Navinesh

Ubuntu 11.04 and Vodafone Flashnet

2011-04-29T23:40:00.004+12:00

Yesterday we saw the release of Ubuntu 11.04, Natty Narwhal. This release takes a leap forward and sets itself apart from the rest of the Linux distributions. Ubuntu 11.04 is the first distribution to use Unity. Unity is the new desktop and netbook environment developed by Canonical that brings consistency and elegance to the Ubuntu experience. Controversy sprouted after Mark Shuttleworth announced last year that Unity would be the default desktop environment in the future Ubuntu releases. Time will tell if Unity is a success but it is too early to comment at this stage.

Unity and its technologies such as application indicators, system indicators, overlay scrollbars and notify OSD make Ubuntu look sleeker. Unity has a vertical task management panel on the left-hand side and a menu panel at the top of the screen.

I have downloaded and installed this edition. Unity is simple and easy to use. Menu panel and the dash work well too. Looking for applications or programs, dash is all you need. Banshee is the default music player and LibreOffice replaces OpenOffice.

I have recently procured a flashnet to test extranet, firewall and other services we have configured in the office. Vodafone advertises flashnet for Windows and Mac so if you are a Linux user, you are guaranteed of no support from Vodafone tech’s in making this work with your Linux distro.

Getting flashnet to work in Ubuntu is simple. There is no need to install any package, or work with CLI and strange commands. Just plug the flashnet and create mobile broadband connection. If you are using prepay flashnet, you need to change APN settings. Postpaid users do not need to change any settings.

Ubuntu continues to grow and it is on the right track to bring Linux to the masses.

Coffee with Chocolate lady

2010-11-06T23:50:00.005+13:00

I have been missing from the blogosphere scene for quite some time now. It's just that I have been really busy with work these days. I have been part of a project which isn't quite progressing the way I had anticipated. I have also been having sleeping dilemmas, but I'm not sure if I can say I'm insomniac now. My doctor doesn't quite second this and has put me on sleeping pills for a week. The pills seem to be working but I'm dreading because I will finish the last pill today. From tomorrow I hope I don't play an Owl.

Today, I finally managed to meet a Facebook friend. We ended up having coffee where we had a great amount of discussion on different issues, or more like our conversation surrounded one topic. And, I was like playing detective or adviser of some sort. She shall remain anonymous for my safety's sake and will be referred to as Chocolate lady. You may ask why Chocolate lady? Well, she has this wild fantasies about chocolates; like eat, work, read and sleep chocolates. Okay, maybe I'm just exhilarating here. She finds my office walls appealing because it's chocolate brown. So I call her the Choc lady.

It wasn't like a planned coffee date because we were like chatting on FB and she asked me if I would like to walk with her to a shopping mall. And I was like, yes! We met for the first time and it was great actually. The chat we had is obviously personal so I will not disclose here, but it was really interesting. I think I was playing a persona which I haven't played before or might have on one or two occasions (I can't really recall though).

Tappoo city has food court on 4th floor which I discovered today thanks to Choc lady - after she did a grand tour of 4th floor. There is a coffee shop on the ground floor but I don't know the name though! I enjoy latte but today I opted for ice coffee and the Choc lady settled with ice mocha. Apparently, ice coffee was pathetic - I had a sip or two, and could see water smirking at me from the lower portion of the cup. I couldn't drink anymore. Ice mocha was a bit strong but Choc lady quietly finished it. I hope she didn't thrust herself to it. And I don't recall making her do this.

It's not a discovery or news that different people have different views on certain topic, but it's interesting to hear them over coffee (coffee should be good though). I didn't realise I talk so much - I'm hoping here I wasn't uttering mere crap out of my mouth out of excitement. Choc lady didn't really comment on my talking streak. So I presume I'm not that bad or she was being nice. I could whinge about the coffee but I presume I have done enough and I didn't get the name of the coffee shop so it'll not make the impact I would like to. The Choc lady was interesting and I hope we get to do coffee again but certainly at a better place and with great coffee.

Firefox 4 Beta 1 in Ubuntu

2010-07-10T12:47:00.002+12:00

Mozilla has recently launched Firefox 4 Beta 1. However, there is no installer for Linux. If you want to evaluate Firefox 4 Beta 1 in Ubuntu then download Firefox to your downloads folder, unpack the zipped tarball, and then move the firefox folder to your /opt folder. Then make a symbolic link pointing to the firefox in /opt and put the symlink in the ~/bin folder so that it can be launched via the terminal.

Commands:

$ bzip2 -d firefox-4.0b1.tar.bz2
$ tar xvf firefox-4.0b1.tar
$ sudo mv firefox /opt/
$ ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox ~/bin/firefox4 (make sure you have the bin folder in your home directory, if you don't then you need to create it)
$ firefox4

You can also create a launcher icon on your desktop or panel.

IPv6 in Fiji

2010-06-30T23:00:00.002+12:00

IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) is an Internet Protocol for packet switched internetworks. This protocol is designed to succeed IPv4. Clearly IPv4 exhaust is on the horizon with only 6% of the remaining number of IPv4 addresses in the global pool. It is high time now and we should start planning and migrating to IPv6 from IPv4. No doubt the migration will be a costly affair as organisations will be required to purchase new equipment’s which supports IPV6 protocol, train staffs and get experts to do the configurations.

IPv4 has 32 bits address spaces while IPv6 has 128 bits. This means 2^128 unique IP addresses. With the availability of such a number of unique IP addresses there wouldn’t be a need for NAT. People should realise that IPv4 address is limited and will run out soon, which means no additional nodes will be able to attach itself to the Internet. However, before organisations and ISP’s jump IPv6 bandwagon they need to realise the pros and cons of IPv6 transition.

Benefits of IPv6

Much larger address space
Stateless Autoconfig
Automatic link-load balancing
Virtually unlimited host address per prefix
Simplified packet header for routing efficiency
Mandatory IP Security (IPSec) implementation for all IPv6 devices
Improved support for mobile IP and mobile computing devices
Enhanced multicast support with increased addresses and efficient mechanisms
Reduced management requirement
Improved methods to change ISP
Multi-homing
Scoped address: link-local, site-local and global-address space
Qos

Limitations of IPv6

Harder to fit prefixes on topology drawings
No More IP Scanning
IPv6 Configuration
Typing Long Addresses

There are functionalities in IPv4 that do not exist in IPv6. Organisations have to plan and migrate cautiously. Apart from forking out substantial amount of money for IPv6 migration organisations need to be aware that there will be issues during the transition as IPv6 lack functionalities that are available in IPv4.

We have very few people in Fiji who have been pushing for this to happen; not just at organizational level but also at ISP level. Frank Martin and his team at Avonsys are making some noise and hope to see some positive movement towards IPv6 transition. Avonsys is gathering responses from ISP’s in Fiji and also hope to hear what organisations have to say about their plans to IPv6 migration. You can read ISP’s response on Avonsys’ blog.

None of the ISP’s in Fiji have migrated their system to IPv6. This means even if organisations do move to IPv6 they cannot fully enjoy the benefits of IPv6, and might end up with a network that will not connect to any of the ISP’s. One way to deal with this issue is to use tunnels – you can establish IPv6 connectivity with BGP peering via an IPv4 tunnel to one of the tunnel brokers via your ISP. Contact Frank Martin of Avonsys if you want to know how this could be achieved or need assistance in this configuration.

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

2010-05-02T18:41:00.006+12:00

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS codename Lucid Lynx has been released. This edition boasts a revamped default theme (which I think is great), social from start, faster boot time, Ubuntu One, Ubuntu One Music Store, along with other great features. What's important is that this release is a Long Term Support edition, which means you'll get support through free security and maintenance updates for 3 years on the desktop and 5 years on the server.

I have been using the desktop edition since Friday and it's absolutely great. The boot time has been improved, Ambiance theme looks great which replaced the Human theme, Me Menu accesses and updates social networks including Facebook, Digg, Twitter and Identi.ca. The Me Menu also integrates chat channels so users can chat with their friends on nearly every network. Gwibber has come along a long way since the last time I used it – it's fantastic as well.

I have downloaded the server edition as well and will install sometimes next week – I've two Ubuntu 8.04 LTS severs which I'll upgrade. I'll write more about Ubuntu 10.04 LTS in the coming weeks (hopefully) about its features, performance and my experiences. The system is very stable. Download a copy for your self if you already haven't done this – the iso is about 699~ MB so it'll take some time on the slower Internet connections.

It is the brand name

2010-04-27T19:26:00.004+12:00

Almost everyone knows about iPhone 4G prototype saga by now or at least everyone who has Internet access and does some reading once in a while (or whenever they get some time off social websites). The news about discovery of what would be iPhone 4G sprouted tremendously. The saga itself is sketchy in parts and its creditability questionable. There is no question about validity of the device as Apple has claimed it officially. What’s hard to buy is the way the device was misplaced/stolen?! There were rumors that it was a publicity stunt, but knowing Apple and how secretive they’ve been about their products, this can be easily waved.

Then there is word that the prototype was stolen – Jason Chen’s story indicates otherwise. The guy who had the device before selling it to Jason claims he tried to contact Apple but to no avail. Jason paid quite a price for this prototype and did a review, but nothing regarding the OS and the features as it was wiped and locked. Apple is not going to be hushed about the whole saga. California's Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team raided Jason’s house during his absence and seized computers and servers. I presume we’re going to read more about iPhone 4G prototype, Apple, Jason Chen, and GIZMODO in the coming weeks before Apple resolves the issue.

Apple has made a name for it self and is a major hardware and software developer who sets trends. I don’t think such a controversy would have sprouted if it was some other company’s prototype, at least not to this level. Imagine someone paying $5,000 in cash for an unusable device?! There are lots of Apple clone products available on the market. And, there are few people who purchase this, some unknowingly and some who can’t afford the genuine device. There has always been hype about Apple’s products. Every time Steve Jobs unleashes Apple’s latest gadget, Apple fan boys go all feisty and all bow down in bliss. The only question on their mind after watching the demo; when can they get their hands on it?! Do people buy products even before it is released? Do people line-up for a product waiting excitedly for it to be officially purchasable? This only happens because it’s Apple’s product.

TC Tomas

2010-03-15T20:00:00.008+13:00

Cyclone “Tomas” has been looming over the Fiji group since Friday, moving slowly but intensifying with time. The slower it moves the greater impact it will have. This cyclone has a category 4 status which means it has Hurricane status.

The central division hasn’t felt the wrath of Tomas yet due to its distance and direction, but the word is that we will experience high winds and heavy rain later in the night or early tomorrow morning. As I watch outside of my window drafting this post, the wind has begun to intensify but there is no sign of rain.

Tomas is moving slowly towards Fiji group but sometime early today it changed its direction sparing western division of its intense wrath. Northern division and smaller islands, north-east of the group are experiencing devastating effects of the Cyclone. Lives, houses and infrastructures are of major disquiet during these times. Unfortunately, the death toll stands at 1 and I hope it does not increase.

A lot of people living in low lying areas and who thought their house might not survive the impact of cyclone have moved to evacuation centres - the number stands at over 5000 now. Few houses have been damaged.

My major gripe during this period is the inadequate information provided by some of the online media outlets. Fiji Meteorological Service tops my list without almost any update on the status of the cyclone on their website! Their website should provide reliable and first-level information on cyclones. This is from their website, “Official Source of reliable "first-level" information on tropical cyclones occurring in the South-West Pacific Ocean”. This is so not true! As Rizwan mentioned in his blog post, they should deploy a CMS so that they can better manage the website and their site can be updated easily and frequently. FijiVillage seems to be the only online news site which is updating their website with latest updates frequently.

We live in an era where access to Internet is a norm and readily available on number of devices, and lots of people rely on online news. Online media should be given equal importance and should be seen as a major communication medium. I just hope we could merely rely on online media for all information in future.

Ubuntu branding

2010-02-28T22:55:00.000+13:00

Recently Ubuntu got a make over, dropping orange-brown “Human” theme which has been in use since its existence. The new style is inspired by the idea of “Light” and beginning with Ubuntu 10.04, a new theme “Ambiance” will be installed by default. The color of the new theme is purple (aubergine)-orange. Major work has been done on the branding front ahead of Ubuntu 10.04 release.

There was fraction of Ubuntu users who did not like the brown color, and often ended up using other themes. Personally, I did not have much problem with “Human” theme despite it not having the most attractive artwork. Initially when I jumped the Ubuntu bandwagon I did try installing various themes making my desktop look attractive but then over some time with different releases, I begun to like the orange-brown theme. But for many users a new theme was way over due.

The button position has been changed in the new theme. It is now located in the left corner – this has created some controversy in the Ubuntu community but there is a how-to available to change the button position to the right. It looks cool but then we will have to wait and see how user friendly it is when the final version is released.

The change in Ubuntu style is not limited to the desktop theme, the Canonical branding has under gone a revamp – more information can be found here.

Upgrade device OS

2010-01-30T23:50:00.000+13:00

These days we tend to use many devices; be it a smart-phone, MP3 player, e-book reader or netbook/notebook, etc. The "want" factor never stops. When a new gadget is launched after months of hype, we tend to constantly read reviews and check features, which are available on the device. If it has something that entices us, we end up procuring it eventually.

All of these devices come with an operating system. When a product is released, it is not guaranteed that it will have all the features, which the device is capable. These features become available later, during the next software upgrade. Most of the users tend to be happy with the available features, which comes default with the device, and never bother to upgrade the operating system. Well there is nothing wrong with this, expect you will miss the new features, security and bug fixes. No one usually goes around advising users to upgrade the operating system of their device (not in Fiji at least), unless of course you have a geeky friend who does this on his devices and would recommend after experiencing the improvement in performance/features.

I tend to do this if I can find the firmware and the operating system of the device online. These upgrades are no brainer. You just need the latest firmware/operating system, make sure to back up your data/configurations, and you are set to go. Of course, not all upgrades are smooth! One thing that I have learnt is that during firmware/software upgrade one has to be serene. Moreover, one thing that you should never do is interrupt the upgrade - you never know how much mess you will create by doing this! I tend to get impatient when the upgrade starts stalling, especially when the “percentage completed” halts, but I try not to unplug the device and restart the process (something that I love to do).

Recently I downloaded or tried to download some applications for my smart-phone, but due to operating system version compatibility, I was unsuccessful. I searched the relevant website to check if an upgrade version of the software was available. If I am not mistaken, Vodafone Fiji does not provide software’s for smart-phones they sell on their website – this is little daunting as we have to probe for software’s on some other websites!

After downloading the operating system from the official website, I backed up my data, and executed the program. Being a bit lazy, I selected the option to back up my third-party applications and reinstall them after the upgrade is complete. Sipping coffee slowly, and waiting patiently with fingers crossed, I hoped the process completed without any issues. However, after some time later, the upgrade froze and after few minutes later, an error message appeared, which read, “The process could not complete as one of the third-party applications failed to back up wirelessly”. Wirelessly?!

The device rebooted with an error code. A quick Google probe revealed that the operating system was missing. This was a little scary! I connected the device and executed the program to upgrade the OS again. This time I only selected basic applications to install and since there was not anything to back up, the upgrade process was quite quick. Once the process completed the device rebooted to its regular display to my relief. I spent some time installing third-party applications that I regularly use, and with the new software, my device seems to be faster, including the applications.

Holidays and year 2009

2009-12-29T10:57:00.005+13:00

Everyone looks forward to holidays – an opportunity to get away from work, school, and just get time off to relax with family and friends. Some take a trip to meet family and friends, some prefer to spend time at a luxurious resort, and others prefer to stay home, spend time with people they love, prepare lovo, BBQ or some special meal and get drunk (not all though). Hopefully everyone finds bliss in whichever way they decide to spend their holidays.

Year 2009 hasn’t been without its shares of dramas, or troubles should I say. The year started with destructive rain, which resulted in flooding and landslides. And towards the end of the year, cyclone Mick hovered over us, leaving us without electricity and water for couple of days. These two events resulted in massive infrastructural damages which worsen our economical situation as more money had to be forked for repairs. People became homeless and some lost their lives, and these were very saddening. Hoping here things will be better come next year.

In the ICT world; Canonical released Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10, and Microsoft released Windows 7 (with the purpose to fix Windows Vista’s pitfall). There were bunch of other Linux distributions that were also released, and Apple released Mac OS, iPhone 3GS and other products. Hardware and software manufactures also amplified their products. On February 14th UNIX time equalled to '1234567890'. UNIX time or POSIX time is a system for describing points in time, defined as the number of seconds elapsed since midnight Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of January 1, 1970, not counting leap seconds.

Earlier this year Conficker worm took millions of machines down over the globe. It was surprising as this worm first surfaced in October 2008 exploiting the vulnerability described in the Microsoft security bulletin MS08-067, and people didn’t patch their systems. I would call myself lucky as my system’s defence was pretty good as they managed to keep this vicious worm away.

In June Google unveiled developer preview of Google Wave, their collaboration and communication tool. And towards the fourth quarter more people were given access to test and report bugs. I have been using it intermittently as it’s still in beta stages and to fully utilize Wave we need to have lots of people on it. In November Google made public the sneak preview of its operating system, Google Chromium OS. This OS is in its development stages and has been open sourced to allow better collaboration between open source community and developers.

I have been trialling MS Office 2010 beta for over a week now and I plan to post my experiences sometime early next year after fiddling around with it some more. I will be involved in couple of major projects next year as I have plans to upgrade my Servers (hardware & software’s). I’m still in the process of deciding solutions that I’ll procure. There are lots of them and the challenge is to settle with those that meet your needs. Can’t wait to get into the testing phase – this should be fun!

Wish everyone a very peaceful New Year – have lots of fun and be merry.

Chromium OS

2009-11-23T06:51:00.003+12:00

Google has made public the sneak preview of its operating system, Google Chromium OS. This OS is in its development stages, and has been open sourced as Chromium OS. The code of this OS is free and accessible to anyone. Google’s intention to open-source this project is to allow an engagement with partners, open source community and developers. Thus the development will be done in the open. This project, at this point in time contains code base, user interface experiments and some initial designs for ongoing development.

Chromium OS is based on Linux Kernel. And if I’m not erroneous all the applications are web based taking place within the web browser, eschewing any traditional desktop applications. Thus users don’t need to worry about installing, managing and updating programs. Chromium OS can be tagged as a very paranoid OS because all codes running which accesses actual data runs isolated in a sandbox in its own process name space. System services will also be isolated in its own sandbox. This provides security by making it harder for malware’s and viruses to infect the system. Furthermore, Chrome OS barely trusts itself. Every time you restart your computer the operating system verifies the integrity of its code.

To minimise boot time, Chromium OS engineers are taking out every unnecessary process, optimizing many operations and running everything possible in parallel. This means you can go from turning on the computer to surfing the web in a few seconds.

To provide reliability and security user data will be kept encrypted on a different partition than the system files. There will be two separate system partitions – update is applied to one partition and if everything is okay, it’s applied to second partition. Signature on the auto update is checked so that no one has tampered with it. It doesn’t stop here; root file system is also checked by the kernel to ensure that nothing has been changed in the file system. Even the kernel is checked using the custom firmware, which gives fast boot speed, and small read only cycle which stores public key and useful security recovery data. This key is used to check anything which comes after in the boot path; any changeable firmware is up to date and the kernel is okay.

One question which has been floating around is; will Chromium OS be a threat to Linux (esp. Ubuntu)? There is collaboration between Google and open source projects (GNU, the Linux Kernel, Moblin, Ubuntu, WebKit and many more) which allows Google to build on existing components and tools from open source community without re-invention. Canonical on their blog has declared that they’re contributing engineering to Google under contract. So as far as threat is concerned, Chromium OS will pose competition to not only to Ubuntu but to Windows OS as well, especially on netbooks and other thin mobile devices.

Chromium OS will be released towards the end of next year. Since all the applications are web based, it will integrate perfectly with the already in place Google’s web based applications. More on Chromium blog.

Ubuntu 9.10 Review

2009-11-16T08:38:00.005+12:00

I have been using Ubuntu 9.10 for over two weeks now without any problems, and below is my generic review.

First of all, Ubuntu 9.10 is not a LTS release. Ubuntu 10.04 is going to be a LTS release so this release is more like on an evolutionary path towards it. I always prefer to do a fresh install rather than upgrade. Since I save my data on a separate partition, I didn’t have to backup anything except for my bookmarks. The installation was without any problems, which I’ve always liked about Ubuntu, and I don’t need to worry about any device drivers because it works out of the box.

This release has brought about some changes to certain software’s which are included in Ubuntu by default and system organisation in general.

· Empathy has replaced Pidgin which used to be the default IM client

· A revamped Ubuntu Software Center which allows easy access to Free and Open-Source applications

· Ubuntu One technology gives you 2 GB of online storage for free. This allows you to easily share files between your own and your friends' computers

· Ext 4 file system by default

· /home partition encryption using eCryptfs. Users can optionally configure eCryptfs to automatically mount and decrypt their home directory at each login

· Ubuntu has gained new splash screen software called xsplash, which allows faster boot time by the means of prioritisation

· GRUB 2 is the default boot loader in Ubuntu 9.10

· New GDM theme

I haven’t run into any problems since I’ve been using this release so I can say this is a very stable release, for me at least. New applications/changes which have been made to this release will be polished in Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.

October showdown (Ubuntu 9.10 and Windows 7)

2009-10-28T11:16:00.003+12:00

Wait for Microsoft fan boys are finally over with the release of Windows 7. I haven't been quite up to date with the reviews of Windows 7 but the ones I read while it was in beta was positive. I am not a very big fan of Microsoft products but I’m required to use them as my job demands. I haven’t used Windows 7 so I can’t really comment on how it has been tailored.

I didn't upgrade my PC to Vista when it was released couple of years back for the obvious reason and I am not sure if/when I will take Windows 7 for a whirl. One thing is for sure, I can't allow my users to use eight years old operating system for too long so a decision has to be made but it depends on how successful Windows 7 is. If only ISVs made their products compatible with Linux, things would have been a little bit different.

I am a Linux user because I find Linux (Ubuntu) much easy to install and use. My primary operating system is Ubuntu, and I use Windows XP where I need to use software’s, which are not available for Ubuntu. While a huge number of PC users were waiting for Windows 7 release, I on the other hand am waiting for release of Ubuntu 9.10, codename Karmic Koala. The latest iteration is due in one day, and will be available for free download.

Ubuntu is one Linux operating system, which just keeps getting better and has a very wide user base. Canonical releases Ubuntu on a six-month release cycle. A six-month release cycle ensures that users are up to date with the latest software's. I will be downloading the new release once it becomes available and will be taking it for a whirl and will post an article after reviewing it. Over the past five years Ubuntu has gained quite popularity and is considered one of the major Linux operating system.

There has been/will be a showdown between Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10, and only time will tell if any of these live up to expectations and doesn't flood blogsphere with rants. But the reviews which I’ve read so far about Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 beta are very promising.

Ubuntu 10.04, The Lucid Lynx

2009-09-22T09:30:00.004+12:00

In a video message to attendees of UbuCon Atlanta, Mark Shuttleworth announced the name of next release of Ubuntu, which will be a LTS edition. Ubuntu 10.04 will be called “Lucid Lynx”.

Gmail’s activity report

2009-08-31T23:30:00.002+12:00

Most of us use cloud based e-mail service for our personal e-mails, for example, Gmail. And there are always security concerns regarding services, which we don’t have much control over. I think that it’s good to be paranoid at times (or every time) about security. I always change my password every month and make sure that it meets the complexity requirements, and try not to use cloud-based services from untrusted machines/devices.

I have recently become aware about Gmail’s “Last account activity”. This allows users to see the activity log of their Gmail account. Once logged in users can find their accounts activity report in “Last account activity” section, which can be accessed from the bottom of every Gmail page.

Last account activity will show the duration of the existing session, and when you click on the “Details” link a new window will pop up listing logs of recent activity of users account. The information available in this log are; the duration of each session, the IP address from which the account was accessed, and the number of simultaneous active session. And if there is multiple active sessions then the user can disconnect rest of the sessions by clicking on the “Sign out all other sessions” button. Details such as whether your e-mail was accessed using regular browser, mobile device, or a POP client are also listed.

This report is quite useful as one can use it to monitor their account, and from the logs users can become aware if someone else is accessing their account. For more information visit Google’s help pages.

Canonical and Microsoft

2009-07-23T18:00:00.000+12:00

Microsoft has recently contributed about 20,000 lines of code to Linux Kernel. This code includes Linux device drivers, which allows any Linux distribution to run on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. Microsoft has released the code under GNU GPL-2. Lots of posts are appearing on the blogsphere about this, and some writers have made comparison between Canonical and Microsoft, which I believe is erroneous.

Canonical and Microsoft are two different companies with different approach towards solution development and contribution. One significant difference is that Canonical releases its desktop and server operating systems for free while Microsoft requires you to pay for it. Canonical makes money by selling support and not operating systems.

It has also been said that Microsoft’s single contribution to the Linux kernel is much more than what Canonical has contributed since its existence. I wouldn’t deny this, but this code isn’t going to benefit average Joe if he is not going to deploy his favourite Linux distro on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V technology. So in the end this is going to benefit IT professionals who are going to deploy Linux desktops/servers on Microsoft’s Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V technology.

Microsoft intends to make itself a dominant player in the virtualization world by indicating that its virtualization solution consolidates Linux and Windows applications. However, Microsoft’s virtualization solution still lags behind VMware’s enterprise features such as live migration. VMware’s virtualization drivers have been certified for Linux Kernel; however, it’s not part of the Linux Kernel at the moment.

Canonical has opened the source code of Launchpad, which has been released under GNU AGPL-3. Launchpad is a project-hosting platform designed to accelerate free software development. Any free software developer in the world can use it for free, to manage their source code, bug reports, packages, translations, and more.

There is a vast difference between these two companies, and I personally think that Canonical outweighs Microsoft as far as contribution to the community is concerned. Microsoft’s contribution to the Linux Kernel is a means to lock customers into their technology. Canonical Open Sourcing Launchpad allows developers to enhance the platform, making an easy process of packaging, distributing, maintaining, and providing services for free software. This is all thanks to Mark Shuttleworth and the Launchpad team.

Firefox 3.5

2009-07-01T17:20:00.004+12:00

Firefox 3.5 has been finally released delivering a list of new features. The primary objective of this release was to enhance the performance and add new features, which would benefit all Firefox users. I have been an avid Firefox user, but was recently amazed by Chromium’s performance on my Ubuntu machine. Despite Chromium being in development stages it outweighed Firefox in performance. Firefox 3.5 is supposed to be Mozilla’s response to Google’s Chromium in terms of speed. Mozilla claims that this release is twice as fast as its predecessor.

One thing is for sure; Mozilla delivered what it promised. The launch time of Firefox has improved significantly. One of the improvements in Gecko rendering engine is speculative parsing, which allows faster page rendering by continuing to process HTML without waiting for external scripts to load. TraceMonkey allows faster JavaScript execution by implementing just-in-time compilation, which improves the runtime performance and allows compilers to work more quickly and using less memory.

Another feature that has been implemented in this release is private browsing mode, which does not saves list of pages visited and other information a browser normally does. This will be useful if more than one person uses the same user account. However, this does not mean that when this feature is activated it will erase your records from the servers you visited.

Firefox 3.5 has now support for the HTML5 video and audio elements including native support for Ogg Theora encoded video and Vorbis encoded audio. Inclusion of these elements make it possible to not only embed video and audio to web pages without using plug-ins, but also to have these elements interact with other elements on the web pages. “Web workers” has also been included in this release, which allows a script to run in a separate background thread and improvements to standards such as CSS and SVG for enhanced graphics. There is also support for HTML5 local storage and offline application storage.

There aren’t lots of major changes, but surely enough for a much better browsing experience. I appreciate this editions faster launch time, and the new tabs toolbar. Firefox 3.5 is available for most of the major operating systems.

Chromium on Ubuntu

2009-06-10T16:22:00.005+12:00

Google released developer preview of Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux sometimes last week. The Linux version is called “Chromium”, and all the codes are open source, including V8, a new JavaScript virtual machine. This build is purely for developers, and not for users who want to use this browser for their day-to-day browsing. Users have been warned from downloading this as this browser is still in its development stages and installing this might result in some radical software crashes.

I have read couple of blogs in the past few days about users’ positive experience in relation to running Chromium on Linux, more specifically on Ubuntu. Since it was available for Ubuntu, I decided to install and take it for a whirl. Chromium is fast, even faster than Firefox, despite being in development stages. I’m merely amazed – I did not expect it to be faster than Firefox.

I’m presuming Mozilla will not be left behind as far as speed is concerned. The guys at Mozilla are working hard on its upcoming release of Firefox – Firefox 3.5. And, they have claimed that this release will be faster than any previous version of Firefox. Apparently, only time will tell about Firefox 3.05 and its speediness, and if it’s any match to Chromium once Google releases its final version.

In order to install Chromium on Ubuntu, you have to add the following repositories in the Software Sources (Thanks to the PPA for Chromium daily builds team):

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

After adding the repositories, run sudo apt-get install chromium-browser in a terminal. The download is about 17MB. Once downloaded and installed, it will be available as “Chromium Web Browser” in “Applications” > “Internet”.

Since Chromium is in its development stages, there are certain features that aren’t functional at this stage; including tabs, bookmarks, privacy settings, print and homepage. I usually don’t install and use beta software’s, unless it’s one of Google’s products.

Google Wave

2009-06-02T20:44:00.012+12:00

Introduction

Last week, Google unveiled developer preview of its forthcoming technology, Google Wave. It has been depicted as a new tool for communication and collaboration on the web. A “Wave” is equal parts conversation and document, where people can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more. The project has been under development for past two years, going by the code name of “walkabout”. The two visionaries behind Google Wave are Jens and Lars Rasmussen. They were also the creative force behind Google Maps.

Its mechanics

Google Wave is a single message that is shared among all its participants within the cloud. When you initiate a Wave, it is created on the central server. After creating and adding people to it, they can use rich formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. They can insert a reply or edit the Wave directly. When recipients respond to it, their message is embedded to the original message at the point they are replying to. The reply is associated specifically with the part of the message it relates to, thus eliminating the need for snipping texts. It's concurrent rich-text editing, which means if recipients are online they can instantly see on their screen what their collaborators are typing in their Wave.

Additional participants can be added at any time, and previous contents can be changed. If recipients are online, they will see the changes and replies live. There is a feature in Wave that will be appreciated by recipients that are added later to the conversation, and it is called “playback”. Playback allows recipients to rewind the Wave from its initiation to show the order in which it was edited, and the people responsible for each edits.

Google Wave attempts to collaborate e-mails and instant messaging, creating a single communication model. With Google Wave, you don’t have to mull whether you want to send e-mail to someone or chat with them – you send them a Wave. One problem with e-mails, IMs, wikis and documents when they are being exchanged and edited by different people with varying texts is its horrendous formatting. And, if a new recipient is given access to this content, he/she will struggle to comprehend what has been discussed prior to their involvement. Google Wave is being comprehended as a multi-user distributed online version-controlled collaboration that seamlessly brings together many forms of communication technology.

Conclusion

Google Wave is still in its development stages, and we don't have a confirmed date for its release yet. However, I'm presuming that we will get to experience it before the end of this year. Wave is also considered as a blogging platform. For more information navigate to http://wave.google.com - you can watch the 80 minutes developer preview presentation which was delivered at Google I/O, and Google Wave Federation Protocol.

Wolfram|Alpha

2009-05-18T21:55:00.004+12:00

Wolfram|Alpha – the new computational search engine was released over the weekend. This engine is based on natural language processing, a large library of algorithms and an NKS approach to answering queries. The Wolfram|Alpha engine differs from traditional search engines in that it does not simply return a list of results based on a query, but instead attempts to compute an answer. This differentiates Wolfram|Alpha from Google and any other search engine.

Wolfram|Alpha is developed by Wolfram Research. The main product of Wolfram Research is Mathematica. It is a computational software program used in scientific, engineering, and mathematical fields and other areas of technical computing. It was originally conceived by Stephen Wolfram and developed by a team of mathematicians and programmers that he assembled and led.

Stephen Wolfram is a British physicist, mathematician, and businessman, known for his work in theoretical particle physics, cosmology, cellular automata, complexity theory, and computer algebra. (Source: Wikipedia)

This service is amazing. Ask some silly questions (apart from the systematic ones) and see what kind of answers you get. For starters, I asked:

1. “Who are you?” Input Interpretation: What are you? And the response was “I am a computational knowledge engine”.

2. “Where are you?”, and the answer was “I live on the Internet”.

3. "Do you sleep?" Input Interpretation: can you? Response: "No I can't"

There were other silly questions that I asked, and the responses were merely amazing and some hilarious. Try it for yourself.

Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

2009-04-26T11:13:00.003+12:00

Last week Canonical released its latest version of Linux operating-system; Ubuntu 9.04 – Jaunty Jackalope. After downloading the iso, I decided to take Jaunty Jackalope for a whirl and see for myself how this new edition fits in the family. However, this is not a complete review of this release considering the fact that I haven't spent much time on this yet since I've installed it less than 24 hours ago.

The most appreciated improvement is the boot-time performance, which has been achieved by improving start-up process and with the inclusion of ext4 – it's impressive. However, ext3 is still the default filesystem in this release, but you can choose ext4 as your filesystem during the installation. Speed is one of the most obvious difference that you will notice in comparison with other releases of Ubuntu – I'm not articulating that other releases were sluggish but this one is just 'fast'.

The whole desktop experience is really great. The system is fast and responsive without any jerkiness. This release comes with; GNOME 2.26, Firefox 3.08, OpenOffice 3.0.1, Brasero Disc Burner 2.26.0, X.Org Server 1.6 and the new notification system – to name a few. Checkout Ubuntu's website for more information about the new features that have been added to this release. I've upgraded my system after installation so I'm using Firefox 3.09 now.

I'm also testing the performance of Ubuntu 9.04 on a six year old desktop with P4 processor and 512MB of RAM (just to see how it performs on old machine), and I must say that you will never know that you're using a six year old system. And, if you've a system with Core 2 Duo processors and a minimum of 2GB of RAM, this release is worth taking a look, and it's surely a treat by Canonical.

One thing is for sure; you will not be able to notice the improvements in Jaunty Jackalope's desktop experience by browsing screenshots or by looking at new feature lists of this release. You've to use it to experience the great desktop user experience that it offers. This release has set a benchmark with its speedy performance, and it only gets better from here!

Animator Vs. Animation

2009-04-23T09:05:00.003+12:00

This is merely hilarious!

Security, Zimbra and Ubuntu

2009-04-22T16:27:00.001+12:00

Yesterday afternoon I was notified by an email about a virus alert. After mulling about it, and security, viruses and malwares in general, it seemed to me that there are quite a number of people that are not really concerned about their systems security, or even if they are, they do not take any serious action to maintain a secured system. The problem is ‘complacency’ which leads to shoddy practices and sensitive risk that is not recognised until it’s too late and attack happens.

I’ve always believed that maintaining a secured system is a process. You can’t just install anti-virus software’s, firewalls, spam filtering software’s, and intrusion detection systems and be content that you’ve a secured system. One needs to have updated virus pattern, patched operating-system and third-party software’s. And, don’t forget to check your firewall and IDS logs frequently – you may never know who is attempting to snoop on your network!

Most of the threats can be mitigated by having up-to-date patched software’s. Musing about the Conficker saga – if users had been patching their Windows operating-system, they wouldn’t have been a victim of this virus. Downloading and deploying software patches in a network could be tedious if you are required to do this on all the machines individually. However, you can use some software that will do this for you. I use GFI LANguard, which downloads the patches and deploys it over the LAN.

Mitigate security menace

• Install anti-virus software, firewall, intrusion detection/prevention systems (IDS/IPS), content and spam filtering software for emails, and device control software’s – to name a few

• Always update your virus pattern – it’s a good practice to configure your anti-virus software to check for virus patterns automatically and download them when available

• Don’t just install and update your anti-virus software frequently, but use it! Scan your whole system at least once a week

• Keep your operating-system and third-party software’s patched – look for updates at least twice a week

• Avoid using software’s which has reached its end of life. Obsolete software = no software updates, which leads to vulnerable system that can be easily exploited if a flaw is detected

• Study logs of firewalls and IDS/IPS to be aware about the types of traffic passing through your network

• Read about ‘phishing’ and ways to prevent it. For starters, read an article about it on PICISOC website

• Get your network assessed for security vulnerabilities – an audit of your enterprises’ security infrastructure will keep you in the loop about the robustness of your network systems, and you can then take necessary steps to secure it

Zimbra

Zimbra is Open-Source email collaboration software, which is only available for Linux, Mac OS X and Virtualization platforms. There are two editions available; the Network Edition – paid service that provides support and software subscription, and the Open Source Edition – free service, provided you comply with the licensing terms. Zimbra has published features of its forthcoming version of ZCS, codename, ‘Guns N’ Roses’ on their blog, and it looks interesting.

Ubuntu

This week we will see release of Ubuntu’s latest version of desktop and server operating-system (Jaunty Jackalope - 9.04). This edition boasts; new Linux kernel - 2.6.28, support for Ext4 filesystem, GNOME 2.26, an easy to deploy mail server stack – dovecot-postfix, and support for cloud computing with the inclusion of Eucalyptus. Read more about the new features which have been implemented in this release.

Linux e-books

2009-04-04T10:42:00.002+12:00

In addition to the Linux Starter Pack that I mentioned in one of my posts, there are other e-books worth reading to learn more about Linux.

Ubuntu Pocket Reference and Guide
http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=3942
Size: 2MB

The Easiest Linux Guide You’ll Ever Read
http://www.linux-books.us/suse_0002.php
Size: 4.3MB

Producing Open Source Software - How to Run a Successful Free Software Project
http://www.producingoss.com/en/producingoss.pdf
Size: 887kb

tuXlabs Cookbook
http://www.upfrontsystems.co.za/Members/jean/cookbook/tuXlab01.pdf/view
Size: 1.6MB

Free Culture
http://www.free-culture.cc/freecontent/
Size: 2.5MB

The Blender Basics
http://www.cdschools.org/54223045235521/blank/browse.asp?A=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=55205
Size: 20MB in full or 7MB in three parts

Free and Open Source Software for Development
http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=3315 or http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0808/0808.3717.pdf
Size: 733kb

The Cathedral and the Bazaar
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
Size: 196kb

LPI 101 and 102 study notes
http://www.ledge.co.za/software/lpinotes/
Size: Around 2MB per document

Configuring Ubuntu Linux Server

2009-04-03T08:06:00.006+12:00

I have always wanted to trial a Linux Server in an enterprise environment. However, not all the functionalities can be tested especially when there is no real need for evaluation and one needs users who will trial out the services, but this is not always possible since they are always busy with their daily chores.

In my office, our Library department uses a Library Management System. This system was hosted on a Windows operating-system running Apache, PHP and MYSQL, and it were installed on one of the IT staffs desktop. I wasn’t content with this setup (especially if services are hosted on users PCs), and decided to migrate this on a separate machine which hosted our Intranet.

I weighed out my options and decided to install a Linux Server on a virtual machine, which will reside on the Intranet machine. Since this machine was dedicated for Intranet services, I felt that the Library system will be safe here – at least from users who may accidentally delete or make changes to the system files which may disrupt the service.

Since I’m a big fan of Ubuntu Linux, I decided to install Ubuntu Server edition. By default most of the Linux Server editions come without any desktop environment, and Ubuntu is one of them. I’ve installed a Linux Server couple of years back, but most of the configurations were done through Webmin, which is a web-based interface for system administration for UNIX. This time I decided to configure the Server using the CLI only; this way I’ll brush up my CLI skills and gain more experience in it. Besides, there are reasons why a Server should be without a graphical user interface:

• Security – it is obvious, the more you have on your system, the more there is a risk of finding a security flaw.
• Resources – running a desktop environment on a Server is waste of resources. It should only do what it’s supposed to; that is, just to serve!

I downloaded and installed VMware Server – virtualization software suite, and after setting up the virtual machine, I installed Ubuntu Hardy Heron (8.04.2) LTS Server Edition. Thanks to Canonical for sending me the Server edition CD!

Installation

I was pretty amazed at the ease of installation of an Ubuntu Linux Server. One just needs to answer couple of questions and that’s it. However, I’ll recommend anyone new to Linux especially if they haven’t installed any Linux OS previously to read about Linux file systems and partitions. It is always a good practise to plan out which services the Server will host so that you can partition the system accordingly. Ubuntu Server comes with the options of installing preset services such as DNS, LAMP, Mail, OpenSSH, PostgreSQL database and Samba File Server – this makes life a bit easier as you are not required to install individual packages for each of the services that you want to enable.

I selected OpenSSH, Samba and LAMP services to be installed. Once the installation was complete, I logged into the Server and changed the IP address. After changing the IP address and updating the system, I logged out and SSH into the Server from my desktop. And then I was off to getting my hands dirty with all the necessary configurations using the CLI. I’ll not go into details on how to configure; Samba so that the shares can be accessible from Windows network, virtual apache Server, user permission on the Server, Library Management System, MySQL and securing apache because you can find great ‘How-To’ on the Internet.

After some time with the CLI and couple of cups of coffee, now I’ve a fully functional Library Management System, Samba, MySQL database, secured apache, SSH and firewall Server. I’m using ufw as my firewall because it is relatively easy to configure and I’m comfortable with it. I’ve also installed phpmyadmin, which is an open source tool written in PHP intended to handle the administration of MySQL over the web, because I don’t like configuring database using the CLI!

Conclusion

All in all it was a very good experience, especially the ‘feeling’ when everything works as planned. Installing a Linux Server using CLI is not complicated – I really enjoyed it. If one has the interest in Linux, he/she will be able to setup a fully functional Linux Server without too many complications. To make the experience somewhat hassle free, read some documentations on the services you’re going to configure before you embark on the journey of configuring Linux Servers. Also, it might be a good idea to have some Linux administration skills during the times of recession when most IT Professionals are mulling about moving their systems to Open-Source. I’ve learned a lot from this setup, and to keep the momentum going, I’ve installed couple of other Ubuntu Servers so that I can broaden my knowledge and test other functionalities offered by the Ubuntu Linux Server OS.