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This guide describes how to generate and use a private/public key pair to log in to a remote system with SSH using PuTTY. PuTTY is an SSH client that is available for Windows and Linux (although it is more common on Windows systems). Using key-based SSH logins, you can disable the normal username/password login procedure which means that only people with a valid private/public key pair can log in. That way, there is no way for brute-force attacks to be successful, so your system is more secure.

KPhotoAlbum has entered string freeze for its new release, and author Jesper Pedersen is offering a prize draw for those who complete the translation. Individuals and teams with 100% of the strings translated will be entered into the draw for $100 to take place on hogmanay alongside the new release. The prize money is taken from the donations made to the KPhotoAlbum PayPal account and the aim is to show some appreciation for our hard working but often forgotten translators.

The Mozilla team released its first alpha release of Firefox 3.0 Friday, giving Firefox and Web application developers an early look at the next-generation browser. This release is not intended for regular users, not even those who like to play around with early versions of the product, Mozilla said.

Last week I had an interview for a new consulting gig with three technical management type people. It turned into a 90 minute technical discussion on a variety of Linux and UNIX issues. That’s fine. I usually do well in that kind of interview. At one point the discussion turned to Open Source applications in the enterprise.

This is a must listen too video keynote address to the 2006 Seattle Plone Conference by the Free Software Foundation's Eben Moglen:'...Software can prevent software from being owned. Software itself can lift the software tax. That's where we are at this moment. On that cusp. In this neighborhood, at this moment, the richest and most deeply funded monopoly in the history of the world is beginning to fail...the very engineering limits of trying to make software that you own work as well as software that the community produces are becoming apparent...'

While ATI had learned its lesson from the belated Radeon X1000 Linux support, the fglrx driver support for the X1950PRO was not added in October or even November of this year, but the drivers will finally be making their way out this month. We are fortunate enough to have these drivers in hand today, so this article will also serve as the world's first look at the Radeon X1950PRO under Linux. The X1950PRO is designed to be a midrange high-performance graphics card that sells for under $200 USD.

Futuremark, creator of the most commonly used PC benchmarking software, has announced Vista compatibility for both 3DMark05 and PCMark06.

Sysgo is offering a live online demo of its embedded Linux distributions and tools. The European embedded software vendor's "Live Experience Server" lets registrants use VNC (virtual network computer) to connect to a development host running ELinOS or ELinOS Real-Time, and pre-configured with target hardware.

Large Dutch cities supporting open source Arthur Buijs from the Dutch OpenOffice.org community just pointed me to this Dutch article. According to the article, a number of large Dutch cities including Almere, Assen, Eindhoven, Enschede, Groningen, Haarlem, Leeuwarden and Nijmegen have decided to support open source. The article says that the cities are interested in open source because Microsoft software is being perceived as expensive and the software does not not work well together with competitive products on other platforms. Here it is in dutch language..

openSUSE 10.2, formerly known as SUSE Linux 10.x, has been released with KDE 3.5.5 and KOffice 1.6 (Krita is installed by default). As well as the usual latest free and open source software, openSUSE comes with the new KDE Menu "Kickoff", integrated with the latest Kerry Beagle. Some screenshots are available on the openSUSE wiki.

Embedded Linux specialist TimeSys Corp. has a new CEO. Larry Weidmen has resigned as President/CEO, in order to pursue other interests, and TimeSys boardmember Joseph Raffa (pictured), a semiconductor industry veteran, has been appointed acting CEO by the company's board of directors, according to the company.

The Debian project is pleased to announce the fourth update of its stable distribution Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (code name 'sarge'). This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustment to serious problems. No new installation images will be created. Users are advised to update their system against an official Debian mirror after a new installation and update the kernel instead. Upgrading to this revision online is usually done by pointing the apt package tool.

Art production in an open source environment is more of a challenge than most people think. I know this from my experience in the Ubuntu interface design project in past few years. It has become clear to me that it is impossible to produce high quality visual content in an environment that is lacking coordination. That insight prompted me to investigate other models that could be adopted and used in the open source context. I found the commercial agency to be one of the most efficient and productive models that I can recommend for adaptation, thanks to one single factor -- art direction. Art direction assures the unity and consistency that are the main characteristics of professional artwork.

EnterpriseDB, provider of open source PostgreSQL-based products and services, announced that Dave Page, one of only seven PostgreSQL Core Team members, has joined EnterpriseDB as a senior database architect. Page is the project founder and the lead developer of pgAdmin, the premier PostgreSQL GUI, and has been a significant contributor to the packaging and development of the Windows release of PostgreSQL. Bruce Momjian, another of the seven PostgreSQL Core Team members, is also an EnterpriseDB senior database architect.

U.S.-based Technalign Inc. today announced the inaugural release of Pioneer Linux, a Ubuntu-based, desktop-oriented distribution for home and business users. The distribution is based on a 2.6.17 kernel, and, like Ubuntu's own Kubuntu, features the KDE desktop environment.

Zi Corporation says its eZiText predictive text input software and Decuma handwriting recognition software are available pre-integrated with Trolltech mobile phone stacks, including Qtopia 2.x, 4.x, and "Jupiter." Zi's products were demonstrated on Trolltech's Greenphone at the ITU Telecom World show this week in Hong Kong.

After a lot of work, we proudly announce the availability of openSUSE 10.2, formerly known as SUSE Linux 10.x As usual, we ship all the latest open source packages available at the time. But we want to give a special mention to the redesigned GNOME and KDE desktop, Firefox 2.0, ext3 as the new default file system, support for internal SD card readers, new power management and, last but not least, our improved package management. We'd like to thank you all for testing heavily, reporting bugs, giving feedback on mailing lists. Have a lot of fun!

Swiss robot vendor K-Team is shipping a third-generation model in its flagship "Khepera" line. The Khepera III, which runs Linux on an optional ARM-powered add-in card, adds floor-roving capabilities, the better to support experiments in swarm behavior, K-Team says.

Gran Paradiso Alpha 1, an early developer milestone based on the Gecko 1.9 branch, has been released. Gran Paradiso, a mountain group located in Italy, is also the project codename for Firefox 3. There are no significant user interface changes. Core layout and rendering changes include use of Cairo as the default graphics library, use of Cocoa Widgets for MAC OSX builds and new SVG elements.

Free software magazine has an in-depthinterview with Fred Trotter about the Medsphere saga, including comments by Richard Stallman:'...Medsphere is treated with the kind of respect that you would expect the top FOSS medical software company to receive. In reality, the top medical FOSS company is probably Uversa with their ClearHealth project (Note: Uversa is a friendly competitor of mine). Medsphere does not even warrant the title of top VistA company. Blue Cliff is a good example of a company that has a good reputation within the community, but gets far less attention than Medsphere. There are many other FOSS medical companies out there all of whom have contributed more than Medsphere.