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t's amazing in an age where relational databases reign supreme when it comes to managing data that so much information still exists outside RDBMS engines in the form of flat files and other such constructs. In most enterprises, data is passed back and forth between disparate systems in a fashion and speed that would rival the busiest expressways in the world, with much of this data existing in common, delimited files. Target systems intercept these source files and then typically proceed to load them via ETL (extract, transform, load) processes into databases that then utilize the information for business intelligence, transactional functions, or other standard operations. ETL tasks and data movement jobs can consume quite a bit of time and resources, especially if large volumes of data are present that require loading into a database. This being the case, many DBAs welcome alternative means of accessing and managing data that exists in file format.

The Geek Freedom League says its winter Linux certification drive will probably be the last time geeks will be able to get Linux Professional Institute certification on the cheap.

Steve Karg writes "I received an email yesterday from Jon Schwartz, creator of Kids Programming Language (KPL). KPL makes it easy for kids to learn computer programming. KPL makes it fun, too, by making it especially easy to program computer games, with cool graphics and sound. [...]"

The Linux community is all about standardization this year. The Linux Standard Base is gathering steam, the Portland project is trying to bring unity to the desktops, and the Open Document Format (ODF) has been in the news quite a bit. Now if we could just get projects to agree on standard usage for naming, I'd be a happy camper.

Samsung India, the digital technology company, has launched a compact laser copier, SCX-6320F, with enhanced multifunction capabilities priced at Rs 80,000.

In December 2004 it was decided that DotNetNuke would break out its existing core modules into separate Projects so that they could be enhanced, released, and supported independently from the core Web Application Framework. It was further decided that some additional modules would also be added as official Projects to provide an increased level of richness to the platform. The first modules that we determined were going to be added were the TTT Forum and TTT Gallery, authored by Tam Tran Minh of TTT Corporation.

At a Wi-Fi hotspot, you may need the security and anonymity of Tor, but on a secure network, the higher bandwidth of a direct connection becomes more important. Torbutton is a plugin for Mozilla Firefox that enables users to easily and rapidly switch Tor on and off.

I work as a system administrator in the College of Engineering at Brigham Young University. I support mostly HP-UX and Linux servers and workstations, and I couldn't do without SSH, tcpdump, Perl, GNU Bash, and the rest of my toolbox.

KDE 3.5 is a vivid platform. We looked at some reasons why three weeks ago and also last week. Today, we look at the photo-manager digiKam, the plotting application QtiPlot, the LaTeX-dreamteam Kile and KBibTeX and the upcoming KDE 3.5.3 release.

Ezurio is shipping a USB Bluetooth adapter suitable for embedded and industrial applications. The "High Speed USB Adapter" uses less power, has greater range and interference resistance, and a wider operating temperature range than consumer-grade Bluetooth radios, the company says. Linux's native Bluetooth drivers support it.

DistroWatch reports - Fabio Erculiani has announced the first release candidate of RR64 Linux 3.0, a 64-bit live DVD based on the unstable branch of Gentoo Linux. What's new? Greatly improved stability and functionality; kernel 2.6.16.11 and glibc 2.4; KDE 3.5.2, GNOME 2.14.0; Gstreamer 0.10.4 and amaroK 1.4 beta 3 (with iPod support); out of the box USB DVD boot support and hard disk installation support; GCC 4.0.x performance level; latest Xgl and Compiz from CVS for both GNOME and KDE; latest Proprietary drivers from ATI (8.24.8) and NVIDIA (8756); X.Org 7.0.1 and optimized Fontconfig for better font performance... Fabio submitted to OSDir some great shots of RR64 Linux in the RR64 3.0RC1 Screenshot Tour.

EnFlex used embedded Linux in an industrial control and monitoring system targeting facilities management. The Site Control Server (SCS) G100 is based on a 586-class processor and runs Debian Linux. Its web interface can integrate and manage multiple serial- and Ethernet-based facilities control systems.

This detailed image gallery walks through the complete Fedora Core 5 installation. Looks easier than Windows!

Several rumors have been circulating that claim an esoteric prescience concerning Sun's intentions toward Java and the free software community. Like shoots of hope that spring from the coldest ground, open source proponents were reported floating the idea that Sun might finally, this time, yes really, make Java open-source.

More credibly, CNET suggests that Sun will alter its licensing on its Java Runtime Environment so that Linux distributions can include it. Currently, a typical Linux user (unless he buys a packaged distribution that has gone through the trouble and expense of getting a JRE license, as Sun's own Java Desktop System did) has to download and install a JRE himself, should he want Java for use in applets in his web browser or for other purposes. Clearly, it would much more convenient for users (and provide more certainty for developers) if Linux distributions could come with Java built in.

The Linux Desktop Pocket Guide is a valuable resource for new users to the Linux world. Almost everyone has heard of Linux and recognizes it as the "next big thing". However, many people are taken aback at the sheer number of Linux distributions. The advantage of Windows is that there is only one company to go to and that provides some simplicity. With Linux, there is no one-stop shopping, and each distribution has different strengths and weaknesses. This book helps the novice user to navigate the most popular distributions to decide which will work best for them.

Due to circumstances beyond our control...

[I'm betting on the wife with an 8-pound hammer! - dcparris]

Internet satirist Shelley the Republican has embraced Microsoft Windows, barely 10 days since publishing a tongue-in-cheek diatribe that painted the open source community as a bunch of communist hackers.

BogoSec is a source code metric tool that wraps multiple source code scanners, invokes them on its target code, and produces a final score that approximates the security quality of the code. This article discusses the BogoSec methodology and implementation, and illustrates the output of BogoSec when run on a number of test cases, including Apache Web server, OpenSSH, Sendmail, Perl, and others.

Dropline 2.14.0, released last month, lets you add the GNOME desktop environment to Slackware. It consists of 271 compressed package format files on a single CD. Using dropline on top of Slackware is like putting icing on a cake.

Lead maintainer Andrew Morton says defects are being added to the production kernel faster than they're being fixed.