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During OSCON, Canonical and Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth described how open source can drive innovation. And he called on the Linux community not to emulate Apple innovations, but instead to leap past Apple and make Linux a piece of art on the desktop within two years. Here's a recap from The VAR Guy.

We just received word today that the Third Circuit struck down a federal Internet censorship law as unconstitutional. The law, called the Child Online Protection Act, imposed civil and criminal penalties on those who place “harmful to minors” material on the Web. Under this law, no adult, no matter how mature or responsible, would have been allowed to see material that is deemed unfit for a child. The law would have forced vast swaths of constitutionally protected speech off of the Web.

All major computer retail stores will carry computers with Ubuntu pre-installed by the end of 2008 or early 2009, predicted a Canonical manager who met with The VAR Guy at OSCON. But this isn't another desktop Linux story. Here's the scoop.

In this article, learn how to be a more productive Linux systems administrator. These 10 essential tricks will lead you on your way to being one powerful Linux systems administrator. Learn about SSH tunnels, VNC, password recovery, console spying, and more. Examples accompany each trick, so you can duplicate them on your own systems.

Canonical is preparing an Ubuntu Server blitz at LinuxWorld Expo in August. Alfresco, IBM, Openbravo, Zimbra and others are expected to endorse Ubuntu Server at the conference, The VAR Guy learned during meetings at OSCON. Here's the scoop.

A look at zsh's unique use of input and output redirection.

An effort to rapidly reverse global warming is leveraging the collaborative methods of Linux and other open source software. Cquestrate aims to develop a cost-effective, "open" way to produce and introduce lime into the sea, where it will efficiently sequester dissolved CO2.

The SCO Group got bad news in court last week. Not an unusual event for this company, but I wish the need for such events would finally go away for good. I've now been writing about SCO for five years -- how time does fly when you have someone to despise. In my first column about SCO's decision go into the lawsuit business rather than having to do all the hard work of making a product that someone might want to buy, I thought that someone would just buy the slime off. I was wrong -- I guess there is some truth to the punch line of the old joke that "there are just some things a lawyer won't do." I guess IBM's lawyers could not stomach the idea of rewarding such repulsive behavior.

The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc. In a series of cases including In re Nuijten, In re Comiskey and In re Bilski, the Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by Congress in § 101 of the Patent Act.

Intel released a new version of its Linux-compatible, open source library for multi-core C++ development. Version 2.1 of Intel Threading Building Blocks (TBB) offers performance improvements, adds a portable affinity mechanism, and improves the task scheduler to ease development for GUIs, network I/O, and artificial intelligence, says Intel.

After nearly a decade of active involvement in open source, IBM's commitment to Linux is broad and deep, said Inna Kuznetsova, the director of IBM Linux strategy. This vision of IBM's rapport with Linux is shared by most, but not all, IBM observers.

For years I have envied how easy my Windows- and Mac-based peers had it when traveling with their laptops. They connect to hotspots with ease, get online while I was still logging into root and running some tools. It just wasn’t fair. I wanted an integrated easy-to-use tool that did not require bringing up a shell or logging into root.

Details about the massive Domain Name System flaw revealed less than two weeks ago were made public on the Internet Monday. Halvar Flake, a reverse engineering expert, posted a hypothetical theory about the vulnerability on his blog. A few hours later, a researcher at Matasano Security who knew the specifics about the bug posted a response to Flake's blog, confirming his hypothesis.

Networks don't work without addresses: Whenever you are sending something, you need to specify where it should go and where it came from. To be an effective network engineer or administrator, you need to understand IP addresses backward and forward: you need to be able to think on your feet.

So there's an ongoing tension between small projects interested in using OLPCs and the guys over at 1CC who are too busy to really deal with a ton of small orders, regardless of the value of the particular cause, the built-in support it may already have, or any other warm, fuzzy reason.

How's this for ironic: Microsoft is actually spending some sponsorship dollars here at OSCON (Open Source Conference) 2008, but Apple is stealing the show without spending a dime. Here's how, according to The VAR Guy.

I've read past reviews by other reviewers describing Vector Linux as "better Slackware than Slackware" or "what Slackware should be" and I always felt that was a bit of a stretch. With this release it isn't. You get all the reliability and stability of Slackware, better performance than vanilla Slack (at least on my hardware) and the features and most of the conveniences users of distributions touted as user friendly have come to expect. Vector Linux still has some shortcomings but I have yet to find a distribution that doesn't.

We are coming down to the last week for JTC1 to decide on whether to hear the four NB appeals concerning various claimed errors in the processing of DIS 29500 (OOXML), or whether summarily to dismiss these appeals without hearing them. The decision lies with two committees, the Technical Management Board (TMB) in ISO and the Standards Management Board (SMB) in the IEC.

I am on the DrWeil.com newsletter listâ??and it isn't because he looks like me. It actually has some useful information. But, like most newsletters, it has ads. Sometimes the ads are useful as well. Today's ad was for a non-medical device that will lower blood pressure. I have friends with high blood pressure so I decided it was worth a look. It was as it convinced me that a Linux geek needs to build an Open Source product for those that don't have expensive medical insurance that will pay for overpriced gadgets.

Books, CDs, flashcards, classes -- there are a lot of tools to help you learn a foreign language. If you spend much of your time near a computer, software may be one of the better options. Ian McIntosh's Amigo is a friendly language utility for the Linux user, notable for how well it integrates into the desktop. There are several flashcard-like vocabulary training applications for Linux, both for KDE and for GNOME. They are undeniably useful, but they also require a dedicated study session. Where Amigo differs is that it runs in the background while you do other things.