10/02/2010

IT Customer Buying Patterns and Vendor Competition

IT Customer Buying Patterns and Vendor Competition: "

Tail light chasing your competition means you will NEVER own a concept in your customers's minds. Matt Asay recently blogged about Novell's continuing practice of chasing Red Hat in the Linux market rather than defining itself on its own strengths, (in this case offering support for Red Hat servers cheaper than Red Hat). He rightly addresses the woolliness of their thinking and closes by saying:

Instead, Novell should be focusing on the things it does really well, like its powerful SUSE Studio technology, which makes it super easy to build Linux-based appliances.

Novell is never going to be a better Red Hat than Red Hat. It should focus on being a better Novell. That positive message is what CIOs buy.

The post also includes a fragment of a leaked memo from a Red Hat country manager crying foul against Novell in a memo to a customer. Some consider this a sign that Red Hat is beginning to misbehave in its arrogance.

Here's what I think Novell is up against: Is the customer 'happy' with Red Hat is the wrong question. This applies equally to both pricing and arrogance issues. There are few inflexion points to grab. Novell's opportunities aren't around offering cheaper support, but have to be looking forward to the next ground they can grab in customers's minds.

From my historical perspective as a customer, (and this was confirmed in recent discussions with CIOs I trust), customers never 'trust' vendors, and in fact expect them to misbehave to maximize their own revenue. Customer organizations manage their IT budgets as a portfolio (especially large complex organizations with lots of 'platforms' to support). Switching solutions means retraining, instability in something complex that isn't 'broke', and the savings would need to be enormous to consider the conversation at all. And it's not enough to save a lot on the specific vendor competitive situation because the customer is actually judging the savings against their entire portfolio.

Let me borrow an example from discussions and a blog post from three years ago. Saving even 50% per year on a Red Hat support contract by switching to Novell is irrelevant. The risk of instability isn't balanced against a commensurate savings in the overall budget (against say the IBM or Oracle annual spend), or new value-add to the company. It's not worth the conversation. Matt rightly points out that the savings of moving from Red Hat to CentOS is 100% and the form factor exactly matches Red Hat. Is the customer 'happy' with Red Hat is the wrong question. They're not unhappy enough with the value-to-conversion risk to make the conversation interesting compared to all the other more interesting value generation projects they're undertaking or savings in the ugly parts of the budget.

What this means is that once established, there are few opportunities for the 2nd place guys to break-in. The market leader already owns a concept (or concepts) in the customer's mind. It's not about differentiation. It's about owning the differentiation in the customer's mind. ('We're cheaper' is already owned by CentOS.) You need to catch the next technology wave and own a particular definition faster at a time when the customer technology office is already at an inflexion point so a 'new' vendor is an obvious part of the discussion. For Novell, this might mean positioning all the great technology in SuSE Studio on cloud appliances for the intranet. Today the message seems to be focused on getting more ISVs to compete with Red Hat's perceived success with ISVs. Positioning this technology to solve the ISV problem backwards is irrelevant. (Near as I can tell Red Hat and Novell each have roughly the same number of ISVs and I'm betting there's substantial overlap. Red Hat has again created the perception that they have more ISVs in a customer's mind. They were likely first to grab the ISV market, and they have entrenched the concept in customers minds.)

Nobody knows what cloud computing will mean for the large organization IT shop. Positioning SuSE Studio as the perfect way to 'build virtual internal application appliances for your internal cloud', with all the supporting materials, examples, tutorials and the like is a possible way to own 'in-house application appliances' in the customer's mind before Red Hat or IBM or some clever start-up comes along and does so. Then Novell can talk about the value proposition of SuSE as a secondary complementary [larger] revenue stream. Following Red Hat means you'll always be second.

Microsoft warns of TLS/SSL flaw in Windows

Microsoft warns of TLS/SSL flaw in Windows: "

Microsoft has issued Security Advisory (977377) to address a publicly disclosed vulnerability in the Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocols. The TLS and SSL protocols are implemented in several Microsoft products, both client and server. Currently Microsoft has concluded that it affects all supported versions of Windows: Windows 2000 SP4, Windows XP (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows Server 2003 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit), Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit), and Windows Server 2008 R2. Microsoft says it will update the advisory as the investigation progresses.

This warning should not be confused with the 13 Security Bulletins fixing 26 vulnerabilities Microsoft released today on this month's Patch Tuesday; the company is simply stating that it is investigating the flaw. Microsoft also makes sure to note that since the issue implicates an Internet standard, the company recognizes that it affects multiple vendors and is working on a coordinated response with its partners in the Internet Consortium for Advancement of Security on the Internet (ICASI).

Redmond also underlined that it is currently unaware of any attacks trying to use the vulnerability, is actively monitoring the situation, and may provide a security update on an upcoming Patch Tuesday or an out-of-cycle patch once it is ready. The next Patch Tuesday is scheduled for March 9, 2010.

In the meantime, Microsoft listed two mitigating factors for the vulnerability:

Web servers running Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 or later in the default configuration are not affected by this vulnerability, as they are only affected when configured to require mutual authentication (an uncommon configuration).

Customers are only affected when an attacker is able to successfully conduct a man-in-the-middle attack by exploiting another vulnerability, such as a local subnet attack or DNS spoofing.

Microsoft also outlined two workarounds in the security advisory for Web servers running IIS 6 and later that are affected because they require mutual authentication by requesting a client certificate. Enabling the SSLAlwaysNegoClientCert setting will cause IIS to prompt the client for a certificate upon the initial connection, and does not require a server-initiated renegotiation. The downside is that setting this flag will require the client to authenticate prior to loading any element from the SSL-protected website and will thus cause the browser to always prompt the user for a client certificate upon connecting. Alternatively, the company is offering an update which lets system administrators disable TLS and SSL renegotiation functionality (available at KB977377). Microsoft admits, however, that renegotiation is required functionality for some applications so it doesn't recommend that this workaround be used for wide implementation (and should be tested rigorously before any implementation).

Windows 7 sins

HP creativity

Monday, February 08, 2010

Beaker Is Dust In The Wind

Beaker Is Dust In The Wind: "
The Muppets: Beaker's Ballad
Is he died? Beaker find out why the web is a tougher audience than a live variety show. On the other hand, Statler and Waldorf are the perfect internet commentators.

Previously on Popped Culture...
The Muppet Bohemian Rhapsody
Muppets Last Supper
What Else Is In The Teaches Of Peaches? Huh? What?

The HeliOS Project Organization Day

The HeliOS Project Organization Day: "

Well, it never ceases to amaze me.

The more room we are given, the faster I can turn it into a cluttered mess.

Hey, I'm just talented that way...

On the 20th of February which is a Saturday, The HeliOS Project will be hosting their first official Organization Day. We will be gathering volunteers to meet at our facility in Lakeway and try to bring some order to the chaos I have created.

You've been warned. Oh...there will be free food as an incentive.

We will also be filming parts of the event so wear something you'd want to be seen in. I've sent personal invitations to Angelina Jolie and Moon Bloodgood and I have every confidence that they will show up.

I mean, they'll show up somewhere...just probably not in Lakeway.

If you can participate, please notify me via email: helios at fixedbylinux dot com. We really could use some help.

Most importantly, I want to announce publicly the appointment of a new Director to The HeliOS Project.

Skip (Stephen) Guenter has been a crucial part of our effort for two years. Skip was part of the hardware team during the first Linux Against Poverty and his knowledge of hardware as it pertains to building functional computers has been invaluable. It is not uncommon for Skip to take recently donated equipment, load it in his car and spend his free time at his work bench at home getting this stuff ready to go out.

Skip resides in Hutto Texas with his wife Sharon and and his two monster dogs Kaiser and Blue. He has given The HeliOS Project countless hours of his time in getting donated machines ready for deployment. The addition to Skip Guenter as the Director of Systems Engineering will solidify our efforts and insure that I don't blow up any more perfectly rebuildable machines.

Skip is a Senior Manager at Computer Sciences Corporation where he has been employed since 1983. He's also traveled to Beijing and spent a year there working for CSC. When he's not working or tinkering with computers, he's usually asleep. I want to join you in welcoming Skip to The HeliOS Project in an official capacity. This guy rocks and I'm glad to have him aboard.

This is also a great time to highlight some of the people that have been an inestimable part of what we do. It didn't take me long to figure out that I couldn't do everything required by this project and the people listed below took a great burden from me. For that I am extremely grateful.

Tom King

Tom has been our Director of Network Engineering since we incorporated as a Texas non profit. Tom's understanding of complex networking issues has gotten us out of more jams than I could possibly put us into. Well, for the most part...there are some balls of fishing line that can't be untangled by human hands. Tom is a Server Analyst for Dell, Inc and lives in Round Rock Texas with his wife Cyndi. She has been more than understanding when Tom was needed to come fix stuff and he has never missed a call for assistance. Tom was the guy in charge of getting all the computers at Linux Against Poverty hooked up for system installation. We couldn't have done it without him.

Andy Krell

Andy is the Director of IT and Custom Data Services at nFusion Group, LLC here in Austin. Andy has seen to it that we get some of the best laptop computers we've ever been able to give away. Not only has he been instrumental in getting these donations, Andy does all the repair work and tweaking before they come our way. I can't begin to count the hours he has saved me in preparing these great machines prior to deployment. Andy was also a steadfast component of the Hardware Team during Linux Against Poverty.

Andy has selflessly volunteered his services to install computer systems for our disadvantaged kids around Austin. He's answered every call for help we've issued and for his service to The HeliOS Project, we couldn't be more grateful.

Darrel Raynor

Darrel is our Director of Asset Management and he has delivered more to our effort than I could have ever asked. Not only does Darrel solicit donations for The HeliOS Project, he has provided us with a free facility where we can store and build the computers we give away. Darrel has done this at his own cost.

I often kid that Darrel knows everyone. Seemingly, he does. I am guessing that his Rolodex is coveted by about everyone in the business and social community here in Austin...or the state of Texas for that matter. We owe Darrel more than we could ever repay him.

Now it might be good for me to tell you specifically what these guys do for us. We have two projects coming up shortly that will make a big difference in many kid's lives.

Camp Cedar Creek hosts a camp for kids with HIV. John Weathers has asked us to provide 6 computers for these kids and we have agreed to provide them. These kids live day to day in many cases, not sure of their futures. HIV is no longer a death sentence and we will do what we can to give them the learning environment they need. They DO have a future. I will be preparing these computers at our Lakeway facility this weekend for delivery on Monday.

Plans are going ahead for the delivery of up to 30 computers for Our Texas Grandchildren. This is a foundation established by Carole Keeton Strayhorn to care for and nurture the most neglected in our Texas foster care system. We are proud to provide these machines and training to these kids.

As always, we rely upon your support to do what we do. I want to thank you now for helping us do it. We couldn't do it without you.

All-Righty Then

KDE 4.4.0 Ushers In New Innovations To The Desktop

KDE 4.4.0 Ushers In New Innovations To The Desktop: "KDE 4.4.0 Software Compilation codenamed Caikaku has been released. KDE 4.4.0 brings an innovative collection of applications to Free Software users which enhances their experience while using KDE Desktop.

New Features In KDE 4.4.0

The following are a select few from the sum total of features that KDE 4.4.0 sports.

Plasma Netbook workspace - An interface specifically optimized for mobile devices with smaller screens. Similar to Ubuntu Netbook Remix or Moblin but distribution independent.

Improved window management - KDE 4.4.0 brings with it enhanced application switching using Alt+Tab keyboard shortcut. You can now maximize and tile windows by dragging them to the edge of the screen.

Plasma widgets improvements - 'Add Widget' interface attaches to the user's main panel instead of opening in it's own window. Now it is possible to share Plasma widgets over a network. System tray can now embed Plasma widgets thus reducing visual clutter.

KDE 4.4.0 now supports new locales, currencies and date formats in its interface.

A new configuration module to handle automatic mounting of removable drives.

For a full list of features and lots of screenshots and videos demonstrating the enhancements in KDE 4.4.0, head over to the KDE 4.4.0 anouncement page. Also check out the KDE promotional committee YouTube Channel for all the goodies that KDE 4.4.0 has to offer.

For more news, tips, and reviews on all things Linux, Open source and Free software, visit Linux Help blog.

Gwibber goes TweetDeck in Lucid

Gwibber goes TweetDeck in Lucid: "

Ubuntu supremo Jono Bacon has been blogging about Gwibber and tweeting in Ubuntu Lucid - including the awesome screenshot of a mutli-column Gwibber as shamlessly pasted above.

He rather eloquently raves about it: -

No more ugly Adobe Air app. No more closed source Twitter client. No more lack of identi.ca support. No more horrible notification bubbles. Instead, sweet, native, effortless microblogging, right from my Ubuntu desktop. A veritable ass kicking at at it’s finest.

Read the full whack @ http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/02/09/social-from-the-start/ for more.

Pedro get's a thanks!

OSPF filtering: inter-area versus intra-area

OSPF filtering: inter-area versus intra-area: "

There are two points at which OSPF routes can be filtered: within an area, or between areas on an area border router (ABR). This article discusses the differences between the two and the considerations which should be made when implementing OSPF filtering. The following topology is provided for illustration of both cases:

Inter-area Filtering

The 192.0.2.0/24 network has been implemented on R1 for testing. The route is intended only to be propagated throughout the local area, but is currently being advertised to the entire OSPF domain (as indicated by the green arrows in the topology):


R4# show ip route
Codes: C - connected, S - static, R - RIP, M - mobile, B - BGP
      D - EIGRP, EX - EIGRP external, O - OSPF, IA - OSPF inter area
      N1 - OSPF NSSA external type 1, N2 - OSPF NSSA external type 2
      E1 - OSPF external type 1, E2 - OSPF external type 2
      i - IS-IS, su - IS-IS summary, L1 - IS-IS level-1, L2 - IS-IS level-2
      ia - IS-IS inter area, * - candidate default, U - per-user static route
      o - ODR, P - periodic downloaded static route

Gateway of last resort is not set

O IA 192.168.10.0/24 [110/20] via 192.168.0.3, 00:11:06, FastEthernet0/1
C    192.168.0.0/24 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/1
O IA 192.0.2.0/24 [110/21] via 192.168.0.3, 00:06:33, FastEthernet0/1

We can implement inter-area filtering (filtering between areas) on R3 to prevent the route from being advertised outside of area 10. First, we define a prefix list on R3 to deny the 192.0.2.0/24 prefix and allow all others:


R3(config)# ip prefix-list Deny_Test_Route deny 192.0.2.0/24 le 32
R3(config)# ip prefix-list Deny_Test_Route permit 0.0.0.0/0 le 32

Appending le 32 to the first prefix list entry ensures that any more-specific routes within 192.0.2.0/24 are denied as well (as opposed to only the exact /24 route).

Next we reference it as an area filter within OSPF configuration. The area filter-list statement below tells the router to apply our prefix list to routes being distributed out of area 10. (Don't forget to re-establish neighbor adjacencies afterward so that the new policy takes effect.)


R3(config)# router ospf 1
R3(config-router)# area 10 filter-list prefix Deny_Test_Route out
R3(config-router)# ^Z
R3#clear ip ospf 1 process
Reset OSPF process? [no]: y

We can verify that R3 is still receiving the 192.0.2.0/24 route from R1, but is not distributing it out of the local area into the backbone (area 0):


R3# show ip route
...
C    192.168.10.0/24 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/0
C    192.168.0.0/24 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/1
O    192.0.2.0/24 [110/11] via 192.168.10.1, 00:03:03, FastEthernet0/0


R4# show ip route
...
O IA 192.168.10.0/24 [110/20] via 192.168.0.3, 00:04:25, FastEthernet0/1
C    192.168.0.0/24 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/1

Intra-area Filtering

Now assume that we need to move the filtering point closer toward the source of the route; specifically, we want to advertise 192.0.2.0/24 from R1 to R2, but not to R3. To accomplish this, we'll need to implement intra-area filtering using the distribute-list command under OSPF configuration.

Intra-area filtering can reference an ACL, prefix list, or route-map; for simplicity's sake, we'll reuse the same prefix-list Deny_Test_Route that was implemented in the prior example. We'll implement inbound filtering on R3 for area 10 since we want to prevent R3 from receiving the route:


R3(config)#router ospf 1
R3(config-router)#distribute-list prefix Deny_Test_Route in
R3(config-router)# ^Z
R3#clear ip ospf 1 process
Reset OSPF process? [no]: y

Again, don't forget to reset neighbor adjacencies after applying the change.

We can verify that R2 is still receiving the 192.0.2.0/24 route from R1 but R3 is not:


R2# show ip route
C    192.168.10.0/24 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/0
O IA 192.168.0.0/24 [110/20] via 192.168.10.3, 00:00:40, FastEthernet0/0
O    192.0.2.0/24 [110/11] via 192.168.10.1, 00:33:00, FastEthernet0/0


R3# show ip route
C    192.168.10.0/24 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/0
C    192.168.0.0/24 is directly connected, FastEthernet0/1

Note that distribute-lists do not work for outbound OSPF filtering (even though the CLI may accept the command) as OSPF is a link-state protocol and thus all routers within an area must flood all LSAs. Although unidirectional LSA database filtering can be enabled with the database-filter parameter, it is not appropriate in this scenario (and is typically best avoided altogether).

Let me in!

Let me in!: "

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Article: The KDE 4.3 System Settings - Part 5 - System

Article: The KDE 4.3 System Settings - Part 5 - System: "Welcome to part 5, the final article in our little series on the KDE 4.3 System Settings control panel. I first off want to thank the KDE devs for creating such a great desktop environment (DE) and for simplifying the control panel (now known as "System Settings"). The last time I had ..."

Is Microsoft Exploiting the Innocent?

Is Microsoft Exploiting the Innocent?: "I'd never heard of the UK government's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), but that's not surprising, since I'm allergic to organisations whose approach is 'truly holistic' as CEOP brightly claims. But as well as being susceptible to embarrassing cliches, it seems that the outfit is naive, too.

For, as part of the 'Safer Internet Day', CEOP is promoting Internet Explorer 8 on its front page. And what exactly does this famous panacea for all human ills offer in this context? Well:

Download the 'Click CEOP' button into your browser toolbar to provide instant access to internet safety information for children and parents.

Of course, it's rather a pity that to access the information you have to use Internet Explorer 8, scion of a family of browsers that has probably done more than any other software to expose young people to harm on the Internet through woeful security that allows viruses and trojans to be downloaded so easily - one still riddled with flaws.

Strange, then, that CEOP didn't offer a much better way of protecting vulnerable users by suggesting that they switch to a safer browser; it doesn't even offer that same instant access to safety information for Firefox users, thus encouraging people to use IE8 if they want to see it. Moreover, it does this by providing - oh irony of ironies - a link to a .exe file to download and run, the very thing you should be teaching young people *not* to do.

It couldn't be that the young and innocent Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre has allowed itself to be, er, exploited by that wily old Microsoft here, could it?

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

Novell updates openSUSE Build Service

Novell updates openSUSE Build Service: "Novell has released version 1.7 of its openSUSE Build Service, which makes it possible to create packages for a variety of processor platforms and other major Linux distributions"

MultiCD Builds a Multi-boot CD / DVD With Many Different Linux Distributions And / Or Utilities

MultiCD Builds a Multi-boot CD / DVD With Many Different Linux Distributions And / Or Utilities: "

multicd.sh is a shell script designed to build a multiboot CD / DVD image containing many different Linux distributions and/or utilities. You can use it for instance to burn Gparted Live, Clonezilla and Ubuntu, all on the same multiboot DVD.

The latest version of MultiCD was released two days ago and it adds Endian Firewall and CDlinux, fixes a bug that made it so Ubuntu was nameless on the menu, and makes Slax changes default. The .tar.gz version also comes with SYSLINUX so you don't have to download it every time.

Using MultiCD is very easy: simply download the script (please note that starting with version 5.x, you can download MultiCD in two formats: single script called 'combined' and a script with a plugins folder called 'separate'), put in in a folder along with the supported ISO images (or symbolic links) and then make it executable and run it:

chmod +x multicd*.sh
sudo ./multicd*.sh

Make sure your ISO files are among the supported distributions listed HERE.

For more info and download, visit MultiCD.sh homepage | For support, visit it's thread @ ubuntuforums.org

09/02/2010

IBM Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2 Is Available For Download (Office Suite)

IBM Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2 Is Available For Download (Office Suite): "

IBM is working intensively on their free office suite called Lotus Symphony. The current stable version (which we reviewed HERE) is based on an obsolete OpenOffice.org 1 code, but the forthcoming version 3 will use the up to date code of OpenOffice.org 3. Recently, IBM has released the second beta of the new Lotus Symphony 3.

Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2 offers a lot of new features, most notable being the support for Visual Basic Macros, OLE Objects, and embedded audio/video as well as delivering business card and label templates commonly used.

If you plan on using the new IBM Lotus Symphony, you'll be glad to know that version 3 beta 2 brings enhanced support for and interoperability with Microsoft Office 2007 files and OpenOffice.org file formats.

Improvements have also been made to: file fidelity, user interface, support for nested tables, presentation masters and Digital Signatures, as well as commonly used features such as comments and DataPilot tables for pivoting on large datasets.

Download IBM Lotus Symphony 3 Beta 2 for Windows, Linux (packages available for openSUSE, RedHat and Ubuntu) and Mac OS X | via abclinuxu.cz

Note for Ubuntu users: don't worry about the package name saying 'hardy', it will work on any Ubuntu version (I've tested it on Karmic)!

OpenOffice.org 3.2.0 Has Been Released

OpenOffice.org 3.2.0 Has Been Released: "

OpenOffice 3.2.0 has finally been released with A LOT of improvements which you can find HERE. As an example, OpenOffice Calc and Writer start up time should be reduced by 46%.

The OpenOffice.org main website still points out to version 3.1.1, but you can download version 3.2.0 from HERE. I will be waiting for an OpenOffice 3.2 Ubuntu PPA (although if you want, you can download the deb.tar.gz which has Ubuntu .deb files).

[via caschy]

What’s in a name?

What’s in a name?: "

Doh...

Mike Ratcliffe is globetrotting and kindly sent us his favourite sign, which he spotted in the Washington DC area.

Probably the absolute worst name they could have granted this place. [thanks Mike]

Debian 6.0 Squeeze behind schedule

Debian 6.0 Squeeze behind schedule: "Too many release-critical bugs and too few active developers are causing development of Debian 6.0, aka Squeeze, to fall behind the release schedule"

UK Citizens Petition For Government IE6 Upgrade

UK Citizens Petition For Government IE6 Upgrade: "

IE petition Governments are often slow to adapt to technology (and, when they do, the results can be an expensive disaster). Last year, I reported that the majority of UK Government departments are still using IE6. Although some intend to roll out IE7 (why?) by the end of 2010, others are steadfastly locked into Microsoft’s aging browser and have no plans to upgrade.

The issue is intensified for creative and development companies building software for Government clients. They must continue to provide and support IE6 solutions when most of the IT industry has moved on. Application development is held back and IE6’s longevity continues unabated!

UK citizens can now do something about the problem. An online petition at the Number10.gov.uk website is demanding that all Government departments upgrade Internet Explorer 6.0 at the earliest opportunity. At the time of writing, almost 6,000 signatures have been collected even though the petition has only just begun to attract publicity.

The UK Government E-Petitions allow British citizens to collect online signatures for any cause of their choice. There are almost 5,000 petitions currently running and many have been a success. For example, in September 2009, Gordon Brown was persuaded to apologize on behalf of the British Government for Alan Turing’s treatment after World War II.

Will the IE6 petition be a success and force UK Government departments to upgrade? I suspect many thousands of web users and workers will sign before the February 1, 2011 deadline but, unfortunately, that date is almost a year away. By then, several offices will have switched to IE7 and those that haven’t can simply announce a 3-year upgrade plan (to coincide with Microsoft dropping IE6 support in 2014).

But, hey — it all helps. Any campaign which persuades the masses to look beyond IE6 is a good thing. I’ve signed … will you?

Members of European Parliaments ask when they will receive the ACTA documents

Members of European Parliaments ask when they will receive the ACTA documents: "

Some Member of the European Parliament are asking the Commission and the Council when they plan to respect the Lisbon Treaty on ACTA, where the next Trade Commissioner Karel DeGucht said in a hearing that the Lisbon Treaty does not apply to the ACTA negotiations, because the confidentiality rules were negotiated before the entry into force of the Treaty.

Here is the full text of the question, Mr Josefsson is publishing it in a proprietary Microsoft Word format (which is used by EU bureaucrats) on his website, but not in a plain text or html, so here it is:

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
FORM FOR TABLING PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS
To the: COUNCIL , COMMISSION

ORAL QUESTIONS

Oral Question with debate (Rule 115)

Question Time (Rule 116)

WRITTEN QUESTIONS

Written Question (Rule 117)

Priority Written Question (Rule 117 (4))

AUTHOR(S): Carl SCHLYTER, Eva LICHTENBERGER, Christian ENGSTRÖM, Niccolò RINALDI, Daniel CASPARY, Syed KAMALL, David MARTIN, Helmut SCHOLZ, Bernd LANGE, Robert STURDY

SUBJECT: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)

TEXT:

The plurilateral negotiations on an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) are being conducted under a premise of confidentiality agreed upon by participants on a request by the US Government.

At a hearing on 12 January 2010, Commissioner-designate Karel De Gucht said that he will respect the confidentiality agreement among ACTA participants.

In preliminary discussions with Parliament on a new Inter-Institutional Framework Agreement, the Commission agreed on 27 January that it is committed to a reinforced association with Parliament through immediate and full information of the Parliament at every stage of negotiations on international agreements (including the definition of the negotiation directives), in particular on trade matters and other negotiations involving the consent procedure, to give full effect to Article 218 TFEU of Parliament, while respecting each institution's role and safe compliance with new procedures and rules for the respect of the necessary confidentiality.

- How will the Commission honour its commitment to a reinforced association with Parliament with regard to the ACTA negotiations?

- When will the Commission grant Parliament access to all documents relating to ACTA, in particular the ACTA negotiation mandate by the Council, the minutes of ACTA negotiation meetings, the draft chapters of ACTA, and the comments of ACTA participants on the draft chapters?

- Given that the Spanish EU Presidency aspires to an ACTA agreement within the first half of 2010, and given that many Parliamentarians see ACTA as an early example of EP's new role under the Lisbon TFEU, would Commission think that full access to ACTA documents should be given to Parliament prior to the coming into effect of the new Framework Agreement?

Signature(s): Date: 03.02.2010

EN

Let's see if the European Parliament have to go to the ECJ to get the documents, and test the Lisbon Treaty, but there is a high chance that the Commission and the Council will say that the Lisbon Treaty does not apply here, or they won't give full transcripts of the meetings, neither access to the documents.

Install Multiple Linux Distributions Via PXE (The Easy Way)

Install Multiple Linux Distributions Via PXE (The Easy Way): "

Install Multiple Linux Distributions Via PXE (The Easy Way)

The following script will set up a PXE config on your server, making
it possible to install major Linux distributions via netboot.

International Women’s Day Comp: Get Your Entries In!

International Women’s Day Comp: Get Your Entries In!: "

Look at this lovely bag of swag:

Image courtesy of Melissa Draper.

Want to own all this goodness, including Ubuntu Backpacks, women’s t-shirts, key chains, 1 year digital subscription to Linux Pro Magazine or a 1 year print subscription Ubuntu User, and a copy of the The Art of Community by some beardy community guy?

On January 10, 2010 the Ubuntu Women Project announced an International Women’s Day Competition; an awesome effort to gather wonderful stories of how women have discovered Ubuntu. From the announcement:

Ubuntu-Women has tried in the past to find some way to celebrate this event, but as far as I can remember it has never really amounted to much other than some chattering on IRC. So let us try a bit harder for 2010!

We have all come to Ubuntu in our own special ways — every single one of us differently to the next. Yet one of the most common questions we get asked is “How can I get $woman to use Ubuntu?”.

Obviously we cannot really answer that question, but we would dearly love to have a collection of stories by women about how they discovered Ubuntu. Such a repository would allow us to demonstrate that there’s no one definitive answer, and at the same time maybe provide the gift of inspiration to women who are interested — showing them that it’s really not so unusual to be Ubuntu fans after all.

We are not expecting any particular length, but do remember that these stories should be suited to perusal at leisure and not require someone to allocate hours of their day to read. Anywhere between a few paragraphs and a OO.o Write page is ideal.

Two prizes up for grabs. One prize pack will be given to the story that the community votes is their favourite. One prize pack will be given to a randomly drawn entrant. I have been given the pleasure of drawing this entrant in a videocast, and announcing both winners to the world on March 8th. Thanks to the Ubuntu Women project for asking for to do this. :-)

So, get your entries in to ubuntuwomen.competition at gmail.com by 23:59UTC on 22nd February 2010. Rocking!

The Economist Notices That The Patent System Is Hindering Innovation And Needs To Be Fixed

The Economist Notices That The Patent System Is Hindering Innovation And Needs To Be Fixed: "A whole bunch of you are sending in one of the first mainstream articles I've seen on patents that gets almost (but not quite) everything right. The Economist has a wonderful piece that clearly explains why patents are hindering, rather than helping innovation. It notes the difference between innovation and invention -- and how patents quite often can hinder the former. It discusses how patent thickets get in the way of innovation, and the focus on using patents to force through massive cross-licensing deals simply adds transaction costs and reduces efficiency in the market. The solution to all of this put forth by the Economist is mostly the same thing we've been suggesting for years: bring back a real test for 'obviousness' that gets rid of obvious patents -- though, it falls short in not suggesting an independent invention test for obviousness. The only other areas where I'd say the Economist article falls short is (1) simply assuming that patents do work in pharma and biotech -- when there's evidence that's not true, (2) assuming that a ruling in Bilski alone might clear up the obviousness issue and, finally, (3) its parting suggestion that programmers focus on copyright monopolies, rather than patents. Still, it's about as good a piece on this subject as you might expect to see in such a mainstream publication.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Memo to Dell: Sort Out Your Ubuntu Strategy

Memo to Dell: Sort Out Your Ubuntu Strategy: "

Dell’s Ubuntu strategy once again faces Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD). Multiple times in the past 12 months or so, Dell’s strong Ubuntu efforts have been undermined by disappearing desktop offerings. Here’s what’s wrong — and right — with Dell’s Ubuntu initiatives.

Let’s start with the positive. In Dell’s defense, the company in mid-2007 took a major chance on Ubuntu. The same year Microsoft launched Windows Vista, Dell stepped up and introduced its first Ubuntu desktops. I was among the first buyers, and I still own the Dell Ubuntu system.

Fast forward to 2009, and Dell continued to introduce new Ubuntu systems even as Microsoft launched Windows 7. Again, Dell stood by Ubuntu amid a major Microsoft upgrade cycle. That took guts.

Same Story, New Year

Still, Dell continues to make glaring Ubuntu missteps. In 2009, Dell’s desktop Ubuntu offerings briefly disappeared from the company’s U.S. website during a product transition. And more recently, the same problem has occurred again. The move prompted the following completely misleading headline from InfoWorld on Feb. 8, 2010:

“Dell Dropping its Ubuntu Offerings?”

Among the big PC vendors, no company has done more to promote Ubuntu. And if Infoworld had bothered to check www.dell.com/ubuntu, they’d see Ubuntu systems available — though admittedly, the list currently doesn’t include desktops.

Alas, Dell deserves some criticism. During recent hardware transitions, it seems like Dell’s U.S. website temporarily halts Ubuntu desktop preloads. The resulting media coverage is giving Dell and the Ubuntu community black eyes.

Small system builders like System76 and ZaReason earn considerable praise for their Ubuntu efforts. Dell would earn similar praise if the company managed to keep Ubuntu available on desktops during product transitions. That doesn’t seem like a lot to ask.

Oracle Drops Sun's Commitment To Accessibility

Oracle Drops Sun's Commitment To Accessibility: "An anonymous reader writes 'What I feared has come true: after buying Sun, Oracle had a look at its accessibility group and made big cuts in it by firing the most important contributors to the Linux accessibility tools. This is a very sad day for disabled people, as it means we do not really have full-time developers any more.' The coverage in OSTATIC has a few more details, including the caution: 'This just shows that all too few companies are sponsoring a11y work. If one company laying off a couple of developers spells trouble for the project, then there were problems before that happened' (thanks to reader dave c-b for pointing this out).

Study Says OOXML Unsuitable For Norwegian Government

Study Says OOXML Unsuitable For Norwegian Government: "angry tapir writes 'Microsoft's XML-based office document format, OOXML, does not meet the requirements for governmental use, according to a new report published by the Norwegian Agency for Public Management and eGovernment (DIFI). The agency wants to start a debate over the report as part of its work on standards in the Norwegian government. (As we discussed a week ago, Denmark has already decided to choose ODF over OOXML)'

Google Could Unveil Gmail’s Social Features Tomorrow

Google Could Unveil Gmail’s Social Features Tomorrow: "

We learned earlier today that Google is launching a social status update feature in Gmail. While details are sparse, The Wall Street Journal reports that it is a new Gmail module that could integrate status updates as well as content from YouTube, Picasa and potentially other social sources. WSJ is unclear as to when it will launch, though.

We think that Google’s new social status feature will be announced tomorrow. We have just received an invite to attend an event at Google’s headquarters where it will be “unveiling some product innovations in two of [its] most popular products.”

The description fits very well with the WSJ report. Gmail is one of Google’s most popular products, and this new social status update feature would be a “product innovation” within Gmail.

As for what the other product getting new features may be, we can’t say for certain. Picasa, YouTube, Google Friend Connect and Google Accounts all seem like potential candidates.

The event begins at 10:00 a.m. PT tomorrow. We will be there covering the entire thing.

Reviews: Gmail, Google, Picasa, YouTube, google friend connect

Tags: gmail, Google, social search, WSJ

Microsoft: your battery is the problem, not Windows 7

Microsoft: your battery is the problem, not Windows 7: "

Last week, Microsoft said it was investigating issues in Windows 7 that affect batteries on certain notebooks after hundreds of users reported they thought the OS was to blame. Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division, has posted a lengthy response on the Engineering Windows 7 blog. 'At this time we have no reason to believe there is any issue related to Windows 7 in this context,' Sinofsky writes. Here's his explanation:

Several press articles this past week have drawn attention to blog and forum postings by users claiming Windows 7 is warning them to 'consider replacing your battery' in systems which appeared to be operating satisfactorily before upgrading to Windows 7. These articles described posts in the support forums indicating that Windows 7 is not just warning users of failing batteries - as we designed Windows 7 to do this - but also implying Windows 7 is falsely reporting this situation or even worse, causing these batteries to fail. To the very best of the collective ecosystem knowledge, Windows 7 is correctly warning batteries that are in fact failing and Windows 7 is neither incorrectly reporting on battery status nor in any way whatsoever causing batteries to reach this state. In every case we have been able to identify the battery being reported on was in fact in need of recommended replacement.

Sinofsky goes on to explain that PC batteries inherently degrade in their ability to hold a charge and provide power, and ultimately batteries must be replaced to restore an acceptable battery life (batteries usually have a warranty of 12 months). Windows 7 taps into a feature of modern laptop batteries which have circuitry and firmware that can report the overall health of the battery in Watt-hours power capacity. Windows 7 then calculates the percentage of degradation from the original design capacity; the threshold is set at 60 percent degradation, so if the battery is performing at 40 percent of its designed capacity then users will see Windows 7 report that it might be time to change the battery.

Further, he notes that Windows 7's new 'Consider replacing your battery' message does not exist in Windows XP and Windows Vista, so many users would probably not have been aware of their batteries degrading. This would also explain why some users were seeing the battery indicator in Windows 7 builds prior to the RTM release while others only saw it in the RTM.

Finally, Sinofsky asks users who believe they are receiving this error because their battery is new or in great shape to contact Microsoft via the TechNet forum, the Microsoft Answers forum, or to visit support.microsoft.com to find how to contact Microsoft assisted support in their region.

Google Set to Make Gmail Social With Status Update Features

Google Set to Make Gmail Social With Status Update Features: "

Those updates might come from both Gmail and third-party services. Google-owned YouTube and Picasa will be integrated into the stream. The huge question then is whether or not the new feature will include updates from Twitter and Facebook."

08/02/2010

Recover from a frozen system with the magic SysRq key| Tips

Recover from a frozen system with the magic SysRq key| Tips: "

The magic SysRq key is an old tip to be used to recover from a frozen system, it is advised to be used when the system absolutely locks up - freeze, and when using Ctrl+Alt+Backspace does nothing .

Maintaining a Linux Wireless Access Point

Maintaining a Linux Wireless Access Point: "In this fourth part of a five-part series on building a Linux wireless access point, you'll learn about firewalling, routing, and more. This article is excerpted from chapter four of the Linux Networking Cookbook, written by Carla Schroder (O'Reilly; ISBN: 0596102488). Copyright © 2008 O'Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission from the publisher. Available from booksellers or direct from O'Reilly Media.
- 4.11 Connecting to the Internet and Firewalling
Problem
Its high time to finish up with these LAN chores and bring the Internet to your LAN. Your wireless is encrypted, your LAN services are working, and your users want Internet. So youre ready to configure your WAN interface and build a nice s..."

Very Good clonezilla howto

http://linuxgravity.com/creating-and-restoring-an-image-of-hard-disk-with-clonzilla

Microsoft ‘Cloud’ Falls Offline for a Quarter of a Day, Zune ‘Cloud’ Deletes Music, Microsoft Shop Also Kaput

Microsoft ‘Cloud’ Falls Offline for a Quarter of a Day, Zune ‘Cloud’ Deletes Music, Microsoft Shop Also Kaput: "

Summary: Microsoft continues to give online operations and online storage a bad name because of its sheer incompetence

ONLY when it happens to Google people tend to notice a downtime and publish reports about it, but Microsoft, whose Azure ‘cloud’ was once down for a whole day, receives almost no flak. Microsoft cannot beat Google because it uses an inferior stack that the London Stock Exchange (LSE) is dumping right now [1, 2]. Even Bing crashed and fell offline some months ago, which was hardly surprising.

Now we learn that Azure fell offline for over half of a working day, demonstrating yet again that Microsoft — not computing over a network — is the weakest link.

On the heels of my story about the Microsoft (MSFT) TechNet registration servers being down for five days, I received an email from a reader claiming that Microsoft Online Service, the current name for its cloud offerings, had a five hour outage. According to the tip, that included the hosted Exchange email service. This is clearly not the sort of thing corporations want to hear when considering who to trust going forward in cloud computing.

More here:

Microsoft’s cloud has been hiccuping all week, cutting North American customers off from access to the services included in its Business Productivity Online Suite, which includes Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Office Live Meeting.

But wait. That’s not all. There are other new examples.

The Zune downtime that we wrote about recently merely followed a longer Zune downtime from last year and now it seems like data is being lost too:

According to a post on the Zune Forums, owners of the Zune Pass are having a bit of trouble accessing the music they’re paying for with their subscription, as first reported by Engadget. In less than two weeks, the thread in question has passed 50 replies as users complain and list what they can no longer access: specific songs, entire albums, or even everything produced by an artist.

This could be like SideKick all over again (but at a smaller scale because almost nobody uses a Zune). For details, see:

Microsoft Pink is Already Declared Dead and Danger Dies with Permanent Data Loss

Microsoft Sued for Data Loss

Lawsuits Against Microsoft Turn to Class Action Lawsuit While Microsoft Mobiles Become Dying Breed

Microsoft Recovers Sidekick Data? Not So Fast!

Microsoft Sued for Sidekick Disaster, Fined for Using “Money Power” to “Harass” Defendants

Another new example comes from the Australian press, which writes about a Microsoft service that has been down for over a month.

Entrepreneur finds Microsoft closed for business

A PERTH small-business owner has been at his wits’ end trying to register a legitimate copy of Microsoft Office on the software giant’s own website.

Jim Embury, a safety and risk consultant for the oil industry, has been talking to Microsoft Australia’s hotline personnel over the course of more than a week to resolve the matter, but there’s no end in sight.

Microsoft’s damage control comes from the ‘Microsoft press’, as usual. It’s like a Microsoft outlet pretending to be official news.

From the same Australian publication happens to come the following report which is deceiving. It is just like BECTA in the UK where they talk about “savings” (on software that costs nothing to copy) but not about “expenses”. It opens like this:

QUEENSLAND is set to save $10 million over three years because of a whole-of-government deal signed with Microsoft Australia late last year.

What an utterly poor opening. It pretends that by paying Microsoft, Queensland is actually receiving a payment. It’s the art of spin. Australia in general is close to Microsoft, partly because it speaks English and trades with the US. We wrote about these factors many times before. That’s another story altogether and it usually annoys the apolitical. █

What should a Debian AD F&P server do ?

What should a Debian AD F&P server do ?

AD -> Active Directory (openLDAP)

F&P -> File and Print server

Questions:

- do we include samba in our server ?

Will we use the AD server for File&Printsharing or only as a logon server* ?
Even with a logon server we will need Samba (?)

- do we include cups ?

See above
- we have to include openldap !

- will we use clustering / failover ?

This is a valid question open to discussion.

- will we integrate our server in an existing network ?

Do we have to take into account that our server will not be the PDC,
but part of a Windows Server branch ?

- do we need DNS and / or DHCP ?

- do we need bandwidth monitoring / optimizing ?

- do we need a GUI ? (//overhead)

- do we need a firewall ?

- what filesystem will we use and will we use LVM ?

- what will be the scale and scope of our server ?

- will we work with source code or with pre-compiled binaries ?

advantages :

speed
optimization
personalization
disadvantages :

maintenance
documentation
support

Ellison puts Screven over mySQL

Ellison puts Screven over mySQL: "

Turns out the biggest surprise in the Oracle-Sun drama was not the split within open source over mySQL.

It was the split within Oracle over mySQL. (Picture from Oracle’s Collaborate 2007 event.)

Ken Jacobs, who was one of CEO Larry Ellison’s first 20 hires, says he is leaving the company after seeking to run mySQL and being turned down.

Jacobs gets credit for keeping InnoDB moving forward after its 2005 acquisition. This was a big win for open source.

InnoDB was an integral part of mySQL, and there were fears then Oracle planned to box-in mySQL by controlling its storage engine. But that didn’t happen, Oracle was able to claim open source bonafides.

Now Edward Screven, Oracle’s chief corporate architect, is in charge of mySQL, which could lead to the same fears expressed over InnoDB when Jacobs took it on.

Screven, however, also has some open source mojo. He was interviewed by Linux Foundation head Jim Zemlin in 2008, touting the company’s commitment to Linux. “We didn’t view GPL as something that was going to get in the way of business in the least,” he told Zemlin.

Trouble is that while Linux is an enterprise product, and has long had substantial server market share, mySQL began as something smaller and simpler, not scaled. The code base was moving toward greater scale before Oracle bought it, but during the debate even open source advocates like Matt Asay admitted it wasn’t a direct competitor.

This was always at the heart of the dispute. Would open source be allowed to develop a true competitor to Oracle? Would Web start-ups have to make a costly switch from open source as they scaled, or commit to open source in their business plans, raising costs substantially?

Internet success happens in Internet time. A start-up subsisting on pizza, even a small open source project, can be discovered by the masses and become world famous within a year. Will there be an easy migration path, or will that path be slammed shut?

Ask Edward Screven.

apt-build howto

APT-build — optimize your Debian!

[ Friday, 23 November 2007, P2O2 ]

Certainly most of the Linux users would like to have their systems fully optimized for their rigs but do not have the stamina or enough knowledge to play with the Gentoo installation paradigm. But here comes the rescue — an apt-build goody available under every distro armed with the big gun - APT package manager.

Author: Gallus Annonimus

Time to make the beast work for us. First we have to install it. Issue the command:

apt-get install apt-build

Now it’s time to configure it. In doing so, we’ll be asked for an optimization level — whether we want to create an apt-build repo for APT, and a question about processor architecture. Of course all options can be reconfigured in this way:

dpkg-reconfigure apt-build

The above command offers two additional options for the gcc compiler and make builder. Their descriptions can be found in system manuals: man gcc and man make.

Optimizing system

Let’s go to the next step and start optimizing our system. Our program makes use of deb-src entries contained in the etc/apt/sources.list file. Thanks to the source addresses compilation and installation processes are fully automatic (similar to emerge found in Gentoo). Apt-build downloads sources of the main application and its dependencies, compiles them, creates a deb package, and finally installs the package.

We are offered a broad spectrum of options. I list only a few basic ones:

apt-build update — updates repo list,
apt-build upgrade — updates operating system,
apt-build install program — installs an application,
apt-build world — something for hard-core users, it recompiles whole system!

Other useful options:

--noupdate — useful for underpowered machines and when we do not want to update repos (apt-build refreshes repos with every invocation),
--yes — we do not have time to approve every stupid question during program installation,
--force-yes — we approve unauthorized packages (ATTENTION: apt-build does not install unauthorized packages — what’s worse is it won’t ask us for this; the option’s highly recommended),
--reinstall — reinstalls a package,
--rebuild — builds a package from the beginning.

Make your Debian anew!

Anyone ready to jump to the deep waters of system recompilation, after reading above remarks, has to acquaint himself with a few things without which the compilation process will not yield.

At first the apt-build command should spit out the message:

-----Rebuilding the world!-----

-----Building package list-----

Please read README.Debian first.

Of course, the system failed to rebuild due to the fact it didn’t have a full list of system packages. We’ll try to amend this omission with the following command (it can be issued in one row without the backslash too):

dpkg --get-selections | awk '{if ($2 == "install") print $1}'> \

/etc/apt/apt-build.list

I suggest to add two options — --yes and --force-yes — to make the rebuilding process fully automatic. Recompilation should start without a problem now. But you will never achieve 100% certainty that the compilation will go smoothly, that it will not stop at some point even after you’ve made every theoretical precaution.

But what about USE flags?

A lot of you wonder whether we could have accessed USE flags, as we were able to recompile our system like Gentoo distros. For those uninitiated into compilation secrets: USE flags are special options for portage (Gentoo package control system). They free us from typing a lot of compilation options. For example, if we use GNOME and we do not need KDE parts we can preset the compiler to process applications for the first graphical environment only. Sorry, but apt-build cannot manage USE flags.

In spite of being at an early stage of development, the program is promising. In my opinion it will be able to compete with Gentoo’s portage in the future. But as for today, the apt-build system it too young and underdeveloped to compete with the stable, mature, and easy to use portage. Anyway, don’t worry. Debian wasn’t created to be compiled by users, contrary to Gentoo. Users should make use of Debian’s gigantic default repositories of ready-to-use binaries. But who from us, the users, never wanted to optimize his system in the past and wouldn’t like to optimize it in the future?

openldap debian howto

Inhoud

OpenLDAP

What is required

OpenLDAP / slapd - LDAP Server
pam_ldap - For unix password authentication
nss_ldap - For unix name lookup.
auth_ldap -

Before you start here is a script for you.

If you want to setup openldap server for user authentication download and run this script. This will do all the work in 1min.

Install

Where can LDAP take us
OpenLDAP uses slapd which stands for standalone LDAP daemon.
ldap-utils is a set of helper tools for running ldap.

aptitude install slapd ldap-utils

Set administrative password for ldap.
Now we will reconfigure it again so you get familiar with details. There seem to be a bug in debian when reconfiguring and it requires deleting the bacup version of ldap directory. Details follow.
Lets reconfigure the slapd and give it proper domain names so we all are on the same page.:

dpkg-reconfigure slapd

You can keep all the other settings as default

    * Omit OpenLDAP server configuration? No
   * DNS domain name: mycompany.com
   * Organization name: mycompany.com
   * Administrator password: ****
   * Database backend to use: HDB  (default)
   * Do you want the database to be removed when slapd is purged? No
   * Allow LDAPv2 protocol? No

It is Easy!
Now you have a ldap deamon working congratulations. It will allow connections, etc. What needs to happen now is you need to setup the ldap structure. Think of it as database tables and columns but in ldap world this is folders like structure. Just an fyi: mycompany.com becomes dc=mycompany,dc=com, and admin@mycompany.com becomes cn=admin,dc=mycompany,dc=com
You can look at /etc/ldap/slapd.conf for details if you want to educate yourself.
Start the open ldap deamon

/etc/init.d/slapd start

Lets check if we can query the ldap server:

ldapsearch -x -b dc=mycompany,dc=com

You should see the entries for "mycompany" and for "admin".

# search result
search: 2

You have a working ldap server.

1. Convert Linux users to ldap 2. Setup Linux client to authenticate against ldap 4. Create global addressbook 5. Migrate Windows NT domain to ldap with few simple steps.

Temporary Debian bug

Reconfiguring is not working

dpkg-reconfigure slapd
Stopping OpenLDAP: slapd.
Moving old database directory to /var/backups:

Backup path /var/backups/unknown-2.4.11-1.ldapdb exists. Giving up...

* You need to:

rm -r /var/backups/unknown-2.4.11-1.ldapdb/

And then it works.

dpkg-reconfigure slapd
Stopping OpenLDAP: slapd.
Moving old database directory to /var/backups:
- directory unknown... done.
Creating initial slapd configuration... done.
Creating initial LDAP directory... done.
Starting OpenLDAP: slapd.

If you don't do that you will get:

 ldapadd -x -W -D "cn=admin,dc=mycompany,dc=com" -f directory.ldiff
Enter LDAP Password:
ldap_bind: Invalid credentials (49)

This will fix the issue.

Authentication

Options for OpenLdap authentication

The authentications has many options for you to choose, from plain passwords, kerberos, or some other outside authentication mechanism.

Connect to openldap

Lets connect to see what our server has.
Install luma

aptitude update
aptitude install luma

Start Luma

luma

Click on Settings
Click on Edit Server List

Click on Add
Type in the server name: Mycompany
Click on network and type in a hostname then save.

Save and OK
Click on Choose plugin and click on addressbook, then browser to see who and what is already in.

Simple addressbook

Lets create a simple addressbook which will take few seconds. Sample ideas
First we create organizational unit. Organizational unit (ou) is an addressbook, or some other type of unit that will hold our records.
Create a file called directory.ldiff and inside put this:

dn:     ou=addressbook, dc=mycompany, dc=com
objectClass:    top
objectClass:    organizationalUnit
ou:     addressbook

Above means:

``dn:     ou=addressbook, dc=mycompany, dc=com`` - This creates organizational unit addressbook.mycompany.com
``objectClass:    top``  - Tells it its a top level Organizational Unit
``objectClass:    organizationalUnit`` - Tells it what type of object is it. In this case it is OrganizationalUnit.
``ou:     addressbook`` - Again stating the name of the ou.

Now import the file:

ldapadd -x -f directory.ldiff -D "cn=admin,dc=mycompany,dc=com" -W

Now lets add one more just to get a hold of adding things and see where they are placed.
Comment out the content of the directory.ldiff and put this in at the bottom, then import it again.

dn:     ou=accounting, ou=addressbook, dc=mycompany, dc=com
objectClass:    top
objectClass:    organizationalUnit
ou:     accounting

The reson we need to commend out the previous entries is because if we left it the ldap would say: First entry in the file already exists. It would not add the second one. It would stop processing file. Above created an organizational unit accounting.addressbook.mycompany.com
Now lets add our first contact. We create out definition like this. Create contact.ldiff and paste below code:

dn: cn=Jane Doe, ou=addressbook, dc=mycompany, dc=com
objectClass: top
objectClass: person
objectClass: organizationalPerson
objectClass: inetOrgPerson
cn: Jane Doe
gn: Jane
sn: Doe
mail: jane.doe@example.com
physicalDeliveryOfficeName: Conglomo, Inc., Financial Services
postalAddress: PO BOX 55555
organizationName: Conglomo, Inc., Financial Services
street: 123 N. Michigan Ave
l: Baton Rouge
st: LA
postalCode: 70555
telephoneNumber: 555-555-5555
facsimileTelephoneNumber: 555-555-5556
pager: 555-555-5557
mobile: 555-555-5558
homePhone: 555-555-5559
ou: addressbook

Chang what you need to. Here are some definitions of fields:

The Definitions are somewhat standard. On top we see objectClass: person and objectClassInetOrgPerson which is one of the standard objects of ldap. We are not using nothing custom. These types already came with ldap.
We are setting some of the attributes of InetOrgPerson:
``cn`` -Common Name
``mail``-aka email
``street``-Street address
``st`` -State
``l`` - City
``ou`` - Department aka the Organizational Unit
``postalCode`` - Zipcode
....

And import it again.

ldapadd -x -f contact.ldiff -D "cn=admin,dc=mycompany,dc=com" -W

Extra records can be added to the same file as long as a blank line is used to separate each different entry.
Now you should see it in luma when you do browse.

Now lets gets some details on our options:

Attribute	ObjectClass	Meaning
commonName, cn	person	Individual's full name
givenName, gn	inetOrgPerson	Individual's first name
surname, sn	person	Individual's last name
physicalDeliveryOfficeName	organizationalPerson	Department or delivery office name
mail	inetOrgPerson	Email address
postalAddress	organizationalPerson	Street mailing address
l	organizationalPerson	City
st	organizationalPerson	State
postalCode	organizationalPerson	Postal (ZIP) code
telephoneNumber	organizationalPerson	Work number
facsimileTelephoneNumber	organizationalPerson	Fax number
pager	inetOrgPerson	Pager number
mobile	inetOrgPerson	Mobile phone number
homePhone	inetOrgPerson	Home phone number

More schema definitions can be found here

For example you could create other structures like below, note the difference between ou and o:

dn:     ou=addressbook, dc=mycompany, dc=com
objectClass:    top
objectClass:    organizationalUnit
ou:     addressbook

#Partners
dn:     ou=partners ou=addressbook, dc=mycompany, dc=com
objectClass:    top
objectClass:    organizationalUnit
ou:     partners

#xyzAgent
dn:      o=xyzAgancy, ou=partners, ou=addressbook, dc=mycompany, dc=com
objectClass:    top
objectClass:    organization
o:     xyzAgancy

And add a person like:

dn: cn="John Smith",o=xyzAgency ,ou=partners,ou=addressbook, dc=mycompany, dc=com
objectClass: top
objectClass: person
objectClass: organizationalPerson
objectClass: inetOrgPerson
cn: John Smith
gn: John
sn: Smith
mail: Jsmith@example.com
organizationName: Conglomo, Inc., Financial Services
street: 123 N. Michigan Ave
l: Chicago
o: xyzAgancy
st: IL
postalCode: 60645
telephoneNumber: 773-123-5555
facsimileTelephoneNumber: 555-555-5556
pager: 555-555-5557
mobile: 555-555-5558
homePhone: 555-555-5559

Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0+ will autocomplete email address as soon as you add them to ldap directory.
MozillaSchema
Addressbook to LDAP Mappings.

Outlook

Outlook 2007 is working with this addressbook.
Configure outlook with openldap
Outlook 2003: outlook and openldap fix from microsoft

or simply
got to the registry
and add in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Offi ce\10.0\Outlook\LDAP
the DWORD DisableVLVBrowsing and set the value to 1
for Outlook 2003 use
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Offi ce\11.0\Outlook\LDAP

Here are some differences between outlook and Netscape.

OpenLdap for User Authentication

Setup_OpenLdap_server.sh

This will install, configure ldap server, copy base settings from your linux server, users, groups, so that you can start authenticating clients in 1min.

http://lucasmanual.com/out/setup_openldap_server.sh

Download it and run. Example:

wget http://lucasmanual.com/out/setup_openldap_server.sh
sh setup_openldap_server.sh

Migrating Unix Accounts to OpenLdap

Right now the database in ldap is empty so we will need to add user,groups,etc.

We do that using migrationtools which copy all the information from the file based system to ldap.
Install migrationtools

aptitude install migrationtools

Lets see what programs are available to us

ls /usr/share/migrationtools/
migrate_aliases.pl              migrate_group.pl
migrate_all_netinfo_offline.sh  migrate_hosts.pl
migrate_all_netinfo_online.sh   migrate_netgroup_byhost.pl
migrate_all_nis_offline.sh      migrate_netgroup_byuser.pl
migrate_all_nis_online.sh       migrate_netgroup.pl
migrate_all_nisplus_offline.sh  migrate_networks.pl
migrate_all_nisplus_online.sh   migrate_passwd.pl
migrate_all_offline.sh          migrate_profile.pl
migrate_all_online.sh           migrate_protocols.pl
migrate_automount.pl            migrate_rpc.pl
migrate_base.pl                 migrate_services.pl
migrate_common.ph               migrate_slapd_conf.pl

The migrate_all_online wil run all the scripts.
Before we run it we need to change the domain in migrate_common.ph. By default the file is set to padl.com so we meed to change it to mycompany.com

cd /usr/share/migrationtools/
vi migrate_common.ph

Change all the padl to mycompany or tell vi editor to do it for you with this command:

:%s/padl/mycompany/gc

And just press y to confirm.
There 2 more issues we need to take account of:Bug 537406 We need to add misc.schema to our slapd.conf setup, and if we get an error when doing migration we need to restart it with a command that will bypass the error.
Add this line right below the last include line in /etc/ldap/slapd.conf, and restart slapd.

include         /etc/ldap/schema/misc.schema

Lets do our migration to the system., but first check if slapd is running:

ps aux|grep slapd
#You should see
openldap  3557  0.7  0.9 112236  4808 ?        Ssl  13:42   0:12 /usr/sbin/slapd -g openldap -u openldap -f /etc/ldap/slapd.conf

 ./migrate_all_online.sh

Enter the X.500 naming context you wish to import into: [dc=mycompany,dc=com]
Enter the hostname of your LDAP server [ldap]: hpdebian  #This is the hostname of the computer you are on. Type in hostname if you are not sure what it is.
Enter the manager DN: [cn=admin,dc=mycompany,dc=com]:
Enter the credentials to bind with:
Do you wish to generate a DUAConfigProfile [yes|no]? no

If you received an error like:

adding new entry "cn=ssh,ou=Group,dc=mycompany,dc=com"

adding new entry "cn=lucas,ou=Group,dc=mycompany,dc=com"

adding new entry "cn=openldap,ou=Group,dc=mycompany,dc=com"

adding new entry "cn=localhost,ou=Hosts,dc=mycompany,dc=com"

adding new entry "cn=dellxps.mycompany,ou=Hosts,dc=mycompany,dc=com"

adding new entry "cn=localhost,ou=Hosts,dc=mycompany,dc=com"
ldap_add: Already exists (68)

/usr/bin/ldapadd : returned non-zero exit status: saving failed LDIF to /tmp/nis.ldif.lMsKHTfGYh

Somehow the migrationtools is generating the localhost twice. This is not a big problem as we can rerun the script and this time it will continue and skip the errors.

LDAPADD="/usr/bin/ldapadd -c" ./migrate_all_online.sh

[Optional] If you got familiar with the migration and you would like to start from scratch, you can reconfigure the slapd with dpkg-reconfigure slapd and when asked tell it to delete the old database. That way you will start from scratch. It will Delete all ldap/slapd databases. You will need to add the misc.schema back in in slapd.conf file.

dpkg-reconfigure slapd

[Optional]Don't forget to delete rm -r /var/backups/unknown-2.4.11-1.ldapdband reconfigure slapd again if you see that dpkg-reconfigure slapd failed with Giving up...
Congratulations. Your system was just migrated to ldap based server. Now we just need to setup your system to use ldap, and connect any clients to our ldap.

Just to make sure everything is fine, see if you can search for yourself:

ldapsearch -x uid=lucas -b "dc=mycompany,dc=com"

Linux Client Integration with LDAP

There are few choices you can make on how to integrate ldap with linux.
Lets do the basic first.
Install ldap utils

aptitude install ldap-utils

See if you can connect to the ldap server. Replace the ip address with yours.

ldapsearch -x -b dc=mycompany,dc=com -h 192.168.1.110
or
ldapsearch -x -b ou=People,dc=mycompany,dc=com -h 192.168.1.110

libnss-ldap

[definition]libpam - PAM system (Pluggable Authentication Module) is used to for user's authentication. Checking if provided login and password are correct, accomplish some other tasks and finally decide for example whether the user may login or not.
[definition]libnss -This package provides a Name Service Switch that allows your LDAP server act as a name service. This means providing user account information, group id's, host information, aliases, netgroups, and basically anything else that you would normally get from /etc flat files or NIS. run "getent passwd" to see few of the information available.

libpam checks if user name and password is correct, while libnss looks up the available names.

Install libnss-ldap. libnss-ldap will allow you to talk to you ldap server as it was regular /etc folder that contains (/etc/passwd, /etc/hosts, /etc/group , ..etc). In this case ldap will store all that information.

aptitude install libnss-ldap

Change example to your domain name

LDAP Server Host: 127.0.0.1
DN of Search Base: dc=mycompany,dc=com
LDAP Version: 3
Database requires login: no
Make config readable by owner only: yes

If at any point you want to reconfigure these settings, or your are getting "nss_ldap: failed to bind to LDAP server" run:

dpkg-reconfigure libnss-ldap

LDAP server Uniform Resource Identifier: ldap://127.0.0.1
Distinguished name of the search base: dc=mycompany,dc=com
LDAP Version to use: [Default] 3
Does the LDAP database require login:[default] No
Special LDAP privileges for root:[default] Yes
Make the configuration file readable/writable by its owners only:[default]No
LDAP Account for root: cn=admin,dc=mycompany,dc=com
LDAP Password: ****

Now in order for the system to use ldap you need to tell about its existence. We do that in nsswitch.conf. It tells the system to not only check in the regular files, but also check in the ldap server for the users, groups, etc.
Edit the file /etc/nsswitch.conf and add ldap word at the end so it to look like the following:

passwd: compat ldap
group: compat ldap
shadow: compat ldap

Now that you told nsswitch to look at ldap here are is a short list of what parts of your linux system can be integrated with ldap. Look at the example file in vi /usr/share/doc/libnss-ldap/examples/nsswitch.ldap to see what services are supported by ldap backed in you system. (passwords,groups,networks, protocol, rpc,ethers...)
The change we made to nsswitch will allow you to search the ldap now.
Congratulations your system knows how to talk to ldap now. Right now the database in ldap is empty so we will need to add user,groups,etc later. For now see how many groups we have in the original system.
If you run command getent group This will search the local database (/etc/passwd) first, then LDAP later based on your nsswith.conf configuration.

getent group
ssh:x:103:
users:x:20001:
guests:x:20002:
admins:x:20000:
.....

libpam-ldap

[definition]libpam - PAM system (Pluggable Authentication Module) is used to for user's authentication. Checking if provided login and password are correct, accomplish some other tasks and finally decide for example whether the user may login or not.
[definition]libnss -This package provides a Name Service Switch that allows your LDAP server act as a name service. This means providing user account information, group id's, host information, aliases, netgroups, and basically anything else that you would normally get from /etc flat files or NIS. run "getent passwd" to see few of the information available.

libpam checks if user name and password is correct, while libnss looks up the available names.

Install libpam-ldap

aptitude install libpam-ldap

Reconfigure libpam-ldap

dpkg-reconfigure libpam-ldap

Follow instructions on setting up linux client to login to ldap server
Edit /etc/ldao

vi /etc/ldap/ldap.conf

Add the url of the ldap server.

BASE    dc=mycompany,dc=com
URI     ldap://ldap.mycompany.com

Make sure you add ldap.mycompany.com to /etc/hosts like this:

#ipaddress    ldap.mycompany.com
#example
192.168.1.110    ldap.mycompany.com

Edit PAM settings

vi /etc/pam.d/common-account

# Comment out the next line
#account required pam_unix.so

# and add these two
account sufficient pam_ldap.so
account required pam_unix.so try_first_pass

vi /etc/pam.d/common-auth

# from
#auth required pam_unix.so nullok_secure

# to
auth sufficient pam_ldap.so
auth required pam_unix.so nullok_secure use_first_pass

vi /etc/pam.d/common-password

# from
#password required pam_unix.so nullok obscure min=4 max=8 md5

# to
password sufficient pam_ldap.so
password required pam_unix.so nullok obscure min=4 max=8 md5 use_first_pass

vi /etc/pam.d/common-session

session optional        pam_ldap.so
session required        pam_unix.so

Troubleshooting

result: 32 No such object

Error:

ldapsearch -x
# extended LDIF
#
# LDAPv3
# base <> (default) with scope subtree
# filter: (objectclass=*)
# requesting: ALL
#

# search result
search: 2
result: 32 No such object

# numResponses: 1

FIX

ldapsearch -x  -b "dc=mycompany,dc=com"

.........sult: 4 Size limit exceeded

# numResponses: 501
# numEntries: 500

Ldap Editors

[Optional][Not used in this manual] ldapvi There is also another vi based ldap browser that allows you to change ldap.

aptitude instal ldapvi
#Then, to use it:
ldapvi -D "cn=admin,dc=mycompany,dc=com"

References

Article: The KDE 4.3 System Settings - Part 4 - Advanced User Settings

Article: The KDE 4.3 System Settings - Part 4 - Advanced User Settings: "Welcome to part four of our look at the KDE 4.3 System Settings panel. In this section we'll tackle the Advanced User Settings under the Advanced tab. So let's take a look at what's available in this section and how it may benefit you.Akonadi The Akanadi section is a single configuration ....."

Working with Ubuntu One

Working with Ubuntu One: "I've only recently come back to using the Ubuntu One service; I gave up on it the first few times I tried it. For one thing, I wasn't happy with the way it created conflict files here and there. In part, I should have expected such behavior, but at the time, I found it too annoying and just switched back to using my good ol' flash drive.

How are conflict files formed? Let's say that you have a file that Ubuntu One is in the process of synchronizing. If you edit the file while Ubuntu One is still updating it, the service generates a conflict file, typically the filename with .u1conflict appended. Since my broadband service sometimes runs slow, such things happen.

But after thinking about it some more, I decided to jump back into Ubuntu One anyhow. I have three computers -- my office desktop, my laptop, and my Mom's mini-notebook -- and Ubuntu One is starting to make more sense. Even just working with a flash drive across all three computers can get to be a pain.

I don't use Ubuntu One for all my files, just for the ones I regularly use, like my working TiddlyWiki file, for instance, and some documents I'm currently working on. It's good to have them handy on whatever machine I'm using.

So how do I avoid the conflict files? I don't keep the Ubuntu One service running at all times. I only turn it on when I start up my computer, then turn it off after it updates the files. Then, before closing my computer, I turn it on to update again.

That said, always make backups of your files, even when using Ubuntu One. Especially when working with Ubuntu One.

The kernel column by Jon Masters #83

The kernel column by Jon Masters #83: "

Jon Masters is a Linux kernel hacker who has been working on Linux for almost 14 years, since he first attended university at the age of 13. Jon lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and works for a large enterprise Linux vendor. He publishes a daily Linux kernel mailing list summary at kernelpodcast.org.

Last month many developers were scurrying to prepare for the 2.6.33 merge window (which we’ll cover in the next time). When they weren’t doing that, here are a few of the items that were under discussion, starting with the Big Kernel Lock. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the longer-term goals of the kernel development community is to kill off the Big Kernel Lock (BKL). This is a stayover from the early days of Linux support for SMP (support for multi-processing) in which the in-kernel locking was very coarse and under the control of a single giant ‘Big’ kernel lock. The BKL continues to exist on some level even today – previous efforts to kill it having been thwarted – and it increasingly harms larger system scalability. Jan Blunk continues his excellent work to remove the BKL from various parts of the Linux VFS (virtual file system) by pushing such use down into individual file systems, where it can then be removed slowly. He even has patches to remove the BKL from ext2 file systems entirely when used in combination with his larger overhaul.

Processors

Last month also saw two interesting discussions surrounding Intel and Intel-compatible processors. First up was a discussion of optimal compilation flags for the AMD Geode processor (as used in the OLPC $100 laptop project) which traditionally was thought of as an i586-class processor. It turns out that it is possible to build a more efficient i686-compatible kernel with only a couple of tweaks, which may come in handy for distributions such as Fedora that have continued to build i586 compatible kernels until recently. On another CPU-related note, we heard from an engineer at Intel who tells us that the common wisdom that kernels should be optimised for space (cache usage, essentially) is no longer true with modern processors and that one can improve performance by as much as 8% by using the GCC -O2 performance optimisation flags and allowing the CPU to deal with cache pre-fetching.

Workflow and process

A number of interesting discussions took place last month surrounding various aspects of kernel workflow and development process. Ingo Molnar raised the issue of the stable kernel tree (a separate release maintained by Greg Kroah-Hartman and a small team of volunteers that provides updates to past – but still recent – kernel releases) and in particular how he should tag his patches as being required for the stable tree, such that they can be processed automatically. He also raised the issue of developers breaking up strings across lines and causing various grepping tools to break. A number of people suggested the true fix is to improve tools such that they can handle line-broken strings when searching.

Infrared control

There is some talk about finally integrating the legacy LIRC (Linux Infrared Remote Control) project into the mainstream kernel. This has traditionally provided external drivers that support homebrew IR receivers and other gadgets. A growing number of kernel developers are considering integrating this support by way of the kernel input subsystem, over objections from others that such devices can’t all be treated alike.

Last month even saw a brief discussion on licensing as Rusty Russell (author of the in-kernel module infrastructure) asked Ksplice author Tim Abbott to relicense his binary search support library code under GPLv3 so that he could pull the code into Samba (the file server project) rather than re-implement it. This, Rusty says, is why he always licenses his own code under GPLv2+ (ie allowing for future versions of the licence to automatically be covered).

Exciting though it is to see so many great advances in kernel development, one issue that repeatedly comes up (and won’t go away any time soon) is that of performance. Recent kernels have tended to perform a little worse in various benchmarks when comparing them with older 2.6 series releases. The delta isn’t all that huge (5-10% at most), but it is part of a trend that has a few people worried for the longer term. As Nick Piggin put it, “Unfortunately, our biggest competitors are our previous kernels.” That may be true, but it is also true that there is now growing interest in properly nailing performance regressions.

Finally though, spare a thought for a kernel developer named Dan Carpenter who is currently travelling across Africa and struggling to keep up with kernel development on expensive and infrequent bandwidth. Dan asked for help in cloning a fresh git tree using a protocol such as rsync that supports partial transfers, since he can only purchase 200MB of bandwidth at a time and this is not enough to fetch a complete git development tree. That’s all folks. Don’t forget to visit www.kernelpodcast.org (which had its 100,000th download this month) for daily updates on kernel development.

Jon Masters

07/02/2010

10 Kernel Vulnerabilities in Ubuntu 6.06, through 9.10

10 Kernel Vulnerabilities in Ubuntu 6.06, through 9.10: "Canonical announced a few hours ago the immediate availability of a new Linux kernel security update for the following Ubuntu distributions: 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake), 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron), 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex), 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) and 9.10 (Karmic Koala). The update also applies to Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Xubuntu and it patches 10 important security issues (see below for details) discovered in the Linux kernel packages by various hackers. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to update your s"

How To Reverse Engineer A Motherboard BIOS

How To Reverse Engineer A Motherboard BIOS: "Since being let go by Novell last year where he worked on the RadeonHD Linux graphics driver and X.Org support within SuSE Linux, Luc Verhaegen has continued work on his VIA Unichrome DDX driver as well as other X.Org code and he has also become involved with the CoreBoot project that aims to create a free software BIOS for most chipsets and motherboards on the market. Luc has worked on support for flashing the BIOS on ATI graphics cards, native VGA text mode support, and other work to help the"

USPTO To Review Controversial VoIP Patent

USPTO To Review Controversial VoIP Patent: "alphadogg writes 'The US Patent and Trademark Office has agreed to review a controversial patent issued in 2001 that is claimed to cover much of the technology underlying VoIP. The patent, held by a small company called C2 Communications Technologies, is one of 10 that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been trying to strike down for several years through its Patent Busting Project. On Friday, the patent office granted the EFF's request for a re-examination. The digital civil-liberties organization argued that another applicant had submitted basically some of the same technology to the patent office before C2 did. Patent No. 6,243,373, 'Method and apparatus for implementing a computer network/Internet telephone system,' is credited to David L. Turock as inventor and is owned by C2, previously called Acceris Communications Technologies.'

Economist: An end to frivolous patents may finally be in sight

Economist: An end to frivolous patents may finally be in sight: "

http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15479680

a hopeful preview on the upcoming SCOTUS decision. Nice quotes:
* 'For society, however, the loss of competition through the granting sole rights to an individual or organisation is justified only if it stimulates the economy and delivers goods that change people’s lives for the better.'
* 'Instead of stimulating innovation, such [business method] patents seem more about extracting “rents” from innocent bystanders going about their business.'
* 'If truth be told, few inventions are really worth patenting. Time and again, surveys show that in both America and Europe companies rate superior sales and service, lead time and secrecy as far more important than patents when it comes to profiting from innovation.'
* 'Pursuing patents aggressively for cross-licensing agreements has little to do with encouraging innovation, though. Indeed, by increasing transaction costs, such deals are in effect a tax on innovation. By the same token, how much of a contribution have the 12,000 or so business processes patented annually in America (but few places elsewhere) made to innovation? Precious little, by all accounts. It is hard enough to find evidence (outside the pharmaceutical and biotech industries) showing that the patent system generally spurs innovation. It is harder still to find justification for business-process patents.'

Happy camper

Happy camper: "

I broke down and bought a Nexus One last week.

I got the original G1 phone from google when it came out, and I hardly ever used it. Why? I generally hate phones - they are irritating and disturb you as you work or read or whatever - and a cellphone to me is just an opportunity to be irritated wherever you are. Which is not a good thing.

Good Code

Good Code: "

GTalX - Google Voice Chat has arrived in Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic)

GTalX - Google Voice Chat has arrived in Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic): "

Ever since I moved to Ubuntu, my only problem was that I couldn’t use GTalk in Ubuntu.Here comes the solution - GTalx. It works flawlessly on my Ubuntu 9.10 karmic running on Dell Inspiron ...

Full Article

How to Install Adobe Photoshop on Ubuntu Linux

How to Install Adobe Photoshop on Ubuntu Linux: "

I'm sure some of you would love to install and use Photoshop on your Linux box. So while I prefer using GIMP, I will still show you how to install Adobe Photoshop inside Linux with the help of Wine (not the alcoholic drink). On this tutorial, I'm using Ubuntu 9.10 'Karmic Koala' and Photoshop CS4.

Now let's get started and install Adobe Photoshop on Ubuntu Linux:

* Downloading and Installing Wine

The first thing that you should do is to install Wine. Using the Linux terminal, add the WineHQ APT repository with this command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

To download and install Wine on Ubuntu, just click HERE.

A pop-up will appear, just click 'OK'.

After installing Wine, you will have to download and install a few more packages. One of which is winetricks.

winetricks is a simple script to download and install various redistributable runtime libraries sometimes needed to run programs in Wine.

To get winetricks and the other needed packages, just copy and paste this command:

wget http://www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks
chmod +x winetricks
./winetricks msxml6 gdiplus gecko vcrun2005 ie6

Now install them:

sh winetricks msxml6 gdiplus gecko vcrun2005

You should also install Microsoft TTF fonts:

sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

Before we will install Photoshop CS4, we will have to download a .dll file. Get atmlib.dll from HERE.

Extract the zip file and copy atmlib.dll to c:/windows/system32. To do this, go to Applications menu -->Wine -->Browse C:\ Drive, then navigate to windows -->system32 and paste atmlib.dll there. After that go to Applications menu --> Wine --> Configure Wine. Inside the Libraries tab, add atmlib.dll and click on "Apply."

* Installing Photoshop CS4 on Ubuntu

You can now run the Photoshop CS4 installer via Wine with this command:

LANG=C wine Setup.exe

Note: you may need to add the path to your installer

Just install Photoshop the way you do it on Windows and you are done.

* Running Photoshop CS4 on Ubuntu

You can now start using Photoshop by going to Applications -->Wine -->Programs, and then selecting Photoshop CS4. Have fun, but don't forget to try GIMP :-)

IPO Bankers Need Reality Check

IPO Bankers Need Reality Check: "

Bankers looking to float a raft of companies in Europe that were taken private in the last decade must now, in light of events in the region in recent days, inject a dose of reality into their pitches to clients.

The Greenspan put is no longer there to bail investors out.

In the region, more deals are being pulled, such as Belgian chemicals company Taminco, or cut in size, like Helikos, a special purpose acquisition vehicle. After some months of relative stability, volatility has sprung back in a flash. This may be the pattern to come. If so, valuations must now be aligned to reflect the deeply uncertain economic state in parts of the developed world.

Global conditions have gradually deteriorated since July 2007, and are now dominated by little projected capital expenditure investment, artificial demand, sputtering access to credit and unemployment rates at cyclical peaks.

Nevertheless, a window could open up for IPOs priced at a discount to early-cycle multiples and timed so as to bring carve-out deals to the market swiftly, filling the books overnight.

EMEA IPO SPOTLIGHT

The spotlight, inevitably, turns on companies that are expected to float their businesses by mid-year. Following British clothing retailer New Look’s £650 million IPO announcement Tuesday, the list of potential candidates includes: Spanish travel-reservations company Amadeus; Nordic care-home operator Ambea; U.K. online grocer Ocado; U.K. travel service Travelport; Danish telco TDC A/S; French care-home group Medica; and U.K. entertainment company Merlin Entertainments Group.

Disappointed by events over the last 48 hours? Spare a thought for private equity sponsors BC Partners, Blackstone Group and a string of others waiting in the wings to cash in on a sweet exit. Their payout depends on how much downside risk is embedded in the stock markets.

[The full article is available at Dow Jones Investment Banker service. To subscribe visit: http://www.dowjones.com/banker]

06/02/2010

February 6, 2010

February 6, 2010: "

Microsoft Patch To Leave IE Hole Open

Microsoft Patch To Leave IE Hole Open: "One vulnerability that won't be fixed this month can be found in Internet Explorer. Microsoft on Wednesday issued a security advisory, stating that it is investigating a publicly reported vulnerability in versions of its Web browser. 'Our investigation so far has shown that if a user is using a version of Internet Explorer that is not running in Protected Mode an attacker may be able to access files with an already known filename and location,' Microsoft's advisory says.

An open hole in IE s"

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