Unixster

early four years after its launch, hackers have finally succeeded in jailbreaking the Playstation 3 (PS3) game console and circumventing its copy protection system. Just days after Sony obtained an injunction preventing the sale of a USB dongle for jailbreaking the PS3, hackers have now published source code under the name "PSGroove". This apparently allows a programmable USB development board with an AT90USB microcontroller to be used to circumvent the PS3’s security systems and execute unsigned code. In contrast to the PS3 jailbreak, currently PSGroove can’t be used to illegally copy PS3 games.

As MP3 players and mobile devices become very common, more and more people are beginning to convert their audio CD collection to music files so they will listen to them while on the move. In Windows and Mac, the conversion can be done automatically with Windows Media Player or iTunes. What about Linux? Let’s take a look.

My guide on how to make a webcam server has had a lot of feedback and so I decided to give two other methods to achieve it with two different software webcam-server and ZoneMinder Webcam-server is absolutely the easiest way to show on the net what is seen from your webcam, the software is very stable (I’ve just installed Ubuntu, and shows the date 2004) is based on Java and to make it work is enough to give these commands: #> aptitude install webcam-server #> export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so #> webcam-server Now point your browser at localhost:8888 and see a snapshot of that seen from the webcam.

Nagios sent me a reminder yesterday, which I finally got around to reading today, to update to the latest version of Nagios Core, 3.2.2. We were running 3.2.0, so we were a couple versions behind, so after browsing through the list of fixed bugs I thought it would be good to go ahead and upgrade. I had a meeting in fifteen minutes, and Nagios was actively monitoring servers in production. I considered for a moment waiting till after the meeting. After all, what if something went wrong during the upgrade, what if there was some unforeseen problem that caused disastrous results and caused me to miss the meeting? And then I remembered, this is Nagios. I did the upgrade, and made the meeting in time to get a cup of coffee on the way. This is how upgrades should work for everything.

ApacheCon 2010 is now open for registration. The three-day convention takes place in Atlanta at the Westin Peachtree hotel. Lots of speakers and informative sessions. There will be professional training sessions during the two days prior to the conference. Early bird special runs now to September 10.

As you might know Medfloss.org (formerly medfoss.apfelkraut.org) tries to provide a comprehensive and structured overview of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects for the health care domain. After the initial launch 6 months ago it recently welcomed the 200th project in its repository: the GPL-licensed iDART software – iDART is the abbreviation of "Intelligent Dispensing of Antiretroviral Treatment" and according to its authors addresses many of the challenges faced by public ART dispensing pharmacies in developing countries.

It was bound to happen. Google is now roping in the power of hardware acceleration to boost the performance of its Chrome browser. In a post on the Chromium blog late last week the Chromium developers announced that they would add GPU (graphics processing unit) support to future editions of the Chrome browser, bringing Google’s application in line with other major browsers.

Your editor was recently amused to encounter this ZDNet article on "Android’s dirty little secret." According to that article, the openness of Android has led to an increase in the control held by handset manufacturers and wireless carriers and the fragmentation of the platform. The Open Handset Alliance is in a "shambles," and Android phones have undone all the gains won by that great standard bearer for openness and freedom – the iPhone. One might easily conclude that Android is just business as usual for the mobile telephony industry, but there are a few things worth contemplating here.

(São Paulo, Brazil: September 2, 2010) – The Linux Professional Institute (LPI), the world’s premier Linux certification organization (http://www.lpi.org), announced an upcoming blog to report on wider activities within the LPI community of Linux professionals, affiliates and training partners. The blog–"Community Corner"(http://www.lpi.org/communitycorner)–will feature commentary and regular contributions from Jon "maddog" Hall, a widely recognized mentor and leader in the programming community and a longtime and respected champion of Free and Open Source Software. Mr. Hall is also Executive Director of Linux International (http://www.li.org/).

my first report from the OpenOffice.org 2010 conference in Budapest: Cool extensions, the power of OpenDocument, what Oracle thinks of OpenOffice and what Microsoft thinks of office files standards