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● 07.16.14

● Links 16/7/2014: Manjaro 0.8.10 Third Update, SIA Migrates to Red Hat

Posted in News Roundup at 7:52 pm by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxGNU/Linux

Desktop

=> ↺ How to use public PCs safely with Linux

• Public PCs aren’t safe, so what’s a PC user to do? Carry a Linux distribution on a USB stick in their backpocket of course!

=> ↺ Chrome OS Moves Away from Legacy Packaged Apps, Welcomes Offline Model

• In recent weeks, Google has been reengineering a key aspect of the app ecosystem surrounding its Chrome OS platform and Chromebooks based on it: It is calling loudly for all local Chrome OS apps to be able to work offline. This is a major shift from the company’s original strategy of making Chrome OS a nearly entirely cloud-centric operating system, and opens up new possibilities for enterprise users and consumers.

=> ↺ NPD: Chromebooks Lead a Strong First Half for U.S. Commercial Channel PC Sales

• Since the start of the year Chromebook sales within the U.S. Commercial Channel increased 250 percent year-over-year

=> ↺ GNU/Linux Acknowledged As Valid Desktop OS In USA

=> ↺ As Chromeboks Sell Well, Microsoft Takes Notice

Server

=> ↺ How DreamHost is reinventing itself with OpenStack

• Founded in 1997, DreamHost is a seasoned internet business home to over 400,000 happy customers, 1.5 million sites and applications, and hundreds of thousands of installs of WordPress, the dominant open source CMS. Open source is in our blood, and has powered every aspect of our services since 1997. DreamHost is built on a foundation of Perl, Linux, Apache, MySQL, and countless other open source projects. In our 16+ years of existence, DreamHost has seen the realities of internet applications and hosting drastically evolve. Our journey to the cloud requires a bit of history and context, so let’s dive right in.

=> ↺ Resource Management and Control: A Straw Proposal for Linux

• Resource management and controlling the allocation of resources for complex workloads has always been a topic for discussion in open systems, but no one has ever followed through on making open systems look and behave like an IBM mainframe. On IBM’s MVS and later OSes, resources can be allocated and managed in such a way as to execute policy, whether that policy be to prioritize credit card approval codes at Christmas time or to prioritize stock purchases from a specific broker.

=> ↺ Rackspace Adds Managed Cloud Server Hosting Plans

=> ↺ Jérôme Petazzoni on the breathtaking growth of Docker

• For those of us veterans in the open source software (OSS) community, certain technologies come along in our lifetime that revolutionise how we consume and manage our technology utilisation. During the early 2000s the concept of high availiability (HA) and clustering allowed Linux to really stack up in the datacentre.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Linux Foundation SysAdmin Michael Halstead’s IT Career Started at Age 15

• Michael Halstead maintains all of the public facing infrastructure for the Yocto Project, a Linux Foundation collaborative project that provides the tools and methods for building custom embedded Linux distributions. In this Q&A he describes his typical day at work, the best part of his job, how he spends his free time, and more.

=> ↺ Imad Sousou: The Future of Linux and Intel in the New Connected World

• From new cloud platforms, to changes in virtualization and container technologies, to how data is stored and transmitted, every innovation in the data center has a Linux-based or open source component, says Imad Sousou vice president of the Software and Services Group and general manager of the Intel Open Source Technology Center at Intel.

Applications

=> ↺ QEMU 2.1.0 RC2 Open Source Virtualization Software Is Ready for Testing

• QEMU 2.1.0 RC2, a generic open source emulator and virtualizer that can run OSes and programs made for a different machine, has been released and is available for download.

=> ↺ XBMC 13.2 Beta 1 “Gotham” Arrives with a Ton of Fixes

• It’s been several months since the release of the XBMC 13.0 “Gotham,” probably the best and most complete release in the history of this software. The developers implemented some remarkable new features, but it looks like there still are things to fix and changes to be made.

=> ↺ FFmpeg 2.2.5 Has Been Released. How To Install FFmpeg 2.2.5 On Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivative Systems

=> ↺ FFmpeg 2.2.5 Officially Released

• FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter, and play pretty much any media that humans and machines have created.

=> ↺ dotbot: A (dot)files (bo)o(t)strapper

=> ↺ histo: The shape of things to come

=> ↺ collectl: System details, in detail

=> ↺ cfdisk: Somehow overlooked

Proprietary

=> ↺ Dropbox releases version 2.11.0 for Linux client

=> ↺ Dropbox 2.10.2 Comes With Fixes. Install Dropbox 2.10.2 On Ubuntu 14.04 And Derivative Systems

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How to load Ubuntu on the Acer Aspire V11 Touch (or other Linux distros)

=> ↺ Install EleMint icons in Ubuntu 14.04

=> ↺ Install Ardis icons in Linux Mint 17

=> ↺ Install Ursa icons in Linux Mint 17

=> ↺ Install EleMint icons in Linux Mint 17

=> ↺ Chef Adds Docker Container Automation

=> ↺ Mail Server Components : MTA , MDA & MUA

=> ↺ How to Configure Network Static IP Address and Manage Services on RHEL/CentOS 7.0

=> ↺ How to analyze Squid logs with SARG log analyzer on CentOS

=> ↺ How to check RPM package dependencies on Fedora, CentOS or RHEL

=> ↺ Install Octopress on a CentOS 6 VPS

=> ↺ nstall Apache2, PHP5 And MySQL Support On CentOS 7 (LAMP)

=> ↺ How to install MySQLDumper on a CentOS VPS

=> ↺ Initiate Redhat installation remotely via VNC

=> ↺ How To Install & use Putty in Ubuntu Linux

=> ↺ RDO Setup Two Real Node (Controller+Compute) IceHouse Neutron ML2&OVS&VLAN Cluster on CentOS 7

=> ↺ Contacts and events everywhere – successful syncing between thunderbird and android with Baikal

=> ↺ How To Install The NVIDIA 304.123 Legacy Drivers On Linux Systems

Wine or Emulation

=> ↺ Wine 1.7.22 (Development Version) Released – Install in RedHat and Debian Based Systems

• WineHQ team, recently announced a new development version of Wine 1.7.22. This new development build arrives with a number of new important features and 68 bug fixes.

Games

=> ↺ OlliOlli release date announced for PC, Mac and Linux

• OlliOlli has been given a release date on PC, Mac and Linux.

=> ↺ Infinity Runner Released For Linux Plus Our Thoughts

• Infinity Runner is a great looking first person action game that involves a lot of running. We give it a try to see how it performs.

• I am an absolute sucker for space sci-fi themed games, and just had to give this one a try to report back to you on.

• Sadly though, the game itself really isn’t all that interesting and if you have played simple Android games like Temple Run it’s very much the same type of game. You are always running, and you don’t control the running aspect at all.

=> ↺ X-Plane 10 Global 64bit Now On Steam For Linux

• X-Plane 10 Global 64bit is now on Steam for Linux and promises a rather expensive flight simulator experience. By expensive we mean £44.99, so dig deep if you want to try it folks.

=> ↺ Torchlight II to Get a Linux Version Soon on Steam

• Torchlight II, an action hack-and-slash title developed and published by Runic Games on Steam, might get a Linux version soon.

• The developers from Runic Games are not at their first try to port one of their games. The first title in the series was promoted on Linux with the help of a Humble Bundle collection, but the game manifested some very problematic technical issues that persisted for a long time, like the missing face of the main characters. Hopefully, the second iteration will be much better.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ Obmenu: The OpenBox Menu Editor

• Obmenu is a menu editor designed for openbox. It’s easy to use, allowing to get the most out of the powerful Openbox menu system, while hiding the xml layout from the user.

K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

=> ↺ Plasma 5 is Here! All Ready to Eat Your Babies

• A year and a half ago Qt 5 was released giving KDE the opportunity and excuse to do the sort of tidying up that software always needs every few years. We decided that, like Qt, we weren’t going for major rewrites of the world as we did for KDE 4. Rather we’d modularise, update and simplify. Last week I clicked the publish button on the story for KDE Frameworks 5, the refresh of kdelibs. Interesting for developers. Today I clicked the publish button on the story of the first major piece of software to use KDE Frameworks, Plasma 5.

=> ↺ A screencast of the activity switcher in Plasma 5.1

=> ↺ meta-kf5 progress report

=> ↺ Notes from Calligra Sprint. Part 2: Memory fragmentation in Krita fixed

=> ↺ The Birth of Plasma 5

• I’ll keep things brief, since I’m inbetween KDevelop windows right now: It’s out today, and in my mind it took just about nine months to make it. Nine months, now that’s a timescale with some cachet.

=> ↺ KDE Plasma 5 Arrives with Fresh New Look, True Convergence

=> ↺ KDE Plasma 5 Linux desktop arrives

• When KDE made a radical change to its popular Linux desktop in 2008 in KDE 4, I hated it. Over a year and many changes later, I finally found KDE 4.3 usable. This time, with the just-released KDE Plasma 5, I didn’t have to wait for it to be usable. The new KDE is already good to go.

=> ↺ Detailed review of Plasma 5

• The much awaited Plasma 5 has been announced today, which marks a new chapter in the story of KDE software. Plasma 5 is the next generation desktop by the KDE community; it’s the evolution of KDE’s desktop which started taking a new shape with the release of ‘revolutionary’ KDE 4.0.

• Plasma desktop uses the time-tested UI optimized for WIMP (windows, icons, menus and pointer) interface and with 5 it further improved that experience. A lot of work has gone in the code-base which makes the desktop sleeker and more polished. If you are thinking just think oh it’s just a different theme and new icons, it’s not true. Plasma 5 uses the brand new Frameworks 5 and Qt5 which not only improves user-experience but also allows developers to use KDE software in a manner not possible before.

=> ↺ KDE 5 is Here, LibreSSL Unsafe, and Debian 7.6 Released

=> ↺ KaOS Calms Down KDE

• In keeping with the best-fit-only policy, the KaOS community deliberately keeps this distro’s software stores limited. The current inventory is about 2,000 packages. The size will not grow beyond 2,200 packages. KaOS uses Pacman 4.1.2 as the package manager, with Octopi 0.4.0 as graphical front end. This is a good combination, as it’s simple and effortless to add or remove software.

=> ↺ KDE Frameworks 5 Arrives

=> ↺ Changes to Bugzilla

• Time has passed, and it has come time to update to the latest version of Bugzilla again. Sadly not everything managed to come along for the ride this time though. Our custom theme has been bitten by a series of incompatibilities with the newer version of Bugzilla which has prevented people from changing their email address and entering bugs in some cases among others things. As it is more important the site is usable we’ve had to disable it.

=> ↺ ECMAScript 6 support in KDevelop

=> ↺ Code highlighting in SlideViewer

=> ↺ Adapting SlideViewer to Qt Quick Controls

=> ↺ New KDE: 4.13.3

• The weekend in San Diego was a good time to get rested from my training activities (training a new helpdesk team here) and prepare Slackware packages for KDE’s monthly maintenance release 4.13.3. These packages were built for Slackware -current and have not been tested to work properly on Slackware 14.1.

=> ↺ Marble Game – Identify the country shape

=> ↺ Plasma 5 Ingredients

=> ↺ On Plasma5: present and future

• This is the second part of my ramblings about the Plasma 5 release, just after it come out.

=> ↺ Latest 4.13, newest 4.14 beta and Plasma 5 in openSUSE

GNOME Desktop/GTK

=> ↺ Stichele: morituri 0.2.3 ‘moved’ released!

Distributions

=> ↺ Ten of the best desktop Linux distributions for your computer

• There’s a ton of different desktop distros out there for Linux users, but it can be tough sifting through them to find the ones worth checking out. Datamation takes a look at what it considers ten of the best Linux desktop distributions. The list is broken down into two sections: newbies and experienced Linux users.

=> ↺ DistroWatch resolves its domain registrar problems

• Last week the Linux world was surprised to find that DistroWatch was not available at its usual domain name. Many wondered what was happening with the site, and it turned out that it had some domain registrar problems. Ladislav Bonar clarifies what went wrong last week and assures DistroWatch readers that the site has already been transferred to a new registrar.

New Releases

=> ↺ Zorin OS 9 Core and Ultimate are released

• We are excited to announce the release of Zorin OS 9 Core and Ultimate.

=> ↺ Zorin OS 9

Screenshots

=> ↺ HandyLinux 1.6

=> ↺ Debian 7.6.0 GNOME

Arch Family

=> ↺ Manjaro 0.8.10 Receives Its Third Update Pack and Linux Kernel 3.15 Support

• Manjaro 0.8.10, a Linux distribution based on well-tested snapshots of the Arch Linux repositories and 100% compatible with Arch, has received the third upgrade pack.

=> ↺ Manjaro 0.8.10 Receives Its Third Update Pack

• The Developers on Manjaro Linux developers are pleased to announce the third update pack of Manjaro 0.8.10.

Red Hat Family

=> ↺ Red Hat Is A Cloud Services Company

=> ↺ SIA migrates to Red Hat open source tech

• Red Hat, Inc, (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that SIA, a European leader in the design, creation, and management of technology infrastructures and services for financial and central institutions, corporate and Public Administration bodies, has chosen Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization to support a number of its mission-critical systems and to reach a higher operational efficiency with business benefits.

=> ↺ SIA migrates to Red Hat open source tech

Fedora

=> ↺ Flock 2014 is on the way — how about you?

• In case you don’t know, Flock is a conference for Fedora contributors and users to come together, discuss new ideas, work to make those ideas a reality, and continue to promote the core values of the Fedora community: Freedom, Friends, Features, and First.

=> ↺ DNF 0.5.4 Released

• 0.5.4 has been released today.

• A major improvement in this release is the repo priorities config option. With it the admin can enforce packages of a certain repository to take precedence over other ones during an upgrade even when the prioritized packages have lower version. The original DNF bug is here, the functionality is known from Yum Utils as “priority plugin”.

Debian Family

=> ↺ Debian Developer switches to Mac, doesn’t look back (and yes, we should be worried)

=> ↺ Broken? My Debian GNU/Linux Desktop Is Not Broken

=> ↺ The Next Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) Versions May Be Built Only On The Stable Versions Of Debian

• Building Linux Mint 17.1 on the same code base as Linux Mint 17, the developers have more time for improving the already existing Linux Mint specific applications and implement newer desktop environments until 2016, while security fixes will be implemented five years from now.

• Also, by creating point releases, the users will be able to easily get the latest updates (if the systems use the same code base) from the command-line, by performing regular system upgrades, or get the Linux Mint 17.x images, which already contain the latest versions of the packages.

=> ↺ Spotify migrate 5000 servers from Debian to Ubuntu

• A while back we decided to move onto Ubuntu for our backend server deployment. The main reasons for this was a predictable release cycle and long term support by upstream (this decision was made before the announcement that the Debian project commits to long term support as well.) With the release of the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS we are now in the process of migrating our ~5000 servers to that distribution.

=> ↺ Privacy-Oriented Tails 1.1 RC1 Gets Lots of Security and Bug Fixes

• Tails is a distribution based on Debian and Tor technologies whose purpose is to keep its users as anonymous as possible. Even though Tails is not exactly a new distribution and has been around for quite some time, it has become a lot more popular after Edward Snowden said that he used it to hide his footprints when he delivered the documents to various media outlets.

Derivatives

Canonical/Ubuntu

=> ↺ Ubuntu 14.04: The good, the bad, the Unity

• Ubuntu 14.04 Long Term Support/LTS (Trusty Tahr) proves that it doesn’t matter if you’re Oracle, Microsoft, or Canonical: Bringing a fleet of products into new release revision synch is tough. Canonical is trying to cover the bases of cloud, server, desktop, smartphone/tablet, plus management and support and services add-ons. In this release, Cloud and Server get much attention; Desktop not so much. And the Ubuntu smartphone/tablet bits aren’t reviewed here as there are no “production” versions in the wild.

Devices/Embedded

=> ↺ Tiny module runs Linux and LabView on ARM/FPGA SoC

• NI’s new “sbRIO-9651″ system-on-module (SOM) is aimed at simplifying the design of custom data acquisition and control systems, by offering full compatibility with the NI LabView graphical programming environment. Additionally, the module’s core hardware and software compatibility with NI’s cRIO-9068 “CompactRIO” controller is said to further accelerate custom designs by letting programmers develop and test their software on an off-the-shelf system prior to the availability of custom hardware based on the SOM. To that end, the sbRIO-9651 SOM and cRIO-9068 controller system both use the same Xilinx Zynq-7020 SoC, and run a common “NI Linux Real Time” software stack.

=> ↺ OpenWRT gets IPv6 in major refresh

• The embedded systems Linux distro, OpenWRT, has taken a step into the 1990s and added native IPv6 support.

=> ↺ OpenWrt 14.07 RC1 “Barrier Breaker” Gets IPv6 Native Support and Sysupgrade on NAND-Flash

• OpenWrt, a highly-extensible GNU/Linux distribution for embedded devices, built from the ground up to be a full-featured, easily modifiable operating system for routers, has advanced to version 14.07 RC1.

=> ↺ $35 OpenWRT SBC targets educational apps

• Belgian father-and-son startup DPTechnics is promoting its new open-spec DPT Board as an educational tool for budding embedded developers. Just as the similarly priced Raspberry Pi has been seeded in U.K. schools, DPTechnics is working with schools in Belgium to integrate the board in their curricula.

=> ↺ Linux for cars: Automotive Grade Linux rivals CarPlay and Android Auto

• Automotive Grade Linux is available to download for free from the Linux Foundation website. It’s built on top of the Tizen, which has been used in some smartphones and smart watches. It’s also in some TVs and even cars already.

=> ↺ Seagate rolls out NAS range with its own Linux-based operating system

• SEAGATE has taken the the wraps off its first major foray into the NAS market.

• The Seagate NAS and NAS Pro range will be marketed towards the growing number of small businesses, including SOHO, prosumer and startups. The basic Seagate NAS range has been designed for businesses of up to 25 people with the NAS Pro range targetting the up-to-50-staff market.

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi supercomputer tutorial

=> ↺ Bored of your Raspberry PI? You just need some inspiration

=> ↺ It is no great secret that my colleagues at Collabora have been doing work with the Raspberry Pi Foundation

• It is no great secret that my colleagues at Collabora have been doing work with the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

• My desk is very near Marco and I often see him working with the various Pi boards. Recently he obtained one of the new B+ units for testing and I thought it looked a little sad sat naked on his desk.

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi 2 expected in 2017, Foundation focussed on software for now

• In the mean time Eben Upton and the team at the Raspberry Pi Foundation will be focussing on the software side of the Raspberry Pi, as well as the forthcoming Raspberry Pi touchscreen display. “There’s plenty of life in Raspberry Pi 1 and there’s still plenty of low-hanging fruit on the software side. We’re still finding system level components that we can optimise that deliver really meaningful amounts of performance uplift for the user,” Upton explained.

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi introduces an improved model — the Model B+

• We’re big fans of the Raspberry Pi here at BetaNews. The popular (not to mention super-affordable) credit card-sized ARM GNU/Linux computer was designed to bring programming back into schools but has quickly found an audience way beyond that.

=> ↺ Raspberry Pi Model B+ Launched With 4 USB Ports, MicroSD Support, More

=> ↺ New product launch! Introducing Raspberry Pi Model B+

• In the two years since we launched the current Raspberry Pi Model B, we’ve often talked about our intention to do one more hardware revision to incorporate the numerous small improvements people have been asking for. This isn’t a “Raspberry Pi 2″, but rather the final evolution of the original Raspberry Pi. Today, I’m very pleased to be able to announce the immediate availability, at $35 – it’s still the same price, of what we’re calling the Raspberry Pi Model B+.

=> ↺ Linux Top 3: Raspberry Pi B+, CentOS 7 and RHEL 5.11

=> ↺ Intel to ship Galileo Gen2 open-source computer in August for $60

• The board runs Linux, and supports the Arduino integrated development environment, which is widely used to make robots and electronics. Galileo can be attached to PCs running Windows or Mac OS for electronics creation.

Phones

=> ↺ Firefox OS Phones Reported Due in India in July, in $50 Range

• It looks like India may be the next global market where Mozilla tests demand for ultra-low cost smartphones based on its Firefox OS mobile platform. The phones will be available for prices of up to $50, DigiTimes has reported, quoting company COO and Mozilla Taiwan CEO Gong Li, but Mozilla has also been making noise about delivering $25 phones. Because India remains a hugely fast-growing market for mobile phones and apps, the region could be a proving ground for Mozilla.

=> ↺ Mozilla On Track To Sell 10M Firefox Smartphones

=> ↺ Firefox smartphones to be launched in India in July, says Mozilla COO

• Mozilla will launch a series of inexpensive Firefox OS smartphone models in the India market in July, with retail prices of up to US$50, according to company COO and Mozilla Taiwan CEO Gong Li.

=> ↺ Mozilla’s annual Maker Party begins today!

• Mozilla is thrilled to announce the official kick-off of Maker Party, our annual campaign to teach the culture, mechanics and citizenship of the Web through thousands of community-run events around the world.

Android

=> ↺ Leaked images suggest new Play Store is on the Horizon

• Reports are rolling in of the possibility of a newer more refreshed looking Play store is on its way. At the moment the reports have not been confirmed and there is no substantiating evidence any of this is true. However Android Police had provided what is believed to be leaked images of what the new Play Store will look like.

=> ↺ Google Offers Up A Free Crash Course In Android Development

• Google has teamed up with Udacity to make available a free course in Android development available to all – complete with videos, quizzes, course materials and forums. The course is called ‘Developing Android Apps: Android Fundamentals,” and it provides everything you need to learn how to make an Android app step-by-step; provided, that is, you already have a basic understanding of programming in general.

=> ↺ Blackphone CEO responds to BlackBerry’s privacy digs

• Blackphone CEO Toby Weir-Jones has a lot to say in response to BlackBerry’s recent post on its blog criticizing the company’s approach to privacy.

=> ↺ Blackphone’s top executive talks up his privacy phone

=> ↺ Blackphone, BlackBerry throw punches over smartphone security

• This isn’t the first time BlackBerry has taken a public potshot at a rival, but in the Blackphone case, the firm has met its mouthy match.

=> ↺ Android 4.4.4 r2 (KTU84Q) Factory Image Released for Specific Nexus 5 Models

• Google posted a Nexus 5 factory image and binaries for a new Android 4.4.4 r2 build (plus pushed it to AOSP) this afternoon as KTU84Q. Don’t get too excited about, though, as it has been posted “For 2Degrees/NZ, Telsta/AUS and India ONLY.” In other words, you probably won’t see it as an OTA any time soon unless you are in New Zealand, Australia or India. But hey, it happened!

Free Software/Open Source

=> ↺ Can the FOSS community save 197 endangered languages?

• In India, the situation is not different. I searched the Language Atlas of UNESCO and found out that 197 Indian languages are endangered. One of these endangered languages is from the region from where I originally belong: Bihar, a state of India. I work in the free and open source software (FOSS) field, focused on localization. The language I do my work in is Hindi. I’ve also worked in Maithili, an Indian language, mentoring the community and help develop several applications in it, including Fedora, GNOME, KDE , and Firefox.

=> ↺ Adobe Partners With Google To Release Open-Source Font For Chinese, Japanese And Korean Languages

=> ↺ Portland company unveils new tool as open source community converges on Rose City

• Local startup GraphAlchemist is hoping to tap into some of that excitement. The data visualization company has tools for corporate customers to visualize data sets and map connections, and now it is releasing a version called Alchemy.js that will allow people to get a taste of the product.

=> ↺ How open source can solve Silicon Valley’s engineering crisis

• Silicon Valley may think itself the center of the universe, but when it comes to open source, it can only muster a third-place finish. According to an analysis of top GitHub contributors, both Europe and the rest of the United States develop more open-source software than Silicon Valley. While this may not be surprising given Europe’s long-standing affection for open source, it is a reminder that much of the best development talent doesn’t live along Highway 101 and probably never will.

Events

=> ↺ Resources for Women and Newcomers at LinuxCon

• For many years, Linux Foundation research has pointed out that companies have a hard time finding enough skilled applicants for their Linux-related technical positions, especially in development. At The Linux Foundation, we have created a number of programs to address this: from Linux technical training to a free Linux MOOC to a training scholarship program to inclusivity programs at our LinuxCon and Cloud events. If there is a shortage of skilled applicants, we want to invite everyone to join the party.

=> ↺ CloudBees programmer to give talk on how to develop a massively scalable HTTP server

Web Browsers

Chrome

=> ↺ New Google Chrome 36 Beta Finally Fixes “Print This Page” Crash

• Google Chrome, a browser built on the Blink layout engine that aims to be minimalistic and versatile at the same time, is now at version 36.0.1985.125 and features just a small number of fixes.

Mozilla

=> ↺ Mozilla Advances JPEG Encoding with mozjpeg 2.0

• We’re pleased to announce the release of mozjpeg 2.0. Early this year, we explained that we started this project to provide a production-quality JPEG encoder that improves compression while maintaining compatibility with the vast majority of deployed decoders. The end goal is to reduce page load times and ultimately create an enhanced user experience for sites hosting images.

=> ↺ Mozjpeg 2.0 Improves JPEG Encoding

=> ↺ Mozilla and Facebook Work to Put Web Images on a Diet

SaaS/Big Data

=> ↺ OpenStack Swift Storage Project Gets New Policies

CMS

=> ↺ Cloud, open source power TransLink’s Web presence

• It was an aging bespoke application that drove TransLink to seek a new content management system, but it was the strength of the community surrounding the open source project that helped the Queensland public transport agency choose Drupal.

• Prior to the switch to Drupal, which began last year, the former TransLink site was partly based on static files and partly on a “home-grown CMS that managed a lot of our custom content such as service disruption and events, so that we could do a little bit of distributed authoring within the organisation,” said Natalie Gorring, manager, online products and services, at TransLink.

Business

Semi-Open Source

=> ↺ How to create a marketing campaign using SugarCRM

Funding

=> ↺ Crowdfunding for open source software

• Nowadays when people say “crowdfunding,” most people know exactly it is, but just a few short years ago, the term was not commonly used. Bountysource is easy to explain now: it is a crowdfunding site aimed at open source software developers, but a decade ago, people just were not sure what it was or how it worked. Even the founders said the project died quickly because people were unsure of its intentions.

BSD

=> ↺ FreeBSD 9.3-RELEASE Announcement

• The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 9.3-RELEASE. This is the fourth release of the stable/9 branch, which improves on the stability of FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE and introduces some new features.

FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

=> ↺ GCC 4.9.1 Released

• GCC 4.9.1 release supports OpenMP 4.0 also in Fortran, rather than just in C and C++.

Openness/Sharing

=> ↺ Open-Source Will Make Real-Time Measurements Affordable

• From my earliest days in measurement, the term “real-time” has been special. Its meaning has evolved over these years as a figure of merit without any actual figures being presented. But the use has continually increased as a way of denoting the presence of data as it occurs.

=> ↺ Open source biology

• At O’Reilly, we’ve long been supporters of the open source movement — perhaps not with the religious fervor of some, but with a deep appreciation for how open source has transformed the computing industry over the last three decades.

Open Hardware

=> ↺ Apeiros Arduino Based Open Source Robot (video)

• Students, makers and developers that are in the market for an open source robot might be interested in a new Arduino-based robot called Apeiros.

=> ↺ Social Circle: Improving social interaction at social events

• The prototype we created of the designed solution, is composed of an Arduino controlling six player boards with voting buttons and LEDs which it reads. The Arduino is connected to a virtual interface showed on a 19″ screen in the middle of the table. Players receive harmless question such as “Which player would be the best superhero?” and everyone then place a vote on each other using the player boards. Votes are then revealed and points are given to the agreeing majority. If players votes indicate disagreement, a discussion round is started where players have to persuade each other to vote differently.

Leftovers

=> ↺ The world’s most uncomfortable plane seat?

• Airbus design does away with cushions, tray tables and legroom in favour of seats that resemble bicycle saddles

Security

=> ↺ Canonical Closes Libav Vulnerabilities in Ubuntu 13.10 and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

• This Libav exploit is not a major problem for the Ubuntu systems, but upgrading the system would be a good idea. It’s also nice to see that Ubuntu 13.10 hasn’t been forgotten, although it’s almost close to reaching EOL status.

=> ↺ Tuesday’s security updates

=> ↺ Security advisories for Wednesday

=> ↺ Google goes to war against zero-days

=> ↺ Google team to hunt Web threats, hackers

=> ↺ Google Project Zero May Prove a Big Win for Security

=> ↺ Zero-dark Demise: Google Mobilizes Revolutionary Cybersecurity Force

=> ↺ Google’s Project Zero Cybersecurity Watch: No Excuses

=> ↺ Google “Project Zero” hopes to find zero-day vulnerabilities before the NSA

=> ↺ Google Creates Hacker Team to Block Spies, Thieves

=> ↺ Google Creates Elite Team To Fight Hackers — And Maybe The NSA

=> ↺ Google unveils Project Zero: Army of researchers will scour the Internet for security threats

=> ↺ Google to monitor the web for vulnerabilities with Project Zero

=> ↺ Interview: Individual actions key for enhancing Finnish cybersecurity, says expert

• It’s not government institutions but ordinary citizens who represent the weakest link in the war against online spying, Finnish IT expert Petteri Jarvinen has said in a recent interview with Xinhua.

• His comment came after recent revelations of cyber espionage that is belived to have targeted Finland’s foreign ministry have raised concerns about data and online security in the country’s state organizations.

Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

=> ↺ Texas Jury Refuses To Indict Man Who Shot and Killed Officer During “No Knock” Raid

• We have previously discussed our concerns over the seemingly exponential increase in “no knock” raids in the country where police give no warning before raiding a home. (here and here and here and here and here and here). Now in a remarkable ruling, a Texas grand jury has refused to indict Goedrich Magee, 20, who shot and killed a law enforcement officer, Burleson County Sgt. Adam Sowders, 31, during a no knock entrance into his home. Magee said that he thought he was being robbed and acted to protect his pregnant girlfriend and children.

=> ↺ CBS Host Feels for Frightened Israelis–But Not Dead Palestinians

• But it wasn’t just the disparity in the time allotted to the different sides; Schieffer made it plainly clear that the threat to Israel was more important to him. He began his conversation with Netanyahu by saying, “I understand as we begin this interview, Tel Aviv is again under an alert, that the sirens have just gone off.” He closed it by saying, “We’ll let you get back to work now, and keep your head down.”

=> ↺ Everything You Don’t Need to Know About Israel/Gaza

=> ↺ Global opposition to US drones grows: Poll

• In 37 of 44 countries surveyed on the issue, at least half of the respondents opposed American strikes, which have become a signature tactic of the Obama administration’s war on terrorism.

=> ↺ US spying of world leaders widely opposed

• But in contrast, most Americans are of the view that eavesdropping on foreign leaders is an acceptable practice, but they are divided over using this technique on average people in other countries. The PEW survey says disclosures by former National Security Administration (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden about NSA spying revealed the US government’s vast capacity to intercept communications around the world.

Transparency Reporting

=> ↺ White House Spokesperson Insists Obama Is The Most Transparent President In History, Because… Visitor Logs!

• The rather astoundingly named Josh Earnest is the recently appointed press secretary of President Obama, and he’s kicked off his tenure with quite a whopper: insisting that, despite complaints from basically every corner, President Obama really is “the most transparent President in history.” As you may recall, President Obama promised upon election that he would be “the most open and transparent” President, and one of his first orders of business in the White House was to promise the same.

=> ↺ Administration ‘Answers’ Tesla Direct Sales Petition With A Brief ‘No’ And Several Paragraphs Of Self-Congratulatory Text

• The administration still doesn’t want to talk about pardoning Ed Snowden or reforming the ECPA (Electronic Communications Privacy Act), but it has stepped up to cherry pick another petition from the pile over at We The People. The petition, which asks for the government to step in and force states to allow Tesla to sell its cars directly to customers, was created more than a year ago. That puts it right on pace for petition answers, which still average nearly 300 days from the date of creation.

Environment/Energy/Wildlife

=> ↺ UK’s new energy and environment ministers opposed green energy

• Matthew Hancock called for cuts to wind power subsidies while Liz Truss claimed renewable power was damaging the economy

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

=> ↺ Exclusive: After Subpoenas in Walker Criminal Probe, WI GOP Sought to Quietly Change Law

• New documents indicate that just weeks after the first subpoenas were issued in Wisconsin’s “John Doe” criminal campaign finance probe in October 2013, senate Republicans had begun working to change state law to legalize the activities under investigation.

Privacy

=> ↺ #DRIP heroes, round one

• Voting against the programme motion – the fast-tracking of the legislation through parliament

=> ↺ Five More Years of Tory Rule

• In the UK, the Tories have edged into the lead in the latest Guardian/ICM opinion poll. While New Labour’s support for benefit cuts, government spending plans and the entire neo-con agenda means it makes no difference who is in power at Westminster, residual voter tribal loyalty to these moribund and corrupt parties remains the basic fact of “mainstream” politics, even after the voters have twigged the politicians are almost all self-serving crooks.

=> ↺ CISA: The Banks Want Immunity and a Public-Private War Council

• A group of privacy and security organizations have just sent President Obama a letter asking him to issue a veto threat over the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act passed out of the Senate Intelligence Committee last week. It’s a great explanation of why this bill sucks and doesn’t do what it needs to to make us safer from cyberattacks. It argues that CISA’s exclusive focus on information sharing — and not on communications security more generally — isn’t going to keep us safe.

=> ↺ Academics protest emergency surveillance bill

=> ↺ Academics: UK ‘Drip’ data law changes are ‘serious expansion of surveillance’

• Fifteen technology law experts have warned that the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers bill is being unnecessarily rushed through Parliament – and may continue to conflict with EU law

=> ↺ Opinion: The world’s superpower no more

• The last few days have shown that the world is no longer prepared to tolerate all of America’s whims. Countries like Germany and South Korea are freeing themselves from the US’ grip, writes DW’s Frank Sieren.

=> ↺ Germans expect US spy chief to go ‘promptly’

=> ↺ Obama and Merkel speak for first time in spy row

=> ↺ Merkel, Obama talk intelligence cooperation amid spy row

• The US president and German chancellor have spoken for the first time since a scandal broke out over alleged US espionage against Berlin. The White House said it wants to improve intelligence cooperation with Germany.

=> ↺ Net Threats: Deteriorating Trust in Governments and Corporations

• Reflecting the increasing attention paid to information security by many Americans, Pew Research recently conducted a large study, “Net Threats”, to identify important trends among technology experts’ opinions and predictions regarding the future of digital security. The study targeted thousands of Internet experts to measure their thoughts and concerns about the future of the Internet. Researchers at Pew identified four major themes among responses, and this post will discuss the second theme – Trust will evaporate in the wake of revelations about government and corporate surveillance and likely greater surveillance in the future.

=> ↺ Have intelligence agencies become too reliant on technology?

• It’s a troubling revelation, because it makes this very important government agency appear no more distinguished than a 15-year old computer hacker. I don’t think British citizens are paying for that sort of thing.

• We’ve all received emails purporting to be from our bank or email service provider, with instructions to click legitimate-looking links that would no doubt compromise our computer systems. If government intelligence services are just getting into the same game now, then the lack of return on the intelligence budget investment should be of more concern than the potential for abuse.

=> ↺ Justice Department Requests Appeals Court Overturn Decision Against NSA Phone Metadata Program

• The United States Justice Department has filed a brief requesting that a federal appeals court overturn a decision issued last year, which found that the National Security Agency’s phone metadata program infringed upon the privacy of Americans.

• Attorney Larry Klayman, founder of Freedom Watch, and Charles Strange, father of Michael Strange, an NSA cryptologist technician and Navy support personnel for SEAL Team VI who was killed in Afghanistan when his helicopter was shot down, were the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. They sought a preliminary injunction barring the government from collecting their phone records through the program operated under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.

=> ↺ What has NSA Surveillance Built in Partnership with the Law of Unintended Consequences?

=> ↺ US uses standards to spy

=> ↺ CARTOON: NSA could swallow whole world of information as part of ‘incidental collection’

=> ↺ Obama Administration Defends ‘Almost-Orwellian’ NSA in Federal Court

• In his December 2013 opinion in Klayman v. Obama, Judge Richard Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the “almost-Orwellian technology that enables the government to store and analyze the phone metadata of every telephone user in the United States” not only sounds like the stuff of dystopian science fiction, it “almost certainly does violate a reasonable expectation of privacy” under the Fourth Amendment. It was the first major legal defeat for the NSA.

=> ↺ Advocacy groups challenge UK electronic surveillance legislation

=> ↺ The Guardian And GCHQ Named Internet Heroes And Villains At 2014 ISPA Awards

=> ↺ UK Government Surveillance Comes Under Spotlight

=> ↺ GCHQ leak lists UK cyber-spies’ hacking tools

=> ↺ UK privacy watchdog seeks ‘stronger powers’ and better funding

=> ↺ GCHQ’s spy toolkit: Leaked documents reveal how UK manipulates information online

=> ↺ Take a look inside GCHQ’s manipulation toolkit

=> ↺ CSEC Commissioner Calls For Safeguards On ‘Five Eyes’ Info Sharing

=> ↺ GCHQ’s “Chinese menu” of tools spreads disinformation across Internet

=> ↺ Angry Pirate, Imperial Barge: GCHQ’s secret spy programmes revealed

=> ↺ Why ‘neither confirm nor deny’ has become untenable for British spies

• The Edward Snowden revelations have made the continued use of this prophylactic for spying activities a farce

=> ↺ GCHQ seeks to control the internet with social media manipulation, poll hacking and even more snooping

=> ↺ Secret propaganda: British spies can manipulate polls

• The power to secretly create government propaganda is among the many hacking tools revealed in the latest batch of Edward Snowden documents.

=> ↺ GCHQ’s Online Spying Tricks: Rigged Polls, Facebook Propaganda, Skype, LinkedIn Info Capture

• The Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) was responsible for developing most of the software programs listed in the documents, which enable GCHQ personnel to make fake victim blog posts, manipulate online polls, send fake SMS text messages, promote a specific video message on YouTube, carry out Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks against websites, and even post fake Facebook posts to entire countries.

=> ↺ GCHQ snooping tribunal hearing starts today

• Lawyers representing GCHQ and the government will appear before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) to decide if the spy agency violated laws with surveillance activities unearthed by revelations from Edward Snowden.

=> ↺ These are the absurd names British intelligence spies have to remember to spy on you

• In case you didn’t know it by now, spy agencies are really good – and hopefully effective – at spying on people, including both actual valid targets as well as unsuspecting citizens who aren’t plotting anything bigger than a trip to an exotic country. To further demonstrate the power of one such agency – NSA’s close buddy, the British GCHQ, in this case – The Intercept has published a new Snowden leak, which reveals such ambitious mass spying plans, as well as their silly names.

=> ↺ Missouri aims to stop the snoops

• The proposed amendment would explicitly spell out that to “access electronic data or communication” requires a warrant based on probable cause describing the particular communication that is to be seized.

=> ↺ Reddit, Privacy Groups Call On Obama To Reject Cybersecurity Bill

• The controversial bill, the Cybersecurity Information Act (CISA), was marked up and passed in a closed Senate Intelligence Committee session on July 8, and it is expected to see a full Senate vote some time this year. The bill would encourage companies to share information about cyber threats with each other and with the federal government, but the letter from the coalition to the president said the bill failed to “provide a comprehensive solution” to cyber threats because it, among other complaints, only addresses information sharing.

=> ↺ Less Than Zero– Hyping the Cyber War

• This week’s issue of Time magazine features an arresting cover: “World War Zero” screams the headline in huge red block letters. An ominous silhouette of a man in a hoody looking into a background of electronic ones and zeroes darkens the center of the frame. “The global battle to steal your secrets is turning hackers into arms dealers,” the sub-heading warns.

=> ↺ Civil liberties groups demand cyber veto

=> ↺ Access calls for President Obama to pledge to veto CISA

=> ↺ Privacy Groups, Reddit Are Urging Obama to Pledge to Veto the Cybersecurity Bill

=> ↺ Reveal all on US spying

• From the moment of the first revelations of America’s intrusive worldwide spy network last year, it seemed inevitable that Thailand would appear in the reports. And now it has.

=> ↺ NSA Surveillance: What the Government Can’t See

• What all this suggests is that without examining what the NSA actually collects, it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand how closely it hews to the law. While The Washington Post article came too late to influence the findings of the Privacy Board, it might still have an effect on Congress when it writes legislation later this year aimed at curbing NSA abuses. The 2008 FISA Amendments were intended, in part, to restore Fourth Amendment rights to US citizens, but in practice those rights have proved to be fungible because Section 702 is so elastic. If, in light of the evidence supplied by Gellman, Greenwald, and their colleagues, it is still possible to agree with the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board that the NSA has not strayed outside the parameters of Section 702, perhaps it is time to acknowledge that the issue is not one of legality but of the failure of the law itself.

=> ↺ US government asserts unilateral right to access private data, even if it’s stored outside the US

=> ↺ Cooper’s NSA Watchdog Put Into Law

Civil Rights

=> ↺ World still united about the States

• Pew Research Center: Asia, Europe maintain pro-American worldview; Middle East, Russia do not approve of DC

=> ↺ VA whistle-blower tells of manipulations, retribution

• Veterans Affairs regional office slammed her bosses at a congressional hearing Monday night, accusing them of putting bonuses above the well-being of veterans and then retaliating against her for bringing concerns to light.

• Kristen Ruell told the House Committee on Veterans Affairs that over the last four years, she had complained about mail at her Germantown office being shredded by the box load, dates being changed so staff appeared to have met performance goals, and veterans receiving two or more payouts on a claim.

=> ↺ Scotland Yard detective ‘removed over plan to investigate child abuse claims’

• A former Scotland Yard detective who won plaudits for his work on cases including the murder of Stephen Lawrence has claimed that he was moved from his post earlier when he revealed plans to investigate politicians over child abuse claims.

• Speaking about his inquiries in 1998 into activity alleged to have taken place in Lambeth children’s homes in the 1980s, retired detective chief inspector Clive Driscoll said that his work was “all too uncomfortable to a lot of people”.

=> ↺ New data law a serious expansion of surveillance, say law experts

=> ↺ Are spies manipulating your Facebook polls?

=> ↺ Poll: Obama worst president since WWII

=> ↺ Crowdsourcing Our Way Out of the Crisis of Democracy

• More Americans are fed up with the phony democracy that exists in the United States. Across the nation people are engaged in democracy rebellions as many re-examine the nation’s roots, especially with the 4th of July weekend just passing.

=> ↺ When Photography Gets You Labeled a Terrorist

• It’s not news that taking pictures can get you threatened and arrested, but a lawsuit filed this month by the American Civil Liberties Union sheds further light on just how pervasive the government’s paranoia over photography has become. The suit, Gill v. DoJ, challenges the Department of Justice on a program called the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative, which is run jointly by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. The plaintiffs are five “U.S. citizens whose information has been entered into counterterrorism databases for engaging in lawful conduct, and who have been subject to unwarranted law enforcement and scrutiny,” in the words of the ACLU. For two, the behavior that landed them with “Suspicious Activity Reports” (SARs) was taking photographs of energy-related structures in public places.

=> ↺ One Man Was Tracked by the FBI Simply for Taking a Picture of This Famous Landmark

Internet/Net Neutrality

=> ↺ This is why the government should never control the internet

• Tomorrow is the deadline for the public to comment on the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) attempt to regulate the Internet under the seemingly innocuous moniker of “net neutrality.” The architect of this movement, and the man who coined the term “net neutrality,” is Columbia law professor Tim Wu. Unfortunately, he has proved to be immensely influential among regulators.

=> ↺ The FCC is so swamped with net neutrality comments, it’s extending the deadline

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