Four short links: 10 October 2011 - Education Startups, Smartphone Robotics, Google SQL, and Deleted Timezones
Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed --This fundamental investment vs. expenditure mindset changes everything. You think of education as fundamentally a quality problem. The average person thinks of education as fundamentally a cost problem. This and many other insights that repay the reading. (via Hacker News) Romo -- smartphone robotics platform Kickstarter project. Google Cloud SQL -- Google offers...

Developer Week in Review: Linux turns the big 3.0 - The Linux kernel gets to 3.0, Oracle is bitten by the Internet's long memory, and more lawsuit fever.
The Linux kernel gets to version 3.0. Meanwhile, Oracle doesn't seem to remember the warm reception that Sun gave Android, and big players get lawsuits on their doorsteps.

Helios Project Director Felled By Stroke; Linux Community Support Sought
One of the people behind the scenes has been Mr. Stark's partner, Diane Franklin, who has served as Logistics and Planning Director for the Helios Project for the past year. Ms. Franklin is retired and has served in this capacity without pay. Her skills allowed the project to better organize and distribute the resources they receive to those who need them.

On Virtualization and The Cloud: The Most Ridiculous Article I've Read in a Very Long Time
In a piece published this morning called Don't Throw Away Your Physical Servers Just Yet, the author, Ken Hess, wrote a piece that ridicules and derides anyone who doesn't virtualize literally all, as in every last one, of their servers. No, I'm not exaggerating.

Adobe: 64-bit Flash Player Later This Year
The note from Mr. Offerman reads, in part: "I can confirm that Adobe will make 64-bit support in Flash Player "Square" available in a shipping release of Flash Player later this year."

Four short links: 9 June 2011 - MongoDB Subpessimalization, Anti-Intellectualism, Teen Internet Use, Android Internals
Optimizing MongoDB -- shorter field names, barely hundreds of ops/s when not in RAM, updates hold a lock while they fetch the original from disk ... it's a pretty grim story. (via Artur Bergman) Is There a New Geek Anti-Intellectualism? -- focus is absolutely necessary if we are to gain knowledge. We will be ignoramuses indeed, if we merely...

One Year Later: Adobe Abandons 64-bit Linux Again
Once again there are known security vulnerabilities in the now eight month old beta and no patches are available. In addition, the community forum page for discussing Flash Player "Square" has been deleted from the Adobe Labs website. If Adobe is continuing development on a 64-bit version of Flash Player they are not sharing any information with the public at this time. For the time being Adobe has effectively abandoned 64-bit Linux once again.

Four short links: 11 April 2011 - Facebook for Non-Profits, Groklaw is Goneburger, Map Ads Mandatory, and Corruption Fought
Fundraising on Facebook -- only 7% [of companies surveyed] cited social networking as one of their most effective sources for customer acquisition [...] only 2.4% of non-profits were able to raise over 10k through Facebook in 2010. (via Chris Brogan) Groklaw Closes -- There will be other battles, and there already are, because the same people that propped SCO...

Four short links: 7 April 2011 - Android Strategy, Fad Books, Ubiquitous Product Design, and Android Headers Apology
The Freight Train That is Android -- Google’s aim is defensive not offensive. They are not trying to make a profit on Android or Chrome. They want to take any layer that lives between themselves and the consumer and make it free (or even less than free). [...] In essence, they are not just building a moat; Google is...

Four short links: 18 March 2011 - Job Titles, Android Copyright, Error Hosting, and Drizzle Ships
Titles and Promotions (Ben Horowitz) -- Andreessen argues that people ask for many things from a company: salary, bonus, stock options, span of control, and titles. Of those, title is by far the cheapest, so it makes sense to give the highest titles possible. The hierarchy should have Presidents, Chiefs, and Senior Executive Vice Presidents. If it makes people...

Four short links: 25 February 2011 - Banshee Bucks, Log Mining, Visualization Secrets, and Repression Tools
Canonical's New Plan for Banshee -- Canonical prepare the Linux distribution Ubuntu. They will distribute the popular iTunes-alike Banshee, but instead of the standard Amazon store plugin (which generates much $ in affiliate revenue for the GNOME Foundation) they will have Canonical's own Amazon store plugin and keep 75% of the revenue (25% going to the GNOME Foundation). They're...

Developer Week in Review - App Store policy makes developers see red, Ubuntu may have a black heart, and a look at the blue content in git commits.
Coming up on the Week in Review: Revolt of the App Store developers, Ubuntu's innocence lost, and a report we swear you'll like.

Developer Year in Review: Operating Systems - Windows 7 outshines Vista (not hard), Linux still in peril (hard luck), and the Mac App Store launches (hard sell)
Last year saw Linux fight free of one legal morass, and perhaps right into another; Microsoft take another swing at replacing XP; and Apple bring the App Store model to the desktop.

Four short links: 30 December 2010 - Systematic Voice, gTLD Branding, Haikuleaks, and PS3 Code Signing
Groupon Editorial Manual (Scribd) -- When introducing something nonsensical (fake history, mixed metaphors), don't wink at the reader to let them in on the joke. Don't call it out with quotes, parenthesis, or any other narrative device. Speak your ignorance with total authority. Assert it as fact. This is how you can surprise the reader. If you call out...

Four short links: 21 December 2010 - Big Companyitis, Spyware Apps, Maturing Cloud, and Mobile Sync
Cash Cow Disease -- quite harsh on Google and Microsoft for "ingesting not investing" in promising startups, then disconnecting them from market signals. Like pixie dust, potential future advertising revenues can be sprinkled on any revenue-negative scheme to make it look brilliant. (via Dan Martell) Your Apps Are Watching You (Wall Street Journal) -- the iPhone apps transmitted more...

Four short links: 17 December 2010 - Systems Programming, Peer Review, Web Mining, Facebook Design
Down the ls(1) Rabbit Hole -- exactly how ls(1) does what it does, from logic to system calls to kernel. This is the kind of deep understanding of systems that lets great programmers cut great code. (via Hacker News) Towards a scientific concept of free will as a biological trait: spontaneous actions and decision-making in invertebrates (Royal Society) --...

Developer Week in Review - Mobile, mobile, mobile! Plus: The true story of the Linux kernel.
Not one, not two, but three mobile OS events in the last week, including a sneak peak of the PSP handset. Also: The final nail is driven into the myth of the Linux developer, courtesy of the Linux Foundation itself.

Getting Drupal and mod_security to Play Nicely Together on Red Hat 5.x Servers
Deploying Drupal on an Apache web server with mod_security or adding mod_security to an Apache server with Drupal running should be as easy as installing the relevant packages. Unfortunately, on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.4 and 5.5 servers it just isn't so.

Four short links: 19 October 2010 - Positive Gov2, Psychology of Places, Open Source Embedded Devices, and Dilbert on Data
YIMBY -- Swedish site for "Yes, In My Back Yard". Provides an opportunity for the net to aggregate positive desires ("please put a bus stop on my street", "we want wind power") rather than simply aggregating complaints. (via cityofsound on Twitter) Getting People in the Door -- a summary of some findings about people's approaches to the physical layout...

Loss Leaders and Linux
I bought a low-end, small footprint desktop: an eMachines EL-1300G. The cost at a local big box retailer was $159. A friend of mine was so impressed she went to the store right before Christmas to buy one as a gift for her sister. The price had dropped to $149. Of course, the systems came preloaded with Windows. Linux was not an option.

Linux Online Certification

Linux/Unix System Administration Certificate Series — This course series targets both beginning and intermediate Linux/Unix users who want to acquire advanced system administration skills, and to back those skills up with a Certificate from the University of Illinois Office of Continuing Education.

Enroll today!