How OSS helps companies to save money

Yet another money saving aspect of Open Source Software for companies results from the fact that by open-sourcing their software, many developers (hobbyists but also professionals) work with its code and get familiar with it. So the numer of people that know the specific software code rises. Now, if any company that uses OSS needs to customize or evolve this software it don't depend on just a few and therefore very expensive experts but can choose from a lage pool of OSS enthusiasts. And these people are already acquainted with this software and don't need any time (=money) to get familiar with the code base. However this decreases software development costs and therefore facilitates the software development as such.

Google Chrome OS' local file system

I was curious about the file system of the upcoming Google Chrome OS. As I haven't found this info anywhere on the chromium.org site (ok, Chrome OS was released only just 30min ago :). So I've pulled the source and scrolled through... In the source tree I've found ext2* and ext3* files that indicate that it uses either ext3 only because the ext3 file system is basically the journaled version of ext2 or it uses both ext3 (for local storage) and ext2 (for the static parts). However there were no ext4 files. For those of you not familiar with Linux — all these are Linux file systems.

How to increase the VM memory for IntelliJ IDEA

To increase the maximum "total heap size" the default value of 256 MiB, you have to modify the /Applications/dev/IntelliJ IDEA 9.0M1.app/Contents/Info.plist file under your Mac OS X. You have to change the VMOptions key:

VMOptions
-Xms64m -Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m -Xbootclasspath/a:../lib/boot.jar -ea

...these settings should beware you from hangups during long working sessions.

GWT, Spring@Grails (Java/Groovy), GAE - play together in harmony

There is the Wentity project which shows as a proof-of-concept how to incorporate these technologies and let them play together in harmony: It uses Google´s App Engine infrastructure for a Spring based version of Grails which also uses Google´s Web Toolkit for RIA content. The project is in a structure-finding draft phase. Nevertheless it can be built and deployed on GAE. Use it as a template for your own project to save time! Along with Groovy you can also use your Java code in this project. Also it has the capability to i18n enhance your web apps to offer internalized/translated versions of them. The Wentity demo site gives you an impression for the functionality which is already been implemented and working.

Google Gears Linux x86_64-bit Plugin Download for Firefox Browser

There is an issue describing this problem (no x64 version available) on the Google Gears development site. Also you can find continuously updated x86_64-bit versions of the Google Gears Firefox add-on/plugin there.

Importing/Adding GPG keys to Apt-Get/Aptitude

If you get messages like this...

W: GPG error: http://dl.google.com stable Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY A040830F7FAC5991

...when you are updating your package list via apt-get or aptitude, you have to import the missing GPG key, in order to avoid these warning messages in the future:

gpg --recv A040830F7FAC5991
gpg --export --armor A040830F7FAC5991 | sudo apt-key add -

In this way you can add a new GPG signature key for the distributed packages to apt-get.

Audio/Volume control keyboard shortcuts in Xfce configuration

To control the volume settings in Xfce with keyboard shortcuts, you have to assign the following commands in the "Application Shortcuts" section of the "Keyboard" configuration menu to corresponding shortcuts:

amixer set Master 5+ : increase volume
amixer set Master 5- : decrease volume
amixer set Master toggle : mute/unmute volume switch

Eclipse: 32-bit GWT (GTK) configuration on x86_64 arch to avoid "Failed to load module"/"wrong ELF class"

If you get "Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module": /usr/lib/gtk-2.0/modules/libcanberra-gtk-module.so: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64" messages on the console when you launch a Run/Debug Configuration of your GWT Web Application, you should set the value of the environemtal variable GTK_PATH to /usr/lib32/gtk-2.0:





...whereby ${GTK_32_PATH} should have the value /usr/lib32/gtk-2.0. Eventuall you have to install the ia32-libs-gtk package to make /usr/lib32/gtk-2.0 available.


You haven't to use the x32 JDK/JRE as your default Java VM for the whole x64 system but install ia32-sun-java6-bin package and set this VM as your default JRE only in Eclipse (for the projects) but not for Eclipse itself:

Apt Repository to install: Skype, Acrobat Reader, Real Player, Google Earth, restricted video codecs or the Acrobat Firefox plugin for Linux?

...if you're looking for anything above, you should add the Medibuntu Ubuntu package repository to your apt-get/aptitude list! This allows you to install pre-configured and actually working Skype, Acrobat Reader, Real Player, Google Earth packages as well as many video codecs to play DVDs and odd video files under Linux. Furthermore you can install the Acrobat Reader plugin for Firefox that allows you to view PDFs within Firefox without opening any additional PDF viewer software. Some speech codecs are included as well and restricted video codecs (ppc-codecs, w32codecs, w64codecs) make it possible to play encrypted DVDs.

Windows Vista x86 vs. x64 (32-/64-bit) - which is better?

Questions about RAM support (4 GB RAM barrier), performance, and security are clarified in a brief overview on this site. Not only the question whether Win Vista supports 4GB of RAM is clarified, but also security related questions regarding the both architecture editions of Windows Vista will be answered: PatchGuard, DEP, Driver Signing.

Password-less sudo (auto-sudo): Sudo without entering a password

Sometimes "getting the work done" has a greater priority for people than security: And this how-to addresses those people. However a password-less sudo command execution might decrease the security level of your machine, as executing the sudo command without entering a password, allows all local users (which are also able to execute the sudo command itself) to execute commands as root user. So an auto-sudo may allow local users to gain root privileges.

sudo visudo

...should let you modify the sudoers file and enable auto-sudo:

# [...]
# User privilege specification
root ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Uncomment to allow members of group sudo to not need a password
# (Note that later entries override this, so you might need to move
# it further down)
%sudo ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
#%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

Note that these entries have to be in the "User privilege specification" part of the sudoers file. Entries like %admin ALL=(ALL) ALL would override the pasword-less sudo behavior and should be commented out. The %sudo in %sudo ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL represents the "sudo" group. To make auto-sudo work, you should either add the auto-sudo user to the "sudo" group or replace the "sudo" group by a group which contains the auto-sudo user. There is usually a system group which has the same name as the respective user. So you could use this group name instead of "sudo".