With new releases of the kernel coming every two to three months, Linux continues to test the limits of the open-source development process. Moving forward, the roadmap for the open-source operating system indicates a constant drive to add features, while maintaining quality and stability.

To get some perspective on what lies ahead in 2008, we caught up with Linus Torvalds via email. His responses touched on the Linux development process, upcoming features, and whether he’s concerned about potential patent litigation.

InformationWeek: Is Linux kernel development proceeding faster than Windows Server development?

Torvalds: I’m the wrong person to ask, for multiple reasons. First off, I’m somewhat biased, of course. But the other reason is that I don’t even know — or really care — how Windows Server development actually proceeds, so how could I even compare and make an intelligent point?

I simply don’t use Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) products, not because I hate them, but because they aren’t interesting to me.

So, yes, with the above really big caveats, I obviously do believe that Linux development tends to be a lot more efficient than the alternatives — both inside the kernel but in many ways even more so in all the things going on around it. And I don’t mean Windows in particular, I mean any behind-closed-doors-commercial-proprietary model.

And as to why, let me instead answer your second question, because I think that one is more directed.

InformationWeek: In your opinion, where does Linux shine versus Windows? Reliability? Virtualization?

Torvalds: I think the real strength of Linux is not in any particular area, but in the flexibility. For example, you mention virtualization, and in some ways that’s a really excellent example, because it’s not only an example of something where Linux is a fairly strong player, but more tellingly, it’s an example where there are actually many different approaches, and there is no one-size-fits-all “One True Virtualization” model.

There are many different levels of virtualization, and many different trade-offs in efficiency, management, separation, running legacy applications and system software, etc. And different people simply care about different parts of it, which is why the buzz-word “virtualization” shows up in so many places.

And not only do we tend to support many different models of virtualization, but one telling detail may be that I am personally so totally uninterested in it, that I am really happy that I have almost nothing to do with any of them.

And I mention that as a strong point of open source! Why? Because it actually is a great example of what open source results in: one person’s (or company’s) particular interests don’t end up being dominant. The fact that I personally think that virtualization isn’t all that exciting means next to nothing.

This is actually the biggest strength of Linux. When you buy an OS from Microsoft, not only you can’t fix it, but it has had years of being skewed by one single entity’s sense of the market. It doesn’t matter how competent Microsoft — or any individual company — is, it’s going to reflect that fact.

By Charles Babcock
Source: InformationWeek.com

The importance of e-learning cannot be ignored. There is a growing pool of highly qualified individuals all over the world. Many people have saved time and money – students managed to get easy accessibility irrespective of their place of residence, and some have even gained higher education degrees at respectable colleges and universities without any expense on food, accommodation, and traveling.

With e-learning solutions, many businesses have trained people online and even integrated custom-made content in interactive format available in many languages. So the next time that you think of learning new things at a lesser cost, remember to make use of the latest and best technology available in the web.

NEW YORK (AP) — Airlines and service providers seeking to deliver high-speed Internet services to passengers say they’ve learned from Boeing Co.’s 2006 decision to pull the plug on its ambitions to outfit its planes with a similar service.

Analysts say Boeing’s failed Connexion online service was costly to install and operate, resulting in large expenditures before getting a single paying customer. An industrywide downturn triggered by the 2001 terrorist attacks made the system an even tougher sell to struggling airlines.

Among other things, JetBlue Airways Corp., AMR Corp.’s American Airlines and Virgin America are today turning to air-to-ground connections to avoid Boeing’s expensive satellite fees.

“We wanted to attack every one of the things that were inhibitors in that first-generation system,” said Jack Blumenstein, chief executive of Aircell LLC, which is providing service for American and Virgin.

JetBlue’s LiveTV subsidiary paid the Federal Communications Commission $7 million for wireless spectrum that one test JetBlue aircraft has been using since Decemeber 11 to communicate with about 100 cell towers spread across the continental United States.

The 1-megahertz frequency band allows that aircraft to offer free e-mail and instant-messaging services on laptops and handheld devices through Yahoo Inc. and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd.

Read more: edition.cnn.com

The new mobile browser brings the true internet (like you’d experience from your desktop or laptop computer) to Windows Mobile smartphones. Flash-advertisements, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook – any and all web-pages load in speedy fashion thanks to Skyfire’s behind-the-scenes server-magic. With integrated Flash support, animated/interactive advertisements come to life, embedded videos play in the browser, and Flash-based web-pages are finally viewable.

Available for Windows Mobile 5 and 6. It can be integrated whether your smartphone is touch or non-touchscreen. It is currently still under beta testing.
More info on this site.

Michael Dell (Dell) thinks the future of his company lies in reducing IT complexity for customers. “We’re simplifying your client infrastructure, we’re simplifying your data center,” he told attendees at the Oracle (NSDQ: ORCL) OpenWorld conference in San Francisco two weeks ago. “And we’re launching services to assess complexity and simplify your environment.” Dell said he plans to triple the size of the company’s services business within three years.

Acquisitions are one way he plans to get there. In a turnaround from its historical organic-growth strategy, Dell has acquired five companies in the past four months, topped off with the Nov. 15 agreement to acquire Everdream, a provider of on-demand software services for managing business PCs. Dell sees Everdream complementing its August acquisition of ASAP, a provider of software and services for IT asset management, and its July acquisition of SilverBack Technologies, whose technology helps service providers manage and monitor their customers’ servers, storage systems, networks, and desktops. Dell offers SilverBack to Dell resellers and integrators, and will use it to build out its own IT infrastructure services, a spokesman says.

Read more: informationweek.com

UK teen mag Sugar has launched a new social boomarking tool for teenage girls called Sugarscape. Sitting alongside its already existing sugarmagazine.co.uk, the new site, currently in beta, is aiming to be an aggregator of cool gossip, music, quizzes and ‘stuff’ linked to by the sugar team and the readers themselves.

Users can register and download the sugarscape toolbar, then customise their personal page or ‘scape’, and add anything they find on the web by ‘sugaring’ things with comments and opinions. Involving more of a networking aspect than other bookmarking tools, ‘scapers’ can enhance their status by earning points for their actions – where they can either ‘sugar’ things they like, ‘shove’ things they hate, or ‘share’ things with their friends, and in a kinder version of the facebook poke can ‘squeeze’ their friends- sending a virtual hug that comes with the added bonus of 10 extra points. The site also encourages users to import all existing Bebo, MySpace and YouTube profiles to sugarscape, aiming to create a one-stop social networking experience.

In the dwindling sales of teen mags, Sugar is still standing strong as market leader (average circulation during the January-June 2007 period of 187,059 copies, which is down 6.6% on 2006, versus the 43.5% sales drop of the nearest competitor, Panini’s Bliss which fell to 120,506 copies) and with this site clearly hopes to enhance its identity as a brand that understands teenage girls.

by Amanda Gore
Source: psfk.com/

Initial use cases include automatic backup and restore from the cloud, using Firefox from with your personalization (such as bookmarks, RSS feeds) from different computers and collaborative bookmarking.

Weave, which requires Firefox 3.0 beta is in it early stages (0.1) with the following features:

* Basic framework and server-side in place for testing and experimentation
* Authentication with a single online service provider (e.g. labs.mozilla.com)
* Bookmark and history synchronization to the server from multiple clients
* Default encryption of all user data with a placeholder algorithm

Weave 0.2, due at the beginning of next year will include:

* Initial Web service APIs for developers to build on
* User controls and ability to delegate (and revoke) access rights to specific bits of browser metadata
* UI to enable sharing on applicable interfaces

Mozilla has 15 to 20 percent share of the browser market, enough to make Weave relevant if it succeeds with the project. And, Mozilla.org has projects ranging from instant messenging and email to calendaring and Web page editing to fill out its platform. It�s not going to replace the incumbents, but it will add a strong voice in the mix. Importantly, Mozilla could help establish industry standards that make the Web as an operating system more friction free.

Source: blogs.zdnet.com

A blog is an online diary. You can easily post entries and edit it, even if you do not have any technical expertise (depending on the platform where it is written on). You can use it for anything like properties, products, reviews, news, etc. They are managed daily ideally to increase the number of pages or keywords on the site, which will ultimately lead to more chances of being visited through search engines.
The only downside is that you have to invest a lot of time and commit to frequent uploads if you want to have a successful blog. Of course it will take some time to grow, but it all depends on you.

• An automatic evaluation of well-known market indicators is important – these are stochastic, moving average, and Fibonacci series. These indicators should be very well designed and must be capable of being easily switched from one to the other. For instance, immediately going from a 5-day stochastic to 9-day stochastic.
• Lastly, you have to be able to track your losses and profits via regular updates of the closing prices in the market.

So whether you are a stockholder or a broker – you trade assets and securities. Therefore, you are also interested in how much losses you incurred, or how you have gained in profit. All of these is difficult to do manually, but not with the advent of the new trading software in the internet.

The web has revolutionized our world in many, many ways. The latest internet technology that is available today is in the field of trading. If you want to avail of trading software, you should make sure that it has the following features:
• There should be a facility that allows simultaneous opening of different windows. Then, you can compare various markets online or exchanges. In fact, you have to be able to work on all the windows at the same time.
• It should be capable of examination of all kinds of data and comparing these items all at once.