dutky asks: "What devices does Slashdot recommend for the programmer on the go? Recently I went on vacation to Vietnam. Before we left my wife asked what I would do if I couldn't program for a month. I tried to assemble an inexpensive and portable programming environment using a Palm 130, but it was less than satisfactory. With the recent article on the Zarus PDA I have gotten to thinking about the problem again. Notably, I -don't- need a whopping amount of RAM, disk space, or processor speed, and I can live with fairly modest screen sizes. I was unable to find anything that matched all these criteria in about two weeks of occasional (and hurried) research. Do any such beasts exist?"

Jason Scott writes "The 5th annual Rubi-Con hacker conference is about to begin just outside of Detroit, Michigan. From the 28th to the 30th of March, there'll be talks, movies, and general tomfoolery. Last year had 600 attendees and we expect a ton more this year. If you've never been to a hacker conference before, this is an easy place to start. Check out the schedule, speakers and fun at the Rubi-con website."

Jamie Zawinski writes "Mozilla.org has a new article on Bugzilla Etiquette. Relevant to more than just Bugzilla, this should be required reading for anyone who wants to file a bug about any product, no matter what bug tracking system is in use. I especially like the mention that "'Open Source' is not the same as 'the developers must do my bidding.'"" Update: 03/19 21:26 GMT by T : If that link doesn't work for you without cutting and pasting, reader Stephen Ostermiller suggests "you might want to use this link which appears to be the same document mirrored elsewhere."

Wee writes "Linux Server Hacks is not a book which will teach you system administration. In fact, if you aren't already familiar with how to set up and run Linux, this book will likely confuse you. It is also not a book which will teach you how to break into Linux servers. The word 'hack' in this case is not a pejorative. What LSH will do is show you how to fully tweak that Linux box you already run. It will show you new (and possibly better) ways to do the things you already do. The book will probably not make you a better admin, but it will almost certainly save you some time or give you at least one 'Why didn't I ever think of that?' head-scratcher." Read on for the rest of Wee's review.

An anonymous reader writes "The T-Engine Forum and MontaVista Software announced today that they are collaborating to combine the long-dominant Japanese embedded operating system, TRON ("The Real-time Operating system Nucleus"), with embedded Linux, in the hopes of creating a standardized software architecture for embedded devices that takes advantage of open source software and the benefits of Linux."

Simprini writes "After absolute ages of testing MySQL 4.0.x in various versions of BETA through GAMMA it looks like MySQL AB finally released MySQL 4.0.12 as ready for prime-time production use. I know my company has been waiting for a long time for this because our customers absolutely refused to use beta releases of this product. Query caching here we come."

orangerobot writes "Tim Bray, one of the co-authors of the original XML 1.0 specification has a new entry on his website explaining why he's been feeling unsatisified lately with XML and says his last experience writing code for handling XML was 'irritating, time-consuming, and error-prone.' XML has always a divided response among the technical community. The anti-XML community has several sites stating their positions."

GonzoJohn writes "For the serious techno-geek, Linux Orbit takes a look at installing Debian GNU/Linux on a Netwinder 3100 mini server. Though currently the Netwinder 3100 is not in production, the installation process and the discoveries made make for an interesting Linux sleuthing article. Lots of screen shots and configuration files included."

CokoBWare writes "Sun apparently is trying to create a more VB-like experience for developer. This article from E-Week explains Sun's strategy in providing more VBesque tools for the Java developer. Can anyone say "Good luck Sun, and all the best"?"

Matthew Garrett writes "You've covered dasher before, but the source code is now available for download under the GPL. There's also now documentation for developers who want to port Dasher to other platforms - there's currently Windows and GTK front ends, plus experimental GTK2 code and ports to the GPE and Opie Linux PDA environments being worked on, and optional integration with the Gnome accessibilty framework is on the cards. Anyone fancy a MacOS port?"

savetz writes "If you've always wanted to learn 6502 assembly language, now's your chance. The full text of the classic, best-selling 1983 book Machine Language for Beginners is now on the Web. It includes examples and program code for Atari 8-bit, Apple ][, PET/CBM, VIC-20, and Commodore 64 computers."

Jeremy Allison, Samba Team. writes "I just wanted to give you a heads-up on a security release, Samba 2.2.8. The release notes may be found here: http://samba.org/samba/whatsnew/samba-2.2.8.html It is important that Samba users upgrade or take the security steps outlined in the release notes. We have a report an exploit has been developed by the black-hat community. Regards, Jeremy"

Noodleroni writes "The First Maybe-Annual 99-Bottles-of-Beer-on-the-Wall-Proggie Contest is now under way! We are looking for your most compact, obfuscated, or other wise cool code to print out the entire lyrics of the aforementioned, very long, song. Maybe we'll even get some submissions written in Malbolge?"

gillus writes "A very cool scientific paper from Appel and Govindavajhala that explains how virtual machines like java or .Net can be exploited. How? Quite simple, bomb your DRAM chip with X-rays... or more simply with 50-watt spotlight, as the authors demonstrate. Definitively worth a read!"

mix_master_mike writes "Found a good article over at security focus: cryptographic filesystems: design and implementation. Nice piece on this level of security that isn't being used very effectively in the industry."

Kynn writes "The folks at ICDRI, in partnership with the Internet society and HiSoftware, bring us Cynthia Says, a free service to help you evaluate your Web pages for accessibility. In other words, it's roughly equivalent to what Bobby used to be, before it went commercial. It features what seems to be a cartoon version of my friend Cynthia Waddell, which is a bit creepy, but in all honesty it's a much better symbol than the old cartoon cop used with Bobby. I always thought there was an implied menace, as if the smiling chap would happily bludgeon you with his truncheon if you created an inaccessible Web site." If only.

Carlos Finque writes "MacHack: The Annual Conference for Leading Edge Developers2003 is coming up! The conference run by developers for the benefit of developers will be held in Dearborn, Michigan from June 19th through the 21st. And 'through' is meant literally: 72 hours of a non-stop mixture of hacking (on keyboards not networks), sessions, and lots of superb people. The session topics range from programming to security-related issues. The keynote starts one minute after midnight on the 19th and is held by Ken Arnold."

lisam writes "Have you created a Mac OS X application, plug-in, or some other type of innovative software that you believe is top in its class? Then check out the Mac OS X Innovators contest. Prizes include a ADC Premier Membership, WWDC pass, pass to the O'Reilly Mac OS X Conference, etc, etc. You can enter more than once, but the deadline is March 28, 2003."

MacDaffy writes "Kudos to Adriaan Van Os: He has produced a 'second prerelease' of the GNU Pascal compiler for Mac OS X. Work actively proceeds on porting the Carbon Pascal Interfaces for use with it (longtime Macintosh Pascal guru Peter N Lewis has already gotten a great start on this). Thanks to Adriaan, Peter, and Bill Catambay of Pascal Central for helping take Pascal on Macintosh into the future."

kaisyain writes "When I was a kid we moved into an old Victorian house. From the street the house looked impressive and fascinating. When you got up close, however, you noticed the paint was peeling, the widow sashes were rotted away, doors couldn't open or close because they didn't hang true, and at some point someone had cheaply redone the kitchen in a style that was very much not Victorian. Pete McBreen's Software Craftsmanship reminds me of that house." Read on to see if you agree with kaisyain's withering review.