After Knoppix 3.6 was released few weaks ago, there are more Live-CD distro being released. One of them is Slax 4.1.4. SLAX - Live CD is a bootable CD containing a Linux operating system. It runs directly from CD-ROM without installing. The live CD described here is based on the Slackware Linux distribution and is downloadable from its website as an ISO image. All scripts and source code which can be used to build your own live CD are also available.
Here are some updates included in Slax 4.1.4 (from DistroWatch): added Linux kernel 2.4.28-pre2 with SATA (libsata) support compiled in; added KDE 3.3.0, K3B 0.11.14; added cheatcodes.txt to CD's root directory; added MPlayer 1.0-pre5, recompiled with many options; fixed GUI script to better handle X auto-configuration; the Czech version of SLAX is available at slax.cz. Some other languages for SLAX are available as modules.
Slackware is the oldest GNU/Linux distros available right now. It's latest version is 10.0. Slackware is considered as one of the paranoid distros by some people around the world like Debian, since they only include packages which they think is very (i mean VERY) stable, but i think that Debian is worse than Slackware. Their latest version is 3.0rc2 and they still consider to use old packages (although you can update with unstable or testing packages with apt-get, the best package manager in GNU/Linux's world).
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Which GNU/Linux?
GNU/Linux was invented by Linus Torvald in 1991 when he was a college students of Helsinki University and he wasn't satisfied with MINIX, an operationg system that was invented by Andrew Tanembaum. He wrote the first kernel and published it on the newsgroup and starting from that time, the Linux kernel has started it's long journey until this moment. Linux is just a kernel, small part of operating system that can control every aspect of the system itself, like memory management, file management, input/output, etc. in order to build one operating systems, kernel need some tools that can do some specific task, called applications. The major program that was integrated to Linux kernel was published under GPL (GNU License Public) and so it was called GNU/Linux.
There is only one kernel, but why does there are so many version of Linux around the world? Those versions are called Linux's distros, which are developed by some people, community or company and they added their support or applications into their new bundle and released them as new distro. This is legal, since GPL granted this activity. No wonder why right now there are more than 50 distros for GNU/Linux around the world. You can view them all in DistroWatch.
While some of us thinks that this is common fenomena, but not for another people who has just started to know GNU/Linux. Sometimes, they were confused about the variety of GNU/Linux distros. Some prefer to use RedHat, while the other prefer SuSE, Mandrake, Gentoo, Slackware, etc.
If you are this kind of person (confused), than you should pick one distro and start learning it. When you have mastered it, you will find out that the outer shell looks different, but when you are playing with the inner shell, you will find many similarity. Don't be hesitate to try as much GNU/Linux distros as you can. Every distro have it's own characteristics.
There is only one kernel, but why does there are so many version of Linux around the world? Those versions are called Linux's distros, which are developed by some people, community or company and they added their support or applications into their new bundle and released them as new distro. This is legal, since GPL granted this activity. No wonder why right now there are more than 50 distros for GNU/Linux around the world. You can view them all in DistroWatch.
While some of us thinks that this is common fenomena, but not for another people who has just started to know GNU/Linux. Sometimes, they were confused about the variety of GNU/Linux distros. Some prefer to use RedHat, while the other prefer SuSE, Mandrake, Gentoo, Slackware, etc.
If you are this kind of person (confused), than you should pick one distro and start learning it. When you have mastered it, you will find out that the outer shell looks different, but when you are playing with the inner shell, you will find many similarity. Don't be hesitate to try as much GNU/Linux distros as you can. Every distro have it's own characteristics.
Monday, August 30, 2004
Zelda : Ocarina of Time
Many people plays and enjoys video games, and they keep playing since video games never stop to make an evolutions. There always new console or new games title to be played by the game players. From the first release of gaming console (ATARI i think), video games has become a huge industrial market this days. Many company are willing to support this market, including Microsoft and NVidia, since they got a lot of income from this division.
There are so many gaming console right now, such as Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1 & 2, Game Cube, Sega DreamCast, and some mini gaming console, such as Game Boy Advance, Portable Sony PlayStation (PSP), etc. People can choose which gaming console they will playing with and there are a lot of game titles can be played in each console. This market have influence PC gaming, since PC gaming is not as interactive as console gaming due to lack of devices. Some games only available on some console, because the developers saw a bigger potential market in console gaming.
But right now, you can find a lot of gaming emulator which can emulate some console emulator, just like you are playing with the real console. For now, i'm playing one of Nintendo 64's games, called Zelda: Ocarina of Time using my PC with help of Project 64, a great N64 emulator. There are also some good PlayStation emulator like PSX and VGS. You can find them at Aldo's Site. It contains a lot of emulator available and also great tools.
Zelda itself is first released by Nintendo for Nintendo console (i played them also) and right now, there are several version of Zelda. I have played Zelda: Majora's Mask also, but i haven't finished it yet, because it wasn't very interesting games, since you are limited to three days long and you have to rollback to the first day when you almost finished your three days limit. It was so bored to see a flashback views. I rather to play Zelda: Ocarina of Time which is more interesting and has better story.
I have reached the third temple that i need to recover and hopefully, before i finished this semester, i can finish playing this game. Zelda is a complex game with a lot of side quest, so it take a long time to uncover all of Zelda's story.
There are so many gaming console right now, such as Nintendo 64, PlayStation 1 & 2, Game Cube, Sega DreamCast, and some mini gaming console, such as Game Boy Advance, Portable Sony PlayStation (PSP), etc. People can choose which gaming console they will playing with and there are a lot of game titles can be played in each console. This market have influence PC gaming, since PC gaming is not as interactive as console gaming due to lack of devices. Some games only available on some console, because the developers saw a bigger potential market in console gaming.
But right now, you can find a lot of gaming emulator which can emulate some console emulator, just like you are playing with the real console. For now, i'm playing one of Nintendo 64's games, called Zelda: Ocarina of Time using my PC with help of Project 64, a great N64 emulator. There are also some good PlayStation emulator like PSX and VGS. You can find them at Aldo's Site. It contains a lot of emulator available and also great tools.
Zelda itself is first released by Nintendo for Nintendo console (i played them also) and right now, there are several version of Zelda. I have played Zelda: Majora's Mask also, but i haven't finished it yet, because it wasn't very interesting games, since you are limited to three days long and you have to rollback to the first day when you almost finished your three days limit. It was so bored to see a flashback views. I rather to play Zelda: Ocarina of Time which is more interesting and has better story.
I have reached the third temple that i need to recover and hopefully, before i finished this semester, i can finish playing this game. Zelda is a complex game with a lot of side quest, so it take a long time to uncover all of Zelda's story.
Sunday, August 29, 2004
APNG, Animated Portable Network Graphics
PNG (Portable Network Graphics) is an alternative for GIF format that was pattented by a company and abandoned by many designer and programmer because they have to pay a royalty to the company if they want to use GIF on their products or applications. GIF has one advantage over JPEG formats, which is GIF format can be used to produce animated images, instead of static images. For several times, many developers have tried to build a new format which can replace GIF as a standard, so here comes PNG, which was standarized by W3C along with their specifications. This format makes PNG was so popular, because it is small just like GIF and it also have advantages over GIF Format.
But, after the release, some people couldn't find the the animated pictures that was available in GIF Format. PNG can't do this, and some company, like Adobe still using GIF in their products, because many people still needs GIF in order to make their websites looks more interactive (and they will get more from Adobe's product license beyond the price that they have to pay for the GIF license).
But finally, the new format arrives, APNG (Animated PNG) is here. While it's still a draft, but many people will glad to hear this story. APNG is an extension of the PNG format, adding support for animated images. It is intended to be a replacement for simple animated images that have traditionally used the GIF format, while adding support for 24-bit images and 8-bit transparency. APNG is a simpler alternative to MNG, providing a spec suitable for the most common usage of animated images on the internet. APNG is backwards-compatible with PNG; any PNG decoder should be able to decode the first frame of an APNG and treat it as a normal single-frame PNG. However, APNG deviates from the PNG specification in a few minor ways.
I hope that this draft will soon approved by the W3C and become a new standard that extends PNG format.
But, after the release, some people couldn't find the the animated pictures that was available in GIF Format. PNG can't do this, and some company, like Adobe still using GIF in their products, because many people still needs GIF in order to make their websites looks more interactive (and they will get more from Adobe's product license beyond the price that they have to pay for the GIF license).
But finally, the new format arrives, APNG (Animated PNG) is here. While it's still a draft, but many people will glad to hear this story. APNG is an extension of the PNG format, adding support for animated images. It is intended to be a replacement for simple animated images that have traditionally used the GIF format, while adding support for 24-bit images and 8-bit transparency. APNG is a simpler alternative to MNG, providing a spec suitable for the most common usage of animated images on the internet. APNG is backwards-compatible with PNG; any PNG decoder should be able to decode the first frame of an APNG and treat it as a normal single-frame PNG. However, APNG deviates from the PNG specification in a few minor ways.
I hope that this draft will soon approved by the W3C and become a new standard that extends PNG format.
HotSpot, New World of Wireless
As Intel Corporation launched their new processor named Centrino a few months ago, they unofficialy announced that they would already support Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) standard totally. This means, Intel will produce more processors that support Wi-Fi standards and many notebooks or laptops would integrate Centrino into their package. This also means that many people will find browsing in the Internet lot easier than ever before. People do not have to go to Internet Cafe or any other commercial places, but they just need some place called HotSpot.
Hotspot is an area which you can connected into the Internet with wireless conectivity. Many place around the world have build places like this in many area, such as cafe, hotel, restaurant, and also public area, such as park. Unfortunately, this fenomena haven't influence many vendor to do the same way in Indonesia. There are only a few hotspot that we can use in Indonesia, especially on the luxurious places, like hotels and cafe around Jakarta. There also some college who has build hotspot, just like Bina Nusantara and Pelita Harapan University. Students can brings their notebooks and surf while waiting for their class or having lunch at the cafetaria.
Hotspot totally is the new world of wireless, but it can't be enjoyed by public people for now. Maybe we still have to wait for several years before Indonesia build better infrastructure for telecommunications and Internet connectivity. For now, just use our traditional ways to access Internet.
Hotspot is an area which you can connected into the Internet with wireless conectivity. Many place around the world have build places like this in many area, such as cafe, hotel, restaurant, and also public area, such as park. Unfortunately, this fenomena haven't influence many vendor to do the same way in Indonesia. There are only a few hotspot that we can use in Indonesia, especially on the luxurious places, like hotels and cafe around Jakarta. There also some college who has build hotspot, just like Bina Nusantara and Pelita Harapan University. Students can brings their notebooks and surf while waiting for their class or having lunch at the cafetaria.
Hotspot totally is the new world of wireless, but it can't be enjoyed by public people for now. Maybe we still have to wait for several years before Indonesia build better infrastructure for telecommunications and Internet connectivity. For now, just use our traditional ways to access Internet.
Saturday, August 28, 2004
IOSN (International Open Source Network)
United Nations has build a new organization that has a function to promote OpenSource and Free Software around the Asia Pasific area called International Open Source Network (IOSN). This organization is under UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) that has a function to promote "free software" (note : this is different with the term Free Software above). Join IOSN.
The IOSN is producing a series of primers on Free/Open Source Software (FOSS). The primers serve as introductory documents to FOSS in general, as well as covering particular topic areas in greater detail. Their purpose is to raise FOSS awareness, particularly among policy-makers, practitioners and educators. Their products includes ATutor and SchoolToop.
For now, i have joined the organization and also ATutor project. I want to translate them into Indonesian Language, so it would help many Indonesian people who wants to use ATutor and having some trouble with English Language. Hope this project can run as soon as possible and many people will join me to develop this project.
Long live OpenSource and Free Software
The IOSN is producing a series of primers on Free/Open Source Software (FOSS). The primers serve as introductory documents to FOSS in general, as well as covering particular topic areas in greater detail. Their purpose is to raise FOSS awareness, particularly among policy-makers, practitioners and educators. Their products includes ATutor and SchoolToop.
For now, i have joined the organization and also ATutor project. I want to translate them into Indonesian Language, so it would help many Indonesian people who wants to use ATutor and having some trouble with English Language. Hope this project can run as soon as possible and many people will join me to develop this project.
Long live OpenSource and Free Software
Friday, August 27, 2004
Gaim, Breaking Promises??
Gaim, the best IM client that implement the most protocol, has released another version, regarding some bugs when you change an options in the preferences dialog and some function (i do not know for sure, since i don't read them very well, i just skimmed it). This release is an unusuall release, since Gaim promised that the release cycle was 3 weeks for one release, and they always sticked with x.yy naming conventions (x denotes major version and y denotes minor version), but today they released another version, which called 0.82.1 and it was one day release cycle.
This events just like the kernel updates from Linus Torvalds which was releasing another kernel updates 2.6.8.1 after he found some bugs on kernel version 2.6.8 . This kernel was the first kernel version that used four digits numbering. Before that release, Linux Kernel always sticked with x.y.z naming (x denotes major version, y denotes minor version, and z denotes release version).
Can we call this breaking promises? I don't think so, becase these bugs is important and will affect many users when changing their preferences (mostly for new users, since users that has already installed gaim usually never changes their settings). If this bugs is fixed in another three weeks, imagine how many new users will be disappointed with Gaim and switching to another applications? Well.. you can say "this is an OpenSource world, so it's natural to change to another applications". Yes... that's true, but Gaim has already gain some reputation as an application which compatible with most IM protocols that are available right now, and they are considered as the most active project in the Sourceforge, a huge OpenSource repository.
Hopefully, Gaim developers will carefully releasing their application, so this events will not happen again. Many users will gladly hear this wish, since Gaim is getting bigger and bigger, so it is efficient to download all the code just for a minor updates.
This events just like the kernel updates from Linus Torvalds which was releasing another kernel updates 2.6.8.1 after he found some bugs on kernel version 2.6.8 . This kernel was the first kernel version that used four digits numbering. Before that release, Linux Kernel always sticked with x.y.z naming (x denotes major version, y denotes minor version, and z denotes release version).
Can we call this breaking promises? I don't think so, becase these bugs is important and will affect many users when changing their preferences (mostly for new users, since users that has already installed gaim usually never changes their settings). If this bugs is fixed in another three weeks, imagine how many new users will be disappointed with Gaim and switching to another applications? Well.. you can say "this is an OpenSource world, so it's natural to change to another applications". Yes... that's true, but Gaim has already gain some reputation as an application which compatible with most IM protocols that are available right now, and they are considered as the most active project in the Sourceforge, a huge OpenSource repository.
Hopefully, Gaim developers will carefully releasing their application, so this events will not happen again. Many users will gladly hear this wish, since Gaim is getting bigger and bigger, so it is efficient to download all the code just for a minor updates.
First Task
In my first week, i got two task from my lecture. Both of them are the same task, which is finding an articles, but with different subjects. The first task was looking for a robotics applications and the second one was about ethics. This was the only task for the relevant subject (robotics experimental and profession ethics). Because i don't have any other task or activity to be done, i thought it was a good idea to finish this task as soon as possible so that all the task would not getting more and more as time flows and all lectures are giving tasks for each major.
I can find the articles from any source (magazines, newspapers, and of course Internet). I picked up Internet, since it contains numerous information, including robotics and ethics. First of all, i didn't have any reference where to find such articles, so i opened up Google, the famous search engine (see my last blog for short information about Google). I entered "Robotics" for the keyword and i got what i need. I picked AutonomousSolutions as my subjects for the articles, since it's product was extraordinary. You can see it yourself.
There were several products that available on the website, and i got a little confused when i have to decide which product i got to pick, but finally, i choose UVIS (Under-Vehicle Inspection System). It was a great systems that could help many security officers to detect dangerous items, such as bombs when hidden under the car. It's device was so small (32 Cm tall and 5 Inch in diameter) and not too heavy (about 9 Lbs or 4.5 Kg) so it can pass through any car or bus. It has two cammeras (horizontal and vertical) that were able to send video streaming via wireless connectivity to operator via a vest which was designed to be wore by the operator.
After a few minutes of writing the articles in Indonesian language, i made some sketch to help me visualize how the devices works on the next presentation on the class. Finally, the first task is done and i will move into the second task. Hopefully i got a full mark for this task. Wish me luck :)
I can find the articles from any source (magazines, newspapers, and of course Internet). I picked up Internet, since it contains numerous information, including robotics and ethics. First of all, i didn't have any reference where to find such articles, so i opened up Google, the famous search engine (see my last blog for short information about Google). I entered "Robotics" for the keyword and i got what i need. I picked AutonomousSolutions as my subjects for the articles, since it's product was extraordinary. You can see it yourself.
There were several products that available on the website, and i got a little confused when i have to decide which product i got to pick, but finally, i choose UVIS (Under-Vehicle Inspection System). It was a great systems that could help many security officers to detect dangerous items, such as bombs when hidden under the car. It's device was so small (32 Cm tall and 5 Inch in diameter) and not too heavy (about 9 Lbs or 4.5 Kg) so it can pass through any car or bus. It has two cammeras (horizontal and vertical) that were able to send video streaming via wireless connectivity to operator via a vest which was designed to be wore by the operator.
After a few minutes of writing the articles in Indonesian language, i made some sketch to help me visualize how the devices works on the next presentation on the class. Finally, the first task is done and i will move into the second task. Hopefully i got a full mark for this task. Wish me luck :)
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Gmail
Gmail, the first free webmail service that give their user a big quota as much as 1 GB was an incredible systems. I have my own gmail accounts and it was fast, reliable, and full of feature just as any other free webmail service, but it also has some incompatibility issues such as browsers supports. Gmail is recommending their users to use spesific browsers to login into their mail systems, and if you don't, some of the functionality is missing. For now, the best browser that is supported by Gmail is Mozilla family, including Mozilla Firefox, that is my default browser at home.
Gmail is not an ordinary free webmail service. You can't just signup and register your new user from their site, but you must be invited by another Gmail account or by Gmail system itself. Until now, i have invite 6 people, and i still have 5 more. (i got another quota today). I'm still wondering how does the Gmail system add invitation capability to their user acount, since there are no description about how users can achive ability to invite their friends.
Well anyway.. Gmail has made a tremendous movement among other free webmail since it's first public release. Yahoo! Mail for example, they updated their user's quota from 4 MB to 100MB. Another example is Hotmail, which upgrade their quota into 250 MB from the original 2 MB, even though not every users gets the impact (including me). Another 1 GB email service is rising, such as Walla.
Google is a big player on the Internet. Google has dominated in search engine technology and placed Yahoo! in the second place since it's debut. In the future, i hope that there will be another Google's service, such as IM (Instant Messenger) and Mailing list service. We will see in the next year probably :)
Gmail is not an ordinary free webmail service. You can't just signup and register your new user from their site, but you must be invited by another Gmail account or by Gmail system itself. Until now, i have invite 6 people, and i still have 5 more. (i got another quota today). I'm still wondering how does the Gmail system add invitation capability to their user acount, since there are no description about how users can achive ability to invite their friends.
Well anyway.. Gmail has made a tremendous movement among other free webmail since it's first public release. Yahoo! Mail for example, they updated their user's quota from 4 MB to 100MB. Another example is Hotmail, which upgrade their quota into 250 MB from the original 2 MB, even though not every users gets the impact (including me). Another 1 GB email service is rising, such as Walla.
Google is a big player on the Internet. Google has dominated in search engine technology and placed Yahoo! in the second place since it's debut. In the future, i hope that there will be another Google's service, such as IM (Instant Messenger) and Mailing list service. We will see in the next year probably :)
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Final Project
I recently started a new season, which i hope this will be my last year of my study majoring Computer Science (or Information Technology) in my college. In order to graduate, there are some conditions that have to be met. The first is total credit that i have collected must be 144 or more. The second is you must pass final project by defending it in front of the lecturer's that are responsible to test the final project. Of course this include some administrations and it involves some money.
In October, there are a change to propose my final project title but until now i'm still confused with the final project that i want to do. My first idea is rejected today when i consult with Mr. Volker Mueller from Deutch and i tried to proposed another title, which was a system that could generate RSS or any other RSS based format from any news site, just like MyRSS. He agreed with this project with some notes and advices on the project, such as statistics and some simple search engine. I picked this project since nobody has started a project like this before and it's quite new technology that hasn't been discussed deeply in my college, so i guess there a big change for me to be granted with these project. I hope that in next October i can propose a good proposal and they agreed with my project. Wish me luck :)
Any help would be appreciated hehehe....
In October, there are a change to propose my final project title but until now i'm still confused with the final project that i want to do. My first idea is rejected today when i consult with Mr. Volker Mueller from Deutch and i tried to proposed another title, which was a system that could generate RSS or any other RSS based format from any news site, just like MyRSS. He agreed with this project with some notes and advices on the project, such as statistics and some simple search engine. I picked this project since nobody has started a project like this before and it's quite new technology that hasn't been discussed deeply in my college, so i guess there a big change for me to be granted with these project. I hope that in next October i can propose a good proposal and they agreed with my project. Wish me luck :)
Any help would be appreciated hehehe....
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Knoppix 3.6
KNOPPIX is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. KNOPPIX can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos.
After their final release which was 3.4, Knoppix has released another updated version, which is 3.6 and it is equipped with some latest OpenSource application, such as : Linux Kernel 2.4.27 and, as a boot option, Kernel 2.6.7, both ACPI-enabled, KDE version 3.2.3, GIMP version 2.0, enhanced hardware autodetection and driver updates, the FreeNX server from Fabian Franz, and ndiswrapper for loading proprietary drivers for wireless network cards.
Knoppix has made an astonishing move since their first release, since this is the well known GNU/Linux's Live-CD that works great and detects more hardware than any other distro that were installed in computer, such as Red Hat or Fedora. One advantage of Knoppix is that you don't have to install Knoppix on your harddisk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installed on it. It is executed via CDROM and stays on RAM while you are working with Knoppix. But you also have the opportunity to try installing Knoppix on your harddisk, even though it's better to install another distro rather than Knoppix.
If you are interested on Knoppix 3.6 "aKademy", go get them now at Knoppix's web site. You also can order Knoppix 3.5 DVD Edition via Lehmanns Online Bookshop as long as supply lasts.
After their final release which was 3.4, Knoppix has released another updated version, which is 3.6 and it is equipped with some latest OpenSource application, such as : Linux Kernel 2.4.27 and, as a boot option, Kernel 2.6.7, both ACPI-enabled, KDE version 3.2.3, GIMP version 2.0, enhanced hardware autodetection and driver updates, the FreeNX server from Fabian Franz, and ndiswrapper for loading proprietary drivers for wireless network cards.
Knoppix has made an astonishing move since their first release, since this is the well known GNU/Linux's Live-CD that works great and detects more hardware than any other distro that were installed in computer, such as Red Hat or Fedora. One advantage of Knoppix is that you don't have to install Knoppix on your harddisk. Due to on-the-fly decompression, the CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installed on it. It is executed via CDROM and stays on RAM while you are working with Knoppix. But you also have the opportunity to try installing Knoppix on your harddisk, even though it's better to install another distro rather than Knoppix.
If you are interested on Knoppix 3.6 "aKademy", go get them now at Knoppix's web site. You also can order Knoppix 3.5 DVD Edition via Lehmanns Online Bookshop as long as supply lasts.
Sunday, August 22, 2004
RSS, New Style For News Addicted User
As new format available, there will be new style for everybody. One example of this style is RSS (Really Simple Syndication or RDF Site Summary) which is based on XML format. Moreover, RSS is a dialect of XML. All RSS files must conform to the XML 1.0 specification, as published on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) website. RSS also considered as a Web content syndication format, especially to perform headlines for news site, like LinuxToday, Slashdot, LWN, etc.
Right now, there are three version of RSS, which are 0.91, 0.92, 1.0 and 2.0. You can view their specification at W3C's website. Each version is used until now, but you should use the latest version which has more facility and compatibility among all RSS readers. For Windows platform, you could use FeedReader and in GNU/Linux platform, you have plenty of options, but i prefer to use Liferea (Linux Feed Reader), an OpenSource, lightweight RSS Reader. If you don't want to install any other application, you can use Mozilla's Extension which can help you to improve Mozilla or Firefox's capability.
RSS is so simple, powerfull, and also usefull. No wonder every popular news site use this format to enable their reader to view their headlines via RSS Reader without visiting their website. They will visit the site if the reader want to see the complete articles. This will save bandwidth and also time for the reader, because they can pick which articles they want to see rather than see bunch of useless articles for him/her. If you have website with some news, but you can't make any RSS based on the specification, try to use RSSCreator. This is a PHP class that can be used to create RSS version 0.9, 1.0, and 2.0, OPL, ATOM, MBOX, etc. (Credit to Jaya for the URL).
If you are true News Addicted User, try this RSS and you will not regret it. Consider it as an express way to get updated with the latest news and articles. There are so many RSS icon on websites that provide RSS Feed. Get them all now.
Right now, there are three version of RSS, which are 0.91, 0.92, 1.0 and 2.0. You can view their specification at W3C's website. Each version is used until now, but you should use the latest version which has more facility and compatibility among all RSS readers. For Windows platform, you could use FeedReader and in GNU/Linux platform, you have plenty of options, but i prefer to use Liferea (Linux Feed Reader), an OpenSource, lightweight RSS Reader. If you don't want to install any other application, you can use Mozilla's Extension which can help you to improve Mozilla or Firefox's capability.
RSS is so simple, powerfull, and also usefull. No wonder every popular news site use this format to enable their reader to view their headlines via RSS Reader without visiting their website. They will visit the site if the reader want to see the complete articles. This will save bandwidth and also time for the reader, because they can pick which articles they want to see rather than see bunch of useless articles for him/her. If you have website with some news, but you can't make any RSS based on the specification, try to use RSSCreator. This is a PHP class that can be used to create RSS version 0.9, 1.0, and 2.0, OPL, ATOM, MBOX, etc. (Credit to Jaya for the URL).
If you are true News Addicted User, try this RSS and you will not regret it. Consider it as an express way to get updated with the latest news and articles. There are so many RSS icon on websites that provide RSS Feed. Get them all now.
Thursday, August 19, 2004
MD5 is Broken!!!
A new discovery on cryptography!!. There are rumors that said that SHA-1, had already been half-compromised. These rumors are circulating at the Crypto conference, which is being held this week in Santa Barbara, when somebody is about to announce a partial break of the SHA-1 cryptographic hashfunction. If true, this will have a big impact, especially on e-commerce where SHA-1 is one of the major encryption method that is widely used. Another major impact was on the popular cryptographic protocols, including the ones used to secure email and secure web connections.
SHA-1 is the most popular cryptographic hashfunction (CHF). A CHF is a mathematical operation which, roughly speaking, takes a pile of data and computes a fixed size "digest" of that data. To be cryptographically sound, a CHF should have two main properties. (1) Given a digest, it must be essentially impossible to figure out what data generated that digest. (2) It must be essentially impossible to find find a "collision", that is, to find two different data values that have the same digest.
Antoine Joux has already announced that he had found collision in SHA-0. One of the Chinese authors (Wang, Feng, Lai, and Yu) reported a family of collisions in MD5 (fixing the previous bug in their analysis), and also reported that their method can efficiently (2^40 hash steps) find a collision in SHA-0. This speaker received a standing ovation, from at least part of the audience, at the end of her talk. Eli Biham announced new results in cryptanalyzing SHA-1, including a collision in a reduced-round version of SHA-1. The full SHA-1 algorithm does 80 rounds of scrambling. At present, Biham and Chen can break versions of SHA-1 that use up to about 40 rounds, and they seem confident that their attacks can be extended to more rounds. This is a significant advance, but it's well short of the dramatic full break that was rumored.
Where does this leave us? MD5 is fatally wounded; its use will be phased out. SHA-1 is still alive but the vultures are circling. A gradual transition away from SHA-1 will now start. The first stage will be a debate about alternatives, leading to a consensus among practicing cryptographers about what the substitute will be.
SHA-1 is the most popular cryptographic hashfunction (CHF). A CHF is a mathematical operation which, roughly speaking, takes a pile of data and computes a fixed size "digest" of that data. To be cryptographically sound, a CHF should have two main properties. (1) Given a digest, it must be essentially impossible to figure out what data generated that digest. (2) It must be essentially impossible to find find a "collision", that is, to find two different data values that have the same digest.
Antoine Joux has already announced that he had found collision in SHA-0. One of the Chinese authors (Wang, Feng, Lai, and Yu) reported a family of collisions in MD5 (fixing the previous bug in their analysis), and also reported that their method can efficiently (2^40 hash steps) find a collision in SHA-0. This speaker received a standing ovation, from at least part of the audience, at the end of her talk. Eli Biham announced new results in cryptanalyzing SHA-1, including a collision in a reduced-round version of SHA-1. The full SHA-1 algorithm does 80 rounds of scrambling. At present, Biham and Chen can break versions of SHA-1 that use up to about 40 rounds, and they seem confident that their attacks can be extended to more rounds. This is a significant advance, but it's well short of the dramatic full break that was rumored.
Where does this leave us? MD5 is fatally wounded; its use will be phased out. SHA-1 is still alive but the vultures are circling. A gradual transition away from SHA-1 will now start. The first stage will be a debate about alternatives, leading to a consensus among practicing cryptographers about what the substitute will be.
Are your ready for KDE 3.3 ?
After astonishing many people with the release of KDE 3.2, right now, KDE projects have moved their focus on releasing KDE 3.3 and polishing the new look and bug fixing are their primary objectives right now. It is called "Kollege" for it's code name and it was only bug fix from the earlier project, "aKademy" in late august.
This new version is considered stable and some people have already upgrade their KDE into this version, while some others tends to wait until the final release is launched to prevent unexpected bugs that will show up in the beta version. If you are trying to build from the source code, i suggest that you use Konstruct, from KDE project. "Konstruct" is a build system which helps you to install KDE releases and applications on your system. It downloads defined source tarballs, checks their integrity, decompresses, patches, configures, builds and installs them. A complete KDE installation should be as easy as "cd meta/kde;make install".
By default "Konstruct" installs to your home directory which means you don't have to possess root privileges or risk to damage your system or affect another KDE.
The question is Are you ready for KDE 3.3?
This new version is considered stable and some people have already upgrade their KDE into this version, while some others tends to wait until the final release is launched to prevent unexpected bugs that will show up in the beta version. If you are trying to build from the source code, i suggest that you use Konstruct, from KDE project. "Konstruct" is a build system which helps you to install KDE releases and applications on your system. It downloads defined source tarballs, checks their integrity, decompresses, patches, configures, builds and installs them. A complete KDE installation should be as easy as "cd meta/kde;make install".
By default "Konstruct" installs to your home directory which means you don't have to possess root privileges or risk to damage your system or affect another KDE.
The question is Are you ready for KDE 3.3?
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Welcome Blue Ray
We already know that DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) standard have been considered mature, but we also know that there are so many different format, like DVD-RAM, DVD+RW, DVD-RW. There format were not compatible each other in their first release, so many people was confused to buy which player, since some player can not play another format besides the format that it supported. This fenomena made many people decided to wait until there were some player that was compatible and able to read other format. Well... finally some vendors started to release their latest drive which can read some and some of them can read them all without no problems at all. At their, the capacity that DVD disk can hold was up to 4,7 GB on single side, and 9MB on double side.
Right now, there will be another new standard that were born in a few days ago. This standard will soon replace the old standard, since it can hold 5 times more than the old standards with same price. These standard were been approved by yhe Blue-Ray Founders, a group which consist of Sony, Phillips, Thompson, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, etc. It is called blue ray since these standard makes use of blue ray, instead of red ray, that was used on the old standard. This new format will able to save up to 25 GB on a single side and it is intended to save high definition video. New devices, such as DVD player, computer DVD drives, and software that are compatible with blue-ray standard is predicted to come out by the end 2005. Until then, maybe we should delay our intention to buy another DVD rom devices and wait for the next standard.
Right now, there will be another new standard that were born in a few days ago. This standard will soon replace the old standard, since it can hold 5 times more than the old standards with same price. These standard were been approved by yhe Blue-Ray Founders, a group which consist of Sony, Phillips, Thompson, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, etc. It is called blue ray since these standard makes use of blue ray, instead of red ray, that was used on the old standard. This new format will able to save up to 25 GB on a single side and it is intended to save high definition video. New devices, such as DVD player, computer DVD drives, and software that are compatible with blue-ray standard is predicted to come out by the end 2005. Until then, maybe we should delay our intention to buy another DVD rom devices and wait for the next standard.
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Invisible Barcode
In traditional markets, people tends to remember a price on their product. This method was efective enough until their product variety became larger and bigger in quantity. This will made so much confusion. They decided to use some new method that could help them to identify their product faster and accurately without having to remember all the price in their product. Finally, they were glad when barcode was revealed. Barcode is a new method that uses a combination of numbers to identify unique product and it was accepted on around the world since they worked greatly and it was simple to implement, especially when you have know some good visual programming and database design background. Problems still exist even when after barcode system was used. The problem is not every product can be labbeled with barcode.
Right now, korean scientist have invented a new barcode which is invisible and can be used anywhere and in every product. This new barcode was invented after conducting a research for about eight years in Seoul National University. This barcode is called Nano DNA-Barcode System (NDBS). It has high security and privacy level and it can be used to prevent password changes.
How does it works? DNA which was encapsulated spread into products. This DNA will not die with enzim or heat when the products are distributed. This way, information about the product can be obtained from nano molecule via polimerase chain reaction (PCR). Great works....
ADS:
Start increasing profit and get barcode equipment that can help improve your profit. Having a barcode printer allows you to print you own barcode labels that with a barcode scanner you can retrieve any information that you have stored onto your label.
Right now, korean scientist have invented a new barcode which is invisible and can be used anywhere and in every product. This new barcode was invented after conducting a research for about eight years in Seoul National University. This barcode is called Nano DNA-Barcode System (NDBS). It has high security and privacy level and it can be used to prevent password changes.
How does it works? DNA which was encapsulated spread into products. This DNA will not die with enzim or heat when the products are distributed. This way, information about the product can be obtained from nano molecule via polimerase chain reaction (PCR). Great works....
ADS:
Start increasing profit and get barcode equipment that can help improve your profit. Having a barcode printer allows you to print you own barcode labels that with a barcode scanner you can retrieve any information that you have stored onto your label.
Monday, August 16, 2004
Goes Back to Campus
After a long wait for about 2,5 months, finally i goes back to campus to continue for my study about IT (Information Technology) faculty in UKDW (Duta Wacana Christian University). I'm starting my fourth year and i hope that this will be my last year, since i'm planning to start working by 2005.
In the first day, i came to Cisco class and this is an interesting class, since this class just begun in the previous semester, so i will be second class. But the class had not been started, so i just checked my emails and surfing the Internet. Well, i'm just using my campus facility :)
Well, i can't write a long description, since i can't focus on blogging while my teacher is explaining the materials.
In the first day, i came to Cisco class and this is an interesting class, since this class just begun in the previous semester, so i will be second class. But the class had not been started, so i just checked my emails and surfing the Internet. Well, i'm just using my campus facility :)
Well, i can't write a long description, since i can't focus on blogging while my teacher is explaining the materials.
Friday, August 13, 2004
Patents? No WAY!!
Few weaks ago, some issues about software patents delayed the Linux migration project that was supposed to be implemented by Munich Government. The issues involves a regulation to support software patents that could make GNU/Linux and OpenSource project stopped because everybody will race for patents that could give them royalty or money from license that they got from other people who used their application or source code.
Well, unfortunately, this delay was only a few weeks long, since today, The Register reports that the city of Munich is moving ahead with its switch to Linux. This means a big loss to Microsoft who couldn't make Munich Government to change their mind about this big migration, even though Microsoft was willing to give some extra discount and full support if they would buy Microsoft's product, such as Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.
Besides Munich, big countries such as China is starting to develop their own application while some part of it was still using OpenSource project. This means that there will be another players in the OpenSource project after Munich. Will this be a nightmare to Microsoft that already confessed that GNU/Linux was their second biggest threat in their business role? We don't know for quite sure, but this losses have made Microsoft think twice to fight againts OpenSource. A few months ago, they released a few OpenSource Project, which called WiX, Windows Installer for XML (I suppose, or correct me if i'm wrong). Will soon be another OpenSource project from Microsoft? or will they release their source code for Windows and Office? We'll see in the next few years.
Well, unfortunately, this delay was only a few weeks long, since today, The Register reports that the city of Munich is moving ahead with its switch to Linux. This means a big loss to Microsoft who couldn't make Munich Government to change their mind about this big migration, even though Microsoft was willing to give some extra discount and full support if they would buy Microsoft's product, such as Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.
Besides Munich, big countries such as China is starting to develop their own application while some part of it was still using OpenSource project. This means that there will be another players in the OpenSource project after Munich. Will this be a nightmare to Microsoft that already confessed that GNU/Linux was their second biggest threat in their business role? We don't know for quite sure, but this losses have made Microsoft think twice to fight againts OpenSource. A few months ago, they released a few OpenSource Project, which called WiX, Windows Installer for XML (I suppose, or correct me if i'm wrong). Will soon be another OpenSource project from Microsoft? or will they release their source code for Windows and Office? We'll see in the next few years.
Thursday, August 12, 2004
Freeduc, GNU/Linux For Education
Tommorow, UKDWNET Club will conduct some kind of demo using GNU/Linux. There will be 2 demos in our plan, which is GNU/Linux Installation (Using Mandrake or perhaps Red Hat 9) and the other is Freeduc Demo. Hopefully, this demo will inspired many new college students to use GNU/Linux as their primary operating system in their computers, since until now, many college students didn't know about GNU/Linux's ability to perform a great stable, secure, and simple operating system.
As the GNU/Linux installation may be common to some poeple, the Freeduc demo that will be our primary demo, using Freeduc Live-CD, based on Knoppix (which is also based on Debian) will amaze many people, since they neved had that experience before when using another operating system besides GNU/Linux which is Live-CD. It means that you don't have to (but you can in some distro) install the operating system itself in your harddisk. The operating system will run from CDROM and it will be resident on the RAMDRIVE as long as you're playing with it. This means, that you could use this distros to perform a demonstration or as rescue CD to perform a rescue operation whenever you had problems with your other operating system. It also means that you don't need any harddisk to run this operating system, with side effect of it's slower when compared with operating system that was installed.
Freeduc itself was a distro that was built by OFSET (Organization for Free Software in Education and Teaching) by cooperating with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) that was intended for Educational purposes. If you want to see it's history, please refer to http://www.ofset.org/freeduc-cd/. It has so many educational application on the CD, so it was a perfect distro to support education, which until now always uses commercial application. This will help so many education institution who can't afford buying those application.
As the GNU/Linux installation may be common to some poeple, the Freeduc demo that will be our primary demo, using Freeduc Live-CD, based on Knoppix (which is also based on Debian) will amaze many people, since they neved had that experience before when using another operating system besides GNU/Linux which is Live-CD. It means that you don't have to (but you can in some distro) install the operating system itself in your harddisk. The operating system will run from CDROM and it will be resident on the RAMDRIVE as long as you're playing with it. This means, that you could use this distros to perform a demonstration or as rescue CD to perform a rescue operation whenever you had problems with your other operating system. It also means that you don't need any harddisk to run this operating system, with side effect of it's slower when compared with operating system that was installed.
Freeduc itself was a distro that was built by OFSET (Organization for Free Software in Education and Teaching) by cooperating with UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) that was intended for Educational purposes. If you want to see it's history, please refer to http://www.ofset.org/freeduc-cd/. It has so many educational application on the CD, so it was a perfect distro to support education, which until now always uses commercial application. This will help so many education institution who can't afford buying those application.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Gaim Sound Contest
My favourite IM player on GNU/Linux Platform, Gaim was intending to perform a sound contest that will search for the best sound and will be integrated in the next release. This contest is a great idea, since Gaim lacks of great sounds, and they were originially from AOL's initial release of TiK, so they intended to change it. They invited all sound engineering and also gaim users to create a new fantastic sound and send it to gaim-devel@lists.sourceforge.net. There's no deadline yet, but they will decide on one depending on many submissions they get.
Are you a good sound creator or music composer? If you are, then start creating your creations and mail them as soon as possible. Maybe your creativity will help OpenSource Development, since Gaim is one of OpenSource application that was released with GNU Public License (GPL).
Can't wait to see another Gaim release with new sounds :)
Are you a good sound creator or music composer? If you are, then start creating your creations and mail them as soon as possible. Maybe your creativity will help OpenSource Development, since Gaim is one of OpenSource application that was released with GNU Public License (GPL).
Can't wait to see another Gaim release with new sounds :)
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
WinXP SP2 is NOT for public consumtion!!
Finally, Microsoft launches their latest update for Windows XP (Service Packs 2), but unfortunately, this update was not intended for single or personal user, but rather for IT managers and developers who works on networks. It was a big update, since the size of the package was approximately 272MB. It is not recommended for home user, since A smaller,
more appropriate download will be available soon on Windows Update. Yes... another Windows Update, and you will be forced using IE as the default browser to access the Windows Update website.
Some people rather to delay the deployment of Service Pack 2, and they prefer to see other people opinions who had use Service Pack 2 and feel the difference. This is normal for me (since i do this too..), since updates doesn't always fix something, but sometimes they deliver more problems than we expected. For now, it's better to wait until there will be some reports from the popoular website, such as ZDNET that states Service Pack 2 is ready for public consumption.
If you want to learn more about Service Pack 2, visit http://go.microsoft.com/?LinkID=781871, or maybe you want to find support resources and answers to common Windows XP Service Pack 2 questions and issues? Try to visit http://go.microsoft.com/?LinkID=806850.
more appropriate download will be available soon on Windows Update. Yes... another Windows Update, and you will be forced using IE as the default browser to access the Windows Update website.
Some people rather to delay the deployment of Service Pack 2, and they prefer to see other people opinions who had use Service Pack 2 and feel the difference. This is normal for me (since i do this too..), since updates doesn't always fix something, but sometimes they deliver more problems than we expected. For now, it's better to wait until there will be some reports from the popoular website, such as ZDNET that states Service Pack 2 is ready for public consumption.
If you want to learn more about Service Pack 2, visit http://go.microsoft.com/?LinkID=781871, or maybe you want to find support resources and answers to common Windows XP Service Pack 2 questions and issues? Try to visit http://go.microsoft.com/?LinkID=806850.
Monday, August 09, 2004
MSIE 7 Will Become Dominant (Again) ??
After a long wait, finally top Microsoft Developer had tried to update their
famous buggy web browser Internet Explorer. This update was expected to came out when Windows 2003 was released last year, but unfortunately, Microsoft was focusing on Microsoft Longhorn's launching and also WinXP Service Pack 2 due to some delays on both releases. These imporevement includes support for tabbed browsing, better security, more PNG and CSS compliance, and RSS integration (which Mozilla Firefox and Opera had already did this in their application).
One thing that I point out about IE's update was the
compatibility on CSS, especially CSS2, since IE had so many buggy
implementation of CSS and CSS2, that caused web developers's works heavier,
since they had to implement some hacks in order to got the same view in all
majority browsers, including IE. Hopefully the next version of IE can give
developers a fresh air about web usability on CSS and CSS2.
Last year report states that IE dominant was decreasing due to unactive
development and also the rising of Mozilla Firefox and also Opera, but after
Microsoft launch IE 7, I think that there will be a new fenomena that
deserved to be seen. We don't know when that time comes, but one thing for
sure, it on the future. But I still believe that Firefox will continue to
gain respect from all Internet users around the world, since their
development roadmap was clear and they will release version 1.0 in this year
and hopefully it will be stable enough to became the default browser on
every computers connected into the Internet.
famous buggy web browser Internet Explorer. This update was expected to came out when Windows 2003 was released last year, but unfortunately, Microsoft was focusing on Microsoft Longhorn's launching and also WinXP Service Pack 2 due to some delays on both releases. These imporevement includes support for tabbed browsing, better security, more PNG and CSS compliance, and RSS integration (which Mozilla Firefox and Opera had already did this in their application).
One thing that I point out about IE's update was the
compatibility on CSS, especially CSS2, since IE had so many buggy
implementation of CSS and CSS2, that caused web developers's works heavier,
since they had to implement some hacks in order to got the same view in all
majority browsers, including IE. Hopefully the next version of IE can give
developers a fresh air about web usability on CSS and CSS2.
Last year report states that IE dominant was decreasing due to unactive
development and also the rising of Mozilla Firefox and also Opera, but after
Microsoft launch IE 7, I think that there will be a new fenomena that
deserved to be seen. We don't know when that time comes, but one thing for
sure, it on the future. But I still believe that Firefox will continue to
gain respect from all Internet users around the world, since their
development roadmap was clear and they will release version 1.0 in this year
and hopefully it will be stable enough to became the default browser on
every computers connected into the Internet.
Mandrake Linux 10.1 Beta 1
Finally, MandrakeLinux had updated their latest version of GNU/Linux distro into 10.1 beta 1. There were so many updates in this version, including kernel, KDE, GNOME, Mozilla, OpenOffice, and of course the Xorg as the replacement of X Free86 which is so buggy.
There were so many changes in this version, such as /install directory instead of Mandrake/RPMS. I hope this changes will not affect the upgrade process in the official release later :)
I was wondering why didn't Mandrake releases newer version of kernel but still stick to the default kernel version that was launched with the release version, but hopefully, they did update their kernel package, even though i didn't pretty sure about the update was the latest update or just some bug fixes in that version only.
Well... if you're true Mandrake user, try this version.
Download it at ftp://ftp.free.fr/mirrors1/ftp.mandrake-linux.com/Mandrakelinux/devel/iso/10.1/i586/
Have fun
There were so many changes in this version, such as /install directory instead of Mandrake/RPMS. I hope this changes will not affect the upgrade process in the official release later :)
I was wondering why didn't Mandrake releases newer version of kernel but still stick to the default kernel version that was launched with the release version, but hopefully, they did update their kernel package, even though i didn't pretty sure about the update was the latest update or just some bug fixes in that version only.
Well... if you're true Mandrake user, try this version.
Download it at ftp://ftp.free.fr/mirrors1/ftp.mandrake-linux.com/Mandrakelinux/devel/iso/10.1/i586/
Have fun
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