What is that I say, a win for Linux? Look now that all the nay-sayers, pundits, and critics  have had a chance to chime in lets look at the big picture. The openssh vulnerability is not something to take lightly and I’m not it’s just I think allot of noise was made for something I think was handled much better than any Microsoft vulnerability ever has. Notifications were sent from multiple sources, Canonical made sure Launchpad was protected, and the forums (Ubuntu, Mint, Debian) went into over drive letting everyone know what to do. If it was a Debian based distribution it was made perfectly clear you needed to install the security updates. Friends, family, and colleagues let me know, my local Ubuntu LoCo, and other LUG’s were all over it too. Once it was known, the openssh vulnerability was  was fixed. I’ve never seen Microsoft handle anything they way this was. This issue did not make me think Linux was less of a system on the contrary I now know the decision to move to Linux was the right thing to do. Again it’s the community that really makes Linux shine, we care about each other, or at the very least Linuix users really do believe in if you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours. Yep, I’d call that a win.

So just what is Splashtop? It’s an embedded version of Linux that can be contained on a flash-based chip somewhere on the motherboard or on a special partition on your hard-drive.  The  goal is to have you up and doing things seconds after you push your power button.

Sounds like a great idea and it looks like ASUS is starting to ship motherboards with this technology today.

I sure wish they had a Live CD or something so we could play around with it. It really is a great idea, another one of those why didn’t I think of that products.

So I’m back form vacation and what did I see Tux Racer at every Arcade in the Parks. That’s right an Arcade version of our favorite bird….and it sure was fun to play.

Well it’s been all over the place today the new Nine Inch Nails record the slip was made available by Trent Reznor, the creative force behind NIN made the post on dig himself after all. This is just the latest in high profile artiest (like radiohead) that have started to experiment in new forms of distribution for their works. Don’t forget you can still pick up free tracks from Trent’s work ghost as well. So is this guy out to change music distribution single handed, or has he just made all the money he needs and feels like thumbing his nose at the establishment. I mean come on this is NIN we’re talking about.

I’m not really sure where all this is going, I do know however that times are a changing and I’m sure not the first person to say this, but licensing like creative commons covers everything from books to movies and even graphic art. People still need to make money but they are doing it in new and creative ways. How we get paid for the products we produce will change. Will everything we own be covered in ads, will you get services along with your product, free music with that concert ticket that happens to be encoded holographic memory. Who knows. I’d say 90% of the software I use is open source, I pay for my use of open source software by promoting it with the zeal of an evangelist on the pulpit (and when I can a donation or two). I can see fans of NIN having more money to spend on tickets for that concert tour that was announced just a day before the release of the free record today, what can I say Trent sure knows how to market and piss off the RIAA.

Trent just encase you ever read this I like 1,000,000 and Discipline… Oh and thanks for the free music you rock.

I just love when companies do this kind of thing under the umbrella  of  public safety or the law. I wonder how many computers have had this device used on them with out proper warrants (cause that never happens). So tell me again why people use Windows or trust Microsoft?

Ok not open source and not Linux but free is free, PDAmill is giving away all of it’s Palm games for free. The bad news is that will not be developing for the palm and that’s too bad cause they make some nice games. So go get your palm and start the download fest.

Behold the proud rocketers of New Mexico.

Here we prepare the launchpad, please note tangled wires.

No skimping on safety as Senior launch coordinator is as far as he can get from launchpad.

A perfect launch if you squint you can see the second stage separate

Top of the line 10 year old recovery vehicle

Had a great time spending the afternoon launching rockets, so we decided if we could find some open source software to help us reach for the stars, and we did.

Lawndart is an open source model rocket simulator for Linux.

Go get a rocket and go have some fun.

As promised I’ve posted more pictures of the New Mexico Hardy Heron release party.

It’s really been a great year, we started with just two of us and now we have over 30 active members, official status, and even have 2 Ubuntu official members with more on the waiting list. I’m real proud of what we have accomplished with the LoCo and can’t wait to see what we do next year. If Friday nights party was any indication it’s going to be a good year.

Click here to see what we did at our party…..

Hardy Release Party was a huge success we had over 25 people show up from all walks of life to celebrate the release of our favorite Linux distribution here is just a few pictures of the event.

Good food, lots of talks, lots of installs. I made 35 disk and they were all gone. W00T!

lifehacker

If you’ve flirted with the idea of switching your desktop operating system to Linux but never took the leap, the time is now.