Internet Archive

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.

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).

Samba Team co-founder John H. Terpstra kicks off a six-part, two-month series that can help Linux administrators master Samba-3 management. This first installment introduces the Samba series and covers a tutorial on Windows network ID basics.

Avahi on its SVN repository now sports a compatibility layer for the HOWL API/ABI and a second one for the Bonjour API/ABI. Hence users could be able to run nearly all Zeroconf-enabled software for Unix on top of Avahi.

A new resolution introduced in the US Senate offers political backing to the Bush administration by slamming a United Nations effort to exert more influence over the Internet. At the heart of this international political spat is the unique influence that the US federal government enjoys over Internet addresses and the master database of top-level domain names - a legacy of the Internet's origins years ago. The Bush administration recently raised objections to the proposed addition of .xxx as a red-light district for pornographers, for instance, a veto power that no other government is able to wield.

"Ask a Russian where television, fashion shows, hip-hop or hieroglyphs were invented and you will no doubt hear - in Russia. Believing in the Russian genius is an essential feature of the Russian mentality. That is why no Russian was surprised when we found out with the help of Lenta.ru the Internet in general, and blogging in particular, was, if not invented, at least predicted by a Russian back in 1837."

We will try to get a GPRS internet connection using Linux-based phones as modems and route the connection to Mac OS X via Bluetooth. This guide is for Mac OS X, the US Cingular GPRS service only (other providers might work out of the box with the phone, others might not at all -- you never know with GPRS) and any of the Linux-based Motorola smartphones like the A760, A780, E680/i etc (they are all identical regarding their 'modem' functionality).

At the core of Mobility Email is Mozilla Thunderbird, the wildly popular open source email client. The best thing about Mobility Email is that it's totally mobile. You can take it anywhere with you on an iPod Shuffle (or any other USB device). Simply plug your USB key into any Windows computer in the world and boom. There's all your email and all your contacts.

In a potential blow to Microsoft, Netscape's Internet browser will be included inside every new Hewlett-Packard and Compaq computer sold starting early next year, Netscape said Monday. The arrangement allows for those buying new HP or Compaq personal computers to choose Netscape as their default Web browser and to start the Web browser using icons on the desktop or Start menu.

Schools are apparantly closed for 12 year olds this week, since two large websites got cracked. Earlier this week, the OpenSUSE website got cracked by political activists, and today, the SpreadFirefox website was the target (again).

At PrepCom3, a dramatic last-minute deal drawn up by the EU may mark the end of the US government's control of the internet. In essence, a new version of the current overseeing body ICANN and an end to the US government's overall control of the DNS. The US was scathing about the proposals, within minutes telling delegates that it "can't in any way allow any changes" that would prevent it from having overall control of the internet. Other countries, like Brazil, China, Iran and Cuba support the proposal. Brazil's ambassador outlined: "It is not a question of being anti-ICANN, it's about having a very clear and open and democratic and inclusive mechanism of overview of certain functions that today are performed by ICANN with no kind of supervision."

This article gives you a good understanding of the fundamental principles of Ajax and a nuts-and-bolts knowledge of the client and server side components that participate in an Ajax interaction. These are the building blocks of a Java-based Ajax Web application. In addition, you will be shown some of the high-level design issues that come with the Ajax approach.

"WordPress is a powerful tool, and in many ways exemplifies open source at its best. It gives any user an array of features with minimal technical effort, and its extensibility and versatility are displayed by the large pool of user-designed plugins. This power and versatility extends beyond WordPress's traditional use of blogging."

"Localhost is a program that lets you access a shared, world-wide file system through your web browser. This file system is maintained in a fully decentralized way by all of the computers running Localhost. The program uses BitTorrent technology, and new distributed hashtable technology called Kademlia. Every user accesses the system from the same root folder. You can change any folder (including the root folder) by adding files and/or folders to it."