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Internet Archive

Interview: Mark Spencer of Asterisk

  Submitted by Steve Internet 4 Comments
"Six years ago, Mark Spencer started his own Linux technical support business. Unlike other tech startups at the time, he spent his money frugally. Spencer had to; he didn't even have enough to pay for an office PBX system, which can cost up to several thousands of dollars. 'I had about $4000 to start it out with, and I wasn't about to buy a phone system, so I figured I'd just make one,' he says."
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Become Your Own Web Host in 75 Steps

Internet 20 Comments
"One of the biggest issues involved with becoming a web publisher is the question of hosting. With an internet clogged with false hosting review sites, hosting companies trying to rip you off, and hosting companies run by 14 year olds, the majority of web publishers are at the mercy of random chance when it comes to finding a quality host. To solve this huge problem and to grant freedom to all, we have come up with 75 extremely specific steps that will get you up and running with a *nix box (running FreeBSD), along with the most recent versions of Apache, Perl, PHP, and MySQL."
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Happy Birthday Browser

Internet 18 Comments
"Fifteen years ago, the Web browser was invented on Christmas day. We look at the history of the browser, talk to its creator, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and ponder how the software increasingly provokes users to define their own ways of consuming information online." Berners-Lee: "A lot of people really want to have an arrangement to provide them with the software that is maintained, and to pay for that support. So, there's a place for the commercial software makers. But the open-source community is absolutely essential for the development of the Web. That's very important to maintain a healthy community."
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Man Behind WWW Starts Weblog

  Submitted by MacWereld Internet 7 Comments
Tim Berners-Lee, the man behind HTML, the first web server (running on a NeXT cube), and the first web browser, has started his own weblog. From the first entry: "In 1989 one of the main objectives of the WWW was to be a space for sharing information. It seemed evident that it should be a space in which anyone could be creative, to which anyone could contribute. The first browser was actually a browser/editor, which allowed one to edit any page, and save it back to the web if one had access rights. Strangely enough, the web took off very much as a publishing medium, in which people edited offline. Now in 2005, we have blogs and wikis, and the fact that they are so popular makes me feel I wasn't crazy to think people needed a creative space."
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Apache 2.2 Released

  Submitted by Witek Wasilewski Internet 14 Comments
Apache HTTP server 2.2.0 has been released. This version of Apache is a major release and the start of a new stable branch. New features include Smart Filtering, Improved Caching, AJP Proxy, Proxy Load Balancing, Graceful Shutdown support, Large File Support, the Event MPM, and refactored Authentication/Authorization.
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Linux vs. Windows Web Hosting: Does It Make a Difference?

  Submitted by anonymous Internet 41 Comments
"One of the most confusing decisions someone new to web hosting will have to make is which platform their server should be on. There are a number of different choices out there but the main two are Linux and Windows web servers. There are also a lot of sources of information about hosting, but the majority of them are tainted by the author's biased personal opinion unfortunately confusing the issue."
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Dutch Tech Firm Wants to Rid the Web of the .com

Internet 21 Comments
A Dutch technology company has breathed life into a project to rid the Internet of suffixes such as .com, and instead offer single names which can be countries, company names or fantasy words. Such a system, which enables countries, individuals and firms to have a Web address consisting of a single name, offers flexibility and is language and character independent. "The plan is to offer names in any character set," said Erik Seeboldt, managing director of Amsterdam-based UnifiedRoot.
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Browser Developers Agree on Common Security Features

Internet 30 Comments
In a historic agreement, the makers of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Konqueror have agreed on a common set of security features that will be implemented into future versions of their respective browsers. The developers of the four applications had been in discussion for some time over ways in which they could make browsing safer by making it more obvious to users when a site is trying to pull a fast one on them.
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US Reaches Net Detente with UN

Internet 73 Comments
The Bush administration and its critics at a UN summit have inked a broad agreement on global Internet management that will preclude any dramatic showdown this week. By signing the statement (.pdf), the Bush administration formally endorsed the creation of an 'Internet Governance Forum' that will meet for the first time in 2006 under the auspices of the UN. The forum is meant to be a central point for global discussions of everything from computer security and online crime to spam and other 'misuses of the Internet.' What the agreement does not do is require the US to relinquish its unique influence over the Internet's operations.
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Meet the Man Who Will Save the Internet

Internet 66 Comments
If a certain US senator and a certain EU commissioner are to be believed, the internet is five days away from total collapse as governments are finally forced into a corner and told to agree on a framework for future Internet governance. Both are wrong, but there is a very real risk that an enormous political argument resulting in lifelong ill-will centred around the internet could developed unchecked at the WSIS Summit. The fact that it hasn’t already is effectively down to one man: Mr Khan. He was chosen as chair of Sub-Committee A during the WSIS process, and his remit includes all the most difficult and contentious elements - not just internet governance but also how the world will deal with issues such as spam and cybercrime.
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Gaim Kills Off Gaim-VV Webcam Support?

Internet 28 Comments
Over a year ago we reported on the promising gaim-vv which was supposed to bring MSN/Y! webcam and voice support to Gaim, a feature sorely missed by many IM users today when running Linux. The lead developer of the gaim-vv project now says that the Gaim project leader (now employed by Google) has killed off most of his pending CVS patches and has instead replaced them with voice-only patches, patches coming from Google which are only to be used with the Google IM protocol, leaving all other voice and all video protocols in dissarray. Update: The other side has spoken explaining the situation, but unfortunately it says nothing about webcam support for now or in the future, but only about voice.
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How Far Ahead is Japanese Web Mobility?

Internet 8 Comments
Popular blogger and Yahoo! manager Russell Beattie reveals some astounding networking numbers for Japanese mobile phone users in his blog: about 95% of these users are using their cellphones to connect to the web and retrieve information or just surf. We don't have numbers for the Europeans, but in USA the number went down to 10.9% from 12.7% in April this year. We guess that charging 10 USD per 1 MB is just too much too handle for most US customers who don't have special unlimited data plans (which can cost between 30-80 USD per month, additionally to the voice plan).
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On the 15th Birthday of the World Wide Web, a Look Back

Internet 28 Comments
ArsTechnica looks back: "In November of 1990, Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at Europe's CERN Particle Physics Laboratory, invented the very first web server and web browser. The server, entitled simply httpd, and the browser, called WorldWideWeb, ran on Tim's NeXT cube and worked exclusively on the NeXTstep operating system. Archive copies of Tim's first web page and some early web sites show a web that is simultaneously very different from the modern one and yet still very familiar."
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