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I just heard about the proposed ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) over at Free Software Daily and from the Free Software Foundation. Right now the governments of the United States, the European Commission, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada, and Mexico are secretly negotiating this new treaty which aims to increase the enforcement of intellectual property laws yet again. Find out more and what you can do to combat ACTA. Read the full article at Freesoftware Magazine

Since major disasters like hurricanes don't happen every day -- hopefully -- it's sometimes difficult to train emergency responders and sharpen their skills for when the worst really does strike. Lockheed Martin's new training software system can simulate various types of calamities ranging from wildfires to nuclear explosions. Garage-door-sized television monitors showed a sexy, virtual cable-news anchor reading a breaking news alert about the effects of Hurricane Nerissa that had crashed ashore east of Norfolk about 10 hours earlier. "Removal of traffic congestion is especially challenging," the news anchor said.

As you all probably know Linux is not limited to just desktops. It’s far reaching, actually. Not that you’d have a Terminal app on it or anything, but you could. Some of you may have a mobile phone running Linux and you probably don’t even know it. The most popular phone in the world runs Unix. That’s right. The iPhone runs on Unix. Are there any other cool devices out there running on Linux or Unix?

Kristen Carlson Accardi is a Linux kernel developer for Intel's Open Source Technology Group. She is the maintainer for the PCIE hot-plug driver, the SHPC hot-plug driver, and the PCI hot-plug subsystem in the Linux kernel. She is currently working on SATA drivers, including implementing power management features. Kristen is the benevolent dictator for the upcoming Linux Plumbers Conference. We interviewed her about LPC, why so many Linux developers live near Portland, Oregon, and life as a kernel developer.

Novell-developer Michael Meeks finds strong words for Sun's management of the free office suite in an interview - Pushes for own OOo flavor and talks about KDE/GNOME-unification Although his official position at Novell nowadays describes him as "Desktop Architect" Michael Meeks main focus is on improving OpenOffice.org. A task which is not made easier by a severe lack of openness at Sun as he puts it. In an interview at the recent GNOME Users and Developers Conference (GUADEC) in Istanbul he talked with Andreas Proschofsky about future developments around the free office suite, the current need for Go-oo - an improved OOo flavor - and about breaking down barriers between KDE and GNOME.

This guide explains how to set up WebDAV with lighttpd on a Debian Etch server. WebDAV stands for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning and is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol that allow users to directly edit files on the lighttpd server so that they do not need to be downloaded/uploaded via http://FTP. Of course, WebDAV can also be used to upload and download files.

A tech vendor-backed company that buys up patents in an effort to protect the Linux community from intellectual property litigation will soon launch a Web site to help inventors file defensive publications -- documents that make details of an invention public, preventing others from later making patent claims on it. "The more we can mobilize this community, the fewer patents that will actually be granted," said Keith Bergelt, who recently became CEO of the Open Invention Network. "Whatever happens in the patent reform world in the next [U.S.] administration is great, but we have to act now to stop the granting of patents that threaten Linux and open-source in general."

Here is the collection of photos taken by Scott Dowdle during the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo 2008.

Inkscape is one of the most popular free software vector drawing applications. With minimal effort you can achieve some excellent results. However, for the inexperienced it can be a bit hard to find out how to get those results. In this tutorial I’ll look at creating a simple ribbon effect which will hopefully introduce some of the key Inkscape features along the way. The ever versatile Ryan Cartwright eases you gently into the ways of Inkscape. You can read the full article at Freesoftware Magazine

Encrypted private directories are the one thing that would get me to upgrade to Ubuntu 8.10 this October.

Microsoft, makers of most of the computer software in the world, tried to kill it with words, and Intel, maker of most computer chips, tried to kill it with dirty tricks. Of course, they don't admit to being attempted murderers. And when I introduce you to Intel's lovely spokesperson, Agnes Kwan, you'll realise how far their denials go. But the truth is the two mightiest high-tech companies in the world looked on Negroponte's philanthropic scheme and decided it had to die. Yet, 3½ years later, the laptop is clinging on to life.

Some websites need to handle data securely and assure the end-user they are a) secure and b) who they say they are. The traditional way to achieve these is via Secure Socket Layer. Firefox 3 changed what happens when a self-signed SSL certificate is encountered. It’s a change which has caused some concern and much discussion. Should we only trust certificates signed by third parties? Are there cases where using a self-signed certificate is valid? Should users be informed or warned and how strong should the language of that notification be? Is it possible a simple solution is already available but has been overlooked in all the flan-flinging? I think so. If you've ever been confused about browser security, Ryan Cartwright explains the issues. Read the full story at Freesoftware Magazine.

Linux and Unix humor from the unique perspective of the bastard operator from Hell

BackTrack is the most Top rated linux live distribution focused on penetration testing. With no installation whatsoever, the analysis platform is started directly from the CD-Rom and is fully accessible within minutes. This tutorial will show you how to install and use BackTrack 3 Final directly on your Hard Disk. You will use the BackTrack Installer and you will see how to configure LILO in order to make the DUAL BOOT possible.

This document describes how to install a Postfix mail server that is based on virtual users and domains, i.e. users and domains that are in a MySQL database. I'll also demonstrate the installation and configuration of Courier (Courier-POP3, Courier-IMAP), so that Courier can authenticate against the same MySQL database Postfix uses.

Zock is a new piece of free software for organizing betting games. It is a “betting office” targeted at cliques of friends or co-workers which would like to organize a betting game for a sport event. Right now, it needs testers. If you are interested in using it, read on. Read the full story at Freesoftware Magazine.

VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Embedded designer Paul Thomas is showcasing a tiny, open-sourced computer at LinuxWorld in San Francisco this week. Would-be “Linuxstamp” enthusiasts can obtain pre-built boards for the hefty sum of $120 directly from Thomas, or they can download the design for free and build it themselves. The Linuxstamp is an extremely simple hardware design, consisting of six integrated circuits (processor, flash, RAM, serial-to-USB, ethernet PHY, and power conversion) plus a bunch of passives.

Linus seems to be saying some pretty reasonable things lately, but the people who interview him keep crediting him with creating an "operating system" called "Linux".

PCLinuxOS Magazine, August 2008 (Issue 24) is available to download. You can find it at the PCLinuxOS Magazine website. If you'd like to be informed immediately about our releases, please signup for the Magazine-Announce mailing list .