Open Source - Is it really value for money?

How many times do you read that free software, in the long run, costs money? Is that even true? This was one of many questions addressed by the European Open Source Convention organised by O'Reilly Media in Brussels last week.

Minix 3 is out !!!

What Is MINIX 3?
MINIX 3 is a new open-source operating system designed to be highly reliable, flexible, and secure. It is loosely based somewhat on previous versions of MINIX, but is fundamentally different in many key ways. MINIX 1 and 2 were intended as teaching tools; MINIX 3 adds the new goal of being usable as a serious system on resource-limited and embedded computers and for applications requiring high reliability

This new OS is extremely small, with the part that runs in kernel mode under 4000 lines of executable code. The parts that run in user mode are divided into small modules, well insulated from one another. For example, each device driver runs as a separate user-mode process so a bug in a driver (by far the biggest source of bugs in any operating system), cannot bring down the entire OS. In fact, most of the time when a driver crashes it is automatically replaced without requiring any user intervention, without requiring rebooting, and without affecting running programs. These features, the tiny amount of kernel code, and other aspects greatly enhance system reliability.
MINIX 3 is initially targeted at the following areas:

* Applications where very high reliability is required
* Single-chip, small-RAM, low-power, $100 laptops for Third-World children
* Embedded systems (e.g., cameras, DVD recorders, cell phones)
* Applications where the GPL is too restrictive (MINIX 3 uses a BSD-type license)
* Education (e.g., operating systems courses at universities)

Microsoft's Open Source Lab GNU? or open source?

Another reason to be VERY clear exactly the difference between open source and FREE software.

This is FREE software

This is the GNU license

See GPL version 3 in the making !

Linux Spreads its Wings in India

With 4,000 students and just 21 computers, the Cotton Hill Girls High School in the south Indian city of Trivandrum wouldn't appear to be at the vanguard of anything related to information technology. Yet the 71-year-old school is abandoning Microsoft (MSFT) Windows software in favor of its free, open-source rival, Linux. So when students -- typically eight to a machine, seated at two benches -- turn on their PCs they see Linux desktop software that helps them navigate their way to all manner of math, graphics, and writing programs. ``We're using something called Linux,'' says 12-year-old Arya VM as she plays with Tux Paint, a Linux drawing and painting application. And Windows? ``Never heard of it,'' she says.

Scratchpad

Just addin to the paddin'

http://mysqldba.blogspot.com/


Interesting benchmarking site:
http://tweakers.net/reviews/661/1

They benchmark MySQL and PostgreSQL on a regular basis.
http://tweakers.net/reviews/657
http://tweakers.net/reviews/649
http://tweakers.net/reviews/638

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


http://www.karbosguide.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oacP8mNgeT0

http://linuxgazette.net/issue59/nazario.html - DMESG explained

http://www.com-www.com/weirdal/itsallaboutthepentiums.html

http://www.codecoffee.com/tipsforlinux/articles/21.html

http://www.geocities.com/tipsforlinux/articles/21.html

http://www.comptechdoc.org/os/linux/usersguide/linux_ugfinding.html

diagnostics
Unix and windows:
http://www.unix.com/showthread.php?t=2130


http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=32642



http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/boot_overview.mspx?mfr=true


http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_logfiles.htm - Windows boot log

http://www.lookuptables.com/ - Ascii tables

http://www.jegsworks.com/Lessons/lesson1-2/lesson1-1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer






++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

todays scratchpad kryptonite3


http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=13250

http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Feb/bch20030227018856.htm

http://www.sandpile.org/misc/news.htm


http://www.devbistro.com/jobs/23406


http://computer.howstuffworks.com/microprocessor1.htm


http://computer.howstuffworks.com/boolean4.htm


http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/relay.htm


http://computer.howstuffworks.com/microprocessor2.htm


http://www.cpuscorecard.com/cpufaqs/sep99c.htm


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celeron


http://www.paraworld.com/


http://pc.gamezone.com/gamesell/p24173.htm

http://pc.gamezone.com/



http://www.gzgameshop.com/product.asp?cookie%5Ftest=1&affid=7100&product_id=646734


http://tcos.com/scrolls/?id=scroll1&lng=en


http://pc.ign.com/objects/773/773865.html


http://pc.ign.com/index/games.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Commander_(computer_game)



http://ajaxsearch.blogspot.com/


http://myweb.lsbu.ac.uk/%7Echalkbs/research/CacheApplet.htm - Cache Simulator


http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdext/is_200402/ai_ziff118415 - good tip

http://forums.hardwaresecrets.com/


http://www.devx.com/amd/Article/27340

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit_x86_assembly_programming

China claims homegrown chip matches Intel's Pentium 4

Chinese scientists say they have developed a computer chip that equals the processing power of Intel Corp.'s Pentium 4 semiconductors and costs less, as part of their nation's efforts to reduce reliance on foreign technologies.

In Software, It's All About Distribution - And Inventory

Yesterday came news that Google has struck a major deal with Intuit. Today comes news Yahoo has struck a deal with Acer. Both are distribution deals - Yahoo and Google are using their partners as channels to get their software and services into the hands of customers. In short, they are buying new business.

Hypothetical Death Match - E-mail vs. the Web

"If you had no choice but to choose, which would you give up: access to e-mail or the Web? Both still exist, just not for you. Read how others are defending their decisions — and how a few just refuse to choose."

Myspace Open Source Hack Initiative

moshi, the myspace open source hack initiative, seeks to promote elegance in myspace design by developing and publishing open source stylesheets that emphasize simplicity, sensibility, and, where possible, established web-design standards.

The New Link Between Designer and Developer

"Ryan Stewart of ZDNet discusses the importance of the workflow between designers and developers. Both Adobe and Microsoft have a lot at stake in their respective software projects. Given how important experience is in making software, ensuring that it is easy for designers and developers to work together is more important than ever." From the article: "The key here is going to be the workflow between designers and developers and making sure that the tools support both types of content creators. Creating world class RIAs simply will not be possible without an efficient workflow between the two areas. Adobe has focused a lot on incorporating Adobe and Macromedia products, making sure that designers can easily move between both companies software. But they haven't quite perfected the designer/developer workflow, and I think Microsoft has a bit of a head start here. The Expression Suite seems built from the ground up to work well with their developer tools. The question will be whether or not designers will use these new tools."

Cisco VoIP Ditched for Open-Source Asterisk

"Sam Houston State University (SHSU) is moving 6,000 users off a Cisco VoIP platform to an open-source VoIP network based on Asterisk. One big driver, of course, is cost. From the article: 'We thought that it will be more cost effective in the long run to go with an open source solution, because of the massive amounts of licensing fees required to keep the Cisco CallManager network up and running,' says Aaron Daniel, senior voice analyst at SHSU."

Wii Now Confirmed to Not be Region-Free

"Contrary to an earlier Slashdot story, Nintendo have now stated that the Wii will not be region free. The original claim came from Nintendo America, but Nintendo UK have gone on record denying the claims. They put it rather bluntly, stating: 'We are region-locked,' and that Nintendo America made a mistake by claiming otherwise."

Goodbye to Dreamweaver, Goodbye to WYSIWYG

I’ve started to use a combination of WordPress quick tags, my Ultimate Tag Warrior autotag mod and TextMate with some custom modifications to do my Wordpress blogging. It took some hacking, but I’m 100% sold on the TextMate way of blogging now. I’ve even got it hacked so that when you drag an image from the finder onto the screen, it creates a thumbnail and gives you the option of showing the image, the thumbnail or the thumb linked to the image. Right now I’m basically working on taking all of the functionality I had hacked into my quicktags and bringing it into TextMate.

iPod fans 'shunning iTunes store'

The Jupiter Research report reveals that, on average, only 20 of the tracks on a iPod will be from the iTunes shop.

Far more important to iPod owners, said the study, was free music ripped from CDs someone already owned or acquired from file-sharing sites.

Co-Founder Forks Wikipedia

"Larry Sanger, first editor-in-chief of Wikipedia, plans to fork the project. In Berlin he announced the start of Citizendium — the citizen's compendium. Main differences: no anonymous editing, and experts will rule the project. Members of Wikipedia were not amused."

Plastic Batteries Coming Soon?

"Engineers at Brown University have built a prototype of a hybrid plastic battery that uses a conductive polymer. The system, which marries the power of a capacitor with the storage capacity of a battery, can store and deliver power efficiently. For example, during performance testing, 'it delivered more than 100 times the power of a standard alkaline battery.' Still, it's unlikely that such a device can appear on the market before several years."

Hack Mac OS X With Installer Packages

nezmar writes, "MacGeekery has a short but insightful piece with examples on how to use a malformed Installer package (.pkg) on Mac OS X to 'insert user accounts with administrator rights and change root-owned system configuration or binary files without prompting the vast majority of Mac OS X users for a password of any kind.'" The article notes that this issue was brought up on the Apple Discussion Boards 6 weeks back and that it was noted there as a duplicate / known issue. It also gives as an example the installation of Parallels, the popular virtualization software, which uses the described technique, but not for nefarious purposes.

2D Drawing To 3D Object Tool

"Takeo Igarashi from the University of Tokyo has a very impressive java applet/program, called Teddy, which he describes as 'A Sketching Interface for 3D Freeform Design', and basically allows you to sketch in simple 2D and have it automatically converted to full 3D. The tool is certainly very impressive and there is a demonstration video available. The end product looks like a hand-drawn object instead of the usual clinical, perfect 3D objects that are designed using standard rendering tools." This impressive technology was presented at SigGraph 1999 (PDF); a commercial product based on it is available in Japan.

MySpace Music Player Hacked - MP3

Roy van Rijn writes to tell us about a little program called MySpace MP3 Gopher, with which you can download any song from MySpace as an MP3 even if it is marked to disable downloading. MySpace MP3 Gopher is a Windows program requiring no installation, and for those not on a Windows box the author offers an online version that anyone can run. It is hosted on his home computer so it is bound to get slashdotted rather quickly. All you need to grab a MySpace song is its "friendID," which is in every URL as a parameter. Tech-recipes has step-by-step instructions.

NetBSD Redux

"ONLamp.com is featuring a lengthy interview with Charles M. Hannum, to Slashdotters probably best known for his wake-up call aptly titled The Future of NetBSD that generated a rather vocal discussion. In the interview, Charles speaks about his role in and the beginning of The NetBSD Project, shares his thoughts on software licenses, discusses the popularity of Linux and its development model, and further addresses the problems that NetBSD is facing. Some notable quotes include: 'If I were doing it again, I might very well switch to the LGPL. I'll just note that it didn't exist at the time.' And: 'There was a lot of FUD around this issue — some of it from Linus, actually — and it did cause us some problems.'"



If you have time read the tread, always insightful =)

The Hard Drive Turns 50

Main Article

China to Make $125 PCs

Main article is here

TechFreep writes "A Chinese computer company hopes to sell low-cost PCs to schools and government agencies, but allegations of ripped-off processor designs might slow the effort. From the article: 'Chinese-based ZhongKe Menglan Electronics Technology Co. will produce several thousand low-cost PCs to distribute to schools and local governments. The PCs, which will initially sell for $150 to $175, will run on Linux and include 256Mb of RAM, a 40 or 60GB hard drive, and a Godson-2 CPU clocked between 800Mhz and 1Ghz. If initial sales of the product are successful ZhongKe will begin mass production of the units for sale at around 125 US dollars. However, the Godson-2 CPU included in the PCs has come under scrutiny of late. BLX IC Design Corp., producer of the Godson-2, produced its first working prototype in 2005. The chip clocked at 500Mhz, and BLX at the time claimed the Godson's performance rivaled that of higher-clocked Pentium III CPUs. However, the chip's architecture has gotten attention around the industry for its similarities to the MIPS chip from MIPS Technologies Inc. According to market research group In-Stat, the Godson-2 is about 95 percent compatible with the MIPS R10000, which was introduced in 1995.'"

Why Johnny can't code.

Sept. 14, 2006 | For three years -- ever since my son Ben was in fifth grade -- he and I have engaged in a quixotic but determined quest: We've searched for a simple and straightforward way to get the introductory programming language BASIC to run on either my Mac or my PC.


Equally interesting is the slashdot discussion

Royal Society opens free online archive

One of the world's most important historical records will be made available online for the first time today. All the Royal Society's journals are free for two months and include stone-cold scientific classics going back to 1665 and the foundations of modern inquiry.

We're paticularly fond of the work of Robert Boyle, whose ethics board-baiting 17th century research includes "Observables upon a monstrous head" and "Whether a fierce dog stocked with the blood of a cowardly dog may not become more tame?"

An Important Open Letter from Our Friends Resisting the RIAA in Hungary

An announcement from A blog devoted to the RIAA's lawsuits of intimidation brought against ordinary working people.

Answers From Lawyers Who Defend Against RIAA Suits

You had some excellent questions for attorneys Ty Rogers and Ray Beckerman, who maintain the Recording Industry vs The People blog. Here are their answers, verbatim, as they were sent to us by Mr. Beckerman.

Their main site is here

Programmed Sentencing in China - Knowledge Engineering at work ????

An anonymous reader writes to mention a unique combination of coding and social justice. A court in China has been using software to mete out sentences in criminal cases. The program has been in use for almost two years, and has passed judgement in some 1,500 cases. From the article: "'The software can avoid abuse of discretionary power of judges as a result of corruption or insufficient training,' the paper quoted Zichuan District Court chief judge, Wang Hongmei, as saying. But some Chinese newspapers criticized the move as a farce that highlighted the 'laziness of the court' and that would not curb judicial corruption as touted."

Challenging Microsoft on the Desktop

"As Microsoft moves to offer software-as-a-service with Windows Live, online companies are moving to challenge Microsoft on the desktop. In a decision that would have been seen as foolish a few years ago, file sharing and social networking company TransMedia plans to release desktop productivity apps (in conjunction with online ones) as lightweight Microsoft Office alternatives. Google, meanwhile, through its deal with Intuit, is colonizing desktop apps as it has done with browsers and search toolbars. Microsoft used to have a home field advantage on the desktop, thanks to Windows. Lately, operating system ownership is looking a lot less valuable."

GPL violations

Alleged GPL Violation Spurs Accusations, Lawsuit

Rootkit Sony Windows Virtualisation

Sony Rootkit Settlement

Windows Rootkit Wars Escalate

Undetectable Rootkits Through Virtualization?

Traffic Cops Of The Net - Akamai

For weeks, techies were abuzz with speculation about Apple's (AAPL ) plans to move into movies. And at a Sept. 12 announcement, CEO Steven P. Jobs didn't disappoint, telling a packed audience of journalists in San Francisco that Apple will begin by offering downloads of Walt Disney Co. films. But for many investors, an equally intriguing story has been the company that will make sure all those billions of video bytes don't bring Apple's iTunes Web site to a grinding halt.

If I Had A Nickel For Every Click...

Let's say you want a home loan, and you take a few minutes to fill out one of those annoyingly ubiquitous Web mortgage applications from LendingTree (IACI ) or LowerMyBills.com. All that personal data you just provided to those middlemen? It's now a lead, a valuable referral to a prospect (you) who is primed to respond to an offer. And it's worth up to $75 to mortgage providers seeking new customers. Your data. Their money.

Taiwan's Via Unveils "Green" Chip

Available in two speeds, the eco-friendly processor has a maximum power consumption of just 20 watts

Google Aims to Open Library Doors in Asia

The Google Books Library Project may have won the support of prominent libraries in the United States and the United Kingdom, but it is not likely to make a splash in Asia--at least, not yet.

Will Zune be music to your ears?

Now that Microsoft has unveiled all the parts making up its Zune music service we can begin to see how it stacks up against the iPod and other MP3 players.

Channel NewsAsia offers on-the-go news service to SingTel mobile subscribers

SINGAPORE: 3G mobile phone users in Singapore can now watch television news reports while on the move.

Hydrogen Cars are a reality

BMW, the German luxury auto maker announced Sept. 12 it will launch limited production next year of 7 Series luxury sedans with an engine that can run on both gasoline and hydrogen. When the engine burns hydrogen, the only emission is water vapor.

Bulent's screen recorder

A useful tool to capture the screen as a video!

Microsoft getting desperate?

This looks so Google

Magink's Billboard Magic

The Israeli upstart aims to revolutionize billboard advertising with digital ink technology that's less expensive than LED-based alternatives

How Artists Can Skip the Offline Middleman

New, Web-based production and distribution models give entrepreneurs--creative or not--ways to bypass traditional companies and turn a profit

AW Energy Gets Power from the Ocean Floor

The Finnish start-up is installing its WaveRoller modules off the coast of Portugal to generate power from underwater waves

Baidu Partners With CSIP For Open Source Software

The two parties will seek projects from the open source communities and support selective projects after evaluation. According to Baidu CTO Deng Jianguo, the two parties will jointly develop a Baidu super search tool bar based on Firefox, which will allows Firefox users to use Baidu's web, MP3, picture, community, news and other search services.

Securing pre-IMS and IMS Infrastructure

Note the diagram, again this is an advert, with a very interesting diagram =)


In this case it is featuring IMS which is the next big thing in 3G

Of course Samsung is developing 4G so ... hmmmm

Very nice quick summary on CSS

I was messing with my new travel blog! and i wanted to mess with the description of the blog, cos the default was a little ugly.. to me at least =D


So this site was like a handy nutshell book

Clustering

This advert is actually a good example of clustering =D

Wireless Linux

Google Seeks Help with Recognition

In its quest to create a vast online library, the search titan has released character-recognition scanning software to the open-source crowd

How to Run Linux on a USB Drive

Process Viewer for Windows

Same Site

PrcView is a process viewer utility that displays detailed information about processes running under Windows. For each process it displays memory, threads and module usage. For each DLL it shows full path and version information. PrcView comes with a command line version that allows you to write scripts to check if a process is running, kill it, etc.

Very Nice FC5 wireless network Setup Instructions

Power Management Guide for Laptops

FC5 - ifconfig iwconfig lspci

my sis encountered this problem so just thought I'd log it here.


Oh the cool thing, I actually did not have to ask anyone on linuxQuestions! =)

I was just gonna post the question, and they had a search button below the "would be header/subject" of my post, and it pulled up threads that are similar to my header/subject.

Ah, the importance of a clear subject in your messages ;)

my header was:
Just installed FC5 but no lspci and ifconfig

the rerlevant thread had the header:

FC5, ifconfig...?


Of course one wonders how scalable is this method, given that I had 4 other threads that showed.

Still it was a nice little innovation! =)

Why All The Hype About 0day? - Security

The term "0day" has the power to make sys admins cringe. It the greatest fear of anyone tasked with protecting critical assets - a problem without an easy solution.

4G ... ehhh what happened to 3 ?

"Samsung shifted wireless networking into a higher gear yesterday, demonstrating for the first time in public the power of it WiBro (Wireless Broadband) 4G technology. The company had two 4G demonstrations. A mobile stunt entailed providing delegates on a specially designed bus with a live broadcast of the forum, Internet access, and video on demand, all simultaneously at speeds of 100Mbps.

Bittorrent ISP throttle

"Certainly, increasing BitTorrent traffic is a concern for ISPs. In early 2004, torrents accounted for 35 percent of all traffic on the Internet. By the end of that year, this figure had almost doubled, and some estimate that in certain markets, such as Asia, torrent traffic uses as much as 80 percent of all bandwidth."

ATI and nVidia Crush High-End DVD Players

"Hardware.Info compared the video quality of ATI and nVidia video cards containing Avivo / PureVideo technology with 12 stand alone DVD players, varying in price from $200 to over $2000. The conclusion? 'There is no need to invest $2000 or more in a high-end DVD player. A PC with a recent graphics card will produce a much better result for a lot less money. When looking at the final scores of the HQV test, both ATI and nVidia graphics cards perform a lot better than any DVD player we have tested. We would go as far as to say to get rid of your DVD player and connect a media centre PC to your LCD television!'"

Bad MS - Microsoft Attempts to Quash OSS Recommendations

"Inside Higher Ed has a story detailing Microsoft's attempt to alter a report created by the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Gerri Elliott, corporate vice president at Microsoft's Worldwide Public Sector division, complained about recommendations in the report to look into 'open source' and 'open content' at higher education institutions across the country. Elliott, who is on the voting committee, waited until the last minute and tried to have the report changed after a public vote. Although she does have a point that 'open source' is a development model, it still has collaboration at its heart. Can Microsoft argue against 'open' and win?"

Sun kills off much delayed UltraSPARC IIIi+ chip

Sun Microsystems has turned to half-truths where its UltraSPARC IIIi+ processor is concerned. The company has cancelled the product, once slated for 2005, in favor of concentrating on the UltraSPARC T1 - aka Niagara - processor line.

Internet Not the Social Hinder it Was

"A 1998 study showed that the Internet causes declines in social relationships and isolation, similarly to how television causes social disengagement and bad moods. This is the 'Internet Paradox' because while the internet is heavily used for communication, it makes people lonelier. However, a more recent study shows that now the internet has a positive effect on social and psychological well-being. This is even more so for those who have more social support and are extroverted in nature. Interestingly, frequent Internet use is associated with a decline in local knowledge and interest in living in the local area."

Rush Testing Is Under Way for Microsoft’s New System

Microsoft rushed what may be the final test version of its Windows Vista operating system to more than a million testers on Friday, trying to meet deadlines for its long-delayed commercial release.

Google's Brazil Headache Orkut

Enter the words "Brazil" and "Orkut" into a Google (GOOG) search bar and it takes less than half a second to come up with about 3,640,000 results.

Vista TV ?

"Consumer electronics have come a long way since 1933, the first time a television set was displayed at the International Radio Exposition in Berlin. Or maybe not."

MySpace to Enable Members to Sell Music

Open music ???

Knowledge Engineering Tools

http://www.commonkads.uva.nl/INFO/tools/modeldraw.html

http://repgrid.com/


http://protege.stanford.edu/



They make cool UML diagrams too !!!!

View Linux partition on Windows!!! Ext2 NTFS

It provides Windows NT4.0/2000/XP with full access to Linux Ext2 volumes (read access and write access). This may be useful if you have installed both Windows and Linux as a dual boot environment on your computer.

Wikipedia will be more WIKI than ever!!!

From the early days of Wikipedia, we were forced to do something that we did not like to do: protect (lock) pages. For a long time, whenever there was a major editing dispute requiring a cool-down time, or a sudden spate of vandalism to an article, the community administrators of Wikipedia were forced to put pages into a state where no one could edit them. (Admins could technically edit them, but by social custom did not, in order to preserve the level playing field between admins and ordinary users.)

The WayBack Machine is safe !!!

"The Wayback Machine is cool, not just because you can go back and see what Ars looked like in May 1999, but because its 1+ petabyte archive contains a treasure trove of data for researchers. Last year, the Internet Archive, which runs the Wayback Machine, was sued by Healthcare Advocates after the attorneys for another company used the Wayback Machine to access information that might be helpful in an ongoing legal action."

Google Revealed: The IT Strategy That Makes It Work

InfoWeek published an [1]article on Google's IT
Strategy, which can be summarized as: 'Use customized open source where
possible, custom build where necessary , and buy if it's not related to
something that will give Google a competitive advantage.' The author
interviewed several senior IT folks at Google and the article is
surprisingly thorough considering how closely Google guards information
about their actual IT environment." From the article: "Google managers
tend to be reticent on the subject of IT strategy, they're loath to
talk
about specific vendors or products, and they clam up when asked about
their servers and data centers. But a day spent with some of the
company's IT leaders reveals there's more to Google's IT operations
than
a search engine running on a massive server farm. Behind the seeming
simplicity is a mash-up of internally developed software, made-to-order
hardware, artificial intelligence, obsession with performance, and an
unorthodox approach to people management."

FireFox 2 Beta is here !!

You can download it here.

My Maxtor Hard Drive just Caught FIRE!!!

Transcript of talk with Richard .M. Stallman

"This is the transcript of the [0]talk with
Richard Stallman, the father of GNU in the background of the 4th
International GPLv3 Conference being held at Bangalore where RMS is a
prominent delegate. He answers questions related to GPLv3, DRM and a
couple of other queries."

Cell phones won't keep your secrets

"Selling your old phone once you upgrade to a fancier model can be like handing over your diaries. All sorts of sensitive information pile up inside our cell phones, and deleting it may be more difficult than you think."

NetBSD - irrelevance and what to do?

Discuss

Not as wiki as it used to be

Data Mining Used to Create New Materials

"MIT researchers have successfully integrated data mining tools and modern methods of quantum mechanics. They've designed software which can help predict the crystal structures of materials. To simplify, they say they've used methods used by online sales sites to suggest books to customers. And it seems to work: they claim they can determine in days the properties of atomic structures that might have taken months before. Read more for additional references and pictures."

SHA-1 MD5 Collisions

SHA-1 Collisions for Meaningful Messages



Meaningful MD5 Collisions

10 common misunderstandings about the GPL

The GNU General Public License (GPL) is one of the most widely used software licenses -- and, undoubtedly, the most misunderstood. Some of this misunderstanding comes from hostile propaganda, but some also comes from a lack of experience in licensing issues on the part of both lawyers and lay users, and the use of standard language in conventional end-user license agreements that are unthinkingly coupled with the GPL. In all cases, the confusion is frequently based on misreadings, rumors, secondhand accounts, and what is convenient to believe.

Linspire Freespire

Indian State to Bypass Microsoft ‘Monopoly’

As part of a drive against “monopolistic” organizations, schools and public offices across the state are being encouraged to install free software systems instead of purchasing Microsoft’s Windows programs.

First Quantum Cryptographic Data Network Demonstrated

A joint collaboration between Northwestern University and BBN Technologies of Cambridge, Mass., has led to the first demonstration of a truly quantum cryptographic data network. By integrating quantum noise protected data encryption (quantum data encryption or QDE for short) with Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), the researchers have developed a complete data communication system with extraordinary resilience to eavesdropping.

iTunes v6 FairPlay DRM Cracked

Discuss!


Other DRM news:
FairUse4WM Breaks Windows DRM

A Working Economy Without DRM? - Discussion

"In a few weeks, our school will be hosting a panel on DRM with several respected individuals. In advance of the panel, I have been doing some research on the topic and thinking about it in my free time. In economics, we learn that the price of a product is determined essentially by supply and demand. Without a DRM in place, we are capable of making as many copies of a piece of content as we want and seeding it onto the net. How do you create a market for a product, and make money of a product that has a huge initial creative investment, but then no manufacturing cost, and is in infinite supply?"

How Much Virtual Memory is Enough? - Discussion

On YouTube, Charges of Security Flaws

"This is an excellent example of the democratization of the media, where everyone has access to the printing press of the 21st century," said Dina Kaplan, co-founder of Blip.tv, a site that hosts grass-roots television programming.