At Google we believe that open systems win. They lead to more innovation, value, and freedom of choice for consumers, and a vibrant, profitable, and competitive ecosystem for businesses. Many companies will claim roughly the same thing since they know that declaring themselves to be open is both good for their brand and completely without risk. After all, in our industry there is no clear definition of what open really means. It is a Rashomon-like term: highly subjective and vitally important.He ends the post with:
The topic of open seems to be coming up a lot lately at Google. I've been in meetings where we're discussing a product and someone says something to the effect that we should be more open. Then a debate ensues which reveals that even though most everyone in the room believes in open we don't necessarily agree on what it means in practice.
This is happening often enough for me to conclude that we need to lay out our definition of open in clear terms that we can all understand and support. What follows is that definition based on my experiences at Google and the input of several colleagues. We run the company and make our product decisions based on these principles, so I encourage you to carefully read, review, and debate them. Then own them and try to incorporate them into your work. This is a complex subject and if there is debate (and I'm sure there will be) it should be in the open! Please feel free to comment.
Open will win. It will win on the Internet and will then cascade across many walks of life: The future of government is transparency. The future of commerce is information symmetry. The future of culture is freedom. The future of science and medicine is collaboration. The future of entertainment is participation. Each of these futures depends on an open Internet.
"To many, free open source software and Microsoft Windows seem to be mutually exclusive. After all, the open source development model is most closely associated with the Linux OS and, to a lesser degree, various Unix derivatives. So when you mention the two together, you often get some rather strange looks. This is a shame because there exists a growing landscape of compelling free and open source solutions just waiting for the intrepid Windows user.
You probably already know one of them well. Firefox has long stood as a prime example of how the open source development process can work to deliver a first-class solution that rivals, and in many ways surpasses, the best that the commercial side has to offer."And if you enjoy having your web life in one place, check out this Open Source Aggregators from this blog. Especially StoryTlr which has recently gone open source.
What Are Social Aggregator Applications?
Before diving too deep into this conversation, let me first explain to you what Social Aggregators are. They are basically web based applications that aggregate or gather data/information from various 3rd party social applications. A basic idea of this would be a web application that aggregates your Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube etc. information into one location, allowing viewers to see all of that information in once place.
"Welcome to definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009. First up - What is open source hardware? These are projects in which the creators have decided to completely publish all the source, schematics, firmware, software, bill of materials, parts list, drawings and "board" files to recreate the hardware - they also allow any use, including commercial. Similar to open source software like Linux, but this hardware centric.
Each year we do a guide to all open source hardware and this year there are over 125 unique projects/kits in 19 categories, up from about 60 in 2008, more than doubling the projects out there! - it's incredible! Many are familiar with Arduino (shipping over 100,000 units, estimated) but there are many other projects just as exciting and filled with amazing communities - we think we've captured nearly all of them in this list. Some of these projects and kits are available from MAKE others from the makers themselves or other hardware manufacturers - but since it's open source hardware you can make any of these yourself, start a business, everything is available, that's the point."
Bored with just tweeting? Is the Twitter bug waning? (check all about Twitter here) Though I admit I am not much of a 'tweeting type twitter', I am rather a 'reading type twitter' and spend good part of my time reading other peoples tweets (does that make a peek-a-booer??). I have my own interesting tweet to-follow list (will post it sometime!) which I religiously follow for the sake of information and awareness."Twitter Grader is a free tool that allows you to check the power of your twitter profile. It looks at a variety of factors including the number of followers, power of those followers and the level to which you are engaging the community. It takes just a few seconds to generate your free report"
Step One: Just plug it in (Of course on a booted machine running Ubuntu or Mint - Not the C-DAC BOSS Linux-OS being used in some Offices!! :)
Step Two: Go to “Preferences>Network Connections> Mobile Broadband”. It should detect “Auto Mobile Broadband CDMS connection”
Step Three: Select the connection to add phone number “#777″ (for reliance and Idea) and you username/ password, both of which should be your 10 digit phone number (read it off from the purchase document!!).
Step Four: That is all.Choose the connection from notification area and enjoy.
Google launched a DNS service today, almost exactly four years after I started OpenDNS. This comes as no surprise as it was only a matter of time before one of the Internet giants realized the strategic importance of DNS. I’ve received a lot of questions from bloggers, journalists, friends and most importantly, our users. And so I want to share my thoughts on what this means for the recursive DNS space and what it means for OpenDNS.
First, it’s not the same as OpenDNS. When you use Google DNS, you are getting the experience they prescribe. When you use OpenDNS, you get the Dashboard controls to manage your experience the way you want for you, your family or your organization. People use OpenDNS because we are pioneers and innovators in the DNS space, offering the most secure recursive DNS service around. We run the largest DNS caches, the fastest resolvers, and we offer the most flexibility in controlling your DNS experience. For example, IT folks want to block malware in the DNS, parents sometimes want to block certain content from kids. All of that and more is possible with our DNS. It is not with Google DNS. Of course, we don’t force those things, we offer them as controls that you manage the way you see fit. Providing people with choice is core to our offerings.
Second, it means that Google realizes that DNS is a critical piece of our Internet’s infrastructure and that it’s of strategic importance to help people safely and reliably navigate the Internet. This is something we’ve championed since day one and will always keep as our primary mission. This is why big enterprise customers are switching to OpenDNS too, not because it’s free but because it’s the best and we add value to DNS and improve the security of their networks.
Third, Google claims that this service is better because it has no ads or redirection. But you have to remember they are also the largest advertising and redirection company on the Internet. To think that Google’s DNS service is for the benefit of the Internet would be naive. They know there is value in controlling more of your Internet experience and I would expect them to explore that fully. And of course, we always have protected user privacy and have never sold our DNS data. Here’s a link to our privacy policy.
Fourth, it means that Google is bringing awareness to a wide audience that there is a choice when it comes to DNS and that users don’t have to settle for what their ISP provides. And we believe that having choice is a good thing — just as Internet users have unbundled their email to services like Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail people have been unbundling their DNS and switching to OpenDNS in huge numbers for the last 3+ years because we’re better.
Fifth, it’s not clear that Internet users really want Google to keep control over so much more of their Internet experience than they do already — from Chrome OS at the bottom of the stack to Google Search at the top, it is becoming an end-to-end infrastructure all run by Google, the largest advertising company in the world. I prefer a heterogeneous Internet with lots of parties collaborating to make this thing work as opposed to an Internet run by one big company.
So how will this impact us? It’s too early to tell, but largely I think this is a good thing for us. Google DNS currently offers none of the choice and flexibility that our service does. It’s new and untested. Having said that, it encourages us to keep making our service better. And ultimately, we’re a business that has been growing aggressively since we launched and has been competing in fair markets and winning. It raises awareness about the importance of DNS and it motivates us to continue providing world-class services to a global audience and to keep innovating.
We will continue to do that without distraction from Google or any of the other players in the DNS or security space. But we welcome Google to the neighborhood.
time dig @www.blogspot.com
time dig @8.8.8.8 www.blogspot.comtime dig @8.8.4.4 www.blogspot.com
- Speed: Resolver-side cache misses are one of the primary contributors to sluggish DNS responses. Clever caching techniques can help increase the speed of these responses. Google Public DNS implements prefetching: before the TTL on a record expires, we refresh the record continuously, asychronously and independently of user requests for a large number of popular domains. This allows Google Public DNS to serve many DNS requests in the round trip time it takes a packet to travel to our servers and back.
- Security: DNS is vulnerable to spoofing attacks that can poison the cache of a nameserver and can route all its users to a malicious website. Until new protocols like DNSSEC get widely adopted, resolvers need to take additional measures to keep their caches secure. Google Public DNS makes it more difficult for attackers to spoof valid responses by randomizing the case of query names and including additional data in its DNS messages.
- Validity: Google Public DNS complies with the DNS standards and gives the user the exact response his or her computer expects without performing any blocking, filtering, or redirection that may hamper a user's browsing experience.
What a waste of resources...Google could just work tied with the kernel community. Come on Google what are you waiting for? Besides this fact, if linux kernel code is GPLv2 why don't they release their code and respect GPLv2 license terms?
Posted Oct 21, 2009 14:36 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333)
I don't know if you noticed or not, but the GPL licensing terms only kick in===>> Reply ==>>
during distribution. Seeing how a corporation is a independent legal person I
don't think that moving software and hardware around internally really counts
as distribution. And I don't think that Google has any plans on selling its
systems to other people.So the GPL is pretty irrelevant.
So it is just a business case of whether working with the kernel community is
going to be more profitable or not. And so far they decided that taking care
of stuff internally is a better approach. Maybe that will change.
Posted Oct 21, 2009 15:00 UTC (Wed) by dwheeler (subscriber, #1216)
Correct, the GPL doesn't require the release of this internal source code. However, the GPL does have an effect (by intent): Google cannot take the GPL'ed program, modify it, and sell the result as a proprietary program. Thus, what Google is doing is almost certainly wasting its own resources, by trying to do its own parallel maintenance. They could probably save a lot of money and time by working with the kernel developers; it's a short-term cost for long-term gain. And as a side-effect, doing so would help all other kernel users.
There's probably some stuff that will stay Google-only, but if they worked to halve it, they'd probably save far more than half their money. Google can do this, in spite of its long-term inefficiencies, because they have a lot of money... but that doesn't mean it's the best choice for them or anyone else.
At the US Department of Defense, open source and proprietary software are now on equal footing. According to Defense Department guidance issued yesterday (PDF), open-source software (OSS) should be treated just like any other software product. The document also specifies some of the advantages of OSS for the Department of Defense (DoD). These include the ability to quickly alter the code as situations and missions change, the stability of the software because of the broad peer-review, as well as the absence of per-seat licensing costs. The document also stresses that OSS is "particularly suitable for rapid prototyping and experimentation, where the ability to 'test drive' the software with minimal costs and administrative delays can be important.
From the Defense Department's guidance document:
"To effectively achieve its missions, the Department of Defense must develop and update its software-based capabilities faster than ever, to anticipate new threats and respond to continuously changing requirements. The use of Open Source Software (OSS) can provide advantages in this regard."You can find the entire guidance document here. In it, there are many indications that the Defense Department likes the idea of "peer review" of code from a reliability and security standpoint. The advantage of "many eyeballs" that open source has from this perspective is often cited.
System –> Preferences –> Keyboard –> Layouts (Tab) –> Layout Options –>
Key sequence to kill the X server and (Tick) Control + Alt + Backspace.
A boot loader, also called a boot manager, is a small program that places the operating system (OS) of a computer into memory.If there are multiple Operating Systems in your system, the boot-loader presents you a menu, from where you choose which OS to load. For example, in a multi-boot system, if you have, say, 'Windows 7', 'Ununtu Karmic Kola' and 'Mint Gloria', the boot loader will initially show you a simple menu asking you to choose which one to use for the session.
1. Boot from a Linux Live CD (any one would do like Knoppix, Ubuntu etc.). You can get an extensive list of Linux Live CDs from here.
2. Open a 'Terminal' (its that command line, friend!! Generally found in the 'Accessories' menu item).
3. Check if its a 'root' login (prompt will have a #) else, just type 'su' at the dollar prompt ($). Most live CDs give you a 'root terminal' - check this out.
5. At the root prompt (important to be in the root prompt - signified by a #), type 'grub'. This will take you to a GRUB prompt.
6. At the grub prompt, type 'find /boot/grub/stage1' (without quotes of course!!). You'll get a response like '(hd0)'. In my case I got (hd0,1). You have to next use whatever response shown.Simple isn't it?? :-) Enjoy
7. From whatever response you got above, at the grub prompt, now type 'root (hd0,1)'.
8. Follow this up by typing 'setup (hd0,1)' at the grub prompt.
9. Thats it - your GRUB is restored - just type 'quit', and reboot the system, making sure you have removed your Live CD from the CD-Drive.
"WhiteHouse.gov has gone Drupal. After months of planning, says an Obama Administration source, the White House has ditched the proprietary content management system that had been in place since the days of the Bush Administration in favor of the latest version of the open-source Drupal software. Dries Buytaert reflected on this, adding: 'this is a clear sign that governments realize that Open Source does not pose additional risks compared to proprietary software, and furthermore, that by moving away from proprietary software, they are not being locked into a particular technology, and that they can benefit from the innovation that is the result of thousands of developers collaborating on Drupal.'"
In fact, people look at you in surprise if you enquire about their software licenses!! And some even wonder if there is anything like a software license (the whole software thing came pre-loaded you see!!!). And some even tell me "DO SOMETHING USEFUL IN YOUR LIFE U REVENGEFUL **** " :-)"Software piracy is the unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted software. This can be done by copying, downloading, sharing, selling, or installing multiple copies onto personal or work computers. What a lot of people don't realize or don't think about is that when you purchase software, you are actually purchasing a license to use it, not the actual software. That license is what tells you how many times you can install the software, so it's important to read it. If you make more copies of the software than the license permits, you are pirating."
Cyber Crime Investigation cell,
Annex III, 1st floor, Office of the Commissioner of Police,
D.N.Road,
Mumbai - 40001
Email: officer@cybercellmumbai.com
Tel: +91 - 022 - 24691233
Came across this must read article, which I thought is a must share when we live, connect, commerce so much online these days. The article (dated 08 Oct 09) stems from deposition by the New South Wales Police, Australia during a public hearing on Cybercrime and can be found here." Cybercrime expert endorses Linux, iPhone when banking online.
Consumers wanting to safely connect to their internet banking service should use Linux or the Apple iPhone, according to a detective inspector from the NSW Police, who was giving evidence on behalf of the NSW Government at the public hearing into Cybercrime today in Sydney.
Detective Inspector Bruce van der Graaf from the Computer Crime Investigation Unit told the hearing that he uses two rules to protect himself from cybercriminals when banking online. The first rule, he said, was to never click on hyperlinks to the banking site and the second was to avoid Microsoft Windows."
"Symantec has release a report indicating that cyber crime has surpassed illegal drug trafficking as a criminal moneymaker, and 1 in 5 will become a Victim." - from this siteAnd in case you are using Internet Explorer (any versions!!), the default Web-browser in your Windows OS, please do yourself a favour and switch right now. The IE browsers are bloated, slow, insecure, and doesn’t render the web correctly. Check out this BLOG on why Internet Explorer 8 sucks!! and this website on Why Internet Explorer is unsafe. Though IE8 has improved a lot (check here - read the comments too), it still has some way to go (wait for IE9???). Also do yourselves another favour and learn/be-aware about modern, standards-compliant browsers.
- Windows 7 Starter - Not found in retail stores. Comes pre-installed in systems
- Windows 7 Ultimate – Rs 11,799
- Windows 7 Professional – Rs 11,199
- Windows 7 Home Premium – Rs 6,799
- Windows 7 Home Basic (not listed in official US site - only available in India)– Rs 5,899
You will recreate a user that has administrative permissions on your server as mentioned below."A live CD or live DVD is a CD or DVD containing a bootable computer operating system. Live CDs are unique in that they have the ability to run a complete, modern operating system on a computer lacking mutable secondary storage, such as a hard disk drive. Live USB flash drives are similar to live CDs, but often have the added functionality of automatically and transparently writing changes back to their bootable medium. The term "live" derives from the fact that these CDs each contain a complete, functioning and operational operating system on the distribution medium. While a live CD typically does not alter the operating system or files already installed on a computer's hard drive, many live CDs include mechanisms and utilities for altering the host computer's hard drive, including permanent installation. This is important for the system management aspect of live CDs, such as removing viruses, drive imaging, and system recovery." - from wikipedia
useradd -m gunz. To use sudo to execute commands as root, you must make sure that the user account is a member of the group adm. To make a user with the name gunz member of the group adm, use usermod -G adm gunz. passwd gunz to give the user you've just created a password. You have now re-established a user account that can be used to perform administration tasks on your server. "MedlinePlus will direct you to information to help answer health questions. MedlinePlus brings together authoritative information from NLM, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other government agencies and health-related organizations. Preformulated MEDLINE searches are included in MedlinePlus and give easy access to medical journal articles. MedlinePlus also has extensive information about drugs, an illustrated medical encyclopedia, interactive patient tutorials, and latest health news." - from website
"The tutorials listed below are interactive health education resources from the Patient Education Institute. Using animated graphics each tutorial explains a procedure or condition in easy-to-read language. You can also listen to the tutorial." - from web site
"Ubuntu Netbook Remix is optimised to run on a new category of affordable Internet-centric devices called netbooks. It includes a new consumer-friendly interface that allows users to quickly and easily get on-line and use their favourite applications. This interface is optimised for a retail sales environment." - from Ubuntu SiteThe desktop installation of Ubuntu 9.10 is expected to include, among other programs, GIMP 2.6, GNOME 2.28, Mozilla Firefox 3.5, OpenOffice.org 3.1, Linux Kernel 2.6.31, X.Org 7.5 and Empathy Instant Messenger. The default filesystem will be ext4, and the Ubuntu One client, which interfaces with Canonical's new online storage system, will be installed by default.
"Ubuntu One is your personal cloud. You can use it to back up, store, sync and share your data with other Ubuntu One users. Ubuntu One gives all features and 2 GB of essential storage to everyone." - from Ubuntu SiteIt will also debut a new application called the Ubuntu Software Center that will unify package management. Canonical intends for this application to replace Add/Remove Programs (gnome-app-install) in 9.10 and possibly Synaptic, Software Sources, Gdebi and Update Manager in Ubuntu 10.04. Karmic Koala will also include a slideshow during the installation process (through ubiquity-slideshow) that will highlight applications and features in Ubuntu
Known widely as 'Porn Mode', now every major browser ( Firefox 3.5 or >, IE8 or greater, Google Chrome had it since inception, Apple's Safari had it since 2005!!) comes with a 'Private Browsing' feature. No more do you have to remember to go post browsing to 'preference/options' menu and clear your caches, saved data/passwords etc (though this is still a good habit!!)."Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Works with Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Server 2008. Eraser is Free software and its source code is released under GNU General Public License."Recently I stumbled upon a very convenient and easy to use tool that should be part of everyones 'fire-fighting software' pack!! Its called Darik's Boot and Nuke (commonly known as DBAN), is Open Source, and can be downloaded and used for FREE!!!
"Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot disk that securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.
DBAN is a means of ensuring due diligence in computer recycling, a way of preventing identity theft if you want to sell a computer, and a good way to totally clean a Microsoft Windows installation of viruses and spyware. DBAN prevents or thoroughly hinders all known techniques of hard disk forensic analysis.
DBAN is a free software product that can be used at home or in a business at zero cost. The only official place to obtain DBAN is by download at this web site. We do not sell DBAN media."
Google Wave is basically a cross between instant messaging, email and a wiki. You've got an inbox that looks like a Gmail inbox and you can create new Waves, which are a bit like email messages. Multiple participants can collaborate in real time, edit the waves, add photos, videos etc. etc.
javascript:void(document.getElementById('fb_menubar').style.background='red');
javascript:buddyList.toggleTab();
[up] [up] [down] [down] [left] [right] [left] [right] b a [enter]
"For the uninitiated or nongamers out there, the Konami Code (UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A) is arguably the most famous cheat code in video games. It has been used in countless games and lately, some sites have taken to using the code to trigger amusing events on the page."
"youtube-dl is a small command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com. It requires the Python interpreter, version 2.x (x being at least 4), and it's not platform specific. It should work in your Unix box, in Windows or in Mac OS X. The latest version is 2009.09.13. It's released to the public domain, which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like."The youtube-dl is actually a Python (a programming language) script, and the authors of the 'youtube-dl' program have released it as Open Source. You can check out the code using any standard editor like 'emacs', 'vim', 'gedit' etc.
./youtube-dl http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8GDzKQ6oY4Output of the command:
[youtube] Setting languageUse your Movie Players to play the .flv file thereafter!!!
[youtube] m8GDzKQ6oY4: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] m8GDzKQ6oY4: Extracting video information
[download] Destination: m8GDzKQ6oY4.flv
[download] 100.0% of 6.34M at 61.65k/s ETA 00:00
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