IT Masala

Hugh MacLeod asks, if open source is so great, where are all the open source billionaires?

If Open Source software is free, then why bother spending money on Microsoft Partner stuff? I already know what Microsoft's detractors will say: "There's no reason whatsoever. $40 billion per year is totally wasted."

This, however is not a very satisfying answer, simply because it doesn't quite ring true. Otherwise there'd be a lot more famous Open Source billionaires out there, being written up in Forbes Magazine or wherever. And Bill Gates would've been ousted years ago.

Hubble celebrates its 17th anniversary and gives the world a big present—a 29,566 x 14,321 pixel image (500 MB TIFF image) of the Carina Nebula*. For those who don't feel like downloading the entire TIFF image, there is a JPEG available for download from the same site; however, it is still nearly 250MB in size(pretty big).  If you click on the image shown here in this article, you will get a  download-friendly version of the spectacular image. 

This painterly picture brings the total number of images that Hubble has taken since 1990 to nearly 500,000.

(See a photo gallery of Hubble's top ten discoveries.)

To date, the telescope has made nearly 800,000 observations of more than 25,000 celestial objects and has traveled 2.4 billion miles (3.8 billion kilometers)—the equivalent of flying to Saturn and back.

* Note: The link to the image is NOT the full size image, but a page where you can download it or wallpapers of the image. The image Credit: NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of California, Berkeley), and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Now watch this space below for some unique viewing experience !! 

Observe the love for open source:  (pretty amazing observation )

MathRockBrock writes on arstechnica article :

Anybody else notice the Firefox logo floating out there in Image 7, "The Carina Nebula from the ground"?

Note: First image unedited JPEG (except for the box). Second image cropped and resized only from the full-size NASA TIF. Third image from my desktop.

"FON is still giving away their wireless routers for free in Germany and Austria until Wednesday — under the premise that the devices will be connected and used as FON access points.

The router, called 'La Fonera,' is a variant of OpenWRT, but locked down to prevent modification, including a signed firmware image to prevent the upload of new software. It is, however, possible to get shell access by connecting to a serial port present on the circuit board.

And now two students from Germany have discovered vulnerabilities in the CGI scripts used to configure the device, and successfully activated an SSH daemon on the device by exploiting them, giving owners a root shell on their router. They also provide a detailed description of the procedure and 'ready-to-use' perl scripts to open up your router."

The La Fonera router attaches to a Time Warner broadband Internet connection and becomes a FON Wi-Fi access point that supports 802.11b/g wireless. The La Fonera router has two separate wireless channels, one a secure channel for the owner, and the other an open channel for other Time Warner users that are part of the shared network.

what is FON ?  

According to founder Martin Varsavsky, „FON is a global community of people who share WiFi connections. We call these people "Foneros", as a tribute to our heritage as a Spanish company. In order to become a Fonero, you go to FON, to download software that you install in your router, you place your antenna by a window and you share bandwidth with other Foneros from anywhere in the world. You can also buy the FON Ready router from our web site, plug and play. FON creates a free WiFi roaming environment for those who contribute WiFi signals, namely those who have already signed up with a local ISP and downloaded our software into their WiFi routers.”

The users may sign up to FON in three ways:

they can be Bills, Linus or Aliens. Strange isn't it ? The explanation is quite simple:

- A Linus (who are called like this after Linus Torvalds) shares his/her bandwidth for free with other Foneros,

- Bills (of course named after Bill Gates) share their bandwidth for a small fee.

- Aliens who don't share their bandwidth at all.

La Fonera router is secure out-of-the-box and offers two distinct WiFi channels. One channel is for the exclusive use of its owner; the second channel is shared with other Foneros. The La Fonera increases security through an encrypted private network and Foneros decide how much bandwidth to share. Public users cannot access the private network and there is no anonymous usage.

Also see : [ Hacking the La Fonera ]

Ryan Fitzgerald , an unemployed 20-year-old who lives with his father in Southbridge , considers himself a guy who's easy to talk to.

He posted a video with his cellphone number on YouTube, urging anybody anywhere who wanted to talk for any reason to give him a call."Girls, guys, whoever you are wherever you're from talk about whatever," the spiky-haired young man told the world.

He had got more than 5,000 phone calls and text messages from around the world. Monday morning at 5 a.m., the free "weekend" minutes on his T-Mobile service were scheduled to run out.

"I love talking to people," he said. "I just love helping people."

His original video, posted Friday and titled "I'm Here For EVERYONE! Give Me A Call! 7742531962" is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-rDqt99eGc

It has been viewed about 120k times and attracted around 400 comments.

His response, "Update On The Many Phone Calls I've Received And Rumors," from Sunday, is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF-Vxc0VC9k

One of the comments on his original post says:

"With all the pain and suffering in the world, it's nice to see someone trying to reach out to other people. I'm also amazed that many people seem to think this is some sort of self-promotional stunt; it seems to me that Ryan is utterly sincere, and his video is short and to the point. We are all so connected, and yet all completely cut from each other by the huge electronic grid we all now share; I say "bravo" to Ryan for trying to reach out in an increasingly impersonal world." - cursewill

At present on the net there are hell lot of sites distributing lyrics, not legally of course. Yahoo's song lyrics, in contrast, are supposed to be the official versions. Under the licensing agreement, Yahoo will share with copyright holders the revenue from the ads that will be displayed alongside the lyrics.

The 400,000 song lyrics included in Yahoo's database span about 9,000 different artists, ranging from old standbys such as The Beatles and Bob Dylan to more recent stars like Radiohead and Beyonce. 

Gracenote Chief Executive Craig Palmer said licensing lyrics should boost worldwide music publishing revenues, estimated at about $4 billion annually, with the words to songs ultimately providing as much as $100 million in annual revenues in about 10 years as the market expands with new opportunities like online subscriptions, downloads and automotive distribution deals.

Yahoo, Gracenote launch lyrics service [Reuters]
Yahoo expands its online music section [USA Today]

Google informs you that they are planning to conduct routine maintenance to Google Calendar between 8AM and 9PM on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 .  

During this time, this service may be unavailable to some of the users.  Please inform your users about this planned maintenance appropriately. 

If you have any questions, you can contact the Google Apps Support team through the

[ Google Apps Help center ]