Ubuntu 9.10 launch - 29 October.
Today Canonical announces the upcoming release of Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop and Server Edition, the latest version of the popular Linux desktop distribution. Ubuntu 9.10 will be available for free download on Thursday 29 October. more... and 5 years later, 5 ways that Ubuntu has made Linux more human and Mark Shuttleworth: 10 Thoughts On Ubuntu 9.10.

Ars takes a first look under the hood of Fedora 12.
This week the Fedora community announced the availability of the Fedora 12 beta. We took a look under the hood and explored some of the important technical features, including significant improvements to virtualization and netbook support. more...

OpenSUSE 11.2 the Perfect KDE Distribution.
While openSUSE community are preparing to release openSUSE 11.2 in the next month, I decided to discover what's new in openSUSE 11.2. In short, it is fast, stable and beautiful. But the most exciting decision is putting KDE as default desktop environment. OpenSUSE 11.2 is the best KDE distribution (IMHO). more...

Red Hat investing in EnterpriseDB.
Linux leader Red Hat (NYSE:RHT) is investing in open source database vendor EnterpriseDB, the official announcement is set for release on Tuesday October 27th. The official press release does not disclose the exact amount that Red Hat is investing, but it is part of a $19M series C round of funding. EnterpriseDB is one of the leading commercial backers behind the PostgreSQL(also known as Postgres) database. more...

Firefox for iPhone and Android Phones.
John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, told technology blogger Om Malik that they will release an application for the iPhone a few weeks from now and that it will be "really exciting". No further details have been said yet so we are left guessing. more...

Barnes & Noble Unveils Kindle-Killing, Dual-Screen ‘Nook’ E-Reader.
If you just ordered a Kindle, stop reading now or you’re in for a giant dose of buyer’s remorse. Barnes and Noble unveiled a new e-book reader called ‘Nook’, and it is hot, both inside and out. Nook looks a lot like Amazon’s white plastic e-book reader, only instead of the chiclet-keyboard there is a color multitouch screen, to be used as a keyboard or to browse books, cover-flow style. The machine runs Google’s Android OS and it will have wireless capability from AT&T. more... and Android e-reader boasts dual netbook-like displays.

Atom-powered PC targets in-vehicle signage.
Rave Computer announced an Atom-powered vehicle computer with GPS, hard disk and CompactFlash storage, and a PCI-104 expansion slot. The RCV 6100 supports DVI-D, VGA, and LVDS displays, has two Mini PCIe sockets, and features optional GSM or WCDMA cellular modules, more...

Summary of expected upcoming releases.
2009-10-29: Ubuntu 9.10.
2009-11-03: Mandriva Linux 2010.
2009-11-12: openSUSE 11.2.
2009-11-17: Fedora 12.
2009-11-XX: FreeBSD 8.0.
2009-12-26: Sabayon Linux 5.

Misc.
OSI and White House agree on open source benefits, platforms.
Linux hits user nerve.
Qualcomm launches open source subsidiary.
Japan Linux Symposium.
FlightGear- Opensource flight simulator.
Scid ("Shane's Chess Information Database"), a chess database application for Windows, Linux and Mac OS.
What is Musix GNU+Linux?

How To Tips.

Dell's Android phone confirmed.
Dell has confirmed that its Android phone will launch in the U.S. next year, says eWEEK. In other Android news, Samsung is prepping a "Galaxy Lite i5700" for Europe, a music-oriented phone is coming from INQ, Spotify, and Telia, and Verizon is spinning a MiFi-enabled phone, say various reports. more...

Barnes and Noble Reader uses GNOME.
Above a picture of the new IREX DR800 which the e-reader that Barnes and Noble will bring to the market soon. The device is based on the more professional IREX DR1000 which runs Linux + a host of GNOME technologies more...

SpringSource Delivers Spring 3.0, Focused on Web Apps.
SpringSource (which, it's easy to forget, is now a division of VMware), introduced Spring 3.0 today, a major new version of the company’s Java development framework. more...

Open-Xchange, SugarCRM Collaborate to Challenge Microsoft.
Two prominent open source applications providers — Open-Xchange and SugarCRM — are partnering to integrate their collaboration and customer relationship management software. more...

Five Web Operating Systems You Can Take for a Spin.
Web operating systems (OSs) are basically websites that replicate the desktop environment of modern OSs, all inside a Web browser. They are installed onto Web servers and live on the Internet, thus we can access our virtual desktop from anywhere that's connected to the net. You might hear these Web OSs referred to as "webtops" or "cloud" computers as well. more...

Banshee 1.5.1.
After another 4.5 months development, including contributions from 51 people, we have released Banshee 1.5.1! more... and Banshee.

Misc.
Install DD-WRT On a Linux PC.
5 Ways to be a Great Linux Server Admin.
Bombono DVD Open Source Authoring Software.
Kdenlive Meets Studio Dave.
Palm Pre GSM source code now available.

How To Tips.

Gentoo: Ten Years Emerge.
Gentoo, the most popular source based distribution, has turned ten years old. What benefits does a such a system provide over its binary distros? As Linux becomes more and more popular, is there still a place for source based distros? more...

Sun releases Solaris 10 10/09.
Sun Microsystems has announced the availability of the 10/09 update for its Solaris 10 operating system (OS). The latest release includes a number of bug fixes, feature updates and expanded support for new processors. more...

Linux-based home NAS boasts 5-18 Watt power consumption.
Iomega announced a Linux-based, dual-drive networked attached storage (NAS) appliance for the home-business and consumer market. The Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 is available in 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities, and offers RAID 1 support, 5-18 Watt power consumption, and a DLNA/UPnP media server. more...

Hulu Desktop Brings Remote-Controlled Streaming to Linux.
Linux: Hulu has taken their designed-for-widescreen, remote-friendly Desktop viewer and released it for Linux-powered systems, giving anyone with an open-source media center or Linux laptop an easier way to watch streaming video clips and movies on their much bigger screen. more... and Hulu Desktop Comes to Linux.

Arora Is an Open-Source Browser with Out-of-the-Box Ad Blocking.
Windows/Mac/Linux: Arora is a free, cross-platform web browser built on WebKit (the engine that powers Safari and Chrome) that we've mentioned once before, but its latest release includes some interesting new features by default, including built-in support for ad blocking. more...

T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger data loss is bad for the cloud.
T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger have told Sidekick users who have been suffering for a data outage this week that their data is gone for good. So far, tech punditry's read on this massive, high-profile data loss is that it's a black eye for "the cloud." For once, the consensus is spot-on. more...

q4wine 0.113 has been released.
Finally, after many months of development, testing and bugfixing a new version of q4wine has been released. q4wine is a wine configuration and management utility written in QT. more...

eyeOS.
eyeOS is an open source web desktop following the cloud computing concept that leverages collaboration and communication among users. It is mainly written in PHP, XML, and JavaScript. It acts as a platform for web applications written using the eyeOS Toolkit. It includes a Desktop environment with 67 applications and system utilities. It is accessible by portable devices via its mobile front end. more... and web site.

Misc.
Oracle to 'out-Sun' Sun on hardware and software.
Kernel Log - Improved USB 3. 0 support, X.org drivers to move back into X Server.
Nokia N900 operating system gets official Qt port.
Nanny Linux: Parental Controls on Little Tuxes.
Moblin v2.0 ships, appears on Dell netbook.
ASUS publishes Eee PC Linux source code.
Microsoft reveals time-based licensing model.

How To Tips.

Google Lets You Custom-Print Millions of Public Domain Books.
Any one of the more than 2 million books old enough to fall out of copyright into the public domain. Over the last seven years, Google has scanned millions of dusty tomes from deep in the stacks of the nation’s leading university libraries and turned them into searchable documents available anywhere in the world through its search box. more...

HP Sneaks Linux Onto New Laptops.
HP's new laptop will run Splashtop Linux, but the company seems to be having trouble admitting that. Except for Dell, the major PC vendors are reluctant to admit they actually sell and support Linux. For instance, HP, supports Linux quite well on its servers, but is very reluctant about supporting it on its desktops. Or, it seems they have trouble even admitting that they're now shipping DeviceVM's instant-on Splashtop Linux on their new notebook lines. more... and Hewlett Packard’s Linux Systems.

Linux-based picture frame adds Internet radio, widgets, multimedia.
HP announced an ARM-based digital picture frame enhanced with multimedia capabilities, Internet radio, and widget-based clients for services such as Facebook and Pandora. The HP DreamScreen provides a 10- or 13-inch display with 800 x 480 resolution, 2GB of RAM, WiFi, Ethernet, and dual card readers more...

Cisco Routers Powered By Linux.
At the heart of many Cisco enterprise routers is its IOS operating system. When it comes to small business, however, Cisco isn't pushing IOS, which it developed itself -- instead, the networking giant is new small business router is powered by Linux. more... and Cisco Pursues Small Business With Linux Routers.

Seagate Unveils Filesharing Hardware For The Home.
The FreeAgent DockStar works with its FreeAgent external hard drive and other USB-connected storage devices. It plugs into a router and makes all the content in connected drives available to all computers on the home network. In addition, the DockStar interface also makes all content on the network accessible through any computer with a Web browser and Internet access. more...

Using mobile phone as remote for Linux media players is fun!
Remuco is a duplex remote control system for Linux media players and mobile devices equipped with Bluetooth or WiFi. To put it simple you could actually use your mobile phone with bluetooth or Wifi as a remote control for linux media players like Amarok, Banshee, Totem, VLC and more. more...

Opera browser bids for America.
The founder of Opera has said despite its 100m worldwide users, they have a big job ahead conquering America. In the US, the latest figures by Net Applications showed Opera is 5th in the market with a 2% share behind Microsoft, Apple, Google and Firefox. more...

Undead COBOL celebrates (another) 50th birthday.
In May 1959, during a meeting at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., the US Department of Defense organized a committee charged with developing a "short range" approach to a common business computing language. And on September 18th of that year, the new Short Range Committee coined the name COBOL, short for Common Business-Oriented Language. more...

Ubuntu Artwork team starts delivering - Four cool themes and two icon sets to start with!
Ubuntu Artwork team finally starts delivering. Although Ubuntu have been the most popular distro for a pretty long time now, it really need to put in a lot of work on enhancing look and feel. more...

My preference for cross-platform applications leads me to Scribus for desktop publishing.
While I've known about the free, open-source desktop publishing application Scribus, until I happened across this article today I didn't know that Scribus is a cross-platform program that runs not just in Linux/Unix but also on computers using the Macintosh OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems. more...

Misc.
KOffice to be Used in Next Generation Smart Phone.
Ubuntu 10.04 The Lucid Lynx. Shuttleworth says it won't stink.
GIMP 2.8 and its (huge) improvements to the User Interface!
Sugar on a Stick and wiki.
Gnome 3 – A Quick Visual Tour.
The path to GNOME 3.0.

How To Tips.

Ohio Linux Fest [September 25-27] Back to the Future of Linux!
Registration has been lighter than past years please forward this release to friends in the Ohio and surrounding areas. Columbus, Ohio The seventh annual Ohio LinuxFest will be on September 25-26, 2009 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, in downtown Columbus, Ohio. more...

The 2.6.31 kernel is out.
Linus has released the 2.6.31 kernel. A few of the major features in 2.6.31 include performance counter support, the "fsnotify" notification infrastructure, kernel mode setting for ATI Radeon chipsets, the kmemleak tool, char drivers in user space support, USB 3 support, and much more. As always, see the KernelNewbies 2.6.31 page for a much more exhaustive list. more...

Quick Previews In Gnome & Ubuntu With Gloobus.
Gloobus is an extension of Gnome designed to enable a full screen preview of any kind of file. Gloobus currently supports the following files: TXT , PDF, JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, PSD, MP3, OGG, MPG, WMV, XCF. Finally I can preview PSD and XCF files. more...

IBM punts free enterprise language tools.
IBM has begun offering a free version of its Enterprise Generation Language (EGL) tools, so developers can build dynamic web applications without getting their hands dirty using HTML or JavaScript. more...

Texas Judge Bans Microsoft From Selling Word in the U.S.
Microsoft also faces more damages over willful infringement Microsoft's Office 2003 and 2007 wove XML into Word, with the introduction of .docx, otherwise known as Office Open XML, as the format of choice. The new format brought an open standard and better storage to the application. Unfortunately, it also turned into one of the company's biggest legal headaches. more...

Dell Looks to Linux to Expand Netbook Presence.
In an effort to expand its Linux offerings, Dell is researching new netbook-type devices and will soon offer netbook Linux OS upgrades, a company official said on Wednesday. more...

MonoTouch 1.0 goes live.
MonoTouch is a commercial product based on Mono. The MonoTouch API is documented on the Mono site. The MonoTouch API is a combination of the core of .NET 3.5 and the iPhone APIs. We have created some tutorials on how to use MonoTouch and you can read the design documentation on the MonoTouch framework. more...

Open Source Photo Processing Comes of Age.
People who enjoy digital photography as a creative outlet are very familiar with software products from companies like Adobe, Corel, ACD Systems, Bibble Labs, Light Crafts, and even Google. Most of them are also likely familiar with what until recently was the premier open source photo editor, the Gimp. more...

Apple Open Sources Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch.
Apple has decided to open the code behind Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch feature. "The user-space implementation of the Grand Central Dispatch services API, called libdispatch, has been delivered as its own open source project, more... and Apple open source Grand Central.

Oracle breaks silence on Sun plans.
Oracle Corp. ended its silence Thursday on its post-merger plans for Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Unix systems in an advertisement aimed at Sun customers to keep them from leaving the Sparc and Solaris platforms. more... and Oracle-Sun Plans Missing MySQL.

Microsoft launches open source foundation.
Microsoft has launched the open source CodePlex Foundation. "The goals of the CodePlex Foundation are spelled out on the website as enabling the "exchange of code and understanding among software companies and open source communities," as well as "increasing participation in open source community projects." more... and The CodePlex Foundation: First Impressions.

Misc.
Some pics from the new GNOME Activity Journal.
ClearOS (formerly ClarkConnect) 5.1 announced.
Chess Tactics Server.
Project Euler is a series of challenging mathematical/computer programming problems.
Facebook releases the "Tornado" web server.
Boxee Will Blow You Away.

How To Tips.

Opera enhances its web browser.
Norway-based Opera Software has unveiled the final version of its browser Opera 10, with a new compression technology and a sleek interface. It comes in 43 languages and works on Windows, Mac and Linux platforms. more...

Open Invention Network purchases former Microsoft patents.
According to a report published by the Wall Street Journal, the Open Invention Network (OIN) has announced plans to purchase 22 former Microsoft patents. The consortium consists of numerous major software and hardware firms, including a number of Linux distributors; it is currently systematically setting up a portfolio of patents to protect the Linux ecosystem from charges of patent violation. more... and Microsoft and A Patent Checkmate of My Dreams.

DOJ Gives SUN The GO.
If you thought the sale saga of Sun Microsystems ended in April, Thursday's news from Washington may have come as a surprise. Months after the ink dried on the deal between Sun and database heavyweight Oracle, the U.S. Department of Justice has finally gotten around to giving its blessing. more... and EU investigates Oracle's planned acquisition of Sun and EU fears Oracle will kill MySQL, but is that even possible?

Judge overturns 2007 Unix copyright decision.
A federal appeals court Monday overturned a 2007 decision that Novell owns the Unix code, and the ruling now clears the way for SCO to pursue a $1 billion copyright infringement case against IBM. In a 54-page decision, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said it was reversing the 2007 summary judgment decision by Judge Dale Kimball of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, which found that Novell was the owner of Unix and UnixWare copyrights. more...

Slackware Release Announcement.
Yes it's that time again! After many months of development and careful testing, we are proud to announce the release of Slackware version 13.0! more...

Cracked in 60 Seconds: WPA Falls.
It's been known for years that the Wired Equivalent Privacy or WEP protocol is easily broken, and that to be secure, wireless networks should use the more powerful protocol called Wi-Fi Protected Access, or WPA. more...

MonoDevelop 2.2 Beta 1: We go cross platform.
MonoDevelop goes cross platform. With this release MonoDevelop leaves its cozy Linux nest and embarks on a wild adventure into the hearth of MacOS and Windows. The MonoDevelop team made this one of their major goals for this release: to turn our loved IDE into a cross platform IDE. more...

Skype Dials New Owner… And Open Source.
Now that eBay has sold most of Skype to private investors, some pundits may wonder what markets Skype should tackle next. Actually, the answer has already emerged — and it involves Skype plugging into Asterisk, the open source IP PBX. Here’s the scoop and the implications for solutions providers. more... and Skype 2.1 Beta Brings New Features To Linux.

Handbrake - Converting Videos For Mobile Devices.
HandBrake is a free, open-source, GPL-licensed, multi-platform, multi-threaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. I have used Handbrake to convert several types of video files to work on my various gadgets including the g1 mobile phone. more...

Durian is Coming: Blender's Third Open Movie Project.
Blender third open movie project, code-named “Durian” is ramping up to production, and time is running out for the pre-sale campaign if you want to get your spot in the credits. This time the project is focusing on an adolescent audience with an epic-fantasy setting and a female protagonist. more...

Misc.
Parallels retools, renames Windows/Linux virtualization app.
Dell Ships Ubuntu 9.04 Systems Ahead of Windows 7 Launch.
Drizzle for Christmas - year-end-prediction for MySQL fork.
40 years of Unix.
Bash Script tutorials.
Learn Linux, 101: The Linux command line.
RHEL 5.4 released.

How To Tips.

Summer Schedule.
We meet each first Thursday on the month at 7 p.m. at Dooley's Pub,
We are NOT meeting this week. Next meeting is 03-SEP-09.

VMware buying SpringSource for $420 million.
Business software maker VMware Inc has agreed to buy privately held SpringSource for $420 million, its biggest-ever acquisition, to beef up a portfolio of programs that help companies run data centers. more... and VMware buys SpringSource for US$420M and VMware: $420 Million SpringSource Deal Pressures Red Hat.

Ohio LinuxFest 2009 Sept 25-26.
It’s only a little more than a month from now, the seventh Ohio LinuxFest. This year we will be celebrating 40 years of Unix! If you haven’t heard, we are very excited and proud to have Doug McIlroy give a key note address this year. Doug was the head of research department at Bell Laboratories where Unix was invented and is credited for the inventing Unix pipes as well as writing many of the Unix tools we still use in some form today. more...

You Deleted Your Cookies? Think Again.
Wired looks at the use of Flash cookies implemented by Adobe's browser plugin. "Several services even use the surreptitious data storage to reinstate traditional cookies that a user deleted, which is called ‘re-spawning’ in homage to video games where zombies come back to life even after being 'killed,' more...

Red Hat celebrates its 10-year IPO anniversary.
Ten years ago today, on August 11, 1999, Red Hat saw its shares triple in an initial public offering that ushered in a new era of commercial open-source prosperity. Iain Gray, then a Sun employee and now Red Hat's vice president of Global Support, writes nostalgically: "I remember sitting in the Sun office in UK watching the stock skyrocket, thinking the world had gone mad." more...

One billion Firefoxes.
Let me give you an Internet history lesson. Five-years ago, unless you were one of die-hard Netscape Navigator users or a handful of Opera users, your Web browser choices were Internet Explorer or... ah... Internet Explorer. more... and Firefox 3.6 Alpha 1 Blows Version 3.5 Out Of The Water.

Microsoft acknowledges competition from Canonical and Red Hat.
Microsoft's latest 10K filing with the SEC sees the company officially acknowledging that it faces competition from Linux vendors on the client side of its business, namely desktop Windows. Citing Canonical and Red Hat as "competing commercial software products", alongside Apple's products, Microsoft acknowledges that partners such as Hewlett-Packard and Intel have been "actively working with alternative Linux-based operating systems" more... and Ballmer: We're cheaper than Apple! (but not Linux).

XML Patent for Microsoft.
The core of US Patent 7,571,169 which Microsoft was granted on August 4th refers to – "A word-processing document stored in a single XML file that may be manipulated by applications that understand XML". more... and Patent fun: Microsoft Word sales banned in the US.

Apache updates to 2.2.13 for security.
A new Apache HTTP server release is out, fixing at least 4 security issues in the popular open source web server. None of the fixed security issues look like show stoppers to me. more...

Misc.
F-Spot 0.6.0 is out!
Apple: iPhone jailbreaking could knock out transmission towers.
Perl6 Slated for Release by Spring 2010.
Review Update: Moblin 2.0 keeps getting better.
EFF on the RealDVD decision.
FreePBX 3.0 Debuts.

How To Tips.

KDE 4.3.0 Released.
The KDE Community has announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.3 "Caizen". "KDE 4.3 continues to refine the unique features brought in previous releases while bringing new innovations. With the 4.2 release aimed at the majority of end users, KDE 4.3 offers a more stable and complete product for the home and small office." more... and A first look at KDE 4.3.

CentOS back from brink of death.
CentOS is alive. Two days after a core group of developers posted an open letter to primary admin Lance Davis, threatening to fork the open source OS if he didn't discuss his apparent disappearance from the project, Davis has answered their call - and he seems to have quelled their complaints. more... and Progress at CentOS and Weirdness at CentOS.

Sony open sources digital effects software.
Film effects specialist Sony Pictures Imageworks has released five digital image-manipulation software tools under open source licenses. While Imageworks has released other open source software in the past, the release of five tools at once brings its involvement in open source to a new level, the company said on Monday, in an announcement marking the beginning of the Siggraph computer graphics trade show in New Orleans. more...

BIND 9 denial of service being actively exploited.
Internet Systems Consortium, the developers of the BIND DNS server, is reporting a denial of service vulnerability that is being actively exploited. "Receipt of a specially-crafted dynamic update message to a zone for which the server is the master may cause BIND 9 servers to exit. Testing indicates that the attack packet has to be formulated against a zone for which that machine is a master. more...

A first look at Eclipse 4.
As is already indicated by version 0.9, which has just been released, Eclipse 4 will incorporate several familiar web technologies and put them to new uses. The Eclipse development environment has become a very popular open source project. more...

Skype shutdown: where are free software and free protocols?
The Skype copyright issue: The problem is that when eBay bought Skype, they were in too much of a hurry to read the fine print. Skype’s original owners retained the copyright for some crucial portion of Skype, specifically the peer-to-peer side of it — the same code which is probably responsible of making sure that user A routes packets for user B without his or her knowledge of authorisation. more...

Company Receives Patent for Podcasting.
VoloMedia, a podcast analytics, advertising, and distribution company, just received a patent for "providing episodic media," including podcasts. According to the company, which filed for the patent in November 2003, U.S. Patent 7,568,213 covers all episodic media downloads, not just the RSS-dependent downloads that power today's podcasts. more...

Sweet Home 3D: Open Source, Cross Platform Design Application.
Though Sweet Home 3D tops Google's SketchUp in a number of areas, it's still not much help for someone with no design sense. more...

Misc.
Mono coming to the iPhone.
Open Invention Network starts buying patents
5 Excellent Downloadable eBooks To Teach Yourself Linux.
The grumpy editor's e-book reader.
Lucidor 0.6 E-Book Reader Can Handle Web Feeds.
myTouch 3G: Improved Droid Still Has Some Squeaky Joints.
The Book vs. The Kindle.

How To Tips.

Microsoft and Yahoo seal web deal.
Yahoo and Microsoft have announced a long-rumoured internet search deal that will help the two companies take on chief rival Google. Microsoft's Bing search engine will power the Yahoo website and Yahoo will in turn become the advertising sales team for Microsoft's online offering. more... and Do You Bing? Yahooers May Soon Search With Microsoft.

Open-source firmware vuln exposes wireless routers.
The remote root vulnerability affects the most recent version of DD-WRT, a piece of firmware many router users install to give their device capabilities not available by default. The bug allows unauthenticated users to remotely gain root access simply by luring someone on the local network to a malicious website. more...

Life is Better With a Dropbox.
Have you ever gone somewhere and needed some files, only to find that you forgot your flash drive? Well, that can all change with a simple solution: Dropbox. As long as you have a connection to the Internet, your files can be with you wherever you go. Using Windows? No problem. Using a Mac? No problem. Using Linux? Of course, no problem. And soon there will be an application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Prices are quite reasonable, and they even offer you a free 2GB account that never expires. more...

Google tosses Android a Donut.
Three months after Google released an "early look" at version 1.5 of its Android mobile operating system, a newer version has made its way into the eager hands of developers. Dubbed Donut, will include system-wide search that can also be accessed by handwriting gestures, text-to-speech, and an API that supports integration with Google Voice Search. MobileCrunch also uncovered screenshots that appear to indicate CDMA and VPN support. more... and Google Android "Donut" will not include multi-touch.

Microsoft Linux Move Puts Pressure on Vmware.
Microsoft's historic embrace of Linux technology could have wide-reaching impacts on the virtualization market and Microsoft's rival VMware. By allowing greater ability to run Linux on the Hyper-V virtualization platform, Microsoft is making a compelling case that it could be the virtualization vendor of choice for consolidation of Windows and Linux applications more... and Microsoft responds to GPL violations and Microsoft and Vyatta rebut reports of GPL violation.

Novell announces SUSE Appliance Program.
Novell has announced the launch of the SUSE Appliance Program for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). With the Appliance Program, ISVs can can create software appliances, such as an email server for a small office, using SUSE Linux Enterprise or openSUSE and SUSE Studio, test their appliances and get them to the market. more...

Get started with HomeBank.
With HomeBank you can automate recurring transactions, set reminders for future transactions, assess your future account balance so you can plan your spending sprees and manage your expenses expertly. You see, we work hard for our pay cheques - well, some of us work harder than others - and we spend money on groceries, utilities and, ahem, fun Fridays. more...

Build A Real Time Audio Studio.
Linux is a fantastic platform for audio production. Find out how to build the perfect production environment. Although it might not seem like it, properly dealing with audio requires an intricately tuned PC. The main issue is audio latency, which refers to both the time it takes for a sound to enter your machine and the time it takes for your machine to produce a sound. more...

Misc.
Supreme Court has decided to grant certiorari in the In Re Bilski case.
6 of the Best Free Linux Screencasting Software.
Organize your writing with Writer’s Cafe.
Create Oscar-Worthy Movie Scripts With Celtx.
Bordeaux 1.8.0 for Linux review.
Microsoft Releases Moodle Plugin under GPL.

How To Tips.

Microsoft Hyper-V drivers for Linux.
After many months of discussions, Microsoft has released their Hyper-V Linux drivers under the GPLv2. Following this message, will be the patches that add the drivers to the drivers/staging/ tree, and a whole bunch of cleanups. more... and Microsoft donates code to Linux and Microsoft Shares Virtualization Code With Linux and Microsoft unleashes 20,000 lines of Linux code.

Amazon Shows Need for Open eBook Standards.
Last week Amazon did something despicable. They violated the privacy of every Kindle user when without warning they remotely deleted copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from Kindle Readers. It seems that Amazon had determined these books had been purchased "illegally." more... and Think you own your Kindle books? and Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others and eBook Burning?

Root Exploit Vulnerability in Kernel 2.6.30.
A recently discovered root exploit attacked the newest Linux versions and circumvented protection systems such as SELinux and AppArmor. A solution has been found. more... and Linux 2.6.30 exploit posted.

The FSF warns (again) against Mono.
Last week, Microsoft extended the terms of their Community Promise to implementations of the ECMA 334 and 335 standards. You might think this means it's safe to write your software in C#. However, this promise is full of loopholes, and it's nowhere near enough to make C# safe. more... and Mono Now Safe?

Adobe peels off Flash layers for open source.
Today, the company announced the release of the Open Source Media Framework (OSMF) and Text Layout Framework (TLF) under version 1.1 of the Mozilla Public License. TLF is an ActionScript library that's been built on Flash Player 10's text engine and Adobe AIR 1.5, providing typographic and text layout for the web. more... and Adobe goes corporate open source against Ogg Theora.

An open alternative for Palm Pre iTunes users.
Apple will tell you that iTunes 8.2.1 fixes bugs and, in particular, improves interoperability with iPhones and iPod Touches running iPhone 3.0 Software. But, it really it only has one ‘feature:’ It blocks the Palm Pre’s iTunes compatibility. KDE thinks there’s another way. more...

Wikipedia push for Ogg Theora.
Wikipedia’s decision to support Ogg Theora for video uploads may be the last chance to break the proprietary video monopoly embodied in H.264. Microsoft, Google and Apple have all built H.264 support into their products because it readily adapts to Digital Rights Management, without which studios and other video rights owners have been unwilling to make content available online. more...

Is Oracle Getting Ready To Kill Unbreakable Linux?
Oracle has always been considered a database and application company. Their main bread and butter is the Oracle database (currently at version 11g), and the application products they have acquired through PeopleSoft, BEA Systems, and other companies. They also offer a product called Oracle Unbreakable Linux, but it has never achieved the wide market share that Red Hat currently enjoys. So now that Oracle owns their own operating system in the free and clear, what benefits do they gain from maintaining Unbreakable Linux? more...

Misc.
Canonical releases source code for Launchpad.
Announcing Apperi - The Linux App Store.
Nmap 5.00 released.
Linux Panoramas Using WINE and Autostitch.
Learning: Identifying Computer Ports.
DHCP server can take over client.

How To Tips.