By Maureen Garde and Jeffrey Neuburger, CIO.com

Open source software has been in widespread use for longer than most people realize -- consider the majority of Web sites running on Apache Web server software for more than a decade. It has particularly flourished in the business community over the last several years, despite some uncertainty regarding the legal status of open source software licenses. But an opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit this week is likely to go a long way toward dispelling that uncertainty.

Spotted here

Posted by Seth Rosenblatt

The public beta of 360desktop makes some intriguing promises. "Unlimited desktop space" is one, and the capability to save any part of the Web directly to your desktop is another.

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

Security firm Secunia said Tuesday that RealNetworks had fixed most of the security flaws within its RealPlayer software that were first highlighted on Friday.

Four separate issues were discovered within most versions of RealPlayer 10, 10.5, and 11 across the Linux, Mac, and Windows platforms. While the company released the patch on Monday, which Secunia noted in its advisory, the firm said the fix was not complete

»www.betanews.com/article/Real_pa···17365897

Posted by Matt

Just a few short years ago, there was one open-source hosting service worth considering: Sourceforge.net. It was by no means perfect (Alfresco's analytics, for example, have been down for over a month on Sourceforge, with no apparent urgency to fix the problem), but it was good enough, free, and everyone else used it.

Adobe on Tuesday said it is now shipping Photoshop Lightroom 2, a set of software tools that allow photographers to edit and manage digital images. The product is Adobe's first 64-bit application for the Mac and Windows Vista operating systems.

At Black Hat, RSnake is expected to demonstrate a zero-day vulnerability that allows for information theft, spoofing, and authentication issues.

By Thomas Claburn - InformationWeek - July 25, 2008 03:00 PM

"Gmalware" may be coming soon to your iGoogle page.

In two weeks, at the Black Hat Conference on Wednesday, Aug. 6, Cenzic senior security analyst Tom Stracener and security researcher Robert Hansen, better known as "RSnake," plan to demonstrate a zero-day vulnerability that affects Google Gadgets.

Spotted here

By Todd R. Weiss

July 23, 2008 (Computerworld) PORTLAND, Ore.

By Martyn Williams - www . computerworld .

Police have recovered the body of missing technology entrepreneur Steven Thomas, the founder of anti-spyware firm Webroot Software.

A body identified as Thomas was discovered by firefighters below the Pali Highway lookout near the Pali Tunnel in Hawaii, Nine News, Colorado reports. The 36-year-old, who was diagnosed with manic depression in April but declined to take medication, met his mother and cousin in a hotel in Waikiki on 30 June before disappearing after claiming he needed to visit the bathroom.

More in our Security forum here

The Register

Danish security company Secunia has found a flaw in the VLC Media Player that could allow an attacker to gain control of...

»www.pcworld.com/article/147921/c···yer.html

»news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/200807···reebies

Tech junkies looking to pinch pennies in today's economy can scour the Web for a bounty of free software - for word-processing and photo-editing, online storage and more.

The news item lists some of the best & favorite free software

CNet article by Robert Vamosi

Adobe released a security update for a serious vulnerability within Reader and Acrobat.

The update affects Adobe Reader 8.0 through 8.1.2, Adobe Reader 7.0.9 and earlier, Adobe Acrobat Professional, 3D and Standard 8.0 through 8.1.2, Adobe Acrobat Professional, 3D and Standard 7.0.9 and earlier. It does not affect Adobe Reader 7.1.0 and Acrobat 7.1.0.

More here:
»www.adobe.com/support/security/b···-15.html

Which is the world's fastest browser? According to Zimbra, Safari runs fastest, though it didn't beat out Firefox by much. Both Safari and Firefox were roughly twice as fast as Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7.

The Walt Disney World Resort might now be considered the happiest place inside your computer with a new product, Walt Disney World Resort in 3-D, which will give users of Google Earth a three-dimensional model of the entire park.

Users will be able to tour all four of the resort's theme parks and hotels.

A federal district judge in Washington State handed down an important decision this week on shrink-wrap license agreements and the First Sale Doctrine. The case concerned an eBay merchant named Timothy Vernor who has repeatedly locked horns with Autodesk over the sale of used copies of its software. Autodesk argued that it only licenses copies of its software, rather than selling them, and that therefore any resale of the software constitutes copyright infringement.

more at arstechnica.com

In the world of Windows defragmenters, there's one award that always stands out from the rest. That award is the Editor's Choice from Windows IT Pro for best defragmenter and PerfectDisk 2008 has just received this year's honor.

Adobe Security Advisory:
- Potential vulnerability in After Effects CS3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

APSB08-13 - Security Update available for Adobe Reader and Acrobat 7 and 8

Originally posted: May 6, 2008

Summary:
Critical vulnerabilities have been identified in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 8.1.1 and earlier versions. These vulnerabilities would cause the application to crash and could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system.

Got the latest PCMagazine E-Mail, and found a nice article on Free Software.

quote:

---

The Best Free Software

157 software tools.

There are a lot of great freeware products out there. Many are as good as or better than their commercial alternatives.

A real handy list:

»www.econsultant.com/i-want-open-···dex.html