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In the wake of Apple's decision to move from PowerPC to Intel, other vendors are stepping in to meet the Power demand.

Embedded Linux is all about the small, the stable, and the fast. The latest release from embedded powerhouse MontaVista, MontaVista Linux Pro 4.0, promises all three in its quest to provide Linux-based computing for devices everywhere.

Using a Thinkpad T21, I wound up doing the engineering I expect the maker of my Thinkpad to do. All the tools exist, now let's see if Lenovo will take the hint.

Here is a nice little two-part introduction to using MySQL as a backend for Linux system services, like Samba user authentication and mail servers. Covers the basics of creating a database, tables, finding, adding, deleting, and changing data. Also a good beginning general-purpose MySQL howto.

Massachusetts state government may stop using Microsoft Corp.'s popular Office software by 2007, unless the giant software company adopts a file format compatible with other software brands.

We have edited the announcement.

The Mozilla Quality weblog has requested help testing Litmus, a new Web-based Mozilla testing tool. Litmus guides users through a series of simple manual tests to check that the basic functionality of Mozilla products works correctly. The tool is designed to be used with recent nightly builds, enabling regressions to be found quickly.

I received an e-mail from Simon Romanski, director of information systems at Fulfillment America, asking about the nature of open source software and its intersection with commercialism. Open source software (the code) is free and open. You can pay for support, packaging, reliable distributions. If in what's called commercial open source, the code isn't all free, then should it be marketed as open source? It's a bit of a long story, so forgive the length.

Looking to consolidate servers? T-Systems swears by Linux on zSeries mainframes which the company says are easier to maintain with fewer staff and offer better performance than many other mainframe combinations.

Norway's best known IT export, DVD Jon, has hacked encryption coding in Microsoft's Windows Media Player, opening up content broadcast for the multimedia player to alternative devices on multiple platforms. Jon Lech Johansen has reverse engineered a proprietary algorithm, which is used to wrap Media Player NSC files and ostensibly protect them from hackers sniffing for the media's source IP address, port or stream format. He has also made a decoder available. Click Here

Before you can add a table to a MySQL database you first need to create the database itself. However, most hosting companies allow only one database per customer account and therefore you may not have this option. If this is the case, you can add a table to the existing database for your account. For those lucky few, here is the sql statement that you will use to create a new database. For the purpose of this tutorial, I created a new database called calendar. This database will hold the information or data about the activities listed on my calendar.

Linux PC enthusiasts may be tired of hearing about all the ways Microsoft PCs are taking over the living room. Having conquered most home offices and dens, Windows is now running such entertainment apps as MP3 players, CDs and DVDs with its XP Media Center Edition, complete with a PC-friendly remote control that’s similar to a cable TV or home electronics controller. But Linux can also play in the home entertainment arena, with help from a package called Linux Infrared Remote Control.

Con Kolivas [interview] posted a patch for the 2.6.13 kernel [story] that implements cache prefetching. The patch is based onearlier work by Thomas Schlichter. Con explains, "I have resuscitated and rewritten some early prefetch code Thomas Schlichter did in late 2.5 to create a configurable kernel thread that reads in swap from ram in reverse order it was written out. It does this once kswapd has been idle for a minute (implying no current vm stress)." He goes on to explain, "Note that swapped in pages are kept on backing store (swap), meaning no further I/O is required if the page needs to swap back out."

Con noted that the patch will be included in his next -ck patchset [story], however, he also posted it to the lkml to guage interest in eventually merging the effort into the mainline kernel, and to encourage greater testing and feedback.

Hurricane Katrina has left individuals and families with urgent needs, and relief agencies will work hard to prepare food, clothing, and shelter for them. However, a huge number will be unable to return to their homes for weeks or even months. Free, readily-available public access to the Internet can provide a crucial lifeline for them during this time.

I had the joy in recent overseas travels to encounter a group who had been attending a Linux Open Source convention. They turned out to be veterans and pioneers of the Open Source movement, but they were not enamoured about the way Open Source was commercially maturing – making this an unhappy group of travellers! Like the wedding guest in 'The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner' I listened to their tale of woe and found that some of their less emotional observations were of interest.

200 plus groups from over 60 countries are participating in the second annual Software Freedom Day (SFD) on September 10 to showcase the excellent range of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and demonstrate how it can be used to save money and gain freedom in every sector of the information society.

If you've ever wondered what all the excitement surrounding the Resource Description Framework (RDF) or the Semantic Web is about, then I have good news. You can explore both without leaving your Web browser, using Piggy Bank.

After what the developers involved call 'a ton of hard work all around,' Firefox 1.5 Beta 1, also known as the 1.8 Beta 4 milestone, will be released on Thursday 8th September. The news was relayed web-wide by Mozilla Developer News, and is certain to be welcomed by Firefox browser devotees who have been waiting for the first beta test version of the next major upgrade to their increasingly popular open-source browser.

Called Linspire Five-O, the operating system, normally available for $49.95, is available for free until Sept. 6.

Win4Lin, a maker of Windows-on-Linux virtualization software, Thursday released Win4Lin Pro 2.0, which includes support for both older 16-bit code and newer 64-bit processors, among other updates. The new release also boasts easier installation, enhanced performance, and "compatibility with virtually all Windows XP/2000 business applications." The company announced last May that Win4Lin Pro v1.0 had been designated "Red Hat Ready" for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 on x86 and 64-bit processors.