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Symbio Technologies' intern Jevin K. Ramjattan has contributed a new extension to the Firefox browser—a kiosk browser extension. Ideal for public access sites such as Internet cafes, libraries, and schools, the extension displays the browser in a locked down mode. By using the extension, administrators can now limit the end-users' activities and substantially reduce the threat of viruses to the network.

Kenosha, a city of about 100,000, was on the bleeding edge when it began deploying Linux nearly a decade ago. The city had been a Unix shop, but as I.T. demands became more dynamic and more dependent on the Internet, Schall decided that instead of buying more Unix boxes, it was time to look at an inexpensive alternative.

They say Europe has richer architecture, tastier coffee, more advanced cell phone technology ... now add better Linux licensing options to the list.

Linspire Five-O is a full-featured Linux operating system which is intended for desktop use, mainly as an alternative to Windows XP. The company, which was formerly known as Lindows, has gotten a lot of press for including their OS with pre-bundled computers.

Is this the week Microsoft finally got serious about fighting piracy -- and could its efforts cost Redmond business?

Linux-based messaging vendor Scalix Corp has extended its email and calendaring functionality to wireless devices via a new product designed in conjunction with communications software vendor Notify Technology Corp.

This whitepaper from Vibren Technologies discusses the use of Macromedia Flash as a technology for creating rich, portable, maintainable, and consistent user interfaces across multiple models and generations of embedded devices, and outlines system requirements and porting issues.

I am running out of options for areas in my IT operation that legitimately shouldn't be open source. Operating system? Linux works like a champ. Web server? If you're not running Apache at this point, what are you doing? Database layer? MySQL scales fine for most Web-based apps, and basic master/slave software clustering for it is free, which can save roughly six figures over a commercial solution if you're running more than a couple of database servers. App server? J Boss if you want Java, or you could just use PHP running on Apache, among many other choices. OK, I haven't spent any money on software yet, and hardware is cheap. I'm surveying my office right now, looking for something that I couldn't enable with open source software, and my eyes fix on that ugly corporate phone that hooks into the old PBX. I feel helpless before it - I look at it and the words "lock in" might as well be blaring from the speakerphone. There's nothing I can do about it. Open source can't help me with my crusty old PBX. Except that it can. And for me, that suggests that open source can - and will - go anywhere and everywhere.

This is the first in a seven-part series written by FreeNX Development Team member Kurt Pfeifle about his involvement with NX technology. Along the way, he gives some basic insight into the inner workings of NX and FreeNX while outlining its future roadmap. Much of what Kurt describes here can be reproduced and verified with one or two recent Knoppix CDs, version 3.6 or later). A working FreeNX Server setup and the NoMachine NX Client has been included in Knoppix now for over a year.

Mozilla Foundation members and contributors will be presenting at O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) in Portland, Oregon on August 1-5, 2005, and LinuxWorld in San Francisco, California on August 8-11, 2005.

Bloggers have put "real" journalists on the defensive in a big way. You can't believe bloggers, say some "real" journalists -- they have no editorial boards, no fact-checking, no training or credentials. You, the trusting reader turning your big wistful puppy eyes on their Web sites have no way of knowing who these people are or why you should trust them. That's what they say, at any rate. Yeah, right. Let me share an amusing little tale with you about the difference between bloggers and "real" journalists. Take a look at Danaquarium.com. Danaquarium.com is a blog. Be sure to read the page title up at the top of your Web browser, because that is a Clue. Now take a few minutes to read some of the stories ... ... all done? Did you figure out that all the stories are fake? ....

Open-source software, security certifications, and emerging threats were among the topics a panel of CISOs pondered at the Black Hat Briefings in Las Vegas. Choosing open-source software depends on how applicable it is to a company's business model, said Ken Pfeil, CSO at CapitalIQ, a financial-information division of Standard & Poor's. Open source does not present more risk than commercial software, he said.

As Linux applications grow in popularity, Windows admins will need to start incorporating them into their networks. Here are five ways to do that.

You can use open source software to make yourself more productive, but the open source community has also produced some impressive game titles, such as Freeciv, Vega Strike, and Flight Simulator. I've found some lesser-known yet excellent and quite addictive games for you to try. All of these games have low system requirements and run on multiple platforms, including Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.

Black Duck will be able to use SourceForge.net's 100,000-plus programs for its open-source software compliance program.

This whitepaper from VDC examines organizational changes at Freescale relating to wholly owned subsidiary Metrowerks. It confirms that Metrowerks will realign itself strategically with its parent company, with the Metrowerks brand replaced by the "CodeWarrior" brand. After detailing these and other changes, the paper offers VDC's analysis and perspective.

Visitors to the annual Supercomputing 2005 (SCl05) conference can visit with Cluster Resources'TM Developers and staff and test Cluster Resources' software live. Cluster Resources will host an exhibit at the conference held in Seattle, Wash. Nov. 15-17 2005.

Few projects in academe have attracted the attention and praise in recent years of OpenCourseWare, a program in which the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is making all of its course materials available online — free — for anyone to use.

Linux may be nibbling away at Microsoft's Windows footprint, but one small business has well and truly shut the penguin out in the cold. Perth-based chartered accountants Marshall Michael Corporate Consultants recently completed an upgrade of its two Windows NT servers and, as a result a Linux firewall was decommissioned.

Australian public schools have an agreement with Microsoft, that entitles them to use the full suite of 'serious', school-related software from that company, for a nominal fee (nominal for the schools that is, there 'might' be hidden costs involved at higher level). Since there's nothing wrong with Microsoft software, why would a school choose to use Open Source software instead, gaining no economic benefit therefrom.