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According to the corporate cartels, so-called p2p 'pirates' are the scourge of the Net, "devastating" honest, hard-pressed the entertainment and software companies and forcing helpless support workers into hard times. However, David Choi and Arturo Perez have a somewhat different view, suggesting the phenonmenon of online piracy is a valuable source of innovation to the industries, as well as to entrepreneurs.

The diction and style tools put a GNU face on an old Unix feature. These tools read text input, either from a file or the standard input. diction checks the input at the sentence level, and marks wordy and trite phrases, cliches, and the like, while style works on the overall document, giving a summary of the writing style with a number of readability tests.

In this guide you will learn how to tweak your virtual Postfix setup to better combat SPAM by stopping the mail before it hits SpamAssassin, using RBL (Realtime Blacklists) and RHBL (slightly different), greylistings and Helo Checks.

Live Linux CDs are popping up all over the place. Mainstream distributions like SimplyMepis let you try before you install, as does Ubuntu and Linspire. There are also specialized distributions like Knoppix and Dynebolic. One Gentoo Linux-based distribution, called Sectoo, might also warrant a "live" look.

The release of Ubuntu 6.06, back in June, brought not only a new desktop system to the Linux world, but also a server system with long-term commercial support. This review takes a brief look at installing it, and a run through of some of its applications, to see how it holds up.

MySQL is a significant atom of a LAMP server. This amazingly fast database system is synonymous with PHP applications. Understanding the potentially complex details of views, stored procedures, merge tables, clustering, to name a few, can give your organization a competitive advantage. Pro Mysql, written by Micheal Kruckenberg and Jay Pipes and published by Apress, is a highly detailed account of the more advanced features of MySQL 5.0.

Develop IDEs as plug-ins for any of the existing programming languages or your own language. Learn the two most important parts of the IDEs.

Print-on-demand sites like Lulu allow you to create and publish your own book. If you're primarily a writer, you might be tempted to hire a professional designer to create a cover for your book. Before you do that, consider creating a simple yet elegant book cover using the open source Kooka scanning software and the Inkspace vector drawing application

Today is launch day for a new consortium I've been helping structure for the last several months – the PCI Security Standards Council, LLC. You should be happy to hear about this new organization, because its purpose is to tighten the security procedures that protect your financial data against theft and fraud, not only globally but on an end-to-end basis, from point of sale to debiting of your account.

One the face of it, it should be a simple thing to own what you create and to exchange it. In practice, it doesn’t work out so well. The game industry has been plagued by rising costs, missed deadlines. Some of the blame can be laid to competitive pressures drives developers to add more. Some of it, honestly, has been the result of a lack of discipline.

Alioth, another server of the Debian Project, has been broken into. Script kiddies made use of a hole in PmWiki, which has been known since the beginning of this week, to insert PHP code, thereby installing an IRC proxy.

Ever since the birth of the free software movement, its defenders have struggled to explain just what "free software" is. If it is free, how do coders eat? And how do businesses that support the software – IBM, Hewlett-Packard – make any money from it?

[Like I was saying in a thread about MS, what is the really imporant issue?, corporations making money. Even Lessig knows that. - Scott]

In July 2005, news emerged of Sun Microsystems' first foray into open source identity management with the Open Web Single Sign-On (OpenSSO) project. Now, more than a year later, the project has been formally launched. Sun has kept to its word with OpenSSO and is releasing source code for the significant chunks of its Java System Access Manager required for web-based single sign-on, including session management, policy and federation as well as administration capabilities.

Geotagging is the association of geographic location information with an object. A geotag comprises three pieces of information: a name and longitude and latitude values. Once files are geotagged, they can be indexed and searched based on the geographic information they contain. Here's how you can tag your photos, documents and other files so you can search for place-related information on your PC using Google Earth.

Mozilla Corp. has hired a former Microsoft Corp. security strategist to help lock down its open-source products against online attacks.

[This has to be a first - someone actually hiring a Microsoft executive for, of all things, security. And just when I thought I had seen it all! - dcparris]

Endpoint encryption software for Linux desktops and laptops, Pointsec for Linux 2.0. Pointsec now offers Linux users new features including support for remote help, single sign-on and broader security for all system files starting from a pre-boot authentication.

[Pointsec appears to be non-libre. However, it may be of interest to some of our corporate readers. - dcparris]

Dutch mesh networking specialist Hopling Technologies will develop and support Linux BSPs (board support packages) for Fujitsu's WiMAX SoCs and reference designs, the companies have announced. Hopling's BSPs and commercial support contracts will help network operators and product designers bring WiMAX products and services to market, according to the companies.

MySQL AB, developer of the world's most popular open source database, announced the election of a new independent member to its board of directors: Dana Evan (pictured), CFO and executive vice president of Finance and Administration for VeriSign, Inc.

As automated software development tools have become commonplace, proven proficiencies are increasingly being required by employers. Original Software (http://www.origsoft.com), a leader in software test automation, is providing developers, testers, quality professionals and consultants with hands-on training and certification for their automated software testing platform, TestBench for iSeries systems.

Possibly of interest for iSeries admins. - dcparris]

Banksys Belgium’s electronic payment system leader - is implementing IDX-PKI from OpenTrust to centralize and strengthen a critical application: the management of digital identities. IDEALX, the European provider of security & trust infrastructure (OpenTrust) has been selected to supply an integrated front-line solution. Electronic payment systems are evolving rapidly, and Banksys is constantly offering its customers new innovative services. These services require the highest degree of security, and Banksys has selected IDX-PKI software as a critical infrastructure to enhance the security of its applications.