Showing headlines posted by Scott_Ruecker

Rather fast Brainf*ck esoteric programming language interpreter written in JavaScript. Available under terms of the GNU GPL license.

Black Hat USA 2007 was fast-paced, fun, and informative. It demonstrated that security is big business. The halls were lined with vendors, some new, some old, and the smell of money was everywhere. Still, I'm left thinking this year's show had a different tone to it than last year's.

It has been almost two years since LWN covered the swap prefetch patch. This work, done by Con Kolivas, is based on the idea that if a system is idle, and it has pushed user data out to swap, perhaps it should spend a little time speculatively fetching that swapped data back into any free memory that might be sitting around. Then, when some application wants that memory in the future, it will already be available and the time-consuming process of fetching it from disk can be avoided.

In recent comments to my review of Vector Linux 5.8 SOHO keyfitter wrote: There is a reason why they are using Win 98 in 2007. I think it’s called, being cheap!. I wonder if these people realize they can buy a brand new computer for $139. Granted the hardware is a bit dated by today’s standards but it’s probably light years ahead of what they are running Windows ‘98 on. Of course these computers come preloaded with Linux: Vector Linux 5.8 Standard to be precise. That’s fine. Without having to worry about installation or hardware compatibility someone who buys this system gets a nice, ready to go, user friendly Linux system with a warranty. The return policy is listed as “no matter what” short of physical abuse. What they don’t get are Windows virii and malware. They do, of course, have to learn a new OS.

In an unusual move, Dell is asking its users what they want Dell CTO Kevin Kettler to talk about at next week's LinuxWorld trade show at San Francisco's Moscone Center. Matt Domsch, Dell's Linux technology strategist, announced the invitation in a blog (Crowd-Sourcing the Discussion@LinuxWorld) posting on Dell's Direct2Dell Wiki. Domsch wrote, "As part of our activities there, Kevin Kettler, our Chief Technology Officer will deliver a keynote on Wednesday, Aug. 8 [actually Kettler will be making his keynote on Tuesday, Aug. 7 between 1:30-2:30 p.m.] To augment his keynote, we are asking the Linux community to vote on five potential topics over on the Lightning Rod section of IdeaStorm.

A recent patch posted to the lkml aimed to make it possible to use both kdb and kdump at the same time, and instead led to an interesting discussion about RAS (Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability) tools. Vivek Goyal compared the two main philosophies, "so basically there are two kind of users. One who believes that despite the kernel [having] crashed something meaningful can be done," versus, "exec on panic, which thinks that once [the] kernel is crashed nothing meaningful can be done".

Two years ago, Bob Frankston wrote Why Settle for Just 1%? while in the midst of his ramp-up as a Verizon FiOS customer. The question is still on the table. I'd like us to help answer it by re-phrasing the question: What could we, as Linux developers and users, do with fiber to our homes and businesses? The answer should look like good business for the Verizons, RCNs, Comcasts and other fiber-deployers to be in. Let's help them imagine benefits to carrier incumbency other than doing the same old thing, only faster.

A new conversation window interface and a revamped formatting toolbar make Pidgin 2.1.0 a compelling upgrade for existing users, but if you want or need a multi-protocol client that supports voice or video chat, you'll still need to look elsewhere.

A few quickies again this week: the 4th Trophées du Libre (International Free Software Awards) contest is open. Please consider submitting your favourite KDE applications since the award is some €3000 in each category. Also new this week: Nikolaj Hald Nielsen has announced that he is being hired full time to work on Amarok, courtesy of the Magnatune music store. (Don't worry, this doesn't exclude support for other music stores). PyQt released a new version of their bindings. And every once in a while, we stumble upon an old piece of KDE history that just needs to be shared. Check out this 1998 Interview with KDE's grand-daddy: Matthias Ettrich.

The People Behind KDE series takes a temporary break, as we talk to students who are working on KDE as part of the Google Summer of Code 2007 - in the first of four interview articles, meet Aleix Pol Gonzàlez, Piyush Verma, Mike Arthur and Nick Shaforostoff!

If there's one thing the world doesn't lack for, besides bad movie sequels and dishonest politicians, it's collaboration software. Good collaboration software that's open source, on the other hand, is a rare thing indeed -- so I was pleased to discover that the Mindquarry GO beta service and the Mindquarry tools are well-done, if a bit limited in scope.

Red Hat confirmed on Aug. 3 that it would be delaying the release of the newest member of its desktop Linux family, Red Hat Global Desktop, because the company is seeking to provide certain multimedia codecs. Sources close to Red Hat said obtaining some of these codecs was dependent on Red Hat coming to an agreement with Microsoft.

The Open Business Foundation (OBF) operates on two premises: that the open source development community makes good business sense, and that small businesses can be more successful if they band together with each other to share resources of all kinds.

Ever wonder how the Fedora Project gets off the ground? It takes work from Fedora community members all over the world. We were fortunate to have a video camera at Fórum Internacional Software Livre (FISL), an annual free software event in Porto Alegre, Brazil. And we ran into quite a few Fedora Ambassadors, who were happy to share with us just what being part of the international–and local–open source community really means.

We have examined several applications for working with Flickr before, and they all have one thing in common: they focus on uploading images from the desktop. But uploading only scratches the surface of what the Web service can do. Desktop Flickr Organizer (DFO) gives you a lot more power.

Software maker Red Hat said on Thursday it delayed its August release of a version of its Linux software for personal computers that would compete with Microsoft's Windows operating system. Red Hat Global Desktop Linux will not be available until September, product manager Gerry Riveros told Reuters in an e-mail.

Think your CCHIT certified, proprietary EMR from a 'big' corporation is a safe bet? Think again. Remember Enron? Fromgplmedicine.org comesnews that a recently #1 ranked, CCHIT certified EMR company, AcerMed, is either severely crippled orhas bit the dust. Why is this significant?

In a hastily arranged ceremony, a small group of security researchers gathered last night at Black Hat to acknowledge the work of hackers, vendors, and music-makers in the First Annual Pwnie Awards.

This article by Jean-Charles Verdie, CTO of software development firm Pleyo, introduces the Origyn Web Browser, a new open-source browser that targets a wide range of consumer electronics (CE) devices, including mobile phones, PMPs (portable media players), and STBs (set-top boxes).

The KDE Community is happy to announce the first Beta release for KDE 4.0 is available now. This release marks the beginning of the integration process which will bring the powerful new technologies included in the now frozen KDE 4 libraries to the applications. Simultaneously KOffice have released the second Alpha of KOffice version 2. Highlights are improved text rendering and layout and the new Flake library.