Open Your Business to Open-Source Apps??

Plan Projects for Peanuts

A lot of open-source projects are themselves loosely managed affairs, so it's no surprise that project-planning software à la Microsoft Project isn't high on many open-source developers' priority lists. Open Workbench, however, provides many of the same features as the paid app does, and it's completely free.

It began life as the product of a commercial software company, Niku, but spun off as an open-source project when Computer Associates acquired Niku in 2005. Open Workbench's various features are similar to Microsoft Project's (although CA would argue that its operating philosophy is fundamentally different). Plus, owing to its commercial origins, Open Workbench's user interface is refreshingly polished for an open-source offering.

Where it falls short is in its upgrade path: Who knows if there even is one? The most recent version dates back to 2005, proof that its development community is virtually nonexistent. Worse, Open Workbench's collaboration features function only if you buy an expensive server product from CA. Regardless, for a single user, Open Workbench is mature project-management software that gets the job done.

Instant Messaging Everywhere

Forget proprietary IM clients with their inconsistent interfaces and built-in advertising. Pidgin can keep you connected to all of the major IM networks at once, no strings attached. Though its user interface isn't the prettiest, it allows you to connect and manage accounts with AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo, among others, and you can maintain a unified buddy list for all of them at once.

Because the developers of Pidgin don't work directly with any of the big IM providers, the client occasionally has trouble connecting when the network protocols unexpectedly change, but that's rare these days. Pidgin is mature software, and corrective fixes usually appear rapidly. Plus, its plug-in architecture allows third-party developers to deliver additional features, ranging from fun eye candy to strong encryption capabilities. Pidgin runs only on Linux and Windows, but a separate project, Adium, borrows from Pidgin's code to provide the same capabilities on Mac OS X.

Small-Business Resource Management

Enterprise resource management (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) are software categories that you usually expect to be of interest only to large companies, but even small businesses can benefit from automated management of their customers and supplies. Compiere markets an open-source ERP and CRM package that has gained a respectable following among small-business owners as well as enterprises.

The program offers modules for accounting, order entry, customer management, sales-force automation, manufacturing, materials tracking, and more. Compiere is banking that its software is full-featured and complex enough that once you start using it you'll be willing to pay for full service and support. Nevertheless, the Community Edition is fully open-source and available as a free download, so if you're ready to make the leap away from spreadsheets and paper ledgers, why not take it for a spin?

Manage Your Money While You Save It

It's not Quicken, but if you have some knowledge of accounting and are looking for finance management software that won't break the bank, GnuCash may be for you. It runs on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X, and handles accounting both for individuals and for small businesses.

Its more-advanced features include support for true double-entry accounting, as well as for small-business accounting with management of customers, vendors, and jobs. However, while GnuCash can import QIF and OFX files to allow migration from other accounting programs, it has only recently supported Windows, and the program's UI may appear spare and even confusing to people who are familiar with more user-friendly, commercial alternatives.

For example, while GnuCash allows users to create a wide variety of custom reports, doing so requires knowledge of the somewhat-unusual programming language Scheme. Ultimately, if all you want to do is balance your checkbook, this software is probably overkill. But if you have complex accounting needs, GnuCash could be the serious financial software you're looking for.

Control Your Emoticons

E-mail software provider IncrediMail found that nearly 90 percent of 10,000 survey respondents have used an emoticon, smiley face or animated character to enhance an e-mail. For some, emoticons are still the mark of an unprofessional, lazy e-mailer.

"It's like wearing shorts to a business meeting," says Jeremy Brandt, founder of FastHomeOffer.com, a marketing and lead-generation firm for residential real estate investors. "If you're lazy in your e-mails, are you going to be lazy in your business dealings, too?"

Others take a situational tack: The propriety depends on the relationship between e-mailer and e-mailee. Thirty-five-year-old Jared Smith, co-founder of Tempe, Arizona-based BlueMedia, a vehicle wrap and large-format graphics firm with 2007 sales of about $5.8 million, finds that with some work relationships, emoticons make sense: "We have clients who want to have lunch and know how your kids are doing. I've found myself putting a smiley face at the end of [an] e-mail to convey the emotion necessary to build that rapport." But he's careful to keep it all business with more formal contacts.

Will Schwalbe agrees that it's all about reading cues. "You should never [use emoticons] in your first communication with someone," says Schwalbe, who co-wrote Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home with David Shipley.

"If you consistently use emoticons and the person you're writing to doesn't, that's their way of telling you you're probably being too casual." Schwalbe also advises never to use emoticons sarcastically or in formal situations, such as in an e-mail to a banker, compliance officer or attorney.

Data Portability: Reasonable Goal or Impossible Dream?

It's hard to argue against data portability. After all, who could oppose giving people control over the data they load, publish and store on Web sites?

This is particularly timely now that average users have started feeling the "network fatigue" that comes from maintaining multiple social-networking profiles, e-mail accounts, blogs, address book applications, social-news-sites memberships and the like.

And yet, while it is an important and unquestionably worthy endeavor, data portability faces thorny challenges in areas such as technology, privacy, security, business, and regulation and legislation.

Workgroup Confers, Shares

An informed and articulate discussion of these challenges can be found on the online forum of the DataPortability Workgroup, an organization founded recently to highlight the work that multiple data portability groups have been doing and to create a technical blueprint for vendors to adopt.

While the workgroup has about 50 formal members, anyone can join the discussion forum, which now has more than 700 participants and is the workgroup's main meeting place.

Activity on the forum has been engaging in recent weeks, as people discuss technical and nontechnical issues, offer up suggestions, ask questions, argue and, mostly, cheer each other on in their collective quest for a satisfactory data portability solution.

Almost 80 discussion threads have been started and more than 400 messages posted, as participants ponder issues such as the parameters for user data, what data portability truly means, who owns data already created for a specific site, and whether making data portable is illegal in Europe.

Other threads focus on how to bring together various data portability efforts already under way, like the Friend of a Friend project (FOAF), OpenID, Attention Profiling Mark-up Language (APML), the Liberty Alliance and various open data microformats.

Optimistic about Solutions

Despite the magnitude of the endeavor, participants interviewed feel optimistic that the workgroup will yield concrete results that will bring about industry-wide implementations of data portability solutions.

"Where there is a will, there's a way. And so far it seems like everyone has thrown their will behind the project. Now they need to find a way," said Chris Saad, cofounder of the DataPortability Workgroup, in an e-mail interview.

The DataPortability Workgroup positions itself at a higher conceptual level than the groups working to develop specific technical standards for data portability.

"Our goal is to highlight, not compete [with], the work of other groups, and to encourage the adoption of their work with vendors and users," Saad said.

The workgroup's main accomplishment so far, Saad said, is that it brought people to the table and started to outline the documents it plans to deliver, chief among which will be the DataPortability Technical Blueprint, envisioned as a key reference document for a complete implementation architecture for the data portability stack of standards.

Eager for Answers

John Breslin is a workgroup supporter who sees it as having a lot of synergy with the Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities Project (SIOC), which he founded in 2004 to provide methods for interconnecting discussion services such as blogs, forums and mailing lists to each other.

"SIOC is a data format essentially to describe communities. It has many different possible applications, of which data portability is one," Breslin, a lecturer and researcher at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute of the National University of Ireland in Galway, said in a phone interview.

Victor Coustenoble shares a similar belief. He co-founded with Edwin Taylor the OSocial.net project to let people see their social-networking data in an open, portable way and let them securely build a friends list across site boundaries without the need for new registrations.

"About our participation, we are very interested to implement and use data portability ideas and specifications. It helps us to write applications easily for data management with standards and with a community support, which is very important for us," Coustenoble said in an e-mail interview.

For Devin Holloway, the workgroup could yield historic results. He plans to move from Silicon Valley to Asia to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities where social networks, mobile phones and Internet technologies intersect.

"[Data portability] will pave the way for a future rich in services and applications that harness our aggregate data to help improve our lives, in virtually every aspect. The [workgroup] is onto something that is going to change the world, and I'm excited to be a part of the process," he said in an e-mail interview.

Vendor Interest Minimal

Unfortunately, the enthusiasm, commitment and passion displayed by participants, many of whom are acting as individual volunteers, hasn't so far been replicated by the major Internet players.

While the decisions by Google and Facebook to become members put the workgroup in a news spotlight, their representatives don't seem to have yet participated in the forum discussions. Google and Facebook also declined to have their workgroup representatives be interviewed for this article. Each separately sent a brief, prepared statement saying that they want to participate in the group because they're committed to data portability.

This isn't new. The CEOs of both companies at different times have said that their companies believe in data portability, and yet, neither them nor any other major Internet company can be said to have taken a leadership role in this effort.

"I haven't seen anything convincing from the big Internet companies that illustrates that they want to embrace this wholeheartedly," Breslin said. "These sites haven't really been rushing to make their data portable yet."

"We are yet to see if they are fully committed. So far they have only committed to the conversation," said Saad, who is also CEO of Faraday Media in Australia and cofounder of the APML Workgroup. "That being said, however, it's encouraging to see them take the first few steps in the right direction,"

This isn't a minor point. The DataPortability Workgroup and the other technical organizations could come up with fantastic solutions, but if the major Internet players -- and in particular the major social-networking sites -- don't adopt them, data portability will not become a reality for end-users. MySpace, Friendster, LinkedIn and Bebo did not reply to requests for comment for this story.

Portable or Piracy?

Maybe these Internet companies aren't truly convinced that data portability will be good for their businesses. In what some viewed as an example of words being inconsistent with actions, Facebook recently booted from its social network the well-known technology blogger Robert Scoble.

Scoble's crime? He exported his contacts data in his Facebook account over to Plaxo's address book management service, Pulse. No can do, Facebook said, explaining that Plaxo's tool violated Facebook's terms of service and posed a security risk because it "scraped" the data from the social network. Scoble's account was later reinstated, but under the condition he doesn't do this again.

If you operate a social-networking site -- or any site where people create an account or profile, list contacts and post content -- a way to discourage them from switching to a competitor is to make it hard or impossible for them to easily export and reuse that data elsewhere.

Yet, proponents of data portability like Saad say that things are starting to change, and that Facebook, MySpace, Google and others need to wise up if they don't want to fall into disfavor with their users.

What has changed is that these "social" sites have reached mainstream status, and a critical mass of users have realized the inconvenience of having to reenter and update a lot of the same information and content in multiple "social" sites and applications.

"As more and more applications start to feel the impact of social features, users will begin to demand a data portability solution. Either that or network fatigue will reduce adoption and eventually kill the fun," Saad said.

For example, a concrete result of data portability could be a console-like management application where a person could manage his address book contacts, photos, videos, social news entries, social bookmarks and blog posts. With that application, the user would be able to share data between multiple social applications, sites and services.

Unlike other vendors, Plaxo is heavily involved in data portability discussions and efforts, precisely because its Pulse service has been designed to help people manage their dispersed contacts data across address books, sites and e-mail accounts.

"By making data portable, you're enabling all these tools to work together. The user can be the hub and the different services can be spokes. That's what we're pushing for: users in control of the data and interoperability among the services," said Joseph Smarr, Plaxo's chief platform architect.

Proprietary vs. Portable

Ultimately, the problem represents an opportunity for Internet companies. "In the end, whoever moves first to be truly open will have the advantage," Saad said.

J. Trent Adams, founder and chief innovator at Matchmine, another vendor pushing for data portability, concurs. A stealthy startup could develop a clever application or service built on data portability standards and force other vendors to respond. "All of a sudden it's the right idea, and the big boys will have to react," Adams said.

In other words, Internet companies who insist on locking up their users' data to protect their businesses might soon find themselves instead stuck in the mud.

EU Offers Translation Resource to Developers

Coders can get free access to a database of translations of 22 EU languages, to help improve software.

The European Commission is offering translation software developers free access to around one million sentences translated between 22 of the European Union's 23 official languages. It hopes the data will help improve the quality of a variety of language tools, including grammar and spelling checkers, online dictionaries and machine translators -- particularly in less well-served languages such as Latvian or Romanian.

The sentences are mostly drawn from the "Acquis Communautaire," the body of law that must be implemented by all new E.U. member states, and include the treaties, directives and regulations adopted by the E.U., and rulings from the European Court of Justice.

Translated by professional translators, they cover topics such as IT, telecommunications, labor law, agriculture and fishing.

The translations form part of the "translation memory" used by the Commission's permanent staff of 1,750 translators, and are matched up, sentence by sentence, in each of the 22 languages, and are tagged with subject classifications.

The matching and tagging makes the sentences especially useful for developers of statistical machine translation software, who must amass a corpus of thousands of matched sentences in the languages between which they wish to translate, so that they can calculate the most likely translation for any given expression. Since the matching of sentences has already been done, they will save time -- and the immense size of the Acquis Communautaire will help them make their calculations more accurate.

Until now, developers have typically resorted to scouring the Web for texts translated into several languages, and using other software tools to make a guess at where sentences start and end in order to match them up.

While the release of the data will benefit software developers, the Commission is not being entirely altruistic: it hopes that the availability of better, cheaper automated translation software will help speakers of the E.U.'s minority languages by giving them access to online information currently available only in the more widely spoken languages.

Interested developers can download the texts from the Web site of the Commission's Directorate General of Translation. They will also need the text extraction program and its library

AGP vs PCI Express??

AGP is short for Accelerated Graphics Port. As the name suggests AGP ports are dedicated to graphics. AGP ports are unique, in that they are the only expansion slot found inside a computer that works for only one purpose. The AGP channel is 32 bits wide and runs at 66Mhz for a total available bandwidth of 133 MBps (Megabytes per second). AGP ports give the graphics card direct access to system memory to speed performance and allows the video card to store data directly in system memory.

PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) Express is a scalable I/O (Input/Output) serial bus technology set to replace parallel PCI bus which came standard on motherboards manufactured from the early 1990s through 2004. In the latter part of 2004 PCI Express slots began appearing alongside standard slots, starting a gradual transition.

Intel first introduced PCI technology in 1991 to replace the ISA/EISA bus. It was later taken over by The PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) who revised the protocol in 1993. Although robust enough to last over a decade, total available bandwidth of just 133 MB/ps shared between slots meant that high demand devices quickly saturated resources. In 1997 this problem was partially alleviated by implementation of a separate AGP slot (Accelerated Graphics Port) with dedicated bandwidth. Other steps were also taken at the chip level along with integrated components, which helped to extend PCI's viability. However, with the advent of SATA, RAID, Gigabyte Ethernet and other high-demand devices, a new architecture was required.

Intel answered with PCI Express, or PCIe for short.

5 Cool Cell Phone Accessories

Having a flashy phone just isn't enough anymore. These add-ons will help you chat and listen to your tunes in style.

A cell phone is no longer just a cell phone. With the ability to surf the Web, pump out tunes, and play full-length movies and TV shows, mobile phones have become more than miniature long-distance walkie-talkies. But as cell phones become more sophisticated, so do the gaggle of accessories dedicated to enhancing their functionality. We dug up five cool new add-ons--some of which are coming out in the next few months--that can help you make the most of your Treo, iPhone, BlackBerry, Walkman phone, or whatever model you're toting around in your back pocket these days.

1. Speak and Stream

If your cell phone can handle stereo Bluetooth streaming, you are probably on the lookout for different ways to pipe music to your earholes. At first glance, the MotoRokr T505 looks like your basic in-car speakerphone. Clip it to the visor of your car, and you can answer calls, dial by voice, and chat hands-free while driving. But besides handling phone conversations, the T505 can stream music to your car's stereo system via its FM transmitter, if your phone supports A2DP stereo Bluetooth (the T505 can also stream phone calls from any ol' Bluetooth phone). A cool StationFinder feature helps you locate the ideal FM frequency for broadcasting your tunes and for talking with as little interference as possible.

2. iPhone Converter

I've got a perfectly sweet pair of Sennheiser earphones sitting on my shelf; and yet, when tuning in to my iPhone, I remain bound to the standard-issue earbuds. (Thanks, Apple, for that overly narrow headset jack opening.) Griffin's new $20 SmartTalk kills two birds with one stone, letting you use your favorite set of headphones to listen to music and to answer calls on your iPhone. Equipped with a skinny connector that easily shimmies into the iPhone's headset port, the SmartTalk allows you to jack in your own set of earphones for what's sure to be better sound than what you get from Apple's buds. And thanks to a small control module (complete with mic), the SmartTalk also gives you power over your music and calls. You can play, pause, and skip between tunes, as well as answer a call or send it to voicemail if you're more in the mood to groove than to chat.

3. Sleek Headset

Describing a headset as "sexy" is kinda like calling braces "cool." The two words just don't mix. Yet Jabra's latest is, indeed, one sexy hunk of metal. Introduced at CES, the JX20 Pura is the follow-up to the company's stylish but aging JX10. Crafted by acclaimed European industrial designer Jacob Jensen, who has devised numerous products for Bang & Olufsen, the JX20 Pura exudes luxury from every brushed anodized titanium pore. Weighing in at less than half an ounce, the $179 Pura (due out in May 2008) comes with a matching desk stand, two different ear-hook sizes, and your pick of ear-gel inserts (various sizes and shapes) so you can find the most comfortable fit. The headset lasts for about 6 hours of talk time on one charge, and the earpiece itself rotates to power the device on or off, thereby preserving the minimalist design.

4. Uber Charger

For gadget fiends, packing for a trip is like preparing a picnic lunch for a group of kids with different food allergies. There's a lot to keep track of, and inevitably you forget something vital (cell phone charger, gluten-free bread, etc.). The Chargepod, from Callpod, simplifies things.

This $50 dongle sports six charging stations, so you can juice all of your portable electronics from one outlet, without having to lug a tangle of cables and chargers in your carry-on bag. Besides the springing for the Chargepod itself, you'll have to invest in adapters for your various gadgets. At $10 a pop, they're not cheap, but adapters are available for a multitude of devices, including iPods and iPhones; most brands of cell phone; Sony and Nintendo gaming handhelds; and Bluetooth headsets from companies like Jabra, Plantronics, and Motorola. If you don't mind spending the dough, it's a great way to lighten your load.

5. Sweet Speaker

Who says you have to play your mobile music through a tin-can-quality cell phone speaker? Samsung's YA-BS900 wireless speaker, due out in March 2008, will jump you to the opposite extreme, pumping out great-sounding tunes from your cell (or Bluetooth-equipped MP3 player) through its trio of high-end 10-watt speakers. Samsung also touts the speaker's "three-channel surround sound," which is supposed to make you feel as though you're standing at the center of your music. A 2008 CES Innovations award winner, the BS900 comes with a remote control, and line-in and USB ports for hooking up other music sources. It also allows you to turn down the volume if you get a call, and it can turn itself on whenever you walk by it with a paired device in hand. Though Samsung hasn't yet settled on a price for the speaker, the BS900 is unlikely to be a bargain when it arrives--but what other device even knows when you're in the room?

E-mail Marketing Resolutions

The arrival of a new year can help motivate us to set goals that prompt great results. While eating healthy and getting more exercise are admirable New Year's resolutions, I'm thinking about something a little different: making the most of your e-mail marketing efforts.

Why not set a goal to reach your personal best as an e-mail marketer in 2008? This month I'm highlighting some e-mail marketing best practices to help you get started.

I encourage you to pick at least one that you aren't doing and hold steadfastly to it this year. By doing so, you will find that e-mail marketing can make even more of a positive impact on your business or organization than it has so far.

1. Grow your list at every turn. Every day there are opportunities to add someone to your e-mail list. Train yourself and those you work with to take advantage of every opportunity to grow your list.

If you haven't added a sign-up box to your website, now's the time. If you have a store front, keep your e-mail book on the counter and ask every customer to sign it. Consider setting a goal to grow your list by a certain percentage this year.

2. Spend more time on e-mails. If you want your e-mails to be valued by those on your list, put more time into them. Are you giving yourself enough time to think about what you're trying to accomplish? Are you giving your best effort to creating content that is interesting and useful to your list members?

Do you have great ideas for e-mail promotions that you haven't put to work yet? Let this year be the year. The little bit of extra time and energy you spend on creating your e-mails can get a big return.
3. Keep a clean list. Doesn't it feel great to sleep in clean sheets, eat in a clean kitchen or put on a clean shirt? We love when things are clean, but it takes work to get them that way. It's the same with your e-mail list.

It might take some work to get rid of old e-mails and hunt down the issues for those being blocked, but it's worth it. And once you've spent the time to do a deep cleaning, the upkeep is easy. Make it your goal to give a little bit of time to list cleaning each month so you can get that good feeling that comes from having a sparkling list made up of people who want to hear from you.

4. Test, test, test. Testing is the best way to determine what you can do to get optimal results from your audience. By testing, you can learn what day and time of day to send, what subject lines get the most opens, and what topics, promotions, offers, and calls-to-action get the best responses. Your open and click-through rates will give you the answers. By testing and using your findings you'll be better equipped to create highly effective e-mails. Make sure to take good notes.

5. Segment your list. Dividing your list into categories based on interests, shopping habits, geographical locations or any other criteria you choose is an excellent goal for this year. Targeted marketing can make a huge difference in the responses you get from your e-mails.

If you can communicate with your contacts about something that you know is of interest to them, you have a much better chance of getting them to open the e-mail, read it and act on it. The more targeted the message, the better the response.

I hope that one--or all, if you are ambitious--of these resolutions works for you. Tap into the potential of e-mail marketing and let this be the year that you reap the best results ever. Happy e-mail marketing!

Mozilla Says Flaw Could Lead to Data Leak...

Mozilla works to fix a Firefox browser flaw that could give attackers unauthorized access to data on a victim's PC.

Mozilla is working to fix a browser flaw that could give attackers unauthorized access to data on a victim's machine.

The problem is similar to other data leakage flaws found in the open-source browser, according to researcher Gerry Eisenhaur, who first reported the problem on Saturday.

Eisenhaur has posted sample code that reads the contents of a Mozilla Thunderbird preferences file, but he believes that attackers could get access to more information with variations on his attack. "It's possible to load any JavaScript file on a victim's machine," he wrote in his blog posting. "This looks very interesting and may have bigger potential, but for now, it's just another information disclosure [flaw]."

"It could become something more if there was an application that stored sensitive data inside JavaScript files," he said via instant message. "Some plugins have been known to store usernames and passwords."

"Its also just a powerful way to do recon," he added.

Hackers have discovered a number of flaws in recent months that take advantage of the way that browsers pass information between different components within the Windows operating system. Some of these URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) protocol handler flaws have led to serious security problems for both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

This latest flaw affects only certain Firefox add-ons, such as the Download Statusbar or Greasemonkey, which store scripts in a fashion that lets them be discovered on the hard drive, said Window Snyder, Mozilla's security chief in a Wednesday blog posting.

Firefox is investigating the issue and has rated it as a low-severity problem, she said.

Attack Against Linux Apache Servers Intensifying...

A mass attack ongoing for the past month against Linux Apache Web servers has become increasingly successful because its break-in method makes use of an automated password and installation process, according to a security researcher monitoring its progress.

Don Jackson, senior security sesearcher at SecureWorks, says the attack, which was first thought to have compromised several hundred Web sites, has hit at least 10,000. He says the attack relies on making use of stolen passwords to Linux Apache servers by automating the installation process to force it to serve up attacks against vulnerabilities on Windows clients.

"The Web server ends up serving up vulnerabilities from 2006 related to Windows malware," Jackson says. "The whole attack is very mysterious. It's based on a botnet but it doesn't match the Russian and Chinese groups and may be Western Europe or North American."

The attack, which makes use of the well-known Rbot and Sdbot malware, targets at least nine software vulnerabilities associated with QuickTime exploits, AOL SuperBuddy and Yahoo! Messenger to try and compromise Windows-based desktops. SecureWorks says most antivirus vendors can detect the malware.

The ingenuity is that the attacker has managed to install code that modifies Apache memory to monitor requests and inject the script tag, script contents or the Rbot executable, according to SecureWorks. Some Linux Apache network managers are finding it hard to clean their servers of the attack code, he notes.

For the infection to work, the dynamic-module loading feature in Linux Apache must be enabled, which is the default. To protect against the attack, Linux Apache network managers should disable "dynamic module," Jackson says, adding, "However, this isn't a fix for everyone" because some servers actively depend on this feature.

Jackson says he is aware there is "proof-of-concept code" for a similar attack based on automated stolen-password and malware installation for Microsoft's Internet Information Server, but he hasn't seen it come into broad use the way the automated Linux Apache server attack is spreading.

New D language pumps up programmer productivity..

Is it possible to have the performance of C and C++ and the programmer productivity of modern programming languages such as Ruby and Python in a single language? That is the question Walter Bright, the author of the Zortech C++ compiler and the Digital Mars C/C++ compiler, asked himself when creating a successor to C++: Digital Mars D, a practical programming language first released exactly one year ago that helps you get the job done quickly.

Why create a new programming language? Because C++ is complicated and expensive to implement. Most C++ programmers get accustomed to using certain feature sets and never touch any others, because it is too hard to remember them all. This is not a problem for the compiler, but for other programmers trying to read the code it can be, because they might be used to other feature sets. D avoids this problem, because it was hugely simplified without removing important features. But that is not the only benefit D has.

One goal of D is to reduce software development costs by at least 10% by adding productivity-enhancing features and adjusting the language to eliminate time-consuming bugs. D supports imperative, structured, object-oriented, and generic programming paradigms. It should be relatively easy for C and C++ programmers to learn D, because it is very similar to C/C++. D is compatible with the local C application binary interface, which means that you can call C functions such as printf in D, but D is not compatible with C or C++ source code. D retains C++'s ability to do low-level coding, which is necessary for writing device drivers and operating systems. D has adopted a large number of helpful features from Java and C#, such as a garbage collector (although manual memory management is still possible).

A few months ago, when I began thinking about learning D, I thought it would take me a long time to learn, but I was wrong. Before learning D I did a little bit of Java programming, and found D to be similar. However, one problem about learning D today is a lack of good tutorials for people who have never programmed in C or C++.

There are two compilers for D: DMD and GDC. The former is the official compiler, and is 100% true to the standard of the D language and has a proprietary back end that converts the code to assembly code. The latter, GDC, uses the free front end of D and the back end of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). It is, unlike DMD, not yet 100% true to the standard, because the GDC developers have to catch up every time DMD gets new features. GDC runs on Linux, Mac OS X, Cygwin, FreeBSD, AIX, and MinGW. To make it compatible with other operating systems, the developers have to modify D's garbage collector to support those systems. This is not a lot of work and only has to be done once for each system, but so far it has been done only for the abovementioned operating systems.

On DSource, which is similar to SourceForge.net but only for D programs, you can already find several open source D projects, ranging from system libraries to GUI libraries to server programs and normal applications. For anyone wanting to help out with an open source D project, this is the place to look. The site also has a few tutorials and a forum for every D project on the site, where you can ask for help and talk to project leaders.

Several integrated development environments (IDE) support D, including Anjuta, Codeblocks, and Eclipse. You can find D plugins for text editors and IDEs on either DSource or Prowiki.

My favourite editor/IDE for D is leds, a "light editor for D." Leds is written in D, and its source code can be found on DSource. It features syntax highlighting, a syntax error checker, and build support from inside leds. I have not been able to build the latest version from source, because I always get core dumps and other errors, so I use the precompiled version, which sadly is quite old and does not have all the new features.

If you plan to write GUI programs in D, I advise you to use GtkD, a D language binding for GTK+. It works with Glade, a visual GUI designer for GTK+, which is a big bonus for me, as it makes GUI creation much easier and faster than writing the code by hand. Other GUI libraries, such as a port of the Java/Eclipse library SWT, a binding for wxWidgets, and some more, are available on DSource.

On the down side, due to the fact that D has been around for such a short time, there is a lack of tutorials and support.

Overall, D is a great new language. I hope it will become what it was intended to be -- a successor of C++. For anyone thinking about learning a new programming language, I would seriously recommend D, although it is advisable for people with no prior programming experience to start learning programming with another, easier language, such as Delphi or Java.

Are Cell Phone Health Issues Really Settled?

The FDA recommends broader studies of the effects of RF energy and general cell use, especially on children.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers should study more children and pregnant women in trying to figure out if cell phones or other wireless devices could damage health, the U.S. National Research Council has advised.

A few studies have indicated a possible link between mobile telephone use and brain tumors, although far more show no connection. But because wireless devices have become almost ubiquitous, researchers wants to ensure their safety.

The Food and Drug Administration asked the National Research Council to recommend some future lines of study. The Council, which advises Congress and the federal government on scientific matters, held a meeting of experts including engineers and biologists and has now released the full report.

Most studies have looked only at short-term effects on healthy adults, the report said.

RF Exposure Concerns

More study needs to be done on multiple, long-term, low-intensity radiofrequency (RF) exposure, the report said.

"Measuring the amount of RF energy received by juveniles, children, pregnant women, and fetuses from wireless devices and RF base station antennas could help define exposure ranges for various populations," the council said in a statement.

"Although it is unknown whether children are more susceptible to RF exposure, they may be at increased risk because of their developing organ and tissue systems," it added.

"Additionally, Specific Absorption Rates for children are likely to be higher than for adults, because exposure wavelength is closer to the whole-body resonance frequency for shorter individuals."

The report also notes that children today will experience a longer period of RF field exposure from mobile phones than adults, because they will most likely start using them at an early age.

Researchers should also analyze the different types of antennas for the amount of RF energy they deliver to different parts of the body.

Writers Strike Sends Viewers to DVDs, Video Games...

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The Hollywood writers strike looks like a boon for the DVD and video game industries.

According to a survey released Thursday from new-media consultancy company Interpret, TV viewership has suffered because of the strike, particularly for dramas and sitcoms. Interpret finds that 27% of respondents are spending less time watching network series and 12% are watching less cable and satellite series.

Conversely, 43% of respondents say they are spending more time watching DVD movies and 23% say they're watching more TV-DVDs. Another 26% say they are spending more time playing video games.

"The strike makes scripted programming more valuable than ever," Interpret CEO Michael Dowling said. "As top shows disappear from primetime, viewers may go back and view critically lauded TV series they missed the first time around, play more video games or watch more movies on DVD."

The survey, conducted online January 11-12 among a representative sample of Americans 18-49, the demographic coveted by advertisers, also found that 94% of Americans are aware of the writers strike and that about one-third have changed their media consumption habits as a result.

What is BIOS?

Acronym for basic input/output system, the built-in software that determines what a computer can do without accessing programs from a disk. On PCs, the BIOS contains all the code required to control the keyboard, display screen, disk drives, serial communications, and a number of miscellaneous functions.

The BIOS is typically placed in a ROM chip that comes with the computer (it is often called a ROM BIOS). This ensures that the BIOS will always be available and will not be damaged by disk failures. It also makes it possible for a computer to boot itself. Because RAM is faster than ROM, though, many computer manufacturers design systems so that the BIOS is copied from ROM to RAM each time the computer is booted. This is known as shadowing.

Many modern PCs have a flash BIOS, which means that the BIOS has been recorded on a flash memory chip, which can be updated if necessary.

The PC BIOS is fairly standardized, so all PCs are similar at this level (although there are different BIOS versions). Additional DOS functions are usually added through software modules. This means you can upgrade to a newer version of DOS without changing the BIOS.

PC BIOSes that can handle Plug-and-Play (PnP) devices are known as PnP BIOSes, or PnP-aware BIOSes. These BIOSes are always implemented with flash memory rather than ROM.

Researchers Use Camera Phone as a Mouse...

Their software loads camera phones with mouse capabilities, allowing users to swivel the phone to scroll or move items on a PC screen.

Researchers in the U.K. have developed software that loads camera phones with mouse capabilities, allowing users to swivel a camera phone to scroll or move items on a PC screen.

While the software is in its infancy, the technology could enable people to use camera phones to scroll public displays to get further information on products or purchase items like plane tickets.

Communicating with a PC via Bluetooth wireless technology, users can either move the cell phone or use a stylus on the cell phone's screen to also scroll through a computer screen, said Patrick Olivier, an associate professor at Newcastle University. Olivier is working on developing the technology with researchers Nick Pears of York University and Dan Jackson of Newcastle University.

One of the original goals was to interact with larger public displays to, for example, buy movie and train tickets and interact with advertising displays, although the applications of this technology are limitless, the researchers said.

For example, users will be able to scroll through large display screens in a real-estate agency, even though there could be glass window in between, Pears said.

After communicating a cell phone's field of view through a live camera feed to a computer via Bluetooth, the PC establishes the coordinates of its monitor which it sends to a camera phone. Once the camera phone registers the image on the cell phone and recognizes the display coordinates set by the PC through image processing technology, the computer knows exactly what the phone can see, which sets the stage to scroll a PC.

Users can then move the phone or use a stylus on a touch-screen to scroll a PC or move items. The PC and camera phone work together to continuously reposition a PC monitor's coordinates as the phone moves, allowing the cell phone to scroll a PC from any position in a room.

The researchers have developed the software for the Symbian and Windows Mobile OSes for PDAs (personal digital assistants) and camera phones, the researchers said.

While the technology holds promise, it is still under development and multiple issues are being addressed, Pears said.

"The image capture and image processing rate on the cell phone is quite slow and so you can not move the cell phone as quickly as you would like to. This is what we would like to address in our next prototype," Pears said.

What is Open Source?

Open source is a set of principles and practices on how to write software. Literally “open source” means the source code is available to the users. The Open Source Definition, which was created by Bruce Perens and Eric Raymond and is currently maintained by the Open Source Initiative, adds additional meaning to the term. One should not only get the source code but also have the right to use it. If the latter is denied the license is categorized as a shared source license.

How to Repair the Boot Sector?

If XP won't start it may be due to a damaged boot sector or a missing or corrupt ntldr or ntdetect.com files.

To replace damaged ntldr and ntdetect.com you can copy fresh files from the XP CD using the COPY command. Boot with the XP CD and enter the Recovery Console (as above). At the Command Prompt type the following (where "E" is your CD-Rom drive letter) allowing the files to overwrite the old files
COPY E:\i386\NTLDR C:
COPY E:\i386\NTDETECT.COM C:

To repair a damaged Boot Sector at the command prompt type FIXBOOT and press Enter. Then answer "Y"

Select a Host for Your E-Commerce Site

If you plan to set up an e-commerce site to sell products and/or services, choosing a service to host your site is one of your most important decisions.

What factors should you consider? Which capabilities are most important?

Hosting Service Uptime

Here's an example of what can go wrong. One of my clients was plagued with a Web site that went down two or three evenings a week. I investigated and discovered that his hosting company's Web server was stored in the closet of a local IT services firm. If a glitch developed during the evening or on the weekend, no one could resolve it until staff returned to the office the next business day.

You'll want your Web server's operations monitored 24/7 by on-site technicians who can fix any problems that arise. The most economical way to achieve this objective is to run your site on a server located in a major data center. The data center may maintain hundreds or thousands of servers, and each machine could host many e-commerce sites suitable for small businesses. A large data center can afford around-the-clock staffing because the cost is borne by thousands of business Web sites.

Your e-commerce site should be available to potential customers at all times, so "uptime"--usually expressed as a percentage of the time a site is accessible on the Internet--is important. A good hosting service should be able to consistently deliver an uptime of 99.8 percent or better each month. That translayes into less than 90 minutes of downtime per month. Calculation of this statistic should take into account all downtime, including network outages and scheduled maintenance for server software upgrades, reboots, and the like.

A good Web host should be willing to provide you with recent uptime statistics for the server it will use to host your site. I also recommend that you independently monitor the uptime of your Web site after you select your hosting service. Basic State provides a free uptime monitoring service which checks the availability of your Web site every 15 minutes and alerts you when it's down. Basic State also lists the recent uptime statistics for a number of popular e-commerce sites.

Programming Language and Database Support

Only the most basic e-commerce sites rely on plain HTML Web pages these days. If you sell an array of products and services, you'll need a database, such as MySQL, to store the details. You'll also need a host that supports a programming language such as PHP for running the shopping cart that enables your customers to select your products and services for purchase.

Your host should offer a control panel for administering your site, making it easier for you to track site visitors and manage e-mail accounts. Many control panels offer easy installation of various open-source Web applications, which may be handy to some Webmasters, but I prefer to get an app directly from its source Web site. Doing so ensures that I'm working with the most recent version of the app and have access to all available support resources.

SSL and Dedicated IP Address

To keep your customers' data secure, sensitive information, such as credit card details, should be encrypted prior to being sent from a customer's Web browser to your e-commerce site's order form. That way, your customers won't be at risk if a snoop happens to pick up the data along the route. Installing a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate on your site will support encryption and authenticate your business identity to your customer--an important safeguard at a time when phony phishing sites abound.

You may purchase an SSL Certificate for an annual fee from your host or from a third party, such as VeriSign. Your SSL certificate must be installed on a Web site hosted on a dedicated IP address (one that is not shared with any other site); most consumer ISP services assign IP addresses dynamically, which is one reason why running a Web-based business from your home isn't a great idea. Most hosts can install the certificate for you and give you a dedicated IP address, though these extras are likely to add a few dollars to your monthly service fee.

Account Capacity

Most shared hosting services offer several packages, each with a maximum data-storage capacity and a cap on monthly data transmission (often erroneously referred to as "bandwidth"). On a shared host, your site may share one server's resources with hundreds of other sites. A shared hosting account is probably adequate to start with, if your site is new.

If you're running a busy and established e-commerce site, you may need more server resources than a shared hosting service can provide without compromising the performance of its other customers' sites. One step up from a shared host is a Virtual Private Server. A VPS dedicates a range of memory, storage capacity, and data transmission for your site. Typically a VPS server contains far fewer sites than a shared host.

If your e-commerce site continues to grow, you may want to host it on a dedicated server--one which handles your site and no others. A dedicated server may be either managed or unmanaged. Managed services normally include software and update installations, improved security, and monitoring for performance problems. With an unmanaged server, you handling these tasks on your own.

Monthly Costs

The monthly fee that your hosting service charges should be competitive--but an unusually low fee for comparable capacity and services is a red flag. It may mean that the service is cramming so many clients on a server that it won't be able to provide good performance. Also, a bargain-basement host may spread its support staff too thin to respond to special problems promptly when they occur.

Avoid hosts that promise unlimited disk capacity and data transmission for $5 per month, for example. They can't deliver on that promise, since there's no such thing as a hard drive with unlimited capacity.

Monthly fees for a good shared-hosting service should start at about $10 per month. Managed dedicated servers start at several hundred dollars and may cost more than a thousand dollars a month, depending on the hardware and services offered. The cost of a VPS account will fall somewhere in the middle.

This is not the place to cut corners. A solid Web host, with reliable uptime and the services you need, will provide a solid foundation on which to build your online business.

Both PC World and I are not responsible for any of your actions!

Recently, I stumbled upon HackThisSite, a website that provides scenarios and basic tests to examine the skills of a hacker. You do have to register in order to test yourself, but let me tell you, it is worth it. The easiest basic tests on the site require at least some knowledge of the web, HTML, and how the HTTP protocol works.

The site is divided into seven sections: basic, realistic, application, programing, logic, extbasic, and JavaScript missions. In order to gain access to the harder missions, one must complete the easier, lower-level missions. I'd imagine that some of the beginner missions would be annoying for experienced hackers, as they were even a bit annoying for me, and I'm not calling myself a Kevin Mitnick!

Many of the basic missions require beginner-skills, like view source, POST and GET knowledge, and JavaScript. If you don't know these things, learn them, because you'll need them. HackThisSite also suggests using Firefox (and so do I), as it is better suited for hacking than Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Now, before you run off to the website and expect to be made a hacker in five minutes, I'm going to tell you something very important if you want to become a hacker: you just don't “become” a hacker overnight. You have to keep up with the news in the technological world, know a decent amount about computer security, respect others (that's very important), be willing to share ideas, speak almost flawless English, and you should not be a complete idiot. If you are already one, then forget about hacking. And hackers never talk in L33T. It's amateurish.

Also, if you expect to become a hacker, you have to learn to not be afraid of anything. Be fearless. I know it sounds corny, but sometimes you have to live on the edge. I'm no Jack Bauer, but I know that you have to do things that normal people wouldn't do. Do things people don't want you to do. Think outside of the box. Be a MacGyver. And when you finally reach the experience level where you can have an educated conversation with other hackers, you will feel pretty good. But only if they're not making fun of you.

And if you want to become a hacker because you want to spy on people you don't like, or hack a bully's MySpace, forget it. Real hackers don't respect people like this. I've seen it, and it's actually kinda funny. And if you know very little about computers, hackers will just make fun of you right and left. One time, I was on a web forum, and someone asked how they could hide their HTML code from view source. The response he got was to place the code in the “noview” HTML tags. And if you even try this, I feel bad for you.

So there you go. Basically, I just explained where you can train to become a better hacker, and how you can become a hacker. Oh, you should also know how to program, and have a Linux or Unix computer. Windows is the worst OS

What is Linux Operating System

What is Linux?

Linux is an operating system that behaves and performs similarly to the Unix operating system that was developed by AT&T Bell Labs. It has all of the features of a modern operating system like true multitasking, threads, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand loading, copy on write executables, proper memory management, loadable device driver modules, video buffering and TCP/IP networking.

Linux was originally written for Intel 80386 processor based PC’s but now also includes 80486 processor and all Pentium chips currently on the market. Now, there are many other ports developed to handle other hardware platforms such as Amiga, Atari and iMac ports.

The operating system

What is an operating system? An operating system is a collection of programs and configuration files that works collectively to make your system operate. Everything from the output to the display screen, keyboard input, controlling peripheral devices and to the way the desktop looks is all part of the operating system. Any additional programs installed on your computer will be depended on the operating system for certain files called libraries to function properly. It is the most important program that can run on your computer.

There is not much to an operating system. It’s pretty plain without the programs, however the programs won’t run without an operating system. Both works together to make your system whole which you can utilize for your computing needs.

The Kernel

The kernel is the core of the Linux operating system. Every part of your computer like video displays sounds from your speakers and other components are considered hardware. The Linux kernel job is to drive the hardware components and make them function. It is also responsible for controlling other aspects of the system that run silently in the background. The kernel is only one part of the Linux operating system. Many other programs and the libraries are making your system run. The libraries and kernel in other operating system such as Windows operating system work very differently from Linux operating system. You would have to install special libraries and configurations to allow you to run programs made for one operating system to work in another. Without it, those programs would not work.

Linux Beginnings

A man named Linus Torvalds created his own open source operating system called Linux. Unlike Windows, open source code allows any user to make modifications to Linux kernel, libraries, cores files, software applications and even to the way it looks. Linus created the kernel and used GNU programs to make the operating system complete. Everyday, thousands of programmers work to improve the Linux operating system. The only stipulation for this open source is that all improvements and the source code for it is made available free to everyone to distribute, modify and use under the GNU General Public License.

How do Linux Versions work?

There are several stable versions of Linux and one development version at any given time. Unlike most proprietary software, older stable versions continue to be supported for as long as there is interest. Linux version numbers follow traditional number sequences. For example, each version has three number, i.e. X.Y.Z.

The first number “X” is only increments when significant changes happen. This has happen only once since one version will no longer operated correctly on the other.

The second number “Y” is the development series. A stable kernel will always have an even number. A development kernel will always be an odd number.

The third number “Z” is the exact version of the kernel you have. It increments on every release.

The most current stable series is 2.4.x and the most current development series is 2.5.x. Keep in mind though that there are many people continuing to run 2.2.x and even 2.0.x kernels, and continue to receive bugfixes. Linux developers are actively working on development series code, which is always available for public viewing, testing and use, although it is not recommended for production use. This is part of the open source development. As some point, the 2.5.x development will be the 2.6.0 kernel and a new stable series is established. Then the 2.7.x development series will begin. Or, if any real changes develop, it could be a 3.0.0 series instead.

Amazon MP3, Pepsi Team Up for Promotion

Amazon.com and Pepsi toay announced a new promotion where consumers buying Pepsi products will be able to download DRM-free digital music from Amazon MP3.

Amazon.com and Pepsi on Monday announced a new promotion called "Pepsi Stuff," where consumers buying Pepsi products will be able to download DRM-free digital music from Amazon MP3.

Consumers will be able to "bank" points on PepsiStuff.com beginning Feb. 1, by collection points by purchasing specially marked Pepsi products. Pepsi says that four billion marked packages will be in circulation. The promotion will extend across the entire Pepsi product line.

Amazon MP3 is Amazon's Digital Rights Management (DRM)-free digital music purchase and download service. The service features artists represented by major labels and by tens of thousands of independent labels as well, currently counting more than 3.25 million songs from over 270,00 artists in its inventory. The music downloaded via Amazon MP3 is compatible with virtually any MP3-compatible device, including Apple iPods, iPhones and Macs.

what is VGA cable?

Abbreviation of video graphics array, a graphics display system for PCs developed by IBM. VGA has become one of the de facto standards for PCs. In text mode, VGA systems provide a resolution of 720 by 400 pixels. In graphics mode, the resolution is either 640 by 480 (with 16 colors) or 320 by 200 (with 256 colors). The total palette of colors is 262,144.

Unlike earlier graphics standards for PCs -- MDA, CGA, and EGA -- VGA uses analog signals rather than digital signals. Consequently, a monitor designed for one of the older standards will not be able to use VGA.

Since its introduction in 1987, several other standards have been developed that offer greater resolution and more colors (see SVGA , 8514/A graphics standard, and XGA), but VGA remains the lowest common denominator. All PCs made today support VGA, and possibly some other more advanced standard.

How to recover data from your Hard Drive??

The first element in recovering data from a hard disk is the hardware configuration. With data recovery it is important that the disk being recovered is not written to. For this reason, CnW software does not try and access the logical drive C.

If a drive has failed, or has been corrupted, nothing must be loaded onto it, and it should be moved into a new computer and accessed as just a slave `data drive. CnW Software can then be loaded on a new host computer.

There are a few ways that a drive may be connected to another computer, and the following is probably not an exhaustive list

• Place the IDE drive in a USB caddy. This is a very nice approach as it can be hot plugged, and does not involve removing the computer case. USB1.1 and USB 2.0 both work, though USB 1.1 is rather slow. This is also they way that CnW use when developing recovery programs.
• Place the IDE drive in a Firewire caddy - this is similar to the USB described above
• An IDE drive can be placed inside a computer using a spare connector. It may be necessary o change a jumper from Master to Slave.
• For S-ATA, there may be spare S-ATA connectors in a computer - alternatively, it is possible to purchase a low cost PCI adapter card
• For SCSI, there may be a SCSI connector in the PC, otherwise a SCSI adapter card will be required. SCSI cards can be expensive.
• For laptops it is normally possible to purchase an adaptor that enables the drive to be read with the normal 3.5” IDE interface. These adaptors cost a few dollars. On some laptop drives, there is an extra connector with gold fingers - this will need to be removed (pulled off) to get to the standard connector with pins.

The next stage is to ensure that the computer sees the drive as a logical device, eg Drive K: Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Disk Management will show all detected devices, and if required a new drive letter can be selected. If the drive is not detected, then it is possible to scan for new drives, sometimes it is necessary to power off and restart the computer. CnW Software will detect Physical drives, as well as logical so mapping to a logical drive is not always necessary.

If it is not possible to detect a drive, then CnW software will not be able to help - it indicates a hard malfunction, rather than a logical corruption. Very often though, a drive will be seen in CnW Software, perhaps as Physical drive 3, but is not visible elsewhere on a PC.

Data recovery

On starting CnW software the wizard will be displayed, and at that point the required drive should be selected, and the Hard Drive icon clicked. The program will then start analysing the disk and will display an appropriate option screen for the media. For many drives the process will be fairly automatic, for very corrupted drives, choices may be offered to determine the best way forward. At no time is data every written to the failed drive, so if one solution does not work, other optuons can be tried..

For manual recovery, the normal approach is to use the Recover function, and the program will then go to the relevant routine for the type of media. For hard drives this will be NTFS, FAT or HPFS+ (Macintosh) recovery

Free demo download

What is Linux Shell

A Unix shell, also called "the command line", provides the traditional user interface for the Unix operating system and for Unix-like systems. Users direct the operation of the computer by entering command input as text for a shell to execute. Within the Microsoft Windows suite of operating systems the analogous program is command.com, or cmd.exe for Windows NT-based operating systems.

The most generic sense of the term shell means any program that users use to type commands. Since in the Unix operating system users can select which shell they want to use (which program should execute when they login), many shells have been developed. It is called a "shell" because it hides the details of the underlying operating system behind the shell's interface. (In contrast with the "kernel", which refers to the lowest-level, or 'inner-most' component of an operating system). Similarly, graphical user interfaces for Unix, such as GNOME,KDE,and Xfce are occasionally called visual shells or graphical shells. By itself, the term shell is usually associated with the command line. In Unix, any program can be the user's shell. Users who want to use a different syntax for typing commands can specify a different program as their shell.

The term shell also refers to a particular program, such as the Bourne shell, sh. The Bourne shell was the shell used in early versions of Unix and became a de facto standard; every Unix-like system has at least one shell compatible with the Bourne shell. The Bourne shell program is located in the Unix file hierarchy at /bin/sh. On some systems, such as BSD, /bin/sh is a Bourne shell or equivalent, but on other systems such as Linux, /bin/sh is likely to be a link to a compatible, but more feature-rich shell. POSIX specifies its standard shell as a strict subset of the Korn shell.

What is Trojan Horse?

A destructive program that masquerades as a benign application. Unlike viruses, Trojan horses do not replicate themselves but they can be just as destructive. One of the most insidious types of Trojan horse is a program that claims to rid your computer of viruses but instead introduces viruses onto your computer.

The term comes from the a Greek story of the Trojan War, in which the Greeks give a giant wooden horse to their foes, the Trojans, ostensibly as a peace offering. But after the Trojans drag the horse inside their city walls, Greek soldiers sneak out of the horse's hollow belly and open the city gates, allowing their compatriots to pour in and capture Troy.

What is SPAM?

Spam is flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send -- most of the costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.

There are two main types of spam, and they have different effects on Internet users. Cancellable Usenet spam is a single message sent to 20 or more Usenet newsgroups. (Through long experience, Usenet users have found that any message posted to so many newsgroups is often not relevant to most or all of them.) Usenet spam is aimed at "lurkers", people who read newsgroups but rarely or never post and give their address away. Usenet spam robs users of the utility of the newsgroups by overwhelming them with a barrage of advertising or other irrelevant posts. Furthermore, Usenet spam subverts the ability of system administrators and owners to manage the topics they accept on their systems.

Email spam targets individual users with direct mail messages. Email spam lists are often created by scanning Usenet postings, stealing Internet mailing lists, or searching the Web for addresses. Email spams typically cost users money out-of-pocket to receive. Many people - anyone with measured phone service - read or receive their mail while the meter is running, so to speak. Spam costs them additional money. On top of that, it costs money for ISPs and online services to transmit spam, and these costs are transmitted directly to subscribers.

One particularly nasty variant of email spam is sending spam to mailing lists (public or private email discussion forums.) Because many mailing lists limit activity to their subscribers, spammers will use automated tools to subscribe to as many mailing lists as possible, so that they can grab the lists of addresses, or use the mailing list as a direct target for their attacks.

What is VPN

(pronounced as separate letters) Short for virtual private network, a network that is constructed by using public wires to connect nodes. For example, there are a number of systems that enable you to create networks using the Internet as the medium for transporting data. These systems use encryption and other security mechanisms to ensure that only authorized users can access the network and that the data cannot be intercepted.

What is Dual Layer

Dual layer refers to a DVD recording technology that provides users with 8.5GB of recording space (as opposed to 4.7GB of space) on a standard DVD+R discs). The additional recording space is the direct result of dual layer technology. As the name suggests, dual layer technology provides two individual recordable layers on a single sided DVD disc. To take advantage of dual layer technology when recording DVDs, you must use a dual layer enabled DVD burner and dual layer DVD media. Dual layer technology media can be read (once recorded) by most DVD drives and players currently on the market. Dual layer technology has been used for many years in the production of commercial DVD movies but is now available for home and business recording as well.

Dual Layer is more commonly called Double Layer in the consumer market, and can be seen written as DVD+R DL or DVD-R DL on recordable DVD media and hardware packaging.

What is MBR

Master Boot Record, a small program that is executed when a computer boots up. Typically, the MBR resides on the first sector of the hard disk. The program begins the boot process by looking up the partition table to determine which partition to use for booting. It then transfers program control to the boot sector of that partition, which continues the boot process. In DOS and Windows systems, you can create the MBR with the FDISK /MBR command.

An MBR virus is a common type of virus that replaces the MBR with its own code. Since the MBR executes every time a computer is started, this type of virus is extremely dangerous. MBR viruses normally enter a system through a floppy disk that is installed in the floppy drive when the computer is started up. Even if the floppy disk is not bootable, it can infect the MBR.