There is a lot of misunderstanding around the term Free Software (and FOSS) and how that relates to the need for the companies that support free software projects to survive in a largely commercial world. In particular, many developers are unwilling to release their code as open source because they see the release of that code as losing control over a valuable commodity, which could have a monetary value.

Today there are lots of products that provide free software, but do so while also having a valid commercial model.  This enables them to charge for pre-packaged versions of the software, support and other, chargeable, components while still actually supporting the software on a free (i.e. open source) software model.

For the last 24 hours I've had connectivity issues through my ADSL connection to the Internet.

The reason for this is currently not clear (it has been fine for months), but I am unfortunte enough to be right on the borderline of the acceptable distance for 512Kbps, at over 6km from the exchange.

Ironically, I'm not that far from the center of a major town, just a couple of miles, but the distance to the exchange is much further.

This is a problem, not just currently for me, but also in the long term if we expect more and more people to be connected to the Internet and if we expect people to use their Internet connections for more than just web browsing. VoIP is an obvious part of this. Companies - even British Telecom (the main phone, and physical cable company in the UK) are promoting VoIP, but that isn't going to work without an Internet connection.

I don't go anywhere without a Knoppix CD because it is so useful to be able to boot up Linux when there is some sort of problem with a Windows machine and perform some maintenance.

It can fix drives, reorganize partitions, even virus check your machine.

There's a convenient guide to Computer First Aid with Knoppix if you want to see the sort of things that can be achieved.

Knoppix should certainly be part of an administrators toolkit, and the above is a good guide to why Knoppix can be so handy.

Just occasionally on the Internet you come across something that makes you think 'What hasn't anybody thought about it before?'

Today, it is Hitachi's page on dying hard drive sounds.

Yes, you read that right, a page devoted to the sounds that hard drives make before they finally die for good. Good engineers can tell when their machinery is going wrong by listening for it - good IT administrators can do the same. With this page, they now have a way of identifying what the problem is with a hard drive based on it's sound.

Eclipse, the Java development environment that also supports developing in other languages like C and, of course, Perl also has a Ruby plug-in available so that you can develop in the ground breaking Ruby language.
 
If are you not familiar with Ruby it is a (comparatively) new language probably most widely known for the Ruby on Rails web development environment. If you want to know more, I recommend the excellent Programming Ruby book, which I recently reviewed for FSM.

Back in September last year I talked about the potential for Peer to peer power and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) boilers, which would enable streets and blocks to generate their own power and share the generated power among all the local properties through a grid like exchange system.

I still think there is a huge potential here for many companies and individuals to generate their own power and therefore help reduce the reliance both on the large power stations and the burning of fossil fuels.

The reasoning is quite simple, both CHP boilers and personal turbines are 'green' producers of electricity, and for many they provide a level of input and control over their power requirements that is hard to beat.

There's a new software company on the block, and they have an amazing range of software available at some unbeatable prices.
 
They have an office suite that provides full Microsoft Office compatibility, Acrobat PDF compatible products for producing and editing PDF documents, an SQL database product, music editing software, and even a photographers dream.
 
All of the products are available for Windows; some of the products are also available for the Mac too. Prices range from as little as $10 to up to $30.
 
Oddly, there are no Linux versions of the software.

There's a review of the Motorola PEBL mobile phone at Gizmodo.

I'm not promoting the PEBL (I have no idea what it's like - that's what the review is for), but what is cool is that the review is done in video. Yes, that's right, a video based review, on the Net, of a new piece of hardware.

What's even cooler that the video even works when the reference is embedded into the RSS feed, even in my self-developed web-based RSS reader.

It sounds like the review will be the first of many. It certainly shows how far the technology and the Internet have come if we can get the video reviews as mainstream.

The power of the individual to compete with companies that do them wrong has for many been small compared to the power of the big corporations.

When individuals managed to get the refunds or apologies for bad service, it made the headlines - especially if the original events that triggered the consumer response were beyond both belief and common sense.

The consumer and the individual was the little guy beating the big guy.

Now the tides are beginning to change, and they are changing for two reasons. The first is a social change - people are getting fed up of having to tolerate problems that should never have occurred in the first place. I think that safety and knowledge has come from a combination of TV shows and newspapers that help the consumer. They show people that it is possible to complain and get a reasonable response, although for some the only time they get a reasonable response is when the newspaper or TV get involved.