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Open Source means that users have the freedom to see how software works, adapt it for the own needs, fix bugs and limitations and contribute back to the community.

MythTV links

By on September 10, 2006 in LAMP, Linux, MySQL, OpenSource, Technology

SlashDot misses the mark completely with in inaccurately-titled and summarized pointer to a great Tom’s Hardware story on MythTV. There’s nearly nothing in the story about the Microsoft media device, nor does there have to be. The MM is a plug-in-and-work device that locks you into their choices, their protocols and few extensions. MythTV is for the do-it-yourself tinkerer who wants to do lots more. This one’s been on my to-do list for way too long.

The comments on the Slashdot article are much more worthwhile than the post. Set your threshhold high and you’ll see the moderated posts. A pointer to Jarod Wilson’s installation guide was worth the browsing. Jarod integrates the great documentation on the MythTV site with his own experiences.

BFD Brute Force Detection vs. script kiddies

By on September 10, 2006 in Linux, OpenSource, Security

Tired of the abuse I'm getting on one of the servers exposed to the Internet, I've installed APF, the Advanced Policy Firewall, and BFD, Brute Force Detection on the machine. Webhostgear.com has easy-to-follow installation instructions for APF and BFD respectively.

While plain vanilla iptables was enough to protect the machine from most routine attacks, incessant attempts at logging in to a couple of well-known services on well-known ports was filling the logs and consuming an extrodinary amount of the bandwidth. Now, a script kiddie attempting 13,000 logins will find the machine no longer responding on that IP address.

Interesting technology. BFD uses a script run as a timed job to parse logs, pick up repeats, and bans them by scriping a command line and submitting it to APF. APF also uses the excellent DShield.org list of known problemmatic machines and networks. Very cool. While BFD comes with a set of scripts to parse common exploits, it didn't have one for my ftp server. I'm not sure I've grokked what's needed to set up my own script of rules, but as I couldn't find one on Google, I'll give it a shot, and share my results back to the community once I've got it working.

NeoOffice/J 2.x free public beta

By on September 7, 2006 in Apple Macintosh OS X, OpenSource

NeoOffice: OpenOffice.org native for Mac OS X. “The NeoOffice project has released the first free public beta of its upcoming 2.0 software. NeoOffice is a port of the OpenOffice.org codebase to native Mac OS X APIs and toolkits. The result is an office suite that is integrated with OS X core functionality.” Link via LXer

Cool! I've enjoyed NeoOffice/J in the 1.x version and look forward to seeing a 2.x release. OpenOffice.org 2.x has been my primary office suite for a while now on Windows and Linux, including some pretty intense collaboration with Windows users.

OpenOffice.org 2.0.3 Premium released

By on September 3, 2006 in OpenSource

LXer reports OpenOffice Suite Gets Font Freebies. “OpenOffice.org Premium can be downloaded from the SourceForge Web site, but is available only for Windows. A native Mac OS X version of the suite will be previewed in France in September.”

[You can also grab the accessories from the SourceForge site, if you already have OOo. – dcparris]

What great timing! I've been looking for a package that includes OpenOffice with some additional fonts, templates and clip art to hand out at Software Freedom Day. On the OO.o site, they have an Extras disk, but it's a couple of micro-versions behind and in need of a lot of attention: files are still in StarOffice format, installers are rough, HOWTOs are missing. There is a lot of great documentation and stuff on the disk (theres an Excel VBA StarBasic concordance that's 63 pages long and looks worthy of further examination), however, and I encourage every OO.o power user to grab the Extras disk (and find out how you might be able to contribute back a little to the disk). But the OOOP disk looks very promising. Will report what I discover

Remote secure desktop serving for Linux servers and Linux/Mac/Windows clients.

By on September 1, 2006 in OpenSource

OSNews reports NX Server, Client Released Under GPL. “2X today announced the release of 2X TerminalServer for Linux, an open source terminal server for Linux, which enables users to run a Linux desktop and Linux / Windows applications over any type of connection. “If Linux is going to happen on the desktop, it will require a terminal server approach such as that of 2X Terminal Server for Linux. Only with the more advanced thin client approach, will Linux be able to outdo Windows fat clients in a company's network. 2X is proud to contribute to this by opening the source code of its terminal server software for Linux.”

'Way cool. NX uses the underlying ssh technology to provide an encrypted tunnel to a remote machine. Through that tunnel, you can support VNC, RDP or compressed X Windows traffic for remote desktop access. I've cobbled together ssh-VNC-http solutions before, but they were typically a bit awkward. I'm looking forward to trying this one out.

There is no one best way

By on August 23, 2006 in OpenSource, Python

Declarations of a One True Way to Python Web Frameworks has lead to lots of kickback. A few samples from Daily Python-URL! (from the Secret Labs):

  • [Floris Bruynooghe] Python web frameworks
  • [online.effbot.org: Fredrik Lundh] he has given us… his shoe!
  • [Groovie] Notes on the Python Web Framework Pronouncement

The consensus seems to be that not much has really changed following the “pronouncement.” No one is in charge, and choice is a good thing. The TurboGears folks will keep trying a little harder, now that they're officially #2, everyone else will try a little harder to unseat them.

What will be good to see implemented would be a comparison chart of the many products. The FoxPro Wiki does a great job of this for VFP Frameworks, and CMS Matrix does a good job on content management systems. This would be a great service to the community.

Novell working to implement VBA in OpenOffice.org

By on August 22, 2006 in OpenSource, Technology

OSNews reports “Novell is still working on improving the VBA support of its OpenOffice submission, and is therefore open to all sumbmissions of VBA macros which are not working on the OOo version of SLED 10. In the meantime the question is when – or even if – Sun will accept the patches for OpenOffice to get VBA support.”

Hmm. I'm surprised. VBA is one of Microsoft's Achille's Heels, the weak spot where lots of security flaws can be exploited, via Automation, AutoOpen macros and so forth. I'll be interested in learning how OOo can implement these.

One view of LinuxWorld Day One

By on August 16, 2006 in Linux, OpenSource, Technology

Over at NewsForge, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier blogs A slow start at LinuxWorld during the seminar day before the main trade show opens. It sounds like the conference had many of the classic faux-pas, hard to avoid but difficult to overcome. I'm not picking on LinuxWorld for these, they happen at every show (and I've been guilty of more than one), but to remind us all what conference attendees expect:

  1. Schedule changes: “I'd hoped to attend Greg Kroah-Hartman's “Write a Real Working Linux Driver” session, but it had been cancelled.”
  2. Not delivering what was promised: “Unfortunately, the presentation was not a “hands-on” affair at all.”
  3. Losing control of the session: “Kirkland turned out to be something of a disappointment. Kirkland spent too much time at the beginning of the session discussing the types of RAID and taking questions from a particularly inquisitive attendee at the back of the room. I enjoy sessions where the presenter takes questions during the presentation, but a good speaker knows how to control the audience and will shut down questions when they start to derail a presentation.”
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This work by Ted Roche is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.