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Whatever you may have heard about hackers, the truth is they do something really, really well: discover. Hackers are motivated, resourceful, and creative. They get deeply into how things work, to the point that they know how to take control of them and change them into something else. This lets them re-think even big ideas because they can really dig to the bottom of how things function. Furthermore, they aren't afraid to make the same mistake twice just out of a kind of scientific curiosity, to see if that mistake always has the same results. That's why hackers don't see failure as a mistake or a waste of time because every failure means something and something new to be learned. And these are all traits any society needs in order to make progress. Which is why we need to get it into schools. attachments:  How to get started with Hacker Highschool

SystemRescueCd 4.0.1 is now available. SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the hard disk partitions.

We use nothing but Google's lightweight OS for a week.

The American judicial system has long held to a general principle that each party in a dispute should pay for its own legal fees, win or lose.

But when is a lawsuit—in particular, a patent lawsuit—so egregious that an exception should be made? And which judges are best suited to make that decision? That's the question that the US Supreme Court will grapple with on Wednesday as it hears two related cases: Octane Fitness v. Icon Health and Fitness and Highmark v. Allcare Management Systems.

Unless you've been granted magical powers, odds are you've broken your operating system installation at one point in your life. And despite Ubuntu's stability, it's entirely possible to break a fresh installation.

A great deal of excitement has been generated by UK Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude's forceful announcement in late January that the UK government intends to mandate the adoption of compulsory document format standards in public administrations. In the on-going struggle of policy makers seeking to break away from procurement practices that have led to proprietary lock-in, limited interoperability, and excessive costs, the UK government has signaled that they fully intend to level the playing field not by mandating a preference for free or re-used software as in Italy and France, but by mandating choice through the requirement of open standard document formats (not just .odf, but other open document standards too) in procurement.

Nokia on Monday confirmed months of speculation with the unveiling of its X family of smartphones running Android. The X, X+ and XL are priced at $123, $136 and $150, respectively. Like Nokia's low-end Asha line, the X devices come in bright colors.

IBM thinks that opening its middleware stack to the cloud in BlueMix will prove to be winning bet.

A gaggle of Chinese web firms have come together with a plan to protect Windows XP users in the Middle Kingdom for at least the next two or three years, according to local reports. The unusual step will see messaging giant Tencent, search engine Sogou, software company Kingsoft and several others offer technical support for XP including system upgrades and security services, said Xinhua.

I'm not saying I own a XP machine and use it for anything..but if I did this would be interesting to me.. - Scott

Linux distributions are flexible and modular in nature, allowing them to squeeze into all sorts of interesting niches. Some distributions package as much software as possible, others remain lean, some focus on the desktop market while others operate best in the server room. This week we take a look at projects working in a variety of markets. We start off with Chakra, a distribution which brings cutting-edge software and fast performance to desktop systems. Then we turn our eyes to the Ubuntu community where Canonical is making progress in their march to bring Ubuntu to mobile devices. We also discuss how Canonical is handling user privacy and confusion around the company's licensing policies. Plus, we share updates on the OpenBSD project's fund-raising efforts. In our Questions and Answers column this week we cover a few simple ways to protect servers against brute-force password guessing attacks. We are happy to bring you news of distribution releases from the past week, plus we look forward to fun new developments to come. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the recipient of the DistroWatch.com January 2014 donation is the QupZilla web browser project. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!

Like IPv6, DNSSEC is one of those great forward-looking protocols that nfortunately hasn't seen wide adoption yet. Before I implemented it myself, I could see why. Although some people think BIND itself is difficult to set up, DNSSEC adds an extra layer of keys, key management and a slew of additional DNS records.

Today in Open Source: Do too many Linux distros disappear? Plus: Proper Linux advocacy, and photos of the new Ubuntu phones.

I've been playing with the idea of converting to Arch Linux, at least on a trial basis, for some time now.

Welcome again, it's time for a brand new Humble Indie Bundle.... The Humble Indie Bundle 11 is here!

So, this annoyed to the point of having to write about it. Hero Siege was sold on IndieGameStand DRM free and without warning the developer has now removed the DRM free version and has tied it to Steam.

When you install a Linux distribution, a set of programs comes along with it. It's easy to add and delete elements of the programs that don't fit with your needs, but what about altering the look and feel of the distribution to suit you? The key is to add a second desktop environment or window manager. This is an example of how Linux is all about freedom of the user, by the user.

Vendors and original equipment manufacturers (OEM)—and their IT customers, governments, and academics—are all using, buying, and making open source software, and often all three activities at once. This is a good way to think about one’s relationship with open source software projects. There are three activities one typically engages in with respect to the open source software project: make, use, buy.

Stencyl is an interesting toolkit that enables you to create games without traditional programming, and they have just released the big 3.0.

In Barcelona today, Nokia not for the first time laid out its plans to capture the next billion smartphone users. The new approach: Nokia X, a third line of smartphones to slot between the low-end Asha and the high-end Lumia range. The Nokia X range will run the Andrcusoid Open Source Project (AOSP) operating system, but without Google's stack on top of it. Instead, it'll have a Nokia store, Microsoft services, and a custom front-end.

The overview includes only games which are completely free, with a permissive license for both the code and their content. I could not include here games like Urban Terror or Warsow, since their assets are not free, nor Steam games.