The new power-sipping Atom processor line is already poised to become the standard in next-generation ultra-mobile laptops like the Eee PC 900 and MSI's Wind. But that hasn't stopped Intel from pushing its tiny 45nm, low-voltage darling into more mobile territory. Smartphone integration is in the works, but in the meantime, Intel is pushing Atom into a decidedly larger mobile platform: the automobile.

Pairing with Intel, device software optimization heavyweight Wind River recently announced an in-vehicle "infotainment platform" based on an automotive-optimized Linux platform tailored specifically for Intel's Atom processor. The idea is to create a single, open-source platform that will allow developers to create software that can be scaled across components in different vehicles, and create a broader range of consumer electronics integration options, while still allowing auto makers to differentiate the systems with their own configurations and branding.

X-bit Labs is reporting that BMW, Bosch, Delphi, and Magneti Marelli are all on board with the idea, which is a good thing, because Wind River plans to unleash the code on the Moblin.org Linux-centric auto-enthusiast community sometime in August.

The first public release of Moonlight, which provides a Linux client implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight rich Internet application (RIA) technology, was made available this week.

Moonlight, an open source project, supports the Silverlight 1.0 profile for Linux.

According to a blog post by Novell Vice President of Engineering Miguel de Icaza, the lead on the Moonlight project, Moonlight comes in two forms. In one form, no media codecs are supported but it is easy to install. In the other form, source code compilation is featured with users able to optionally compile FFMpeg codecs themselves.

Moonlight is intended to work on the Firefox 2 and?? Firefox 3 browsers, but recent changes in Firefox 3 prevent Silverlight and Moonlight from working on that browser. A Greasemonkey script is available that will work around this bug for some sites, de Icaza said.

A major problem has been revealed in Debian Linux and derivative packages, such as Ubuntu. Debian revealed the other day that a fix they made back in September 2006 had the unintended consequence of crippling the strength of their OpenSSL distribution.

OpenSSL is used, of course, for Secure Sockets Layer which provides authentication and encryption for web traffic, but it's also used for other cryptography functions. OpenSSL is a very important package that brought public key cryptography to the masses; prior to OpenSSL, https web sites were expensive and complicated to build.

The strength of public key encryption relies, in large part, on the large number of potential keys that could be used to encrypt data. Keys are often 1024 or 2048 or 4096 bits long; these store very large numbers so a brute force attack, trying all of the possibilities, could take a prohibitive amount of time.

But the bug introduced by Debian effectively reduces the strength of the key to 32768 permutations, which is 16 bits. Famed security researcher HD Moore has actually already pre-calculated all of the potential keys for the most common cases. It took mere hours. So now you can be hacked even without someone brute-forcing your encryption.

Because of it's centrality, Linux sites are often deeply-reliant on certificates generated by OpenSSL to encrypt network traffic. Fixing the problem is not just a matter of updating the software; you also have to go back and generate new certificates and have them signed. This is complicated stuff, not for the novice Linux user. Expect tools to come along soon to help.

After a long period of resistance to Linux in general we have offered Linux specifically CentOS to clients. The response to our offering of CentOS and Virtual-Min has almost been alarming. We have given enough demos to our clients that we have seen the number of machine builds grow by over 300%. Being a exclusive windows host for over 10 years made us wonder if we would be overwhelmed by support.

We have to give alot of credit to the guys at Virtualmin for this lack of support we originally expected. We have many comments from clients who have been exclusive windows people for years. Quotes like; "You have made the web developer enviroment exciting again"! We stumbled on this install tutuorial on the web and thought we woud share it with people looking to setup their own local boxes. "Learn More"

We have also been exploring Ubuntu for desktops with everyone complaining about windows vista. It is clear some of the free alternatives these days are just as good as going out and blowing your wad on a OS. We personally love this article from a MAC user who decided to give Ubuntu a spin. It was a nice read without all the typical lame input. It seemed the writer learned, there are other OS options available that acutally run better than MAC. Go Figure! Full Article.