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Varnish is an open source "web accelerator" which you can use to speed up your website. It can cache certain static elements, such as images or javascript but you can also use it for other purposes such as Loadbalancing or some additional security. In this tutorial we will focus on the latter one. In this mode, Varnish will stop incomplete HTTP requests from reaching your Apache webserver.

Earlier this month we delivered Ubuntu 10.10 benchmarks from some different hardware comparing the performance of this "Maverick Meerkat" release to that of Ubuntu 9.10 and 10.04.1 LTS. The results were interesting, but since then we have had the time to complete additional tests. In this benchmarking roundabout, we decided to see how the performance of every release from Ubuntu 8.04 LTS through the new Ubuntu Linux release performs when tested in a virtualized environment using Linux's KVM virtualization. Here are the virtualized guest results for Ubuntu 8.04.4 LTS, 8.10, 9.04, 9.10, 10.04.1 LTS, and 10.10.

If you have come across a tutorial or just someone on a forum who tells you to install something in Debian/Ubuntu that involves using apt-get, it is ok for you but when they tell you that you need to use a caret symbol (^) at the end, that’s where you become curious. What is even more weird is that when you search for the name of the package that the given command seems to install cannot be found using apt-cache search. e.g. You will see this used most often when someone tells you how to install LAMP server.

Many times, objects contain numerous attributes that define how they look, and they're not always perfectly uniform in relation to the object. For example, a used paint can would have paint dripping down the sides of the can—if we were creating this can in 3D, we'd have to tell Blender that there is a specific spot on our 3D mesh that contains different attributes than the rest of the mesh. This is where UV mapping comes in handy. UV coordinates are, in simple terms, a two-dimensional representation of the texture coordinates of a three-dimensional object. They allow us to tell Blender specific properties about specific areas of our objects in a scene.

Adobe Systems is targeting mobiles, TVs, and app-stores with new editions of various Flash-centric tools and its Rich Internet Application (RIA) framework. The company has unveiled preview editions of the next Flex Framework, its Flash Builder design and development environment, the Flash Catalyst design tool, and version 2.5 of its Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR). Previews are due at Adobe's annual MAX conference in Los Angeles, California, with final code promised for sometime in 2011.

I just finished reading a fun and interesting book about Superman and his struggles with Hollywood. So I thought it fitting that I write one of this week’s Quick Looks about Super OS 10.10. No, Super OS is not from the planet Krypton and it’s not vulnerable to Kryptonite. It’s an Ubuntu remaster that takes the Ubuntu base on throws in a bunch of other software, drivers and codecs.

Yesterday, I stopped by my local Walmart to buy a wireless router for my network. I wanted something small with good performance, a good price, and compatible with GNU/Linux. As I searched the computer electronics aisle, I saw wireless routers ranging from over $100 all the way down to about $60. However, $60 was more than I wanted to spend. I didn't need anything fancy, just something that would allow me to get on the Internet with my IBM T40 laptop and my Dell netbook. I didn't need IEEE 802.11n, 802.11g is fast enough for my network needs. I looked down and I saw the little white and yellow box containing the Belkin Connect N150. It seemed like a nice looking device, which made me quite happy. I was even happier when I saw the price: $29.95!

LXer Feature: 24-Oct-2010

In this week's LXWR we have Canonical going on record about open core, Eight reasons to give the E17 a try, Oracle wants LibreOffice members to leave OOo council, The London Stock Exchange smashes the world record trade speed using Linux and with Ray Ozzie just the latest to walk out of Redmond, is this the beginning of the end for Microsoft? Enjoy!

Assuming you have one, take a look in your Mac's Applications folder. If you're anything like me, you've got an overwhelming number of amazing free or open source apps (Chrome, Adium, Quicksilver, Handbrake), a bunch of great clients to various (sometimes paid) web services (see: Dropbox, Hulu Desktop, Flickr Uploadr, TweetDeck, etc.), and Apple's own suite of pretty damned decent bundled apps (Mail, iCal, iPhoto, etc.). That isn't to imply that the Mac App Store can't spur a new wave of sales of desktop software, but even if the desktop software business is ripe for disruption or revival (and I'm not sure that it is), the space is nothing like mobile apps prior to 2008, where distribution was the primary problem.

Managing storage isn’t easy but Openfiler makes it less painful. You can create NFS and CIFS shares, iSCSI targets, web services, LDAP authentication, FTP services and Rsync services with Openfiler. You can setup quotas to limit those annoying space hogs and limit renegade connections with network security settings. For universal access to network attached storage, there may be no easier answer than Openfiler.

This tutorial shows how you can set up a Kubuntu 10.10 desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge. Kubuntu 10.10 is derived from Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat) and uses the KDE desktop instead of the GNOME desktop.

I find Linux to be an excellent general purpose computing platform for day to day personal and small business use. I like the fact that Linux does not cost me money. No, my time is not worthless, but I have wisely spent the time I needed learning how to install, configure and use Linux and the free, open source software that comes with it.

If you do not value the information stored on your computer, data loss may not represent a significant issue. However, for the majority of users, the loss of their data is likely to have profound implications, such as financial loss, time and effort, and emotional distress. Typically, users who are casual about data protection have not yet experienced data loss. However, it represents the most important thing on your computer.

Today is a special day. I feel both sad and relieved, happy and somewhat disgusted. I have officially resigned from all my duties, roles and positions inside the OpenOffice.org project. My resignation is effective immediately and I am leaving the project. I will now be contributing to the Document Foundation, while of course continuing to work at Ars Aperta and at the OASIS as a member of its Board of Director, eGov Steering Committee and ODF Committees. These past days have been tense. In a sense it was to be expected, but on the other hand I feel that it was in fact quite surprising and unprofessional.

I hate to tell you but you need some help with the Java community. The basic problem is that people don't trust you and you aren't very good at community building; in fact you are pretty bad at community marketing. I really really want you to succeed and community marketing is not that hard. The first step is to read this really cool book called 'The Cluetrain Manifesto'. The basic premise of the book is that communities are really conversations and to succeed you need to be part of and interact with the community. I know this can be a challenge with all your lawyers and marketing executives trying to 'control' the message but you have to do it to gain the trust of the community. Companies like IBM and SAP manage to do it so you can too.

ripe, gripe, gripe. Globalization swallows the globe. Monsanto poisons your popcorn. Big Business and Big Government team up to embed RFID tracking chips in schoolkids. And distributists love to hate the whole mess. Cheers! Well, friends, I have good news. Linux. It’s time to free your computer.

In a previous article we saw how to install and configure zsh, today we’ll see in detail the options offered by the zsh for globbing or how the shell use some special characters to auto-complete our commands. Please note: most command you’ll see here could be accomplished with particular switch of the command, for example ls with -r do a recursive search, but the goal of this article is to just use the shell, so our goal will be to accomplish the same result but just with the power of zsh globbing.

The following will show you how to stop your hard disk from spinnig up due to fsync in active laptop_mode. So get your kernel source ready. There are several libraries that help you to disable fsync temporarily so your hard disk doesn't always spin up to save your notebooks battery. Of course that is not very flexible as you need to preload the libraries meaning you have to restart the programs.

This article explains how to download files from a rapidshare using a linux wget command line tool. Using a wget to download from a rapidshare allows you to download multiple files in a single session using simple bash script. It also can be said, that using a bash script and wget to download rapidshare files is somewhat a cheap replacement of jDownloader tool.

Earlier this week I shared part of the vision that Matthew Tippett and I have for OpenBenchmarking.org (the next-generation version of Phoronix Global) and how it will change Linux benchmarking when launched with Phoronix Test Suite 3.0. One of the features of OpenBenchmarking.org / Phoronix Test Suite 3.0 "Iveland" is a major overhaul to the result graphs.