Practical Technology

for practical people.

February 5, 2010
by sjvn01
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Canonical picks open-source leader for COO

When Canonical’s, the company behind Ubuntu, CEO Mark Shuttleworth stepped down and former COO (chief operating officer) Jane Silber moved up, there was concern that the popular Linux company might suffer from a lack of corporate leadership. Worry no more. Open source industry veteran and leader Matt Asay has joined Canonical as its new COO.

As the COO, his job will be make sure operational activities match up to the company’s strategic goals and make sure that day-to-day operations go smoothly. Asay will also head up Canonical’s marketing.

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February 5, 2010
by sjvn01
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Can you trust Chinese computer equipment?

As you surely know, Google has accused China of hacking into its systems and is considering pulling out of China altogether. The U.S. government is taking this seriously, and Google has partnered with the NSA (National Security Agency) to get to the bottom of this. What you may not know is that the United Kingdom’s MI5 — Americans can think of this as a combination of the FBI and CIA — has reported that the Chinese government has been giving UK executives electronics with built-in security holes.

According to the Sunday Times, “A leaked MI5 document says that undercover intelligence officers from the People’s Liberation Army and the Ministry of Public Security have also approached UK businessmen at trade fairs and exhibitions with the offer of ‘gifts’ and ‘lavish hospitality.’ The gifts — cameras and memory sticks — have been found to contain electronic Trojan bugs which provide the Chinese with remote access to users’ computers.”

That’s bad. But why, if these stories are true, should the Chinese government stop there? U.S. and British citizens buy billions of dollars every year of Chinese-made USB memory sticks, computers, hard drives, and cameras. Why not just add security holes as a matter of course to the firmware of all of them?

It’s not hard. Heck. It’s trivial.

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February 4, 2010
by sjvn01
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There’s No Reason to Wait for Windows 7 SP1

Historically, adopting the first version of any major Microsoft software release has been, well, a mistake. Sometimes, as with Windows NT, it took several iterations — until NT4 SP3 — before the operating system really worked well. And, with the far more recent Windows Vista fiasco in mind, no one could blame you for not aggressively looking into shifting your business desktops from Windows XP to Windows 7. But, more than six months after Windows 7 was released to manufacturing, it’s become clear that there’s no reason to wait for SP1 before moving up to Windows 7.

I’ve had little love for Windows over the years. But this time, while I can still give you chapter and verse on why a Linux desktop is worth considering, I have to say that I’m impressed by Windows 7. More to the point, after over a year of working with Windows 7 from late beta until now, I’ve found it more than stable enough to consider as a Windows XP replacement today.

People’s usual reasons for holding off on an upgrade until SP1 is fear that an early Windows version will break underneath them. That’s not the case here.

I have been beating the heck out of Windows 7 on a variety of systems and to coin a phrase, “It just works.” Along the way I have also run on the OS mainstream business software such as Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, QuickBooks, and dozens of other programs, and I’ve yet to find a need for Windows 7’s built-in XP virtualization. At the same time, I’ve also found that most everyday business peripherals such as printers, scanners, and the like also have no trouble with Windows 7.

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February 3, 2010
by sjvn01
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Linux upgrades the easy way

You haven’t seen any new stories from me for the last few days because I’ve been moving. I hate moving. With luck, I’ll never have to buy another house so long as I live. With that off my chest, along the way, I’ve been re-assembling my office-all 28 computers of it. I decided to update an Ubuntu 9.04 desktop to Ubuntu 9.10 and an openSUSE server from openSUSE 11.1 to openSUSE 11.2.

No, I’m not crazy. I know, all too well, that upgrading Windows, say from XP to Windows 7 is a big job. In fact, as far as I’m concerned, the best way to ‘upgrade’ from XP to Windows 7 is just to buy a new computer. It’s different with Linux. Or, to be more precise, it’s different with the newest versions of Ubuntu and openSUSE.

You could always upgrade Linux over the Internet if you knew exactly what you were doing. Now, Novell and Canonical have made it easier.

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January 27, 2010
by sjvn01
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Anything the iPad can do, Linux can do better.

The Apple iPad has finally arrived, and as I predicted a while back, it’s really just a big iPod Touch. That’s great — I love my iPod Touch. But really, is there anything here that Linux can’t do just as well for less money?

I do think that the iPad might be a game-changer, but I don’t see it as creating some kind of new kind of computing platform. It’s also not going to replace netbooks, notebooks or PCs.

Sure, it will come with an iPad version of Apple’s iWork office suite, but have you ever tried to type on a tablet? I have. It doesn’t work. You need a real keyboard, and that’s why netbooks and their kin will continue to do just fine.

What the iPad and the Linux-powered tablets it will be competing with are going to kill off are every special-purpose handheld device out there. GPS devices and e-book readers are now officially on their way to joining Betamax and HD-DVD.

But it won’t just be the Apple iPad that does them in. I foresee a rollout of dozens of Linux-powered devices by the end of the year. In part, that may be because the content on Linux devices won’t come saddled with Apple’s DRM (digital rights management). But the real reason why Linux devices should win is price. If the vendors can’t beat the bottom-end iPad’s list price of $499, then they’re not really trying.

Here’s what I see happening. The first wave of iPad competitors will use Moblin 2.0. There are already five Linux vendors working on Moblin. These are Canonical, with Ubuntu Netbook Remix; Linpus, Novell; Red Flag; and Xandros.

Together with their hardware partners, you should look to Acer, Asus, Dell and MSI: they’ll be delivering their own take on the iPad by year’s end. Their devices will be powered by the new Intel Atom platform for netbooks and small desktops: The N450, D510, and D410 ‘Pineview’ CPUs and ‘Pinetrail’ NM10 chipset.

Novell, I should note, is hedging its bets. Not long after the iPad announcement, Novell was pointing out that its MonoTouch platform lets iPad developers use .NET code and libraries and other programming languages like C# to program for the iPad. Mono and .NET developers should be able, with some slight modifications, run their existing iPhone and iPod Touch apps on the iPad.

Besides the Moblin/Atom boxes, you’ll also see iPad-like tablets using ARM processors and Google’s Android 2.0 take on Linux coming out at about the same time. Android 2 vendors, like Motorola with its Droid, have always targeted the iPhone. The iPad will just be another arena for their battle.

And, last but not least, there’s Google with its Chrome operating system. It’s going to take longer to come to the market then the others but I can see Chrome Linux powered netbooks giving the iPad trouble as well as giving the traditional desktop market fits.

All that taken into consideration, I’m also still sure that the iPad will be wildly popular. Apple products, when Apple puts its mind to it, usually are very successful … for users who have the money for the shiniest new toys. But in the longer run, I’m willing to bet that collectively, the Linux-powered entertainment tablets will end up having more customers.

A version of this story first appeared in ComputerWorld.

January 27, 2010
by sjvn01
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The Snoopy Google Toolbar

No one is accusing Google of being Big Brother, but it certainly was eye-opening when Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, shows that newer versions of Google Toolbar, versions 6.3 and above, was tracking Internet Explorer 8 users actions even when it was ‘off.’

Of course this begs the question, “Is there someone out there who ever turns the extremely useful Google Toolbar off?” I never have. Still, it is disturbing that this bug ever made it to the public in the first place. I mean, what part of ‘off’ did Google’s developers not get?

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