jwitko asks: "I work for an international telecommunications company. They're pretty enormous when it comes to size/budget so their willingness to send employees to get training and to better themselves is pretty strong. I am simply a student who got lucky to become a part-time contractor with this company and I've loved every minute of it. My job primarily relies on working on Unix platforms and installing/configuring our product on laptops for sales people to go out and sell to telecommunications company's (ex: T-Mobile, Verizon, and so forth). However, before I came to this company I had barely ever even touched a Unix-based OS. This summer, I would like to travel to as many different seminars, lectures, and classes to really get experience with *nix based operating systems and learn a lot more about how to use them. Where are some good places to find ongoing seminars, lectures, etc. in Unix and Linux that you think would really help a somewhat-new guy learn a lot and become more experienced?"

cyclomedia writes "While more and more platforms are getting (or aiming for) Firefox ports, the trunk itself seems to be going the other way. In an effort to clean up the API calls used and reduce the codesize a patch was posted at Bugzilla removing support from pre-W2k versions of Windows. There's a fiery discussion going on over at the Mozillazine forums about this after a counter bug was filed. The official position appears to be that Firefox 3.0 will maintain this un-compatibility, but developers are, obviously, free to work on a separate Win 98 compatible 'port.'"

RobbeR49 writes "Windows Server 2003 was recently compared against Linux and Unix variants in a survey by the Yankee Group, with Windows having a higher annual uptime than Linux. Unix was the big winner, however, beating both Windows and Linux in annual uptime. From the article: 'Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Linux distributions from "niche" open source vendors, are offline more and longer than either Windows or Unix competitors, the survey said. The reason: the scarcity of Linux and open source documentation.' Yankee Group is claiming no bias in the survey as they were not sponsored by any particular OS vendor."

Andy Updegrove writes "Before there was Linux, before there was open source, there was of course (and still is) an operating system called Unix that was robust, stable and widely admired. It was also available under license to anyone that wanted to use it, and partly for that reason many variants grew up and lost interoperability - and the Unix wars began. Those wars helped Microsoft displace Unix with Windows NT, which steadily gained market share until Linux, a Unix clone, in turn began to supplant NT. Unfortunately, one of the very things that makes Linux powerful also makes it vulnerable to the same type of fragmentation that helped to doom Unix - the open source licenses under which Linux distributions are created and made available. Happily, there is a remedy to avoid the end that befell Unix, and that remedy is open standards - specifically, the Linux Standards Base (LSB). The LSB is now an ISO/IEC standard, and was created by the Free Standards Group. In a recent interview, the FSG's Executive Director, Jim Zemlin, and CTO, Ian Murdock, creator of Debian GNU/Linux, tell how the FSG works collaboratively with the open source community to support the continued progress of Linux and other key open source software, and ensure that end users do not suffer the same type of lock in that traps licensees of proprietary software products."

AriaStar asks: "It's overwhelming to start trying to learn all the different technologies needed to go into programming. It seems that every type of technology assumes knowledge of a different one, which in turn requires knowledge of another, until it's gone full circle. I am interested in everything from Unix to AJAX to Perl. Things like HTML, Javascript, and SQL are like English, but then again, they're basic. Where is the best place to start? What is a good path for someone who learns quickly and easily, but who is simply too overwhelmed, to take?"

nitsudima writes to mention a post on the Informit site about the common misunderstandings surrounding SSH, and how well-intentioned admins may be creating holes in their own security by using it. From the article: "In UNIX, all things are files. To send network traffic, UNIX writes the traffic to the network device file. In this case, the connection to Box A (and that private key used for authentication) is a socket file. This file will shuttle the authentication traffic between Box A and Box P. So what's the risk? Maybe the hacker can't get a copy of the private key through the socket file, but something better (from his/her view) can be done. If the hacker has root on Box D, he or she can point a private copy of the agent forwarding software to that socket file and thereby point the authentication process to the administrator's credentials--the ones kept on the 'safe' intranet. What are the chances that the administrator has configured access to all the DMZ servers he controls?"

chrisd writes "Hi, everyone. Today I'm pleased to announce that we're making Picasa, our photo management application, available for Linux. This is a pre-beta labs release and since we're still learning on how to best make software for Linux, we're asking that you submit your bugs as you find them. Picasa for Linux uses Wine internally; this shows a bit in the interface, but it works even better than we had hoped. Download it and check it out! A list of supported distributions can be found in the FAQ. We hope our patches to Wine will help make it easier for everyone to run Windows apps on Linux and other Unix-like systems. Thanks to our pals at CodeWeavers who did much of the heavy lifting, and to Marcus Meissner, whose libgphoto support patch was a welcome surprise."

lessthan0 writes "Anyone proficient with Linux had to climb the steep learning curve. Part of getting over the top for me was reading a hundred different Linux and Unix related books. From that list, three books stand out as the most useful and influential. I can't promise easy sledding; it will take some work, but mastering this material will demystify Linux and make you appreciate it more."

jbeaupre writes "Groklaw has spawned a new feature that may prove useful well beyond the current SCO litigation. The UNIX Methods and Concepts Database began as a list of books and papers on Groklaw that became so large it demanded organization. The new system was announced and is currently a work in progress."

nbritton writes "FreeBSD 6.1 has been released! This release is the next step in the development of the 6.X branch, delivering several performance improvements, many bugfixes, and a few new features. Of note are the major improvements to the filesystem and SATA code, possibly making FreeBSD the number one choice for SATA RAID implementations. For a complete list of new features and known problems, please see the release notes, errata list, Bittorrent Downloads, Mirrors, Hardware Notes, and Installation Guide."

houseofmore writes "After many years of development, Bram Moolenaar, creator of Vim, today announced version 7 of the widely used editor. New features included spell checking in up to 50 languages, intelligent completion, tab pages, extended undo branches and much more. Downloads available here for Unix, Windows, Mac and more."

Amy's Robot writes "An open-source security audit program funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has flagged a critical vulnerability in the X Window System (X11) which is used in Unix and Linux systems. A missing parentheses in a bit of code is to blame. The error can grant a user root access, and was discovered using an automated code-scanning tool." While serious, the flaw has already been corrected.

DamienMcKenna asks: "At work our license for Symantec Brightmail is coming up for renewal and I'm looking for alternatives that will cooperate with Microsoft Exchange 2003. Brightmail hasn't worked consistently since we installed it last year, has a low success rate, the client plugin has been very unstable, and it takes up far too much server resources for what it does. Given that many of the appropriate software is not available for trial (you have to base decisions off their marketing materials), does anyone have recommendations on what to use instead? It must be Windows-based (UNIX/Linux/BSD is out of the question right now), and should have an easy to use administrative interface since not all of the IT staff are very technically minded. A working plugin for Outlook for client-level configuration would also be appreciated."

capt turnpike writes "The modern Apple as we know it -- the good one with open-source Darwin, with Unix-based OS X, and so on -- was mainly the creation of NeXT: Steve Jobs, Avie Tevanian and Jon Rubenstein. What's going to happen to Apple once this troika leaves? eWEEK.com looks at the orderly transition out of Jon and Avie and asks whether things could go as smoothly should Jobs need to retire." From the article: "At some companies, such a loss of leadership could leave the company with a power vacuum or a lack of direction. However, Apple seems to be conscious that no single person--except, perhaps, CEO Steve Jobs himself--is irreplaceable, and that new talent can always be groomed for the future."

rst+ack writes "Microsoft has released RC1 version of PowerShell the .NET-based shell with perl-like syntax previously known as Monad or MSH. PowerShell (PS) has been covered a few times on Slashdot. Contrary to cmd.exe and Unix/Linux shells it operates on objects, not text when passing data between scripts and executables. Easy access to .NET classes allows users to create quite advanced solutions in short time. PS won't be shipped with Vista or Windows Server 2007 but it will debut with Exchange 12."

bariswheel writes "Responding to the public interest, a long-time Apple and UNIX user/programmer, and a JPL/Caltech veteran, writes an insightful, articulate essay on the good, the bad, and the in-between experiences of working at Microsoft; concentrating on focus, unreality, company leadership, managers, source code, benefits and compensation, free soft drinks, work/life balance, Microsoft's not evil, and influence."

vegthura asks: "I have several coworkers that insist that logging into servers is an acceptable practice. They claim it's just easier than using sudo and it's just as safe - you know you're root so what else do you need? And why bother logging in as you if you're just going to use sudo to run commands with root privileges anyway? Everything I've ever read has been the exact opposite philosophy. There is very little you need to be root to do, if anything in practice, and using sudo lets you only use the power of root for when you really need it. So, die hard unix geeks, you've got root... do you use it or stick to sudo?"

Professor writes "Be 'nice' to your computers and examine some general guidelines for tuning server performance. A computer is like an employee who does tasks for you -- it's a good idea to keep from overburdening them. Keep this from happening by using the UNIX 'nice' command."

prostoalex writes "Boosted by government purchases and SCO UNIX replacements, Linux grew by 27.1% in China in 2005 and generated $11.8 mln for the companies involved."

mjdroner writes "ZDNet is reporting that Microsoft is launching a website to 'share the activities of its internal Linux laboratories.' Microsoft says its goal is to foster communication with those who use open-source. The article also mentions that Microsoft runs a 300-server Linux installation to test open-source products." From the article: "Customers will be able to submit requests to Microsoft employees. For example, a person could ask how to best test the use of Linux desktops working with Microsoft's directory software. In addition, Port 25 will do video interviews with Microsoft employees with experience in the open-source or Unix world, Hilf said."