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9th Feb 2006
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Linux and Open Source News for 8th February 2006

Linux Downloads

previous    Digital Media    next


Source: Gizmodo

This week at Lifehacker: Watch a video demo of an iPod running Linux. Still required to use IE at work? Have some strategies for surviving IT lockdown at the office. Build an Lego iPod dock. Turn your PSP into a universal remote capable of controlling over 1,800 devices. Automatically defrag your hard drive, reboot your PC or start up Firefox with all your favorites opened in tabs with Windows Scheduled Tasks. Finally, massage your LCD's stuck pixels right out.

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Related: Power User - The Best of LifehackerRelated: Power User - The Best of LifehackerRelated: Power User - The Best of Lifehacker



previous    Distro Watch    next


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: Myah Size: 679.59 MB Status: 2 seeders and 1 leechers Added: 2006-02-08 22:59:47


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: Myah Size: 640.50 MB Status: 1 seeders and 2 leechers Added: 2006-02-08 22:57:44


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: TUQUITO Size: 650.55 MB Status: 2 seeders and 14 leechers Added: 2006-02-08 18:35:41


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: EnGarde Size: 611.26 MB Status: 3 seeders and 1 leechers Added: 2006-02-08 17:29:46


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: Parsix Size: 687.55 MB Status: 1 seeders and 2 leechers Added: 2006-02-08 16:57:13


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: Guadalinex Size: 629.30 MB Status: 1 seeders and 2 leechers Added: 2006-02-08 16:50:48


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: EnGarde Size: 623.11 MB Status: 7 seeders and 3 leechers Added: 2006-02-08 10:29:32


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: Arudius Size: 206.74 MB Status: 1 seeders and no leecher Added: 2006-02-08 06:45:59


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: Myah Size: 653.97 MB Status: 5 seeders and no leecher Added: 2006-02-08 06:23:17


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Source: LinuxTracker.org

Category: Myah Size: 696.75 MB Status: 5 seeders and 4 leechers Added: 2006-02-08 03:30:18


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Source: vector

Following the recent release of VectorLinux Linux 5.1.2 SOHO Live, the developers of the distribution's Standard edition are also preparing a live CD of their product: "Well here it is. We couldn't let the SOHO people have all the fun, could we? This live CD represents as close .


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Source: rpath

Another day, another beta release of rPath Linux: "rPath Linux 0.99.6 is now available for download. As we approach the end of our beta testing, we would like to encourage the most extensive testing you are willing to do. Changes in this release: Conary 0.97.1; kernel 2.6.15.3 latest .


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Source: guadalinex

Guadalinex 3.0 has been released. Guadalinex is an Ubuntu-based distribution developed by the government of Andalucía in Spain and designed to replace proprietary operating systems in government institutions and schools. According to the release announcement (in Spanish) the latest version comes with an improved hard disk installer, permitting .



previous    General    next


Source: Slashdot Org latest news headlines

turnitover writes "Even though Linus has said 'The Linux kernel has always been under the GPL v2. Nothing else has ever been valid,' LinuxWatch is reporting that Richard Stallman has said it's ultimately up to the developers. And those on the LKML (Linux Kernel Mailing List) are going back and forth about whether to move to GPL3. The sticking point, not surprisingly, is the issue of DRM." In response to the DRM issue Linus wrote: "I personally think that the anti-DRM clause is much more sensible in the context of the Creative Commons licenses, than in software licenses. If you create valuable and useful content that other people want to be able to use (catchy tunes, funny animation, good icons), I would suggest you protect that _content_ by saying that it cannot be used in any content-protection schemes."


Source: Slashdot Org latest news headlines

An anonymous reader writes "LinuxDevices has an interview with Jon S. von Tetzchner, co-founder and CEO of Opera Software, on the growing importance of device computing, Linux in the device space, browsers as an interface platform for Linux devices, and how future WHAT standards like WebForms 2.0 and Canvas will make the Web more usable on mobile computing devices of tomorrow."


Source: OSNews

"This interview with Opera Software CEO and co-founder Jon S. von Tetzchner covers the Norwegian browser company's history, products, and roadmap. It sheds light on the growing importance of Linux in the embedded market, and the growing importance of the embedded market to Opera."


Source: Slashdot Org latest news headlines

Jane Walker writes "The push for a virtual data center and utility computing continued this week as Novell announced that SuSE Linux would have support for Virtual Iron out of the box." Novell has also guaranteed that 'that all existing independent software vendor (ISV) certifications will not be affected.' From the article: "'The applications certification [component] is huge,' said Novell director of data center applications Justin Steinman. 'Customers want to know that their existing applications are not going to break when they deploy their technology [on a virtual sever].'"


Source: OSNews

Sun's ambitions have grown another size larger. The server and software company launched its servers based on its own UltraSparc T1 'Niagara' chips in December, a major part of a drive to restore its lost luster and financial strength. But alongside the hardware launch came a more quiet software push: an attempt to make the Linux and BSD Unix open-source operating systems a serious option for buyers of Sparc-based computers. To promote the technology combination, Sun is trying to coax an accompanying software business into existence.


Source: OSNews

"At the recent ShmooCon hacking conference, an unknown hacker took control of [a] researcher's computer, disabling the firewall and starting up a file server. While such compromises have become common in the Windows world, this time the computer was an Apple PowerBook running the latest version of Mac OS X. The compromise underscores a number of trends that has already caused a shift in focus among flaw finders and could result in more attacks on Mac OS X. "This is almost certainly the year of the OS X exploit," said Jay Beale, an expert in hardening Linux and Mac OS X systems. "The OS X platform may be based on a Unix platform, but Apple seems to be making mistakes that Unix made, and corrected, long ago."


Source: OSNews

It seems like Linus Torvalds cannot make up his mind about whether or not to use the GPL3 for the Linux kernel. After clearly rejecting the idea of using the GPL3 ('and I don't see that changing'), he now opens the option up again. "It's 'quite possible,' said Torvalds that the GPL 3 could be used, 'but on the other hand, there's a purely practical problem with any change of license when you have tens of major copyright holders and hundreds of people who have written some part and thousands who have submitted one-liners and small fixes. There are, after all, benefits to putting the kernel under the GPL 3,' Torvalds said."


Source: OSNews

Virtual Iron Software continued on its quest to push Linux and virtualization further into the heart of enterprise data centers today with an announcement that Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 would support its virtualization and data center management platform. Novell will now ship a preconfigured kernel with SLES9 and has guaranteed that all existing independent software vendor certifications will not be affected.


Source: Slashdot Org latest news headlines

hamfactorial writes "Novell has announced the public availability of the Xgl code, an openGL accelerated X server layer. Available binaries ought to be coming soon for distributions running the modular X.org 7.0 release (possibly 6.9, though unconfirmed). A temporary page for Xgl information is up at the openSUSE website. This is the same code that was running in the Novell Linux Desktop 10 preview videos as seen earlier. Further information is also available at Miguel De Icaza's blog."



previous    Industry    next


Source: Computerworld News

The company intends to spend the money on adding more features to its software and more fully automating customer support.


Source: Computerworld News

Trolltech CEO says phone makers are increasingly turning to Linux because it helps simplify an increasingly complex development process.



previous    Industry: Open Source    next


Source: Open Source Directory :: OSDir.com

Novell today announced it has released significant enhancements to the Xgl (X over OpenGL) graphics subsystem, which will let developers create richer graphical experiences for Linux* desktop users. Xgl is new core rendering technology for the Linux desktop that takes advantage of now widely available accelerated 3D rendering hardware. These enhancements make Linux desktops more usable, increase end-user productivity and more firmly position Linux at the forefront of client computing technology.

"The release of Xgl and the accompanying 'Compiz' compositing/window manager puts Linux at the forefront of desktop graphics capabilities among all operating systems," said Nat Friedman, Novell vice president of Linux desktop engineering. "Open source developers can now use their creativity to build new special effects and user interface paradigms as plug-ins to Xgl/Compiz. No other platform gives you this capability. Novell is a key contributor to the next generation of Linux platform innovation."


Source: Open Source Directory :: OSDir.com

The goal of this IBM Redbook is to provide a technical reference for IT systems administrators in organizations that are considering a migration from Solaris to Linux-based systems. We present a systems administrator view of the technical differences and methods necessary to complete a successful migration to Linux-based systems, including coverage of how those differences translate to two major Linux distributions: Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

The book is designed primarily to be a reference work for the experienced Solaris 8 or 9 system administrator who will need to begin working with Linux. It should serve as a guide for system administrators that need a concise technical reference for facilitating the transition to Linux.



previous    Industry: Wireless    next


Source: Wireless Developer Network News

The mobile-software testing and development company Flander develops the architecture of mobile Linux smartphones. A unique feature of Flander s reference design is that it supports several software vendors



previous    Lang: Java    next


Source: java.net weblogs

A story of how a commercial vendor has contributed one of its Swing components to the open-source community.



previous    OS: Linux    next


Source: Linux Today

It runs the Rocks clustering distribution that is based on CentOS (which is based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux) and is pretty much a cluster on a disk


Source: Linux Today

Is your Apache Web server slowing down under the weight of streaming media content or database-driven applications ?


Source: Linux Today

Today's Mandriva Linux security advisories: mozilla, mozilla-firefox, and groff.


Source: Linux Today

For cash-rich Google, it's a cheap price to pay to cut Microsoft off at the knees by getting pride of place on about 33 percent on all new US desktops


Source: Linux Today

We talk to Judd Vinet, founder of Arch Linux


Source: Linux Today

Delivering the inaugural keynote address at the three-day LinuxAsia 2006, Prof Phatak said that even though many sectors in the industry have adopted Linux, there is a long way to go to gain popularity


Source: Linux Today

[This interview] sheds light on the growing importance of Linux in the embedded market, and the growing importance of the embedded market to Opera


Source: Linux Today

With the server virtualization race in full swing, SWsoft today rolled out a major upgrade for its Linux product and a fresh tweak for its Microsoft code as well


Source: Linux Today

Linspire users who purchase CrossOver Office can run dozens of Windows applications, including Microsoft Office 2003, Adobe Photoshop and Intuit's Quicken and Quickbooks, natively


Source: Linux Today

Programmers will want check out Krugle, a search engine for open-source code and technical content that made its debut here at Demo


Source: Linux Today

But alongside the hardware launch came a more quiet software push: an attempt to make the Linux and BSD Unix open-source operating systems a serious option


Source: Linux Today

Linus Torvalds could see using the proposed GPL 3 license for Linux, but he thinks it would be very hard to do in practice and he still has concerns about the Complete Corresponding Source Code section


Source: Linux Today

White Box Enterprise Linux, a free Linux distribution, includes a number of user-friendly features that add up to a useful and functional operating system


Source: Linux Today

At the two-year mark, Dave revisits some of the core Linux audio applications to see what's new


Source: Linux Today

India is emerging as the hottest Asian market for Open Source (OS) with rapid strides being made in OS adoption in many sectors of industry, education, enterprise and government



previous    OS: Macintosh    next


Source: MacNN

Open-source developers from the X86 Project have managed to compile a version of WINE--software that



previous    Robotics    next


Source: robots net

Chris Jang writes, "I've been building an autonomous ground robot for
the last year. It's not like most of the amateur
robots seen on the web. It's somewhat larger than usual and has two single
board computers running Linux off compact flash. My hope is that this
project is both useful and entertaining. I think I've
made many mistakes of a first time robot builder. Others may be able to
avoid these pitfalls as the historical documentation of the project is
relatively detailed." Like many robot builders, Chris was inspired
by the DARPA Grand Challenge. Jang's four-wheeled
robot is 3 feet long and weighs about 40 lbs. In addition to an AVR
microcontroller, it also sports two Geode-based Soekris Net 4801 SBCs.
For more details see the full list of specifications or the amazingly
detailed build log
which documents his year of work and includes many additional photos.



previous    Server: HTTP: Apache    next


Source: Apache News by CodingTheWeb.com

Cool article describing a cluster."It runs the Rocks clustering distribution that is based on CentOS (which is based on RedHat Enterprise Linux) and is pretty much a cluster on a disk. It contains ganglia for monitoring, MPI and Sun Grid Engine Read moreTag, Digg, Furl, Cosmos.



previous    Software: Linux    next


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Msort is a program for sorting files in
sophisticated ways. Records need not be single
lines. Key fields may be selected by
position, tag, or character range. For each key, distinct exclusions, multigraphs, substitutions.
and a sort order may be defined. Comparisons may be lexicographic, numeric, hybrid, random, by string length, date, time, or ISO8601 timestamp. Optional keys are supported. Msort uses the Unicode character set and provides full Unicode case-folding. The basic program has a somewhat complex command line interface, but may be driven by an optional GUI.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Fixed length records are now supported. Angles in
DDD:MM:SS(.ss) format are now supported as a
comparison type. A wider range of time formats are
now accepted. A bug that tacked an extra newline
onto the end of the output has been fixed.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

pppBLOG is a simple Weblog package. It uses plain
text files and does not require any database. It
includes a photo gallery with automatic thumbnail
creation and more. pppBLOG is based on Simple PHP
Blog and TFT gallery.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
A photo gallery popup was added for browsing through photo albums when editing blog entries (with the default editor). The 'view image list' popup window now works again. File names of static pages when editing were fixed along with photo uploading to the gallery. The check with getimagesize was removed as it didn't seem to work. 'view image list' should now also work when entries are edited by non-adminsitrators with add/edit permissions. 'Upcoming' no longer appears twice. The path to user files should now be correct when using the FCKeditor.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Solunas helps the user manage small to medium-sized hotels, holiday flats, guest houses, or car rentals. Online booking and visual indication of availability is provided. Grouping of active members gives communities the ability to provide an online booking service.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Marshal is no longer used due to problems with Linux and Ruby 1.8.4. Deletion of Rooms and Properties was implemented. The addition of rooms, prices, and addons was secured. The cart_item table was deleted. It is now possible to change passwords. All tables now have created_at and updated_at columns. Custom currency display was implemented, and formatted dates are shown in the backend.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

CPAINT (Cross-Platform Asynchronous INterface
Toolkit) is a true AJAX (Asynchronous
JavaScript+XML) and JSRS (JavaScript Remote
Scripting) implementation that supports both PHP
and ASP/VBscript. CPAINT provides the code
required to implement AJAX and JSRS on the
back-end, while the returned data is manipulated,
formatted, and displayed on the front-end in
JavaScript. This allows you to build Web
applications that can provide nearly real-time
feedback to the user, including nearly real-time
data updates.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
A potential security hole with invalid response types was fixed.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

CitrusDB is a Web-based customer database application that
uses PHP and a database backend to
keep track of customer information, CRM, services, products,
billing, and customer service information.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release fixes a number of minor bugs, shows a general billing status for each account, and has a more complete account activation and deactivation function.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

uoproxy is a proxy server for Ultima Online. It
adds features like disconnected operation,
automatic reconnection, multi-headed gameplay, and
much more.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
auto-close gumps in multi client mode. Sync walking with walk_force instead of mobile_update. This release copies the username and password before sending an internal server list. The local port defaults to 2593. #includes required on FreeBSD have been added.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Puppet lets you centrally manage every important aspect of your system
using a cross-platform specification language that manages all the
separate elements normally aggregated in different files, including
users, cron jobs, and hosts, along with obviously discrete elements like
packages, services, and files. Its simple declarative specification
language provides powerful classing abilities for drawing out the
similarities between hosts while allowing them to be as specific as
necessary, and it handles dependency and prerequisite relationships
between objects clearly and explicitly.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release adds configuration file support, scheduling, RPMs, and much more.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

chestnut-dialer is a PPP dialing program, written in
Python. It does not require root permissions, but requires read and/or write access to some system files (including the modem device). It uses the standard pppd daemon for setting up network interfaces. Basic features include account manipulation, including importing from another programs, default
accounts, a command line interface, and call-back
configuration.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release include translation improvements and a few non-critical bugfixes.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

numactl implements simple NUMA policy support. A
NUMA policy allows you to tune programs by
controlling the placement of memory in NUMA (Non
Uniform Memory Access) systems. The numactl
program runs other programs with a specific NUMA
policy, and the libnuma shared library ("NUMA
API") can be used to set NUMA policy in
applications. Libnuma is the preferred interface
to the Linux kernel NUMA policy system calls. The
package also has various tools, like numastat to
decode the kernel NUMA statistics.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
New reviewed and improved man pages. Support for page migration (requires a 2.6.16+ kernel). Major cleanup in numademo: a random pass has been added to test memory performance without prefetching, and reliable timing is used. Compilation has been fixed on PowerPC, and it handles lib64 vs. lib better. There are various other fixes.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Ethereal Realms is a concept web-based chat system
based loosely on WBS and IFC which are both now
defunct. Utilizing Perl/mod_perl and PostgreSQL,
this system emulates what WBS had, with certain
improvements and refinements made over the course
of its development.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release sports a much improved templating and gallery sub-system. Cleaner base HTML code with several useful hints for new and old users alike. Easier installation, and less reliance on PostgreSQL for tags and frequently required information to reduce load.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Advanced Stock Tracking System (AST) is a
Web-based application for keeping track of stocks.
It features a portfolio with dividend tracking, a
worksheet to keep track of prospects, a stock
comparison utility, and a search engine for the
stock market based heavily on technical analysis.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Many new features have been added to this release to improve usability and customizability. It is much easier to get started using the system. Charts have been enhanced, MarketWatch is configurable, and there is a new document management system.


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Source: Freshmeat Daily News

iReport is a visual reporting tool based on
JasperReports and written in pure Java. You can
manage charts, images, sub-reports, etc. Data can
be retrieved using JDBC, TableModels, JavaBeans,
and XML. It supports output in PDF, XML, XSL,
CSV, HTML, and Java2D.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Full support for JasperReports 1.1.1. A new crosstab wizard. A new crosstab editor. New draggable panes. Barcode improvements. Several bugfixes and improvements.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

UseBB is an easy-to-set up and easy-to-use
PHP/MySQL bulletin board system with several user
and administration possibilities, especially
designed for small to medium sized Web sites which
do not need the overdose of features found in
other forum packages.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This version implements the new admin activation, various controls for member management in the ACP, and forum pruning.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

DataparkSearch is a Web search engine tool. It features support for http, https, ftp, nntp, and news URLs, htdb virtual URL support for
indexing SQL databases, text/html, text/xml, text/plain, audio/mpeg (MP3), and image/gif mime types built-in support, external parsers
support for other document types, the ability to index multilangual sites using content negotiation, searching of all of the word forms
using ispell affixes and dictionaries, stopwords and synonyms lists, boolean query language support, results sorting by relevancy, popularity
rank, last modified time, and importance (a multiplication of the relevancy and popularity ranks), support for various character sets, and
phrases segmenting for the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai languages. It has accent-insensitive search, mod_dpsearch for Apache, and support for internationalized domain names.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Document headers are now stored in a database and can be used in the storedoc template. A cross scripting vulnerability has been fixed. Please check and update your search templates. Automatic spelling correction has been replaced with a suggestion of correctly spelled words. A possible trap has been fixed for boolean queries with missed arguments. The GuesserBytes command has been added. The language and charset guesser has been improved. Erroneous delete from the "links" table has been fixed. Support has been added for the Host: directive in robots.txt.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Anyterm provides a terminal emulator on a Web page using Javascript and an Apache module. The module forks a shell and communicates with the script using XMLHTTP on port 80, or securely using SSL. This provides you with shell access to your machine from almost any Web browser, even when
firewalls are in the way. Experimental features include support for WAP browsers and standalone operation without Apache, and the my.anyterm.org service provides access without the need to install anything on your servers.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This version uses HTTP POST requests for communication, which is more correct and more secure for systems with insecure log files.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Xrdesktop is a GTK-Perl frontend for rdesktop that allows
saving and editing of session configurations. Its aim is to
support all the command-line options of rdesktop in an
easy-to-use GUI.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
A minor bugfix in the command line buffer assembly.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Wörms of Prey is a multi-player, real-time
Worms clone for Linux and Windows similar to Liero,
NiL, or Wurmz. You control a little worm and try to
score as many frags as possible by shooting other
worms or scoring goals.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release re-establishes synchronicity among clients running on different architectures, along with some minor bugfixes and a few new features (FPS display and improved command line help).


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Glom allows you to design database table definitions and the relationships between them. It also allows you to edit and search the data in those tables.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
The titles of tables, fields, reports, layout parts, etc. can now be translated, allowing one Glom system to be used in several languages. This release no longer crashes when you specify table or field names with upper-case characters.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

MPEG Menu System Version2 is a menu system for easy movie, audio, and
image playback. It supports many common file formats, including MP3,
OGG, DivX, XviD, VCD, SVCD, DVD, JPEG, PNG, and GIF. It is controlled
using a remote control, USB device, or keyboard. It supports DXR3, DVB,
X11, SDL, and framebuffer output.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release adds automatic radio station downloading, gapless audio playback, background picture thumbnail extraction, and easier menus. It fixes some bugs.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

CoaSim is a tool for simulating the coalescent
process with recombination and gene conversion
under the assumption of exponential population
growth. It efficiently constructs the ancestral
recombination graph for a given number of
individuals and uses this to simulate samples of
SNP and micro satellite haplotypes/genotypes. The
generated sample can afterwards be separated in
cases and controls, depending on the states of
selected individual markers. The tool can
accordingly also be used to construct cases and
control data sets for association studies.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Callbacks for population structure events (bottlenecks, migration, etc.) have been added. A major bug that caused the starting and ending times of epochs to be wrong in some cases (starting too late or never terminating) has been fixed.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

The Linux Replicated High Availability Manager
(Linuxha.net) allows the creation of clusters for
application high availability through data
replication. Currently, clusters are limited to
two nodes, but multiple applications can be hosted
and failed-over between the nodes. The software
uses DRBD to provide the data replication
facillity.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Minor changes to improve handling of various fail-over scenarios have been implemented. Package fail-over is now more reliable thanks to changes to signal handling code.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

NPI is a simple calculator that supports Reverse Polish
Notation, devised by Jan Lukasiewicz in the Twenties to
allow evaluation of mathematical expressions without
brackets. It supports completion and command history.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Uses optparse, a more powerful command line option parser than getopt. The documentation has been updated in reStructuredText format.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

CLAM is a multiplatform software framework for research and application
development in the Audio and Music domains. It offers a conceptual model
for building systems as well as tools for the analysis, synthesis, and
transformation of audio signals using high level representation (notes,
spectral peaks, etc.). It also provides multiplatform system abstraction
and tools for audio and MIDI file handling, device handling, GUI and XML
support, and more. It has proper Linux audio architecture integration
(Ladspa, Alsa, OSC, Jack, etc.) and rapid graphical prototyping both for
the processing core and the user interface (Qt designer integration).

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Binary distribution for Windows, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu. A new Qt-based interface for an improved SMSTools. Many additions to the Annotator. VST and Ladspa plugins prototyping from a CLAM network. Jack or Portaudio (not just ALSA) based GUI applications prototyping from a CLAM network and a Qt Designer UI file. CLAM networks can now be Open Sound Control (OSC) nodes. A Scons based build system. A new Web site.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Conary is a distributed software management system
for Linux distributions. It replaces traditional
package management solutions (such as RPM and
dpkg) with one designed to enable loose
collaboration across the Internet. It enables sets
of distributed and loosely connected repositories
to define the components which are installed on a
Linux system. Rather than having a full
distribution come from a single vendor, it allows
administrators and developers to branch a
distribution, keeping the pieces which fit their
environment while grabbing components from other
repositories across the Internet.

License: Common Public License

Changes:
Adds more protocol versioning to enhance future backwards compatibility.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

SmbShareScan is an utility that scans Samba
networks and builds a database you can query. The
library is multi-threaded for best performance. A
GTK+ frontend is also provided.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Adds a menu in the search window in order to copy and open a file.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Facter is a simple cross-platform library for determining basic facts
about an operating system, like the operating system name, IP address,
or MAC address. It supports multiple mechanisms for resolving a given
fact, and these mechanisms can be restricted to only working on
specified operating systems or operating system releases.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
The internals have been significantly refactored.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Python Regular Expression Builder (Pyreb) is a wxPython GUI to the re
python module. It speeds the development of Python regular expressions
(similar to PCRE). The GUI is simple and features three parts, a text
box where the text to be analyzed is displayed, a text box where the
regular expression to be applied is displayed, and a tree control
where the results are displayed When one of the two textboxes change,
the regex is compiled and applied. Errors in the regex are shown in a
statusbar. Pyreb is somewhat similar to the Activestate RX Toolkit (part
of Komodo IDE), but is a completely different project.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
The XML-RPC server can be started by the end user. The documentation shows a simple example on how to use the server from Python.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Linux LiveCD Router allows you to share and firewall your broadband connection and use WiFi. It works with DSL, cable modem, T1, and dial-up connections and supports inexpensive hardware such as USB and PCMCIA WiFi and ethernet cards. It does not require a hard disk.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Webmin has been updated to version 1.2.60. A Webmin module for OpenVPN has been added.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

KLone is a fully-featured, multi-platform framework
which allows dynamic Web pages to be written in C/C++
(with the usual style). The pages can then be embedded (in compressed and/or encrypted form) into a single executable that also contains KLone's high-performance HTTP/S server. Given its nature, it can be linked natively to any C/C++ library (database, XML, graphics, etc.), without an intermediate layer, and it is especially suited for low-resource (embedded) systems.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Two minor bugs have been fixed. Portability issues have been fixed to support OpenBSD 3.x, NetBSD 2.x, and FreeBSD 6.x.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

The OPEN-XCHANGE Collaboration and Integration Server Environment allows
you to store appointments, contacts, tasks, email messages, bookmarks,
documents, and many more elements, and share them with other users. It
can be accessed via any modern Web browser and multiple fat clients
like MS Outlook, Palm devices, KDE Kontact, Apple's iCAL, Konqueror,
Mozilla Calendar, any many more, based on open standards and interfaces.
Third party products can access this application over many different
interfaces such as WebDAV (XML), LDAP, iCal, an API, and HTTP/S.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This package contains minor bugfixes as well as some MySQL and RSS news feed improvements.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

distmake is a distributed, parallel, GNU
make-compatible make program. It reads a Makefile
and distributes builds targets over a set of build
servers on a network.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release greatly enhances the support for nested (sub) makes, correctly kills remote jobs when the user hits CTRL+C, and is able to read the list of build machines provided in a shell environment variable.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

xMule is a multi-platform clone of the popular eMule client for the eDonkey filesharing network. Currently supporting various Linux/Unix/BSD platforms, it aims at higher stability and portability than the competitors.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release has updated compliance to the new ED2K protocol, and also adds initial Unicode support.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

The PosteRazor takes a raster image and slices it
into a multi page PDF document which can be
assembled into a poster after being printed. It
has an easy-to-use FLTK UI and uses FreeImage.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Multilingual UI (English and German). Poster preview via OpenGL. More user friendly .pdf file saving (auto-appended .pdf extension).


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Parallels Workstation is powerful desktop virtualization solution that empowers IT professionals with the ability to develop, test, and deploy in multiple operating systems on a single PC. A sophisticated virtual machine engine supports nearly every standard x86-based operating system, including the entire Windows family, multiple Linux distributions, OS/2, MS-DOS, and FreeBSD, each of which can be launched and utilized in completely networked, fully portable, totally independent virtual containers. Since guest operating systems are self-contained and directly access hardware profiles, users never need to proactively partition hard drives, allocate system resources, or continually reboot the host operating system.

License: Other/Proprietary License with Free Trial

Changes:
Performance and stability were improved. An Intel
VT-x improvement was made. USB support, a
suspend/resume feature, sound recording support,
host PAE support, guest Solaris support, primary
SuSE 10 support, and the Parallels Tools Center
were added.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Backup Manager is a tool for generating archives easily.
It is designed for those who don't want an obfuscated tool for backing up their system. It can make tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2, and zip archives, can perform incremental backups, and can upload archives to remote hosts with FTP, SSH, or RSYNC. It can be run in a parallel mode with different configuration files. The configuration file is simple to understand. The backup process can also be customized thanks to hook scripts.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release provides full "dar" support for
archiving repositories with the dar utility. The
MySQL archive method has been enhanced and can now
backup every database with a single keyword in the
configuration file (no more need to list all the
databases). The DVD burning process has been
updated to be compliant with DVD-RW media.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

mcelog decodes machine check events (hardware
errors) on x86-64 machines running a 64-bit Linux
kernel. It should be run regularly as a cron job on
any x86-64 Linux system (if it is not in the default packages on your x86-64 distribution, please complain to your distributor). It can also decode machine check panic messages from console logs.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
--ascii reparsing of mcelog output was fixed.
--filter was added and known broken K8 GART errors
are filtered out. The --ignorenodev argument was
added and is used in the cron script (which avoids
cron errors in Xen guest kernels). The new --dmi
argument was added to resolve machine check
addresses to DIMM numbers in SMBIOS (however, this
is unreliable due to wide-spread BIOS bugs).
Argument decoding was fixed to support -- and to
allow arguments in any order. --ascii was
clarified in the manpage.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

ConTagged is a Web-based address book for small
companies. It features a public address book which
is writable for all company staff and a personal
address book for each staff member. Contacts can
be grouped and looked up flexibly by assigning
tags to them. It requires an existing LDAP server
to authenticate users and to store the contact
data.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
LDABab was renamed to ConTagged. This release
changes the old category support into a real
tagging system. The whole GUI was revamped and
made more quickly accessable by adding things like
AJAX autocompletion and doubleclick-to-edit. CVS
export and full UTF-8 compliance were added.
Non-anonymous binding for user lookup is now
possible. Various smaller bugs were fixed.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

LDAP Account Manager makes it possible to manage various account types (Unix, Samba, and Kolab) in an OpenLDAP server. It also features an external script for managing quotas and home directories.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This is the last release candidate before 1.0.0 is
published. It now includes a Dutch translation,
and fixes some minor bugs.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Doublecpp is a preprocessor for C++ that handles a
new linguistic construct for defining branches of
a multi-method. The "right" branch of such a
method will be selected dynamically at run-time
according to the actual type of the object on
which the method is invoked, and to the actual
type of the first argument: double dispatch.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Compilation problems with g++ 4.0.3 were fixed.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

GNU-mode is a collection of games for i-mode
mobile phones. It currently includes Snake,
Suduko, Checkers, and Vexed.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
The puzzle generator was improved. Puzzles should
now have unique solutions. An extra difficulty
level was added. Note that the difficulty levels
in this release do not relate to the difficulty
levels in previous versions. A new look cursor was
added. A highlighter tool for marking squares
while you are working on a puzzle was added.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

The PreludeDB Library provides an abstraction
layer upon the type and format of the database
used to store IDMEF alerts. It allows developers
to use the Prelude IDMEF database easily and
efficiently without worrying about SQL, and to
access the database independently of the
type/format of the database.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
A fix was made for filtering the IDMEF field using
the "!=" operator, which resulted in filtering out
events where the field did not exist. Listed IDMEF
value ordering is enforced: values were sometime
unordered because of an uninitialized position
problem. Error reporting from perl and python
bindings was fixed. The libpreludedb header files
were made C++ compiler friendly. A "move" command
in preludedb-admin was implemented. When SQL query
logging is enabled, the time taken to execute the
query is logged. An opaque plugin API was added.
Verbose error reporting makes the error API viable
for more drivers.


  popularitypopularitypopularitypopularitypopularitypopularitypopularity

Source: Freshmeat Daily News

bonddb is an object orientated wrapper for PostgreSQL. It's a fast data abstraction layer written in C for C/C++ applications, to allow easy access to class objects. You can use existing PostgreSQL databases without any modification or additional tables needed in the backend.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Problems associated with using views or functions
as a data source were fixed. More debugging
functions were added. gcc4.0 errors and warnings
were fixed. Primary key handling when no primary
key is present was improved.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

GAMGI (General Atomistic Modelling Graphic Interface) is a program to build, view, and analyze atomic strucures such as molecules, crystals, glasses, liquids, etc. It aims to be useful for: the scientific community working in Atomistic Modelling that needs a graphic interface to build input data and to view and analyse output data, calculated with Ab-Initio and Molecular Mechanics programs; the scientific community at large studying chemistry, physics, materials science, geology, etc., that needs a graphic interface to view and analyse atomic structural information and to prepare images for presentations in classes and seminars; teaching chemistry and physics in secondary schools and universities; science promotion in schools, exhibitions and science museums.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
The dialogs Layer-Config, Light-Config, Text-Config, Gamgi-Config, Help-Config, and Window-Config were redesigned. The dialogs Atom-Measure, Plane-Measure, and Direction-Measure were improved. All object parsing and identification in GAMGI is now centralized in a small number of functions in gamgi_gtk_object.c. The interface to enter data to generate RCP structures was written. The Cell-Link dialog was redesigned to handle links of Objects and also different kinds of algorithm construction, for example the RCP.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

GnoeMoe is a full featured GNOME MOO (MUD Object
Oriented) client which aims at integrating with
the GNOME desktop as nicely as possible, while
adhering to the GNOME philosophy. It aims to be
simple and easy to use. Some of the main features
are support for ANSI color codes, multiworld
(tabs), a builtin editor, Ruby script extensions,
and MCP 2.1.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Title update and selective history were fixed.
Page scrolling was added. A temporary fix was made
for 100% CPU usage on input. A segmentation fault
in the logs dialog was fixed. Charset conversion
was fixed.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

pkpgcounter parses files and outputs the number of
pages needed to print them. It currently
recognizes the following formats: PostScript (both
DSC compliant and binary), PDF, PCL3/4/5, PCLXL
(aka PCL6), ESC/P2, DVI, TIFF, OpenOffice.org
Writer, and OpenOffice.org Impress. pkpgcounter
has been part of the PyKota project since 2003,
but is now available separately.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
The PCLXL parser was improved with regard to
undocumented tags. Preliminary support for
Kyocera's Prescribe commands was added to the
PCLXL and PostScript parsers.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Raw Fake AP is a program that emulates valid IEEE
802.11 access points using wireless raw injection.
It aims at creating both beacon and probe response
frames and could be used to "hide" real networks
from novice wardrivers or for testing wireless
intrusion detection systems.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
A probe response mode was added.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Ice Hockey Manager (IHM) is a hockey franchise
management and simulation game. It features a
highly realistic in-game play-by-play simulation
engine, simulates full regular seasons and
playoffs, has completely customizable gameplay
(edit teams, players, settings), and much more.
Currently, the game focuses on the Swiss Leagues,
but there are plans for an NHL add-on pack in the
very near future.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
IHM is now able to support multiple match engines
and match presentations. The sponsoring and
infrastructure management was heavily improved.
New GUIs are included for arena improvement
(comfort, condition, etc.) and sponsoring
negotiations.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Check Website is a performance monitoring and
uptime notification tool. It will check if a
Website is up, and check the response time of the
site. The administrator can then choose to receive
an email notification if the site is down, or if
the site response time is too slow. All results
are also written to a daily log file.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release cleans up a few spelling errors found
in the code.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Redet is a tool for developing and executing regular expressions using any of more than 40 search programs, editors, and programming languages, intended both for developing regular expressions for use elsewhere and as a search tool in its own right. For each program in each locale, a palette showing the available constructs is provided. The properties of each program are determined by runtime tests, which guarantees that they will be correct for the program version and locale. Additional features include persistent history, extensive help, a variety of character entry tools, and the ability to change locale while running. Redet is highly configurable and fully supports Unicode.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release fixes a bug that triggers an error on
startup on machines on which PHP is available
(whether or not you actually use it).


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

phptelemeter processes Web pages for the Web-based "quota" monitor for
the Belgian ISP Telenet. These pages contain both the actual status
(which is refreshed every half hour) and the historical use for the
current period. The meter is reset on the date of invoice.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
phptelemeter now has proxy support, and can
(optionally) check if a new version is available
upstream and notify you of it. This version also
contains some small bugfixes.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

MySQL is a widely used and fast SQL database
server. It is a client/server implementation that
consists of a server daemon (mysqld) and many
different client programs/libraries.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This is a bugfix release for the recent production
version.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Scmbug is a system that integrates software configuration management (SCM) with bug-tracking. It aims to be a universal tool that will glue any source code version control system (such as CVS, Subversion, and Arch) with any bug-tracking system (such as Bugzilla and Mantis).

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Support was added for translating SCM to
bug-tracking usernames using regular expressions.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

NeoOffice is a project that is developing a native Mac OS X port of OpenOffice.org with an Aqua look-and-feel. NeoOffice is under active development and is stable enough for daily use (NeoOffice/C is no longer under development). It provides the foundation upon which the user interface can be redesigned to adhere to the conventions of the Aqua Human Interface Guidelines.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This patch includes fixes for a rare case of
hanging when quitting, a startup crash when the
main volume is a UFS file system, and a problem
where images might be stripped from a document
when saving when Java memory is low. This patch
also fixes an issue where some drop-down menus
would appear behind their parent windows.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Engineered from the ground-up with specific regard
to security, EnGarde Secure Linux incorporates
intrusion alert capabilities, a complete suite of
e- business applications using AllCommerce,
improved authentication and access control, strong
cryptography, and complete SSL secure Web-based
administration capabilities. EnGarde protects
against many forms of attack, not just a
particular form of vulnerability. It is also not
just a repackaged version of another distribution
that claims to be secure. EnGarde is a collection
of best-of-breed applications from many sources
tuned to provide exactly what is necessary to
maintain a secure Internet presence. Featuring the
Linux Intrusion Detection System integrated into
its design, as well as Web-manageable Tripwire,
tools from many Open Source security projects
including Openwall, snort network intrusion
detection system, and extensive host security
improvements, EnGarde Secure Linux strives to be
the most secure, yet functional, Linux
distribution to date.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
New features include a package management
interface for the Guardian Digital WebTool,
Spanish language translation, WebTool modules for
DHCP and UPS services, latest stable versions of
MySQL, iptables, mrtg, nmap, openssh, postgresql,
and others.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Pak transfers multiple, possibly very big, regular files between possibly different hosts you have shell access to. It transmits segment IDs instead of file names and uses on-the-fly Blowfish-CBC encryption while being absolutely restartable with practically no loss of data already transmitted. Encrypted pak streams can be stored in intermediary regular files on untrusted hosts. Several stored pak streams, even truncated ones, can be merged for re-piping without decryption. Integrity is never checked. File offsets of any magnitude are supported via recompilation (the default width is 64 bits). Either UNIX 95 or UNIX 98 conformance is required and sufficient.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
The version numbering has been sanitized. The
package now compiles on Cygwin (1.5.19-4). The
source has been cleaned up a tiny bit with respect
to reserved identifiers.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

CMSmod is a content management framework for PHP
developers. It is designed to allow a dynamic Web page to be set up in 10 easy lines of code. It includes (optional) user and imaging systems.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release includes a large amount of
documentation in the README. Minor changes and
bugfixes were also made.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

Lunar-Linux is a source-based Linux distribution
with a unique package management system that
builds each software package or module for the
machine it is being installed on. Although a
complete installation can take some time, it tends
to be quite fast once installed.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This release has several feature enhancements over
rc1 and rc2. The most noticeable is the Linux
software RAID tool that allows you to install
Lunar on software RAID easily. Precompiled SELINUX
enhanced kernels can now be installed, and the
server-targeted kernels should have better I/O
performance. The installer now uses normal console
logins and fully enabled shells.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

quilt is a tool for managing a series of patches
by keeping track of the changes each patch makes.
Patches can be applied, un-applied, refreshed,
etc. gquilt is a PyGTK GUI wrapper for quilt.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
Changes which were made to quilt's interface in
version 0.43 broke gquilt. This patch fixes that
breakage. It should still work with older versions
of quilt.


Source: Freshmeat Daily News

phpAlbum.net is an easy to install and run photo
album and gallery script. It doesn't require a
database and features automatic installation on an
FTP server with just a few clicks. It generates
thumbnails and resized photos and supports
password directory protection, access logs, short
and longer description of directories and photos,
and an admin section for creating new directories,
uploading photos, and deleting them. HTML layout
is separated from the functional code, and two
themes are available.

License: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Changes:
This version fixes bugs related to downloading of
files over phpAlbum.net. Naming of files was wrong
with IE.



previous    Software: OpenSource    next


Source: SourceForge New Releases

Firmware 2.2-1 Released


Source: SourceForge Project News

Endian Firewall is a "turn-key" linux security that turns every system into a full featured security appliance. The software has been designed with "usability in mind" and is very easy to install, use and mange, without loosing its flexibility.

Endian Firewall 1.1rc8 is a bugfix release but also adds some additional functionality to your beloved firewalls!

This is the last development release, so stay tuned for Endian Firewall 2 that will hit the road in the end of February!

This release is downloadable from:
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=132104



previous    Web Services    next


Source: O'Reilly Network Weblogs: Windows

One of the popular myths concerning Linux is that it can bring new life to old PCs that the latest version of Windows can't run on



previous    Weblogs    next


Source: All Things Distributed

Modeling systems has always been part of the toolkit of the computer
scientist. We often try to bring systems back to simple queuing models to
understand throughput and latency questions, and then use those results to predict
resource usage and drive allocation. Can one actually be confident that
such a simple model can accurately reflect reality? With the increased complexity
of distributed systems based on a large scale autonomous services model these
techniques become a lot less reliable.

I would like to use modeling techniques to focus on more than just achieving
simple SLAs. I want to understand the cost impact of using certain algorithms in
combination with specific node and network configurations, especially under
certain failure scenarios. I would use such an economic model during the design
phase of a service or application, to evaluate different algorithms for
achieving consistency and availability based on their cost impact. For example,
if a service needs to achieve a state persistence that can survive a complete
datacenter outage and the service needs to be accessed by clients in ten
datacenters with a certain SLA, there is a range of algorithmic and
configuration choices to be made.

In these situations, systems design has often focused on trying to achieve
the performance and availability SLAs first, which in itself is difficult
enough.  The economics of the different algorithm and configuration choices are
often considered to be of secondary importance. However, when you are
determining the cost of a system, you have to consider the choice of the size
of replication units in combination with the density of the storage nodes,
the reliability of the storage system, the step-function cost of
inter-datacenter networking, the location and reliability of data caches. This
results in a base cost plus a cost per storage operation that is different in a
quorum-based system when compared to a probabilistic system. This holds especially
true when you include in this modeling the cost of recovering from a cache
node, storage node or datacenter failure.

Many have assumed that throwing a lot of cheap hardware at the problem is
the answer to many of these questions, but our experience is that when taking
complex multi-datacenter configurations into account, the answers are less
obvious. As we build new services we need better models that can handle these
very complex, multi-variant scenarios to make sure we build the right services
at the right cost. At Amazon we are fortunate to have a lot of data that will
allow us to make progress on these questions.

I have positions open for experienced engineers/scientists who want to work
on the problems of modeling complex distributed systems with me. To qualify for
these jobs these are some of the things that I will look for:

You have a very solid understanding of distributed systems and
networking

You know how to do data-driven analysis and truly understand
statistics

You understand large scale monitoring and data collection
architectures

You are familiar with the current state of the art in distributed systems modeling

You are an experienced engineer with a track record of building
complex systems

If you are not that experienced, you may have an advanced degree
with a proven expertise in modeling complex distributed systems and have demonstrated
involvement with large software projects (e.g. open-source).

You have a proven ability to effectively communicate the results
of data analysis and modeling

You live in or are willing to relocate to the greater Seattle area

If you are interested in this work and feel that you are qualified, send me
an email with your resume.


Source: The Doc Searls Weblog

A few years ago, when I was covering the death of unregulated Internet radio in Linux Journal, one of the negotiators on the losing side of the battle with the RIAA told me about a dialog with the winning side that went something like this:Internet Radio guy: We're on the same side here. We promote artists and sell records. Our station plays deep cuts from the industry's catalog. We put lists of every artist and song we play up on the Web with links to online stores where listeners can buy the CD. We help fight piracy and increase record sales. Why are you trying to kill us?RIAA guy: You don't understand. We're in the blockbuster business. We don't care about the rest of the catalog. We pay a lot to make and promote blockbuster artists. We have a system for that. You're not in it.This dialog comes to mind when I read Chris Anderson's Death of the Blockbuster, Part IV. Chris is fresh back from a star-filled Hollywood event where he treated honchos in The Industry to a prophesy of death for the blockbuster business model. Cory Doctorow summarizes:According to Chris's research, the proportion of Hollywood's money coming from blockbusters is falling, while the cost of making blockbusters is up, and the number of people going to blockbusters is falling. It doesn't take a psychic to see that this means trouble for Hollywood, which has been mainlining $200MM box-office turds for half a decade now.Here's the larger movement: Independence from closed distribution systems. It's happening in radio (streaming, podcasting, satellite), in TV (big screens with vestigial tuners, ready for unbundled video of all kinds) and now in movies (same as TV).It's happening not just with independent film production, but with amateur production, thanks to the availability of affordable high-def (1920x1080) camcorders and editing on PCs. The results will coincidentally be the best source of high-def content on screens with the same resolution that will start dropping below $1000 at Costco later this year. (Most big screens you see in stores now are 1280 x 720 — which is, by its broad definition, "HD"; but not as "H" as the "D" will soon become.)Expect home screen resolution progress to plateau for at least a year or two — and possibly longer — at 1920 x 1080 (the best of which is "1080p") because that's the top resolution defined by the HDTV standard, and it's close enough to movie quality to satisfy the masses. (There's an excellent entry on screen resolutions in Wikipedia.)As I said in Rebuilding TV, One Producer at a Time, you're not going to get your best-looking "content" from the usual sources: cable and satellite. They don't have the bandwidth, because they're busy wedging too many simultaneous signals into one pipe, and compressing everything to a quality that looks like moving .jpegs saved at "lowest". HDTV from local over-the-air stations might look better than what you get from cable and satellite; but how many of us will bother to put up an outside antenna and get an HDTV tuner?By the way, the FCC is forcing all TV stations to move to new channels and broadcast only digital signals by 2009. Given the natural efficiencies of stored and viewed video, this may be a death sentence for TV as we knew it for the last fifty years. Especially when you consider the huge inefficiencies that have always plagued the advertising that pays for most of it.See, just as huge amounts of money are wasted on crap blockbuster movies, huge amounts of money are wasted on big-budget advertising on big-budget TV that's even crappier than the movies. The big difference is that Hollywood studios at least know how many people sit still and pay attention in theaters. Advertisers have only a vague idea how many people pay attention to their :30 and :60 second TV spots. (Oh, they know about "impressions" and "exposures", which are vastly worthless.) Worse, they've known the awful truth from the beginning: most of us avoid, or barely endure, most TV advertising. In other words, its woefully inefficient.So, as content distribution itself becomes more efficient, and routed from more and more independent producers to more and more independent consumers, and the bulk of those producers and consumers are independent of the old broadcast distribution system, advertisers will, inevitably, bail.Sure, some will try to weasel their ways onto home flat screens, iPods and cell phones; but the intelligent ones will spend their marketing money on whatever comes after advertising. That new marketing system will, inevitably, respect the native, free-born independence of producers and consumers that are not captive to any of the old systems.Then the human batteries that power The Matrix will finally be free.


Source: The Doc Searls Weblog

A few years ago, when I was covering the death of unregulated Internet radio in Linux Journal, one of the negotiators on the losing side of the battle with the RIAA told me about a dialog with the winning side that went something like this:Internet Radio guy: We're on the same side here. We promote artists and sell records. Our station plays deep cuts from the industry's catalog. We put lists of every artist and song we play up on the Web with links to online stores where listeners can buy the CD. We help fight piracy and increase record sales. Why are you trying to kill us?RIAA guy: You don't understand. We're in the blockbuster business. We don't care about the rest of the catalog. We pay a lot to make and promote blockbuster artists. We have a system for that. You're not in it.This dialog comes to mind when I read Chris Anderson's Death of the Blockbuster, Part IV. Chris is fresh back from a star-filled Hollywood event where he treated honchos in The Industry to a prophesy of death for the blockbuster business model.


Source: O'Reilly Network Weblogs: Open Source

NoUnit is an open-source code coverage tool that shows you the effectiveness of your JUnit tests. After a suitable pause , we're thinking of starting work on the next version. What do you think should be included?



Updated: Wed Jun 28 00:07:45 2006


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