This Boston Globe piece on Computer News Daily details hacks made to popular interactive toys like Furby, and proclaims the fur-covered electronic mimic to be “a mascot for the Open Source movement.”

“In 1998 the International Data Corporation (IDC) estimated that commercial shipments of Linux alone would increase by 25% each year to 2003. Keeping in mind that Linux is freely available for download on the Internet and that more than one person might install Linux from a single CD and the growth of Linux is tremendous.” From Linuxnewbie.org–Sensei

Slashdot dicusses the about-to-ship Ethernet adapter for Sega’s flagging Dreamcast game console. This development should be “great news for the people doing the Linux port, and the guerilla DC
development community at large.”

From CanadaComputes.com: “Having had a bad back recently, I decided to invest in a dirt cheap laptop so I
wasn’t restricted to the nasty chair at my desk. I found a nice sounding laptop
on EBay.

A Toshiba Satellite T1910. It’s a 486SX/33 with 4 MB of RAM, a monochrome
screen and a 200 MB hard drive. It’s not going to win any awards, except
perhaps the crappiest computer award, but it’s perfect for what I wanted.”

“Third compile of the new kernel not working? Maybe you need to
switch off for a while and tune into some mindless TV viewing.
Contrary to popular belief, Linux does support TV tuner cards and
quite well too. Care to find out?” The latest from FreeOS.com.

“Then I discovered Linux. It allowed me to do the things that I couldn’t in Windows. If I
found a bug, I could fix it myself. If I didn’t like the way things were, I could change it. In
exchange for this freedom, though, I had to do it all myself. I had to learn commands to
get around the kernel. I had to learn the differences between the kernel and the window
manager. Before, all of this had been packaged together as a single operating system.
Those days were gone.” From Linux.com.

From Linux.com: “Several reasons exist for my hesitancy, but I’ll go into those as this piece unfolds. Here
is the rundown for those who like to do things by the numbers: Is an Empeg for me?
Why exactly is the software for Linux poor? And finally, what’s the overall opinion of the
Empeg car mp3 player?”

LinuxISO.org review: “Apache is the most popular web server in use today. In a recent survey by Netcraft, 59.69% of all web servers ran Apache. Apache administration will be at least
helpful, if not necessary, in future job markets. With its flexibility, performance, and purchase price (It’s free.), it is easy to see why this web server is powering more
than half of the web sites on the internet. ‘Apache Web Server Administration’ by Charles Aulds answers many questions about Apache and starts at the beginning,
where it should.”

Reuters report at Yahoo: “The Japan-based Bluetooth qualification unit is expected to help speed launches of Bluetooth-enabled devices in Japan.”

In a year when PC chips reached new heights of
performance and efficiency, customers simply weren’t
buying, reports ZDNET UK.