XSS in Youtube

XSS Vulnerability in Interactive YouTube API Demo Beta

There is a Critical Cross site XSS Vulnerability in Interactive YouTube API Demo Beta, Discovered by various sources. One of the White Hat Hacker "Vansh Sharma" Inform us about this XSS Vulnerability with proof of concept.
Proof Of Concept :

• Open http://gdata.youtube.com/
• Enter script <img src="<img src=search"/onerror=alert("xss")//"> in the keyword area.
• Press ADD

Some new google apps Google Apps

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

In the spirit of helping people work better together, over the last few weeks we made big improvements to Google presentations, introduced a version of Google Docs optimized for Android tablets, and enabled more dynamic content in Google Sites. We also celebrated the fact that Silicon Valley has gone Google!

Google presentations reloaded
On Tuesday we launched a completely rebuilt version of our web-based presentations application, so you can build more beautiful presentations together with colleagues and classmates. Google presentations now lets you make great-looking slides with animated builds, advanced slide transitions and better support for drawings, tables and themes. Plus, we made it easier to create presentations with others, without the hassles of attachments. Your whole team can work together in the same version of a presentation at the same time, and you can see who’s doing what, chat with others, and see a full revision history at any moment in time.

Google Docs on Android tablets
We’ve made it faster and easier to work with Google Docs on Android tablets with a new version of the Android application that takes full advantage of larger screen real estate. The three-panel view lets you browse filters and collections, see your document list and view file thumbnails and details simultaneously. You can get the Google Docs Android app for free from the Android Market.

Charts in Google Sites
Charts are often created in spreadsheets, but sometimes you want charts to appear in other places, like your team or project sites. In Google Sites, now you can select “Chart” from the “Insert” menu, and navigate to the Google Spreadsheet where your chart or data is located. You can also choose to have your site’s chart update in real-time when someone updates the underlying spreadsheet.

New look for Google Docs and Sites
We started rolling out a new look in Google Docs a couple months ago, and now this new design is available throughout all our collaboration tools. In addition to a cleaner, simpler design, we’ve made it more clear when your files are being auto-saved and added new icons to help you see at-a-glance who your docs are shared with. You can also customize the overall “density” of screen information, a great feature if you want to fit more onto a smaller display.

Who’s gone Google?
Successful small businesses tend to stay laser-focused on improving their core businesses, without getting distracted by peripheral activities that don’t make them more competitive. For example, most small businesses don’t want to spend time or money developing in-house expertise to run email and other IT systems. Case in point: 97 percent of Business Insider’s “Silicon Valley Startups to Watch” use Google Apps.

More than 5,000 businesses and thousands of other organizations start using Google Apps every single day, and more of our customers have shared their stories recently so you can hear why. A warm welcome goes out to Philz Coffee, Mid-Atlantic Door Group, Bradford & Barthel, LLP and the City of Mesquite, Nevada.

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

What is OSSAMS?

As information security professionals, we conduct security assessments for companies. One of the biggest problems we have is after all the data is collected, how can we correlate the data accurately. So we decided to start a project to solve this problem, and we are calling it Open Source Security Assessment Management System (OSSAMS). OSSAMS is a framework for putting configuration files, security scan data files (like Nessus), and other data collected, during a security assessment or penetration test, into a RDBMS.


The framework is going to be designed in a fashion similar to Metasploit, SNORT, or other systems that allow the security community to create plugins for new tasks as needed. The primary goal of OSSAMS is to normalize the data, there by allowing the security professional to better assess the current state of security for an organization.

Completed:
acunetix, burp, grendel, nessus, netsparker, nexpose community, nikto, nmap, ratproxy, retina community, skipfish, sslscan, w3af, wapiti, watcher, websecurify, zap.
Roadmap:
Appscan, arachni, core impact, fierce, httprint, iss, languard, metasploit, ncircle, nexpose, n-stalker, ntospider, openvas, proxystrike, retina, saint, sandcat, webcruiser, webinspect, wsfuzzer…
Requires:
Python > 2.5;
Python-mysqldb; and
Lxml.

Download OSSAMS Alpha

Disable the Ubuntu 11.10 Guest Session

I am a bit of a security wonk and strongly dislike guest accounts so one of the things I have researched since loading up Ubuntu 11.10 is how to disable the guest account available on the login screen. In the past, with GDM, all that had to be done is an uninstall of gdm-guest-session. With Ubuntu 11.10 switching to lightDM this has changed. To remove the guest login option you have to modify /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf.
original

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-session=unity-greeter
user-session=ubuntu

modified

[SeatDefaults]
greeter-session=unity-greeter
user-session=ubuntu
allow-guest=false

You can either reboot or restart the service.

sudo restart lightdm

Please note that restarting lightdm will end your session so do not do this with applications running. This will now remove the guest login as an option from the login screen. I hope this helps out anyone, who like me, is concerned about restricting access to their computer.

Google announces Android 4.0 and its SDK tools

Android 4.0 builds on the things people love most about Android — efficient multitasking, rich notifications, customizable home screens, resizable widgets, and deep interactivity — and adds powerful new ways of communicating and sharing. It includes many great features for users, including social and sharing integration, network data usage control, innovative connectivity and camera options, and an updated set of standard apps.
For developers, Android 4.0 introduces many new capabilities and APIs. Here are some highlights:

Unified UI toolkit: A single set of UI components, styles, and capabilities for phones, tablets, and other devices.
Rich communication and sharing: New social and calendar APIs, Android Beam for NFC-based instant sharing, Wi-Fi Direct support, Bluetooth Health Device Profile support.
Deep interactivity and customization: Improved notifications, lockscreen with camera and music controls, and improved app management in the launcher.
New graphics, camera, and media capabilities: Image and video effects, precise camera metering and face detection, new media codecs and containers.
Interface and input: Hardware-accelerated 2D drawing, new grid-based layout, improved soft keyboard, spell-checker API, stylus input support, and better mouse support.
Improved accessibility: New accessibility APIs and text-to-speech APIs for writing new engines.
Enhancements for enterprise: Keychain and VPN APIs for managing credentials and connections, a new administrator policy for disabling the camera.

For a complete overview of what’s new for users and developers, please read the Android 4.0 Platform Highlights.
Alongside the new Android platform, we are releasing new versions of the SDK Tools (r14) and ADT Plugin (14.0) for Eclipse. Among the highlights are:

• Improved build performance in Ant and Eclipse
• Improved layout and XML editors

To get started developing on Android 4.0, visit the Android Developers site for information about the Android 4.0 platform, the SDK Tools, and the ADT Plugin.
If you have already developed and published apps, we encourage you to download the Android 4.0 platform now, to begin testing your app before devices arrive in stores.

Check out the video below for a closer look at Android 4.0 in action.

Metasploit Community Edition released!

 Rapid7 launched Metasploit Community Edition: a new free addition to the Metasploit family of software solutions, which help security and IT professionals identify and understand real security threats.


Metasploit Community combines the open source Metasploit Framework with a basic version of the robust commercial user interface available in Metasploit Pro to provide an entry-level response to the evolving threat landscape.

The solution offers a simplified approach to vulnerability verification and penetration testing, enabling organizations of any size to begin the process of understanding and addressing their security posture without the need for deep technical knowledge.

Cyber criminals are successful in breaching networks of enterprises and government agencies every day, creating huge security concerns and compliance issues. Penetration testing is a critical step in assessing the risk posture of the IT infrastructure by complementing vulnerability scans to identify gaps, verify known vulnerabilities for prioritization and decrease false positives, and ensure proper remediation.

Metasploit Community makes security assessments more accessible to individual and commercial users through an intuitive interface that offers simplified network discovery and vulnerability verification for specific exploits. This increases the effectiveness of vulnerability scanners such as Nexpose to provide true security risk intelligence.

The capabilities of Metasploit Community include:

A simple graphical user interface, which makes it much easier to get started with vulnerability verification and security assessments than command-line based alternatives.

Network discovery, enabling users to map their networks by identifying hosts, scanning for open ports and fingerprinting their operating systems and services.

Integration with vulnerability scanners, so scan data from Rapid7 Nexpose, Nmap and a dozen other solutions can be imported directly into Metasploit Community. Nexpose scans can also be initiated and sites imported directly from within Metasploit Community.

Basic exploitation, enabling users to verify which vulnerabilities are actually exploitable and must be remediated - and which ones don't. This increases productivity and reduces the cost of a vulnerability management program and helps prevent data breaches.

Module browser, leveraging the world's largest database of quality-assured exploits so users can easily find the right exploit. Each module includes a reliability ranking, indicating its typical success rate and impact on the target system.

Security and IT professionals can easily upgrade from Metasploit Community to Metasploit Pro, continuing to work with the familiar interface on the existing installation. Metasploit Pro adds more powerful capabilities, including smart exploitation, password auditing, Web application scanning, post-exploitation, social engineering, team collaboration, comprehensive reporting and enterprise-level support.

Zend's PHP cloud service (phpcloud.com)

PHP was the core language of the 1.0 era of the web, bringing scripting to the emerging Internet. PHP vendor Zend now wants PHP to be the language for the cloud and today announced a new service to do just that.
The PHPcloud.com service is built on top of Amazon and provides developers with an application platform. The developer cloud component provides developers with a PHP sandbox for apps that provides code tracing to help improve applications.
"We believe that that cloud enables us to deliver a significant step up in developer productivity," Andi Gutmans, CEO of Zend told InternetNews.com.
The developer cloud integrates with the Zend Studio 9 IDE, which is now in beta, as well as the Eclipse PDT (PHP developer tools) project. Gutmans noted that there is going to be an open source SDK that will enable other IDE projects and vendors to connect to the php developer cloud as well.
The code tracing feature in the developer cloud can be accessed via a browser toolbar. The toolbar shows developers if something has gone wrong on their php server instance from an application coding perspective.
"Our goal is to provide an innovative and through experience for the development paradigm," Gutmans said.
From a collaboration perspective, the php cloud provides the ability to take snapshots of their application sandbox. The snapshot captures source code, database configuration and schema. The snapshot can then be shared with others that can then import the snapshot to their own environments.
The new Zend Application Fabric, which is also being announced today, will enable developers to easily move their application to whatever cloud deployment they choose.
"The underlying fabric is consistent between the developer cloud and whatever production cloud you're running on," Gutmans said. "So if you're building and testing your application in a development environment, you know that it will run exactly the same way in production."

Zend Framework 2.0.0 beta 1 released!

 The Zend Framework community is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Zend Framework 2.0.0beta1. Packages and installation instructions are available at:

http://packages.zendframework.com/

This is the first in a series of planned beta releases. The beta release cycle will follow the "gmail" style of betas, whereby new features will be added in each new release, and BC will not be guaranteed; beta releases will happen no less than every six weeks. The desire is for developers to adopt and work with new components as they are shipped, and provide feedback so we can polish the distribution.
Once all code in the proposed standard distribution has reached maturity and reasonable stability, we will freeze the API and prepare for Release Candidate status.
Featured components and functionality of 2.0.0beta1 include:

• New and refactored autoloaders:
  • Zend\Loader\StandardAutoloader
  • Zend\Loader\ClassMapAutoloader
  • Zend\Loader\AutoloaderFactory
• New plugin broker strategy
  • Zend\Loader\Broker and Zend\Loader\PluginBroker
• Reworked Exception system
  • Allow catching by specific Exception type
  • Allow catching by component Exception type
  • Allow catching by SPL Exception type
  • Allow catching by base Exception type
• Rewritten Session component
• Refactored View component
  • Split helpers into a PluginBroker
  • Split variables into a Variables container
  • Split script paths into a TemplateResolver
  • Renamed base View class "PhpRenderer"
  • Refactored helpers to utilize __invoke() when possible
• Refactored HTTP component
• New Zend\Cloud\Infrastructure component
• New EventManager component
• New Dependency Injection (Zend\Di) component
• New Code component
  • Incorporates refactored versions of former Reflection and CodeGenerator components.
  • Introduces Scanner component.
  • Introduces annotation system.

The above components provide a solid foundation for Zend Framework 2, and largely make up the framework "core". However, the cornerstone feature of beta1 is what they enable: the new MVC layer:

• Zend\Module, for developing modular application architectures.
• Zend\Mvc, a completely reworked MVC layer built on top of HTTP, EventManager, and Di.

We've built a skeleton application and a skeleton module to help get you started, as well as a quick start guide to the MVC; the new MVC is truly flexible, and moreover, simple and powerful.
Additionally, for those who haven't clicked on the packages link above, we are debuting our new distribution mechanisms for ZF2: the ability to use Pyrus to install individual components and/or groups of components.
Since mid-August, we've gone from a few dozen pull requests on the ZF2 git repository to over 500, originating from both long-time Zend Framework contributors as well as those brand-new to the project. I'd like to thank each and every one of them, but also call out several individuals who have made some outstanding and important contributions during that time frame:

• Evan Coury, who prototyped and then implemented the new module system.
• Rob Allen, who, because he was doing a tutorial at PHPNW on ZF2, provided a lot of early feedback, ideas, and advice on the direction of the MVC.
• Ben Scholzen, who wrote a new router system, in spite of a massive injury from a cycling accident.
• Ralph Schindler, who has had to put up with my daily "devil's advocate" and "think of the user!" rants for the past several months, and still managed to provide comprehensive code manipulation tools, a Dependency Injection framework, and major contributions to the HTTP component.
• Enrico Zimuel, who got tossed requirements for the cloud infrastructure component, and then had to rework most of it after rewriting the HTTP client from the ground up... and who still managed three back-to-back-to-back conferences as we prepared the release.
• Artur Bodera, who often has played devil's advocate, and persisted pressing his opinions on the direction of the framework, often despite heavy opposition. We may not implement all (or many) of the features you want, but you've definitely influenced the direction of the MVC incredibly.
• Pádraic Brady, who started the runaway train rolling with a rant, and helped make the project much more transparent, enabling the MVC development to occur in the first place. 

All about Ice Cream Sandwich(Android 4.0)

Google dropped some interesting information about Ice Cream Sandwich, the next version of Android - Android 4.0 at its Google I/O conference back n May.
We now know that Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich will be announced at a Google event on 19 October.
A video of an Ice Cream Sandwich sculpture at Google's HQ confirms the 19 October launch for the new OS.
The Android 4.0 launch takes place at 10AM Hong Kong time (3AM UK time), and was posted on Google's brand new @Android Twitter account.
The Samsung-built 4.7-inch, 1.5GHz dual-core Nexus Prime is the likely partner handset, but we don't know a Nexus Prime UK release date as yet.

As we reported from Google's keynote at Mobile World Congress in February, Google's mantra for the Android 4.0 OS is "one OS everywhere" – it will be a single 4.0 version of Android running across phones and tablets, unlike Android 3.0 Honeycomb that only runs on tablets.
That's why it's a Sandwich y'see.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich interface
Ice Cream Sandwich will bring all the interface loveliness of Android 3.0 Honeycombto Android smartphones. Android phone users will get the updated app launcher, holographic user interface, interactive and new homescreen widgets plus the multi-tasking panel.

ANDROID 3.0: This interface magic will be coming to Android Ice Cream Sandwich
On 12 August we saw a batch of leaked screenshots of Ice Cream Sandwich.
Android Police and Roots Wiki seem to have come up with an odd cross-site team up to leak four pretty plausible screengrabs of the latest version of Google's mobile OS, which will likely be Android 4.0.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich features
Google says Ice Cream Sandwich is its "most ambitious release to date" and will incorporate all the best bits of Honeycomb, the Android tablet OS, and make them useable on smartphones too.
But Ice Cream Sandwich is about more than just the user interface and it will bring all the new Android 3.1 features to phones. This new update means Android tablets will also be able to act as a USB hub and you'll be to hook up devices such as mice and keyboards and game controllers to tablets and smartphones.
On 10 October, TI refused to confirm or denyFudzilla reportsthat it was the reference design for Android 4.0 would be based on their hardware.
Google is also intending to make life easier for developers by releasing a new set of APIs that will help them to scale their apps across the various sizes of Android devices - Google acknowledges that it's important for developers to be able to design apps that will work across 3.5-inch smartphones up to 10.1-inch tablets.
During the Google Google I/O keynote those on stage also showed off 3D headtracking using the front-mounted camera so you can figure out who is speaking and focus on them while on a video call. Face detection will be a key feature in the OS and we hear that you can even unlock your handset using it.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich apps
Many popular apps will get an update in time for the new OS - with a new interface expected to debut too. Interestingly, the screenshots shown here appear to have been taken on a new Samsung-built Nexus Prime.
A new Google Music app has also leaked which, although it works with earlier Android versions, is designed for Ice Cream Sandwich.
There will also be a new browser available - Google Chrome will debut on Android.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich specification
Google's Mike Claren said, "we want one OS that runs everywhere."
Smartphone users will also get an expanded multitasking tool, including a system manager that handles your open resources for you so you won't run out of memory or be prompted to quit an application on the tablet.
Android 3.1 also means you can expand the size of a scrollable home screen widget, while existing scrollable widgets can also be upgraded by devs with a couple of lines of code.



Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich requirements
There's no word yet on minimum hardware requirements, though this will certainly have implications for upgrading existing handsets to the new OS. Speaking of which…
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades
Google is introducing new guidelines in which it promises OS updates for the first 18 months for existing handsets. So Ice Cream will be coming to some of the more powerful handsets released during 2011.
"Together we'll create guidelines for how quickly devices will get updated after new android platforms and for how long they'll continue to get updated.," said Google's Vic Gundotra at Google I/O.
"New devices from these partners will receive the latest Android updates for 18 months after first launch, if the hardware allows it. We think this is really great news for users, we think it's excellent for developers and really great for the entire industry."
The move is in response to accusations that Android is becoming too fragmented and it has announced an alliance of (US-only for now) networks and manufacturers who have vowed to provide more timely updates. No longer will you get left behind.
Samsung UK has also told TechRadar that it is working to bring faster updates to users.
"We saw a lot of comments saying 'I want my upgrade, when do I get my upgrade?'," says Hiroshi Lockheimer, director of engineering at Google.
"There's no common expectation set of how this would work, so we can at least establish some form of expectation for the whole community - users and developers.
"We certainly want this to be an international, global thing. We announced Vodafone;you can expect another wave of announcements around that."
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is open source
We also know that Google is intending to make Ice Cream Sandwich fully open source. It didn't do this with Android 3.0 Honeycomb in an attempt to make things more consistent.
"It's more manageable to start small and get bigger," says Andy Rubin, senior vice president of Mobile at Google.
"It's an open invitation; there's no reason not to have everybody in [The Open Handset Alliance] - but I want to hit the ground running, I don't want to take a lot of time on building a list of names."

Linux Kernel 3.0.7 released

All users of the 3.0 kernel series must upgrade.

The updated 3.0.y git tree can be found at (NOTE THE ADDRESS CHANGE):
        git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-3.0.y
and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser:
  http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git;a=summary

Note, I've had some boot problems with this kernel, and I can't seem to
narrow the issue down, but I think it's due to something not related to
the kernel itself, but am not positive.  Please test to verify that I
didn't mess something up.

thanks,

greg k-h

------------

 Makefile                                   |    2 -
 arch/arm/mach-ux500/Kconfig                |    1 
 arch/mips/jz4740/gpio.c                    |   52 ++++++++++++-----------------
 arch/sparc/mm/init_64.c                    |    5 ++
 arch/x86/pci/acpi.c                        |   11 ++++++
 drivers/ata/ahci.c                         |   12 ++++++
 drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/atombios_dp.c       |   28 ++++++++++-----
 drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/evergreen.c         |   44 ------------------------
 drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/ni.c                |   32 -----------------
 drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_connectors.c |    8 ++--
 drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_cursor.c     |   12 +++---
 drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/radeon_encoders.c   |    9 +++--
 drivers/gpu/drm/radeon/rv770.c             |   51 ----------------------------
 drivers/ide/ide-disk.c                     |    7 +++
 drivers/md/dm-table.c                      |   13 +++----
 drivers/md/md.c                            |   22 ++++++++++--
 drivers/md/md.h                            |    2 -
 drivers/md/multipath.c                     |    3 -
 drivers/md/raid1.c                         |    3 -
 drivers/md/raid10.c                        |    5 +-
 drivers/md/raid5.c                         |    6 +--
 drivers/misc/lis3lv02d/lis3lv02d.c         |   14 ++++---
 drivers/mmc/host/mxs-mmc.c                 |   30 +++++++---------
 drivers/net/e1000e/ich8lan.c               |   19 +++++++---
 drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt2x00queue.c  |   21 ++++++++---
 drivers/net/wireless/rt2x00/rt2x00queue.h  |    2 +
 drivers/scsi/libsas/sas_expander.c         |   10 +++--
 drivers/scsi/qla2xxx/qla_os.c              |    9 ++---
 fs/exec.c                                  |    2 +
 include/linux/ftrace.h                     |    7 ++-
 include/linux/ptp_classify.h               |   13 +++++--
 include/linux/sched.h                      |    1 
 include/net/ipv6.h                         |    2 -
 kernel/posix-cpu-timers.c                  |    5 +-
 kernel/sched.c                             |   26 --------------
 kernel/sched_rt.c                          |    4 +-
 kernel/trace/ftrace.c                      |   42 +++++++++++++++++------
 kernel/trace/trace_functions.c             |    3 +
 net/ipv6/ip6_output.c                      |   10 ++---
 net/ipv6/udp.c                             |    4 +-
 sound/soc/codecs/wm8753.c                  |    4 +-
 sound/soc/pxa/zylonite.c                   |    8 ++--
 42 files changed, 262 insertions(+), 302 deletions(-)

Alex Deucher (6):
      drm/radeon/kms: Fix logic error in DP HPD handler
      drm/radeon/kms: fix regression in DP aux defer handling
      drm/radeon/kms: add retry limits for native DP aux defer
      drm/radeon/kms: fix channel_remap setup (v2)
      drm/radeon/kms: retry aux transactions if there are status flags
      drm/radeon/kms: use hardcoded dig encoder to transmitter mapping for DCE4.1

Arnd Bergmann (1):
      ASoC: use a valid device for dev_err() in Zylonite

Axel Lin (1):
      ASoC: Fix setting update bits for WM8753_LADC and WM8753_RADC

Borislav Petkov (1):
      ide-disk: Fix request requeuing

Bruce Allan (1):
      e1000e: workaround for packet drop on 82579 at 100Mbps

David S. Miller (1):
      sparc64: Force the execute bit in OpenFirmware's translation entries.

Gertjan van Wingerde (1):
      rt2x00: Serialize TX operations on a queue.

Greg Kroah-Hartman (1):
      Linux 3.0.7

Jason Wang (1):
      ipv6: fix NULL dereference in udp6_ufo_fragment()

Koen Beel (1):
      mmc: mxs-mmc: fix clock rate setting

Mark Nelson (1):
      ahci: Enable SB600 64bit DMA on Asus M3A

Mark Salyzyn (1):
      libsas: fix panic when single phy is disabled on a wide port

Michel Dänzer (1):
      drm/radeon: Update AVIVO cursor coordinate origin before x/yorigin calculation.

Mike Snitzer (1):
      dm table: avoid crash if integrity profile changes

NeilBrown (1):
      md: Avoid waking up a thread after it has been freed.

Paul Menzel (1):
      x86/PCI: use host bridge _CRS info on ASUS M2V-MX SE

Peter Zijlstra (1):
      posix-cpu-timers: Cure SMP wobbles

Rafael J. Wysocki (1):
      MIPS: PM: Use struct syscore_ops instead of sysdevs for PM (v2)

Richard Cochran (1):
      ptp: fix L2 event message recognition

Roland Dreier (1):
      qla2xxx: Fix crash in qla2x00_abort_all_cmds() on unload

Shawn Bohrer (1):
      sched/rt: Migrate equal priority tasks to available CPUs

Simon Kirby (1):
      sched: Fix up wchan borkage

Steven Rostedt (3):
      ftrace: Fix regression of :mod:module function enabling
      ftrace: Fix regression where ftrace breaks when modules are loaded
      ftrace: Fix warning when CONFIG_FUNCTION_TRACER is not defined

Takashi Iwai (1):
      lis3: fix regression of HP DriveGuard with 8bit chip

Tetsuo Handa (1):
      exec: do not call request_module() twice from search_binary_handler()

srinidhi kasagar (1):
      ARM: mach-ux500: enable fix for ARM errata 754322

How to run windows games on Linux?

So, you just started using Linux, but found out that your favorite Windows games and applications do not have a Linux edition. What should you do then? Set up a separate computer just for Windows, or abandon Linux and go back to Windows. If you have the means, you can opt for the former, but the second option is not necessary.
Why? Well, you see, you can run many Windows games and applications directly in your favorite Linux distribution, without installing Windows. That magic is made possible by an application called Wine. (The name is recursive for Wine Is Not an Emulator.)
Running Wine is very simple. Because it is already in your distribution’s repository, all you need to do is install it using your distribution’s package manager. But installing it is just the beginning. You have to configure it.
But even that is easy because most people running Wine configure and manage it using a graphical frontend, of which there is just a few in active development. In this article, I will list the graphical interfaces that are still in active development.
Note that not all Windows programs will run on Wine, and even some that run will not do so without one or more minor or major issues that will need fixing.

There are four graphical interface still in active development. They are: Winetricks, PlayonLinux, WineGame, and Q4wine.

1. Winetricks – This is the best of the frontends. It was a lot more fun to use than the others. Its most important feature is that it makes it easy to install trial or demo applications without you actually having the applications or games. It does that by downloading and installing selected applications from the program’s website. This is its startup interface.
   
   And this is a partial list of available applications. Those that show “download” in the “Media” column are automatically downloaded and installed.
   
   That was how I installed World of Warcraft (WoW). This is a screenshot from a test installation.
   
2. PlayonLinux – Offers a simple to use interface, but does not have the automatic download-and-install feature of Winetricks. What it does have, however, is a very active community.
   
3. WineGame – This will probably not be in your distribution’s repository, but you may install it by following the instructions here. I did not have much success working with WineGame, but that should not stop you from trying it. The image below shows the main interface.
   
4. Q4wine – This a Qt4 interface for Wine, and runs on Linux and FreeBSD, which likely means that it will also run on PC-BSD. Like PlayonLinux and WineGame, Q4wine did not work as well as Winetricks. A few of its features are:
   • Can work with different versions of wine simultaneously
   • Makes it easy to extract icons from PE files (.exe .dll)
   • Autostart icons support
   This image shows the startup view of Q4wine.
   
   And this, shows the Programs tab. You may view more screenshots here.
   

Google command line (GoogleCL)

Google command(GoogleCL) line allows you to use command line for the basic features: 

GoogleCL brings Google services to the command line.

We currently support the following Google services:

• Blogger

$ google blogger post --title "foo" "command line posting"

• Calendar

$ google calendar add "Lunch with Jim at noon tomorrow"

• Contacts

$ google contacts list Bob name,email > the_bobs.csv

• Docs

$ google docs edit "Shopping list"

• Finance

$ google finance create-txn "Savings Portfolio" NASDAQ:GOOG Buy

• Picasa

$ google picasa create "Cat Photos" ~/photos/cats/*.jpg

• Youtube

$ google youtube post --category Education killer_robots.avi

Apache to develop, protect for OpenOffice

Citing its success with other donated projects, the Apache Software Foundation vowed to protect OpenOffice.org and prevent fragmentation.
In a lengthy statement issued to naysayers and concerned parties today, the ASF rejected claims that OpenOffice would be neglected and pointed to its success with other adopted open source projects such as SpamAssassin as proof that the “Apache Way” will grow and develop OpenOffice.
The ASF also noted that the project would be known under the name Apache OpenOffice.org and is officially in incubation status.
Oracle donated OpenOffice to the ASF in June. Enhancements and updates will be issued when they are ready, the statement said.
“As with many highly-visible products, there has been speculation and conjecture about the future of OpenOffice.org at Apache. More recently, destructive statements have been published by both members of the greater FOSS community and former contributors to the original OpenOffice.org product, suggesting that the project has failed during the 18 weeks since its acceptance into the Apache Incubator,” the statement noted.
“Whilst the ASF operates in the open –our code and project mailing lists are publicly accessible– ASF governance permits for projects to make information and code freely available when the project deems them ready to be released. Apache OpenOffice.org is not at risk.”
The ASF also noted that there’s plenty of room for competition and pledged cooperation with LibreOffice, another OpenOffice,org project that spun off from the original OpenOffice.org after Oracle acquired it from Sun.
“At the ASF, the answer is openness, not further fragmentation. There is ample room for multiple solutions in the marketplace that are Powered by Apache. We welcome differences of opinion: a requirement at Apache is that a healthy project be supported by an open, diverse community comprising multiple organizations and individual contributors,” the statement read.
“We congratulate the LibreOffice community on their success over their inaugural year and wish them luck in their future endeavors. We look forward to opening up the dialogue between Open Document Format-oriented communities to deepen understanding and cease the unwarranted spread of misinformation.”

Google shutting down some products

We aspire to build great products that really change people’s lives, products they use two or three times a day. To succeed you need real focus and thought—thought about what you work on and, just as important, what you don’t work on. It’s why we recently decided to shut down some products, and turn others into features of existing products.

Here’s the latest update on what’s happening:

• Code Search, which was designed to help people search for open source code all over the web, will be shut down along with the Code Search API on January 15, 2012.
• In a few weeks we’ll shut down Google Buzz and the Buzz API, and focus instead on Google+. While people obviously won't be able to create new posts after that, they will be able to view their existing content on their Google Profile, and download it using Google Takeout.
• Jaiku, a product we acquired in 2007 that let users send updates to friends, will shut down on January 15, 2012. We’ll be working to enable users to export their data from Jaiku.
• Several years ago, we gave people the ability to interact socially on iGoogle. With our new focus on Google+, we will remove iGoogle's social features on January 15, 2012. iGoogle itself, and non-social iGoogle applications, will stay as they are.
• The University Research Program for Google Search, which provides API access to our search results for a small number of approved academic researchers, will close on January 15, 2012.

In addition, later today the Google Labs site will shut down, and as previously announced, Boutiques.com and the former Like.com websites will be replaced by Google Product Search.

Changing the world takes focus on the future, and honesty about the past. We learned a lot from products like Buzz, and are putting that learning to work every day in our vision for products like Google+. Our users expect great things from us; today’s announcements let us focus even more on giving them something truly awesome.

Play with Cakephp's find query

CakePHP allows you to use your own "find-types" for the Model::find() methodology. Those of your who are familiar with the find() method know that there are currently four types in the core: 'list', 'all', 'first' and 'count'. However, sometimes it is nice to specify your own type so you can have a call like this:

$this->Comment->find('pending');

So how would you go about implementing this? Correct, you would overwrite the find() method in your model and provide the default functionality if there is one of the default types used. Let's have a look at how you could implement this pending find from above:

class Comment extends AppModel {
  var $belongsTo = array('User');

  function find($type, $queryData = array()) {
    switch ($type) {
      case 'pending':
        return $this->find('all', array(
          'fields' => array('User.email', 'User.first_name', 'User.last_name', 'Comment.name')
          , 'conditions' => array(
            'Comment.active' => 0
            , 'Comment.blocked' => 0
          )
          , 'contain' => array('User')
        ));
      default:
        return parent::find($type, $queryData);
    }
  }
}

So this is actually not very difficult code, but it is very powerful. You could specify different sets of conditions, fields, orders, groups by's and containments just by adding a new entry to the switch statement. Please note that there is no break needed within the switch as we return home.
Let's add some code for finding pending users that were invited by the currently logged-in user. This is what we could use in the controller:

$this->Comment->find('pending', array('created_by_id' => User::get('id')));

Now for the model we would need to add some code that tracks if $queryData['conditions'] is set, and use that as well in conjunction with the conditions specified in our find type. While we are at it, let's also add some code that would handle fields, order, group, recursive and contain statements:

class Comment extends AppModel {
  var $belongsTo = array('User');

  function find($type, $queryData = array()) {
    $defaults = array(
      'conditions' => null
      , 'fields' => array()
      , 'order' => null
      , 'recursive' => null
      , 'contain' => null
    );
    $queryData = am($defaults, $queryData);

    switch ($type) {
      case 'pending':
        return $this->find('all', array(
          'fields' => am(
            array('User.email', 'User.first_name', 'User.last_name', 'Comment.name')
            , $queryData['fields']
          )
          , 'conditions' => am(array(
            'Comment.active' => 0
            , 'Comment.blocked' => 0
          ), $queryData['conditions'])
          , 'contain' => am(array('User'), $queryData['contain'])
        ));
      default:
        return parent::find($type, $queryData);
    }
  }
}

With some default values we can happily use our custom find type alongside dynamic conditions inserted by our controllers. If you think this am() stuff is overkill, you could as well just provide another find type:

$this->Comment->find('pending-created-by-logged-in-user');

class Comment extends AppModel {
  var $belongsTo = array('User');

  function find($type, $queryData = array()) {
    switch ($type) {
      case 'pending':
        return $this->find('all', array(
          'fields' => array('User.email', 'User.first_name', 'User.last_name', 'Comment.name')
          , 'conditions' => array(
            'Comment.active' => 0
            , 'Comment.blocked' => 0
          )
          , 'contain' => array('User')
        ));
      case 'pending-created-by-logged-in-user':
        return $this->find('all', array(
          'fields' => array('User.email', 'User.first_name', 'User.last_name')
          , 'conditions' => array(
            'Comment.active' => 0
            , 'Comment.blocked' => 0
            , 'Comment.created_by_id' => User::get('id')
          )
          , 'contain' => array('User')
        ));
      default:
        return parent::find($type, $queryData);
    }
  }
}

... well you get the idea. By the way, do you notice how useful using a static functions like this User::get() methods are for fetching properties and data from the currently logged in user? More on that later.

C creator Dennis Ritchie passes away

  It is with sad hearts that the Red Hat community mourns the passing of computing pioneer Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie. Dennis Ritchie was the principal designer of the C programming language and co-developer of the Unix operating system, working closely with Ken Thompson, his longtime Bell Labs collaborator.

Many of us have a proud history of involvement in the UNIX operating system well before the emergence of Linux. To the UNIX world, Ritchie and Thompson were as influential as Linus Torvalds is today to the Linux community. Unix and C's direct and spiritual descendants cannot be counted, but include Linux, Android, Mac OS, iOS, JavaScript, C++, the genius of the internet, and a planet of developers. The major impact of UNIX is not so much in the elegant code itself but rather in the culture of sharing work across industry and academia that became UNIX’s hallmark. Prior to UNIX, operating system code was locked in corporate vaults – inaccessible to the masses. UNIX flung open these doors by allowing code to be shared among software engineers across the nascent computer industry, ushering in an unprecedented wave of collaborative development – and, at the same time, liberating many applications from being locked into a single proprietary hardware vendor.
UNIX code was also shared with universities where it became the foundation of the learning and advancement of operating system practices. Similarly, the C programming language became a staple of the computer science classroom. Many of us literally grew up in Dennis' technical shadow and still have his book, The C Programming Language, co-authored with Brian Kernighan and more fondly referred to as K & R, on our shelves. It remains a source of inspiration and practical help to programmers to this day.
Most of what we do is heavily influenced by Dennis’s outstanding contributions – both in the technical arena and as a founder of the concept of community development. We at Red Hat look with awe and reverence on his legacy.

The KDE story

 Fifteen years ago Matthias Ettrich started the KDE community. On 14th October 1996 he wrote his famous email to the de.comp.os.linux.misc group on Usenet. He called for other programmers to join him to create a free desktop environment for Linux targeted at end users. Many, many people joined. Thousands of developers wrote millions lines of code. We did 90 stable releases of our core set of applications alone, not counting all additional stuff and the thousands of 3rd party applications.

So now, fifteen years later, we are done. We have a wonderful free desktop environment for Linux which is used by millions of users every day. Well, are we done? Not quite. While we have reached the original goal of creating an appealing desktop which makes Linux accessible to everyone for everyday tasks, our scope has broadened. There are whole new classes of devices in need of free and friendly user interfaces, it's not only the desktop anymore. The cloud presents new opportunities for connecting computers more than ever, and presents new challenges for freedom of software and data.

We are on it. The last two weeks saw frentic activity in the KDE community. Last week we released version 4.7.2 of our flagship product, the classical desktop. On Sunday we released Plasma Active One, our speedboat going into the waters of tablets and the device spectrum. On Tuesday we released ownCloud 2, our helicopter going into the cloud on its mission to retain your freedom and control about your data.

The KDE desktop is part of our live. We and millions of others use it every day. It's great for getting work done. We are on par with other desktops, but we are still pushing the limits and innovating, for all the users out there. This won't change anytime soon.

Plasma Active is one of the results of our innovation activities. It brings KDE to tablets, and it comes with a strong vision to create an elegant, desirable user experience for a spectrum of devices. It builds on the foundation of the KDE software, but it opens new doors, explores new areas. I'm really looking forward to what we can achieve there.

ownCloud goes beyond what we have done before. It runs in the cloud. But it's built on the values and the community of KDE. We deeply care about software freedom. Enabling users to retain control about their data and their privacy is a big part of that. ownCloud does that where other cloud solutions fall short. It brings fresh blood and energy, and opens up a space, which we weren't able to address before. Here as well I'm looking forward to what we can do.

Fifteen years of KDE is a long time. I joined the community in 1999, and I can say that KDE changed my life. I probably wouldn't have the job I have today without KDE, I wouldn't live where I live today, and I would miss a lot of great experiences and friends I wouldn't have met. In the interview I gave for the "people behind KDE" series, there was a question, what my favorite feature of KDE was. My answer was: "the community". Many other KDE people answered the same.

That's the core. KDE is an awesome community. I'm proud to be part of it, and I'm looking forward to be part of it for the next fifteen years of KDE.

Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) tweaks

Some of those tweaks still work but since this is a new version, there are new things that need tweaking so I've decided to make a new post with some popular old tweaks as well as some new ones.

Read on!

General tweaks (for both GNOME Shell and Unity)

Change themes, fonts and more with GNOME Tweak Tool

In Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot you can only switch between the default GTK themes by default. Also, there's no built-in GUI to easily change fonts or icon themes. But you can do this using GNOME Tweak Tool:

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool

Once installed, GNOME Tweak Tool should show up as "Advanced Settings" in the menu. Besides changing fonts or themes, GNOME Tweak Tool can also be used to enable/disable GNOME Shell extensions, tweak the desktop, various windows behavior or GNOME Shell.

No screensaver in GNOME 3.2

GNOME 3 doesn't have a screensaver, just a black screen. If you want to use a screensaver, you can use Xscreensaver - install it using the following commands (this will also remove gnome-screensaver):

sudo apt-get remove gnome-screensaver
sudo apt-get install xscreensaver xscreensaver-gl-extra xscreensaver-data-extra

Then search for "Screensaver" in the menu and tweak its settings to your needs.

To add Xscreensaver to startup, open Startup Applications and add "xscreensaver -nosplash".


Let's also make the lock screen work (CTRL + ALT + L):

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/xscreensaver-command /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver-command

To be able to watch a movie properly, also install Caffeine:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:caffeine-developers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install caffeine python-glade2

To revert the changes (go back to the black GNOME Screensaver screen):

sudo apt-get remove xscreensaver xscreensaver-gl-extra xscreensaver-data-extra
sudo rm /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver-command
sudo apt-get install gnome-screensaver

Nautilus search

Partially fix annoying Nautilus behavior that doesn't let you properly search by typing when there are a lot of files/folders: in Nautilus, select View > Statusbar.

Install Syanptic

Synaptic is not installed by default in Ubuntu 11.10 and while Ubuntu Software Center got many new features, it still can't do everything Synaptic can. Install Synaptic back using the following command:

sudo apt-get install synaptic

Disable Overlay Scrollbars

If you don't like the overlay scrollbars, you can remove them using the following command:

sudo apt-get remove overlay-scrollbar liboverlay-scrollbar3-0.2-0 liboverlay-scrollbar-0.2-0

Then, restart your computer (performing a logout only may not be enough).

To revert this change, install the packages back:

sudo apt-get install overlay-scrollbar liboverlay-scrollbar3-0.2-0 liboverlay-scrollbar-0.2-0

And restart your computer.

Missing features: web apps and file previewer

Two missing GNOME 3.2 features in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot (for both Unity and GNOME Shell) are the web applications and Sushi quick previewer.

The first requires Epiphany 3.2.0 which is available in the WebUpd8 GNOME 3 PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/gnome3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install epiphany-browser

And the second - Sushi file previewer -, is available in the official Ubuntu repositories:

sudo apt-get install gnome-sushi

Longer battery life

I don't know if the kernel power bug is real or not, but many users have reported that using Jupiter or a tweak we've posted a while back, their laptop/netbook battery life increased. Install Jupiter using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/jupiter
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install jupiter

If you have an EeePC, also install the following package for SHE support:

sudo apt-get install jupiter-support-eee

As for the other tweak, see this post: Linux Kernel Power Issue / Overheat Workaround.

No more Sun/Oracle Java

The "sun-java6" package is no longer available in the official Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot repositories due to the removal of the JDL license. Java 7 won't be in Oneiric either, but you still have 3 options:

- Install OpenJDK:

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre

- Or Oracle (previously Sun) Java 6 from the LFFL PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ferramroberto/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk sun-java6-plugin

- Or manually install Java 7 (JDK) in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot.

GNOME Shell tweaks

Fix ALT + F2

ALT + F2 doesn't work by default in GNOME Shell under Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot. To fix it, open "System Settings" and under Keyboard > Shortcuts > System, click "Disabled" next to "Show the run command prompt" and press ALT + F2 - this should set ALT + F2 for running the command prompt.

Easily change GNOME Shell themes

To be able to easily change the GNOME Shell theme, besides GNOME Tweak Tool you'll also need the User Theme extension, available in the WebUpd8 GNOME3 PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/gnome3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-extensions-user-theme

Then use GNOME Tweak Tool to activate the theme.

For more extensions, see: Official GNOME Shell Extensions Available In The WebUpd8 GNOME 3 PPA For Ubuntu 11.10.

Move icons from Message tray (bottom tray) to the Top Bar

Some might find the notification area icons showing up in the Message Tray (at the bottom of the screen, hidden by default) annoying or confusing. But you can move the icon on the Top Bar using an extension:

sudo apt-get install git-core
cd
git clone https://github.com/rcmorano/gnome-shell-gnome2-notifications.git
sudo cp -r gnome-shell-gnome2-notifications/gnome-shell-gnome2-notifications@emergya.com /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions/

Then press ALT + F2 and enter "r" to restart GNOME Shell.

Important: this extension shows up as disabled in GNOME Tweak Tool because of an error in the extension code. Despite this, the extension still works!

No shutdown menu entry

By default, there's no shutdown entry in the status menu and you must press and hold ALT to be able to shutdown your computer when using GNOME Shell. But this can be changed by installing Alternative Status Menu extension which adds "Power off" and "Hibernate" to the status menu, visible at all time (and not just when pressing the ALT key). Install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/gnome3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-extensions-alternative-status-menu

Then use GNOME Tweak Tool to enable the extension.

Fix Nautilus menu being displayed under the GNOME Shell top bar when using transparent GNOME Shell themes

If you use a transparent GNOME Shell theme such as Zukitwo, the Nautilus menu shows up behind the top bar. You can fix this either by removing global menu (see below, under "Unity tweaks") or by disabling Nautilus from handling the desktop using GNOME Tweak Tool (under "Desktop", set "Have file manager handle the desktop" to off):

Disabling Nautilus from handling the desktop means you won't have any icons on the desktop anymore. If this is a big deal to you, remove AppMenu (Global Menu) - but you won't have a global menu in Unity anymore (though that shouldn't be a big issue if you don't use Unity anyway).

To install GNOME Tweak Tool, see the first tweak in this post.

Unity tweaks

Configure Unity (autohide, etc.)

Unity 3D can be configured through CompizConfig Settings Manager, but CCSM isn't installed by default so let's install it:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Using CCSM you can configure the Unity Launcher reavel mode and timeout, the Unity Launcher autohide (autohide, dodge windows, dodge active windows or disable autohide), various keyboard shortcuts, the new ALT + TAB switcher behavior, blacklight mode, panel and launcher opacity, launcher icon size and more.

A few quick stuff I for one always tweak using CCSM (open CompizConfig Settings Manager and click the "Ubuntu Unity Plugin"):

To disable launcher autohide: on the "Behavior tab" under "Hide Launcher", select "Never".

To disable mounted devices from showing up on the Unity Launcher: on the "Experimental" tab, under "Show Devices" select "Never".

By default, applications that usually take 75% of the screen are maximized automatically on start. To change this automaximize value, on the "Experimental" tab, look for "Automaximize value" - tweak this to whatever value you want.

Configure Unity 2D

Some Unity 2D settings as well as other tweaks can be performed using "dconf-editor", part of the "dconf-tools" package. Install it using the following command:

sudo apt-get install dconf-tools

Then press ALT + F2 and enter: "dconf-editor" to launch it. You can find the Unity 2D settings under com > canonical > unity-2d.

Re-enable the systray (notification area)

You no longer need to whitelist Qt applications but you may still need the systray for other applications such as Shutter, Jupiter, etc. You can whitelist the systray using the following command:

gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Panel systray-whitelist "['all']"

Then log out and log back in.

Disable Global Menu (AppMenu)

Don't like the global menu? Get the menu back in the application window instead of using a global menu on the top panel:

sudo apt-get remove appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-gtk appmenu-qt

Then, restart your computer (performing a logout only may not be enough).

You can also disable the global menu without removing any package. See HERE.

To revert the changes, install these packages back:

sudo apt-get install appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-gtk appmenu-qt

And restart your computer.

Use a global menu for LibreOffice

By default, LibreOffice doesn't come with a Global Menu but you can manually install it:

sudo apt-get install lo-menubar

If you experience any issues with it, simply remove it:

sudo apt-get remove lo-menubar

Disable the user switcher indicator

The user switcher indicator (or Me-User-Indicator or whatever is called) can be useful if multiple users log in on your computer but if it's just one user, you can get more space by disabling it. Presuming you've already installed the "dconf-tools" package: press ALT + F2 or open a terminal and enter:

dconf-editor

Then navigate to apps > indicator-session and uncheck the box next to "user-show-menu", then restat Unity (ALT + F2 and enter "unity --replace") or log out and log back in.

Something went wrong! How do I reset Unity or Compiz?

You can easily reset Unity or Compiz using the following commands (be careful when using these commands and only use them if you really have to!):

- to reset the Unity launcher icons:

unity --reset-icons

- to reset Unity:

unity --reset

- to reset Compiz:

gconftool-2 --recursive-unset /apps/compiz-1
unity --reset

Using a different "shell"

By default, Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot uses Unity 3D (with Compiz). If you don't like it, you can try a different interface, while still using GNOME:

Unity 2D

Unity 2D is installed by default and is used as the fall-back mode for computers that can't run Unity 3D. To use Unity 2D, log out and select "Ubuntu 2D" in the login screen:

GNOME Shell

GNOME Shell is not installed by default but you can easily install it from the official Ubuntu repositories:

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell

Once installed, log out and select "GNOME" from the login screen:

Classic GNOME 3 session

You can also use the GNOME 3 classic session. Install it using the following command:

sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

And select "GNOME Classic" from the login screen: