"The SliTaz contributors team are proud to announce the publication of SliTaz GNU/Linux 1.0. This is the first stable release after 2 years of hard work. The system is distributed as a bootable LiveCD of 24.8 MB providing a fully featured desktop environment and a generous selection of multi-use applications. SliTaz GNU/Linux 1.0 uses..."

GoblinX, an installable live CD based on the solid foundation of Slackware Linux, released Standard edition version 2.6 last month. It comes with lots of handy applications and five desktop managers: KDE, Fluxbox, Xfce, Enlightenment, and WindowMaker. I was impressed with the amount of software included as well as the stability and performance of GoblinX 2.6.

The steps for setting up any mail-merge document in OpenOffice are easy; the one potentially gnarly bit is creating your contacts database in the first place. Your contacts list must be in Base, which is a bit of a pain. But the good news is Base can import data from most other databases, spreadsheets, text-delimited files, and email address books.

Since I’ve started using Twitter, I’ve been on the hunt for a command line version, so I don’t need to start up a browser or send an SMS on my phone. As I found out, it’s pretty darn easy to Twitter from the command line.

When it comes to IT, a lot more people talk about system audits than actually do them (of course, this could also be said for backups and many other things). In the spirit of building a solid foundation, this month we'll look at five steps that you can take on any Linux distribution -- but using Fedora as the example -- to perform a quick security check.

You can find Linux clients for several file-sharing networks. Taking into account how many clients are available for each, the current top three peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are eDonkey2000, FastTrack (derived from Kazaa), and Gnutella. Here are some desktop applications that allow you to become a full-fledged file sharer.

A British startup called AlertMe.com has introduced a remotely managed security system that runs off a Linux-driven Hub. The AlertMe Hub tracks various sensors via Zigbee, and then reports back to AlertMe.com's servers, which in turn relay alarm events to the customer via SMS or email.

Thingamablog is a cross-platform GPL blogging application that lets you create, update, and maintain multiple blogs from the client side. Thingamablog even acts as its own FTP client when you're ready to publish or update your blog with new content. The software is easy enough for beginners to use, but sophisticated enough that veteran bloggers will appreciate it too.