Linux Solutions

OpenOffice 3.0 – the alternative to Microsoft Office – was made available for download on Monday, and already the demand was high enough to Cuse their download servers to crash.

The software is essentially the same as Microsoft Office, handling spreadsheets, word and database tools, and the new 3.0 release comes packed with new extensions to allow a more customised experience fro users.

This latest release also gives Apple users something to sing about, as for the first time OpenOffice supports Mac OS as well as Linux and Windows.

“That opens up a whole new market for us,” John McCreesh, marketing project lead for OpenOffice.org, said.

The program looks far nicer now too. The start centre, splash screen, and icons have all been updated appearance-wise, but take a look under the hood to see the real changes.

The software’s word processing tool adds a new multi-page display mode that features a slider control, meaning you can zoom in and out while editing. OpenOffice now includes an in-built utility that allows users to edit web-based Wiki documents and expanded notes options. The spreadsheet column capacity has extended to 1,024, adds multi-user collaboration options, and improved equation solving.

These are just some of the updates, but what if you don’t want/need more columns on your spreadsheet; well you don’t have to have them.

“People complain about office suites getting bigger and bloated,” McCreesh commented.

“With extensions, we allow people to add on bits of functionality that are important to them.”

The key, the OpenOffice team believes, lies in the choice.

“For people who need [those features], they’re absolutely wonderful - but for people who don’t need them, then they’re not cluttering up their hard disk,” McCreesh pointed out.

Sounds good huh, but OpenOffice.org need to maintain their servers uptime. They’ve experimented with a few options to keep the site running, and want users to remain patient.

“It’s amazing - on the one hand, we’re delighted that we’ve gotten such a huge response. On the other hand, we’d much rather all these people were successfully downloading rather than crashing the site,” McCreesh said.

You must admit, this is a sign that open source software acceptance is on the rise, with Mozilla’s Firefox breaking download records, and now this.

“It’s an unprecedented response,” McCreesh admitted. “We’ve never seen anything like it.”

A report by ABI Research claims that Android’s success has “little to do with user acceptance”, adding more pressure on Google’s open source OS for the release of T-Mobiles G1 phone.

Kevin Burden, ABI’s director, wrote that Android can help sell a lot of smartphones only if carriers and manufacturers “recognise the value to their own business models of using standard platforms.”

At present HTC is the only original equipment manufacturer with a commitment to Android, with T-Mobile acting as the lone carrier.

“Let’s take away all the marketing hype and take a deep breath and let it all out,” Ramon Llamas, IDC senior research analyst said. “It’s the next iPhone, the next BlackBerry - it’s one phone on one carrier right now, does that sound familiar to you? It may carry the brand and everything, but for most people in the universe, they haven’t even touched this darn thing yet.”

“It’s way too early to tell,” said independent telecommunications analyst Jeff Kagan, who has had an opportunity to check out the G1. “It’s cool, it’s great, it’s definitely good software and definitely worth looking at, but it’s not that different from the iPhone. They both basically do the same thing.”

T-Mobile recently announced that it would triple its original order for G1 handsets, and early estimates have put T-Mobile selling around 1.5 million phones in the first few weeks.

However, with the world in financial breakdown, people may be less likely to part with their hard earned cash, and the same could be said for original equipment manufacturers – even though the advantage of open source maintenance and developer improvements could help lower costs in the long run.

“It takes a lot of cost in supporting multi-platforms,” Llamas said. “That’s going to be on a lot of people’s radars. T-Mobile would like to make money off of this, but they’re staring at this ‘gift horse’ and saying how much cost can we weather and how much do customers want this? Knowing that the holiday season is coming but the economy is down, do we stay at this price or do we move it?”

But in a difficult market, where iPhone reigns supreme, Blackberry shuffling awkwardly at the back, and Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 on the horizon, Google could find it a hard sell.

“Google’s got a name, but it’s just a name,” Kagan said. “Google is great at what they do online and with search, but all these other businesses they get into, they’re just not as successful as search. The smartphone category is the fastest-growing category in cell phones right now, that’s why everybody is focused like a laser beam on this right now, why everybody wants in and why everybody would love to be the favourite.”

Ask yourself this: How many times have you lost, or misplaced your keys? I’ve done it more times than I care to remember, and I’m sure you have too. The problem, if you are one of the many people who need to have data on them all the time, was solved by the invention of thumb-sized portable storage USB memory sticks. I’m looking at my car keys right now, and my 2GB memory stick is sitting there attached to it, but until this point I’ve never considered the impact of losing my keys – and the data stored in it.

You’ve all heard the horror stories of people leaving hard copies of military files on trains – MoD I’m looking at you… but how can you ensure your precious data is secure? Well there are a new breed of flash drives that are more secure than Fort Knox that involving password encryption and keypad combinations that need to be entered before you can gain access.

Take IronKey for example. At $149 (£85) this is one of the most secure flash drives on the market. With a built in Firefox browser, large storage space and industrial strength password protection, the 4GB model offers an all round solid option.

Set up is easy enough. You create a username and password the first time you use it, and subsequently every time you connect it to your computer you will be asked for the password again to allow access to the storage space. You can make a backup of the IronKey’s contents on your computer as well. You need to be hella careful however, because part of the security of the device is a ten password tries to get into the device – fail to insert the correct password and the unit automatically deletes everything stored on it…don’t forget it!

IronKey works well with Linux, as well as Windows XP and Mac OS.

TrueCrypt is free open source software that promises to turn any flash drive you have in to one that will conceal your data. The software creates and then hides a password-protected partition on the drive. Then TrueCrypt asks you to choose between creating a file container on a portion of the flash drive or encrypting the entire drive.

If someone happens to find your drive, they will only be allowed access if they install TrueCrypt and know the password, otherwise the data remains cloaked. The system seems flawless.

The best advice I can give is to just be careful you don’t lose your flash drive. If you don’t need to carry it around – and believe me when I say this – no-one thinks it makes you look cool, intelligent or otherwise. If you really must carry your data then either invest in a solid and secure drive, or hit up the open source software option.

Opera Software has released the newest update of its popular web browser, Opera 9.6. The new version includes improvements in the built-in email client as well as better browser synchronisation.

One of the main features is Opera Link which allows users to keep their profiles in sync across different machines. An expanded Opera Link in Opera 9.6 lets users take their favourite search engines and the browser history with them as well as notes in the Opera browser, bookmarks, speed dial and personal bar.

Opera Mail now features a low-bandwidth mode which will be useful to users with slow or unreliable internet connections. Opera Mail also makes it easier to monitor different themes and threads in incoming mail.

Opera 9.6 builds RSS feed previews so users can see what they are subscribing to before taking action.

“We believe in making the Web available for people everywhere,” said Jon von Tetzchner, CEO, Opera Software. “The people who use Opera need it to adapt to their needs and we’re proud to continue that tradition today. Our improved e-mail client is now the ideal communication tool. Opera Link gives you more flexibility to take your personal browsing identity with you to any computer. The new Opera 9.6 gives more people around the world new reasons to choose Opera.”

Opera 9.6 is available to Linux, Mac and Windows users, and comes in 38 languages.

Put a date in your diary, Yahoo has released its new dynamic calendar service powered by open source developer Zimbra. Yahoo Calendar offers standard Web 2.0 information-sharing options with an updated drag-and-drop interface and a handful of unique options. The program will be made available in beta form to Yahoo users on Wednesday.

This is the first update of Yahoo’s calendar service in a decade, two years behind Google’s calendar launch. Yahoo need not worry, as they have 8.1 million users compared to Google’s measly 5 million. Yahoo will be hoping the new update, albeit long over-due, will give them even more traffic.

Recent traffic analysis by ComScore shows that Google commands 63 percent of the US search market, compared to Yahoo’s 19.6 percent.

Zimba – who last year were acquired by Yahoo – were quick to point out the openness of the new Yahoo calendar. Like Google Calendar and other online date tools, the utility uses iCal and CalDAV standards to allow easy integration with third party services. This allows data sharing with friends on competing programs.

“With Yahoo leveraging Zimbra technology, they’re able to reach their goals of being one of the most open calendar systems in the market,” John Robb, vice president of marketing and products at Zimbra, told said. “That’s something that’s always been very important to Zimbra.”

While the basic of the calendar remain similar, there have been some interesting advancements. Image viewing site, Flickr is built into the program, allowing you to add images to the calendars background. At present you can only add Creative Commons images, but the option to use your own personal photos is planned for a future release.

The application also allows you to zoom in and out of specific dates and to drag and drop appointments. The program will also eventually be integrated with Yahoo Sports and Yahoo TV.

“[We wanted] the ability to have mash-ups with other systems - whether it be Flickr, whether it be Yahoo’s Upcoming, whether it be other third parties that might be interested in providing integration points with Yahoo Calendar and Zimbra Calendar,” Robb said.

Although the launch is overdue, many see it as a crucial step for the company’s rebuilding.

“For Yahoo to move forward, it basically needs to leverage whatever research and development projects it [has], and to either create new products and services or to match those products and services of its largest competitors,” Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-It, said.

“Google has obviously taken a lead here, and as users move more and more to match their online and offline lives, the dynamic calendar is a critical tool for most consumers and most business people,” he pointed out.

“You basically want to make sure that you do everything you can to keep your existing users and happy customers from straying off into your competitor’s territory,” King commented. “I think the larger question for Yahoo is how this new offering and future offerings will allow the company to reach out and bring perhaps former users or even new users online to the Yahoo site and get them using Yahoo’s tools.”

“I think the calendar is a good start, but there will be an awful lot of other opportunities for online applications and services further up the road,” he said.

Beta testers are being sought by Information Appliance Associates (IAA) - a developer of Mac-based sync utilities - for what it calls “the first Linux-to-BlackBerry sync solution.”

IAA is testing its free “PocketMac for Blackberry, Linux Edition” software on Xandros Linux running the KDE PIM suite.

The application synchronises PIM (personal information manager) information such as contacts and calendar entries, between a Linux desktop and a Blackberry phone. The free Linux edition is based on PocketMac for Blackberry, and has had over 18 months worth of development and testing, say IAA.

At present PocketMac for Blackberry, Linux Edition (PMBB) is being tested on the Xandros distro. Currently it is designed to sync with the KDE PIM suite. The IAA say that other Linux distros will be supported in the near future but they didn’t add anything else about Linux application support.

IAA began as a company launching PocketMac Pro, which it billed as the original Mac-to-pocket-PC sync solution. It then moved on to develop connectivity software for “Microsoft Smartphones”, iPods, and the Blackberry. RIM recently licensed PocketMac for Blackberry, says the company.

Terence Goggin, CTO of IAA said, “Linux users are treated as second-class citizens just like Mac users. That’s why we’re the perfect team to bring this solution to the Linux market. With the growth of the Linux consumer market, the prominence of the Eee PC, and new Linux portables being released every day, this is an exciting market that needs professional sync software.”

Beta sign up is available to a limited number of people at pocketmaclabs’s website.

A good thing about Linux is the rate that something breaks it gets fixed pretty fast, like the e1000e Ethernet bug.

Don’t have clue what I’m talking about? I’ll explain: A pre-release version of the 2.6.27 Linux kernel, which was being used in numerous beta Linux distros, was – at times – melting the Ethernet firmware in systems equipped with the Intel ICH8 and ICH9 chipset and their 82566 and 82567 Ethernet chipsets. The main players involved were Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 Beta 1 and openSUSE 11 Beta 1; Mandriva Linux 2009; Gentoo Linux; Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex; and Fedora 10 release candidates 1 and 2.

General users were unlikely to see this bug, but a lot people play around with beta Linux distros. Fedora, in particular was at the point of shipping so its fair to assume a lot of users were testing all aspects of it.

Thanks to Intel, and some input from Linux founder Linus Torvalds, there’s a code that will fix the issue. This fix will be in the next pre-release version of the 2.6.27 kernel – Linux 2.6.27-rc9 – on October 5th.

Torvalds ensured he guided the Linux development team in the right direction via the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) that “Btw, the _real_ bug is clearly in the hardware design that allows you to brick those things without apparently even having a lock bit.”

He continued, “I’m hoping Intel doesn’t treat this as just a software bug. Some hw designer should be thinking hard about which orifice they put their head up in. It used to be that you could fry some monitors by feeding them out-of-range signals. The _monitors_ got fixed.”

The following day, Bruce Allen a Linux kernel developer and Intel engineer, announced the release of a “patch [which] is meant to prevent all future corruptions of the e1000e NVM (non volatile memory) after the driver is loaded.”

Torvalds then applied it to the next test version of the kernel.

Allen explained on the LKML what he’d done, “This should allow us to move forward with debugging without allowing any other bad element or the e1000e driver, to write to the NVM area unexpectedly.”

“Currently we (Intel Ethernet) are reproducing the issue on multiple machines in house, we are working on the issue with the other core Linux teams here at Intel and within the community. No resolution yet but we are much closer now.”

Once the problem is nailed down, “we will post patches to help users who have had this problem restore their eeprom from either a saved image from ethtool -e or from another identical system.”

And that’s, that. By the time the next Linux Kernel – 2.6.28 – comes out later this year, this will just go down in developer bug history, rather than current problem.

John Lilly stepped up to become chief executive of Mozilla, moving up from his role as chief operating officer, in January. Lilly’s been with the company that created the browser that is fast becoming a rival to Internet Explorer – Firefox, since 2005. The year Firefox 1.5 was released to the masses.

Mozilla now caters for 20 percent of web user’s browsing the internet – not bad for an open source project that has fewer than 200 employees.

News reporter Pete Carey who writes for the San Hose Mercury recently interviewed Lilly, asking him how a company like Mozilla works, as well as his feelings about Google’s new Chrome browser.

Carey started by asking the Mozilla chief exec, how exactly he makes a company like Mozilla work. Lilly replied that Mozilla is an “amazing” company. He said that when the company started it had 15 staff and over 20 million users, but not its more like 180 staff and around 200 million users. He said, “About 40 percent of code was not written by people at Mozilla”, rather people around the world, working late nights and weekends.

The journalist reminded Lilly of the time he said Mozilla was a “chaordic” organisation, and asked him to explain what he meant by that. Lilly said that the idea is to “take responsibility and authority and decision-making and push it as far to the edges as possible”. He says that lots of systems use this method, and although it may be “unpredictable at some level”, the system is “very tolerant of people coming and going and contributing”. This he said can result in “unexpected innovation”.

Carey asked Lilly whether Mozilla could be described as a democracy, but Lilly said the company does have a structure, with people who are “empowered to make decisions without consensus or votes”. He mentions that it is “very hard for me to override a product decision”, as it is “not the way we work”.

Carey moves on to the subject of Google’s latest effort to take over the internet – Chrome. He asks, how exactly will that affect Mozilla, noting that the Firefox browser is funded by licensing payments Google. Lilly says he doesn’t know how it will pan-out, but believes they have a “good relationship” with the search giant. He notes that some of the components of the Chrome browser are shared with some of Firefox’s components. Lilly doesn’t fell that his company is “competing” with Google, because both companies are helping to make the web more accessible.

Carey asks if Mozilla ever dreams of an empire. Lilly defends the company’s morals, “no, no, no.” he says that the company talks about their mission every day, which is to keep the web “open and participatory”. Lilly said that when Mozilla started in 2003, it felt that 96 percent of the internet being controlled by Microsoft “wasn’t good for anyone”, adding that Mozilla’s “open source nature is significant”.

The reporter asked Lilly what would happen if someone ever came up with a better open source browser than Firefox, and Mozilla disappeared, would you class that as a success or failure for the company. Lilly said that while that isn’t exactly “plan A”, Mozilla’s mission is to keep the web “open”. He added that Mozilla are aware that they’ve set the bar pretty high, and must continually perform to high standards with future versions of Firefox, and its mobile browsers.

Open Source adoption is growing rapidly, but adopters in the US are falling behind European enthusiasm, according to software providers Open Logic, who announced on Tuesday that it has discovered over 300,000 open source package and project installations in use around the worked through its Open Source Census (OSC), which began collecting data in December.

A worldwide collaborative project, the OSC’s goal is to collect and share quantitative data on the use of open source software. User’s volunteered to have their machines remotely scanned to contribute to the census’ findings. Also, among survey participants, Windows users were found to be some of the biggest consumers of open source.

The survey found that OpenOffice, an alternative to Microsoft Office, was installed on 73 percent of all personal computers that were involved in the survey. However, just 8 percent of enterprise machines made available for scanning contained OpenOffice.

Kim Weins, senior vice president of marketing and products at OpenLogic said, “The survey will be ongoing. Starting in year two, we will have enough data to show trends of changing use patterns of open source adopters.”

The second phase of the census began six months ago and involves gathering data from system audits contributed by voluntary participants.

Weins said that the OSC continues to uncover interesting trends on the global use of open source software as more computers are scanned.

The results so far show on average, government agencies have 123 different open source packages installed per machine and financial service companies have 117 different packages per machine.

Details from government agencies showed that in the US there is an average of 51 open source packages on machines, and in Europe it averages 68.

Windows users were found to have around 39 open source packages on their system, with Linux users having around 87 packages on average – no real surprise there.

Ubuntu was found to be the most prevalent Linux OS distro with Hardy (24%) and Gutsy (22%). Suse Linux has 12%, Gentoo Linux has 7%, Fedora Core has 6% and Debian has 13%.

According to Weins the survey shows a solid movement in foreign governments toward open source software. Similarly, the financial services industry is involved in a lot of open source development.

“Governments are very welcoming of open source. The EU initiative is fostering best practices for which open source is very supportive,” she said.

A telecoms security expert has unveiled a tool that shows just how easy it is to hack in to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls.

UCSniff has grouped a selection of open source applications into a single software package that allows penetration testers to assess the security of VoIP calls over a client’s network. The software also introduces several new features that make eavesdropping on specific targets extremely simple.

UCSniff runs on a laptop that can be connected in to the Ethernet port of the network you want to probe. From that point, a VLAN hopper automatically traverses the virtual local area network until it accesses the part that carries VoIP calls.

Once the tool ha gained access, UCSniff automatically injects spoofed Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) packets into the network, allowing all voice traffic to be routed to the laptop.

The package allows users to home in on a conversation from a particular user. Targets can be selected by extension number or dial-by-name features, making it easy to listen to all calls made by a specific individual – for example, your boss, and even filtering calls made from the boss to the finance department only, for example.

UCSniff creator Jason Ostrom said, “It’s silently intercepting all the traffic and forwarding it to the phone, so a regular phone user would not be able to tell the difference.

“They think they’re talking directly to the other phone when in fact the tool is actually intercepting all the traffic.”

UCSniff makes it easy to catch bi-directional conversations in a single audio file. It automatically records calls that use the G.711 and G.722 codecs. Remote use isn’t possible, as you need to be directly wired to the network, but an insider could easily tap-in from somewhere in the building. Ostrom claims the software can be connected to a hotel VoIP system as well.

The program is to be made free for download in the coming weeks from Sipera Systems. Ostrom claims that up to 90 percent of businesses do not have adequate VoIP security, so quite why he’s releasing this is strange.

He tries to shed some light on his motivations, “I’d like to think that I’m creating this tool to create education awareness,” he said. “It’s a tool that every security and VoIP owner should have in their bag and that’s why we’re giving it away for free.”