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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.

What's the big deal about Linux? Isn't it at heart just a PC-based version of UNIX – the ‘70’s hit operating system which has outlived the predictions of its demise throughout the ‘90’s? If you’ve come from a Solaris or HP/UX or AIX background isn’t a PC-based UNIX a bit, well, passé?

Last week, we reviewed the Aspire One, Acer's entry into the netbook market. The small but powerful device comes preloaded with either Linux or Windows XP, and we reviewed the Linux version. Even though most people will never need to go beyond the default Linpus Linux offering on the One, more advanced users will quickly hit the wall Acer set up: it has more or less completely locked down the Xfce 4.2.2 installation on the One. This bothered me - this is a powerful machine, so I want a powerful operating system. I went for Ubuntu 8.04.1 - read on for a few thoughts on how well GNOME's user interface fares on a small-screen device such as the One.

Thanks to a "we don't sell small quantities" approach at OLPC , the government of Chile was rejected when they wanted to buy 900 test XOs. Bad mistake, OLPC! You don't reject customers like that. It is a psychological mistake.

Back in the mid-90s, when Linux was still at 1.something, website design was a simple exercise that left matters such as font choice up to the user. It was blessedly free of the Tyranny of Typography, the Legacies of Layout, and other controlling influences from the Provinces of Print. Better yet, it was free by design from withering rebuke by aesthetes whose high-minded "taste" made life miserable for both writers and readers. Back then the Web was meant to be maximally usable and minimally controlled by Authorities who knew more about what you need than you do. That was the Idea, and it stuck. For about two years.

openSUSE 11.0 is based on the Linux kernel version 2.6.25 and provides a cornucopia of features. If you choose to download the full DVD, you can expect a whopping 4.5 GBs for the iso-format file. Other options include a Live CD and over the network. The good news is that you can use a BitTorrent client to get the iso file.

Standing at the headwaters of the ecosystem that is Linux is the Linux Foundation and its executive director Jim Zemlin. The Linux Foundation was forged out of the merger of the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and the Free Standards Group in 2007 as a new group with a new mandate for Linux. Now some 20 months after the Linux Foundation was created, Zemlin is claiming the group is succeeding and argues that it will remain relevant for the next 50 years. The Linux Foundation's goal is to promote and develop the Linux platform as it ramps up against Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Unix and embedded OS vendors.

I would like to show you, how easiliy incoming mails can be monitored using a cute little GNOME applet called Gnubiff.

Whether you're a high school student or just starting out with your college coursework, the free software community has provided a wide range of solutions to make life easier. Browsing the package repository of my Linux distribution led me to applications for everything from gene sequencing to particle physics, but there are a few real gems I think any student could benefit from, including math and chemistry tools such as TiLP, wxMaxima, Kalzium, Gnome Chemistry Utils, and OpenOffice.org Math.

Palit recently sent their new Radeon HD4850 videocard our way, and while it lacks some of the improvements I saw in the GeForce 9600 GSO Sonic, I'll look at a newer firmware version than the Sapphire Radeon HD4850 BIOSLEVEL.com previously looked at.

This isn't necessarily Linux related. But some things are just too good to keep to yourself.

The Linux landscape is constantly changing and has a strong community of both developers and users. But where is Linux the most popular, and where are the different Linux distributions the most popular? To try to answer these questions, we have looked at data from Google with the highly useful Insights for Search, which gave us a number of interesting and often surprising results. Aside from just looking at Linux itself, we have included eight common Linux distributions in this survey: Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Fedora, Debian, Red Hat, Mandriva, Slackware and Gentoo.

Sabre Holdings Corp., the $3 billion online network best known for Travelocity, has adopted Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) as the corporate standard for its global ticketing and airline services businesses and will implement RHEL 5 in all future acquisitions. Robert Wiseman, Sabre's chief technology officer, said the Southlake, Texas-based company began using Red Hat and other open source software about 2004. Red Hat now runs mission-critical online systems that collectively process as many as 32,000 transactions per second from three data centers in Tulsa, Okla., and one in Texas, he said.

Microsoft is sending Novell another $100 million. Whether you love or hate the partnership, here are five ways Novell can put that money to good use, according to The VAR guy.

When I first used Mono, shortly after its first appearance in 2004, one of my most important requirements was to get connected to a MySQL back end. This was quickly achieved at the time with the ByteFX data connector. Following the basic Mono tutorial quickly had me up and running, with access to MySQL databases. Last week I needed to reopen and modernize my application and found that there have been several important changes in Mono between 2004 and 2008. First, I found some "then and now" differences with the installation of the data connector. Second, I needed to make some modifications to my programming.

Sun Microsystems recently released the JavaFX Preview SDK. I decided to revisit what is Sun's last, best hope to recapture both the desktop and the browser in the face of stiff competition. The big question with Java FX is why anyone would want to adopt it when they've already got Adobe Systems' Flex and Microsoft's Silverlight, which is doing rather well in presenting the Beijing Olympics.

A few weeks ago I wrote about Jott, a Web service that translates speech via cell phones to text lists, e-mail and reminders (each translated message is called a "jott." Jott has done something rare amongst online start-ups … it has exited beta and announced it is in production!

f you've ever worked with and manipulated MySQL databases, chances are you've used phpMyAdmin to manage your databases from a Web interface. But phpMyAdmin can be a little complex; if you want a lightweight alternative, try phpMinAdmin. It's easier to install than its more robust cousin and has an easy-to-navigate graphical user interface for most important MySQL functions. Many Web hosting solutions bundle phpMyAdmin to let users create databases for their blogging software or content management systems. If yours doesn't, you'll find installing phpMinAdmin far easier than installing phpMyAdmin. phpMinAdmin is a single PHP script that requires no configuration.

In this article I will show how to install and use two clients for the popular microblogging platform Twitter on an Ubuntu 8.04 desktop. The first one is Twitux, the second Twitter client is gtwitter. Both clients have similar features, so it is up to you which one you want to install.

A lot of effort in recent months has been expended toward something people are calling "data portability." Just about everywhere you look; you'll bump into people pontificating about it. In case you've been out of the loop (perhaps hiking in the Himalayas), you can run the term through your favorite search engine to pull back numerous articles and blog posts on the subject. You might even want to dip into the Twitter and FriendFeed streams to see the ebb and flow of the micro debate.