LinuxPlanet Classics: Getting the fingerprint reader working hasn’t advanced much since this article was first run, so here we go again, with some updated references. Please note that fingerprint readers, like all biometric devices, are easy to foil and do not provide strong security; but they are convenient.

The free and open source software community has been waiting for the G1 cell phone since it was first announced in July. Source code for Google’s Android mobile platform has been available, but the G1 marks its commercial debut. It’s clearly a good device, but is it what Linux boosters and FOSS advocates have long [...]

Universities and government agencies, even a few private corporations, are going all “mad scientist” on us in the realm of virtual worlds. But why are they experimenting there and why are so many drawn to virtual worlds like a dying man to a priest? “As a new part of the real world, virtual worlds are [...]

LinuxPlanet Classics: Bruce Byfield reviews his choices for the top general-purpose Linux distributions, and their strengths and weaknesses.

Many public administrations already use open source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to let citizens look at public geographic data trough dedicated Web sites. Others use the same software to partially open the data gathering process: they let citizens directly add geographic information to the official, high-quality GIS databases by drawing or clicking on digital maps.

Universities and government agencies are conducting all kinds of research, both scientific and sociological, in virtual worlds — but is this merely a newfangled boondoggle or is the research really real? “My general perspective is that virtual worlds are at least as real as many parts of the so-called real world,” William Sims Bainbridge, program [...]

Juliet Kemp introduces DBAN (Darik’s Boot And Nuke), a self-contained boot disk (floppy, CD, USB) that securely wipes hard disks. It is operating system independent and meets a number of government security standards; read on to learn more.

The Interclue extension is supposed to give you a preview of links in Firefox before you visit them, saving you mouse-clicks and, with a little luck, allowing you to move quickly between multiple links on the same page. Unfortunately, the determination to monetize the add-on and keep its source code closed results in elaborations that [...]

As 2008 draws to a close, the time for dreaming of White Christmases, sugar plum fairies and Ubuntu-loaded netbooks is over for another year. Here’s hoping everyone got their heart’s desire! Now it’s time to move on and turn our thoughts to the promise of the upcoming year. It’s a time to dream of change, [...]

Novell has canceled its 2009 BrainShare, the annual conference that this year drew 5,500 to the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City. The Waltham, Mass.-based company, whose largest operation is in Provo, Utah, with about 1,200 employees, said many of its customers were saying economic conditions would keep them from traveling to Utah [...]