Practical Technology

for practical people.

December 5, 2010
by sjvn01
0 comments

The Three Differences between Chrome OS and Android

On December 7th, Google is expected to announce the release of a laptop with the first version of the Chrome operating system. Concurrently, Google is going great guns with Android. Does Google really need two operating systems? So what’s going on here?

Here’s what Google is up to. Yes, both Android and Chrome OS are Linux-based operating systems. Neither, at the application level, uses the common Linux desktop application programming interfaces (API) that are used by the GNOME or KDE desktops and their applications.

They’re also similar in that both use a common set of techniques to make them more secure. The most important of these is process sand-boxing. What this means is that any Chrome or Android application has just enough access to the system to do its job.

Once you’re past this, the two look and act in very different ways. Here are their main points of difference:

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December 3, 2010
by sjvn01
2 Comments

Linux for the Holidays

The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting Linux, has announced a new individual membership drive and promotion for the holidays that makes members eligible to win free Linux.com Store T-shirts, hats, mugs and the like.

According to the Foundation, new members who sign up for an individual Linux Foundation membership between today, December 3 and December 20, 2010 will be automatically entered into a drawing to win one of five U.S. $50 gift cards to the Linux.com Store. The annual membership fee for individuals is $99 U.S. Student membership is $25 U.S. and includes all the same benefits as individual members. These prizes will be available just in time for the holidays.

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December 2, 2010
by sjvn01
3 Comments

Super-Duper Linux Computers

Everyone who follows super-computers knows that they run on Linux. Just one look at the latest Top 500 SuperComputer list confirms that. Today 91.8% of all super-computers run Linux. Alas, if you look at the latest list, you’ll also see that the U.S. now trails China in the super-computers. IBM’s new CMOS Integrated Silicon Nanophotonics chips, though, should soon put the U.S. back in the lead.

Today the fastest of the fast computers is the Tianhe-1A Running full-out, it hits a peak performance of 2.57 petaflop/s (quadrillions of calculations per second).and cruises along at 563.1 teraflops. To do this, it uses 14,336 Intel Xeon CPUs and 7,168 NVIDIA Tesla GPUs and Linux.

That’s impressive. The Tianhe-1A easily races past the Cray XT5 “Jaguar” system at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in Tennessee. That Cray XTS super-computer is now ranked in second place at 1.75 petaflop/s.

Don’t start weeping for the decline of American technology prowess yet, though. IBM’s new addition to its POWER7 chipset uses Silicon Integrated Nanophotonics to reach new heights in processor speed. In these chips, light instead of electronics is used for its input/output (I/O )interconnects.. This makes it possible to build faster–much faster–super-computers, and eventually servers and PCs.

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December 2, 2010
by sjvn01
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Preventing your own WikiLeaks

As I continue to watch the WikiLeaks saga, I can’ t help thinking, no matter what you think of WikiLeaks, it never would have become gotten so big if it wasn’t for some dumb security mistakes. It’s not, as Jason Perlow pointed out, that the system design itself was defective, it was how it was managed in the field that lead to a flood of secret documents being revealed.

No, Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) is about as secure as any network can be. But, US Army intelligence analyst, Private First Class Bradley Manning showed how even the best laid security plans are useless if they’re not followed. While SIPRNet materials seemed to have been shared over a secured network, the laptops that Manning used to vacuum down the gigabytes of data, now in WikiLeak’s hands, had a CD/DVD burner on it. According to a Wired report, Manning said, “I would come in with music on a CD-RW labeled with something like ‘Lady Gaga,’ erase the music then write a compressed split file.”

There was no need for any sophisticated network tapping or Mission Impossible heroics here; all he needed was a PC and a blank optical disc and he was in business. Argh!

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December 2, 2010
by sjvn01
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Xmarks finds Buyer: Free Web-Browser Service to continue

When I heard that Xmarks, the popular cross-browser plug-in that synchronizes bookmarks and passwords across multiple computers, was going out of business, I was really upset. For me, and many others, Xmarks is an invaluable resource. Well, we don’t have to worry anymore. LastPass, makers of an excellent password manager, has just announced that they’ve bought Xmarks. Hurrah!

Better still, for most users, both Xmarks and LastPass will continue to be free.

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December 1, 2010
by sjvn01
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Big Business backs Linux

Believe it or not, there is still this illusion that Linux and open-source software is written by counter-culture, C++ programming cultists living in their parent basements or huddled together in Cambridge, Mass. group-houses. Please. That is so twenty-years ago. Today, as the Linux Foundation reveals in its latest analysis, Linux Kernel Development: How Fast it is Going, Who is Doing It, What They are Doing, and Who is Sponsoring It (PDF Link), it’s big business that’s making Linux in 2010.

Yes, there is a political agenda that can go with Linux and free and open-source software. It tends to be a mix of libertarian and liberal ideas and its main focus is on free “as in speech, not as in beer” software. For more on that side of free/libre/open source software (FLOSS), I recommend you visit the Free Software Foundation (FSF). Still, while the FSF’s Gnu General Public License (GPL) was, and is, vital to Linux, businesses are what drive the day-in, day-out development of Linux, and most other open-source programs.

To be specific, the Linux Foundation found that “over 70% of all [Linux] kernel development is demonstrably done by developers who are being paid for their work.” There is still a lot of work being done by “amateurs,” about 18.9%; although I’m not sure how “amateur” a programmer can be whose work is accepted into the Linux kernel.

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