First $100 Laptop Unveiled

First $100 Laptop Unveiled

Nicholas Negroponte has demonstrated the first $100 laptop computer for use in developing countries. He and an embarrassed Kofi Annan had to overcome technical glitches. The United Nations general secretary twisted off the computer's crank handle at the unveiling event, and the screen locked as Negroponte later tried to demonstrate the display. Despite the hiccups, the MIT Media Lab chairman was visibly excited about the prospect of placing the device in the hands of millions of schoolchildren around the globe...The computer will run "Linux or some other open-source operating system," Negroponte said.

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Microsoft Virtual Server R2 ships with Linux support

Microsoft Virtual Server R2 ships with Linux support

Microsoft Virtual Server Release 2 has begun shipping to manufacturers and is due for general release in the first week of December with a new pricing model and a number of new features, most notably formal support for Linux. Virtual Server R2 manages multiple virtual machines on a single physical computer running Windows Server. "Technically, Linux already worked on Virtual Server, but with R2 we have formalised support, and we will continue to support Linux in the future," said Bob Muglia, who recently took over as senior vice-president of Microsoft's server and tools division.

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Ubuntu On The Business Desktop

Ubuntu On The Business Desktop

I work as a consultant in a Windows-centric work-place and we remotely administer Windows servers. We trouble-shoot Windows clients. We keep spammers out of our Exchange servers. We defrag. We update. We install antivirus programs. We eliminate spyware. I suppose it would be fair to say that Microsoft keeps us in business. One day, while the boss was away, I shoved a spare hard-drive into my computer and installed Ubuntu 5.04. I managed to work for a month and a half before the Boss noticed I was using Linux - and that was only because he happened to glance at my screen. Half a year later, I am still using Ubuntu (now version 5.10) at work and I am more productive than ever. My name is Simon, I am a Linux addict, and this is my story.

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Trend backs down on MS Trojan claim

Trend backs down on MS Trojan claim

Trend Micro has retracted last week’s claim to have discovered a Trojan that could exploit vulnerabilities in the Windows graphics engine.The claim was highly significant because Microsoft had only patched the critically-rated flaws days earlier. If true, it would have been evidence that malware writers were getting closer to writing a feared “zero day” exploit, where a vulnerability is attacked before its existence has been discovered and a patch issued. Trend has now admitted that the Troj_emfsploit.A Trojan was mis-analysed by its security team, and the appearance of exploiting the flaws was probably an unfortunate coincidence.

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Opinion: I'm not dead yet! KDE vs. GNOME

Opinion: I'm not dead yet! KDE vs. GNOME

You would have thought someone had just run over a KDE user's dog last week.

No sooner had the story started to break that Novell was making GNOME the official interface for its business Linuxes -- SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) and NLD (Novell Linux Desktop) -- than the screaming began. Thanks to an opinion piece in LinuxToday, which implied that Novell was killing off its desktop line, people were already in a tizzy. Even after I pointed out that Novell wasn't axing its desktops, it was just committing to GNOME, the howls continued. These included the ever popular, "Why not continue to support both!" OK, here's why. If all you have in your wallet is a fiver and you want to buy a fast meal and your only choices are Wendy's and McDonalds, why don't you buy your meal from both? Well, duh, because you can only afford to buy it from one of them.

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Gartner: Ignore Vista until 2008

Gartner: Ignore Vista until 2008

Companies shouldn't rush to upgrade to Microsoft Windows Vista, according to analysts at Gartner, who believe most firms could safely hold back until 2008. The majority of improvements in Vista will be security-related and most of this functionality "is available via third-party products today", Gartner claimed in a research note published on Friday. While Vista will feature "offer incremental, evolutionary improvements" over its predecessors, XP users should "pursue a strategy of managed diversity" only bringing in Vista on new machines and not until 2008, the analysts recommend. In its research note, Ten reasons you should and shouldn't care about Microsoft's Windows Vista client, Gartner highlights some of the weaknesses in Microsoft's platform strategy.

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Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware Products & Web Sites

Rogue/Suspect Anti-Spyware Products & Web Sites

"Rogue/Suspect" means that these products are of unknown, questionable, or dubious value as anti-spyware protection. Some of the products listed on this page simply do not provide proven, reliable anti-spyware protection or may be prone to ridiculous false positives. Others may use unfair, deceptive, high pressure sales tactics to scare up sales from gullible, confused users. A very few of these products are either associated with known distributors of spyware/adware or have been known to install spyware/adware themselves.

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Windows Supports More Hardware Than Linux, Just Not As Well

Windows Supports More Hardware Than Linux, Just Not As Well

One of the often cited reasons for not switching away from MS Windows is it's breadth of commodity hardware support. The argument often goes something like this: "Since Windows supports all the hardware I have why would I want to risk it not working under Linux? It's better to continue to use what I know will work." While that may be true in and of itself, I'm finding this argument to involve a limited outlook...The major difference between an open source device driver module on Linux and a proprietary one in Windows is transparency in the way it works, the way it's created. This generally doesn't matter while the system is running as expected but can make a huge difference when something unexpected breaks down.

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Learn 10 commands to configure on a new router

Learn 10 commands to configure on a new router

When it comes to configuring a new Cisco router, much of the configuration depends on what type of router it is as well as the purpose it will serve. However, there are certain things you should configure on every new Cisco router. Hasn't there been a command that you wished Cisco would make standard on every router? Every administrator has his or her own list of commands they use to configure a router "just right." Here's my list of 10 commands that I think you should configure on every router (in no particular order). After you read through them, post your own favorites in this article's discussion.

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IT Pros and Writing

IT Pros and Writing

A subject near and dear to my heart. -Trip

Whenever he sends e-mails, my colleague and frequent Certification Magazine contributor David Garrett includes the following quote from Peter De Vries: “I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork.” Every writer I know of (including yours truly) can relate to that sentiment, as the idea of exhausting documentation and convoluted sets of guidelines and regulations is anathema to us. Apparently, IT pros can sympathize with us on this now more than ever, if a recent study conducted by business writing training provider BackDRAFT is any indication.

The company’s poll of thousands of workers in the United States and Canada shows that the typical technical engineer is writing 37 percent of the day, which is higher than either other sector: financial, real estate, hospitality, and even the military and government. That amount has risen by about a third in just the...