MSNBC: “At the same time Research in Motion and British
Telecom Cellnet announced earlier this week that Blackberry
wireless e-mail service would be available in the United
Kingdom, Nextel announced its version of wireless e-mail for
its Internet-ready handsets.”

LinuxSecurity: “Updated GnuPG packages are now available for Red Hat Linux 6.2, 7, and 7.1.

These updates include fixes for the recently-discovered format string
vulnerability.”

An anonymous reader writes: “linuxdevices.com’s Linux PDA quick reference guide now includes 9 Linux-hosting PDAs (including pictures) and 5 distro’s that support PDAs; Sharp’s new Java/Linux PDA has just been added to the stack.”

SecurityFocus: “The self-identified culprit behind last month’s attacks on Apache.org and VA Linux’s SourceForge and Themes.org web sites says he has
nothing against the open source community — he just thinks computer cracking is too easy.” Newsforge is a part of OSDN, a subsidiary of VA Linux.

– By Tina Gasperson –
Sometimes it’s good to lighten up. The art of laughing at oneself and others doesn’t get enough credit in this world of Open Source seriousness, so this week we happily bring you The Support Group for People Used by Microsoft, and other assorted oddities.Sure, for tech humor there’s Segfault, and they’re funny all right — but the release schedule is a bit too laid back. I want more funniness, and I want it more often! So here are some splitches and splotches of humor, stupidity, and corniness that I’ve found in various places, for consumption at your own discretion. WARNING: originality and intelligence are not guaranteed. So proceed at your own risk, bubba.

Microsoft releases first Open Source application
So you think you’re computer illiterate? — these have to be fabricated. No one is this stupid.
Cartoon laws of physics — “The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty
flights to attempt to capture it unbroken.”
Real programmers. — “If you can’t do it in FORTRAN, do it in assembly language. If you can’t do it in assembly language, it isn’t worth doing.”
You too, can speak Gaelic — by Isaac Asimov
Fun with grapes, a case study — “Properly prepared, the common seedless grape can be made to combust spectacularly when subjected to a short (5-10 second) duration of microwaves.”
Breastclick — it’s the closest some of you will ever get.
Gates Says Linux Best OS Ever — wow!
Xbox Features Active Death Technology

Now that you’re warmed up, we present to you an entire site full of MS-bashing parodic silliness: The Support Group for People Used by Microsoft. SGPUM is sponsored by Humorix, a Linux and Open Source oriented humor site. One of the first things you’ll notice upon visiting the site is YAMOO!, a directory of more than 1,500 links to anti-Microsoft sites. That should keep you busy for a few minutes.

There’s a 12-step program outlined on the site to help Msofties get over it, and an anti-MS webring (though a lot of the links are dead; maybe the Gates mafia yanked them). Pay a visit to SGPUM; if you’re very bored or dead tired, it might make you laugh. At the very least, it’ll make you feel good about being a non-Microsoft user.

PS: I never realized that I’m a Linux redneck, but this page says that if I use the word “fixin'” in close proximity to the word “kernel” that’s exactly what I am. I never knew that getting ready to eat fried chicken out on the back porch had anything whatsoever to do with Open Source.

ZDNet reports that Microsoft’s Mundie will be able to argue directly with Red Hat’s Tiemann at the end of July.

The BBC reports that the European Parliament is recommending the use of encryption combined with other measures for citizens to defend themselves from Echelon, which was recently confirmed to exist and be run by Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

ZDNet reports that the Washington State Supreme Court has overturned a lower court ruling calling anti-spam laws a burden to business, arguing that “…the only burden the act places on spammers is the requirement of truthfulness, a requirement that does not burden commerce at all but actually facilitates it by eliminating fraud and deception”.

O’Reilly continues its series on running Linux applications under BSD on the PPC platform, discussing signals and signal compatibility.

ZDNet: “Sharp has announced a new PDA for the non-Japan
market which features an embedded Linux operating
system and a Java application environment. From a
hardware perspective, the device is based on an Intel
StrongARM system-on-chip processor. The user
interface consists of a bright, full-color “quarter-VGA”
LCD touch/display along with a built-in QWERTY
keyboard (located behind a slide cover).”