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You don't have to blindly trust that your email encryption is working- tcpdump lets you see it with your own eyes. Carla Schroder shows how easy it is to wiretap computer networks, and how to read everything that travels over your wires.

I started this installation fully expecting this to be my last use of Ubuntu. Having fought with the 7.10 version I hardened myself to expect similar flaws that would make my further use of this distribution impossible. Hence, I did not prepare myself as I had the last time. Nonetheless, while there were some disconcerting, intermittent failures I am, for the present, decided to use this version of the Linux desktop. Indeed, this article was written on that desktop.

Microsoft is to include the popular open source jQuery library in its Visual Studio development suite. jQuery is an open source Ajax framework for developing rich web applications. At the same time Nokia has also said it would use jQuery for its mobile web development. The move will add to the momentum around jQuery as Microsoft and Nokia join the likes of Google and Amazon as well as thousands of other websites using the framework.

Last week marked the release of GNOME 2.24. Those who already use GNOME will appreciate the new additions, but there's nothing compelling enough in the new version to convince fans of other desktop environments to make a switch. Although the upcoming releases of several Linux distributions will be including GNOME 2.24 as the default desktop, you can download and compile it yourself or by using Garnome now if you want to check it out sooner. The release notes make mention of a live CD being available, yet it's nowhere to be found on the GNOME BitTorrent page or by Googling.

I wasn't at the Linux Plumber Conference in Portland, OR, but everyone who pays close attention to Linux knows that Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux kernel developer and Novell engineer, blasted Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, for contributing "In the past 3 years, from the 2.6.15 kernel to 2.6.27-rc6, Canonical has had 100 patches in the Linux kernel." That, as Kroah-Hartman pointed out, means Canonical "did 00.10068% of all of the kernel development for the past 3 years." In other words: almost nothing.

OpenOffice.org 2.4.1 comes in a dozens of editions, and each edition has its own patches, performance improvements, features, bug fixes, and new bugs. Which edition is the fastest to start and to open a document? Ask these 3000 measurements.

Well, Android made its first showing last week in the form of the new G1, and as is so often the case when a brand-new product arrives, there were at least two noticeable effects. The first was a general quickening of the market's commercial pulses, as consumers began to salivate over the iPhone contender and new latest thing.

This guide explains how you can turn your touchpad on or off on a Kubuntu laptop by using a shortcut key.

At first sight, the Read It Later (RIL) extension looks redundant -- after all, you can use Firefox's own bookmarking functionality to save Web pages for later reading. But dig deeper, and you'll discover that it offers enough nifty features to make it a must-have tool for most users. When installed, RIL adds three elements to Firefox's interface: an icon in the Address bar, a button in the main toolbar, and a Click to Save button in the bottom right corner of the Status bar. Adding URL of the currently opened Web page to your reading list is as easy as clicking on the Read Later icon in the address bar.

LXer Feature: 28-Sept-2008

In this weeks Roundup we have Microsoft all over the place with articles on the advertising campaign and how Stanford and Harvard are teaching MS business tactics. Also, lists of cool desktops you may have not seen, alternative operating systems and the Linux Foundation says we should all support IBM. Sorry for the lateness in posting, had to fix my own darn links..

VMware Inc. released an OpenSource version of their VMware-Tools, called open-vm-tools. While they’re quite easy to install on Gentoo (emerge open-vm-tools), it’s not that easy having them installed on a Debian Etch (4.0) if you want to go the proper way. Here's how to do it.

Free software inevitably runs into the body of law known collectively as "intellectual property." Many developers do their best to avoid the legal side of things whenever possible; others seem to like nothing better than extended debates on the topic. Regardless of one's own feelings in the matter, the fact remains that the legal system exists, it affects our lives, and that we can only be better off if we understand it. To that end, O'Reilly has published Intellectual Property and Open Source by Van Lindberg.

You would think that current economic climate would bode well for open source products. When your budget is lean, free begins to look pretty good. Cloud vendors and the growing virtualization market should do well too. With less money available, it makes a lot of sense to let the vendor deal with infrastructure and to reduce investments in your own data center...

Canonical's dual commitment to the desktop and server markets might seem a bit counter-intuitive, especially to those who subscribe to the worldview that it’s better to do one thing and do it well. Nonetheless, Canonical's strategy seems to be paying off. Here's why.

LM_Sensors, the leading open-source project for providing hardware monitoring support on Linux (such as with component temperatures, voltages, fan speeds, etc), had its last official release in May with version 3.0.2. While the changes aren't as substantial as the LM_Sensors 3.0 release last year, Jean Delvare has today announced the release of LM_Sensors 3.0.3.

After stripping away the marketing hype the net result is that SOHO is once again free. I also have to wonder if there was some push back from the community when SOHO, which was free for download when version 5.8 was current, was moved to a paid-only status.

A New Linux Prediction Plus a Business Opportunity For You. Howdy and welcome to Crystal Ball Sunday #12: Built-In Home Entertainment and Automation . Linux is the perfect medium for set top boxes (aka Set Top Units or Personal Video Recorders (PVR)) because of its customizability, optimization features, and no cost status. Whether you know them as Set Top Boxes, Set Top Units, or PVRs; you may know these generic names better by the brand name: TiVo. These Linux-based PVRs are not TiVo but they do what TiVo does and much more. With a PVR, you can watch, record, pause, and rewind live TV, watch movies, create your own home theater system, and so on.

The Linux Kernel offers you something that allows you to recover your system from a crash or at the least lets you to perform a proper shutdown using the Magic SysRq Keys. The magic SysRq key is a select key combination in the Linux kernel which allows the user to perform various low level commands regardless of the system’s state using the SysRq key. It is often used to recover from freezes, or to reboot a computer without corrupting the filesystem.

I was user of nvidia video card and I was happy to use it in F7 and F8 but unfortunately I replaced that card with a newer one. That time the card was ATI. Of course I did not check if that card is supported in Fedora 9 (I have to blame myself) and just took it. Recently I noticed the news about that how "open" ATI would be in the future. And now I experience their "openness" with my computer. After the fresh install of my Fedora I downloaded the RPM file for the Livna repository with the intention to install the video drivers for the new video card. And you can only imagine what was my reaction to see no drivers in the repository. There were only some testing and development packages and I took the risk to install them. The result was - hanging system with and without reason.

The repercussions of the credit crunch have continued to occupy headline news in recent weeks. We have witnessed the demise of Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual, the rescue of AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the sale of Merrill Lynch, the proposed merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS (which would never have been permitted under normal circumstances), and the list goes on.