2004 November

The Linux Show — an original Internet radio offering — is shutting down. It’s been part of the Linux and Internet scene for seven years, but it has run into financial difficulties and lack of sponsors make it impossible to continue.

Certification vendor CompTIA is revamping their Linux+ certification, and they’re looking for user feedback on their new tests. The beta test period has been extended through 12/31/04, during which you can take the test for only $75.00 (approximately half off if I remember right).

There is little doubt that Open Source has truly changed the face of Online marketing. No longer are we only bound by pop-up ads and banner ads. No, these days we use the ultimate targeting method available to us - word of mouth.
Firefox has shown us how a great Open Source product, spiffy looking banners [...]

Anyone running a mixed environment including Linux/Unix and Windows machines is undoubtedly familiar with Samba, the Open Source software package that allows SMB/CIFS clients to access shares on Linux/Unix machines. However, just as Windows File & Print Sharing, aka NetBIOS, needs to be locked down, so too does Samba.

Linux Relevant Products/Services from Sybase ASE Linux Express Edition – FREE solutions developer Xandros today announced that Wal-Mart’s (NYSE: WMT) Latest News about Wal-Mart online store is carrying a full range of Linux desktop computers with the pre-installed Xandros Desktop Operating System.

Let’s face it: monitoring system logs is a major pain in the tuchas. Logs tell us everything we need to know about our systems and more, but browsing through those logs for signs of danger or intrusion gets really old really fast. Fortunately there’s a tool out there to make it a little easier: Logwatch.

Just as I’m getting my thoughts together to post my preliminary thoughts on OpenZaurus version 3.5.1 on my Zaurus SL-5500, the OZ team releases version 3.5.2 which is supposed to include both bug fixes and software upgrades. So, it looks like I’ll try to get it installed tonight and try again next week. If anyone [...]

I recently wrote an article for Ping! Zine Webhosting Magazine about configuring the Exim mail server to block spam and viruses. While FreeBSD is the focus of the article, the Exim configuration is portable across multiple platforms (such as Linux, of course), and I encourage anyone out there running a mail server to give it [...]

The simple question: “what do you want for Christmas?” I am sure that a techie’s Christmas wish-list will include some of the following items: digital camera, flat-panel TV, digital camcorder, new cell-phone with built-in camera, Apple iPod, satellite radio, or a new computer. Of course for many, money is scarce (especially for those computer professionals [...]

The SCO Group Inc.’s Web site has once again been attacked, but this time hackers didn’t just target the site for a distributed-denial-of-service attack—they defaced the Web site itself.

Just a quick note of thanks to those of you who responded to my call for feedback on the Dell laptop defective adapter recall. The majority of you have yet to receive replacements, and at least one of you received an incomplete/incorrect part. I put together a letter to Dell by responding to my adapter [...]

Depending on the online circles you run in, you may or may not already be familiar with RAR files. In simplest terms, RAR is just another way of compressing data for ease of transfer, backup, encryption, etc. It mostly got around the “underground” scene, but lately I’ve been seeing it show up in Neverwinter Nights [...]

Zonker’s Tool of the Month picks over at UnixReview.com are a pair of GUI tools used for administering iptables routers and firewalls. Known as Guidedog and Guarddog respectively, this pair of pooches will make your life a lot easier if you need to build your own firewall/router solution on a Linux box.

Brian Hatch of Hacking Linux Exposed has been running a series of articles about SSH over at Security Focus, and they’ve been great reading. One of these articles is “SSH User Identities”.

Many of us are familiar with simple file globbing, such as using an asterisk or question mark to match multiple file names. I used that for years on the DOS/Windows side, and was comfortable with it. Then, shortly after I started learning Linux, I discovered regular expressions.

Opinion: No longer merely on its way up, the platform now boasts converts from governments to small and large businesses—and it’s only getting bigger.

On Linux systems, you have a choice of keeping the hardware clock in UTC/GMT time or local time. The preferred option is to keep it in UTC because then daylight savings can be automatically accounted for. The only disadvantage with keeping the hardware clock in UTC is that if you dual boot with an operating [...]

Microsoft’s domination of the Web browser market is falling as consumers opt for open-source software from the Mozilla Foundation, according to a survey.

Intel is making a big push to help personal computer makers in China and India offer the Linux operating system on machines powered by the company’s chips.

Several major Linux vendors have warned they are vulnerable to four flaws in a widely used IMAP e-mail server from Carnegie Mellon University’s Cyrus Electronic Mail Project. The flaws could allow an attacker to take over a server.