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Ubuntu uses advanced systems for detecting file types and associating them with applications, but it's not that hard to dive in and take some control over the formats. In this article you'll learn how Ubuntu identifies file types, how to use Assogiate to control these processes, using Ubuntu Tweak to associate types with applications and use Bless to inspect binary files.

Late last year, getting a Google Wave invite was reminiscent of getting a Cabbage Patch Kid in 1983. It was the newest gizmo everyone just had to have. As a geek, I was one of the kids begging the loudest. Thankfully, one of our readers from across the pond (Paul Howard, thanks!) sent me an invite, and I cleared my schedule for the product that was going to change the way I communicate. Only, it didn’t.

I’ve been editing the Philippine Star Trek fans’ section of the New Worlds Alliance site for a few months now, and the contributors have been submitting their articles embedded in the email message. I actually prefer that to an attached file, because I can read the article right away, without having to open another application. When I’m ready to edit, I ask GMail to create a Google document out of it. Trouble is, the resulting file has hard new-line characters after every line, and a double new-line between paragraphs. I could cursor to the end of each line, delete it, and type in a space, but my inner sloth told me there had to be a better way. Read the full tutorial at Freesoftware Magazine.

This is jumping the gun slightly, but look for this eBook, written by yours truly, to become available sometime in early Summer. Visit the blog to have a look at the cover.

gThumb is a Linux photo manager which came in third place in our "Best Linux Photo Manager / Organizer" poll. An update in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx yesterday reverted gThumb from 2.11.x to 2.10.11:

Speaking in a keynote session at the Linux Foundation's Collaboration Summit, Dan Fry, vice president of open system development at IBM, provided his insights into some do's and don't when trying to work with Linux. For IBM, one of the hardest lessons it had to learn was one about control. Mainly, there is none. "There is nothing that we can do to control individuals or communities, and if you try, you make thing worse," Fry told the audience. "What you need is influence. It goes back to the most important lesson, which is to give back to the community and develop expertise. You'll find that if your developers are working with a community, that over time they'll develop influence and that influence will allow you to get things done."

This guide explains how to set up mod_chroot with Apache2 on a Debian Lenny system. With mod_chroot, you can run Apache2 in a secure chroot environment and make your server less vulnerable to break-in attempts that try to exploit vulnerabilities in Apache2 or your installed web applications.

Sam Varghese is a columnist for the IT Wire website who likes Ubuntu and apparently has great respect for Mark Shuttleworth. He writes opinion pieces that I often disagree with but he most certainly is entitled to his opinion. He has now, on three separate occasions this year, written pieces which are harshly critical of Ubuntu's detractors. Indeed, in a piece published today Sam Varghese spends three pages explaining The main problem with Linux: ignorant users. However, he doesn't talk about users in general. The three pages are dedicated to attacking someone Mr. Varghese seems to see as the epitome of the ignorant user: yours truly.

Virtualization has become an important aspect of the functionality of todays computers and computer Operating Systems. Many that are new to Linux or new to Virtualization often are overwhelmed by the number of Virtualization options the Linux Desktop has and often ask: "What Virtualization Solution is best suited for my needs".

I've read a bit of angst about cloud lock-in, a lot of weed pulling in the form of interoperability standards for the cloud, and a manifesto or two about 'Open Cloud'. And in between, I've seen lots of interesting new tools for cloud computing, and lots of narratives about how the tools, combined with the formalization of use cases, pave the way for open clouds. But what, exactly, does "Open Cloud" mean? And what role does open source play? Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, likes to say that open source and the cloud go together like peanut butter and chocolate. But does open source necessarily mean open cloud, and vice-versa?

With Linux and free software making a name for itself in the world of big business, many people are testing the feasibility of switching small and home office software to their open source equivalents. Regardless of how you feel about the Linux desktop, this is one area in which Linux can have a real impact, both financially and productively, and any small or home office has the potential to be transformed by just switching one application or two to their open source equivalents.

The GIMP has been a poster child for the open source movement ever since it came out. It has been compared to Photoshop and has often been spoken of as the only worthy open source contender in the graphics editor category. While that statement may or may not be true, it is definitely a rival to photoshop when it comes to complexity. And I’m not the only one who thinks that the GIMP is complex. Apparently the Ubuntu development team also thinks the same way and have removed GIMP from their default distribution. It is still available in the online repository but the Ubuntu 10.04 CD will not ship with GIMP on it. The point is that with all that power comes complexity and GIMP is definitely not a tool for casual users.

To most people, boot loaders aren't the most exciting aspect of an operating system, but they are extraordinarily important. Without a functioning boot loader, nothing else works. Currently, a transition from the old Grand Unified Bootloader (GRUB) Legacy tool to the new GRUB 2 is underway. GRUB 2 is the default boot loader in Ubuntu 9.10, and it's an option in most other major Linux distributions. Sooner or later, other distributions will deploy GRUB 2 as the default boot loader.

The Perl 6 project, which aimed to radically reinvent the open source programming language, first began to take shape in 2000. A decade later, there are several implementations with varying levels of completeness, but it is still not ready to replace Perl 5 in production environments. In order to ensure that Perl doesn't completely stagnate during the protracted revamp, a group of developers have decided to pull Perl 5 out of maintenance mode and begin actively enhancing it with new features. The result is Perl 5.12, which was officially released this week. It was preceded by 5.11, an experimental development release that was issued last year.

Intel announced a new Atom processor aimed at embedded devices and in-car infotainment platforms. The "Tunnel Creek" CPU offers an onboard graphics controller, memory controller, and audio, linking to a separate I/O controller via a standard PCI Express interface, according to the company.

A pair of vendors that offer proprietary solutions based on the open source memcached project are updating their products this week. While both Gear6 and Schooner are adding their own proprietary bits to enhance their respective memcached-based offerings, both vendors are also ensuring that they also are contributing back to the open source core.

Well, actually, no they won't. I'm talking about purchasing and installing a brand new Linux cluster in a pure Windows shop and having any expectations that it will be used. Your co-workers will probably look at you funny, and they might stand way over on the other side of the elevator during that ride up to the fourth floor, but don't count on them knocking your door down begging for access to your shiny new Linux resource.

Oracle presented a beta of what it called a "much faster" MySQL at the O'Reilly MySQL Conference and insists it will be continuing to invest in the open source database. Oracle's Chief Corporate Architect, Edward Screven, presented the beta version of MySQL 5.5 which will now use InnoDB as its default storage engine, saying that the switch offers a 200% performance improvement and over ten times faster recovery times. He assured the audience that despite the switch to Oracle's InnoDB, Oracle will be maintaining the pluggable storage engine architecture and that the company would continue to ship the same code base in the community and enterprise editions.

Fonality is jumping off one bandwagon and leaping onto another. The company previously positioned itself as an open source IP PBX phone system provider. But going forward, Fonality is pitching itself as a leading provider of cloud-based phone systems and unified communications for small business.

RAID has still not been adopted by most end-users despite its inherent quality such as performance and reliability. Reasons such as complexity of RAID technology (levels, hard/soft), set-up, or support may be given. We believe the main reason is that most end-users own a vast amount of heterogeneous storage devices (USB stick, IDE/SATA/SCSI internal/external hard drives, SD/XD Card, SSD, etc.), and that RAID-based systems are mostly designed for homogeneous (in size and technology) hard disks. Therefore, there is currently no storage solution that manages heterogeneous storage devices efficiently. In this article, we propose such a solution and we call it PROUHD (Pool of RAID Over User Heterogeneous Devices). This solution supports heterogeneous (in size and technology) storage devices, maximizes the available storage space consumption, is tolerant to device failure up to a customizable degree, still makes automatic addition, removal and replacement of storage devices possible and remains performant in the face of average end-user workflow.