Fsf-friends January 2007

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Internet, tech skills growing quietly in Goa...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 02 Sep '24

02 Sep '24

INTERNET, TECH SKILLS GROWING QUIETLY IN GOA PANJIM, April 30: Goa's BSNL internet service provider is already providing some 3000 broadband connections in the state, and roughly another 24,000 people dial-up to get access the Net using this central government-run service. These figures emerged during an informal discussion at the monthly meeting of the India Linux Users Group (Goa), a network promoting Free Software and Open Source in the state. ILUG-Goa, which holds its meetings usually on the fourth Saturday of each month at the Goa Science Centre at Miramar, sees a range of tech issues -- usually directly related to Free Software and Open Source in Goa. During it's meet on April 29, a range of issues came up for discussion, from how to partition your hard-disk (to install GNU/Linux side-by-side with Windows), to software tools to ehance productivity, and various internet and broadband options available to users in diverse parts of Goa. For instance, there are some useful Free Software tools to monitor your bandwidth usage on BSNL's broadband. One such tool is available for free download at http://tinyurl.com/qgu9p Called the Data One Broadband Statistics, this is a screen-scraper written using Perl to download usage statistics of BSNL's Data One (www.bsnl.co.in/service/dataone.htm) broadband service and total it. Generally, BSNL (www.bsnl.co.in) allows only the Microsoft-based IE and has no monthly total. But trust Indian software talent to find a work-around. This solution comes from the Free Software/Open Source network in Chennai. Meanwhile, the Goa free software network stays connected and announces its event via http://iluggoaannounce.notlong.com There are no fees for joining, all are welcome, and encouraged to form parallel user-groups in diverse parts of the state. Meanwhile, the Fedora Core 5 Free Software distribution has just become available on DVD in Goa. Number of foreign magazines are also available. Members of ILUG-Goa such as engineer Bijon Shaha and software pro Arvind Yadav gave diverse views on techies-only distros like 'Gentoo'. Debopriyo 'DP' Sarkar pointed to a 'mindmap' of various Free Software distributions or 'distros' available, which was illustrated at linuxhelp.blogspot.com Earlier, there was a brief presentation on FreeMind. FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java. It has the potential of playing the role of a high productivity tool. Operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster because of one-click "fold/unfold" and "follow link" operations. Other members raised a range of issues -- from how to get started in GNU/Linux, to playing around with tools like StumbleUpon, and how to encourage Free Software usage in schools and educational institutions. Remy Furtado of Rosary College, Navelim expressed an interest in working on the Free Software tool Moodle, ideal for distance education, as the Goa University moves to a pattern of semisterisation. Goa Engineering College's Prof George Easaw has done work on this platform, as have others. Reacting unofficially, BSNL officials said Goa now had six STMS 155 MBps connectivity, which was resulting in a speedy expansion of broadband to many parts of the state. But for broadband facilities to become available in village areas, at least 60 subscribers were needed to make operations viable. So far, broadband from BSNL is available in a growing number of areas in Goa: Panjim, Vasco (except Cortalim, but including Sada, Mangor, Bogmalo, Sancoale and other areas), Ponda, Bambolim, Merces, Dona Paula, Porvorim, Mapusa town, Calangute-Candolim, and Saligao, among others. Equipment has already been installed in Aldona exchange, and broadband facilities are expected to go functional -- ------------------------------------------------------------- | India Linux Users' Group, Goa | | Join the friendly user group | | Mail list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/join | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teach-yourself-linux | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa-announce | | http://www.iosn.net/country/india/organizations/ilug-goa/ | ------------------------------------------------------------- , , / \ .-. * SOFTWARE ((__-^^-,-^^-__)) (. .) * FREEDOM `-_---' `---_-' / V \ * SHARING `--|o` 'o|--' // \\ \ ` / /( )\ KNOWLEDGE IS POWER ): :( '.^^_^^.' SHARE IT EQUITABLY :o_o: \_/ \_/ "-"

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Careers in FLOSS... (Dec 2003 issue of LFY)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 06 Jun '24

06 Jun '24

=========================================== LINUXForYou * Dec 2003 (Vol 1 No 10) In India Rs 50 (with CD) http://www.linuxforu.com Pages 102 * US$7.95 0 74470584957 =========================================== THIS ISSUE has probably reached your city. Saw it in Bangalore, and also got a complimentary copy from the LFY team at LinuxBangalore2003. But when I reached back to Goa on Dec 4, it wasn't in as yet. So it might take time to reach 'small town' India... FN REVIEWED: Mandrake 9.2 * PhProjekt * StarOffice 7.0 COMPUTERS AT TIS HAZARI, the session courts for the city of New Delhi, are being shifted over to Linux, courtesy the National Informatics Centre. - Rahul Chopra in this month's editorial. LINUX LEARNING CENTRE at Bangalore is offering courses in administration, security, development (internals and programming essentials, programming with Qt, device driver programming, MySQL & PHP), RHCE and Red Hat rapid track certification. www.linuxlearningcentre.com DotGNU RELEASES CD: It can now be used to implement application programs and Web services in C# and C applications under multiple operating systems, including GNU/Linux, FreeBSC, MacOS, MS Windows. The 219 MB release 0.1 CD is available as a free download at http://download.freedom.biz/dotgnu/dotgnu-0.1-cdrom.iso.gz.torrent e-Bridge calls itself "the new state-of-art training facility from eSpark Infotech is now open in the heart of Bangalore". It's offering embedded Linux courses (Linux fundamentals, programming Linux, embedded C & Linux, realtime C & Linux, Linux internals, device drivers, networking) and DSP courses (DSP fundamentals, TI/analog dev programming, audio/video, image processing, bio-medical systems). www.ebridgesolutions.net Linux.net provides a free e-mail service to those who want an e-mail address that ends in '@linux.net' MAJOR UPDATES and releases: OpenNA Linux 1.0, Gibraltar Firewall 1.0, Xandros Desktop 2.0, Onebase Linux 2.0, CUPS 1.120rc6. CAN YOU MAKE money with open source? Registration entails a "nominal fee" of Rs 5000 for a three-day conference. http://www.linuxasia2004.com/attendees/ February 11-13, 2004, New Delhi. SEND IN YOUR favourite slogans for a tee-shirt, and win five free copies of the shirt... LFYedit at efyindia.com MONEY CAN't buy respect, says Robert Adkins. Some of us might have met this guy at LB2003 in Bangalore. He's the CTO of Technetra Corp, and an advocate and implementer of FLOSS solutions for government. He can be contacted at radkins at technetra.com CAREERS WITH FLOSS: The number of students opting for courses in Open Source is growing steadily, even as industry experts predict a growing need for trained professionals in this expanding field. EXIT RED HAT, ENTER FEDORA: It's official now; the free (of cost) version of Red Hat Linux will not be available anymore. This has created a lot of FUD in an already unstable environment, thanks to the SCO episode. But is Red Hat closed for good? WEB-BASED COLLABORATION SOFTWARE: PHProjekt is an easy-to-install collaboration suite, which runs on the open source platform and databases. As the design of the system is developer-friendly, adding new features and components is a piece of cake. STAROFFICE: The latest version of Sun's office suite, StarOffice 7, may just be the right solution for the cost-conscious user. It loads faster than the earlier version, and sports some noticeable improvements. IN THE LFY CD THIS MONTH: Slackware (the "oldest Linux distro") and a range of GNU software for Windows users. FALLING BACK on backup systems. MAKING ADOPTION OF Linux in the enterprise easy. www.linux4e.com Business partners required: http://wwww.linux4e.com/partners ooWRITER HELPS YOU create your own templates and styles so that you can work with documents easily. Open Source is key to IBM's vision of computing. User empowerment is key to Microsoft's, writes Alolita Sharma USING DATABASE functions in Calc, a tutorial. (Wish there were more how-tos for the user in this mag! --FN) HALDIA DOCKS: it has a uniquely designed Linux installation with an active-active cluster set up, which is considered the best of its kind. This has ensured efficiency and cost-effectiveness. BASIC UNIX commands and concepts: an extract from *Running Linux* (Shroff Publishers, Pp 674 only Rs 425 in India). VxWorks and LynxOS are definitely the biggest embedded operating systems in use today. But slowly they are acknowledging the power of GNU/Linux and how it can help them maximise deployments. HELP LINUX GO INDIAN: By using various translation tools, you can join Language translation groups working across India to help translate GNU/Linux into your language. EXPERT INTRODUCTION: Multi-threaded programming under Linux. KICKSTART YOUR Linux installation (Part I): Installing Red Hat Linux on multiple machines one after another can be quite tedious. To avoid answering the same question over and over again, try the KickStart method, as it does not need any user intervention. WRITE CHEQUES. NOT JUST BOOKS: Niyam Bhushan on how anybody can turn thoughts into words, and words into wealth. NFS CLIENTS for Windows. OpenSSL PACKAGE offers a vast crypto library of algorithms WAIT QUEUES in Linux device drivers UNDERSTANDING recursive sub-routines INDIA-RELATED NEWS: HP launches GNU/Linux laptop Mandrake's latest distribution Oracle announces 10g for GNU/Linux Delixus offers India Linux CxProtect anti-virus mailing solution for mail-servers Trade management system from Network Programs Netweb Technologies unveils Tyrone MRO-Tek rolls out Network Management Systems Review of FLOSS at BangaloreIT.com =========================================== DISCLOSURE: This journalist (FN) writes a monthly column for LFY and gets paid for it. Promoting awareness about the content of LFY however is not part of the job, and is carried on with the intention spreading awareness about FLOSS among different GNU/Linux user groups in India. -- Frederick Noronha : http://www.fredericknoronha.net : When we speak of free Freelance Journalist : http://www.bytesforall.org : software we refer to Ph 0091.832.2409490 : Cell 0 9822 122436 : freedom, not price.

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The MS trojan horse in Linux Asia 2007
by Sandip Bhattacharya 31 Jan '07

31 Jan '07

In the Economic Times (at Bangalore) today, there is an article on page 6 titled "MS takes linux world by storm" """ When asked about its participation in Linux Asia, Microsoft said that the company will try to educate clients and communicate about its new stance towards open source. Mr Radhesh Balakrishnan, director, platform strategy, Microsoft, told ET, “Open source software is turning commercial and commercial software is becoming more open to open source. We believe that interoperability between the two is the way to the future. People have created a myth in the minds of clients that the world can work only either on open source. Rather than being carried over by rhetoric, clients should rather look at lowering TCO (total cost of ownership). According to a Frost & Sullivan study, Windows offers 15.9% lower TCO than Linux on the server side.’’ """ It is quite obvious what their point of participating in the event is about. I don't understand how a company which doesn't contribute to Linux is any positive/constructive way, can be allowed to participate in such an event. What is the criteria for participating in this apparently Linux event? Conversely, is there any way a Linux company can participate in an Microsoft promoting event and talk about the virtues of Linux? - Sandip

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Vista DRM Cracked on Launch Day
by പ്രവീ ണ്‍‌| Praveen എ|A 31 Jan '07

31 Jan '07

Vista DRM Cracked on Launch Day A ReactOS developer and first year student of bachelor's degree in software engineering Alex Ionescu [1] from Canada has blogged about a way to bypass the PMP (Protected Media Path), a DRM technique used in Windows Vista. Read the blog here [2] [1] http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/Alex_Ionescu [2] http://www.alex-ionescu.com/?p=24 Cheers Praveen -- Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Re: [Fsf-friends] GNU Linux - trusted by Microsoft India
by Ajay Pal Singh Atwal 30 Jan '07

30 Jan '07

----- Anurag <anurag(a)gnuer.org> wrote: > Sometime on Monday 29 January 2007 12:45, CK Raju said: > > When a non-free proprietary software leasing agency like Microsoft > Inc has > > its portals hosted on Free Software (GNU Linux) platforms (details > at > > http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=microsoft.co.in), our > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > A point to note is that the domain "microsoft.co.in" has been squatted > over by > some ``eTechSupport.net'' and is not owned by Microsoft. > > The result being shown by netcraft are actual ones, eTechSupport does > run > gnu/linux. > Indeed the domain name in question does not seems to belong to Microsoft. Check the whois information, as has already been reported by Anurga, indeed it is some Nasik based company. Maybe MS layers in India are lazy. -- Sincerely Ajay Pal Singh Atwal Dept of CSE & IT BBSBEC, Fatehgarh Sahib Punjab, INDIA -------------------------------- http://www.bbsbec.ac.in http://www.ajaypal.com -------------------------------- ajaypal[at]bbsbec.org, ajaypal[at]acm.org

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BlueJ threatened by Microsoft.
by Debarshi Ray 30 Jan '07

30 Jan '07

BlueJ is a free software IDE which aims to teach object-oriented programming and Java to beginners and is developed by University of Kent and Deakin University with support from Sun Microsystems. The following link tells you about how it is being threatend by Microsoft through software patents. http://www.bluej.org/mrt/?p=21 Regards, Debarshi -- After the game the king and the pawn go into the same box. -- Italian proverb

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GNU Linux - trusted by Microsoft India
by CK Raju 30 Jan '07

30 Jan '07

When a non-free proprietary software leasing agency like Microsoft Inc has its portals hosted on Free Software (GNU Linux) platforms (details at http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=microsoft.co.in), our government blinks and looks at the opposite direction (http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=mail.bsnl.in). Wonder why our government is so keen to go after services that even Microsoft doesn't trust !! Citizens from TN who voted Dayanidhi Maran to power may petition him on this issue. CK Raju --------------------------------- Heres a new way to find what you're looking for - Yahoo! Answers

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Re: [Fsf-friends] GNU Linux - trusted by Microsoft India
by CK Raju 29 Jan '07

29 Jan '07

On Prashanth Mohan's report at http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2007-January/004582.html. True. DNS can be configured to serve the purpose of load-balancing. But the point is at least one server should be on Microsoft whose information is being cached. In this case you don't find one such. If Akamai is being used, the servers' IP address should change everytime you request for details, when there are more cache servers. This also is not the case here. Lastly there is no *unusual* combination of Linux and Microsoft IIS 6.0, all combinations are Linux Apache which confirms absence of any *Akamai activity*. Microsoft.co.in's case appear to be truly "trusted entirely with GNU Linux" for Microsoft India. Isn't this more accurate ? CK Raju --------------------------------- Heres a new way to find what you're looking for - Yahoo! Answers

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Desktop Linux 2006: The Year in Review
by Tinku Sampath 27 Jan '07

27 Jan '07

The OSDL's Desktop Linux Working Group has published its first year-end report on the state of the overall desktop Linux ecosystem. The report provides insight into the year's key accomplishments in terms of functionality, standards, applications, distributions, market penetration, and more..... http://desktoplinux.com/articles/AT3453502692.html - Tinku Sampath

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Controlling spam.
by Debarshi Ray 25 Jan '07

25 Jan '07

http://savannah.gnu.org/maintenance/ListHelperAntiSpam The above link documents a nice way to control spam on GNU Mailman run mailing lists. I am using it on 2 lists.gnu.org lists and 1 non lists.gnu.org list. Things seem to be ok till now. Cheers, Debarshi -- After the game the king and the pawn go into the same box. -- Italian proverb

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Fsf-friends January 2007