November 2005

PHP 5.1.0 Released Posted Saturday, November 26, 2005 @ 7:33 AM by mayhem
A new release of PHP5 is available. This version includes over 400 bugfixes, performance improvements over the 5.0.x branch, new date handling code, new versions of PCRE/SQLite/PEAR and over 30 new core/extension functions. A number of security fixes are also present and users are recommended to upgrade. (Source: Slashdot)
 
Google's Secret Plans For All That Dark Fiber? Posted Monday, November 21, 2005 @ 9:04 PM by mayhem
Robert X. Cringely details the plan for all the dark fiber Google has been buying up: "The probable answer lies in one of Google's underground parking garages in Mountain View. There, in a secret area off-limits even to regular GoogleFolk, is a shipping container. But it isn't just any shipping container. This shipping container is a prototype data center. Google hired a pair of very bright industrial designers to figure out how to cram the greatest number of CPUs, the most storage, memory and power support into a 20- or 40-foot box. We're talking about 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk storage that can be dropped-off overnight by a tractor-trailer rig. The idea is to plant one of these puppies anywhere Google owns access to fiber, basically turning the entire Internet into a giant processing and storage grid. While Google could put these containers anywhere, it makes the most sense to place them at Internet peering points, of which there are about 300 worldwide." (Source: Slashdot)
 
Development Release: NetBSD 3.0 RC1 Posted Sunday, November 20, 2005 @ 8:57 PM by mayhem
The first release candidate of NetBSD 3.0 is out: "On behalf of the NetBSD Release Engineering team, I'm happy to announce that the release process for NetBSD 3.0 has officially begun. The first release candidate is available for download here. We expect to have RC2 available on the FTP server in about a week, and we hope this will be the final release candidate. So if all goes well the release of 3.0 is approximately three weeks away. We appreciate your patience and support which we hope will make this the best NetBSD release to date!" See the release announcement and installation instructions (i386) for further details. A list of NetBSD mirrors can be found here.
 
Linux Kernel 2.6.15-rc2 Now Available For Download Posted Sunday, November 20, 2005 @ 8:51 PM by mayhem
You can now download the 2.6.15-rc2 Linux Kernel from here, or any of the www.kernel.org mirrors here, full changelog information is available here.
 
Digium Announces the Launch of Asterisk 1.2 Posted Friday, November 18, 2005 @ 9:38 AM by mayhem
Digium Inc., the creator of Asterisk® and pioneer of open source telephony, announced Asterisk 1.2, today at the IP.4.IT conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Asterisk 1.2 is the first major revision to Asterisk since the release of Asterisk 1.0 in September 2004, and includes over 3,000 feature additions and improvements to the overall performance and efficiency of memory usage. Asterisk, the world’s first open source PBX, offers a strategic, highly cost-effective approach to voice and data transport over TDM, IP and other architectures.

More information available at asterisk.org
 
Taking Linux On The Road With Ubuntu Posted Monday, November 14, 2005 @ 9:30 PM by mayhem
Tom's Hardware has a nice review of the Ubuntu H2. How about storing your operating system, including some applications, on a highly mobile device? This is exactly what the Ubuntu H2 was designed for. In theory, the Ubuntu H2 package can be run on virtually any computer that has at least one empty USB port. A tiny 1" hard drive with 3 GB capacity was teamed up with the Debian-based Linux distribution Ubuntu. Bundling a tiny storage device with a fully-featured open source operating system enables the user to take a system installation, all its settings and applications, and a limited amount of data with him. It would be great to take this pretty interesting product to an Internet café, a computer at a friend's location, or any other system you can think of. (Source: Slashdot)
 
Free OpenOffice.org Training Videos Posted Sunday, November 13, 2005 @ 3:29 PM by mayhem
Having trouble converting your family and office mates into OpenOffice devotees? NewsForge (Owned by the same people that bring you Slashdot) can now help you convince the visual learners around you that they can do it. NewsForge is releasing a series of free video segments that demonstrate OpenOffice in action from installation to day-to-day use. According to the site, these clips will play on any browser on any operating system as long as Flash is available. One practical topic that should be particularly interesting to the would-be business converts is 'making a slide presentation in a hurry.' (Source: Slashdot)
 
Linux Kernel 2.6.15-rc1 Now Available For Download Posted Sunday, November 13, 2005 @ 1:38 AM by mayhem
You can now download the 2.6.15-rc1 Linux Kernel from here, or any of the www.kernel.org mirrors here, full changelog information is available here.