Practical Technology

for practical people.

December 15, 2010
by sjvn01
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Roll your own Linux distribution with Novell’s SUSE Studio

One of the advantages of Linux is that you’ve always been able to build your own Linux distribution… if you were an expert programmer. But, today thanks to programs like Novell’s SUSE Studio it’s easier than ever to create Linux appliances or your house-brand Linux.

For proof that you can use SUSE Studio to create useful applications look no further than the winners of Novell’s Dister Awards. The two $10,000 grand prizes went to software companies, Radical Breeze and Anderware.

Radical Breeze, won in the “Commercial” category for its Illumination Software Creation Station. This program lets non-developers design their own software applications with no programming experience required. Anderware, a software company from Sweden, won in the “Community” category for its Hypergrid to Go appliance, which allows users to easily set up an extension to the OpenSim platform to create a multi-user 3D world similar to Second Life.

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December 15, 2010
by sjvn01
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Have yourself a very Linux Christmas

Whether you cut your teeth downloading Linux 0.x source code or you want to give Linux a try for the first time, we’ve got presents for you.

What do you get for the Linux lover in your life? Or, for that matter, a would-be Linux user or someone you want to talk into giving Linux a try? Well, here are some of my suggestions. Got some of your own? Share them in the comments.

Now, with no further adieu, here are some gift suggestions for the Tux the Penguin fans in your life.

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December 14, 2010
by sjvn01
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Who Google has in mind for its Chrome OS users

Google isn’t telling me any secrets about its plans for Chrome OS. Indeed, I don’t even have one of the 60,000 or so people that Google has given a Cr-48 Chromebook prototype to play with. Even so, unlike my good friend Mary Jo Foley, I think I know exactly who Google has in mind for its Chrome OS Linux desktop system.

I see Google as targeting two different, very different, audiences with Chrome OS. The first group are office workers. The other is those hundreds of millions, perhaps a billion plus, users who really don’t know the first thing about to use a computer safely even as they use them every day.

In this set-up, a company would pay Google a fee, just as some do now for Google Apps for Business. In return, the company gets the 21st century version of a thin-client desktop.

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December 14, 2010
by sjvn01
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How to try to stop DDoS Attacks

Happy holidays! Your Web server just died! I use the word ‘try’ very deliberately in my title. The truth of the matter is that there isn’t a damn thing you can do that will stop a serious distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. There are though some ways to try to deal with them.

Mind you, there is actually is a way that would put an end to most DDoS attacks. It requires that all Windows-based botnets be ripped out by the roots. Too bad, that’s not going to happen.

Windows is insecure by design and used by hundreds of millions and many of those users wouldn’t know an anti-virus program from Angry Birds. Millions of Windows computers, including maybe yours, are slave labor in one of the various botnets. Since we’re not going to be rid of Windows anytime soon and it’s not going to get any safer, the reality is that botnet-powered, brute-force DDoS attacks are only going to continue.

Actually, that’s not true. I think DDoS attacks are actually going more and more often. Here are some ways to mitigate them.

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December 13, 2010
by sjvn01
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Who uses Linux and Open Source in Business?

Thanks to Glyn Moody, a UK-based technology journalist, I’ve just learned that Netflix is not only using, but also contributing, to numerous open-source projects. They’re in good company.

As Kevin McEntee, Netflix’s VP of Systems & ECommerce Engineering explained on a recent blog posting, Why we use and contribute to open source software, “Our budget, measured in dollars, time, people, and energy, is limited and we must therefore focus our technology development efforts on that streaming video software that clearly differentiates Netflix and creates delight for our customers. These limits require that we stand on the shoulders of giants who have solved technology challenges shared in common by all companies that operate at Internet scale. I’m really just articulating the classical build vs. buy trade off that everyone deals with when developing software.

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December 10, 2010
by sjvn01
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Don’t hand over your own personal WikiLeaks to Strangers

When I first heard about a prominent journalist’s review smartphone, with all its information intact, dropping into the lap of a friend, I thought it was funnier than anything else.

I have a dark sense of humor. But, then I started thinking about it. Yes, it’s funny that even people who should know better flunk at information security 101, but he’s far from alone. As I talked with my fellow journalists, I heard story after story of people getting review PCs, smartphones, and the like with all the previous user’s information still intact.

Don’t start feeling smug though about how smarty-pants journalists aren’t really that smart. I called a couple of local computer recyclers, and they told me that 70% of the old PCs they get arrive at their door with the previous user’s personal and business data just sitting there.

Whoops.

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