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Many small businesses are starting to use Linux and open source solutions without even realizing it. They're helped along by consultants who offer better solutions at lower costs, a nice combination for any business. Nice story at the MIT Enterprise Technology Review:

Tux magazine has a quick how-to about creating greeting cards in Linux using Scribus. Quick Do-It-Yourself Greeting Cards | TUX.

While reading a biography of Ben Franklin, I learned that Mr. Franklin routinely gave his inventions away to the public, without collecting a nickel.

There is now a tool that can easily crack PPTP authentication, which is what is used in the basic Virtual Private Networking standard included in Windows. Because of its wide deployment, PPTP is perhaps the easiest type of VPN to deploy--but it should no longer be considered secure.

Why use a strong password

In the online world, security plays a role in all online activities. Passwords are the most commonly used method to limit access to specific people. In last month's newsletter, we discussed assessing the relative value of systems protected by passwords, and grouping passwords across locations with similar trustworthiness.

In a nutshell, don't bother creating and remembering strong passwords for low value systems, and certainly don't use the same passwords for low value systems that you use in high value systems.

A four year analysis of the Linux source code conducted by five Stanford University computer science researchers found a tiny fraction of the number of security holes and bugs, compared to similar studies of proprietary software.

In Australia, at least, it appears that deploying Linux results in an overall cost savings of at least 27% in a medium-sized company over Microsoft solutions. And that's not even counting costs associated with viruses and downtime during reboots!

Wired magazine is running a story about "bluesnarfing," the practice of sniffing out your address book or calendar, making calls with your phone, and other more nefarious activity, hijacking your phone via Bluetooth. A must read.

In an interesting story in Fast Company, competition favors the generous. An interesting take on Darwinism and Open Source.
Only the Pronoid Survive.

The problem with weak passwords

Your dog's name. Your anniversary. Your childrens' initials, birthday, or birth weight. Your favorite hobby, or the name of your boat. Which one do you use for your password? Network Administrators and hackers know that most people choose passwords like these to protect anything from logging into web-based bulletin boards to buying things online.

Why does it matter? Identity theft. Corporate espionage. Loss of your data, or digital photos. Do you want to risk these things? In many cases, a weak password is all that separates your data from any bad guy who chooses to impersonate you online, or worse.

If you would like a good detailed overview for trying out Linux on a desktop, check out this story: Flexbeta - Fedora vs Mandrake vs Suse: Linux Distros Compared.

Robin Miller has written an interesting essay about providing network and desktop services based on open source software in NewsForge | Where is the 'plug-and-play' Linux office system? We find this story especially interestin