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Are Flash cookies dangerous? Of course they are-- to your privacy and personal data security. Carla Schroder shares some additional helpful information submitted by readers on what Flash cookies really do in part 3 of this series, and more cool Linux ways to manage them.

Destined to become the default file system for the more popular Linux distributions, ext4 is out of experimental mode and gearing up for production environments. Here’s what you need to know.

More than 50% of IT executives in a recent survey said that they were planning to accelerate Linux adoption in 2009. "As organisations fight to cut costs and find value in this tough economic climate, Linux adoption will accelerate," said Michelle Beetar, country manager for Novell South Africa.

A plan by IBM to launch an industry-wide 'open' cloud computing strategy has seemingly backfired amid accusations of closed deals. Google pulled out after signing up and Amazon said it would not get involved. Microsoft criticised the plan, saying it was given two days to sign up to a "secret" manifesto with no input.

Amarok always had the reputation of being the most popular and powerful audio player available on the Linux platform, and it really deserved that position. I myself am a fan of Amarok for over three years now, and there was nothing I could think of which Amarok 1.4 did not have. For this review I used Amarok 2.0.2 (which was released to the public on March 5), included in Kubuntu 9.04 Beta (with all the upgrades to date) and I scanned several Ogg Vorbis and FLAC albums, all of them with correctly filled-in tags.

Free and open source software is all about sharing so, prompted by a reader who emailed me last week to ask about books on Linux, I spent some time over the weekend doing research. The result is a short list of books that users - from newbies to gurus - can download and read at their leisure. There are many more books than just these available online but, although many publishers provide versions of their books for reading online - notably Open Books from O'Reilly which is well worth checking out - I chose to limit the list to books that could be downloaded in full. I also chose a wide range of books, from introductions to Linux, books on implementing open source in schools and in Africa, to books that defined the evolution of free software.

If Red Hat has done this well for themselves -- not just financially, but in terms of clout, respect, and being a consistent leader in their industry -- what could compel them to think they could do better by being bought? As Jim Whitehurst himself put it, Red Hat benefits by being an island (or, rather, a "Switzerland") unto itself. Being someone else's property wouldn't give them any particular advantage that they don't already have or which they can't grow on their own -- the right way.

Amarok is a pretty nifty, versatile and advanced music player for the KDE desktop. However the current version in the *buntu 8.10 repos is hopelessly outdated and (IMHO) totally bugged. There's also the Amarok Neon Project, which aims at providing daily SVN builds for *buntu however lately they have not been updated. So, if you want to be up-to-date with latest Amarok development you either wait until the Neon Project provides binaries again or you compile it on your own. If you want to compile it on your own, you require KDE 4.2. There are also PPA repos for that, use my generator http://repogen.simplylinux.ch to get the according info.

Microsoft Corp and Dutch navigation device maker TomTom NV said on Monday they had reached a settlement after more than a year of squabbling over software patents.

While Microsoft continues to warn about the legal and economic perils of relying on Linux and similar systems, Mr Ramji's role is to make sure open-source programs in use can work in conjunction with Microsoft software. That way, just because a company is using the MySQL open-source database, it will not feel compelled to put it on top of the Linux operating system.

There have been questions about Sun's leadership of the JCP for years dating back to at least 2002 and percolating still with the soon to be finalized JavaEE 6 specification as well. With IBM (NYSE: IBM) owning Sun, leadership of the JCP could shift and that would be a change welcomed by members of the executive committee of the JCP as well as Java stakeholders outside of the JCP. "Sun's inability to invest in the JCP combined with its desire to maintain control is stifling the innovation and investment in Java," Rich Sharples, director of product management at JBoss, told InternetNews.com.

The search for 'Active' distributions on distrowatch listed 296 distributions as of today. The explosion in the number of distributions increased the chance of getting a more personalized Linux but this resulted in lack of standards among the distributions as every distribution started using different package management/hardware detection/configuration tools.

Microsoft is criticizing the drafting of what it has characterized as a secret "Cloud Manifesto" that sets guidelines for interoperability among cloud-computing networks. In a blog posting attributed to Steven Martin, Microsoft spilled the beans on a document it said has been drafted privately and that it was asked to sign without revisions. "Very recently we were privately shown a copy of the document, warned that it was a secret, and told that it must be signed 'as is,' without modifications or additional input," according to the post.

Last week Intel had pushed out a second alpha release of Moblin V2 and now it boots even faster, which means they are down to the point of being able to boot in just a few seconds. Beyond a very quick boot process, they have already incorporated kernel mode-setting and other newer Linux/X.Org technologies while also working to build a desktop environment around the Clutter OpenGL tool-kit. Moblin is certainly turning into an interesting Intel creation, but how does its performance compare to other mobile-focused Linux distributions? We have benchmarked Moblin V2 Alpha 2 and compared it against what is likely their biggest competitor in the mobile space, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and the LPIA-based Ubuntu MID edition. Which of these mobile operating systems is the fastest? We hope to find out today.

Posting bellow describes building Xen Unstable Dom0 with 2.6.29-tip pvops enabled kernel on top Ubuntu Intrepid Server (64-bit) with VNC setup for remote access via Gnome Desktop to Dom0. Fedora 10,CentOS 5.2, Solaris Nevada (b106), opensolaris 2008.11 PV DomUs have been successfully tested to run VNC sessions initiated via gnome terminals running at remote Dom0 desktop.

This week we interview Leslie Hawthorn, Google’s Open Source program manager. Leslie discusses the history of Google Summer of Code, what participants get out of the program, and more importantly, whether or not she uses Ubuntu.

Here is my 3rd installment of the 9.0.4 Beta ScreenShots. My first ScreenShot was Kubuntu and then my 2nd one was Xubuntu. Finally I get to Ubuntu, the reason for Ubuntu being last of the ScreenShots is that it took for ever to download. So with out further ado, please enjoy the ScreenShots below....

Ubuntu 9.0 is the upcoming version of the Ubuntu operating system. The common name given to this release from the time of its early development was “Jaunty Jackalope”. Note: This is still a beta release. Do not install it on production machines. The final stable version will be released in 23rd April 2009. If you want to upgrade anyway then follow these instructions.

I think this script may finally be good to go :)

Another month and another edition of Full Circle Magazine, the magazine published by and for Ubuntu Linux fans. Issue 23 includes all the usual features including a guide to troubleshooting in Command and Conquer, part 7 of programming in C and part 4 of Web development. The MOTU interview this month is with Steve Stalcup, and the top five list is a collection of the best task managers.