The greatest keyboards ever created are the IBM model M’s! This is not an opinion but an absolute fact to almost anyone who calls themselves a computer “hacker”. This article explains why. I have several and let me tell you.. they are wonderful. The nice part is that you can still get them at eBay for around 10 bucks!
Category: Technology
Freedom for Blogs
Good news for anyone who runs a weblog. Wired is reporting that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (no jokes please) has ruled that bloggers get protection from libel (did ya know I have a blog) because they are redistributing information for the purpose of discussion; not for profit. With all of the bad rulings that come out of the Ninth, its nice to see them make an intelligent decision once in a while.
Trusted Computing
This article from the New York Times does a pretty good job of discussing a software initiative that has many of us computer enthusiasts fairly concerned. Fundamentally it involved changing the way a computer works to “force” system conformity for content distribution. A good summary of what makes this a concern can be found in the article itself.
“Microsoft’s use of the term `trusted computing’ is a great piece of doublespeak,” said Dan Sokol, a computer engineer based in San Jose, Calif., who was one of the original members of the Homebrew Computing Club, the pioneering PC group. “What they’re really saying is, `We don’t trust you, the user of this computer.’ “
Fundamentally this “security” initiative requires that users give up a serious portion of the control they have over a computer and transfer that control to a third party (i.e. Microsoft.) Read the article and decide for yourself if it is a good thing.
Vault OS
Write Your Own OS is a short tutorial on how to write a “toy” operating system from scratch. Pretty cool way to get an understanding of how an OS does what it does. The article is designed for Windows environments.
If you are running a Unix variant then checkout Writing Your Own Toy OS (Part I), (Part II), (Part III) from Linux Gazette. Great stuff!
kconfigure
Kconfigure is a KDE program to compile the sources without the xterm or console. I am its newest developer.
Ok, my first real world development for the OS community has begun. I am now working on kconfigure (after getting the old developers permission to do it =-). ) It doesn’t look like a particularly difficult project but it DOES need some work.
My first priorities are to add checkinstall as a build option and to configure a way to use templates for known system types (i.e. Redhat 8, Suse 8.1, Mandrake 9, etc.. etc.. etc..) and have them detected and and used. This will help improve the build success rate for kconfigure.
Later ideas include adding support for the gentoo build system and Debian dpkg. It sure would be nice if we could get kconfigure to become the install shield of the *nix (build from source) world.
This is exactly the kind of application that I want to work on. It is a KDE utility (we NEED more utilities in the Linux world!), it is generally focused at newer *nix users, it gets ppl away from the command line (and is thus a perfect addition to desktop linux), its a KDE app (and regardless of what Redhat says KDE is the future of desktop Linux), and its one that could have a dramatic effect on HOW *nix is used. I hope I can do it justice.