Eugenia Loli Archive

ClosedBSD – A FreeBSD and Firewall on a Floppy

FreeBSD 10 Comments
ClosedBSD is a firewall and network address translation utility which boots off of a single floppy disk, and requires no hard drive. ClosedBSD is based off of the FreeBSD kernel, and uses ipfw as it's native ruleset management system, and natd as it's network address translation utility. ClosedBSD also features an advanced ncurses based configuration manager (screenshots) which allows you to seamlessly configure your firewall ruleset using protocol filters, port forwarding, and network address translation mechanisms through a simple to use menu interface. DHCP is disabled for this beta release.
Read More

HP-Compaq: Dumb and Dumber

In the News 1 Comment
"The way things are going with the proposed merger between Hewlett-Packard and Compaq Computer, the next thing you'll see is a supermarket tabloid headline blaring, "Fiorina punches hole in Hewlett's prize cello with high heel," with a subhead that reads, "Carly takes revenge for Walter's plot to have hairdresser make her bald." The real thing is pretty close to that." Read the editorial at ZDNews.
Read More

The Internet Spanning Worldwide Computer

  Submitted by Oliver Kofoed Pedersen OS News 7 Comments
"When Mary gets home from work and goes to her PC to check e-mail, the PC isn't just sitting there. It's working for a biotech company, matching gene sequences to a library of protein molecules. Its DSL connection is busy downloading a block of radio telescope data to be analyzed later. Its disk contains, in addition to Mary's own files, encrypted fragments of thousands of other files. Occasionally one of these fragments is read and transmitted; it's part of a movie that someone is watching in Helsinki. Then Mary moves the mouse, and this activity abruptly stops. Now the PC and its network connection are all hers." Read more about an operating system spanning the Internet that would bring the power of millions of the world's Internet-connected PCs to everyone's fingertips.
Read More

Microsoft Technology Hits the Road in BMW 7 Series

Windows 75 Comments
Microsoft Corp. today announced that the BMW 7 Series, the line of cars introduced last month in the United States, features Microsoft’s real-time embedded operating system, Windows CE. This announcement comes shortly after Microsoft’s Automotive Business Unit launched Windows CE for Automotive v3.5, the newest version of its telematics software platform based on Windows CE, and announced an end-to-end solution to enable the auto industry to cost-effectively implement and maintain advanced automotive telematics. Siemens VDO Automotive AG, the preferred navigation supplier of BMW, is using the Microsoft Windows CE operating system in the Control Display, which is part of the innovative BMW iDrive concept.
Read More

The Threat of a Linux Generation

Linux 35 Comments
"Even computer programmers can sometimes let their emotions get the better of them. 'If I made a great product, and Microsoft offered me a lot of money, I would spit in their faces,' says Brett Slatkin, a student at Columbia University in New York. His colleagues roll their eyes and accuse him of being stuck at the 'hippy stage.' But when talk turns to the serious business of programming, they are of one pragmatic mind." Read the rest of the story at MCNBC.
Read More

Judge Defers GPL Questions for Trial in MySQL vs. Progress Soft

Open Source 4 Comments
"In a decision handed down today in Boston, US District Judge Patti B. Saris ruled on the preliminary injunction motion in MySQL AB vs. Progress Software Corp. On the trademark dispute, on which the Free Software Foundation (FSF) takes no position, she has ruled that Progress Software is enjoined from marketing products under the MySQL trademarks until trial." Read the rest of the press release at Gnu.org. The significance of this trial is that this is the first time where the GPL license will have to "stand" in a court.
Read More

Sharpei Virus Hits C# Note

Bugs & Viruses 12 Comments
"Virus writers took another shot at Microsoft's .Net vision. On Friday, antivirus companies received a copy of a worm called Sharpei, which is partially written in Microsoft's newest computer language, C#, and designed to infect computers loaded with the .Net framework. Antivirus company Network Associates gave the infectious program a "low" rating for risk but highlighted it as the second example of a virus writer attempting to infect parts of the .Net framework." Read the rest of the story at C|Net.
Read More

Why Caldera Released Unix: A Brief History

SCO 3 Comments
"Our strangest dreams sometimes take on a reality of their own. In January, Caldera, the latest owners of the "official" Unix source code, decided to release some of the older versions (up to "V7" and "32V") under an open source license. While not as significant as it would have been, say, ten years ago, it is nice that everyone now has access to the code that first made Unix popular, and that led to the development of the 4BSD system that underlies FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and Apple's Darwin (which in turn underlies Mac OS X). Since I was active in the computer field through almost all the years of Unix's development, I'd like to comment briefly on the Caldera announcement in its full context." Read the rest of the story at O'Reilly.
Read More

The StartX Files: Between the Sheets Roundup

Linux No Comments
"Looking at desktop applications for Linux these days has become a bit of a balancing act; on the one hand, there is the obligation to review all of the features objectively. One the other, it has become clear that it is necessary to examine how desktop applications will fit into the corporate environment. While we cannot ignore the home users, there is growing evidence that this will not be the arena where Linux will grow on the desktop." Read the Linux office package roundup at LinuxPlanet.
Read More

Securing Small Networks with OpenBSD

OpenBSD 6 Comments
"Like almost all things in life, good security costs good money. It has to be that way, because there are simply not enough skilled security specialists to look after all of the networks that need their attention. An unfortunate result of low supply and high demand is the migration of highly skilled personnel to clients who can meet their salary requirements. This leaves a lot of small and underfunded networks in the hands of less experienced administrators, who might not know how to design, configure, and monitor these networks' safety mechanisms, leaving them vulnerable to attacks from unscrupulous people looking for inside information, free warez storage, zombie hosts for DDoS attacks, or systems they can simply destroy for fun of doing it." Read the rest of the article at O'Reilly.
Read More

Server Databases Clash – eWeek Benchmarks

Databases 18 Comments
"Finding solid performance data to help choose among competing technologies is as tough as creating the data in the first place. This is particularly true in the database space, where database vendors routinely use no-benchmarking clauses in their license agreements to block publication of benchmarks of which they do not approve. We tested IBM's DB2 7.2 with FixPack 5, Microsoft Corp.'s SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition with Service Pack 2, MySQL AB's MySQL 4.0.1 Max, Oracle Corp.'s Oracle9i Enterprise Edition 9.0.1.1.1 and Sybase Inc.'s ASE (Adative Server Enterprise) 12.5.0.1." Read the rest of the benchmark article at eWeek. Our Take: Hey, where are my PostgreSQL benchmarks?
Read More

WinXP SP1 to Combine New Goodies with the Fixes

Windows 4 Comments
"Microsoft will ship Service Pack 1 in Q3 this year, a little later than expected. But from the sound of it the company is planning SP1 more as a bundle of goodies and enhancements than as a plain old fix roll-up. It'll include support for the Mira and Freestyle technologies Microsoft intends to unleash on us, and will also apparently support Tablet PCs, which are due out later this year." Read the rest of the report at TheRegister.
Read More

Scientists Develop Research Holodeck

Geek stuff 10 Comments
"Canadian scientists have opened a powerful computing lab they said will help speed up research into diseases like cancer and diabetes by allowing researchers to view three-dimensional models of cells in a room similar to the holodeck in the Star Trek television series. The $3.7 million University of Calgary facility is a step ahead of the handful of other virtual-reality labs used in such research because users for the first time can build models on their own computers, rather than be tied up for days or weeks programming at the site, officials said." Read more about the Java3D-based system at ZDNews.
Read More