Welcome to the world of Knoppix

Written by Mike Ber


Knoppix is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software, automatic hardware detection, and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. Knoppix can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD, rescue system, or adapted and used as a platform for commercial software product demos. It is not necessary to install anything on a hard disk. Due to on-the-fly decompression,repparttar CD can have up to 2 GB of executable software installed on it.

If one is to believe news fromrepparttar 143263 Linux camp one could be forgiven for thinking thatrepparttar 143264 world was out to destroyrepparttar 143265 beautiful thing that isrepparttar 143266 Open Source movement. Angry fingers would be pointed in several directions, surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) all inrepparttar 143267 general vicinity of Microsoft. Of course,repparttar 143268 noises fromrepparttar 143269 other side are just as loud (actually quite a bit louder). They, in turn, claim that Linux is ‘unsafe’, hard to use and even harder to maintain, and worse of all, prone to exploitation by hackers (sincerepparttar 143270 source code is open source and thus can essentially be seen and played around with by anyone).

I’ve always preferredrepparttar 143271 uncomfortable seat onrepparttar 143272 fence, despiterepparttar 143273 green grass on both sides. Granted, you tend to get sore sitting in such a way after a while, butrepparttar 143274 view from here is great, and argument very clear. The battle between proprietary code (led by Microsoft, no less) and open source (Linux) has been going on ever since Linus Torvalds created Linux and startedrepparttar 143275 process that has made itrepparttar 143276 genuine force that it is today. And as isrepparttar 143277 case in such fighting, there are three sides torepparttar 143278 story: Microsoft’s tale, Linux’s woes and my bit ofrepparttar 143279 story. And my part begins withrepparttar 143280 most interesting OS of them all…

What if you had an operating system that ran completely from a CD? That’s right, just one CD. And this CD also contained very useful programs for word-processing, data recovery and system repair utilities, image-editing and internet connectivity, along with excellent audio and video players? What if all you had to do was to boot from this CD and voila, in a few minutes your new OS had taken over your PC. Taken over? Nothing to worry about, as removingrepparttar 143281 OS from your computer was to be as easy as removingrepparttar 143282 CD. Literally.

Welcome torepparttar 143283 world of Knoppix.

Givenrepparttar 143284 fact that we are inrepparttar 143285 midst of multi-gigabyte operating systems that we there would be such a competent one that could be run entirely from a CD-ROM is stupendous. Imaginerepparttar 143286 possibilities. Customized versions ofrepparttar 143287 Knoppix OS would mean that you could literally carry a streamlined version of your home PC around with you wherever you went. Need to recover data from a crashed hard-disk? Boot into Knoppix and userepparttar 143288 system repair and data recovery tools to retrieve your data (burn it to a CD-R, or transfer it via a PC-to-PC connection) and maybe attempt to fixrepparttar 143289 disk as well. Secondly, if you are a web developer who wants to check how sites look from within a Linux environment, all you need to do is pop Knoppix in and check out your websites from Mozilla or Konqueror. Away fromrepparttar 143290 office and want to work on customized software specially made for your company? Knoppix, along with a USB drive to store data, turns your crisis into a simple matter of finding a PC. And like all Linux versions, meetingrepparttar 143291 minimum system requirements (see http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html#requirements) would be a snap (82 MB RAM, CDROM drive, SVGA card, Intel compatible CPU (i486 or better)).

There is a lot to be said for Knoppix, especially for its appeal to Linux newbies (or ‘noobs’, as vernacular has it). With no need for an installation (although that is given as an option), and with excellent hardware detection, Knoppix has single-handedly done away withrepparttar 143292 two major concerns for Windows users wanting to try out Linux: A complicated installation process, andrepparttar 143293 problem of findingrepparttar 143294 right drivers for all your hardware. In effect, Knoppix is an excellent choice for someone who wants to try out Linux without having to go throughrepparttar 143295 usual hassle. It’s easy to use, and doesn’t mess with your system either. Despite being run completely offrepparttar 143296 CD, it runs pretty quickly as well.

Mobile devices security

Written by Mike Ber


As this security solution is not such a great idea, other companies have researched, and finally found a new way to prevent cell phones and PDAs theft. This method permits to remotely disable up to four different tasks of a stolen cell phone or PDA, rendering it inoperable. But atrepparttar same time data contained inrepparttar 143262 device are locked. The beauty of this option is thatrepparttar 143263 unit is not damaged in any way - full functionality and data can be easily restored ifrepparttar 143264 device is recovered. Thus,repparttar 143265 device is useless torepparttar 143266 thief, but it can be reactivated and restored if it is recovered and returned to its rightful owner.

Another new security breach has been encountered this year when reports were received about a backdoor Trojan horse program that can take control over a mobile device. This isrepparttar 143267 first known backdoor Trojan horse for PDAs. The subject program, identified as Backdoor.Brador.A, attacks PDAs runningrepparttar 143268 Windows operating system. And like all backdoors, it cannot spread by itself. The Trojan arrives as an e-mail attachment or can be downloaded fromrepparttar 143269 Internet. Also, it has a complete set of destructive functions characteristic for backdoors. After it is installed, this small program is activated whenrepparttar 143270 PDA is restarted and begins to look for a remote administrator to take control ofrepparttar 143271 device. Security specialists claimrepparttar 143272 virus was written by a Russian virus coder since it was attached to an e-mail with a Russian sender address and contained Russian text. Fortunately,repparttar 143273 Trojan’s threat control and removal was rated as "easy".

The important thing about this virus is notrepparttar 143274 number of devices affected, because this number is very small, butrepparttar 143275 fact that this isrepparttar 143276 first one that appeared onrepparttar 143277 "market" is considered to be very important. We have to admit that it is hardly surprising that viruses have found their way to mobile devices. This isrepparttar 143278 natural trend. Where technology goes, viruses will follow. Asrepparttar 143279 new technology shifts intorepparttar 143280 mobile market, these threats will move in that direction also. The specialists fromrepparttar 143281 Kaspersky Labs claim they were expecting a virus attack on a PDA, due torepparttar 143282 latest attacks against other mobile devices. Now,repparttar 143283 PDA users look at a real danger and it is a well known fact that interested intruders will grabrepparttar 143284 chance to attack PDAs and mobile phones inrepparttar 143285 near future. Virus threats development for mobile devices is passing throughrepparttar 143286 same stages asrepparttar 143287 one for desktops.

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