The Blog

In the comments to my recent post about dumping Windows and installing Linux Mint, in just 10 minutes, someone asked for an article about how to actually do things in Linux. That’s certainly a fair request, and a good point — I am perhaps more guilty than many others of frequently writing about how easy it is to install Linux, but not about … Read More

A critical security vulnerability in open-source server software enables hackers to easily take control of an affected server — putting sensitive corporate data at risk. The vulnerability allows an attacker to remotely run code on servers that run applications using the REST plugin, built with Apache Struts, according to security researchers who discovered the vulnerability. All versions of Struts since 2008 are … Read More

Cloud computing has dominated IT discussions for the last two decades, particularly since Amazon popularized the term in 2006 with the release of its Elastic Compute Cloud. In its simplest form, cloud computing is the centralization of computing services to take advantage of a shared data center infrastructure and the economy of scale to reduce costs. However, latency, influenced by the … Read More

Soon after it entered Feature Freeze development stage on August 24, 2017, the upcoming Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) operating system is yet to receive a polished and final default desktop session which resembles that of previous releases running Unity. As you are aware, Ubuntu 17.10 is launching next month with the latest GNOME desktop environment by default, as Canonical decided to drop … Read More

Android may be a Linux-based operating system, but the Linux roots are something that few people pay much mind. Regardless of whether it is known or acknowledged by many people, the fact remains that Android is rooted in software regarded as horrendously difficult to use and most-readily associated with the geekier computer users, but also renowned for its security. As … Read More

Linux serves — of that there is no doubt — literally and figuratively. The open source platform serves up websites across the globe, it serves educational systems in numerous ways, and it also serves the medical and scientific communities and has done so for quite some time. I remember, back in my early days of Linux usage (I first adopted … Read More

“The Compliance Industrial Complex” is a term that evokes dystopian imagery of organizations engaging in elaborate and highly expensive processes to comply with open source license terms. As life often imitates art, many organizations engage in this practice, sadly robbing them of the many benefits of the open source model. This article presents an economically efficient approach to open source … Read More

Have you ever wondered why some open source projects have better luck than others when it comes to attracting and retaining enthusiastic contributors? Here are a few ways open source projects can improve their chances of getting—and keeping—the kinds of contributors who help make projects succeed. 1. Give (social) permission Go out of your way to give people permission to … Read More

Netdata is a tool used for health monitoring and distributed real time performance of machines. It gives insights on anything that happens to a system through web dashboards. Apart from its major function, Netdata has a number of advantages. It is very lightweight, meaning that it uses little CPU cycles and memory. Netdata comes with a responsive web interface which … Read More

The cool thing about Linux and FOSS is also an aggravating thing, which is that sometimes there’s too much of a good thing. There is such an abundance of goodies that it can be overwhelming. So I am here to help you decide which programming language you should learn next, and that is Python. Oh, yes, it is. Why Python? I like … Read More

Securing your Docker containers and the hosts upon which they run is key to sustaining reliable and available services. From my professional DevSecOps perspective, securing the containers and the orchestrators (e.g., OpenShift, Docker Swarm, and Kubernetes) is usually far from easy. This is primarily because the goal posts change frequently thanks to the technology evolving at such a rapid pace. … Read More

AspenCore has released the results of an embedded technology survey of its EETimes and Embedded readers. The survey indicates that open source operating systems like Linux and FreeRTOS continue to dominate, while Microsoft Embedded and other proprietary platforms are declining. Dozens of market studies are happy to tell you how many IoT gizmos are expected to ship by 2020, but few … Read More

MongoDB has killed off its Solaris development efforts. The company’s director of platform engineering Andrew Morrow calls the decision “bittersweet,” but says “lack of adoption among our user base” made the decision easy and necessary. “Of our commercial users, we knew of only a handful who had ever been running on Solaris, and all confirmed that they had migrated away, or were … Read More

I’ve spent a bit of time setting up Linux (in my case, CentOS) as a home router due to frustrations with home routers available on the market. This was both a good exercise and a bit of nostalgia from my early days with Linux. Once I’d finished getting the basics set up, I wanted a way to track various statistics, such … Read More

Although attending college is not required for success in software development, college programs can provide a great deal of useful information in a relatively short period of time. More importantly, they are designed to cover all necessary concepts without the knowledge holes some self-taught practitioners suffer. College programs also often include theory and history, which can form the foundation for … Read More