The Best of News Feeds #21

A collection of news favourites, including some nerdy type articles together with some not so nerdy ones, which have recently found their way into my newsreader:

Oracle + Sun = Billions + Antitrust

by Maginot Line dept: EC Formally Objects To Oracle’s Purchase of Sun

European antitrust regulators have formally objected to Oracle Corp.’s $7.4-billion US takeover of Sun Microsystems Inc., citing concerns that the takeover could hurt competition in the database market…

For the benefit of remaining Winblow$ users

by Rajesh: Windows Codec Pack (Download)

Download XP Codec Pack for Windows 7, Windows XP and enjoy all major audio and video formats on your PC. Despite its name, this free Windows codec pack works perfectly well on Windows 7 too and is good to have on your PC, if you are on Windows 7 or planning to install Windows 7 or Upgrade Windows XP to 7…

Hail the Google PR!

by Daniel Scocco: Linking Out Will NOT Reduce The Google PageRank of Your Pages

It is a Google’s world, and as webmasters we live and die by our search rankings, right? One of the factors that both influences search rankings and that most people seem to care about is the Google PageRank. More specifically, we want as much PageRank as possible! Now aiming to increase the PageRank of your pages is fine, the problem is when misconceptions around the PageRank algorithm affect the way webmasters behave…

A very worthwhile read on Copyright

by Jonathan Bailey: 5 Copyright Hazards to Avoid

Most bloggers understand the importance and the value in creating original content. Most would be at least somewhat upset to their own writing used on other sites without permission or attribution and many actively track their work for misuse…

The rebirth of software for profit?

by Micro dept: Microsoft open sources .NET Micro Framework

Back in July, Microsoft announced it was making .NET available under its Community Promise, which in theory allowed free software developers to use the technology without fear of patent lawsuits. Unsurprisingly, many free software geeks were unconvinced by the promise (after all, what’s a promise compared to an actual open licence?), but now Microsoft has taken things to the next level by releasing the .NET Micro Framework under the Apache licence. Yes, you read that correctly: a sizeable chunk of .NET is about to go open source…

Certainly no rest for the wicked!

by Keith Dsouza: Download WordPress 2.9 Beta 1

WordPress 2.9 Beta 1 is now available for downloads. If you are looking forward to test out the new features in WordPress 2.9, head to the development update blog to find links to download and try out WordPress 2.9 beta 1…

Three cheers for Wordpress!

by Matt: WordPress Wins CMS Award

I was very excited last week to learn that WordPress has been awarded the Overall Best Open Source CMS system in the 2009 Open Source CMS Awards. This is a landmark for us, as it is the first time we’ve won this award, and it marks a shift in the public perception of WordPress, from blog software to full-featured CMS. No small contest, the Open Source CMS Awards received over 12,000 nominations and more than 23,000 votes across five categories…

Human rights and Internet access

by OSdir – FPS dept: Spain Codifies ‘The Right to Broadband’

Spanish citizens will have a legal right from 2011 to be able to buy broadband internet of at least one megabyte per second at a regulated price wherever they live, the country’s industry minister said on Tuesday…

I phish, you phish, lets all phish!

by Brendon: How to Run a Phishing Scam

Many people have the idea that phishing scams are complex, and are operated by organised criminals. In fact, they are not that hard to create at all. I could create one, and I could scam people for money. So that’s what I am going to do.* In this article, I will show you how easy it is to create your very own phishing scam set-up…