Hardy Heron, the next release from the Ubuntu Linux team, isn't due until April 2008, but already the early alpha releases are filled with significant changes and improvements.

FlyBack is a tool similar to Apple's TimeMachine. It is intended to create snapshot-backups of selected directories or even your full hard drive. From the FlyBack project page: "FlyBack is a snapshot-based backup tool based on rsync. It creates successive backup directories mirroring the files you wish to backup, but hard-links unchanged files to the previous backup. This prevents wasting disk space while providing you with full access to all your files without any sort of recovery program. If your machine crashes, just move your external drive to your new machine and copy the latest backup using whatever file browser you normally use." This article shows how to install and use FlyBack on Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon).

Mr. Buzzword for February appears to be proprietary open source. This is an open source project which is owned or controlled by one company. Even though it may have a GPL license, you have no more power over it than a single voter in a political system.

Despite frequent speculation that corporate financing is dangerous to the ethos of the open source software (OSS) community, most Australian open source developers don't see payment as a primary influence on their contributions, a straw poll of attendees at Linux.conf.au in Melbourne suggests.

If you need to share files or printers with Windows machines, you're likely using Samba and know how to administer and configure it by editing configuration files and starting and stopping the daemon. However, there's an easier, graphical way to configure your box: the Samba Web Administration Tool.

" The Free Software Foundation's Richard Stallman will speak on 'Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks' at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 4 at Cabrillo College....«Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and was designed to fit with the system of centralized copying imposed by the printing press,» Stallman said. «But the copyright system does not fit well with computer networks, and only draconian punishments can enforce it…if we seriously hope to serve the only legitimate purpose of copyright—to promote progress, for the benefit of the public—then we must make changes in the other direction.» ..."

Speculation is mounting that Google is plotting the launch of a mobile phone in partnership with computer giant Dell.

"GNU Smalltalk 3.0.1 can now be downloaded at the following URLs..."