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While the ASUS Eee PC 901 doesn't have its solid-state disk drives encrypted by default, if you are storing any potentially sensitive information on this netbook -- or any mobile device for that matter -- you really should encrypt the data. When you lose a mobile device or it has been stolen, it can be a nightmare if your banking information was stored on there or even just passwords to your Internet accounts. However, what is the performance cost for fully encrypting a hard drive on one of these Intel Atom computers? In this article we are looking at the performance impact of fully encrypting the solid-state storage versus an unencrypted LVM within Ubuntu Linux.

By going paperless, it is possible to put a Linux netbook or notebook in the hand of every kid in school. With Linux-based netbooks such as the Asus Eee PCs dropping well below $400 for basic systems and stocked with lots of good open source software, every kid could have a personal computer.

Eight years ago, computer stores stocked a choice of GNU/Linux distributions -- established ones like Caldera, Red Hat, and SUSE, and newcomers like Corel, Progeny, and Stormix. Now, only Ubuntu and openSUSE offer box sets, and both face challenges that other distributions found unsolvable, ranging from reasonable prices and features sets through to getting into distribution channels and finding the right marketing approach -- all for an effort that may be only moderately profitable at best, and perhaps best undertaken for non-financial reasons.

Welcome! This is Regular Expressions, or, more precisely, its early-September 2008 installment. Regular Expressions is a column we've written around a hundred times already, stretching back to the late '90s. We're excited to bring it now to Linux Developer Network (LDN), which will publish two installments each month. LDN focuses in September 2008 on different aspects of kernel development and management. We'll be back mid-month with our own slant on kernel work; first, though, we return from the US Labor Day holiday this week wondering why everyone doesn't use Erlang? Regular Expressions' usual domain is high-productivity languages like Perl, Tcl, and Python, and specific news or ideas that help make the most of them.

My favorite quote of the day so far comes from a comment that was filed on Bob Sutor's post about how the International Organization of Standardization is risking irrelevancy based on the way it ignored objections to the rushing of the Office Open XML (OOXML) specification through the ISO's ratification process. OOXML is primarily a Microsoft-authored competitor to the already ISO-ratified OpenDocument Format (ODF). Bob Sutor is the grand pooh-bah of open standards at IBM (a major proponent of ODF).

It was in line with the likelihood of summer following spring that somebody would declare an application optimized for Google's Chrome, the new web browser that has dominated the geekier end of technology news this week. And it turns out that that somebody is the rising star of the software-as-a-service movement, NetSuite.

I've wanted to write this article for quite a while. Over the years I've noted that Java-based music and sound applications have increased in number and quality, yet no comprehensive list or summaries have covered these advances. And so at long last I present this survey of music and sound applications that require Java. The presentation follows no particular order, but in this first part I'll begin by questioning the use of Java in sound and music applications development, followed by a brief look at Java's internal audio and MIDI capabilities.

In the open source community, there are several efforts to develop robots that look and/or act like humans, performing interesting and useful tasks. They're not C3PO at this stage of their development, but they show tremendous promise, especially if more open source contributions are made to the projects.

The One Laptop per Child program is a nonprofit, philanthropic organization, so how can Intel, a 500-pound gorilla, compete against a philanthropic project like OLPC? This competition would barely be newsworthy if OLPC was a for-profit company… competition is just a standard part of doing business in the corporate world. As I said in Part 1 of my series exploring the ongoing “battle” between Nicholas Negroponte’s OLPC laptop project and Intel’s Classmate PC, my philosophy (shared with many Intel execs) was to embrace OLPC and win them over, and to not trash them in the press, especially given OLPC’s philanthropic mission.

Hey there and happy Saturday! One more work week down and an indeterminable amount left until you either shuffle off this mortal coil or figure out some other way to beat the game ;)

Google's Chrome browser is the most revolutionary, transformative technology to ever hit the planet. It will end hunger, tame avarice and greed, and beat swords into plowshares. But plows are destructive, so they will be strictly ornamental and have pretty flowers growing over them.

I always seem to have trouble with Ubuntu. On the $0 Laptop — the Gateway Solo 1450 — there comes a time in every Ubuntu install when the thing either won't boot or runs so slowly that I have to wipe the thing off the drive and start over. It could be something particular to this laptop, the hard drive in it, or my constant dual- and triple-booting of Linux and BSD operating systems in a constantly shifting array.

Google's Chrome browser has as Spartan a user interface as possible, but the browser's Omnibox also turns out to be a window into a much more elaborate view of the browser. That's because Chrome users can type several commands into the browser's address box to uncovers a wealth of nitty-gritty detail and an amusing Easter egg.

There is an international move aimed at providing one laptop per child has already been implemented in such countries as Uruguay which has just celebrated their having reached 100,000 laptops for their children. Other countries in the programme are Thailand and Pakistan, according to Ian Thomson from SPC (Secretariat Pacific Community) of the Forum Secretariat.

In response to the growing blogging ecosystem and Web phenomena like the Slashdot effect, the developers of the Habari blogging platform have built features into their core software to tackle the increased attention blogs receive, both from innocent viewers and exploitative attackers, while making it easier for users to manage and administer their blogs. Most blogging software start out with a simple WYSIWYG interface and store data in back end databases. Some applications evolve into more complex blogging engines with bolt-on accessories. Habari, by contrast, was written from the ground up to handle things like comment spam and traffic overloads.

What does it mean to be open. My copy of Oxford defines open as: "unconcealed circumstances or condition". Way back in the day when the GNU operating system was getting going, they coined the mantra: "Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer." Last month, I talked about transparency and how important it was in software and systems. Just as important are standards, and, more important following those standards. Today, in Computerworld, a different issue has been raised. The value of standards.

A review of Dell's new Inspirion Mini 9 with bells, whistles, and Ubuntu 8.04 to boot. Portable notebook goodness for under $350.

A decade ago, European countries leapt out of the gate to take the lead in the radical open-source movement -- none more so than France -- and left U.S. developers in the proverbial dust. Through policies and high-profile projects, the French Republic for years has been advocating for all open source all the time, in government and education. And France is not stopping: This summer, an economic commission set up by French President Nicolas Sarkozy recommended tax benefits to stimulate even more open-source development.

Software developer Red Hat bought an Israeli company in a bid to gain a competitive edge against Microsoft and smaller rivals that provide computing services for complex networks. Raleigh, N.C.-based Red Hat said Thursday that it paid $107 million in cash for privately held Qumranet, which sells software that helps computer systems run multiple programs more efficiently on less equipment.

Content-filtering proxies restrict Internet access privileges for users or groups across an entire network. They must be able to block unwanted content through keyword, URL, DNS, MIME, and image filtering. They need to authenticate and log a user's Internet activity by monitoring and generating detailed reports of URLs accessed, and they must integrate antivirus or malware protection by accessing a reliable antivirus server. Fulfilling all these functions may be a lot to ask, but SafeSquid delivers on all counts.