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If you've ever been frustrated with the artificial intelligence (AI) in video games, then you are a prime candidate for Neuro-Evolving Robotic Operatives (N.E.R.O.), a cross-platform combat game where the key to winning is training your own intelligent non-player characters. On the field of play, the only rule is "let the best AI win." I tested my skills with the Linux client, and found N.E.R.O. to be a very different sort of game.

Today we dive into writing custom udev rules. Why would you want to acquire this strange knowledge? Because, believe it or not, computers are not yet perfect, so sometimes we must fix them. USB scanners are notorious examples of needing human intervention to be usable by non-root users. Managing device permissions is something you're bound to bump into sooner or later – the traditional Unix method of user and group permissions no longer works on udev-managed devices. USB devices are moving targets that take on different names if you don't nail them down. If you want to give them friendly, memorable names, you'll need to know how to configure udev.

Infineon is shipping a Linux-based hardware/software reference design for integrated access devices (IADs). The ADSL2+ Residential Gateway (RG) design is based on an Infineon MIPS32 SoC (system-on-chip) with integrated VoIP (voice-over-IP) co-processor and ADSL2/2+ transceiver. The design also offers 802.11n connectivity and a DECT (digital enhanced cordless telecommunications) base station.

If nothing else, the Agile development movement has hit on a good brand. Agile has so many positive connotations – fast, graceful, dynamic. Come on, who doesn’t want to be Agile? Besides, the alternatives don’t have a handy label to grab on to. Formal methodologies? The Unified Process? Arthritic programming… Nope, Agile wins that battle hands down.

Ray Noorda, the almost-founder of Novell, is dead at 82, following a long battle with Alzheimer's. Noorda joined Novell, Provo, Utah in 1983 when it had just 17 employees. He presided over enormous growth at the company, helped by Netware, its enormously successful network operating system. By the time he left in 1995, the company had more 12,000 staff.

Box Populi, formerly "Webcast in a box," has used Linux to create a podcast capture appliance aimed at corporations, schools, radio stations, and churches. The "Podcast in a Box" (PIAB) appliance records when a USB key is inserted, uploading to a server upon key removal.

LXer Feature: 10-Oct-2006

An article showed up in LXer's news queue that described how a business chose an Oracle solution over - get this - a PHP solution. Never mind that the article compares a database to a scripting language, but one can use Open Source PHP in conjunction with Oracle's non-free database system to write web applications. It just goes to show that we all need to know the difference between crap and shinola.

Using a trusted context in an application can improve security by placing accountability at the middle-tier, reducing over granting of privileges, and auditing of end-user's activities. Learn how to implement trusted context on DB2 in a command line interface (CLI), XA, or Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)-based application.

Fabless semiconductor vendor Cavium will ship a new line of multi-core MIPS64-based network and security processors early next year. The Octeon Plus CN58xx chips will come with Linux SDKs (software development kits), and will offer full-duplex 10 Gigabit performance within tight power envelopes and size limitations, according to the company.

A former investor in the SCO Group has identified a Microsoft executive who, he said, worked to "backstop" a funding deal that ultimately helped SCO pursue its legal case against the Linux operating system.

Opinion -- I love free software. I use open-source programs and operating systems every day. But once in a while, I want to take some free software developers and shake them until their teeth rattle. At the moment, I'm ticked off because the Debian community's recent hissy-fit over the Mozilla Corp.'s trademarked Firefox logo has led them, and others, to forking the Firefox code to avoid the use of the logo.

When server and network management software from a proprietary software vendor costs ten times as much as an open source alternative, the decision to go the open source route might seem obvious.

Oracle has continued to stock up on acquisitions ahead of its developer fest this month by hovering up data integration firm Sunopsis. The database giant said it would use Sunopsis’ to add even more spice to its Oracle Fusion Middleware offerings, citing the target firm’s Extract Load Transform technology and its support for a wide variety of heterogeneous systems.

Without developers, no project could ever come into existence; without the users, developers would not even exist. Forget the mighty developer, and forget the demanding user. Both of them are archetypes not of any sort of tangible reality but of badly mismanaged free or proprietary I.T. projects.

I recently received a letter from a computer pro who's nearing 80. He's disgusted by "how [Microsoft] things have developed, and how most software is put out there full of errors and omissions. Help is virtually none existent. One really has to dig to find answers."

Learn about the GNU Project Debugger (GDB)macro capability that allows you to personalize and customize GDB to have just the tools you need.

If you have any doubt about the future of open source communications, consider it shattered: Amazon.com will soon be deploying 5,000 phones connected to the Pingtel ECS platform running on Linux. The relationship between Pingtel and Amazon.com (News - Alert) started about a year ago with an initial deployment of Pingtel’s SIPxchange Enterprise Communications (News - Alert) Solution (ECS) at Amazon’s headquarter in Seattle. This deployment replaced a legacy PBX (News - Alert) system.

The announcement last year that Apple was moving to Intel-based hardware might have seemed like a fatal blow to Terra Soft Solutions, a company best-known for the Yellow Dog Linux distro. However, Kai Staats, CEO of Terra Soft, says that the move may be a blessing in disguise. The company has moved on to bigger and better ventures -- including construction of the first Cell-based supercomputing cluster.

I don't make these things up. There really was a New New Internet conference held near Washington, DC, in September, and I went to it. (The conference organizers paid my travel expenses.) I listened dutifully to a number of keynotes and networked with some of the Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, wanna-be entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists who seemed to make up the bulk of the attendees. I shot a bit of video, too, so you can get a couple of glimpses of what went on. But in the end, I was left with the question, "How much of this stuff is really all that new?"

What is the PHP scripting language? Why is it so popular? How does it work? How can I start using it? What's the latest version? These are all questions that the newbie Web professional (and others) ask, especially as PHP becomes the de facto standard rivaling ASP and JSP.