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Ulteo Application System is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Kubuntu and designed to work with the Ulteo Online Desktop service to provide you with an automatic offsite backup and file synchronization between live CD instances. It attempts to require as little user configuration and maintenance as possible, and provides several unique features that set it apart from being "just another distribution." On my test machine, a Sempron 2800 with 512MB of memory, Ulteo took almost three minutes to boot from the live CD -- quite a bit longer than most live CDs take on this system. Ulteo made up for this, however, when copying files during the installation -- that took a mere five minutes. There was little user intervention required during the installation besides selection of a username and password and my location, although I chose to partition my disk manually instead of allowing the installer to do it.

The Software Freedom Law Center, which provides legal help to the free and open-source software community, has released a detailed document that describes how users and vendors can ensure they are in compliance with the open-source GNU General Public License (GPL). Initially, GPL compliance was enforced through informal means, such as bulletin board discussions, but as Linux's profile grew in ensuing years, enforcement efforts became more organised and ultimately entered the courts, the report notes. Last year, Skype was found guilty of violating the GPL by a Munich, Germany regional court.

Developers of Android, the Linux mobile platform spearheaded by Google Inc., are asking security experts for input. The latest software development kit for Android was released earlier this week and plans are for the 1.0 version of the operating system to be shipped on mobile phones later this year. Security is a priority. "As you may expect, building and maintaining a secure mobile platform is a difficult task," wrote the Android Security Team.

Microsoft has announced a $300M dollar ad campaign, featuring 90s TV star Jerry Seinfeld, which according to multiple reports has been designed to save Vista and salvage Microsoft's battered reputation. There is so much wrong with this strategy, it's really hard to know where to start.

Internet monitoring company, Pingdom, has plotted the popularity of the various Linux distributions by geography on the basis of how often their names are used in Google searches. Rigorous it may not be, but this 'distribution of distributions' is certainly fascinating.

Linux ext2/3 filesystem stores superblock at different backup location so it is possible to get back data from corrupted partition. This aricle explains how to recover a bad superblock from a corrupted ext3 partition to get back data.

Remember the good old days? Like back in 1999 when you could, as a friend of mine put it,"make a hundred thousand dollars a year for being able to spell Java." Those were the days, back when programmers driving Porsches had become a cliché. Now, more than a decade after the dot-com boom began, tech people once again find themselves earning less money despite bringing significantly more value to their employers.

IOC President, Jacques Rogge, was recently forced to back-pedal under a barrage of criticism when it became clear that assurances that the press corps would have "unrestricted" Internet access were no more than piecrust promises. Nevertheless, the technology behind the "Golden Shield Project", which is apparently a means of protecting the Chinese from criminal content and has earned the nickname "Great Firewall of China", is relatively simple. Journalists in the Olympic village, as well as western corporations and even private individuals have a range of tools at their disposal to ensure their Internet access is both full and unmonitored. However, most of these are based on anonymizing services, such as gateways, proxies or web services, that massage the content and smuggle it in under the censor's nose.

Piracy notwithstanding, there are some good, valid reasons for making a backup of a DVD. K9Copy, a utility for copying DVDs, receives high marks in many forums, so I took it for a spin -- and found out its reputation is deserved. When I travel, I like to view movies on my laptop, but I'm not too keen on taking the original DVDs along; I prefer downloading them to the hard disk and keeping the originals at home. Also, if you have small kids, you know that DVDs probably won't be treated well, so making a backup copy makes good sense. Note, however, that laws differ in each country, and even such fair use might be prohibited where you live.

What are we doing to expose new users to Linux and Open Source solutions? My wife, after coming back from a visit to our local electronics store asked me why there were no “boxes” of Linux on the shelves, or PCs supporting the OS on display? Once upon a time, Red Hat did sell its software in a shrink wrapped box and you could find it on the shelf next to Windows98. But that was then and this is now.

The OpenVAS Team calls for submission of patches, scripts, converters or anything else that significantly improves the OpenVAS framework and extends Open Source Network Vulnerability Testing. Participants have the chance to win up to 500 Euro, the deadline for submissions is October 15th, 2008.

Servers for both Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora Linux were compromised in recent weeks by some kind of illegal access. Neither project however is currently admitting than any of their software or users were in any way directly affected by the illegal access.

This tutorial explains how to install Hamachi on a Fedora 9 server. Hamachi is a VPN service that easily sets up in 10 minutes, and enables secure remote access to your business network, anywhere there is an Internet connection. It works with your existing firewall, and requires no additional configuration. Hamachi is the first networking application to deliver an unprecedented level of direct peer-to-peer connectivity. It is simple, secure, and cost-effective.

After my last, rather lengthy, article about useful graphical tools , I am going to talk about another aspect of the Linux graphical user interface that I also find rather useful: Virtual Desktops. Thankfully, this should be a much shorter article!

Wow, it's been a long work week. Figuratively, of course. The official version is that it was a standard 5 days ;) Tonight's post is a bit on the lighter side (both the material covered and the overall tone), as I haven't had much time to write this week. It's like my wife says; I should take some of the 1500 word rants I put down and split them up every once in a while. She's a smart lady. One of these days I'll start listening to her and take it easy on my keyboard ;)

In the past, it seems like there has been a lot of angst surrounding the idea of dual-licensed software gaining any real traction. But after researching this, I think it has a real shot at giving traditional commercial-only software a run for its money. Even if it is simply in the long tail markets.

Today we'll learn how to monitor, maintain, and make changes in our RAID 10 array. We'll make it bigger, smaller, safely test failure recovery, and set up monitoring and failure notifications.

Let's face it - there is no shortage of distributions of Linux with the recovery of boneheaded Windows users in mind. For many, this is where their first introduction to Linux actually came from. In other words, trying out Knoppix.

In this article, I will share how I currently keep in sync with Evolution on Ubuntu with my own Pocket PC and why I can lose a Pocket PC and the computer, but still protect my calendar data/contacts/email data. While many of you have heard of the tool I use to do this, most of you are not aware of just how accessible it truly is.

SCO Group has been ordered to pay a 10,000 euros (US$14,871) fine in Germany for making claims that Linux includes intellectual property from Unix. SCO has repeatedly claimed that Linux is an unlawful derivative of Unix, but had agreed not to make this claim anymore in Germany, following a lawsuit in 2003. The current case found that the claims were still present in U.S. material available on the site of SCO Group GmbH, the group's German subsidiary. As well as paying the fine, SCO will have to monitor its German presence.