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Last Friday, we talked with Blake Ross, the 20-year old who started writing code for Netscape at age 14 and has since co-founded the Firefox project and SpreadFirefox.com. He is also author of the new book Firefox for Dummies.

The index can often be the most heavily used "chapter" in any publication. This article describes how to create useful indexing facilities for packages such as OpenOffice and Scribus. (login required)

Normally, we expect new Linux desktop users to come from the ranks of disgruntled Windows users. After all, they're the ones who have to deal with high-prices and endless security problems. Now, it seems that some Mac gurus are also making the switch to Linux.

When istockphoto.com launched in February 2000, the images in its database were available free of charge, and the entire company ran on one server with an Access database. "At that time, traffic was very low," says istockphoto.com Executive Vice President Patrick Lor. In 2002, the company moved to a fee structure and wanted to increase traffic. "We came across this amazing thing that looked like enterprise-grade software, called MySQL." With that and PHP, they re-coded the entire site, and in 2002 sold 154,000 images at 25 cents each. "We went to two generic servers and had an amazing year," he says. "That was our first real exposure to fee structures and the reception was incredible."

Hyperic, a maker of an open-source management platform, this week announced it has joined other open source advocates in their efforts to make using open source management tools in large enterprise networks easier.

Linux vendor Xandros Inc is lining up new business desktop and server releases for the coming months as it looks to establish itself as the Debian distribution of choice for the enterprise.

From Page #2: "According to Hoover's, RHAT dominates the market for Linux, the open-source computer operating system (OS) that is the chief rival to Microsoft's Windows operating systems. In addition to its Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS, the company's product line includes database, content, and collaboration management applications; server and embedded operating systems; and software development tools."

Plucky little Belgium. Always the scene of upheavals across the centuries, and sometimes the place where gigantic battles have been fought. Now this David amongst European countries could be risking the wrath of that Goliath of software companies, Microsoft. The Belgian government's decision to use only open formats for exchanging documents is pure common sense. The whole reason for having standards bodies and the standards they produce is to guarantee compatibility and stability above individual companies' commercial concerns. Millions of Euros of taxpayers' money is spent funding bodies like ISO, so it would be foolish to then ignore the work they do.

The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. Alternatively you can download the latest stable version of this software. The GIMP is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as image composition, photo retouching and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.

Several browsers recently completed or announced built-in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) support. This tutorial focuses on SVG for Web development, offering step-by-step instruction for Web developers and designers to learn how to use SVG and vector graphics in Web sites.

Linux is an operating system that was initially created as a hobby by a young student, Linus Torvalds, at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Linus had an interest in Minix, a small UNIX system, and decided to develop a system that exceeded the Minix standards. He began his work in 1991 when he released version 0.02 and worked steadily until 1994 when version 1.0 of the Linux Kernel was released. The kernel, at the heart of all Linux systems, is developed and released under the GNU General Public License and its source code is freely available to everyone. It is this kernel that forms the base around which a Linux operating system is developed. There are now literally hundreds of companies and organisations and an equal number of individuals that have released their own versions of operating systems based on the Linux kernel.

[This Bangladeshi news site (in English) has managed to produce a reasonably accurate intro to GNU/Linux. I thought OpenBSD is "UNIX" though. Otherwise, a good intro for newbies - dcparris]

Thomas Gleixner and Ingo Molnar [interview] posted an update of their high-res timerskernel patches for the 2.6.17 kernel, "upon which we based a tickless kernel (dyntick) implementation and a 'dynamic HZ' feature as well".

HPCwire and IDG World Expo have announced the addition of an HPC Linux Cluster Showcase as part of the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo San Francisco. The HPC Linux Cluster Showcase will include a series of vendor spotlight kiosks surrounding a presentation theatre that will feature speakers from organizations that have implemented an HPC Linux Cluster solution. The showcase will bring a unique focus towards the high end of computing and the role of HPC Linux cluster solutions to the LinuxWorld event.

Interesting stuff on the Kernel Development section of LWN last week:

" By storing physical block numbers this way, ext3 can handle 48-bit block numbers - enough to index a 1024 PB device"

"Some developers, most prominently Jeff Garzik, have expressed concerns about merging these changes into ext3; they would rather see a new ext4 filesystem created for new features."

One of the big attractions to VoIP is the promise of free worldwide long distance. Call anywhere anytime over the Internet for nothing. What could be sweeter?

Zero Configuration Networking (Zeroconf) is a standard method of establishing communications between computers and allowing them to advertise and access each others' resources. It is designed to ease some of the complexities involved in computer networking -- in fact, it is designed to remove them altogether, by requiring no user configuration at all.

I would like to recount if I may an experience I had earlier this week. I think it’s an example of the importance of software companies having to eventually accept the free-as-in-speech software business model, and the danger of alienation if they do not.

New Xandros Linux Desktop Home Edition (v4.0) Targets Home and Multimedia Users with support for iPods, Cameras, E-mail, Web Browsing, Internet Calling and More on Secure, Stable Linux Platform

This is a review of a book titled - "Building Online Stores with Oscommerce - Professional Edition". Oscommerce is an open source ecommerce suite which reportedly powers over 99000 online stores. This book explains the concepts behind this project and explores its inner workings.

Built-in presence, unified-messaging features are aimed at small and midsize companies.