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As its name suggests, Aaron Swartz's GPL-licensed rss2email utility converts RSS subscriptions into email messages and sends them to whatever address you specify. Despite the name, it handles Atom feeds as well, so you should be able to use it with just about any feed you like.

Taiwan's Quanta Computer has been selected to produce $100 Linux laptops developed at MIT, for eventual distribution to children in developing countries. Between five and 15 million units are expected to be provided to children in China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, Thailand, and other countries, the Lab said.

[Ed: Quanta also builds Thinkpads -tadelste]

I purchased the student edition of Microsoft Office 2003 back at the beginning of this year. I found that Wine and Crossover Office 4.2 would not run this version of MS Office. So I've been waiting for about ten months for the new version of Crossover Office.

For those who don't already know this, Wine and Crossover Office are products that enable you to run Microsoft platform applications on a Linux machine. Wine is available from winehq.org and Crossover Office is available at codeweavers.com. The two products are created in cooperation with each other in the same way that Sun Microsystems works on it's Star Office product and cooperates with OpenOffice.org. There's another enabler for MS software on Linux made by Transgaming Technology called Cedega. It is available from transgaming.com.

Today I downloaded the 30 day trial version of Crossover Office 5.0 from codeweavers.com. Once I installed it I tried to install Microsoft Office 2003. After one false start where in invoked the wine excutable to install Office, and one false error message during the installation, the software was finally installed.

(Newsbytes)Author Robin Miller was online Friday, Dec. 16th to discuss the OpenOffice.org suite of office productivity software and his new book "Point and Click: OpenOffice.org."

Miller introduces readers to OpenOffice.org 2.0, an alternative to Microsoft Office's perceived hassles, upgrades and cost. OpenOffice.org 2.0 runs through Windows or Linux and offers word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, drawing and databases. What's more, it's free. In his new book, Miller provides software and instruction for the basics of OpenOffice.org, as well as Firefox and Thunderbird.

Having trouble coming up with last minute gift ideas? Yeah, we've been there too. If you need a few ideas, we've come up with a list of gift ideas from our own wishlists that should make any geek happy.

Vendors stepped up their efforts this year to make users feel more comfortable and confident about deploying open-source software. Companies focused on making the technology easier to use and improved interoperability between products. Additionally, they launched services and floated ideas designed to put customers' minds at rest over any potential lingering legal issues around using open-source software.

Over three quarters of the world's top supercomputers now run with Linux. Consumers have a good chance of encountering the operating system in cell phones, as one quarter of all smartphones use Linux.

Judge Kimball rules that Wells didn't make a mistake (Cf. why I thought she didn't make a mistake). She heard SCO, Kimball in effect says, and she "properly denied" them. The word properly means SCO can give up asking for Linux non-public materials. They'll just have to climb their ladder theory without it. Or they might just try browsing on the web and find the materials for themselves. Linux is developed in public. Even if the Magistrate Judge hadn't specifically mentioned having read everything SCO and IBM submitted, Kimball writes, and even if she hadn't ruled on SCO's alternative request by giving them some of the Linux materials they were asking for (the materials IBM volunteered at the hearing), she at least implicitly had ruled on the request, and anyway "a denial of a motion is routinely construed to encompass all requests made in that motion."

Security Enhanced Linux has move into the mainstream of operating system architecture in recent years. For those who don't understand the technology, many articles exist.

SELinux provides mandatory access control to a wider audience. It helps eliminate O-day attacks.

The agenda for the 2006 SELinux Symposium has just been announced and some project leaders of Linux distributions may way want to attended.

Existing distributions such as Fedora are including SELinux in the default build, and ports are underway to bring SELinux functionality to BSD and Darwin. Management has already stressed the importance of SELinux in many organizations. So, security minded systems administrators will find SELinux an important area to gain proficiency.

It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see why. Borrowing heavily from Mr. Cringely's terminology, there are several industry realities and stories, each having its own vector/trajectory that might lead one to seeing the importance of Adobe to Apple's well being. Adobe owns key graphic sector applications. Meanwhile, Microsoft has a strangle-hold over Apple with Office for the Mac. Were Apple to buy Adobe, it would give Apple the leverage it needs to ensure Microsoft keeps making Office for the Mac.

Free Portal Server Drives Collaboration and Participation as First Platform to Integrate Wikis and Other Next-Generation Applications

IBM is calling its approach an "open community development model," and it's establishing an AIX Collaboration Center in Austin as the focal point for the effort. The company said it plans to spend US$200 million on hardware and development support for the center over the next two years. What IBM is proposing "makes a lot of sense ... if it works," said AIX user Kenneth Ebbe, assistant to the CIO at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

The news that Microsoft settled one of its last remaining antitrust lawsuits in October presents an opportunity to review the whole episode and assess what it means for the next generation of business innovators. The matter is of special interest to me. Working at the Justice Department in the mid-1990s, I helped lead the first investigation of Microsoft.

Before we get to the lessons learned, a brief recap: It goes without saying that Microsoft's rise to power on the strength of its operating systems for desktop PCs is one of the great American business success stories of all time. But as I argued a decade ago, the company abused its extraordinary power to cement its dominance in the operating systems market. Then it attempted to extend its monopoly into new markets, including Web browsers and online media players.

Courts in the U.S. and Europe found that Microsoft broke the law. After Justice won its most celebrated case, which concerned Microsoft's efforts to destroy Netscape's browser business, I argued in amicus curiae briefs that Microsoft should be split into three Windows companies. This would have restarted competition in the operating systems market and, in my view, would have led to better bug-free desktop operating systems than are now available.

Unfortunately, antitrust enforcement can be slow and unreliable. The Bush Justice Department was less interested in reining in Microsoft than Clinton's was. But though the company avoided a breakup, it did have to pay several billion dollars to settle related claims, and it is now subject to various restrictions on the way it does business.

The browser that finally broke Microsoft's monopoly just got its first major update. If you haven't switched from Internet Explorer yet, consider Firefox 1.5 your invitation to do so.

A special treat on tonight's People Behind KDE as we bring you the Debian Qt KDE Packagers.

Linux works. This is a very matter-of-fact statement, but it is one many people (myself included) make every day when they boot up their computers. It is not a perfect product, it would not be sensible to expect something as complex as an operating system to be flawless, but fact remains that Linux does work. On the software side of things the open source community has done a very good job of making this clear, but the other half of computing, hardware, this movement has not been as successful. Every day Linux users encounter driver and compatibility issues which Windows users have not had to deal with for years.

Alan Yates told those in the Massachusetts State House that two standards are better than one. Was he right?

The NoSQL database, though not new, is worth taking a look at to refresh the mind about the power of some of the core fundamentals of Unix-like systems.

Again, this is a beta release and should not be used by those with a heart condition, if you are pregnant, or if you are under the age of 8. Side-effects include awesomeness, dumbfoundedness, dry mouth and lava. Consult your doctor to find out if Gaim 2.0.0beta1 is right for you.

Vendors stepped up their efforts this year to make users feel more comfortable and confident about deploying open-source software. Companies focused on making the technology easier to use and improved interoperability between products. Additionally, they launched services and floated ideas designed to put customers' minds at rest over any potential lingering legal issues around using open-source software.

In terms of ease of use, there was a growing trend among vendors, including SpikeSource Inc. and SourceLabs Inc., to package open-source software into precertified, standardized and supported stacks. The stacks were also designed to lessen the time developers had to spend configuring and testing various software components to ensure that they work well together.