Practical Technology

for practical people.

February 22, 2011
by sjvn01
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Can you run your own SOHO E-Mail Server?

I’ve been running my own e-mail servers for decades. After all, back in the 80s I was helping run NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s e-mail systems and let me tell you in those days it wasn’t easy! Today, thanks to easy e-mail servers such as CapeSoft Email Server, hMailServer, and Zimbra pretty much any tech savvy user can run an e-mail server. Heck, if you’re a step above a power user you can even run OpenExchange and fully support Outlook users without breaking a sweat. If, that is, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will let you do it.

As a recent Slashdot reader found out, many ISPs won’t let you run your own mail server. Specifically they block port 25, the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) port, which is used for sending mail. If you can’t send mail, there’s not much point in having a mail server.

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February 22, 2011
by sjvn01
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Novell’s Stockholders approve Attachmate buyout but the Deal’s far from done

Last week, Novell announced that its stockholders have voted to adopt the previously announced merger with Attachmate and Longview Software Acquisition Corp., a special purpose vehicle formed by Attachmate designed to acquire all of Novell’s stock. The deal is still far from done though.

Novell, which as Pamela Jones of Groklaw points out now describes itself as “the leader in intelligent workload management,” instead of the producers of “best engineered, most interoperable Linux platform.,” still faces anti-trust inquires from both the German Federal Cartel Office and the U.S. Department of Justice.

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February 21, 2011
by sjvn01
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Android: The Open Mobile Choice

Recently there has been a bit of a hubbub over Microsoft forbidding the use of software using the GPLv3 open-source license and all similar licenses on Windows Phone 7 (WP7). Then, the boys from Redmond realized that by the strict letter of their new rules they had just forbidden the use of some of their own open-source applications on WP7. As Homer Simpson would say, “D’oh!”

Microsoft may be slow, but they get there eventually. Shortly after their error was pointed out, they explained that some other open-source licenses, including their own of course, were actually OK on WP7. And, oh by the way, they might consider opening WP7 up to software under other licenses. That’s big of them. Apple, of course, has long forbidden the use of GPLv2-licensed software.

I was recently asked why Apple and Microsoft was doing this. The answer is quite simple. Apple, and to a lesser degree, Microsoft are all about control. You see when you buy an iPhone, iPad, or a smartphone with WP7, you’re not really buying a device, you’re renting the use of a device.

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February 20, 2011
by sjvn01
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Libya turns off the Internet and the Massacres begin

First, Libya blocked news sites and Facebook. Then, beginning Friday night, according to Arbor Networks, a network security and Internet monitoring company, announced that Libya had cut itself off from the Internet. Hours later the Libyan dictator’s solders started slaughtering protesters. As of Sunday afternoon, U.S. Eastern time the death toll was above 200 in the city of Benghazi alone.

Welcome to 2011. While dictators in the most repressive regimes, such as North Korea and Cuba, have long kept Internet contact to the world to a bare minimum, less restrictive dictatorships, such as Egypt and Libya left the doors to the Internet cracked open to the public. Now, though, realizing that they could no longer hide their abuses from a world a Twitter tweet away, the new model autocracies, such as Libya and Bahrain have realized that they need to cut their Internet links before bringing out the guns.

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February 18, 2011
by sjvn01
1 Comment

Banshee vs. Ubuntu Linux on Revenue sharing

When Banshee, the popular Mono-based open-source media player was first included by default in the next version of Ubuntu Linux , Banshee’s developers thought this was great news. But, then Canonical, Ubuntu’s parent company decided that they wanted 75% of any revenue from Banshee’s built-in connection to the Amazon music store-revenue that Banshee was already donating all of to the GNOME Foundation.

Now, this isn’t a lot of money–As of February 1, 2011 Banshee had raised $3,077 for GNOME–but it was the principle of the thing. So when Canonical, “concerned with how our [Banshee] Amazon store would affect their Ubuntu One store.” and proposed two options: “Canonical disables the Amazon store by default (you could enable it in a few easy steps) but leaves the affiliate code alone (100% still to GNOME), or Canonical leaves the Amazon store enabled, but changes the affiliate code and takes a 75% cut.”

The Banshee developers “unanimously to decline Canonical’s revenue sharing proposal, so that our users who choose the Amazon store will continue supporting GNOME to the fullest extent” As my buddy Joe Brockmeier explained in his column on the Banshee/Ubuntu conflict, “Canonical were worried that their music service wasn’t competitive enough with Amazon MP3.” They had reason. Brockmeier continued, after all, “It isn’t. Amazon has aggressive pricing and (from what I’ve seen) a better selection. Amazon is also aggressive with promotions and offering free music, which makes it a fairly attractive service to people looking for new music as well as trying to fill out their music collection with music they already are aware of.”

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February 17, 2011
by sjvn01
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Bahrain’s death toll grows and its Internet slows

Bahrain’s dictatorship looked at what has happened in Tunis and Egypt and decided that bullets would serve its cause better than relenting to its people’s call for ballots and reform. This morning, mercenaries of Bahrain, a small Persian Gulf country, overran a camp of sleeping protesters killing at least four of them. At the same time, it appears that Bahrain has started strangling the country’s Internet connection to keep news from coming in or out of the country.

Sources at Arbor Networks, a network security company, told me that “Bahrain has significantly increased its filtering of Internet traffic in response to growing political unrest.” While the Bahrain Internet has remained up, unlike Egypt’s Internet, it’s averaging a pronounced 10-20% reduction in traffic volumes.

The data for Arbor’s analysis was collected by its ATLAS (Active Threat Level Analysis System) network. This system collects Internet traffic data from about 120 worldwide ISPs.

Others have noticed this decrease as well. As New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof, who is reporting from Bahrain, tweeted, “Why slow the Internet? The #Bahrain govt view seems to be that if it isn’t uploaded on YouTube, it hasn’t happened.” Al Jazeera is also reporting that there are Internet slow-downs in-country and that some Web sites are being blocked.

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