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Could your business be paying for a proprietary program when an open source alternative exists? Take a look at our guide as we count down the most popular open source products. Much of the software suggested in this round-up came from sourceforge.net, known colloquially as the open source "phone book". Alternatively, you might want to look at Wikipedia's Free Software Portal. If you need software, it's well worth a look.

It's been a while since we put out an seo metrics script. In many ways, this is the opposite of our last one.

SuSE was founded in Nuremberg, Germany in 1992 when the Linux kernel was still almost new. by Hubert Mantel, Burchard Steinbild, Roland Dyroff and Thomas Fehr, with the objective of distributing Slackware (based on the earlier SLS Linux from Soft Landing Systems), in sets of 40 floppies, translated into German, with the approval of Patrik Volderding, the guiding light and sole developer of Slackware. The SuSE organisation began life as Gesellschaft für Software-und Systementwicklung mbH, which later became Software und System Entwicklung (Software and System Development), from which sprang the friendly acronym SuSE. SuSE's own distinctive version of Linux came into being with the absorption of Florian LaRoche’s Jurix Linux and the development of the SuSE installer YaST in 1995, and but for a mild stutter after the collapse of the NASDAQ, has never looked back since.

An X Window manager is software that manages the windows that applications bring up. For example, when you start an application, there will be a window manager running in the background, responsible for the placement and appearance of windows.

Steven Edwards of the Bordeaux Technology Group released Bordeaux 1.6 today. Bordeaux 1.6 comes with added support for Google's Chrome Web Browser, Google Earth, Google Picasa, Trillian and Apple's Safari Web Browser. Additionally, Cellar support has improved; you can now ?delete and install into an existing Cellar. IE6 now installs java, shockwave and latest flash. T?here has also been many small bug fixes and tweaks on the backend to improve the speed and reliablity of all the supported applications.

7 ways that you can save money and be a hero at your company.

OpenVAS stands for Open Vulnerability Assessment System and is a complete tool for network security scanning including a graphical user front-end. I is used to  detect security problems in remote systems and applications. The OpenVAS development team consists of various interested parties from academia and commercial entities as well as individuals. Please notice that there are currently two different series available for download: the stable 1.0 series and the upcoming 2.0 series. The OpenVAS developers recently have announced the release of the 2.0-rc1 versions of openvas-libraries, openvas-libnasl, openvas-server and openvas-client. In this step by step workshop we’ll describe how to compile, install and use OpenVAS 2.0 on a Mandriva 2009 server and client.

This is a detailed description about how to set up an OpenSUSE 11.1 server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH and TLS, BIND DNS server, Proftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc.

It has been two years since Linux Format magazine last reported on Ulteo. Back then, we all thought it was going to be a standard new Linux distribution created by Gaël Duval, the founder of Mandrake Linux. If you take a look at Ulteo.com today, you won't find any mention of Linux on the home page. Not only that, but everything about the Ulteo site is slightly confusing. It's very difficult to understand what Ulteo is and what it might do, thanks to some rather vague statements and the use of some very stylised 'lifestyle' illustrations. But Ulteo is actually four distinct technologies.

The year 2008 showed open source -- both in the form of Linux specifically and as a software development model generally -- coming into the mainstream like never before. When it wasn't powering new hardware niches like the netbook, it was forming the core ofGoogle (NSDQ: GOOG)'s new Android mobile operating system or its Chrome browser, and sitting at the center of legal wrangling with wide-ranging repercussions.

You've all heard a major new flaw has been found affecting Internet Explorer all the way back to version 5. Microsoft pushed out a fix out of their regular "patch Tuesday" monthly schedule. The flaw has prompted some commentators to call for the replacement of IE with alternate browsers like Firefox. Just what was so serious? And what do Microsoft say that show Linux has the superior design?

Increasingly, people are finding that much of open source development is actually being directed and supported by companies like IBM, Novell, Red Hat, and others — rather than being the exclusive domain of unpaid volunteers. Though, the effect of the volunteer contributors should not be overlooked, either. It was the volunteers, early adopters, and early commercial supporters that put FOSS on the radar.

The technology landscape is changing, says Novell CEO Rob Hovsepian. On-premise installations are giving way to Software as a Service, Microsoft is distributing Novell's version of Linux for servers and social networking is gaining acceptance for its business value. Novell and other companies must adapt to this new ecosystem, he said.

What can you do to stand out from the hundreds of other Linux distros that already exist? There are a number of angles you can explore for this – choose one, two or all of them if you want!

Science fiction writer Vernor Vinge is best-known for novels like A Fire Upon the Deep and Rainbows End, as well as the concept of The Singularity -- the idea that, in the next couple of decades, humans will become or create a super-human intelligence. What is less well-known is that Vinge has been a free software supporter since the earliest days of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). He has served several times on the jury for the FSF Awards and spoke at an FSF-sponsored event held last month in San Diego to coincide with the LISA conference. As someone who deals regularly with large scale speculations, Vinge places free software in a larger historical context. He even speculates that free software may be one of the factors that will shortly bring about the Singularity.

This may have very little to do with Unix or Linux, but I miss Jack Handey ;) Well, it's the end of yet another week, which means I'm slacking off and showcasing funny stuff from other places :) Today, even though I can't make the connection between this piece, Linux and/or Unix, I bring you the (long, but, hopefully, not forgotten) musings of Jack Handey.

openSUSE 11.1 is now out (screenshots), featuring KDE 4.1.3 and a string of KDE improvements. The release brings back the much-loved KDE-PIM suite, and includes new games, the KSCD CD player, KSystemLog to keep track of system changes, improvements to Dolphin, Konqueror (including Webkit part), Plasma (including auto-hide panel, folder view), Marble integration with OpenStreetMap, and much more. The release is available as an installable live CD, or on a DVD with KDE 3.5.10, GNOME, Xfce, and many more applications.

If you haven't already heard the news, long-term kernel developer and pillar of the open source community Ted Ts'o has been named the new Chief Technology Officer of the Linux Foundation. Ted is a great choice for a variety of reasons, one of which is that few people have been knocking around the Linux world longer than Ted - he was the first North American kernel developer.

This is WFTL Bytes!, your occasiodaily FOSS and Linux news show for Friday, December 19, 2008, with your host, Marcel Gagné. This is episode 40. In today's stories, we get a breath of fresh Air from Adobe, montrously huge losses at Palm, the sudden dematerialization of Novell's Brainshare, a disturbing shot of reality from Good OS, and some fantastic Linux toys for the geek on your shopping list.

IBM delves into what's new in PHP 5.3: Part-1 shows you the changes to the object-orientated capabilities, and Part-2 shows you the exciting new possibilities with real closures and lambda functions. ["Read more" for Kroc's personal commentary] PHP is a language I dislike, but am good at. It is a language that, as long as you stay away from certain parts of it, you'll be safe and it works well. It can even be beautiful in some rare instances.