Issue #158 / Jan 2014

If you have browsed the tech news recently, you probably saw a pair of stories about an important open source browser the world knows as Firefox. If it matters to you, I will add that, despite the logo, a Firefox is really not supposed to be a fox at all but is actually a red panda. The news stories? The first was that Firefox just had its ninth birthday. The browser was born when the Mozilla Foundation (remnants of the once great Netscape Communications Corp.) realized its old Mozilla browser was getting too bloated and wanted a fresh start.

This month's DVD features the new Ubuntu 13.10 Desktop, a.k.a. “Saucy Salamander.”

Updates on Technologies, Trends, and Tools

Microsoft provides a collection of tools for faster and more efficient Linux virtualization in the Hyper-V environment.

For occasional Windows users, a virtual machine is the ideal solution. But will Windows 8.1 work in VirtualBox and VMware?

Tool review: Dialog 0.7, virtenv 0.8.6, collectd 5.4.0, convmv 1.15, Drukkar 1.11, and ngIRCd 20.3.

Smartphones and tablets have lost their gadget status and become part of the system administrator's tool kit. We look at the most important apps for admins.

The Xeon Phi accelerator card from Intel takes an unusual approach: Instead of GPUs, the Xeon Phi features a cluster of CPUs for easier programming.

The incron utility provides an easy way to initiate commands and scripts triggered by filesystem events.

The powerful Csound software provides an impressive set of features for audio production and processing. We walk you through the entire system.