Upfront

The Linux NetworX Evolocity super cluster built for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is the number five supercomputer in the world, according to the Top500 Supercomputing List, and it's tops among Linux-based supercomputers.

Here are some facts about it:

(Source: Linux NetworX)

—Doc Searls

Note: www.0x49.org

I had a tough time choosing between a couple of extremely good utilities I reviewed three years ago. These included Downloader for X, which I use regularly, gnotepad+ and xglobe. But I had to go with Note. There's nothing incredibly special about Note other than it does exactly what it says—keeps notes for you. It works by keeping your notes in a binary, DBM or about any Perl-supported SQL back end. Notes can be edited, deleted or moved into subfolders (topics). Your notes database also can be either in plain text or encrypted form. This makes it ideal for storing passwords or other sensitive information. Requires: Perl, Perl modules: IO::Seekable, DBI::mysql (or other DBI-specfic module, optional), DB_File (optional), MD5 (optional), Crypt::IDEA (optional), Crypt::DES (optional), Crypt::CBC (optional).

—David A. Bandel

N-View: www.n-view.de/index_en.html

For those of you who've used tkined, the network monitor N-View will not be a stranger. However, N-View is quite a bit faster and easier to use. You can have multiple tabs with different subnets. Its biggest drawback, requiring JRE, can be overcome by simply using the package with JRE included. N-View will also mail you if a particular system is suddenly unreachable, though that's not much good if that system is your e-mail server. Requires: Java.

—David A. Bandel

I've visited a whole lot of government organizations. Virtually every government agency I've visited has Linux somewhere in the enterprise....The question is: Does anyone know about it?...I suspect at least half of those who say they don't use it have it in their enterprise but don't know about it.

—Robert Hibbard of Red Hat

We haven't developed the vocabulary to credit the open-source dynamic for what it is rather than a puzzling aberration of hackerdom. Once we have the vocabulary—a way of measuring quality vs. cost—we'll elevate open source to the pinnacle it deserves: the most productive process in an economy obsessed with productivity.

—Britt Blaser

Tower Toppler: toppler.sourceforge.net

Here's a great little game, especially for your preteens. The object: get to the top of the tower. The problem: all kinds of things are trying to knock you down. Some of the things you can destroy, and some you simply have to avoid. The game has excellent graphics, and play is extremely smooth. A number of levels and towers are available, but at the rate I get knocked off, I'll be on the beginner tower for a while. Requires: libSDL, libpthread, libz, libstdc++, libm, libX11, libXext, libdl, glibc.

—David A. Bandel