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- 'Tis the season to frag with Linux
Anonymous Reader writes "At wit's end due to crowded shopping malls, miserable weather and that FAO Schwartz song that plays over and over and over until you lose your mind? Have no fear: an open-source, first-person-shooter game called Cube can help relieve some of your stress, and Joe Barr is here to tell you how."
- Streaming Video Available of First openMosix User Conference
Bruce Knox, openMosix Project writes "Bologna, Italy (December 9, 2002) - Stefano Martinelli of CINECA reports that, "All streaming video and most slides for the highly successful conference are available."
- Open Source J2EE 1.4 gets Sun green light
The first open source implementation of the latest specification for enterprise Java is expected in JBoss Group LLC's increasingly popular open source application server next year, Gavin Clarke writes.
- Sony bundles StarOffice for Europe
Sony Corp's European information technology arm is the latest hardware vendor to move away from Microsoft Corp's office application suite, and has adopted Sun Microsystems Inc's StarOffice software for select PC models across Europe.
- IBM buys Rational for $3bn
IBM will purchase development tools maker Rational Software for $US2.1 billion ($3.7 billion) in cash – its biggest software acquisition since purchasing Lotus in 1995.
- Linux show attendees think outside the box
That was the message sent by users and other industry experts last week at the Enterprise Linux Forum Conference & Expo, where attendees swapped stories of Linux and open source usage in site-to-site VPNs, computer-telephony integration and Web services technology, among other areas.
- Analysis: Sun sings a new tune with chips
Sun Microsystems Inc. has been criticized for having some of the slowest chips around, but the company now has revamped its processor plans with some novel new designs and retooled its server strategy in hopes of distinguishing itself from IBM Corp. and Intel Corp.
- Teen Hacker, Hollywood Nemesis, on Trial
Lech Johansen was only 15 when he wrote and distributed on the Internet for free a program that unlocked copy-protected DVDs, giving Hollywood nightmares and making him a folk hero among hackers.
- SuSE Linux 8.1 Professional
Weak GNOME support; attractive, logical KDE desktop; automatically resizes partitions during installation; good desktop organisation; excellent configuration tool.
- Data-loss bug afflicts Linux
After a two-week lag, programmers have fixed a flaw in the latest Linux kernel that could cause systems to lose data. New bug-tracking efforts should button up the patch process in future.
- Exploring the Information Environment:
Philip Hunter with the editorial for Ariadne 33.
- Utilizing E-books to Enhance Digital Library Offerings:
Shirley Hyatt and Lynn Silipigni Connaway, describe the rationale and background of OCLC's acquisition of netLibrary, the information environment that is being pursued, and the resulting benefits that libraries may experience.
- 5 step guide to becoming a content provider in the JISC Information Environment:
Andy Powell describes steps which content providers can take to integrate their resources into the JISC IE.
- Climbing the Scholarly Publishing Mountain with SHERPA:
John MacColl and Stephen Pinfield explore the SHERPA project, which is concentrating on making e-prints available online.
- Student searching behaviour in the JISC Information Environment:
Jill R. Griffiths and Peter Brophy report on work in progress and air some initial findings on the EDNER project, which undertakes evaluation of the developing JISC Information Environment.
- A speaking Electronic Librarian:
Markos Dendrinos with a proposal for an interface system, based on speech recognition and synthesis technologies, for automatic library services.
- Public Libraries: "United we stand":
Penny Garrod on current developments in the Public Library world.
- Planet SOSIG:
Lesly Huxley, Emma Place, David Boyd, and Phil Cross report on a spring-cleaning exercise for SOSIG using a systematic approach to collection management.
- EEVL: Resident EEVL:
Roddy MacLeod 's regular update on the EEVL project. Among other things he explains how the EEVL cross-search facility can be run from user pages.
- Web Focus: "Let's Get Serious About HTML Standards":
Brian Kelly encourages authors to treat compliance with HTML standards seriously.
- Windows Explorer:
Brett Burridge describes the Index Server Companion, an application he has created that allows Microsoft Index Server to index content from remote websites and ODBC databases.
- Web Watch: An Accessibility Analysis Of UK University Entry Points:
Brian Kelly reports on the accessibility of entry points of UK University Web sites.
- Portals, Portals everywhere:
Ian Dolphin, Paul Miller and Robert Sherratt report on two conferences over the summer which explored the progress being made in deploying institutional portals of various forms.
- Digital Libraries in China:
Liz Lyon reports on the International Digital Library Conference held in Beijing in July 2002.
- OCLC-SCURL: 'Collaboration, Integration and "Recombinant Potential"':
Pete Johnston reports on the "New Directions in Metadata" conference, 15-16 August, in Edinburgh
- Improving mod_perl Sites' Performance: Part 5
Stas Bekman continues his series on optimizing mod_perl by examining more ways of saving on shared memory usage.
- This week on Perl 6 (11/24-12/01, 2002)
C# and Parrot again, various visions, and, well, not all that much more...
- Class::DBI
Tony Bowden introduces a brilliantly simple way to interface to a relational database using Perl classes and the Class::DBI module
- This week on Perl 6 (11/17-11/23, 2002)
C# and Parrot, the status of 0.0.9, invocant and topics, string concatenation and much, much more...
- This week on Perl 6 (11/10-11/17, 2002)
A quick Perl 6 roadmap, plus some JIT improvements, mysterious coredump fixes, continuations, superpositions, invocants, tests, and programming BASIC and Scheme in Parrot.
- Managing Bulk DNS Zones with Perl
Chris Josephes describes the challenges to system administrators in maintaining forward and reverse DNS records, and how a clever sysadmin can use Perl to automate this often tedious task.
- This week on Perl 6 (11/03-11/10, 2002)
Bytecode fingerprinting, on_exit() portability, memory washing, invocant and topic naming syntax, Unicode operators, operators, more operators, the supercomma, perl6-documentation, Schwern throws the Virtual Coffee Mug, and much more...
- Object Oriented Exception Handling in Perl
Arun Udaya Shankar discusses implementing object-oriented exception handling in Perl, using Error.pm. Also covered are the advantages of using exceptions over traditional error handling mechanisms, basic exception handling with eval {}, and the use of Fatal.pm.
- This week on Perl 6 (10/28-11/03, 2002)
Bytecode formats, "Simon Cozens versus the world", and more...
- Writing Perl Modules for CPAN
For many years, the Perl community has extolled the virtues of CPAN and re-usable, modular code. But why hasn't there been anything substantial written on how to achieve it? Sam Tregar redresses the balance, and this month's book review looks at how he got on.
- This week on Perl 6 (10/20-27, 2002)
C# and Parrot, fun with operators, a license change, and more...
- On Topic
Allison Randal explains the seemingly strange concept of "topic" in Perl 6 - and finds that it's alive and well in Perl 5 too...
- The Phrasebook Design Pattern
Have you ever written code that uses two languages in the same program? Whether they be human languages or computer languages, the phrasebook design pattern helps you separate them for more maintainable code.
- This week on Perl 6 (10/7-14, 2002)
A new pumpking, sprintf, insight from Larry, and more...
- Radiator
Are you fed up with those who think that commercial applications need to be written in an "enterprise" language like Java or C++? So are we, so we spoke to Mike McCauley at Open System Consultants.
- Largo loves Linux more than ever
- By Robin 'Roblimo' Miller - We're back in Largo, Florida, checking on advances in the Linux-based network they use to run the city's computers that we wrote about last year. True to Largo's "City of Progress" motto, these guys have not been standing still. Now they're talking about Linux-based terminals in all the city's police cars. Microsoft has tried -- and failed -- to bring them into the proprietary fold. And, possibly most important, we ...
- TheOpenCD First Edition Launch
- By Henrik Nilsen Omma and Will Martin - TheOpenCD project started with two articles on NewsForge in April of this year. The idea was to make a compilation of mature open source software (OSS) for windows users as an easy introduction to OSS. The project was inspired by a question which is frequently asked in Linux forums: "Given that we now have this fast, secure, desktop-ready, free OS, why doesn't everyone switch?"
- Linux Advisory Watch - December 6th 2002
By Benjamin D. Thomas -This week, advisories were released for RPC XDR, ypserv, pine, freeswan, im, smb2www, xinetd, webalizer, kde, kdelibs, and windowmaker.  The distributors include Caldera, Conectiva, Debian, Gentoo, Mandrake, and Red Hat.
- Some thoughts on the future of 'geek lobbying'
- By Robin 'Roblimo' Miller -This is a cynical but realistic view of the U.S. regulatory and lawmaking process that will make you sad -- and will show you why "Geek Activism" projects must be ongoing efforts if they are going to succeed. I'm sure things are similar in other countries, but I know the U.S. system best so that's the one I'll talk about here.
- Compiere: Open source ERP and CRM for small business
- By Robin 'Roblimo' Miller - Compiere is free, open source software designed to give small retailers, wholesalers, and service businesses most of the same ERP and CRM capabilities SAP and other large-scale ERP and CRM providers sell to big businesses. But if a company wants and needs extra support and handholding beyond the usual open source user-to-user channels, ComPiere will provide that support for a fee. Compiere is one of the more active ...
- Tracking Tux: Research Round-Up
- By Barbara French, Tekrati - Bloor Research crosses the aisle and declares Linux enterprise-ready. META Group sees signs of changing tides in data center operating system dominance. The Linux-mainframe marriage makes sense with planning according to D.H. Brown and Giga, while Illuminata suggests maybe you shouldn't care. Aberdeen Group finds that infosec attacks leveled the playing field among operating system targets in 2002 and urges ...
- Prelim GNOME Board election results
- by Tina Gasperson -Voting has closed and the ballots have been counted for the GNOME Board elections. It's not surprising to find the new board is laced with Ximian staff.
- Cheap Mandrake for Windows refugees
-by Tina Gasperson - Monday, MandrakeSoft announced what it calls a Refugee Program. If you can muster up proof that you purchased an operating system license to run Windows or UNIX or any other OS, Mandrake has got a deal for you.
- OFTC: A study in cooperative open source software politics
- By David 'cdlu' Graham - Managing an open source or free software related project can be challenging, so why do it alone? This essay explains how the Open and Free Technology Community's pseudo-democratic system works to divide up power and authority and always keep fresh blood working on the project.
- Linux Advisory Watch - November 29th 2002
By Benjamin D. Thomas Linux Advisory Watch is a comprehensive newsletter that outlines the security vulnerabilities that have been announced throughout the week. It includes pointers to updated packages and descriptions of each vulnerability. This week, advisories were released for pine, samba, python, sendmail, kernel, and mod_php.  The distributors include Conectiva, Debian, Guardian Digital's EnGarde Secure Linux, Mandrake, Red Hat, ...
- Institutional Repositories: Partnering with Faculty to Enhance Scholarly Communication
Richard K. Johnson, SPARC
- The NSF National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library (NSDL) Program: New Projects in Fiscal Year 2002
Lee L. Zia, National Science Foundation
- Software for Building a Full-Featured Discipline-Based Web Portal: The Scout Portal Toolkit
Edward Almasy, David Sleasman, and Rachael Bower, University of Wisconsin - Madison
- A Metadata Framework Developed at the Tsinghua University Library to Aid in the Preservation of Digital Resources
Jingfang Niu, Tsinghua University
- A Scalable Architecture forHarvest-Based Digital Libraries: The ODU/SouthamptonExperiments
Xiaoming Liu, Kurt Maly, Mohammad Zubair, and Michael L. Nelson, Old Dominion University; and Tim Brody, Stevan Harnad, and Les Carr, University of Southampton
- The Design and Evaluation of Interactivities in a Digital Library
Muniram Budhu and Anita Coleman, University of Arizona
- Report on the Third International Conference on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR 2002): 14 - 17 October 2002, Paris, France
Bonita Wilson, Corporation for National Research Initiatives
- Report on the 2nd Workshop on the Open Archives Initiative, Gaining Independence with e-Print Archives and OAI: 17 - 19 October 2002, CERN, Switzerland
Michael L. Nelson, Old Dominion University; Herbert Van de Sompel, Los Alamos National Laboratory; and Carl Lagoze, Cornell University
- Digital Morphology
Julian Humphries, University of Texas at Austin
- Report on ISMIR 2002 Conference Panel I: Music Information Retrieval Evaluation Frameworks
J. Stephen Downie, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Report on ISMIR 2002 Conference Panel II: OMRAS Approach to Music Information Retrieval in the Real World
Tim Crawford, City University, London
- Report on ISMIR 2002 Conference Panel III: Similarity in Music
Ludger Hofmann-Engl, The Link
- The History of ISMIR - A Short Happy Tale
Donald Byrd, Indiana University and Michael Fingerhut, IRCAM
- PORTAL: Presenting NatiOnal Resources To Audiences Locally
Liz Pearce, University of Hull
- Rights and Self-archiving: The RoMEO Project
Elizabeth Gadd, Loughborough University
- The Cybrarian Project
Atu Sharda, UK Department for Education and Skills
- International Children's Digital Library to Host 10,000 Books
Jeff Ubois, The Internet Archive
- MARC4J Open Source Software
Bas Peters, MARC4J
- In the News: Recent Press Releases and Announcements CLIPS & POINTERS
In Print
- Is the Drug War working?
One often hears about the problems of illegal drugs in the news such as a shooting over a drug deal in the ghettos or a busted drug lord in Columbia. A raging debate nowadays is how we should deal with these and other drug problems. This issue has two opposing viewpoints: We can either legalize or decriminalize drugs or impose harsher regulation.
- Introductory Basic 3D Transformations 101 Made Easy for Dummies in 30 Days
The problem: You have a bunch of 3D data. This data describes an object -- usually by a big list of coordinate points. So how do you get it onto the screen? This very informal article assumes rudimentary familiarity with vector geometry.
- How much is a life worth?
The USA government has entrusted Kenneth Feinberg to decide the economic worth of the 2001-09-11 attack victims to their families. It seems that those terror victims are worth much less than the ones killed in Pan Am flight 103 for which [USD] $2 021 million's damages were sought, and even what was actually awarded for one of the victims: more than $19 million. Lily Gray was killed and Richard Grimshaw severely injured in 1972-05 because of fuel leakage problems in the Ford Pinto they were in - a jury awarded more than $128 million in damages, which was reduced to $6.56 million. The Ford Motor Company later argued that paying $11 to the fix fuel leakage problems was $7.04 too much compared to having customers burn to death, receive burn injuries, or suffer property loss. This was based on a 1972 [USA] Highway Traffic Safety Administration calculation of the cost to society of a person being killed in a car accident, the approximate worth a human life: just over $0.2 million.
- Is This the America I Love? - Another Voice
Hot on the heels of the well-written Is This the America I Love?, I thought that it would be a good time to add more fuel to the nascent fire. While Michael makes the call for people to become politically active, I will tell you what it's like to be active in a public position, in an effort to encourage more people to start.
- Asimov's "I, Robot" on the big screen at last... sort of
Yet another Hollywood travesty. I know a lot of folks out there must be Asimov fans, so I thought you might want to know, a film called "I, Robot" is being made. But according to the news, it's NOT the Ellison treatment, and it's not the Asimov story, even adapted. The studio just bought the rights to the name.
- An Approach To Game Compromise
Game compromise, a term that includes cheating and cracking, seems to mature at the same rate as game creation. For each device implemented follows a device to manipulate it. For each countermeasure comes an equally capable circumvention. A body of knowledge about the mitigation of compromise has grown, and continues to grow. It is unfortunate however that this knowledge appears disparate: inaccessible to those who need it and lacking a general framework of classification and extension. A part of this document has been omitted since it cannot be displayed here (Math formulas), but it is not essential to the paper. The full paper (with original layout) can be found as a PDF here.
- What will you really die from
The news media have been fear mongering like a Baptist preacher at a revival for about 1 year, 2 months now. I would like to point out how screwed up and irrational their view of terror is.
- Salon grasps at "advertorial" straws, New York Times gets the vapors
It was a cold morning in Maine. The mercury was lower than the Rollback prices at Wal-Mart, so I pulled on my hooded Polartec fleece sweatshirt and wrapped my hands around a steaming mug of Green Mountain Columbian Supremo Popayan coffee as I clicked through my usual morning round of websites. MetaFilter is always among my first reads of the day, delivering punchy and offbeat links with an irreverent attitude. But today I could only gape in horror at the first story that greeted me, like a viewer of DreamWorks Pictures recent scare-fest "The Ring." "Sony writes 'article' for Salon," it said, going on to explain that online magazines including Salon, National Geographic, and Parent Soup have all run "advertorial" features written by freelancers and paid for by Sony Electronics.
- The Roots of Arab Anti-Americanism
One of the prevailing criticisms of American foreign policy is that it is the primary cause of America's status as pariah in most Middle East nations.  But is this really the case?  If not, what does cause the virulent anti-Americanism of the Muslim and Arab world?  Barry Rubin puts forth the hypothesis that in fact:Arab and Muslim hatred of the United States is not just, or even mainly, a response to actual U.S. policies Read on to find out what Mr.Rubin suggests is the true case of the anti-Americanism of the Arab world.
- Is This the America I Love?
I just feel the need to write right now. Something has gone terribly wrong with the country I was raised to love. The good things that America stands for are being trampled into the dirt by those charged with the burden of protecting them. I was raised to be a patriotic American. I grew up a military brat - my father was a proud officer of the United States Navy, who served in the Vietnam War. When I was young, I was always told that my father was fighting to preserve the freedoms that were guaranteed us by the United States Constitution. In the first grade, I attended a school run by the U.S. Navy in Gaeta, Italy, where my father was stationed aboard the U.S.S. Springfield. Each day when we started school we sang patriotic songs and said the Pledge of Allegiance. We were told that America stood for freedom and democracy and justice. I loved America for what it stood for.
- JBoss Making Big Gains in J2EE Territory
See article in The OpenEnterprise, having good OSS options for J2EE is important for building big systems. The great thing is that JBoss is not the only choice for an OSS implementation, OpenEJB is also gaining ground.
- Co-browsing Prototype
Well, it was partially driven by guilt and the persistence of the original submitter (you know who you are), but I have done a prototype co-browser called CoLib in response to one of the Access Hackfest suggestions. It's on the same machine that the September revision of PYTHEAS is on and it's a clunker of a box, but hopefully this is a start.