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Conventional wisdom says Google -- backed by open source, software as a service and Web 2.0 -- will eventually crush Microsoft. But analysis from The VAR Guy shows that Microsoft's revenue has actually grown more than Google's since 2002.

I stumbled across this on Slashdot, which led me to Red Hat's own release on all the new things in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.2 (and eventually in the free CentOS clone of RHEL). The most shocking: Firefox 3. The Red Hat people must have a lot of faith in Mozilla's latest browser.

This probably comes as no surprise to most Unix or Linux administrators out there (at least this first thing), but I find it's always interesting how rarely the "last" command is used to determine anything other than the users logged in "now" and the "last" time a user logged in. Granted; the last command doesn't offer too much in the extra-functionality department, but it does have one very useful feature.

Late last week I had the pleasure of talking with Fedora Project Leader Paul Frields. Our conversation covered a range of Fedora Project topics, including Fedora 9, the latest Fedora release. One thing Paul is passionate about is getting people to volunteer. There are many ways to get involved with the Fedora Project, lots of sub-projects and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that people can join depending on their interests and talents. The Fedora Project wiki is a good starting point for finding out more. The Join Fedora page also goes into the various roles that a Fedora contributor might be suited for, with easy links to setting up a Fedora account and using the Fedora Account system. You don't have to be a programmer or a computer expert to contribute to the project.

Medsphere Systems Corporation, the leading provider of Open Source healthcare IT solutions, today announced the Open Source release of OpenVista Clinical Information System (CIS) version 1.0 Beta and OpenVista Server version 1.5.86. Available for immediate download at http://www.medsphere.org, these applications compose Medsphere’s Open Source electronic health record (EHR) system. OpenVista CIS provides a multi-platform (Linux and Windows), user-friendly and intuitive client interface through which clinicians can enter and view patient information. OpenVista Server is a commercialized version of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs VistA solution, developed over the course of more than 20 years and instrumental in a well-documented organizational turnaround at the agency

On Wednesday, the company said it plans to add new formats to Office 2007, including the Open Document Format (ODF), Portable Document Format (PDF), and XML Paper Specification (XPS). The new formats will be added to Office as part of Service Pack 2 for Office 2007, due in the first half of next year.

Incessant status updates to your cell phone from the command line? Sure, with a little help from curl and Twitter. If you've been around the Linux and UNIX world as long as I have (is it really going on 30 years? How could that be?), you'll be familiar with the various attempts at multiperson chat that have come down the pipeline, from simple command-line tools to the curses-based “talk” program to Internet Relay Chat (IRC) chaos. Occasionally fun, but often a complete waste of time, there's still something appealing about having an open line with a circle of friends and colleagues.

Red Hat is on top of the business Linux world and it has no intentions of coming down. Its newest release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), version 5.2, is designed to make sure that it stays on top. Red Hat plans on keeping its big name customers, such as the New York Stock Exchange Euronext cash equity market, by introducing improvements in six major areas with the 5.2 release. These are: virtualization, the desktop, security, clustering and storage, networking and IPv6, and serviceability. On top of this, however, there is another major move forward: broader hardware architecture support.

It's been more than a week since Debian patched a massive security hole in the library the operating system uses to create cryptographic keys for securing email, websites and administrative servers. Now the hard work begins, as legions of admins are saddled with the odious task of regenerating keys too numerous for anyone to estimate.

One of the perennial debates about the GNU/Linux desktop is how much it should resemble Windows. Usually, the debate is framed in terms of whether the desktop should look familiar to new users, or be developed in whatever way seems most logical. However, if the experience of the Famelix distribution in Brazil is any indication, imitating Windows and outperforming it can also leave you open to other threats, including accusations of piracy and changes of policy by Windows-centric management.

All of the Catalyst Linux driver releases this year have been... well, boring. There have been a few bug fixes in each release and new product support for the latest ATI/AMD GPUs, but no major features have been introduced in several months. However, during this time we've been telling you to get ready for an interesting summer and that "we have reason to believe AMD does have some Linux work under development that could make 2007 look boring compared to this year." It was in 2007 that AMD had introduced their brand-new driver with AIGLX support. Well, with the release today of Catalyst 8.5 the monthly Linux driver releases are becoming more interesting and we should have several exciting months ahead. What does today's Linux driver bring to the table? We'll give you the run-down in this article, but to get you started there is now Catalyst AI, Linux 2.6.25 support, and much improved 2D performance!

Ark Linux is a distribution developed primarily for new Linux users, although its developers say experienced users should find it powerful enough to use as well. I've tested it before and found the later claim a bit overstated. Would version 2008.1, released this month, be a change for the better? Although it was stable and included some handy software, hardware support in the latest release is lacking, and the distro's security philosophy a contradiction in terms.

Microsoft is offering "cold hard cash" to persuade users to shop online using its Live Search engine and help the company catch up to rival Google. The savings range between 2% to 30% on products sold by select retailers through its so called cashback service. Microsoft's new site is seen as an attempt to convince advertisers it can combat Google's increasing share of the online ad market. "2008 is the year that search got competitive," said Bill Gates.

[Not specifically Linux related, but interesting nonetheless - techiem2]

It would appear that Nokia is predicting that Linux will play an increasingly important role within its Internet enabled device line up.

"Can I game on it" is a frequently asked question we hear from Windows users toying with the idea of trying Linux for the first time. Well, the simple answer is yes!

iPodLinux is an open source venture into porting Linux onto the iPod (http://www.apple.com/ipod/). So far, they have successfully ported a customized uClinux (http://www.uclinux.org) kernel to the iPod, and written a simple user interface for it dubbed podzilla. Additional applications and modules have been written, adding many capabilities not found in Apple’s firmware. iPodLinux currently works on all iPod generations with the exception of the 2nd/3rd generation iPod nano, 6th generation iPod classic, all iPod shuffles and the iPod Touch.

I said I was wary, the instructions were detailed but not complete, the process was far from instant, and I killed X for a few minutes when I tried to fill in the blanks, but I eventually was able to upgrade my VIA box's existing OpenBSD 4.2 installation to 4.3, packages and all.

Microsoft was set to announce Thursday that it would make the interchangeable document format of a competitor available in its own market-leading Office 2007 software during the first half of 2009. The company, under pressure from European regulators, national standards organizations and its own government clients, said it planned to give customers the ability to open, edit and save documents in Open Document Format - the main competitor to Word - through a free update. By downloading the update, consumers will be able to save text documents in ODF format and adjust Office 2007 settings to automatically save documents in the rival format.

[Score one for open standards! - Sander]

With this new version 11 it brings free and legal codecs to Windows Media files. One less reason for any Microsoft software I guess.

Torrent is a great way to transfer large files very quickly. However most torrent clients are gui based and have quite some impact on system resources (e.g. Azureus). rTorrent is a lightweight client running from the terminal. Being able to run it in a screen session (also upon boot) makes it ideal to also control it from a remote location.