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Some GNU/Linux desktop deployments require secure authentication from a Windows Active Directory server. Gerald Carter, a long-time member of the Samba team and an enthusiastic free software developer, now works for Likewise. You can learn from this discussion if you are considering becoming a software developer, are looking for a good business model for your free software-based company, or are looking to manage your network more securely.

My dad has been pestering me for some time to find him an open source tool that he could use to follow the market trends. He's been thinking about investing a little something in the market, but not without due diligence. Grism, written in Ruby, is the tool my dad now uses to easily follow the changing market trends. It allows you to create watchlists and portfolios and offers charts to help you gauge the performance of particular stocks.

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[PJ: I think the "legal differences" likely include that once you give them your contact information, they can sue your pants off, if they don't agree with your opinion, which they likely don't. Do seek a lawyer's opinion before taking a step like this, please.] - Viacom

Taking examples from the headlines, stewardship also means appreciating the concerns of studios about web sites that turn a blind eye to infringement; or the concerns of newspapers that are slashing coverage because they feel their web traffic is being siphoned off by news aggregators; or the concerns of trademark owners who fear dilution of their brands through the sale of keywords to competitors; or the concerns that retailers and publishers recently raised when a search engine started diverting their traffic and revenue by usurping the in-site search experience.

A search engine can find all sorts of ways to make a buck, but the question is, at what cost to the health and sustainability of the ecosystem?

[PJ: Viacom has this speech highlighted on its web site on the YouTube Litigation page.] - Thomas C. Ruin, Chief Counsel for IP Strategy, Microsoft

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A cellular plan using an EVDO modem can provide a connection with bandwidth of approximately 3Mbps to the client and 1.5Mbps up to the provider (comparable to DSL) for a much lower cost than alternatives such as satellite. For applications requiring high-quality audio transmission from remote locations, such as the radio remotes we do at the radio station where I work, a Linux laptop with an EVDO modem and VoIP software offers an inexpensive and reliable solution. Here's what you need to get started.

Why write this article then? Because you should be forewarned as a Linux user that there are people out there who consider it good fun to bait others into running destructive and harmful commands on their machines. Particularly those new to Linux. So use this list as a caution as to what not to do. And note that it's not an exhaustive list, simply a quick reference against stuff you really don't want to do. Bottom line is, research what you're about to execute before you push the enter key and know what you're doing to your system, yourself and your job prospects. - ArsGeek

If you're a frequent business traveler who keeps important company files on your laptop, using a centralized management solution to back up files automatically during a fixed time interval won't work. Instead, consider Box Backup, which backs up files from a laptop directly to a backup server over an encrypted link.

The government "unjustifiably interfered with defendants' relationship with counsel and their ability to mount a defense, in violation of the Sixth Amendment," US Circuit Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote yesterday on behalf of a unanimous three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals in New York. By threatening to indict KPMG if it paid the legal fees of the former partners and employees, the prosecutors infringed their right to have a lawyer. - Bloomberg News, Boston.com

The purpose of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) is probably obvious from its name -- but what does promoting free software mean in terms of everyday activity? Examining the roles of the organization shows how complex the FSF's advocacy role has become. It also reveals the range of services available to the free software community, and helps to explain how such a small group has had such a major influence on computer technology.

But here in Quebec, despite numerous initiatives, the public administration refuses to communicate and to cooperate. FACIL has decided to bring the matter to court in order for the public market law to be respected.

PRESS CONFERENCE: Friday, August 29th 2008, 10h30 at 7275, Saint-Urbain, Montreal, office 201. [FACIL's Motion as PDF.] - FACIL website

Project Gutenberg, the online library of more than 25,000 free books, is a treasure trove for bookworms and casual readers alike, but turning electronic text files into a readable form is not as easy as it may seem. In theory, since etexts are just plain text files, you should be able to open and read them on any platform without any tweaking. In practice, however, this approach rarely works. Hard line breaks, for example, may ruin the text flow, making it virtually impossible to read the book on a mobile device. Another problem is that most books are stored as single files, so locating a particular chapter or section in a lengthy book can be a serious nuisance. Then there are minor but annoying formatting quirks, such as inconsistent handling of italicized text, use of straight quotes instead of smart ones, and so on.

This month saw the release of LyX 1.6 release candidate 1. Occupying a position somewhere between a word processor and a mark-up editor, LyX is designed to meet the needs of professional and academic writers by allowing them to focus on their content rather than formatting and layout. It achieves this by eschewing some of the WYSIWYG conventions of a word processor. We've covered LyX in the past, so this time we'll focus on the enhancements that the 1.6 release brings with it.

Twitter is a social networking platform that keeps you in conversation by allowing you and your friends to follow each others' updates. The service lets users post and read 140-character updates, called tweets. With Twitter, you can do social networking on the fly, from your mobile phone or at your desktop, from a Web browser or a Twitter client. Twitter clients make the service more usuable by automatically checking for updates from your friends and allowing you to easily post your own updates. I tested four Twitter clients for Linux on a desktop running Ubuntu Hardy Heron.