According to the US Naval Historical Centre (Go Navy!), the first computer bug was logged on September 9, 1945 at 15:45: ‘Moth found trapped between points at Relay # 70, Panel F, of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator while it was being tested at Harvard University, 9 September 1945. The operators affixed the moth to the computer log, with the entry: ‘First actual case of bug being found.’ Note that the term ‘bug’ pre-dates computers by quite awhile.
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Joe Barr has written a decent introduction to GnuCash an excellent accounting program for Unix. Read it, then download GnuCash.
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Dave Plonka writes about how miswritten firmware in Netgear routers denied service to UWisc. Very interesting, and an example that the true ethos of the net still exists.
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Bruce Perens analyses SCO’s intellectual property claims on his website. His conclusion: the concrete examples they have provided are in the public domain.
05 February 2018: update URL
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Ernie Ball, the manufacturer of guitar strings, switched to free software after a BSA audit cost them $100,000. Now their business is running better, more securely and more cheaply. A lesson for us all.
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Ars Technica have a most amusing bit on SCO. Read it!
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These guys offer Just Virtual Dedicated Servers. Starting at $20, you can get a full-fledged Linux (Debian, RedHat or Gentoo); $15/month for a BSD (FreeBSD) system.
These guys give you root, a static IP, free backup DNS and mail, and tech support. Their prices seem pretty reasonable to me, as long as you keep an eye on how much data you are transferring (they also offer unmetred accounts, of course).
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It’s fairly well-known that I’ve been opposed to calling Linux systems GNU/Linux: I have thought — and still do think — that it’s silly and incorrect (as there is more to a typical system than simply GNU and Linux). OTOH, I’ve noticed in my interactions with my peers (I’m a Unix admin by day) that there’s a mass assumption that the GNU toolset is identical to Linux. Recently I heard an otherwise well-informed man refer to Cygwin as ‘the Linux toolset on Windows.
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I’ve been rewriting the website for the Metropolis of Denver (warning: the current site is bad) and having an interesting time of it. I just spent an hour or so converting the M$-HTML front page into real, standards-compliant HTML and CSS. Not only does it look better and load faster, as well as play well with others, it is also ¾ the size of the old page.
I don’t know why more folks don’t write valid web pages.
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