Being that I’m running Mepis 6.0.4 Beta on an old PIII 700mhz laptop and I have zero patience (just as Baldy how much I like to wait ) I use Fluxbox as my window manager as opposed to KDE or GNOME

Getting Fluxbox 0.9.14 set up was no problem at all, but I was annoyed by the fact that Konqueror didn’t open to my home directory from the Flux menu. The quick fix follows below.

Making Konqueror open to your home directory from the Flux menu:

Open ~/.fluxbox/menu with your favorite editor and add the following line, anywhere you’d like, just make sure it’s on a new line:

Now save the file and it’s good to go.

Much easier than opening a terminal and typing the fbsetbg command along with the path to the file!

Open up your ~/.fluxbox/menu with your editor of choice and copy and paste the following anywhere you’d like

[submenu] (Backgrounds)

[wallpapers] (~/.fluxbox/backgrounds) {fbsetbg}

[end]

Remember to save the file and make sure you have a backgrouds directory in your ~/.fluxbox directory!!

Now when you hover over “Backgrounds” in your menu, it will list all available images, just click one!

Mepis 6.0.4 Beta / Opera 9.10

After over half an hour of searching, Baldy and I finally found the deeply hidden, highly secretive and super elusive java.

Here’s how to get it working:

Open up Opera>Tools>Prefrences>Advanced>Content> check the box beside “Enable Java”. Open up Java Options: Browse to /usr/lib/jvm/java-1.5.0-sun-1.5.0.08/jre/lib/i386 Validate your Java Path. You should be good to go!

It may not have Fernando Alonso behind the wheel, but the latest version of the Lamborghini laptop looks like it has the pure muscle to snap most benchmarks in two and still have time to grab a beer and pizza. Based on the Core 2 Duo platform, it boasts a high-end video card as well as the next-generation draft-N wireless service. Combined with its sleek profile, those willing to pay a premium for looks and performance will certainly be enticed by the ASUS Lamborghini VX2.

OHHHH Baby!!! Someone has to start saving her tips!!

Source: Cnet-Asia

(Column) – Theory versus practice – I don’t think there’s a better solution in making sure that software developers are ready for the challenges of tomorrow than catching them while they are still in school, and then plugging them into an open source software project.

Combining What You Love and Getting Paid. It seems that in the UK, university students are being compensated for their efforts for doing something they love – software development.

Thanks to the efforts of the UK Free Software Network (UKFSN), UK students have an opportunity to earn a little extra pocket change while they learn. Even considering the sum, I don’t think that most college students who are involved in learning software development would turn down such a thing.

Source: Mad Penguin

I am a prisoner of Canada, and it’s my own damn fault.

I knew my passport was expiring by the end of October. Even when I took my last trip across the border, a few weeks before the deadline, a customs officer said to me, “Well, you won’t be traveling with this much longer.” To top it off, I checked the Passport Canada Web site in September, and was surprised to see a notice which said it was a perfect time to renew, because fall is a seasonal lull when the lineups are at their shortest. And then, Jan. 23 hit, when U.S. requirements for a passport kicked in, and now I’m screwed. My situation can be blamed on a combination of laziness and carelessness. What’s Passport Canada’s excuse?

Source: itbusiness.ca

Sun Microsystems, Secunia, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team and other security agencies have issued alerts for a somewhat oxymoronic telnet vulnerability in the Sun Solaris 10 operating system. The vulnerability is oxymoronic because, while it’s possible for a hacker to gain potentially devastating access to a system, the administrators in charge of the system would also have to set up telnet usage against Sun’s recommendations in a way that would be about as secure as leaving your back door unlocked.

Source: Sun’s Solaris 10 Highly Vulnerable to Unlikely Telnet Exploit

{mosimage}A new study in the Journal of Political Economy by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf has found that illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on the sale of music, contrary to the claims of the recording industry.

Entitled “The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis,” the study matched an extensive sample of music downloads to American music sales data in order to search for causality between illicit downloading and album sales. Analyzing data from the final four months of 2002, the researchers estimated that P2P affected no more than 0.7% of sales in that timeframe.

Source: Ars Technica

Full story

Technorati tags: News

Source: P2P effect on legal music sales “not statistically distinguishable from zero”

{mosimage} Picking a password is a tricky business. And the temptation is to go for something that is easy to remember like our partner’s birthday, a pet’s name, or a film star.

The trouble is, given just a few attempts it also makes it pretty easy to crack.

“Hackers today will often use a dictionary style attack. This means they can very quickly use all of the words in the dictionary as well as common celebrity or sports names,” explained McAfee security analyst Greg Day.

“For example, many people still use what they think is a smart technique of switching out some of those characters for numbers, for example changing an A into a 4. But that’s a very commonly known technique.”

“I think what worries us more these days is we use online communities, like MySpace or Bebo, to meet and chat with other people, and people are so willing to hand over this information – favourite film star, etc. As a password stealer I only need to chat to you for a few minutes and I can probably commonly guess your password.”

The ideal password is used for one site only, it uses letters in both upper and lower case, numbers, and other characters. Something like this: EAJst9s74*$D!2 – but the problem is that it is just not easy to remember.

Source: BBC News

Full story

Technorati tags: Security, How-To

Source: Keeping secrets from web spies

The machine designed by Drs. Eckert and Mauchly was a monstrosity. When it was finished, the ENIAC filled an entire room, weighed thirty tons, and consumed two hundred kilowatts of power. And it wasn’t as powerful as your cellphone.

For those of you that are wondering yes that is the name of the First Computer Folks. And the little rascal had tubes the size of coffee cans inside.

Source: Happy Birthday, ENIAC