Nov 28, 2010 2:37am GMT
CeBIT, held in Hanover, Germany each year, is the largest IT trade show in the world. Companies come from all over the world to show their goods and services to each other, and to make deals. For several years now Linux New Media, the publishers of various Linux magazines around the world has sponsored a “Linux Park” at CeBIT.For the past three years, in the spirit of “Free and Open”, Linux New... more »
Latinoware 2010Nov 10, 2010 8:12pm GMT
I am at Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, attending a conference called Latinoware. Of course I am seeing a few old friends and many new ones, but I am also happy to report that the facilities for Latinoware, which is held on the grounds of the Itaipu hydro-electric plant, have been upgraded to be a very comfortable conference facility. There is a good-size exhibition hall, many different rooms for... more »
Bell Systems Technical Journals PublishedOct 31, 2010 2:44pm GMT
My friend Benjamin Scott send some email around today stating that Alcatel/Lucent had published all the old Bell System Technical Journals from 1922 to 1983 online and freely accessible. As Ben said:Bell Labs practically invented much of our recent civilization (communications theory, transistor, laser, microchip, Unix, the list goes on). The public switched telephone network, before the Intern... more »
Eating Your Own DogfoodOct 31, 2010 1:18pm GMT
One of my favorite sayings has always been “You should eat your own dog food”. When applied to programming it quite simply means that you should use the code that you generate. I started saying this many years ago when I noticed that the Unix product managers at Digital Equipment Corporation were not using Unix in their day to day work. They had Microsoft Windows systems on their des... more »
What if ITs all the same?Oct 30, 2010 2:48am GMT
Recently I was reading an article that was quoting Steve Jobs about how the Android phones from different manufacturers were all slightly different. He was pointing out that HTC and Motorola were putting on slightly different human interfaces and that this was crazy compared to his iPhone where all the phones were exactly the same. I started wondering what world Mr. Jobs lives in. Is... more »
How much money for memory?Oct 30, 2010 12:51am GMT
Readers may have noticed that I have a theme lately regarding storage sizes, for example talking about disk drives and the TK50 tape drives. This was in anticipation of purchasing a new “laptop” computer, the first new one I have had in six years. More about that machine tomorrow. Recently I reached into the history museum of my mind and pulled out an old memory board from a VAX 11/7... more »
dd(1): deceptively simpleOct 26, 2010 3:09pm GMT
Unix (and Linux) command line programs are like old friends. You get caught up in the day-to-day hustle of life and you may forget about them temporarily, but sooner or later you remember them and that warm feeling comes over you.... dd(1) is one of those programs that gives me a warm feeling. How simple dd(1) seems to most people, just reading in data at one end of the program and o... more »

