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The average C++ developer has several things to do as part of his or her daily chores: developing new software, debugging other people's code, creating a test plan, developing tests per the plan, managing a regression suite, an so on. Juggling between multiple roles can eat away precious time. To help, this article provides 10 effective methods that can increase your productivity. The examples in this article use tcsh version 6 as a reference, but the ideas are portable to all variants of UNIX® shells. This article also refers to several open source tools available for the UNIX platform.

Ganeti is a cluster virtualization management system based on Xen. In this tutorial I will explain how to create one virtual Xen machine (called an instance) on a cluster of two physical nodes, and how to manage and failover this instance between the two physical nodes.

Have you ever thought about what something like "1024x600 10" Screen" means? Just about nothing. What really matters is the pixel density. How do various netbooks compare to standard laptops? Surprisingly well.

New way to save? Dial back to dial-up. Cost-cutters return to slow-speed Internet. With his work hours cut and an investment portfolio in the tank, Arnold Zimmerman is considering the unthinkable: ditching his blazing-fast cable Internet service and going back to dial-up.

[With everyone tightening their belts, it seems dial-up is making a comeback. - Scott]

The most recent such pronouncement came from the British authorities last week with a statement that the use of open source software in the public service would be accelerated. The more significant statement about this policy was that open source software would be adopted "when it delivers best value for money". You can be sure that companies like Microsoft are already doing the sums to make the right offer which offers "best value for money."

[Belated Editor's Note: Warning, reading this article may make you want to punch your monitor.. - Scott]

The number of open source projects targeting mobile platforms increased at a compound annual growth rate of 55 percent between 2005 and the end of 2008 according to a new study released by open-source software management services provider Black Duck Software. After reviewing more than 185,000 projects collected from 4,000 Internet sites, Black Duck reports 2,300 of them target mobile--while 1,850 total project releases were developed expressly for the Palm platform, only 113 were created for Palm in 2008. Instead, iPhone captured the majority of open-source focus last year, with 266 project releases in 2008--Android followed with 191, trailed by Windows Mobile with 174.

It looks like server virtualization really is heading for the mainstream on Power Systems machines. If some figures provided by the top brass at IBM are any indication. While logical partitioning has been available on OS/400-based servers since V4R4 was launched with the Northstar PowerPC servers back in 1999, virtualization on Power-based servers from IBM has been embraced mostly by big shops with big iron even as Linux and AIX partitions were added to the logical partitioning mix.

A good friend of mine, who is very computer savvy, recently bought a new computer and installed Ubuntu on it rather than Windows. Now, despite being a very smart guy when it comes to PCs and Windows, he was still a newbie to the world of Ubuntu, so he and I went through a series of questions and answers before, during, and after his Ubuntu install. I’ve turned those into a FAQ for Ubuntu noobs that should answer a fair amount of questions for the first 24 hours of a first-time Ubuntu installation.*

Booting, or "bootstrapping" for us older folk, is that deeply mysterious sequence of operations performed by your computer between the moment when you switch it on and the moment it's ready for you to log in. During this time, all kinds of incomprehensible messages scroll up the screen, but they're not something you usually take much notice of, and most linux distros cover them up with a pretty splash screen and a nice encouraging progress bar.

IPTraf is a console-based network statistics utility for Linux. It gathers a variety of figures such as TCP connection packet and byte counts, interface statistics and activity indicators, TCP/UDP traffic breakdowns, and LAN station packet and byte counts. IPTraf is an IP traffic monitor that shows information on the IP traffic passing over your network.

Your editor's adventure with the Android Developer Phone (ADP1) began just before the end of the year. This phone, remember, has the nearly unique selling point that it is lacking any sort of lockdown feature. It will happily run any software which is fed to it, from the kernel on up. It thus brings the promise of free software to a market which has traditionally gone out of its way to avoid enabling any sort of freedom. It's actually possible to control the software we run on our phones - but only if we buy the right phone.

Checking out the C stat() function and using it to interrogate files. Today's post loosely ties back to our post last week on Perl stat() basics for Linux and Unix, although this post is not a continuation of that one. Just trying to keep it confusing ;)

Last time, we advised you to use ditch the unsafe functions like strcpy and strcat, and use their safer replacements (strlcpy, strlcat) instead. However, there is a small problem with this that you might discover that your compiler (especially gcc) does not have these functions in their implementation of the c library (libc).

Is your company a victim of vendor lock-in? Who really owns your data, who really makes your procurement and infrasctructure decisions? Matt Hartley examines the problem of lock-in, and how it wastes your time and costs you real money.

I first came across Drupal almost five years ago. I recommended it for a project on politics, since abandoned. My experience was a nightmare. We were a commercial operation that needed professional programming. The launch of Acquia as Drupal’s commercial arm last year changed that. It turned out to change a lot more. Within months, Microsoft was distributing Drupal. Acquia is acquiring a host of new platinum partners. Commercial organizations have begun adopting it. So has the government.

Got Job? Get a Linux-related one. Polish up your resume and go to class in San Francisco next month.

Is free and open source software (FOSS) a way to cut business costs? As concern about recession - even depression - deepens, more and more companies are asking this question. However, many have trouble knowing how to begin to find an answer.

I think the most eagerly anticipated demo at Demo 09 here will be Always Innovating's Touch Book, slated for late Monday afternoon. It's yet another Netbook, granted, but it's got a cool detachable (and optional) keyboard, and a magnetic mount for sticking onto a refrigerator. I got a quick demo video (left) with the company's CEO, Gregoire Gentil, who is French. He couldn't show me the user interface on the prototype hardware he had with him, but says it will be easy to use with big, fat American fingers (he didn't actually say that). The product will run a Linux OS, Gentil said, and it's the first Netbook based on an ARM CPU, not the typical Atom found in most Netbooks. He says users can expect 10 to 15 hours of battery life. The product will be $299 without the keyboard, $399 with. It ships this spring, but you can preorder now.

Hard economic times have resulted in good economic news for makers of open source PBXs. In a study released by the Eastern Management Group based on a survey of 6,000 IT executives, open source-based PBX products and overall solutions now account for 18% of the private branch market

Celtx 2.0, an open source media pre-production and screenwriting application, has been released. Celtx is an XUL application writing tool that includes several built in project templates to help users develop their stories. The application helps users get their ideas from concept to production, using pre-visualisation tools, like storyboards. Version 2.0 includes several new features, changes and bug fixes. Celtx is released under the Celtx Public License Version 1.3 (CePL) which consists of the Mozilla Public License Version 1.2 with additional amendments.