News
| Four short links: 28 July 2010 - End of Open Phones, More Geek Women, Social-ish Teenagers, and Premium Cycles by Nat Torkington
The end of the road for the Nexus One (LWN) -- The pessimistic among us can be forgiven for concluding that the battle for open handsets is being lost. The carriers determine which devices will be successful in the market, and they have absolutely no interest in openness. Customers are irresistibly drawn to heavily advertised, shiny devices with low... |
| Mandriva Saved By New Investors by Caitlyn Martin
After weeks of concern about the "catastrophic state of it's finances" and an indefiniete delay in the release of version 2010.1, the French website LeMagIT is reporting that Mandriva has been saved by new investors. |
| Running 64-bit Linux? No Flash For You! by Caitlyn Martin
Adobe has, at least temporarily, ended support for Flash Player on 64-bit Linux. No updated version is available. Adobe's message for 64-bit Linux users, at least for now, is "No Flash for you!" |
| Avoiding Linux Installation Problems on the HP Mini 110 and Mini 210 Netbooks by Caitlyn Martin
I first ran into what turns out to be a recurring problem when I installed Pardus 2009 last fall. The installer would lock up. Since then I have run into an almost identical problem in openSUSE11.2, Slackware 13.1 and SalixOS 13.1. It appears that the wireless chipset as implemented in these netbooks conflicts with the ssb module, causing the system to freeze. |
| I'm a BSD by Rick Jelliffe
This week I am taking FreeBSD 8.0 for a spin. So far, I like it enough that it will probably be my normal desktop environment. It seems to have the right stuff: my PC seems markedly faster. FreeBSD's slogan is... |
| Ubuntu Is A Poor Standard Bearer For Linux by Caitlyn Martin
To whatever part of the general non-geek public is even aware of Linux the names "Linux" and "Ubuntu" are all but interchangeable. Over the past few years I've come to the conclusion that this state of affairs is, at best, unfortunate. |
| How Canonical Can Do Ubuntu Right: It Isn't a Technical Problem by Caitlyn Martin
I knew in advance that venting my frustrations with Ubuntu in the form of an article yesterday would stir up a hornet's nest. [...] Having read all the comments I'd like to clarify my thoughts on the subject. |
| Four short links: 15 March 2010 - Digital Libraries, Story Analysis, Scriptable Google Apps, Forensic Rooting by Nat Torkington
There's a Rootkit in the Closet -- lovely explanation of finding and isolating a rootkit, reconstructing how it got there and deconstructing the rootkit to figure out what it did. It's a detective story, no less exciting than when Cliff Stohl wrote The Cuckoo's Egg. This and more in today's Four Short Links. |
| Four short links: 4 February 2010 - Personal Ad Preferences, Android Kernel, EC2 Deconstructed, Symbian Opened by Nat Torkington
Google Ad Preferences -- my defaults look reasonable and tailored to my interest. Creepy but kinda cool: I guess that if I have to have ads, they should be ones I'm not going to hate. This and more in today's Four Short Links. |
| Trademarks, trust, and software quality - Trademark law hasn't caught up to free and open source software by Andy Oram
A recent article discusses trademark issues in open source software, published in the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review. One thing that interested me is how the fuzzy areas in current law are comparable to fuzzy areas in software distribution; that's what I'll discuss in this blog. The main issue driving the article by Harvey Anderson and Tiki Dare is that trademark law was designed for fixed products and services left under the control of the vendor. Let's turn now to free software. People modify and redistribute it all the time, but to be honest about it, they shouldn't do so under the name chosen by the original developers. |
| What's New in O'Reilly Answers - Screencasting, XSLT Macros, Exploding Tarballs, Twitter for Android, Should you buy an iPad, and much more. by O'Reilly Media
Best screencasting softwareWhich Twitter client is best for Android phones?Should I buy an iPad?How to clean up after a tarball or zipball explodesMacros in XSLTShare knowledge, ask questions on O'Reilly Answers today. |
| Four short links: 15 January 2010 - Best Science Blogging, Nat Friedman, State of the World, MTA Data by Nat Torkington
Nat Friedman Leaving Novell -- one of the original Ximian founders, with interests in many directions and the coding chops to make them real. He'll found another startup, topic as yet unknown, which will be one to watch. This and more in today's Four Short Links. |
| Linux Is Regaining Netbook Market Share Quickly by Caitlyn Martin
Even those who support and advocate for Linux on the desktop largely believed that Microsoft would retain market dominance. Here we are six months later and the promised ARM powered netbooks have not arrived in any quantity as of yet. Despite this ABI Research published some new data last month and the results may surprise you. They place the 2009 market share for Linux on netbooks at 32% with 11 million units preloaded with Linux shipping this year. |
| The Problem With The Linux Community by Caitlyn Martin
While I'm very positive about the openSUSE team I must say that I am a lot less sanguine about some in their community. Some fans (or really fanatics) came out in force ready to attack the reviewer (me), to question my skills and even my sanity, to attack Ladislav Bodnar for posting the review, to blame the hardware, anything at all but the distro code which is, according to some, "the best release ever". |
| Four short links: 6 November 2009 - Barcode Scanning, Downloadable Community Book, Gov Hack Day, Android Kludges by Nat Torkington
Red Laser -- "impossibly accurate barcode scanning". Uses Google Product Search to identify products that you scan using the camera on the phone. I remember Rael and I talking to Jeff Bezos about this years ago, before camphones had the resolution to decode barcodes. The future is here and it's $1.99 on the App Store. This and more in today's Four Short Links. |
| Announcing O'Reilly Answers - Clever Hacks. Creative Ideas. Innovative Solutions. by Allen Noren
We're launching the beta of O'Reilly Answers, and I'm inviting you to be part of it. In brief, O'Reilly Answers is a community site for sharing knowledge, asking questions, and providing answers that brings together our customers, authors, editors, conference speakers, and Foo (Friends of O'Reilly). O'Reilly is at the center of an amazing exchange of knowledge sharing and idea generation, and we want you to join us in changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators. |
| Four short links: 29 October 2009 - Learning Programming, Functional Javascript, Controlling Firefox, Kicking Ass (with SSDs) by Nat Torkington
Anatomy of SSDs -- A teeth-rattlingly technical Linux Magazine article explaining the different types of SSDs (Solid State Disks--imagine a hard drive made of rapid-access Flash memory). Artur Bergman told me that installing an SSD drive in his MacBook Pro gave the greatest performance increase of any computer upgrade he'd performed since he went from no computer to one. This and more in today's Four Short Links. |
| Linux Netbooks: They're Still Out There by Caitlyn Martin
Back in February I wrote about how Linux had gone mainstream as netbooks became ubiquitous. When my Sylvania netbook died last month and the manufacturer took their sweet time responding to me I was offered a refund by the dealer. Suddenly I was surveying the market again for a good buy on a netbook preloaded with Linux. I found a wide variety of systems with Linux available from mainstream outlets and factory direct, at least here in the United States where I live. While I don't have updated market share figures it's clear, despite claims by Microsoft and their supporters, that Linux remains entrenched in the netbook market and is spreading out from there. |
| Four short links: 8 October 2009 - DIY Baby Rocker, Unix Systems Glory, Encrypting Ephemera, and Explaining Creative Joy by Nat Torkington
Linux Baby Rocker -- Check out this inventive use of a CD drive and the eject command, combined to create an automatic baby rocker. (via Hacker News) This and more in today's Four Short Links. |
| Four short links: 14 September 2009 - NoSQL, Gov 2.0 Videos, Linux Conf, Geodata Grump by Nat Torkington
Take a look at the digg engineering team's experience in alleviating confusion over key components of the Cassandra data model. Arin Sarkissian shares the team's definitions of commonly confused terms and includes a PDF download with actual examples to illustrate key points. This and more in today's Four Short Links. |
Linux Online Certification Linux/Unix System Administration Certificate Series — This course series targets both beginning and intermediate Linux/Unix users who want to acquire advanced system administration skills, and to back those skills up with a Certificate from the |
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This directory of Linux commands is from Linux in a Nutshell, 5th Edition. |
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