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Software as a service (SaaS) and open source continue to converge. The latest example involves Apatar bridging the gap between Salesforce.com and QuickBooks. Here's the scoop from MSPmentor, which covers SaaS and managed services.

Specifications have been released for two new models of the Asus Eee PC, the ultra-popular, ultra-mobile PC that runs Linux, as well as Windows.

The ability to run both console and graphical programs securely on a remote system using SSH brings you a great deal of freedom. When the communications link to that remote system has high latency, however, running interactive programs such as a text editor on the remote machine can become a real test of your patience. The bcvi project lets you edit files on a remote system using gvim (or another editor) on your local desktop machine to avoid the latency. Even without latency issues, bcvi is a handy tool when you want to use gvim to edit a file on a server that does not have gvim or the X libraries installed.

There has been a bit of a dustup about KDE 4.0. A lot of opinions have been expressed, but I thought you might like to hear from KDE. So I wrote to them and asked if they'd be willing to explain their choices and answer the main complaints. They graciously agreed. I was a bit puzzled at some of the complaints, because I use KDE, and when I didn't like something, I would just change it. For example, if I didn't like the new menu, I could right click on the menu icon and it gave me an immediate choice to go back to the old one. How hard is that? Could it be that at least some of what we are seeing is our old friend Stick in the Mud?

Ryan Cartwright wrote an excellent article, Don't compare GNU/Linux with Windows or MacOS, they are not in the same game. I ran across the same blog he is referring to, while gathering potential stories for FSD and my reaction was very similar. Ryan questions, "I mean how can you tell how many Ubuntu installs came of a single CD"

One way to evaluate the security of a Web browser is to determine what percentage of its users are using the latest version. In a study released on Tuesday by S. Frei et al, it was found that Firefox users are most likely to be up to date. Keeping the browser updated to the latest version these days is paramount.

4 applications for ripping DVDs or DVD ISO images on Linux: K9Copy, dvd::rip, acidrip and Thoggen.

Whether you are online or offline, freedom matters. Like good health you never think about it or miss it until it is under threat or actually gone. If you love freedom, you probably love free software and it has given us some terrific tools with which to defend freedom. In this article I will give an overview of some of the available resources (Freenet, Wikileaks and Tor) to protect dissident opinion, facilitate whistle blowing and promote the safe and anonymous development of free software.

Last October we had looked at the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe motherboard that was designed around the Intel X38 Chipset and it had arrived with its share of ASUS innovations such as ASUS AI Lifestyle, Crystal Sound, and EZ DIY. In addition, this was the first motherboard on the market to feature DeviceVM's SplashTop, or Express Gate as it's called on the ASUS motherboards. Today at Phoronix we are looking at the updated version of the P5E3 Deluxe, which is now called the P5E3 Premium. The ASUS P5E3 Premium is similar to the earlier Deluxe model but is now engineered around Intel's newer X48 Chipset.

Sapphire supplied us with one of their initial Radeon HD4850 videocards, which features 512MB of GDDR3 memory, CrossFireX support, and is probably one of the fastest cards we've looked at yet.

Are you still using a web browser to access your favourite online applications? Why not do things the easy way, and make those applications part of your desktop with Prism. Scott Nesbitt at Freesoftware Magazine tells you what Prism can do to boost you experience of the web on your desktop -and more importantly, how to do it.

AP is reporting this morning that Eric Schmidt, he being CEO of the great and almighty Google, thinks it would better if Yahoo! remained independent. Nothing too self-serving there, is there?

Our colleague Joe Barr sometimes described himself as a doddering old geek. Many knew him as a Linux evangelist; others knew him from his ham radio activities. And those of us who worked with Joe knew him in all of his sometime irascible, often funny moods. Joe was always one of our favorite people, and we are devastated to report that he died at home, unexpectedly, last night.

[We lost one of our own last night. - Scott]

SliTaz is a new micro GNU/Linux live distribution designed to run from RAM (a recommended minimum of 128MB) and installable to a hard drive or USB device. The current version, SliTaz 1.0, weighs in at a light 24.8MB and provides a nice selection of applications that run on a lightweight desktop. You can store user data and settings on persistent media, and support for more than 400 additional download packages is available.

This tutorial explains how you can set up a FreeRadius server with Wifi authentication and accounting on CentOS 5. This howto should work for a newbie. Production deployment is also possible with minor tweaking. But as usual I do not guarantee anything & take no responsibilities if something goes wrong.

Recently a blog post entitled Why Desktop Linux is its own worst enemy has come across my feed-radar a few times. It's yet another in the long line of "Linux ain't ready yet" jeremiads and it doesn't really say anything new yet it got on my nerves. Why?

Its stock price is in free fall and it still faces a potential takeover led by rogue investor Carl Icahn. However, Yahoo can still fire shots across the digital bows of Google and Microsoft; it is inviting third-party developers to use its search technology so they can build their own search engines. Yahoo calls the new strategy "BOSS," which stands for Build your Own Search Service.

Bell Labs alumni Stephen Johnson tells about the creation of Yet Another Compiler Compiler (YACC), and offers some advice to programmers as well: You can't rewrite a program too many times.

Back in issue #164 of Linux Journal I reviewed a trio of Linux-compatible games from Grubby Games. Well, the developers have recently added a new game to their lineup called The Amazing Brain Train. This game follows in the footsteps of other recent "brain training" games that have appeared on console and handheld game systems over the past couple of years. Like all of Grubby Games' offerings, The Amazing Brain Train is available for the Linux, Windows, and Macintosh operating systems. When purchasing the game, their online store will attempt to detect which OS you are using and offer it up as a sugestion as the version you probably want to buy, but you are still given the option to purchase whichever OS version you would like.

Apple, through its marketing and visual design techniques, is manufacturing an illusion that merely buying an Apple makes you part of an alternative community. But the technology they use is explicitly chosen to divide people into separate digital cells, and to position Apple as sole warden. When your business depends on people paying for the privilege of being locked up, the prison better look and feel luxurious, and the bars better not be too visible.