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Under the name Sun ODF Plug-in for Microsoft Office, Sun has released its import/export filter for the OpenDocument format (ODF), which the ISO has recognized as a standard, for versions 2000, XP, and 2003 of Microsoft's Office suite. The 30 MB installation package adds a document type to Word's file dialog so that users can access ODF files directly and use OpenDocument as a standard format.

This weekend I decided to take the plunge and install a Linux distro on my notebook PC. The reason I not done so already is because this particular notebook is well documented as being problematic under Linux, particularly the WiFi card as it is completely proprietary with no Linux drivers being available. The following is a guide as to how I got Ubuntu “Feisty Fawn” running with full functionality on a Compaq V3000 model notebook.

Know some of you saw this in last week's post, but I wanted to be clear that Dell does have plans to offer Linux to more consumers in additional locations outside the United States. More details to come later this summer. We will also offer Ubuntu to small business customers in the future. As soon as we have more details to share, I'll blog about both topics here.

For the last few months I've been on-and-off trying to write a Linux driver for my Logitech Harmony 880. Today, one of the people who have been following my efforts sent me a link to Paul Cutler's blog post offering a bounty for a Linux driver. Neat! Well - as I said in an email to him, I'll gladly give up the bounty in lieu of some pressure on Logitech. This is my official request for all of you interested in Linux, Harmonies, or open standards in general, to put pressure on Logitech to release communication specs for the Harmony class of remote controls.

As Amarok 2 will be quite a different beast compared to the 1.4 series, it will need a distinctive new first run theme. Since none of the developers are up to this task, we have teamed up with Magnatune.com and ccMixter.org to host a competition for the very best new jingle. The details can be found here.

This article shows how to install and configure ModSecurity (version 2) for use with Apache2 on a Debian Etch system. ModSecurity is an Apache module that provides intrusion detection and prevention for web applications. It aims at shielding web applications from known and unknown attacks, such as SQL injection attacks, cross-site scripting, path traversal attacks, etc.

LXer Feature: 08-Jul-2007

The big stories this week include Microsoft's attempts to distance itself from the effects of the GPLv3, Part 2 of Carla Schroder's Adventures in Digital Photography, using Live Linux distro's for online banking, Massachusetts decides that XML is ok and the BSA ups the ante on getting people to "Blow The Whistle". All this and more await you in this weeks LXer Roundup.

This quick guide will make it easy for you to create many-to-many relationships between tables.

As some of you may already know, I've been in the process of setting up a new server to host my sites. My old VPS just can't handle the load anymore. Since I'm not really making a lot of money off the sites (Maybe $100 a month, if that), my budget is definitely tight. Here's how I setup a server, capable of supporting over 4,000 static requests per second, and over 1,000 PhP requests for second (Using a Joomla installation with SEF enabled). Oh, and I only spent $800 on hardware, and $50 a month for a datacenter with 100mbit up link to the internet (billed on monthly transfer). The server is great for hosting a few sites (lets say up to 20 or so), but could be setup to serve thousands of sites. So, here's how I did it.

New U.S. regulations went into effect today that could change how vendors of devices with software-defined radios (SDR) use open-source software. The new rules could impact manufacturers of mobile phones, WiFi cards, and other devices that use SDR technologies.

You can (at your own risk) upgrade your Ubuntu Feisty Fawn to Gutsy Gibbon, as described in this article, just remember Gutsy is not stable yet.

Nokia has released updated firmware for its Linux-based N800 Internet Tablet. The fourth Tablet OS 2007 release this year -- "4.2007.26-8" -- brings a Skype client, Flash 9 player, and support for 8GB SD memory cards, while Nokia's own VoIP service beta installer has been removed.

Are Microsoft’s patent lawyers playing possum? Or are they really as clueless about what makes open-source software tick as they seem?

An attempt to explain some of the biggest things standing in the way of the home user adopting Linux for their desktop operating system.

Ingo Molnar released version 19 of his CFS scheduler patchset, first released back in April. He noted: "The biggest user-visible change in -v19 is reworked sleeper fairness: it's similar in behavior to -v18 but works more consistently across nice levels. Fork-happy workloads (like kernel builds) should behave better as well. There are also a handful of speedups: unsigned math, 32-bit speedups, O(1) task pickup, debloating and other micro-optimizations."

By this time, you should have guessed that running KDE takes a large chunk of machine resources. Really old machines will run this latest version of KDE quite slowly. I chose it for the FreeBSD beginner because it’s a good safe place to start, with so many built-in tools. One of the most important ones up to now has been KPPP — the dialup tool. In this lesson we are going to learn how to dialup without KPPP. With that, about the only reason to keep using KDE is simply that you like it.

At this year's annual KDE conference aKademy in Glasgow, Scotland an entire day was dedicated to the use of free and open source software in schools and education. The main aim of the day, organized by the KDE Education Project, was to unite the many different diverse consumers (teachers, system integrators, students) and to share ideas, success stories and best practice. The report from the day is now available for reading - aKademy 2007: Education Day.

Zenwalk Live has been updated against Zenwalk Linux 4.6 and this LiveCD distribution now features Xfce 4.4.1 with notification support, the Xfce Thunar file manager can now handle video thumbnails, and many new Xfce 4.4 panel plug-ins have been added or updated. At the system level is GCC 4.1, Glibc 2.5, and binutils 2.17.50. Last but not least, Zenwalk Live 4.6 includes the Linux-Live scripts with LZMA enabled Squashfs support. Zenwalk Live 4.6 will cost you about 400MB of bandwidth, but it's definitely an interesting LiveCD that is worth trying out whether you're a Linux junkie or Windows user.

Intel and Novell have each become corporate Patrons of KDE. Their exceptional financial commitment to the KDE e.V. helps the project with community events, infrastructure and developer meetings.

Polish Ministry of Internal Affairs, responsible for National Computerization project is currently working on National Interoperability Framework. The framework regulates three types of activities: Administration to Business (A2B), Administration to Citizens (A2C) and internal (A2A). In the draft version, a "right" definition of Open Standards is used. However open-source software is not mentioned at all.