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Few topics on the Linux Planet are as contentious as those that deal with Microsoft, Secure boot and Money.

Microsoft's UEFI Secure Boot plans for Windows 8 have been an issue of concern to the Linux community for much of this year. With Secure Boot, only signed code can run at boot time on validated Windows 8 hardware, with the signing tightly aligned to Microsoft. The fear is that hardware that is originally built and shipped to run Windows 8, will not be able to run Linux.

Linux distribution including Red Hat, Ubuntu and SUSE have all proposed their own respective approaches and potential solution to the problem in recent months. Last week, the Linux Foundation weighed in, with a potential stop gap solution that is distribution agnostic and might just work for all Linux distributions.

"In a nutshell, the Linux Foundation will obtain a Microsoft Key and sign a small pre-bootloader which will, in turn, chain load (without any form of signature check) a predesignated boot loader which will, in turn, boot Linux (or any other operating system)," James Bottomley, Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board explained. "This pre-bootloader can be used either to boot a CD/DVD installer or LiveCD distribution or even boot an installed operating system in secure mode for any distribution that chooses to use it."

This pre-bootloader will be obtained by the Linux Foundation and made freely available to all Linux users. The issue with the Linux Foundation's approach though is that it doesn't necessarily enhance Linux security, but rather is just an enabling approach.

"The current pre-bootloader is designed as an enabler only in that, by breaking the security verification chain at the actual bootloader, it provides no security enhancements over booting linux with UEFI secure boot turned off," Bottomley said. "Its sole purpose is to allow Linux to continue to boot on platforms that come by default with secure boot enabled."

The Ubuntu 12.10, aka the Precise Pangolin release is set to officially become generally available on Thursday October 18th. While Canonical will offer various forms of commercial support (Ubuntu Advantage, Landscape) that provides monetization options, Ubuntu 12.10 offers a few new options.

One of them is the option to simply donate.

"By introducing a ‘contribute’ screen as part of the desktop download process, people can choose to financially support different aspects of Canonical’s work: from gaming and apps, developing the desktop, phone and tablet, to co-ordination of upstreams or supporting Ubuntu flavour," Canonical's Steve George wrote in a blog post. " It’s important to note that Ubuntu remains absolutely free, financial contribution remains optional and it is not required in order to download the software."

One of the most popular and widely used Linux distributions in the cloud, is the Amazon Linux AMI virtual distribution.

The Amazon Linux AMI 2012.09 update provides the Linux 3.2.30 kernel, PHP 5.4 and OpenJDK 7.

"After we removed the “Public Beta” tag from the Amazon Linux AMI last September, we’ve been on a six month release cycle focused on making sure that EC2 customers have a stable, secure, and simple Linux-based AMI that integrates well with other AWS offerings," Amazon Linux AMI developer Max Spevack wrote in a blog post

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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Free Newsletters : Server Tech Daily November 26, 2012By Sean Michael Kerner

There is no shortage on the Linux Planet of different Linux flavors to enjoy This past week, we saw three very different distributions put out milestone releases to suit different user tastes.

Ever since it first appeared on the Linux scene, Linux Mint has been an attractive Linux flavor for desktop usability.

Linux Mint founder Clem Lefebvre has been a leading voice for alternatives to Gnome 3's Unity and Shell, providing users with viable Gnome based alternatives. The Mint 14 release provides the latest version of the MATE and Cinnamon Linux desktops as well as providing users with the latest Linux goodness. Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu 12.10 and leverages the Linux 3.5 kernel.

Mint 14 includes MATE version 1.4 which according to the release notes, " …not only strengthens the quality and stability of the desktop but it goes beyond GNOME 2 by fixing bugs which were in GNOME 2 for years and by providing new features which were previously missing."

While MATE is based on Gnome 2, Cinnamon is based on Gnome 3 and provides it's own set of innovations with Linux Mint 14.

"Within this release cycle, Cinnamon developed at an amazing pace and its development was frozen in preparation for Linux Mint 14," the release notes state. "The result is impressive and despite all these new features, Cinnamon 1.6 is more stable than its predecessor."

One of the key new features in Cinnamon 1.4 is the Nemo file browser which is intended as a improvement over the Nautilus file browser that is typically the default in Gnome.

While Linux Mint Founder Clem Lefebvre created the Cinnamon desktop, it's a project that is open source and available to any that choose to embrace it.

One such project that has chosen to spice its distribution with Cinnamon is the Cinnarch distributions. Cinnarch leverages the Cinnamon desktop on top of the Arch Linux distribution.

Arch is a rolling release, and as such the Cinnarch 2012.11.22 release is really a milestone snapshot for media. For those users looking to install a fresh system, there are still some bits that aren't quite as friendly as they one day will become.

For one, Cinnarch 2012.11.22 still does not yet have its own graphical installer (so command line goodness it is!).

While Linux Mint and Cinnarch are all about the desktop experience, Vyatta is about the network.

This past week Vyatta released Vyatta Core 6.5, the latest release of its network operating system. The new release provides a new Virtual Tunnel Interface (VTI) features for VPNs.

"A VTI provides a termination point for a site-to-site IPsec VPN tunnel and allows it to behave like routable interfaces," Vyatta staffer Stephen Harpster wrote. "In addition to simplifying the IPsec configuration, it enables many common routing capabilities to be used because the endpoint is associated with an actual interface."

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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There are more than a few folks that aren't happy with the current direction of systemd and the udev device manager. One of those folks is none other than Linus Torvalds who recently called out udev development as entering into 'crazy mode' where known problematic changes are introduced.

"After speaking with several other Gentoo developers that share Linus' concerns, I have decided to form a team to fork udev," Gentoo developer Richard Yao wrote in a mailing list posting. "Our plan is to eliminate the separate /usr requirement from our fork, among other things."

Gentoo developers could also potentially be joined by Debian developers in what could turn out to be a groundswell of protest against the Red Hat led developments in systemd.

"As Gentoo guys and some major kernel people are protesting about the insanity Kay and Lennart have done to udev, probably this is a window of opportunity to stop being annoyed in Debian, by brutal RedHat decisions which we don't necessarily (have to) agree on (eg: move to /usr, merge with systemd, etc.)," Debian developer Thomas Goirand wrote on the Debian developers mailing list.

Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman, one of the original authors of udev has chimed in on the Gentoo fork and he isn't all that convinced it will succeed.

"As I posted elsewhere, working on a project based on "hate" only lasts so long," Kroah-Hartman wrote on a Gentoo mailing list. " I should know, that's the reason I started udev in the first place over 9 years ago.You need to have a real solid goal in place in order to be able to keep this up in the long-run. Otherwise you are going to burn yourself out,and end up alienating a lot of people along the way."

Peppermint Three came out and the end of July. Peppermint is a cloud/desktop hybrid Linux operating system that is based on Lubuntu, the LXDE variant of Ubuntu.

With the new respins, Peppermint users get updated installation media for the July release. Beyond just a media update, there is also a noticeable desktop change that has been made.

"We changed the desktop notifications back to the way they were in Peppermint Two after several users noted that the way they were implemented in Three seemed to be a bit of a step backward compared to the previous iterations," Peppermint developer Kendall Weaver wrote in his release announcement.

What could be the final Linux kernel release of 2012 is now almost done. Linus Torvalds released the sixth release candidate for Linux 3.7 late Friday. With the U.S Thanksgiving holiday he's on vacation this week, but that might not stop him from putting out a release.

"I'll have a laptop with me as I'm away, but if things calm down even further, I'll be happy," Torvalds wrote. "I'll do an -rc7, but considering how calm things have been, I suspect that's the last -rc. Unless something dramatic happens."

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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The Common Criteria Certification process is a long and arduous one. Common Criteria provides Evaluation Assurance Level that is the standard that U.S. Government and other large enterprises use as the basis of software qualification for production usage.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is now certified at EAL 4+ for the Operating System Protection Profile (OSPP). It's a process that has taken nearly two years since the RHEL 6 distribution was first released back in November of 2010.

RHEL 5 received its EAL 4+ certification back in June of 2007, nearly 18 months after the initial release of RHEL 5 in March of 2006.

"This is marks our 15th completed Common Criteria certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, earning Red Hat a place at the top of the list of the industry’s most certified operating systems," Paul Smith, vice president and general manager, Public Sector operations at Red Hat, said in a statement. "We’ve been deeply committed to security certifications so that customers can confidently turn to Red Hat for the expertise to deploy open source solutions at maximum security levels, and our work with Dell, HP, IBM and SGI on this certification reinforces that government customers can run Red Hat Enterprise Linux with confidence on a wide variety of hardware from many of the industry’s top providers."

The move to a new alternative to X11 is now going to start getting real with the release of the Wayland 1.0 protocol this past week.

"As I've said before, 1.0 doesn't mean we're done or that the protocol can't move forward," Wayland developer Kristian Høgsberg wrote. "What it means, is that we're confident that the protocol we have now covers the basic features and that we can build whatever new functionality we need with and on top of 1.0."

Linux creator Linus Torvalds pushed out the third release candidate in the Linux 3.7 release cycle, on Sunday. The third release candidate is following the normal cadence of approximately one release candidate per week following the code merge.

The biggest item for Linux 3.7 remains the unified approach to ARM. Instead of multiple ARM branches, Linux 3.7 will have one, making it easier to maintain and deploy.

Torvalds also used the rc3 release to let loose on light hearted rant about naming and in particular the name Linus.

"Christ people, some of you need to change your names," Torvalds wrote. "I'm used to there being multiple "David"s and "Peter"s etc, but there are three different Linus's in just this rc. People, people, I want to feel like the unique snowflake I am, not like just another anonymous guy in a crowd. I'm getting myself a broadsword."
Linus "there can be only one" Torvalds

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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Free Newsletters : Server Tech Daily October 7, 2012By Sean Michael Kerner

This past week, Linux 3.6 was released, but perhaps the bigger news is what is coming in Linux 3.7 as the continuous evolution of Linux pushes development forward.

ARM has long been a thorn in the side of Linux creator, Linus Torvalds. Unlike x86 which is a relatively unified architecture, ARM is fragmented which has posed some non-trivial challenges for Linux. That's all about to change with the Linux 3.7 kernel.

Torvalds merged code in last week that will fundamentally change the way ARM is handled in Linux.

"This is a pretty significant branch," the code commitstates. " It's the introduction of the first multiplatform support on ARM, and with this (and the later branch) merged, it is now possible to build one kernel that contains support for highbank, vexpress, mvebu, socfpga, and picoxcell."

So instead of having multiple ARM branches, which has led to additional complexity and Linux development challenges, there will now be one.

The move towards ARM is an important one for both mobile devices that build on ARM as well as new scale-out architectures for server deployments as well. Ubuntu, Red Hat and SUSE all now have active ARM efforts as server vendors including HP take aim at building the nascent ARM server market.

Arch is a rolling release based distribution and as such each milestone release isn't the big deal that say a new Ubuntu or Fedora release typically is. That said, there are still plenty of new builds and new users that start with Arch in any given month and for them, new milestones are important as they update the baseline install for Arch.

"The October release of the Arch Linux install medium is available for Download and can be used for new installs or as a rescue system," Arch developer Pierre Schmitz wrote in his release announcement.

As usual, the updated installation media includes a pile of updated packages. At least one of them though will make a significant difference for new users. As of the 2012.10.06 update, systemd is used to boot up the live system. Schmitz also noted that, "initscripts are no longer available on the live system but are still installed by default on the target system. This is likely to change in the near future."

On a somewhat related note, a Cinnamon desktop based derivative of Arch debuted this week with its Cinnarch 2012.10.01 update. Cinnarch now also used the same systemD as the mainline update for Arch. Cinnarch differs in that it includes Cinnamon 1.6.1 by default for desktop users, as an alternative to GNOME Shell.

Also on the subject of incremental updates last week is the LibreOffice 3.6.2 update. This is the third release from the 3.6 branch of LibreOffice and is primarily a stability and bug fix update.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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Free Newsletters : Server Tech Daily November 5, 2012By Sean Michael Kerner

There are some Linux distributions that hold steadfast to their release schedules no matter what. That's not the case with Fedora, which is aiming for quality and stability and will often delay a release and its milestone components for that reason.

Fedora developers decided to push back the Fedora 18 beta release by at week during a go/no go meeting on Thursday November 1st. The decision to delay the beta release was due to a number of blocker bugs as well as issues with the upgrade tool.

The anaconda installation tool currently has 7 blocker bugs listed for it that will need to be addressed for the release to go forward.

Even though developers have pushed back the beta milestone, the plan is to still release the final version of Fedora 18 on December 11th. The original release planfor Fedora 18 had at one point planned a release as early as November 6th.

The same day that Fedora developers pushed back their Beta milestone, TinyCore Linux developer Robert Shingledecker released Tiny Core Linux 4.7.

Tiny Core is a minimalist Linux distribution, similar to Puppy Linux in size and scope.

"The major theme for Core v4.7 is major improvements to "core" GUI programs," the project page states. "New in this release is a major overhaul to the ondemand system in support of scm ondemand menu and icons. The Backup/Restore GUI, filetool, located on the Control Panel, has been expanded to easily add or delete files and directories, as well as options to display the backup process. Using ondemand and eliminating unneeded onboot items results in faster boot times. "

Efforts to expand Linux on ARM based architecture were expanded last week with the formation of the Linaro Enterprise Group (LEG).

Members of the LEG include: AMD, Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, Calxeda, Canonical, Cavium, Facebook, HP, Marvell and Red Hat. A key goal for the group is to work on accelerating the development of Linux Servers on ARM.

Linux is driving innovation in every area of computing from mobile and embedded to the cloud. Linaro’s enterprise efforts will bring together software engineers to help accelerate Linux development for ARM servers, and we’re confident that this new server-focused group will advance Linux in these areas and offer additional choices to Linux users around the world.” said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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Linux is all about choices. More often then not there are those that disagree with some of those choices.

Ubuntu 12.10 includes features that are supposed to make it easier for users to find the stuff they want. One example is the Amazon integration which helps users by showing them stuff they might want if they are searching. According to Free Software Foundation   (FSF)  Founder Richard Stallman (RMS), Ubuntu is actually 'spying' on users.

"When the user searches her own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's servers," Stallman wrote.

In Stallman's view this is happening without user consent, even though there is the clear option for any user to simply turn the 'feature' off.

"Even if it were disabled by default, the feature would still be dangerous: "opt in, once and for all" for a risky practice, where the risk varies depending on details, invites carelessness," Stallman stated. "To protect users' privacy, systems should make prudence easy: when a local search program has a network search feature, it should be up to the user to choose network search explicitly each time."

Going a step further, Stallman wants Free Software advocates to avoid Ubuntu all together now, and not install or recommend it to others.

While RMS might not be rushing to try out the latest version of Ubuntu, many others likely still are.

This past week the first Alpha for what will become Ubuntu 13.04, the Raring Ringtail was officially released. The Alpha though is only available with Kubuntu and Edubuntu images for now.

"At the end of the 12.10 development cycle, the Ubuntu flavour decided that it would reduce the number of milestone images going forward and the focus would concentrate on daily quality and fortnightly testing rounds known as cadence testing," Ubuntu developers Stephane Graber wrote in a mailing list posting. "Based on that change, The Ubuntu product itself will not have an Alpha-1 release."

Grabe added that the first milestone release for Ubuntu 13.04 will be the Final Beta, set for release on March 28th, 2013.

Red Hat is also busy working on its next generation of Linux. This past week, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.4 (RHEL) was released, providing new virtualization and Microsoft interoperability features.

On the interoperability side the System Security Services Daemon (SSSD) has been enhanced to work with Microsoft Active Directory. Support for Microsoft Hyper-v virtualization has also been extended.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

View the original article here

Every few years, it seems as though yet another hardware vendor tries its hand yet again at building and releasing Linux hardware.

The latest entrant is the Dell Sputnik laptop, aka Dell XPS 13 'inch developer edition. The Dell Sputnik uses Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (no 12.10 here). It's a beefy beast with an Intel i7 CPU, 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD.

Going beyond having just Ubuntu Linux installed on top end Dell hardware, Dell has also included a pair of community projects on Sputnik as well. The Profile Tool provides easy access to github projects enabling users to setup development environments with ease.

The second tool is the cloud launcher. According to Dell," The cloud launcher enables you to create 'microclouds' on your laptop, simulating an at-scale environment, and then deploy that environment seamlessly to the cloud."

The price for all that Linux hardware goodness $1,449.

Dell and Red Hat are no strangers either, though not as part of project Sputnik.

Red Hat's Fedora community was busy last week pushing out the much delayed Fedora 18 beta, aka the Spherical Cow. The Fedora 18 beta release includes a long list of new features that begin, at the beginning of the installation process.

A new offline OS updating capability means that,"..updates will be downloaded in the background, and the user will be informed about available updates only once they are actually ready to be installed."

Gnome desktop users also get a throwback desktop with MATE, a fork of the original Gnome 2.x project and an alternative to the default Gnome 3/Shell.

The final Fedora 18 release is currently set for January 8, 2013

One of the items that did not land in the Fedora 18 Beta is a fix for UEFI Secure Boot. The Secure Boot issue is one of critical importance to the Linux desktop and one that might now finally have a real solution.

Microsoft's Window 8 hardware certification process involves the use of UEFI Secure Boot which needs to be signed in order to enable an operating system to run. Former Red Hat software engineer Mat Garrett has been working on a solution for nearly a year and the first workable release is now available.

The Linux Foundation is also working on a solution, that has yet to be released.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

View the original article here

Few topics on the Linux Planet are as contentious as those that deal with Microsoft, Secure boot and Money.

Microsoft's UEFI Secure Boot plans for Windows 8 have been an issue of concern to the Linux community for much of this year. With Secure Boot, only signed code can run at boot time on validated Windows 8 hardware, with the signing tightly aligned to Microsoft. The fear is that hardware that is originally built and shipped to run Windows 8, will not be able to run Linux.

Linux distribution including Red Hat, Ubuntu and SUSE have all proposed their own respective approaches and potential solution to the problem in recent months. Last week, the Linux Foundation weighed in, with a potential stop gap solution that is distribution agnostic and might just work for all Linux distributions.

"In a nutshell, the Linux Foundation will obtain a Microsoft Key and sign a small pre-bootloader which will, in turn, chain load (without any form of signature check) a predesignated boot loader which will, in turn, boot Linux (or any other operating system)," James Bottomley, Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board explained. "This pre-bootloader can be used either to boot a CD/DVD installer or LiveCD distribution or even boot an installed operating system in secure mode for any distribution that chooses to use it."

This pre-bootloader will be obtained by the Linux Foundation and made freely available to all Linux users. The issue with the Linux Foundation's approach though is that it doesn't necessarily enhance Linux security, but rather is just an enabling approach.

"The current pre-bootloader is designed as an enabler only in that, by breaking the security verification chain at the actual bootloader, it provides no security enhancements over booting linux with UEFI secure boot turned off," Bottomley said. "Its sole purpose is to allow Linux to continue to boot on platforms that come by default with secure boot enabled."

The Ubuntu 12.10, aka the Precise Pangolin release is set to officially become generally available on Thursday October 18th. While Canonical will offer various forms of commercial support (Ubuntu Advantage, Landscape) that provides monetization options, Ubuntu 12.10 offers a few new options.

One of them is the option to simply donate.

"By introducing a ‘contribute’ screen as part of the desktop download process, people can choose to financially support different aspects of Canonical’s work: from gaming and apps, developing the desktop, phone and tablet, to co-ordination of upstreams or supporting Ubuntu flavour," Canonical's Steve George wrote in a blog post. " It’s important to note that Ubuntu remains absolutely free, financial contribution remains optional and it is not required in order to download the software."

One of the most popular and widely used Linux distributions in the cloud, is the Amazon Linux AMI virtual distribution.

The Amazon Linux AMI 2012.09 update provides the Linux 3.2.30 kernel, PHP 5.4 and OpenJDK 7.

"After we removed the “Public Beta” tag from the Amazon Linux AMI last September, we’ve been on a six month release cycle focused on making sure that EC2 customers have a stable, secure, and simple Linux-based AMI that integrates well with other AWS offerings," Amazon Linux AMI developer Max Spevack wrote in a blog post

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

View the original article here

Linux is all about options. More often and not there are those who do not agree with some of these options.

Ubuntu 12.10 includes features that are supposed to make it easier for users to find what they want. An example is the Amazon integration that helps users showing them things want to if you are looking for. According to the Free Software Foundation (FSF) founder Richard Stallman (RMS), Ubuntu is really 'spying' on the users.

"When the user searches local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical servers," Stallman wrote.

In view of Stallman this happens without the user's consent, although there is the clear choice for any user to simply turn off the 'function'.

"" Even if they were disabled by default, the function would still be dangerous: "once for all" for choose either a risky practice, where the risk varies depending on details, invites neglect, "Stallman said."To protect the privacy of users, systems should make easy caution: when a local search program has a function of network search, must be the user must choose the network search explicitly every time. "

Goes a step further, Stallman wants free software advocates to prevent Ubuntu all together now and do not install or recommend to others.

While RMS could not be running to test the latest version of Ubuntu, many others who are probably still.

Last week was officially released the first alpha for what will become Ubuntu 13.04, the Ringtail workouts. Alpha though it is only available with images of Kubuntu and Edubuntu by now.

"At the end of the cycle of 12.10 development, the Ubuntu flavor decided that it would reduce the number of images of milestone in the future and focus concentrates on the quality daily and fortnightly testing rounds known as proof of the Cadence," the developers of Ubuntu Stéphane Graber wrote in a mailing list publication. "Based on that change, Ubuntu the product itself does not have an Alpha-1 version."

Record added that the first version of Ubuntu 13.04 milestone will be the Final Beta, scheduled for release on March 28, 2013.

He is also busy working on their next generation of Red Hat Linux. Last week, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.4 was released, providing interoperability of Microsoft and new virtualization features.

On the side of interoperability system security services Daemon (SSSD) has been enhanced to work with Microsoft Active Directory. Support for virtualization of Microsoft Hyper - v has also been extended.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the network of edge of business IT, the network for technology professionals to follow on Twitter @TechJournalist.

View the original article here

One of the greatest strengths of Linux is the fact that can be used to activate the on-board devices smaller and scale up team literally the most powerful of the Earth.

Despite valiant efforts by the developers of Fedora for attempting to leave the version of Fedora 18 (aka the spherical cow) before the end of 2012, it not going to happen.

The beta of Fedora 18 has been delayed again, pushing out of the end of the general availability of the spherical cow until January 2013. Beta version of Fedora 18 is ready on Nov. 27 with a final version for January 08, 2013.

So, the Fedora community now is to vote on behalf of successor to the cow for Fedora 19. There are eight possible options that the Fedora community will vote: cubic calf, boson de Higgs, Loch Ness Monster Martian blueberries, Newtonian dynamics, parabolic, Schrödinger Cat and Tiddalik potassium

Vote for the name of Fedora 19 ends November 15 with the winner to announced on November 16.

Although it doesn't have a name as the next release of Fedora 18 as funky, the version of Linux Mint 14 is definitely something that many Linux users are waiting too.

Now in the stage of the RC, the version of Linux Mint 14, aka Nadia is now matte and cinnamon flavors.

"After 6 months of incremental development, Linux Mint 14 features an impressive list of improvements, greater stability and a refined desktop experience," wrote the founder of Linux Mint Clem Lefebvre. "We are very proud of Matt, cinnamon, MDM and all components used in this release, and we're very excited to show you how they fit into Linux Mint 14".

Fedora and Linux Mint are intended mainly to modest application requirements (although modest is difficult to define). Linux can and climbing community beyond its humble roots to feed the most powerful teams in the world.

Not just one or two of them, but almost all of them.

The latest Top 500 supercomputer list debuted this week and Linux numbers are astounding with 469 of 500 machines in the list currently work with Linux.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the network of edge of business IT, the network for technology professionals to follow on Twitter @TechJournalist.

View the original article here

The common criteria certification process is a long and arduous. Common criteria provides the assurance level of the assessment that is the standard that the United States Government and other large companies use as the basis for the qualification of software for production use.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 is now certified at EAL 4 ++ for (OSPP) operating system protection profile. It is a process that has taken almost two years since the distribution of RHEL 6 was released in November 2010.

RHEL 5 received his certified EAL 4 + in June 2007, nearly 18 months after the initial release of RHEL 5 in March 2006.

"This is our 15th completed certification of common criteria for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat win a place at the top of the list of most certified operating systems in the industry, marks" Paul Smith, vice president and general manager, the operations of the Public Sector in Red Hat, said in a statement. "We have committed to safety certifications so that customers with confidence can turn to Red Hat for the experience to implement maximum security levels open source solutions, and our work with Dell, HP, IBM and SGI in this certification reinforces Government clients can run Red Hat Enterprise Linux with confidence in a wide variety of hardware from many of the leading industry vendors".

The passage to a new alternative for X 11 will now start getting real with the launch of the Wayland 1.0 protocol last week.

"As I've said before, 1.0 does not mean that we are done or that the Protocol cannot move forward," Wayland Kristian Hogsberg developer wrote. "What it means, is that we are confident that the Protocol we have now covers the basic functions and we can build any new functionality that we need and in the top 1.0".

Linux creator Linus Torvalds excels the third release candidate in the Linux 3.7 release cycle, on Sunday. The third release candidate is following normal Cadence of liberation to a candidate per week from a combination of code.

The largest Linux 3.7 element remains the unified approach to the arm. Instead of several branches of arm, Linux 3.7 will have one, making it easy to maintain and deploy.

Torvalds also uses the version rc3 to let loose in uninhibited about names, and in particular the name Linus rant.

"The people of Christ, some of you need to change their names," Torvalds wrote. "I am accustomed to multiple s"David"and"Peter"s etc, but there are three different Linus in only this rc." People, people, I want to feel as a unique snowflake, I'm not as an anonymous type in a crowd. I get a broadsword."
Linus "can only be a" Torvalds

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the network of edge of business IT, the network for technology professionals to follow on Twitter @TechJournalist.

View the original article here

Every few years, it seems as though yet another hardware vendor is your hand once more to construction and release of Linux hardware.

The last-in is laptop Dell Sputnik, aka Dell XPS 13 ' inch developer edition. The Sputnik of Dell uses Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (here not 12.10). A meaty beast with a CPU of Intel is i7, 8 GB of RAM and a 256 GB SSD.

It goes beyond having only Ubuntu Linux installed on higher end hardware Dell, Dell has also included a couple of community projects in Sputnik. Profile tool provides easy access to projects from github, allowing users to easily setup development environments.

The second tool is the Launcher of the cloud. According to Dell, "cloud Launcher allows you to create 'microclouds' on your laptop, simulating an environment to scale, and then implement that environment without problems to the cloud".

The price for all this goodness of hardware $1,449 for Linux.

Dell and Red Hat are no stranger, though not as part of the Sputnik project.

Red Hat Fedora community was busy week pass pushing out of the beta of Fedora 18 much delayed, also known as the spherical cow. The beta version of Fedora 18 includes a long list of new features that start at the beginning of the installation.

A new OS offline update capacity means that, ".."updates are downloaded in the background and the user will be informed about available updates once they are really ready to be installed.

GNOME desktop users also get a desk return with matte, a fork of Gnome 2.x original project and alternative to Gnome 3/Shell by default.

The final version of Fedora 18 is set for January 08, 2013

One of the elements that did not land in the Beta of Fedora 18 is a solution for Secure Boot UEFI. Secure boot problem is one of critical importance for the Linux desktop and who could now finally have a real solution.

Microsoft hardware certification process window 8 involves the use of secure boot UEFI which needs to be signed to allow an operating system to run. Former Red Hat Mat Garrett software engineer has been working on a solution for nearly a year and the first workable version is now available.

The Linux Foundation is also working on a solution, which has yet to be released.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the network of edge of business IT, the network for technology professionals to follow on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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By are Michael Kerner

There are some Linux distributions that hold firm to their release schedules come what may. It is not the case of Fedora, who is with the objective of quality and stability and will often delay a release and milestone for this reason components.

Fedora developers decided to turn back to the beta version of Fedora 18 per week during a meeting go/no go on Thursday, November 1. The decision to delay the launch of the beta was due to a number of blocking bugs as well as problems with the upgrade tool.

Anaconda installation tool currently has 7 Blocker bugs that must be addressed liberation go ahead.

Although developers have pushed back the beta milestone, plan is to release the final version of Fedora 18 December 11. The original 18 launch of Fedora in a moment planfor planned a version as soon as Nov. 6.

The same day as the Fedora developers back his Beta milestone, TinyCore Linux Robert Shingledecker developer had released Tiny Core Linux 4.7.

Tiny Core is a minimalist, similar in size and scope to Puppy Linux Linux distribution.

"The great theme of core v4.7 is significant improvements in GUI"core"programs," States of the project page. "New in this version is a major overhaul of the system of ondemand in support of scm ondemand menu and icons. The GUI of Backup / Restore filetool, located in the Control Panel, has been expanded to easily add or delete files and directories, as well as options to display the backup process. Using ondemand and eliminating unnecessary results onboot of elements in the faster boot times. "

Efforts to expand Linux on ARM based architecture expanded last week with the formation of enterprise Linaro (leg) group.

Members of the leg are: AMD, Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, Calxeda, Canonical, Cavium, Facebook, HP, Marvell and Red Hat. A key goal for the group is working on accelerating the development of Linux servers in the arm.

Linux is driving innovation in all areas of mobile and embedded computing to the cloud. Linaro company efforts will bring together software engineers to help accelerate the development of Linux for servers of arm, and we are confident that this new group server focused will advance Linux in these areas and offer additional options to the Linux users around world. ", said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the network of edge of business IT, the network for technology professionals to follow on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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There are more than a few friends who are not happy with the current direction of the PLC and the udev Device Manager. One of those people is none other than Linus Torvalds to newly developing udev as entering mode of ' crazy ' that known problematic changes are introduced.

"I have decided to form a team to fork udev, after talking with several other Gentoo developers who share concerns Linus," Gentoo developer Richard Yao wrote in a mailing list publication. "Our plan is to eliminate the requirement of usr separately from our cradle, among other things."

The Gentoo developers could also potentially join by Debian developers in what could prove to be a wave of protest against the developments of Red Hat took on systemd.

"As guys from Gentoo and some people great core protest about the madness of Kay and Lennart have made to udev, probably this is a window of opportunity to stop being bothered in Debian, RedHat brutal decisions that do not necessarily (has that) agree (for example: move / usr, combined with systemd, etc.)," Developer Debian Thomas Goirand wrote in the Debian developers mailing list.

The kernel of Linux Greg Kroah-Hartman, one of the original authors of udev developer has it resonated in the fork of Gentoo and is not all that convinced that you will succeed.

"As I've posted elsewhere, working on a project based on"hate"only lasts so long," Kroah-Hartman wrote on a Gentoo mailing list. "I need to know, which is the reason why I started udev in the first place over 9 years ago.You need to have a solid real goal in place to be able to maintain in the long term. Otherwise it will burn out and end up alienating a lot of people on the road."

Mint three came out and the end of July. Peppermint is a Linux operating system hybrid of the cloud/desktop based on Lubuntu, Ubuntu LXDE Variant.

With the new respins, mint users obtain installation media updated to the version of July. Beyond just an update to media, there also is a remarkable change of desktop that has been done.

"We have changed turn desktop notifications to the road that were in two Mint after several users pointed out that the way in which were applied in three seemed to be a bit of a step backwards compared to previous iterations," developer of mint Kendall Weaver wrote in its announcement.

What could be the version of the Linux kernel end of 2012 is nearing completion. Linus Torvalds released the sixth release candidate for Linux 3.7 late Friday. With the United States holiday is on vacation this week, but that could not prevent him from removing a statement.

"I'll have a laptop with me since I am far away, but if things even more calm, I'll be happy," Torvalds wrote. "I'll make a - rc7, but considering how calm things down they have been, I suspect that it is the latest - rc." Unless something dramatic happens."

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the network of edge of business IT, the network for technology professionals to follow on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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By are Michael Kerner

There is no shortage in the different flavors of Linux Linux planet to enjoy this last week, we saw three very different distributions take releases milestone for different tastes.

Since it first appeared on the scene of Linux, Linux Mint has been an attractive flavor of Linux for desktop usability.

Founder of Linux Mint Clem Lefebvre has been the leading voice of alternatives to the unit and the Shell, offering users based Gnome Gnome 3 viable alternatives. The version of mint 14 offers the latest version of MATE desks and cinnamon Linux, as well as users by providing with the latest goodness of Linux. Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu 12.10 and leverages the kernel of Linux 3.5.

Mint 14 includes matte version 1.4 that according to the release notes, "...""not only strengthens the quality and stability of the desktop but goes beyond GNOME 2 corrects the errors that were in GNOME 2 years and providing new features that were missing previously."

Although Matt is based on Gnome 2, cinnamon is based on Gnome 3 and provides it's own set of innovations with Linux Mint 14.

"Within this release cycle, developed cinnamon at an amazing rate, and its development was frozen in preparation for Linux Mint 14," the State release notes. "The result is impressive and in spite of all these new features, cinnamon 1.6 is more stable than its predecessor".

One of the key new features in cinnamon 1.4 is the file browser of Nemo, which purports to be an improvement in the Nautilus file browser which is usually the default for Gnome.

While Linux Mint founder Clem Lefebvre created the cinnamon desktop, is a project that is open source and available to anyone decides to adopt it.

One of those projects that you have chosen for your distribution with cinnamon is the distribution of Cinnarch. Cinnarch leverages the cinnamon desktop on top of the Arch Linux distribution.

Arch is a rolling release, and thus the release of Cinnarch 2012.11.22 is really a snapshot of milestone media. For those users who want to install a fresh system, there are still some bits that are not quite as friendly as they will become one day.

For his part, Cinnarch 2012.11.22 has not yet its own graphical installer (for the goodness of the command line is!).

While Linux Mint and Cinnarch are all about the desktop experience, Vyatta is on the network.

This past week Vyatta released Vyatta Core 6.5, the latest version of its network operating system. The new version offers new features of tunnel (VTI) Virtual interface for VPNs.

"A VTI provides an endpoint of an IPsec site to site VPN tunnel and they behave as routable interfaces," member of the staff of Vyatta Stephen Harpster wrote. "In addition to simplify the configuration of IPsec, allows many common routing capabilities to be used because the end is associated with a real interface."

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the network of edge of business IT, the network for technology professionals to follow on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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By are Michael Kerner

Ubuntu is one of most popular in today's world Linux distributions. Depending on that you create, the number of users of Ubuntu could well above 20 million for desktop and server installations.

Last week Ubuntu 12.10, the quantum Quetzal was officially launched, marking the second and last major update to Ubuntu Linux this year.

On the server side, the version of Ubuntu 12.10 mainly emphasizes by a key element: the cloud Folsom Stackops. Ubuntu was the first Linux distribution more important to embrace Stackops and remains the reference implementation of the base of the very popular open source cloud platform.

Ubuntu is not packaged and I support Folsom, the Linux vendor that also allows more robust provisioning and control through improvements to Juju. Juju is the transfer of Ubuntu system and in 12.0 Ubuntu system with a new visual interface has been improved. The new interface aims to make it easier for the visual system administrator to understand, control, and coordinate their environments, physical, virtual or cloud.

On the side of the desktop, Ubuntu 12.10 aiming to achieve its multi-faceted applications at the desktop and the cloud. The enhanced Dash interface has the ability to search both local and cloud storage. Search also includes the controversial inclusion of results from Amazon.

"12.10 Ubuntu is the operating system for multi-device era, said Jane Silber, CEO of Canonical. "Makes life much easier for users by adapting to the way Ubuntu really people access your content today: online and on the hard disk, at work and at home, on the phone and, of course, on the PC."

As Ubuntu 12.10 went out the door, founder of Ubuntu Mark Shuttleworth announced initial plans for the next version, 13.04. The first reveal large was the new name - the Ringtail workouts.

"Go read the dictionary. R is only loaded with juicy things that can not be used without invoking the wrath of the chorus type radge. Sigh, "Shuttleworth blogged. "However, somewhere between the laughably bustling and ran-tan reboantly, the libertine regnally and reciprocornously rorty, there was bound to be a good fit." "Something radious or rident, to wake up our rowthy rabble."

While the name of each new version of Ubuntu is an interesting exercise, perhaps more interesting now was a surprise decision that some internal development instead of doing all the work of development out in the open.

"We think it would extend an invitation to those who trust in us and who we have reasons to be confident, to work together on some 13,04 sexy surprises," Shuttleworth wrote. "Projects range from webby (javascript, css, html5) to artistic (obsesses about kerning and bands) scientist (are you an addicted framerate) to ostentatious (pixel shader sherpas wanted to) to the improvement of the privacy (how is your crypto?)" analytical (big daddy, big brother, pick your pejorative). "

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the network of edge of business IT, the network for technology professionals to follow on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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By Sean Michael Kerner

This past week, Linux 3.6 was released, but perhaps the bigger news is what is coming in Linux 3.7 as the continuous evolution of Linux pushes development forward.

ARM has long been a thorn in the side of Linux creator, Linus Torvalds. Unlike x86 which is a relatively unified architecture, ARM is fragmented which has posed some non-trivial challenges for Linux. That's all about to change with the Linux 3.7 kernel.

Torvalds merged code in last week that will fundamentally change the way ARM is handled in Linux.

"This is a pretty significant branch," the code commitstates. " It's the introduction of the first multiplatform support on ARM, and with this (and the later branch) merged, it is now possible to build one kernel that contains support for highbank, vexpress, mvebu, socfpga, and picoxcell."

So instead of having multiple ARM branches, which has led to additional complexity and Linux development challenges, there will now be one.

The move towards ARM is an important one for both mobile devices that build on ARM as well as new scale-out architectures for server deployments as well. Ubuntu, Red Hat and SUSE all now have active ARM efforts as server vendors including HP take aim at building the nascent ARM server market.

Arch is a rolling release based distribution and as such each milestone release isn't the big deal that say a new Ubuntu or Fedora release typically is. That said, there are still plenty of new builds and new users that start with Arch in any given month and for them, new milestones are important as they update the baseline install for Arch.

"The October release of the Arch Linux install medium is available for Download and can be used for new installs or as a rescue system," Arch developer Pierre Schmitz wrote in his release announcement.

As usual, the updated installation media includes a pile of updated packages. At least one of them though will make a significant difference for new users. As of the 2012.10.06 update, systemd is used to boot up the live system. Schmitz also noted that, "initscripts are no longer available on the live system but are still installed by default on the target system. This is likely to change in the near future."

On a somewhat related note, a Cinnamon desktop based derivative of Arch debuted this week with its Cinnarch 2012.10.01 update. Cinnarch now also used the same systemD as the mainline update for Arch. Cinnarch differs in that it includes Cinnamon 1.6.1 by default for desktop users, as an alternative to GNOME Shell.

Also on the subject of incremental updates last week is the LibreOffice 3.6.2 update. This is the third release from the 3.6 branch of LibreOffice and is primarily a stability and bug fix update.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com, the news service of the IT Business Edge Network, the network for technology professionals Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

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In a robotic plant, most of the workers are the ones who box things up at the end of the process. Usually the minimum qualifications are a high school diploma, if that. How is that a well paying job?

Unless Apple intends to pay a livable wage to its employees at these plant(s), which would mean either a significant price hike in products or a reduction in profits, all they are doing is pandering to the populus notion of buy American.

Well, manufacturing is an unskilled job for the most part. In fact, factory jobs tend to be some of the worst around because they're utterly dull, boring and uninspiring work putting tab A into slot B and doing so in 750 milliseconds or less.

Other unskilled jobs include janitorial, housekeeping, etc. These are unskilled because anyone who graduates high school has all the requisite knowledge and skill to actually perform them, and they pay low because well, anyone who walks off the street can do it.

Robotic factories require far more skilled labor - you have to have technicians who can repair the robots, highly paid engineers who have to figure out how to make the product manufacturable by robots, supervisors to handle robot emegencies (and to manage human-robot interactions), engineers or techs to program the robots, etc. These require specialized training and as such, are much higher paying jobs. But of course there are far less of them - a robot tech can service multiple robots each work shift, likewise a manufacturing engineer designs the whole thing out before production begins, etc.

It's why the average American is far more productive than their Chinese counterpart - you cannot simply move manufacturing from China to the US without redesigning your product around that fact. Because all that happens is you're replacing low-skill jobs in China with low-skill jobs in the US (most of which would actually be fulfilled by illegal immigrants and such - just like in other low skill jobs).

Apple probably will pay just over minimum wage, because really, that's all the job demands. Unless you think putting stuff in boxes demands more pay than flipping burgers, cleaning toilets or other stuff.

And knowing Apple, if you're making tons of the stuff, they probably won't have a human hand touching it - just robots all the way into sealing the box. The only humans in the actual line are probably there to keep it going - receiving parts into inventory and stocking the part carriers for the robots, and shipping out the finished pallets of product.

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This is only a preliminary invalidation, not the end of the road for this patent. Many patents that survive of this State (partially or totally). This is just the start of a process within the USPTO.

(Relevant Post debate Mac rumors in this respect, this is not my post, but relevant to this discussion): http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=16445804&postcount=39 [macrumors.com]

People - a preliminary invalidation is a non-event. Each patent initially almost always request is rejected. It is the way that the patent examiner pushes the load on the inventor. They reject, you appeal, they reject, you appeal, patent issues.

Normally the results to an initial patent application are really weak and easy to overcome.

The review process is the same way. The patent examiner is placed in the position of the person trying to overturn the patent. That's because the other party to communicate with is the inventor original and obviously going to push for the maintenance of the application. So to do proper due diligence, the examiner should find reasons to refute the patent and then there is an appeal and then possibly another invalidation and another appeal and then keeps the patent probably in some form.

In short... nothing to see here... move along.

I don't know the actual percentage, but bet 99.9% of all patents requested a re-examination receive a preliminary invalidation. And I don't think that the Patent Office may refuse to make a re-examination of a patent.

Full discussion here: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1503872&page=1 [macrumors.com]

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"Earlier this month Samsung asked that the court force Apple to turn over its settlement agreement with HTC, and today US Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal granted that requested. According to Samsung, the document could play a vital role in determining whether it will need to take any of its products off the market in the wake of the $1.049 billion verdict Apple won back in August. If Apple licensed some of its unique user experience patents, Samsung argues, then Cupertino is clearly fine with competitors using that IP as long as it receives money in return â" and since Apple will be receiving a payout in connection with the verdict, the extra step of an injunction isn't justified."

In plain text: Apple: no injunctions for you and drop the damages you ask to what you can actually negotiate in the marketplace.

Want to bet that Apple isn't at all happy about this?

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Fairer still would be to say "Apple Haters would self-mutilate if it put Apple in a bad light".

immediately run out and spend $3000 to validate my $3000 purchase.

You may not be aware, but Slashdot is just chock full of technical users who can use the web.

When they do so they would find the MacBook Pro Retina to be $1699, not your absurdly inflated figure.

They also, being technical users, would be asking themselves "could not a developer wanting to test resolution independence simply buy a high DPI desktop monitor and test that way also?"

Why yes. Yes they could. Too bad that you, a non-technical Apple Hater Troll, will be unable to even comprehend that question or think of similar cases before you post in the future and beclown yourself yet again.

You are kind of like the court jester who comes in and spills grape juice on your shirt on purpose. Every. Single. Day. Did you not notice the people stopped laughing long ago? And that the looks you get know are all ones of pity and horror?

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tea: "A supply of tea with milk and sugar would be nice. If it is tea I
really like, I like it without milk and sugar. With milk and sugar,
any kind of tea is fine. I always bring tea bags with me, so if we
use my tea bags, I will certainly like that tea without milk or sugar. ...if he brings his own tea all the time, WTF milk and sugar? if he brings his tea with him, why even mention this?

audio: It is best to provide audio recordings in the original recorded sample
rate, up to 44100Hz. Monophonic is generally adequate for speech
recordings and saves a lot of space over stereo.

HOW to pay for his tickets? you're getting a free ticket why do you care HOW i pay for it?
If you buy bus or train tickets for me, do not give my name! Big
Brother has no right to know where I travel, or where you travel, or
where anyone travels. If they arbitrarily demand a name, give a name
that does not belong to any person you know of. If they will check my
ID before I board the bus or train, then let's look for another way
for me to travel. (In the US I never use long-distance trains because
of their ID policy.)

Don't give them your name either: please pay for the ticket in cash.

hates breakfast:
I do not eat breakfast. Please do not ask me any questions about
what I will do breakfast. Please just do not bring it up.

don't be polite: So please don't ask me "Where do you want to eat?" or "What kind of
restaurant do you want to go to?" I can't make an intelligent
decision without knowing the facts, and unless I am already familiar
with the city we're in, I can only get those facts from you. ..i can see him storming out of a room because someone asked him a friendly question.

coke vs. pepsi - sure state your preference.. but I don't give a shit WHY
If I am quite sleepy, I would like two cans or small bottles of
non-diet Pepsi. (I dislike the taste of coke, and of all diet soda;
also, there is an international boycott of the Coca Cola company for
killing union organizers in Colombia and Guatemala; see
killercoke.org.) However, if I am not very sleepy, I won't want
Pepsi, because it is better if I don't drink so much sugar.

it's MY EVENT. STFU:
If you plan to restrict admission to my speech, or charge a fee for
admission, please discuss this with me *personally in advance* to get
my approval for the plan. If you have imposed charges without my
direct personal approval, I may refuse to do the speech.

I'm not categorically against limiting admission or fees, but
excluding people means the speech does less good, so I want to make
sure that the limitations are as small as necessary. For instance,
you can allow students and low-paid people and political activists to
get in free, even if professionals have to pay. We will discuss what
to do.

Another method, which works very well in some places, is to allow
people to attend gratis but charge for a certificate of attendance.
If the certificate is given by an educational institution, many will
find it useful for career advancement, while the others could enter
gratis. Whether this would be effective in your country is something
you would need to judge.

can I have your couch? are you kidding me? - I do not have the ability to maintain a sleeping environment temperature +/- 2 degrees
But please DON'T make a hotel reservation until we have fully explored
other options. If there is anyone who wants to offer a spare couch, I
would much rather stay there than in a hotel (provided I have a door I
can close, in order to have some privacy). Staying with someone is
more fun for me than a hotel, and it would also save you money.

REALLY? would YOU stay in a place that doesn't card people?
Please call the hotel and ask whether they will demand to see my
passport, and whether they report all their guests to the police. If
it has thi

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Consider: the DoD, by their own claims, has about 3 million employees worldwide.

So far this year, Apple has sold over 120 million iPhones.

Thus, even if the DoD bought an iPhone for every one of their employees, that would only increase Apple's sales figures by 2.5%. Is that worth the expense of creating another phone model, manufacturing it, and then keeping it in manufacture?

Before you answer that, consider this: what percentage of those DoD employees actually work in a position where they're not allowed to bring in a phone with a camera? Of those in such positions, how many of them actually work in a place where that requirement is enforced? From my own experience, only the most secure facilities actually try to keep out cell phone cameras - many facilities that in theory don't allow them in do allow them in practice.

My guess would be that a high estimate would be 20% - which would then have Apple creating another model and manufacturing it for a potential 0.5% increase in sales - but that's assuming that everyone in the DoD who potentially needs such a phone gets one, and that they all get one in the course of one year. If, say, the DoD were to follow a more normal course and buy them over the course of three years or so, that comes an increase of less than 0.2%.

The simple fact is, the market that 'needs' a lack of a camera is tiny.

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This has to do with taxes. Electronics, particularly expensive stuff, is smacked with a "luxury tax" of like 20% on sales value (I forgot the exact number), plus of course a VAT. So an electronic device produced in mainland and sold there, has these taxes added to it's price. But when the same device is exported to Hong Kong, the factory doesn't have to pay taxes. So indeed mainland factories produce electronics, export them tax-free to Hong Kong, from where it's smuggled back into the mainland.

iPhones are just a high-profile case (the same is happening for iPads and other wanted electronics), and in that case it's more than just taxes: the device is released in Hong Kong but not on the mainland (Apple controls when and where they're being sold), where it is a status symbol optima forma so people are willing to pay a big premium (think in the tunes of 50-100%) to have one *right now*, because having one well before it's officially being released is even better to impress friends and business relations (or, of course, to use as gift to business relations and government officials). So mainlanders come to Hong Kong, buy a lot of them, and have mules carry them across the border.

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It's the BLOODY STUPID PATENT THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ISSUED. A patent that fails basic common sense tests of invention, prior art and obviousness, because the patent office has gotten so far away from reality that it gives patents for existing stuff simply by adding "on a handset".

So you may have wished the jury was just normal people, who would see the stupidness of it, and reject the claim regardless of the patent, but instead you got a person who FOLLOWED THE PATENT LAW, the insane stupid, nonsensical law, and promptly issued a $1 billion penalty that was appropriate, if we all lived in a lunatic asylum where this patent regime makes sense.

IMHO, the fix for this decision is for Korea to issue a patent infringement case against Apple for $2 billion, and make it clear to everyone that this is just protectionism disguised as an 'innovative' curved corner design, and a camera icon that looks like a camera.

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Actually the opposite is true. They let reliance on Google go on for too long, using it as a crutch that hurt day-to-day business for years.

Android had built-in turn by turn for years; not only could Apple not provide it in iOS, but developers could not write apps that provided turn-by-turn directions on top of the built in iOS mapping framework (it was against Google's TOS). So the whole platform was limited for years by Google restrictions on not just what Apple could do, but what any developer could do.

Now that Google is out of the picture iOS users have turn by turn directions. They have vector maps. iOS developers can do whatever they want with the built in mapping framework now, without arbitrary Google limitations like limits on reverse geocoding per day, or having to avoid covering up the Google logo on the map, or (as stated) being able to show turn by turn directions on a map.

Apple should have ditched Google maps much earlier before it got more painful for more users. But the fact is they had to do so, and at least now that it is done Apple can clean up the map data (the hardest part of mapping) and within a year should be essentially caught up for most areas. Already they have better satellite data in many areas than Google does, and they work better in China/Japan for native users (not as well for english users).

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Almost a week ago the team behind the popular distribution custom Android, CyanogenMod announced base 4.2 Android builds every night for the Google Nexus 10 was on the way. The developers kept their word and have now delivered the first official version of CyanogenMod for the 10-inch Tablet 10.1.

The CM10.1 builds for the Nexus 10 (code name 'Manta') are available with December 3 and December 4, a time stamp. Users should expect a number of features to miss due to the nature at the beginning of the development and the feature current porting process. However, quiet hours, the battery percentage indicator and trebuchet Launcher are all included. Steve Kondik, founder of the project, contains more good news for fans of CyanogenMod.

Yesterday he posted a teaser on its Google page + showing a version dated November 29, CyanogenMod 10.1 running on T-Mobile Galaxy S III and announced the team needs only a few extra days of work in order to deliver the first nightly builds for American variants of the Samsung unit.

Apparently "4.2 is super smooth" on Android phones popular, which is no small matter judge the performance of the second iteration of Jelly Bean.

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Social audio-sharing site SoundCloud announced on Tuesday that the beta of its redesign is complete and that "Next SoundCloud" is now welcoming users from the public.

The redesign was first rolled out in private beta last May, and SoundCloud says it has helped increase user engagement by as much as 30 percent over the previous version.

What does that mean? For musicians, podcasters, and audio creators, it means quite a bit, actually. When a user navigates to one of the redesigned SoundCloud sites, they listen to 30 percent more sound (music, audio, whatever) than they did on the classic sites. Generally speaking, it's an update to the aesthetic of the site that propels increased usage.

For the listener, the interface is simpler, the social aspects are less intrusive, and playback is continuous. For the sound creators, social updates are in real time, and deeper integration with Facebook lets users turn their Facebook "likes" into listens.

What's more, on Thursday of this week, SoundCloud will be rolling out the redesigned user experience to iOS and Android-based mobile devices as well.

The new SoundCloud is available to all users now, but the site appears to be under heavy load this morning, as pages frequently timed out in our tests.

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StrandVision Digital Signage today announced that it has enhanced its Basic Subscription Package by extending playback hours from 80 per week to unlimited 24/7 streaming from StrandVision’s Internet-based digital media player system. This is a valuable extension for retailers, restaurants and hotels – any business that has extended hours – for both business marketing and employee communication applications over their StrandVision electronic sign networks.

The Basic Package is a robust digital signage cloud-based environment that features:
24/7 playback of signage50 pages of contentCrawling information feeds5 user-created databasesAnimated U.S. weather maps33 licensed news channelsAbility to accept RSS feedsQuick Response (QR) code generationEmergency announcement signage override

In addition, Basic Package subscribers have full access to the StrandVision online Content Management System (CMS) portal, as well as online and telephone support. The digital signage system also provides administrators with digital signage monitoring, usage reports and other administrative tools.

“This is a tremendous value for existing and prospective customers,” commented Mike Strand, StrandVision founder and CEO. “It offers a fully-supported, commercial-grade digital signage network that exceeds the business marketing needs of most organizations. Now all companies, from local pizza shops to restaurant chains, retailers and hotels, as well as companies that want to reach employees on multiple shifts, have an inexpensive, easy-to-manage and reliable way to communicate.”

The StrandVision Basic Package subscription is available for $499.99/year. Subscribers can also opt for monthly or quarterly billing; discounted multi-year contracts are also available. In addition to the Basic Package, StrandVision also offers a free digital signage trial subscription, as well as higher-level packages that include additional pages, streaming video, animated PowerPoint presentations and proof of playback. All of StrandVision’s subscription packages are outlined at: strandvision.com/packages.html.

About StrandVision
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StrandVision LLC, based in Menomonie, Wisconsin, delivers low-cost, Web-based digital signage software through a patented Software as a Service (SaaS) approach that delivers content to subscribers' LCD flat panel screens, as well as computer screens and websites. StrandVision's service distributes text and graphics pages, video content and national and local weather and news. It is ideal for many large and small business marketing applications, including medical and dental offices (patient education); banks, retailers and industrial distributors (video merchandising); education (student communication, staff and visitor information); employee break rooms (employee communication of events and benefits); nonprofit and religious organizations (member and supporter communication).

StrandVision also offers PC-2-TV.net, a fully digital, high-definition (HD) video extender to connect a computer to a television over long distances for use with digital signage and many other applications. StrandVision Digital Signage services and PC-2-TV.net are available directly from StrandVision and through registered affiliates and system integrators. Additional information about StrandVision Digital Signage is available at StrandVision.com, 715-235-7446 or by email.

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Bitdefender has released 60-Second Virus Scanner, a cloud-based malware hunter which aims to provide an extra layer of security protection for your PC.

And at first glance this seems to work well. Installation is speedy; there were no conflicts with existing security software in our first tests; and the program really did complete its scan in only 60 seconds.

Unfortunately, as the program must send off its data to the cloud for analysis, the end of the scan doesn’t mean the end of your waiting. We sat looking at a “waiting for server” message for a very long time, and it actually took 281 seconds before a “no viruses found” message was displayed.

The program has only just been released, of course, so you could argue that maybe the servers are just getting more of a hammering than Bitdefender were expecting. But that doesn’t seem to be the whole story, either. Our report revealed that, for all its work, 60-Second Virus Scanner had only scanned 32 processes and 1,415 files: that’s basic, even for a quick scan (especially as this was a fast PC with an SSD).

Could the program play a part on your PC? There’s no doubt it’s easy to use, with a clean and simple interface. Resource use isn’t too bad -- the interface requires around 30MB RAM, but scans don’t noticeably affect the rest of your system – and, once installed, you could probably forget about it and just leave the program to do its job.

And the limitations of the 60-second scans aren’t necessarily a fatal problem, either, because by default the program is also set up to scan critical areas in real time. If that means 60-Second Virus Scanner will check new files as they appear then it could still offer a useful extra layer of malware protection.

Photo Credit: Jirsak/Shutterstock

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