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Create a custom build of the Gentoo distro from the ground up, to suit your preferences and even speed up your system

If the owner can disable a phone with nothing but access to a computer or another mobile device, so can Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Nokia or Apple. Google and Apple have already demonstrated their ability to remove software from all devices using their respective operating systems. If the designers of a phone’s operating system can brick a phone, guess who else can do the same? Everybody from the NSA to your friendly neighborhood police force, that’s who. At most, all they’ll need is a convincing argument that they’re acting in the interest of “public safety.”

It has often been said that information confers power, and that the most important currency in our culture today is information. Keeping track of my bits and pieces of information has unfortunately been an issue for some years. In part, this is because of my passable short term memory, coupled with what can only be described as 'brain fog'. To combat this, I arm myself with open source software that helps me efficiently capture a lot of information.

The -- very old -- laptop of a friend of mine died the other day and I offered to give her my old laptop as a replacement. Problem was, an old version of Windows was installed on my old laptop which I had to get rid of. Since I did not have any spare Windows product keys at the time, I decided to install Linux on the device instead. While the main reason was that I could do so without paying a dime, it would improve the overall system security as well which is always a good thing. Since I'm not really a Linux guy, I had to do some research on how to get Linux on the device. Turns out, it is pretty simple and straightforward.

Here is what you need for that:

Open source games roundup Week of August 10 - August 16, 2014 A quiet week in open source gaming news. I spent most of my gaming time trying to figure out Divinity: Original Sin, which... isn't out on Linux yet, but will be soon. How soon? Good question. read more

Vringo's win over Google was one of the biggest and most public jury wins for a "patent troll" in recent years. It won $30 million from a jury verdict in 2012, far less than the half-billion-dollar verdict it was seeking.

But last year, the judge overseeing the case revived Vringo's hopes, ordering Google to pay a running royalty amounting to 1.36 percent of US AdWords sales. Those additional payments could have been more than $200 million annually, pushing Vringo investors toward the billion-dollar payday they were pining for.

Wind Power Monthly (I had no idea such a thing existed) has an article about how Intellectual Ventures is apparently targeting its patent trollery towards wind power, having filed a bunch of patents on very broad and basic concepts related to wind power. Of course, IV is trying to hide its involvement here by using one of its many shell companies.

Many of the Flock talks were logged in PiratePads. We’re hoping to gather a list of them all, so if you have a link to one not listed here, please […]

Six things that Windows users should know about Linux. Plus: Four Linux download managers, and why has the controversial systemd been adopted so quickly?

In the following article we will show you how you can secure and protect your Ubuntu or Debian based virtual server using a firewall application, called iptables.

Samsung is acquiring home automation firm SmartThings, setting up the potential integration with Tizen inside an upcoming Linux version of the SmartThings hub. As TechCrunch predicted a month ago, Samsung announced an agreement to acquire SmartThings. In July, TechCrunch pegged the sale at $200 million, which if true would be a steal compared to the […]

In the early days of email, getting junk messages into the hands of recipients wasn’t difficult. The real challenge was getting a list of valid email addresses to hit. Those lists were sold on underground forums and passed around on CDs among spammers. Junk email filters were in their infancy and not very effective. Spammers would make small tweaks to their subject lines or the domains they were using and usually have no trouble evading the filters. As anti-spam techniques improved over the years and reputation systems and other predictive techniques came into play, spammers have had a much more difficult time getting their messages into inboxes.

In today's Android roundup: Android and iOS take more market share, while Windows Phone declines. Plus: LEGO's FUSION apps for Android, and how much should a flagship Android phone cost?

In today's open source roundup: Should Linux change to attract more users? Plus: A beginner's guide to Linux, and command line tools for Linux system administrators.

Linux is about to get a pretty deep and serious city builder courtesy of Paradox and Colossal Order named Cities Skylines.

If you've been thinking of encrypting your email, it is a rather bewildering maze to sort through thanks to the multitude of email services and mail clients. There are two levels of encryption to consider: SSL/TLS encryption protects your login and password to your mailserver. GnuPG is the standard strong Linux encryption tool, and it encrypts and authenticates your messages. It is best if you manage your own GPG encryption and not leave it up to third parties, which we will discuss in a moment.

It's certainly not news. We've talked before about how learning OpenStack is a great way to kickstart an IT career. But just how valuable is it? And if you want to make the transition from doing traditional IT infrastructure administration to becoming a cloud architect, how do you get there?

Turning your Raspberry Pi into a mobile phone is a lot simpler than you’d think, albeit a little chunky. Linux User talks to Dave Hunt about one of his many pet projects.

Open source news for your reading pleasure. August 9 - 15, 2014 In this week's edition of our open source news roundup, we take a look at OpenStreetMap's 10th birthday, open source medical devices, and more! read more

With a little hunting, you can find some fantastic games on Fedora if you look. Recently, I unearthed OpenTTD and have been having a great time playing it! I haven’t […]