It’s easy to see why Ubuntu is the chosen one (pun intended) – one only has to pop in a CD on any fairly modern PC and see the results. A graphical desktop is available for use fairly soon and anyone who wishes to take the next step and install the distribution has a very easy setup to follow. Of course, there are plenty of other distributions which are equally usable – Ubuntu just happens to be the one which is best-known.

Source: Ubuntu? Not for me, thanks

Do you have trouble accessing data exported from multiple file servers? If so, try using open source implementations of autofs and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), with Network File System (NFS) Version 3, to access data under the same global mount point.

Source: Create uniform namespace using autofs with NFS 3

When it comes to troublesome Linux peripherals, WiFi takes the cake. Sparked by the Portland Project’s efforts to bring standardization to the Linux desktop, the Linux wireless developer community tackled this problem at its second Linux Wireless Summit last month in London.

Source: desktoplinux.com

Yesterday, Linspire and Canonical issued a joint announcement that Linspire would begin to base its distributions on Ubuntu rather than Debian, and that Ubuntu users would be able to use CNR to install proprietary applications and drivers, starting…

(A real good read including the comments from the Dev of Mepis, take a look and see what the comments are.Including the comment that Ubuntu is replacing Debian in the Distro chain. Baldy)

Source: Linspire to be based on Ubuntu

New experiments show it is possible for computers to detect, at a higher level of sophistication than ever before, people’s intentions for the future, neuroscientists reported yesterday.

The findings could yield a big improvement in brain-computer interfaces, could help the disabled control robotics with their minds and could make it so a computer could read our minds far better than is currently possible.

Source: foxnews

Even Cassandra couldn’t have predicted the RSA chief’s keynote

It takes a certain amount of guts to host an IT security conference where you get up and tell a roomful of your peers that they’re full of it.

Given a lineup that included Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Symantec’s John Thompson, who would have thought that it would be Art Coviello, the president of RSA Security, who offered the most insightful keynote speech at the annual security gathering? His criticisms and predictions were engaging, well said and surprisingly memorable. Even if they’re probably wrong.

Source:
itbusiness.ca

Marc Fleury, founder of JBoss and often controversial open source, leader has left Red Hat. The move came as no surprise to many in the industry.

In a statement, Fleury wrote, “I have done what I can to help Red Hat succeed. People need to understand that Open Source is a tsunami that is transforming the software industry in its wake and its inevitability is now well beyond challenge or the force of individual personality.”

Source: linux-watch.com

q&a Gina Trapani has become a blogosphere star by finding ways to help people improve their productivity. In an exclusive interview, she explains how to adopt a programmers’ mindset to “free up some mental RAM”

Lifehacker.com is one of the Top 20 blogs on the Internet, was named one of the 50 Coolest Web Sites by Time magazine and has been nominated for 12 Bloggies, the Weblog community’s Oscars.

The blog catalogues technology tricks to squeeze more productivity out of your day. A new book version collects 88 tech tricks to get more out of your day.

Computing Canada spoke to Java programmer and Web designer Gina Trapani, the editor of the Lifehacker blog and author of Lifehacker: 88 Tech Tricks to Supercharge Your Day (Wiley Publishing Inc.) from her office in San Diego.

Source: itbusiness.ca

IVOR TOSSELL

Globe and Mail Update

When you send an e-card, you’re not in “sending the best,” as Hallmark would have you believe.

It’s Valentine’s Day again, which makes it a perfect day not to send that special someone an electronic greeting card. As a matter of fact, Valentine’s Day is only the first of 365 great days not to send an e-card.

You know the kind, where you get what appears to be an e-mail from a friend, but turns out to be from a robot at a greeting-card company instead.

Inside the e-mail there’s some legalese and an unintelligible link, and when you click it, you get taken to a Web page where a dancing rodent pops up with an inscription like, “Every time I think of you, I hug you in my heart.”

Maybe there are people out there who really do feel hugged in the heart when they find this in their inbox. Personally, I feel some constriction of the throat.

Some food for thought and a funny read

Source: Globe and Mail