Originally published at www.linux.com on December 09, 2008 at 09:00 AM; reprinted with the author’s permission. Corporations and home users alike need firewall protection. Many choices abound, including some expensive, commercial options that only run on specialized hardware. Others, like SmoothWall Express, are freely downloadable, built on the same...

Once again, I have pestered the editors at the ordinarily refined Linux.com into publishing an article.  I had a harder time getting this one right.  I was stuck in a fiction writing mode–half of the sentences I wrote were in passive voice.  Very frustrating–probably more so for the editors. http://www.linux.com/feature/154568 In any case, go...

Here is a link to my article on Linux.com.  It is my first effort, and while it turned out pretty well, I think I’ll do some things different next time.  And there will be a next time. http://www.linux.com/feature/144179 Give it a read and let me know what  you...

It’s been a little too long since my last post–apologies.  Here’s what I’ve found out since: The pre-built Xebian/Myth distro seems to have trouble finding my backend server.  Which is strange, as they are both on the same 100MB network segment.  It complains about no UPnP sources. Apparently no one can watch live TV on the...

Well, this little issue hit me with a brief feeling of deja-vu.  It is the exact same trouble that I faced trying to get Nessus security scanner frontend to write data to a MySQL database.  I don’t know when exactly it changed, but new versions of MySQL writes passwords in a hashed table (and perhaps a new location, too) so that older apps trying to...