The Mint Newsletter – issue 74

* News about Mint

Linux Mint 6 x64 released!

mintCast – Episode6

Monthly Stats – January 2009

* News about Linux

KDE 4.2.0 Release Announcement

Nomad & Compiz++ To Merge Back Into Compiz

Dell Offers Enterprise Linux Operating System from Novell to Address Growing Market for Thin Clients

There’s a problem with Google Earth 5 a solution can be found here

* News about Open Source

VMware ships open source Linux VDI client

Multiple Serious Vulnerabilities in OpenX Ad Server

* News about IT

Removing admin rights stymies 92% of Microsoft’s bugs – and maybe 92% of programs as well… This is one reason why Linux is safe – you don’t run in “admin mode” (I sincerely hope :))

Malware infection that began with windshield fliers

SANS is a good source for information about security threats

Corporations are inadvertently becoming the number 1 security threat to their own customers, according to new IBM X-Forceยฎ annual report

Google looks to structured data

French court fines Google over trade marked keywords

The Firefox update to 3.0.6 is out. It fixes a couple of vulnerabilities, one of them labeled critical. (The Mint version is on its way)

Microsoft force-installs Firefox extension

Operating System Market Share (oh how small it is for Linux…)

Google error “This site may harm your computer” (January 31st)

VirtualBox Gets Accelerated Direct3D Support

FBI warns of money mule scams

DNS Amplification Variation Used in Recent DDoS Attacks

February 2009 report highlighting Registrars that have a concentration spam, abuse and illicit activity.

* Hardware news

Lenovo posts loss, returns to Chinese management

Motorola losses widen as Q4 phone sales tumble 51%

OLPC XO-2 to be open source hardware

Nano-size fridges to cool CPUs

TCG spec to be foundation of storage encryption

* Other news

Google – The Internet Bus Project

New speed record for reliable reading of optical data – 640 Gbits/second

Australian Company Launches ‘Smart’ Watch Phones

Subatomic nanoholograms smash 1-bit-per-atom barrier

Motorola disses Windows Mobile: Android “more competitive”

Feds: IT admin plotted to erase Fannie Mae

NEC Layoffs Job Cut: fires 20000 employees

* Comic of the week

Credit goes to xkcd – http://xkcd.com/

* More about Linux Mint

How to donate

Home page

Blog The planet Wiki Forum

* Editors comment

As always – if you find something Iโ€™ve missed in the newsletter please tell me – you can post a comment.

Enjoy life

Husse

16 comments

  1. As always, funny and informative news, Husse! Good job!

    Any clues when Felicia KDE 4.2 will be out?

    Also, first post!

  2. – Boo is working hard on KDE CE, which will come with KDE 4.2. There are still a few issues but we’re getting there. As always it’ll be released when ready, there is no need to speculate on when that might be.

    – Funny comic again. Torture is precisely the reason why I don’t encrypt my laptop ๐Ÿ™‚

    – I bought an Android G1 yesterday. I’m interested mostly in messing with the SDK and the open OS that comes with it. I also think the Android user base is likely to be somewhat like a bridge between the Linux and the Windows worlds… advertising Linux Mint on popular Android websites might be a good idea, as it could promote Linux among technology enthusiasts which haven’t necessarily gone into Linux yet. Oh.. and I wanted a cool phone too ๐Ÿ™‚

  3. Right On clem ;p Android is the future

    and speaking of google.. Husse any new on when we’ll be getting Google Chrome for linux??

  4. Why would you need Chrome for linux? Two of the best browsers available are available for Linux (Firefox & Opera)

    Is there sigup for the newsletter? If there is, please let me know.

  5. DeaQuz: its simply a matter of preference. Chrome is much faster than both firefox and opera. plus it’s open source (unlike opera).

  6. Here is why I would start using Chrome for linux as soon as it would be released:
    1) It starts much faster;
    2) It renders pagers much faster;
    3) its javascript engine is a lot faster;
    4) Unlike Opera and FF, it actually frees memory used by some tab when it’s closed;
    5) Flash and java crap are run as separate processes and doesn’t influence page scrolling (no more choppy scrolling), doesn’t distort the page in any way and even if flash crashes because of some reason the page still remains viewable.
    6) Even if some tab crashes, whole browser doesn’t crash because of that.
    7) It will use GTK

    And the linux version is scheduled to be released by the first half of the year. More info: news.cnet.com/chrome-gets-mac-deadline-extensions-foundation

    If you want to be notified about the release, you can sign up here: google.com/chrome/intl/en/linux.html

    Also you can already try it by installing crossover package which uses wine to run the browser: codeweavers.com/services/ports/chromium

    Furthermore, you might want to try midori browser which is also pretty fast because of webkit engine and has some nice features too, but still is in early development state.
    Official page: twotoasts.de
    Binary packages: launchpad.net/~webkit-team/+archive/ppa (you’ll need Intrepid Ibex packages)

  7. Hardly a big shame that the epoch 1234567890-celebrations did not get any attention. Although interesting not a major event
    I simply did not find a suitable link …

  8. jungar:

    heh, well, it’s a not specially modified standard gnome desktop ๐Ÿ˜‰ The dock is cairo-dock ( http://www.cairo-dock.org/ww_page.php?p=From%20the%20repository&lang=en , follow the installation-instructions for ubuntu intrepid ) with just a few modifications to the basic settings for one of the built-in themes. The bar on the top is a basic gnome panel set to not cover the whole screen. which objects that are added to it can be seen from the screenshot.. The gnome theme is gnome step into freedom with some basic modifications to it ( http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Gnome+%22Step+into+Freedom%22?content=85530 ), with the emerald window decorator theme activated. And of course some compiz effects and so on activated, but those can’t be seen in the screenshot… Lastly the IM that can be seen actually is miranda with the modern clist theme black ice 2 set, run inside a virtualbox vm in seamless mode. I have about a decade of conversation history imported to miranda which can’t be imported into pidgin which forces me to use this somewhat strange solution. (Miranda can’t connect to msn with todays version of wine.)

    Other nice gnome themes can fore example be seen at http://www.sizzledcore.com/2008/08/09/ubuntu-themes-awesome-themes-for-linux/

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