Recent network problems have had me switching around a couple of Linksys WRT-54g routers. While researching the optimal firmware and feature set, I found this great table comparing WRT-54 firmware on the http://www.linksysinfo.org web site.
Archive | OpenSource
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.
Business Week: A Watershed for Open Source
Business Week: “Looking back, 2005 will likely be viewed as a turning point. It was a year when CIOs signed off on open-source projects, a big change from previous years when that happened only after low-level engineers started such projects on their own initiative. It was a year when venture capitalists woke up to the new business opportunities of open source. It was a year when open source was the word on the lips of not just early adopters but of an early majority.”
Do LUGs matter? Yes!
Slashdot asks Do LUGs Still Matter?, pointing to an article by Joe Barr, writing for NewsForge. The answer for all UGs hasn’t changed: User Groups matter if they matter to you. If there’s something you want out of a LUG and you’re willing to put some effort into a LUG, amazing things can happen. Everyone knows of a LUG that’s faded: there’s a natural rhythm to LUGs like all organizations. A leader with fire in his/her belly drives the group to new heights, burns out or gets distracted, and the group declines. A new leader may emerge or the group may fade away like the Cheshire Cat, leaving nothing but an empty web page or two.
The Greater New Hampshire Linux User Group is on another power climb, not its first, nor hopefully its last. Active volunteers are running chapters in Nashua, Peterborough, Hanover, Concord and Durham. A Python Special Interest Group shares many of its members and the groups resources and gives us a presence in Manchester as well.
In the past year, member of the group were present at Linuxworld Boston, the Software Association of New Hampshire InfoeXchange annual conference, the Hosstraders ham radio swapfest, the McAuliffe annual teacher’s conference, and Software Freedom Day.
LUGs can matter as much as you want them to.
Linux Certification
Over at Linux Watch, Stephen J. Vaughn-Nicholls opines “You don’t have to have a Linux certification to get a job working with Linux, but it can’t hurt.” I’m a big fan of certification, as I think eventually the vendor- and industry-level certification will be viewed as Continuing Education requirements for Licensed Software Practitioners. I’ve lectured about this years ago. I’ve also practiced what I’ve preached, earning a Novell CNA, Microsoft Certified Professional, Certified Solution Developer, Certified System Engineer and MySQL Core Certification through the years. I also worked as one of the lead authors for Microsoft’s Visual FoxPro 6.0 Distributed Applications exam, so I appreciate the difficulty of creating a legitimate certification.
Like a diploma, some certificates may just be an attendance report crossed with a good deal of bulk memorization, but it also shows a willingness to work within the system. A four-year degree generally indicates a bit of patience, too. But on the flip side, remember what they call they guy who graduates at the bottom of his class in med school: “Doctor”
Certification can be what you make of it. An educational opportunity, a means of self-evaluation, and a chance to distinguish yourself in the marketplace.
Dabo goes video!
In “Dabo Part I: The AppWizard,” Andrew Ross MacNeill interviewed Ed Leafe in a videocast demonstrating the Python n-tier framework dabo. Ed was so impressed with the power of video presentations that he’s tried his hand at it himself. Check it out at http://leafe.com/screencasts/codedemo.html. Ed used dabo on a Fedora Core 2 workstation and recorded it using pyvnc2swf and Sound Studio on the Mac. Very cool!
The Difference between Red Hat and Novell
Over at Linux-Watch.com, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols posts The Difference between Red Hat and Novell which in turn points to Matt Asay’s essay by the same name. Interesting to read an inside and outside view of the situation.
Nut-Graph: visualize blackouts
And once you have NUT monitoring your UPS serving multiple servers, consider adding Nut-Graph to give you a visual display of incoming voltage, load and battery status. Requires NUT, mod_php, MySQL 4.1 and Perl and jpgraph. Very slick!
MonadLUG, 8 Dec 2005: Tim Lind on anti-spam techniques
Guy Pardoe, the MonadLUG Coordinator-in-Chief, announces “The next meeting of the Monadnock Linux User Group (MonadLUG) will be this Thursday, December 8th, 7:00pm, at the SAU 1 Superintendent’s Office behind South Meadow School in Peterborough… Tim Lind discusses Anti-spam techniques – Using open source tools, how to build an anti-spam system that is self running, updating and allows your email users to configure their own whitelists/blacklists, etc…”
IBM Workplace to support Open Document Format
Computerworld News reports IBM Workplace client to support Open Document Format in ’06. “In a move that could pit it against Microsoft, IBM plans to support the Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF) in a version of its Workplace Managed Client 2.6 due out early next year.”
Great news! Interoperability and Working Well with Others is Good.
Competition breeds Innovation. “In a move that could pit it against Microsoft?” It seems that journalists have to set up simple Either-Or binary contests when the world is far more complex than that. It’s not IBM vs. Microsoft any more than it is Novell vs. Sun: it’s an ecology of competition, progress, cooperation and differences. Companies will cooperate and join together to advance some standards, and compete on other fronts. IBM is adding another file format to its office product. It’s doubtful that IBM will drop ASCII, RTF, Word Perfect, AmiPro or MS Word format. More adoption of ODF is a welcome sign.
Apache 2.2 ships with virtual host https support
From Resigned to the Bittersweet Truth, Apache 2.2 is Out. The earth-shattering feature of Apache 2.2 is RFC 2817 SSL Upgrade. Basically, any HTTP connection can upgrade itself to HTTPS without reestablishing.”
“This means you can do SSL on virtual hosts without a dedicated IP address. This will greatly increase the penetration of SSL (plus free certs like CaCert) …”
Awesome! SSL on virtual hosts opens up the world of secure web transactions for inexpensive shared hosts. Way cool.