Using the power of my new laptop I also captured a video demonstrating process grabbing (ogv, Youtube), and one showing the cube effect (ogv, Youtube).

Process grabbing still only works under Linux x86/x86_64 so help to port it to *BSD, OSX, Windows, Hurd and other Linux architectures is welcome.

neercs is still experimental so actually all tests and bug reports are welcome (patches too of course)

First of all, starting with Mandriva 2010.1, msec will support user-defined periodicity for all periodic security checks. Therefore, it is possible to specify if each test should be executed daily (like in all previous msec versions), weekly or even monthly. In my opinion, this feature is one of the most interesting among all others, because it allows you to fine-tune the balance between security checks and daily I/O load caused by some expensive checks.

By default, checks which require lots of I/O (e.g., checking for unowned files, or world-writable files, and so on) will run weekly on the standard security level. Why so? Because this check was responsible for approximately 80% of all time required to run the periodic checks, and on most of the machines its results did not differ between consecutive days. Surely, it is nice to have a daily notification of all those changes, but the I/O cost of it is unacceptable high. Of course, you can define the periodicity of all such checks to be daily when you want, by using msecgui application of editing the configuration file manually .

Another interesting feature was the de-duplication of variables between main msec configuration file (security.conf) and the level configuration file (for example, level.standard). On previous versions, all variables were defined in security.conf, even if they have exactly the same value as the default one for the current security level. This way, it was easier to see all the configuration at once by looking into /etc/security/msec/security.conf file. On the other hand, it lead to duplication of almost all variables..

So for 2010.1, the behavior when saving the configuration file was modified to be more logical (and similar to the one of msecgui, which displays variables that differ from the default values for the security level in different way). If you want to redefine a variable, just specify it in security.conf and this change will take effect. If you want to disable a variable completely, just define it to an empty value (like, CHECK_SOMETHING=), like in previous versions, and it will be disabled.

To simplify this, we could use the following analogy: in previous msec versions (e.g., 2009.1 and 2010.0), the security.conf file contains the whole security configuration of msec plus the name of the security level which is used as base. In 2010.1, it contains the reference to the base security level plus only the variables which must be overridden for this level. In other words, on Mandriva 2010.1 just by looking at the msec security file it is possible to say “this machine is configured to use the same configuration as on standard security level, except those three checks that should be disabled).

There is yet another reason for this change, which will be described in details when it gets implemented (probably in a few coming weeks). So stay tuned for more news .

Another feature was the possibility of running the RedHat sectool checks periodically, among with all other msec checks. Just install sectool package from the contrib, and its checks will be executed automatically by msec.

Additionally, the integration between msec and msecperms applications was improved, making it easier to switch security levels and creating custom levels.

Besides those changes, several msec messages were improved to make them easier to understand by non-geek users , and, like usual, several bugs were fixed.

Like always, I am very interested in your feedback on those changed. Please, feel free to drop me a note whether you like these features, dislike them, or any other kind of comments about msec.

• 2010 Spring planning
• Detailed information about alpha2 release

As usual all your feedbacks are really important to help in improving global quality of distribution. You can report improvements proposals and/or bugs in Mandriva Bugzilla.

Enjoy!

We will be present in FOSDEM (Free and Open Source Developers European Meeting) in Bruxelles. This is a great event for all Open Source developers but also for less technical visitors to meet all the main projects you may use in your favourite distribution.

We will be  happy to welcome you on Mandriva Linux booth for discussions with Mandriva community but also for demos on next version of Mandriva Linux and as a first presentation, Mandriva ARM port.

We will also take part to distribution miniconf which aims to be a cross-distribution mini summit. Conferences will be a way to share various experiences and feedbacks from the main Linux distribution.

See you then in Bruxelles!

» Plaats op eKudos

Finally all testing and bugfixing is finished. OpenLink has done an outstanding job with this new release of Virtuoso. Again my thanks go out to the Virtuoso development team and Patrick van Kleef who was my contact to smooth out the issues which prevented us to use Virtuoso 6 with Nepomuk.

So now is the time for distributions to package Virtuoso 6.1.0 and for you to update it on your own. But wait, there is one little detail: the database format changed significantly between Virtuoso 5 and 6. That is why I wrote a little conversion tool called Virtuosoconverter which takes care of this problem (Caution: the build system will download the Virtuoso 5.0.12 sources which are roughly 60MB). Usage is simple:

1. Shut down Nepomuk
2. Install Virtuoso 6.1.0
3. Run the Converter
4. Restart Nepomuk

Virtuoso 6 offers a wide range of features which are yet to be exposed through Nepomuk. The fun is only just starting!

Hints for Distributors:

• You might want to run the converter in auto mode before starting Nepomuk.
• If you do not like the build system downloading the Virtuoso 5 sources simply put them in the source tree. The build system will pick them up and use them instead of downloading.

Updates:

• If you have old Virtuoso V5 data and do not run the converter after updating to Virtuoso V6 Nepomuk will not start.
• The converter is the only way to convert the data to the new database format (except if you run some sql commands on the server manually)
  

• b::perlreq - parses the file, but reports file (File/Basename.pm) instead of modules, and is generally more suited for rpm
  
• module::extract::use - using ppi to parse a file, but extracts only use & require statements (no inheritance, moose roles, etc). also, it reports no minimum version extraction, only a list of modules.
  
• test::dependencies - using either b::perlreq (see above) or a regex scheme underneath
  
• module::scandeps - runs the file (which is slow), and finds all modules included - and sometimes a bit more (eg: file::homeDir::darwin is found for a module using file::homedir, even on a unix platform). can also run as a static analyser, but calls cpanplus (?!) which is slow.
  
• module::info - regex based
  
• module::cpants::generator::prereq - parses makefile.pl, where i want sthg that parses actual code
  
• module::cpants::kwalitee::prereq - parse meta.yml, makefile.pl or build.pl

GUADEC 2010, the eleventh edition, will be in The Hague, The Netherlands and takes place on July 24 – July 30.

The organisation team calls you to arms! A community conference like GUADEC only happens when the community puts its weight behind it.

This is your chance to be part of this event. Whether you are a conference rookie or a seasoned GUADEC veteran, your help is much appreciated.

As a volunteer at the conference, you may enjoy special benefits such as a free and limited edition volunteer shirt and free food and drinks during your volunteering hours.

Read more…

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Today, Amazon annouces that they have to follow and increase prices (which used to be 9.99) on Macmillan books. Given that other major publishers have agreed with Apple on that price they may requets the same from Amazon soon...

I sometimes buy technical books worth $30 or $50 but 90% of my books are between $2 and $10.

Am I stupid and are you ready to pay more for a virtual book than for a physical one that you can easily give (or sell) to someone later?

Nepomuk in KDE uses NRL – the Nepomuk Representation Language – especially the named graphs that it defines. Each triple that is stored in the Nepomuk database is stored in a named graph. We use this graph to attach meta data to the triples themselves. So far this is restricted to the creation date but in the future there will be more like the creator (for shared meta data) and the modification date (this is a bit tricky since technically triples are never modified, only added and deleted. But from a user’s point of view changing a rating means changing a triple.).

What did I say? “We attach meta data to the triples”? Well, to be exact we attach it to the graph which contains the triples. And since everything is triples (or quadruples since there is the named graph) the meta data is, too. And like every triple these also need to be put in a dedicated named graph – the meta data graph. Thus, each triple is contained in one graph and each graph has exactly one meta data graph.

So far so good. But what happens if we delete all triples in a graph? Well, the graph ceases to exist since graphs like resources in an RDF database do only exist due to the triples in which they occur.

And that is when it happens: dangling meta data graphs, i.e. meta data graphs that describe a graph which does no longer exist.

In theory Nepomuk could delete these automatically but I decided against that for performance reasons. It would have to check for dangling meta data graphs after each removal operation. So for now (until I come up with some database maintenance service) these graphs are just waste hanging around not bothering anyone (they are small).

In case you want to check how many of them you have in your database use the following command (see the Nepomuk Tips and Tricks for nepomukcmd):

nepomukcmd query 'select count(?mg) where { ?mg nrl:coreGraphMetadataFor ?g . OPTIONAL { graph ?g { ?s ?p ?o . } . } . FILTER(!BOUND(?s)) . }'

And to simply delete them use a bit of shell magic (the –foo is important since it removes any human-readability gimmicks from the otuput):

for a in `nepomukcmd --foo query 'select ?mg where { ?mg nrl:coreGraphMetadataFor ?g . OPTIONAL { graph ?g { ?s ?p ?o . } . } . FILTER(!BOUND(?s)) . }'`; do nepomukcmd rmgraph "$a"; done

It’s fine. I have it running a third party ROM (EnergyROM) with Windows Mobile 6.5.5 and the latest version of Manila (HTC Sense 2.5). It does everything I need it to, pretty much, and Manila’s a nice UI. But still, Windows Mobile ain’t that cool these days, y’know.

So I’m tinkering with the Android port that’s available for it. It’s impressive stuff; most basic things work now – calls, SMS, 3G data, most bits of Android itself including the Marketplace. Sound outside of calls, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth aren’t working and power management is dicey, so it’s nowhere near done, but it’s certainly tinker-with-able.

Most of my frustrations with it are nothing to do with the highly bleeding edge nature of the port, but with Android itself being bloody fucking stupid in places. No-one would take this shit from Microsoft, but since it’s Google we’re apparently supposed to not care and just feel the love.

Stupid stupid frustration #1: if you want to synchronize with a Google account, that Google account has to have Gmail enabled. Never mind that I have absolutely no use in the world for Gmail and just want to sync my contacts and calendar with an account that exists solely for that purpose. Nope, I need to have Gmail. I can’t even set up a dummy Gmail as the primary account and then synchronize contacts and calendar from my real account as a second account; Android lets me add an account with no Gmail as a secondary account, but refuses to sync anything with it.

Google – *why*? Just why? Why would you consider this remotely not evil? I do not want Gmail. I do not need it. By doing this you are not convincing me to use Gmail, you are just hugely fucking pissing me off. There is no justification in the world for this. If you claim you need an email address for me for some bizarre reason, like to email me about the Marketplace or whatever – fine. Ask me for an email address and verify that it’s mine. There is no reason in the world it needs to be a Gmail account. Just quit this stupidity, pronto.

Stupid stupid frustration #2: Google’s email client is totally broken. It cannot parse perfectly standard IMAP folder hierarchies. As someone on the bug has pointed out, every other IMAP client in the known universe – including Microsoft’s, for God’s sake – manages this perfectly well. This has been broken since Android first showed up a year and a half ago and the bug has received not a single word of response from Google. All they’ve done is reclassify it as a feature request (duh, what?)

Even the IMAP prefix option seems broken for me. Whether I set it when creating an account or after having created one, whether I set it to INBOX or INBOX. (note the period), it just doesn’t seem to work.

Grah. Google. Stop being a bunch of doofuses and fix this crap already. Much of Android is nice, but this sort of idiocy just leaves a really icky taste in my mouth. Someone, please, do me a Maemo port…