Klaus Knopper is the creator of Knoppix and co-founder of the LinuxTag expo. He currently works as a teacher, programmer, and consultant. If you have a configuration problem, or if you just want to learn more about how Linux works, send your questions to: klaus@linux-magazine.com

Well-used services write reams of log information to disk, which is not only bothersome from a storage perspective but also pushes grep and the usual group of statistics tools to their limits. Will hitching the syslog daemon up to a database help?

Books were the original model for website design. Navigation was similar to flipping the pages. Thanks to AJAX, many state-of-the-art websites now behave like desktop applications.

Linux lets users watch the kernel at work with a little help from Ptrace, a tool that both debuggers and malicious process kidnappers use. A CPAN module introduces this technology to Perl and, if this is not enough, C extensions add functionality.

High-performance GUI-based ftp clients for Linux are hard to find. The graphical FileZilla ftp client closes the gap.

Pack your Linux laptop with the right set of tools. We take a closer look at Adblock Plus, woof, Conky, TrueCrypt, rsync, and Grsync.

The simple mailx command-line mail client handles mail either interactively or via command-line options. Although it lacks the convenience of a GUI-based tool, mailx compares well in scripting.

Should free development be a part of free software, or is Apache pioneer Roy Fielding asking too much of Sun? Besides looking at the commercial side of free software, this month's column investigates synchronization of speech and text.

Services that require a username and password for login are potential targets for dictionary attacks. Sshutout and Fail2ban introduce time penalties for invalid attempts.

A full-fledged Linux computer on a USB stick: Yoggie uses this astonishing hardware trick to protect Windows machines against Web-based attacks. But there are some things that do not work as intended by the developers as an exhaustive test in Linux Magazine #94 / September will reveal. Just a few simple tricks were all it took to work around the firewall.