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Microsoft has released in beta this week its Windows Live Shopping site, but Firefox users will have to switch to Internet Explorer if they want to look for bargains.

WE HAVE all heard the buzz surrounding the open-source movement that is progressively gaining momentum throughout the IT world.

The Firefox 1.5.0.3 patch blocks an open hole for attackers while further stabilizing Javascript. That will make a lot of Firefox power users happy. But a Firefox contributor reports that the new patch still doesn't completely solve the issue that stimulated his bug report. Even so, developers say the vulnerability no longer exists. And when you stack up Firefox security flaws against Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari, Firefox looks pretty good.

ODF gets approved as an international standard for information retrieval and exchange regardless of platform; Microsoft is still pushing its OpenXML format as an alternative.

It's a simple idea. Take the Linspire Debian-based Linux distribution and bundle it with every proprietary driver and program that's available for Linux. Ta-da, an instant Linux that's compatible with far more hardware and applications.

Matt McKenzie writes: "The article doesn't say a word about Microsoft or Windows -- and without knowing a lot more about the project, it's unfair to read anything between the lines. In any case, it's hard to imagine Microsoft vilifying Linux the way it did not so long ago, while its employees log millions of miles traveling air routes where Linux plays the traffic cop. Or are Greyhound tickets about to become a very hot commodity?"

The find command is one of the most powerful and useful commands in the UNIX programmer's repertoire.

Eighteen months after shipping, AMD's Personal Internet Communicator (PIC) apparently still does not run Linux, despite criticism for using a commercial operating system given AMD's goal of reducing the cost of computing such that half of the world could enjoy Internet access by 2015.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has always been concerned about the power of language. Most famously, it is known for insisting on the term "GNU/Linux" and giving "free software" equal billing with "open source" in order to receive its due credit. Now, as the FSF prepares a campaign to inform the general public about the dangers of digital rights management (DRM) technologies, it's struggling with the question of how to enter a debate that the opposition has defined in such a way that opposing views are discredited automatically.

A package management GUI for Debian-based distributions

Linux has everything you need to do any kind of networking, plus it has eleventy-eight hundred different software utilities for network monitoring and troubleshooting. Today we'll learn how to pinpoint connectivity problems and how to map your network and all running services. This is handy not only for keeping tabs on everyday activities, but also to catch users running illicit hosts and services.

In part two of this interview, Dave Uhlman, CEO of Unversa Inc., names the apps he considers enterprise-ready, such as MySQL, and how IT managers can cash in on the savings to be gained reduced licensing and support fees by strategically pitching open source applications to higher-ups. Uhlman recommends targeting that IT managers target specific IT needs and choose the best possible fit for their environment.

A heavy spring rain was not enough to dampen spirits at Linuxfest Northwest this year. Despite the rain, an estimated 700-800 people converged on Bellingham Technical College in the Pacific Northwest for a day of informal presentations and a gathering of the local free and open source software (FOSS) communities.

Senior officials from TH-UNIS and Microsoft are now in talks with regard to the price and amount of TH-UNIS's procurement. Apparently, Linux will be the first choice for the company due to its competitiveness in price.

[This article bears in mind the compliance with the new regulation in China that PCs must be shipped with a "legal" OS. - dcparris]

TuxMobil, a knowledge base consisting of user-submitted guides on mobile computing issues, now lists more than 5,000 Linux laptop installation guides. TuxMobil is now the largest source for Linux help for mobile computing on the internet. That fact is all the more amazing considering the organic nature of TuxMobil growth.

BPU Banca Migrates From Sun Solaris To Red Hat Enterprise Linux

Steve Marsh, director of the U.K. government’s Central Sponsor for Information Assurance (CSIA), has announced that IBM, and its partners Tresys Technology and Belmin Group, are working with the U.K. Cabinet Office to demonstrate one of the first mainstream mandatory access control (MAC) environments. The design is based upon Security Enhanced Linux and IBM WebSphere.

LAS VEGAS –- The 18,000 visitors expected to descend on Interop this year will be tapping into an open source network that provides connectivity of all kinds.

MEPIS, also known as SimplyMEPIS, is a Linux Distribution that's the brainchild of Warren Woodford. First released in 2003, MEPIS was the culmination of its founder's frustration with the dominant desktop distributions provided by Red Hat and SUSE, which he felt lacked user-friendliness and seemed clumsy and awkward.

A careful examination of the facts regarding how open source development relates to software security.

[Not all new info, but interesting nevertheless... - dcparris]