Know the drugs

Alcohol, LSD, Ecstasy, Heroin, Marijuana and others. You probably know these names, and you also probably know what they do. But, do you know how they act? Mouse Party will teach you how these drugs affect the brain, through a pretty nice flash animation, by the Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah!

Windows XP Privilage Escalation

As all of us have probably already heard off, privilege escalation, or, vulgarly, become admin, in Windows XP is not that hard. These guys have it all explained, video included! You just need access to the machine. Wanna now how?

Color Code

Ubuntu Posters

I've found some posters, Ubuntu themed, which are an awesome way to publicize the Ubuntu Operative System. The following, and a lot more of marketing images, can be found through http://doc.ubuntu.com/~marketing/spreadubuntu/

Trusted Computing

Ever heard of the trusted computing alliance? The alliance that might some day control what you compute in your PC? Want to know a bit more about it? This video from youtube can explain the what and why (not) of trusted computing.

GenPets

I've seen this through Raúl Ricardo Vidal's blog (sorry Ricardo), and it amazed me! Bio-Genica has just developed living genetically created pets. These little - what do we call them!? - toys, come with a life supporting system to keep them alive while they are on the shelves. The company claim their pets to be:

• Allergen free;
• Child safe;
• Low maintenance needed.

So, who will want to buy one of theses? The site lacks information on how this little semi-living beings act, react or live, but, still, it let us know that they will be sold with six different personalities, identified in the box by colors:

• Genpet Red™ - Athletic and energetic;
• Genpet Orange™ - Adventurous, confident and curious;
• Genpet Yellow™ - Playful and fun;
• Genpet Green™ - Helpful, harmonious and peaceful;
• Genpet Blue™ - Communicative and serene;
• Genpet Violet™ - Imaginative and spiritual.

I really see this as a strange toy. Our pets are always loved, cared and seen as friends, who can love someone who comes in a box!? And such an ugly one? There is no release date announced in their page, but I'll be curious about these GenPets!

Listen Music Player

Listen is an awesome music player developed for Gnome. It has got some really cool features that lack from almost all players, such as:

• Automatic lyric fetching;
• Artist and album information from wikipedia or Last.fm;
• Very good podcast and internet radio integration;
• Excellent library management.
  

The project home page show us some nice screenshots from the application. It has been all written in python, and, despites it's early development stage, only at version 0.5, it is already fully stable and usable. The installation can be done through the Ubuntu repository by installing the listen package or, in any other distro, if the package is not available, the source can be downloaded here.

Ubuntu bugs

As it is know, Ubuntu has got an excellent bug report/support system, through launchpad. Now, you can see the stats on how many bugs are open, how many are unassigned, unconfirmed and critical. Thank you carthik

OpenMoko

OpenMoko calls itself:

The world's first integrated open source mobile comunications platform

Specifically, they are developing a phone in order to compete with Apple's Iphone and Nokia's best mobile phones. In order to this, and this is the innovative part, they are building the software, based in Open-source software only. In order to do this, according to their mailing list, they will put together the OpenMoko Linux distribution, that will be based on:

• Hardware:
• 120.7 x 62 x 18.5 (mm)
  

• 2.8" VGA (480x640) TFT Screen

• Samsung s3c2410 SoC @ 266 MHz

• Global Locate AGPS chip

• Ti GPRS (2.5G not EDGE)

• Unpowered USB 1.1

• Touchscreen

• micro-sd slot

• 2.5mm audio jack

• 2 additional buttons

• 1200 mAh battery (charged over USB)

• 128 MB SDRAM

• 64 MB NAND Flash

• Bluetooth (2.0)

• Software:

• Linux 2.6.17.14

• gcc 4.1.1

• binutils 2.17.50.0.5

• glibc 2.4

• Xorg 7.1

• glib 2.6.4

• gtk 2.6.10

• dbus 0.9

• eds

• (more)

This powerfull tool, in it's early stage, will be given to some developers who want to help, so that bugs can be found. Its release is scheduled to March of this year in the U.S., and it will probably cost $350 US Dollars, plus shipping, which let us guess that it won't be for sale in ordinary shops, but only through the website.

(In)Secure Magazine

(In)Secure magazine number 10 is out. This is a security magazine, reporting everything important there is to know, with sugestions to open-source security. It is freely distributed, and this month edition covers the following aspects:

• Microsoft Windows Vista: significant security improvement?


• Review: GFI Endpoint Security 3


• Interview with Edward Gibson, Chief Security Advisor at Microsoft UK


• Top 10 spyware of 2006


• The spam problem and open source filtering solutions


• Office 2007: new format and new protection/security policy


• Wardriving in Paris


• Interview with Joanna Rutkowska, security researcher


• Climbing the security career mountain: how to get more than just a job


• RSA Conference 2007 report


• ROT13 is used in Windows? You're joking!


• Data security beyond PCI compliance - protecting sensitive data in a distributed environment

It can be download at http://www.insecuremag.com/.

Mirror blogs

It is really sad to see how many bloggers are online just in order to steal content from another, some even removing the credits, others by leaving a small unnoticed 'via' word, linked to the blog. This has happened to me in my last post, IM Clients for Linux. I've found several blogs with exactly the same text, the same hyperlinks, well, a copy of my post. Here are two examples:

• http://linux.wordpress.com/2007/02/14/im-clients-for-linux/
• http://www.tuxme.com/content/view/3569/
  

I wonder, if you bloggers want to spread a message, that as been already written by someone, and are going to copy it, why won't you just create a link to that entry, from the original blogger, in a post were you talk about what you think of the original text? Are there any reasons to copy the content!? The worst cases, are those who don't even add a comment to what they have copied! Just copy+paste. What do we call this blogs? Mirrors?

IM Clients for Linux

If you use Linux, there are a lot of Instant Messaging clients for you to choose from. And this is not an easy choice at all. There is the features vs stability problem all the time. In order to simplify your choice, I've decided to come up with the most know.

• Gaim
• Gaim is the number one client in the open source community. It is being widely developed, and it's awesome due to it's stability and supported protocol diversity. The version in SVN already supports web cam and a lot more.
  
• Kopete
• Kopete, I would say, is to Gaim, as KDE is to Gnome. It has some extra feature, but complete useless. While the main window is simple, the chat window has way too much garbage.
• Emenese
• Emenese is still in it's early development, but is already being talked. It is being written in python, which gives it a promising future, with lots of extensions and a fast development, common for everything that comes the python language.
• Mercury
• Mercury messenger is for all of those who are used to Windows Messenger. Supporting almost everything that the Microsoft client supports, it's only disadvantage is that it is written in java, and it consumes a lot of memory!
• Amsn
• Amsn is just ugly. It was an attempt to copy Windows Messenger, but, in my opinion, it went completely wrong and I just can't like it!
• Kmess
• Despite I haven't ever tried Kmess out, it seems to be a real simples messenger client for KDE, with all the basic needs and really usable.

I am now using Gaim 2.0.0beta6, from the Ubuntu Feisty repositories, and I'm really getting along with it. Still, my favorite one, since I've had Microsoft's MSN Messenger for some years, is Mercury Messenger. The only reason I'm not using it right now is that it was giving me some problems, probably because of the java integration. I've taken the opportunity to see how Gaim was going and decided to keep it.

Have I missed any really good one? What's the best for you?

IMified

IMified is a middle point between your IM application and your blog, calendar and what else they will enable it to do. Basically, You're able to talk to IMified contact and tell it to appoint you a new meeting, post a certain blog, ...

WHY SHOULD I USE IT?

Because you shouldn't have to launch your browser to add a new appointment to your Google calendar, or complete a todo in your backpack account. Imified is always open, sitting right there in your favorite IM client ready to help. If you have an IM client running on your mobile phone, you've got instant access to your applications wherever and whenever. Cool huh?

Personally, I prefer the normal way. But there's for sure a lot of people who will be interested, and for those, just learn how to use it: IMified

Gmail

I've been using Gmail for a long while now, more then one year, I guess. It puts together everything that I need from an email provider. There are some particular points that makes me think Gmail is the best email solution out there:

• Spam protection is the best out there, almost nothing comes through;
• More than 2800MB of available space, and always increasing, so that you can store all your emails for a long, LONG time;
• Incorporated Gtalk, for instant messaging , directly from the browser;
  
• It is now free and complete, no more invitations are needed, so that anyone can subscribe.

So, what are you waiting for? Go get your account!

Update:
Just found an article from techcrunch comparing google, yahoo and microsoft email platforms. Not only my opinion, by their data, google is really the best email of the three.

Fon Router

Awesome! I've ordered my router freely from from FON, just a week ago, and it has already arrived. It's installed and it really surprised me. It is really small, but, still, the signal is great, and I can login from my whole house, two floors, with signal strength always greater than 75%. The installation is quite simple, just plug the power cable and an ethernet from an internet source. The two networks become immediately detectable. I'm truly impressed, and recommend it to everyone! Go get your invitation for a free router!

Web 2.0

I've just found a pretty nice video with a self-explanatory demonstration of what web 2.0 is all about. It shows google, youtube, flickr, wikipedia and a lot more of those sites that are changing our everyday living. It's just awesome how the cooperation is showed, and web 2.0 opened up.

A Million Penguins

Someone appears to have thought that a novel could be written by the community, through a wiki. The wiki was hosted, the title "A Million Penguins" was given, and now it's up to whoever wants to participate to develop the story. If you think you've got what it takes to help doing it, just make yourself an account and start editing the text, I'll be waiting for the final result, but, still, I don't really think it will be a best seller. Anyway, the story at the wiki can be read and edited at www.amillionpenguins.com.

GigaOM gives away FON Invites

I've just ordered a FON router. I've been searching for a long time now for an invite. I've just noticed that GigaOM is giving away invites, and I didn't think twice before ordering my la fonera router. This invite makes it free (router and shipping costs). It has got a private network, that you may use at home, and a public one, that you should share according to the fon community rules. If there are any invites left, they can be found here. Use and abuse.

Update: How the community works, via youtube

Update2: GigaOM invites are over, but, due to FON's 1st birthday, they are giving away more router by their own. I'm already waiting for mine, spread the word! Get it here.