The Open Source Advocate

Introduction If Ubuntu wants to be taken seriously in the workplace, it needs a secure remote desktop. Many people have a need to connect to their work computer from home using remote desktop technology. Currently, the Ubuntu Remote Desktop is a front-end for VNC, which allows you to remotely manage your desktop. It works well, and a nice feature was recently added that alerts you when someone is remotely controlling your desktop. The Problem The problem is that VNC provides very little security. It does encrypt the password that you use to connect with, but all other traffic is not encrypted. This means that if someone is intercepting your traffic, it will be possible for them to watch what you are doing (including typing passwords). Another problem is that VNC has a maximum password length of 8 characters, and it does not require a username. This means that an attacker only has to guess 1 to 8 characters correctly in order to connect to your machine. If you use the Ubuntu Re...

Introduction "Open source software on Windows... WHAT?!?!!" may be your first reaction to this post. However, there are many good reasons to promote the use of open source software on Windows. First, it is a great way to introduce people to the wonderful world of open source software. They will be amazed at the amount of great software that they get for FREE! This will be your cue to inform them that the software is not only free of cost, but free of restrictions . In fact, they can run these same applications on an operating system that is entirely based on those concepts. Next, you hand them an Ubuntu disk and help them try it out. See how that works? Now give it a try with your friends, family, and co-workers. In this post I will highlight some of the most useful open source applications for Windows (listed in alphabetical order). If I missed your favorite application, please leave a comment so that I can include it in a future post. If you want to find more open ...

1) Developers Developers are the backbone of every open source community. Without them, the project would not exist. Many open source projects were started by a single programmer who created a piece of software to meet their own requirements. While most open source developers graciously volunteer their time, a growing number of developers are being paid to work on open source software. Ubuntu Development 2) Packagers Open source applications need to be converted into a package format before they can be included in a Linux distribution. Packages make it easy to install a software application, including any required dependencies. Ubuntu MOTU Packaging Team 3) Artists Most open source applications will need graphical artists to create icons, buttons, and logos. Some projects will also need musical artists to create audio files. Ubuntu Artwork Team Ubuntu Audio Team 4) Documentation writers A software project will not be successful if users cannot learn how to install, con...

Looks like I just ran into this problem . I was preparing to modify my feed by adding tags to all of my posts. This minuscule change caused my posts to reappear at the top of the planet again! I'm sorry everyone! I agree with Alexandre that this behavior needs to be changed. The planet should not bump posts to the top based on the "updated" value. Bloggers should be free to fix a typo without worrying about spamming the planet. I am often forced to decide just how many typos I will tolerate before I edit a post. There have been times when I left a typo in the post, simply to prevent the post from being bumped to the top of the planet. When a blogger edits an existing post, the planet SHOULD update the content (assuming it has not rolled off the planet) but it SHOULD NOT change its position. If the blogger has an important update that they DO want to bump to the top of the planet, they have two options: Create a new post and reference the old post via a link Change...

This weekend I was reminded of another reason that I love open source software: A transparent development process. Only in open source software will you be able to talk directly to the developers of a software project and give them your input. This is one of the reasons that open source projects tend to focus specifically on the requirements of the users. Let me tell you my story... I recently discovered a young open source project called ZipTie . ZipTie is a network management application that allows you discover and manage the devices on your network. I am always interested in open source network management applications, so I decided to test out ZipTie on our network. I first tried running ZipTie on Ubuntu, but I ran into some errors, which I posted on the forum . A developer quickly replied and asked me to test it again with a different setting. I made the change but the problem still existed. Then the developer suggested a work-around to get me going until they could find ...