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mod_defensible is an Apache 2.x module intended to block spammers/hackers/script kiddies using DNSBL servers. It will look at the client IP and check it in one or several DNSBL servers and return a 403 Forbidden page to the client. This guide shows how to install and use it with Apache 2 on a Debian Etch server.

This is a new concept for anyone who's spent their computing life running Windows. We are going to introduce them to our world and that being so, I would like you to tell Felton just how important this decision is. Write a one or two paragraph "welcome" letter. Tell the people of Felton why this decision is important to them and how much better operating their computer will be. Now..this may sound odd coming from me...

The announcement by the GNOME Foundation that it is appointing Stormy Peters as its Executive Director confirms a suspicion that I've harboured for a while: that we are witnessing the evolution of major open source projects into new kinds of players in the computing world, ones that require full-time staff not just to run them, but also to articulate what exactly they are trying to do *beyond* the code. The pioneer in this field is obviously the Mozilla Foundation, which has grown from an apparently doomed attempt to hack the original Netscape Navigator code into something half-usable, to a high-profile, media-savvy outfit that is not just winning market- and mind-share, but starting to frame many of the most important discussions within the open source world.

Tom McCallum, VP of investor relations at Red Hat, on July 7 wrote a blog that attempts to clarify Red Hat's recent quarterly results. Is McCallum trying to tactfully rally investors around Red Hat? Check out The VAR Guy's analysis.

A small tutorial on how to use awk, Perl and the shell to double space between lines. Hopefully this answers all requests for additional material :)

IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a protocol for text-based internet chat created by Jarkko Oikarinen in 1988. Ever since it was developed, IRC gained more and more popularity and currently it's one of the standard ways for projects and distributions to provide online help, for developers to meet and discuss aspects regarding their work.

One of the things that's bothered me to no end for quite a while is the ridiculously huge number of Linux distributions out there. 350+ active or semi-active and nearly 200 dead distros is rather pathetic in my opinion. I understand that some of this comes from the open source mentality of "if they won't change, then we'll fork the code and do it ourselves." That's where we got Gnome and KDE from, Compiz and Beryl, Debian and all of its derivatives, Xorg and XFree86, and many other forks and splits within the FOSS community.

One of the release goals of KOffice 2, is to make the package run on Windows and Mac OS X in addition to Linux. KOffice 2.0 Alpha 8 is the first release with binary packages for all three OSes.

Microsoft has told a European Union court that an antitrust fine of 899 million euros ($1.4 billion) against it is both excessive and disproportionate, the Court of First Instance said on Monday. On February 27 the European Commission found that Microsoft used high prices to discourage competition, failing to carry out sanctions imposed against it as part of a long-running case. Microsoft is appealing against the fine imposed in February.

The open source Wine program for running Windows applications in Linux shipped in final version 1.0 form, followed by the release of a commercial version. The Bordeaux Group has announced Bordeaux for Linux 1.2, which adds support for Microsoft Office 2007 and six months of tech support. The Greenville, South Carolina-based Bordeaux Group offers its $20 Bordeaux for Linux as an add-on to the free Wine (Wine is not an emulator), adding email support and a claim of easier configuration.

Imagine creating Web-page graphics dynamically using just code. Creating and manipulating images is yours for the doing with the power of PHP. This tutorial steps through using the GD library, showing you how to create and alter images on Web pages. It starts with the GD construct, and then builds on it to showcase graphics techniques.

Why do you need an article on building slide shows in Impress? You don't, in one sense, because the application is simple enough for anyone who has ever seen a slide show to figure out. If you want, you can just plunge in and learn by doing. However, if you take the time to learn, you'll find that OpenOffice.org has two tools to help you organize and automate the process -- and, ultimately, to help you save time.

At my college, I have volunteered to teach faculty, staff, and students the advantages of using Linux. After doing it for a couple of years, I have come up with a few tips that others might find helpful when showing new Linux users the ropes. Here's a look.

A Gartner study from earlier this year suggests that a skills shortage will leave companies scrambling in vain to find qualified help. However, open source developers say there's an adequate supply of potential employees with the skills they have. "The difficulty is not so much if they exist. It's finding the right people," says Jon Masters, a Red Hat Linux kernel engineer who also works on the real-time kernel team and helps support third-party drivers on Enterprise Linux distributions. He says that the supply of competent Linux and open source software types will be enough to meet the demand.

Developers have created an easy way to load Android, Google Inc.'s mobile phone operating system that is still in the works, on Nokia Corp.'s N810 open-source handheld devices. The development is of interest to people who are trying to build applications for Android rather than to general users. "So, from the point of view of someone who just wants to use his N800 and doesn't necessarily want to experiment for the sake of experimenting, what does running Android get me?" one person asked on the Internet Tablet Talk Web site that is sharing the technique for loading the software on the devices.

Yahoo! Inc., a leading global Internet company, today issued the following statement in response to Carl Icahn's latest open letter to Yahoo! stockholders:..

Previously, I introduced my theory of the Difficulty Divide. Itâ??s a concept that Iâ??ve used for several years when talking about why I use Linux, and why some people may give up on it. I also promised that I would present on how Iâ??ve modified it in recent years to reflect the current state of things. Before I do that though, I think some clarification is in order. Take a look.

You probably know the open source 3-D modeler Blender for its animation tools, which have brought audiences short films Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny. But Blender can create realistic 3-D models for any purpose, as Allan Brito's Blender 3D: Architecture, Buildings, and Scenery (Packt Publishing, $45) presents. This book approaches Blender as an architecture visualization tool, detailing the features built in to the editor and the techniques that make architectural modeling differ from crafting game or video effects.

You may find this useful to rename MP3 or image files in a directory, so they will all look the same. The following script will work on directories with less than 100 files of the same type, and will rename all of them to file01, file02, file03, ... and so on.

Sometimes, you can learn things by watching your Linux system perform an update. A few weeks ago, I was updating one of my Ubuntu systems, when I saw that "lshw" was one of the items that was getting updated. So, I pulled up its man page to see what it's about.