Linux desktop was announced. At the time it was a really exciting concept–and it still is–but Asus only rolled out the technology on high-end motherboards like the P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP. So if you wanted to drop $300 on a motherboard you could get Express Gate (Asus-branded Splashtop), but everyone else was left out in the cold. Despite lots of initial interest, we have not heard a lot about Splashtop since then.

On Wednesday LiMo announced a raft of new members, the most significant being the Mozilla Foundation, which is currently developing a mobile version of its popular Firefox browser. However, the head of LiMo claimed the third quarter of this year could also see the addition of two major open source enterprise vendors. However, he was not yet prepared to name the companies, as they are still in talks.

In the swarming Indian metropolis Mumbai, it can be a gymnastic exercise just to fish in your pocket on the packed city buses and stretch out your paying hand to the conductor. Many commuters have opted instead for a 'smart' and cashless way to pay, provided, in part, by Linux. Named Go Mumbai, it is a prepaid smart card for BEST (Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport) bus journeys.

Exactly a year after releasing the first preview of version 11g of its JDeveloper Java integrated development environment (IDE), Oracle has quietly slipped out preview number four - yes, count 'em - four. But despite a significant number of updated and new features Oracle has still to reveal a date for the first full production version.

Fedora 9 will include KDE 4.0.3 by default, so this is a look at the progress of one of the major free desktop environments. KDE 4.0 was released January 11, 2008 after a couple of years of discussions and hype. The initial release was followed by a succession of minor releases that fixed many of the glaring bugs. The project that was initiated on October 14, 1996, so its developers have nearly a decade of experience now. While a lot of things have changed, there is still a familiar feel from its initial days. So what has changed?

Verizon Wireless is backing a free operating system that competes with programs from Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. and expects it to become the "preferred" software on its network. It's the first U.S. carrier to join the LiMo Foundation, which aims to unite handset makers, software companies and carriers on a software platform that will make it easier and cheaper to create a wide variety of phones.

In a sense, the desktop is the best thing that ever happened to the command line. Because a virtual terminal runs in a graphical environment, it boasts all sorts of enhancements that the unadorned shell lacks -- everything from multiple tabs to easy selection of display fonts and background and foreground colors. Perhaps the resulting power and convenience explains why, even at a time when the emphasis is on giving every application a graphical interface -- no matter how inappropriately -- people still write useful utilities for virtual terminals. A good example is Terminator, a program designed to perform one simple function: displaying multiple instances of the GNOME terminal within the same window.

Open source and Java developers are calling on Java's governing body - the Java Community Process - to open up beyond the big players. Members of a JavaOne panel on the JCP, open source and standards have expressed their frustrations with a process they believe puts corporate interests first when it comes to Java. For once, it wasn't just Spring Framework creator and evangelist Rod Johnson calling for change.

It has been more than two years since the Yin and Yang article was published on LinuxPlanet, a long time in the information and communications technology world. The purpose of that article was to highlight the opportunity for greater entrepreneurial focus to gain broad, fast adoption of Linux and open source computing solutions. Absent significant market uptake on the personal computer (desktop and laptop) of Linux and/or open source products, goods, or services, those who measure market share will continue to ignore these as irrelevant to most users.