The last few days I have been testing backup software to automatically backup my desktop Ubuntu system. I've only just got it set up, but rdiff-backup is exactly what I was looking for and seems to be working very well.

If you are a Linux distributor, you have a number of possible ways to upset your user base. Breaking existing, well-established functionality is one of them. Another would be to install software which appears to be monitoring user activity behind their backs. Seeming to make money off of these activities will not help. Extra points are awarded for doing it all as a surprise.

First, if you are unfamiliar with the problem, go to YouTube, pick any video, and double-click on the video, or click on the little fullscreen icon, and you’ll see that the video begins to get really slow, and choppy, from dropping frames.

What did you do with your summer vacation? John McLean wrote software to help IBM automate the process of counting computers on its Research Triangle Park campus. Last summer, at Raleigh-based Red Hat, he developed software that helps control robots.

Clonezilla makes things too easy for me, really. Being able to snap between installations in a matter of minutes takes all the challenge out of the two or three hours — or two or three days, depending on the distribution — of reinstalling a system.

This tutorial explains how to install and use Back In Time on an Ubuntu 9.04 desktop. Back In Time is a simple backup tool for Linux inspired from "flyback project" and "TimeVault". The backup is done by taking snapshots of a specified set of directories.

Over the past year, every major browser has undergone an equally major revision. Sometimes the revisions are reflected to the left of the decimal point, sometimes to the right, but always with big changes in functionality, performance, and under-the-hood optimizations.

You can download a new version 1.0.1 for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux here, and if you don't already use it, it's fantastic. I find that it consistently plays video file formats that other players have problems with..."