• Linux Pet Peeves: 5 Things That Really Grind my Gears

• LHS Episode #293: Have Lawn Chair Will Broadcast

  Welcome to the 293rd installment of Linux in the Ham Shack! In the episode, the hosts tackle topics from upcoming RSGB contests on the new, hot FT-4 mode, the origin of "Mayday" as a distress call, magloop antennas, CoreCtrl, the vanishing floppy disk, DMR (Digital Mobile Radio) and much more. Thank you for tuning in and have a wonderful week.

• DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) Update – Detecting Managed Networks and User Choice

  At Mozilla, we are continuing to experiment with DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH), a new network protocol that encrypts Domain Name System (DNS) requests and responses. This post outlines a new study we will be conducting to gauge how many Firefox users in the United States are using parental controls or enterprise DNS configurations.

  With previous studies, we have tried to understand the performance impacts of DoH, and the results have been very promising. We found that DoH queries are typically the same speed or slightly slower than DNS queries, and in some cases can be significantly faster. Furthermore, we found that web pages that are hosted by Akamai–a content distribution network, or “CDN”–have similar performance when DoH is enabled. As such, DoH has the potential to improve user privacy on the internet without impeding user experience.

  Now that we’re satisfied with the performance of DoH, we are shifting our attention to how we will interact with existing DNS configurations that users have chosen.  For example, network operators often want to filter out various kinds of content. Parents and schools in particular may use “parental controls”, which block access to websites that are considered unsuitable for children. These controls may also block access to malware and phishing websites. DNS is commonly used to implement this kind of content filtering.

• New CSS Features in Firefox 68

  Firefox 68 landed earlier this month with a bunch of CSS additions and changes. In this blog post we will take a look at some of the things you can expect to find, that might have been missed in earlier announcements.

• How to Build a Career in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning?

  Math is just one of the skillsets that aspiring AI and ML professionals are expected to have. This is only one half the requirement, the other half is one’s expertise in programming languages, such as Java, C++, Python, and R.

  While C++ helps engineers increase the speed of their coding process, Python will help them understand and create complex algorithms. Python is also the go-to choice for ML developers, and also offers various libraries and frameworks to ease the process of creating an AI model. Similarly, R and Java help professionals understand stats and implement mappers, respectively. They are important considering the role of visualization in explaining AI.

• Cloud Native Applications in AWS supporting Hybrid Cloud – Part 1

  Let us talk first about what is cloud native and the benefits of SUSE Cloud Application Platform and AWS when building cloud native applications.

• Cloud Native Applications in AWS supporting Hybrid Cloud – Part 2

  In my previous post , I wrote about using SUSE Cloud Application Platform on AWS for cloud native application delivery. In this follow-up, I’ll discuss two ways to get SUSE Cloud Application Platform installed on AWS and configure the service broker:

• 10 Top Data Virtualization Tools

  With the continuing expansion of data mining by enterprises, it's no longer possible or advisable for an organization to keep all data in a single location or silo. Yet having disparate data analytics stores of both structured and unstructured data, as well as Big Data, can be complex and seemingly chaotic.

  Data virtualization is one increasingly common approach for dealing with the challenge of ever-expanding data. Data virtualization integrates data from disparate big data software and data warehouses - among other sources – without copying or moving the data. Most helpful, it provides users with a single virtual layer that spans multiple applications, formats, and physical locations, making data more useful and easier to manage.

• Running MongoDB with OCS3 and using different types of AWS storage options (part 3)

  In the previous post I explained how to performance test MongoDB pods on Red Hat OpenShift with OpenShift Container Storage 3 volumes as the persistent storage layer and Yahoo! Cloud System Benchmark (YCSB) as the workload generator.

  The cluster I’ve used in the prior posts was based on the AWS EC2 m5 instance series and using EBS storage of type gp2. In this blog I will compare these results with a similar cluster that is based on the AWS EC2 i3 instance family that is using local attached storage (sometimes referred as "instance storage" or "local instance store").

• OpenShift 4.1 Bare Metal Install Quickstart

  In this blog we will go over how to get you up and running with a Red Hat OpenShift 4.1 Bare Metal install on pre-existing infrastructure. Although this quickstart focuses on the bare metal installer, this can also be seen as a “manual” way to install OpenShift 4.1. Moreover, this is also applicable to installing to any platform which doesn’t have the ability to provide ignition pre-boot. For more information about using this generic approach to install on untested platforms, please see this knowledge base article.

• Orange Pi Zero LTS SBC Launched for $8.49 and Up

  You can now buy Orange Pi Zero LTS Arm Linux SBC for $8.49 and up. The tiny board is ideal for headless applications with WiFI and Ethernet connectivity.

• Toughened up embedded PC can run 8th or 9th Gen Coffee Lake CPUs

  Avalue’s rugged “EPS-CFS” computer runs Linux or Win 10 on Intel 8th or 9th Gen Coffee Lake CPUs up to an octa-core Core i7-9700TE, and supplies up to 32GB GB DDR4, 2x SATA bays, 2x GbE, 2x HDMI, and 4x USB 3.2 ports.

  Avalue announced an embedded computer with Intel’s 8th Gen Coffee Lake T-series or the new, but similarly 14nm-fabricated, 9th Gen Coffee Lake Refresh TE-series chips. The EPS-CFS computer, which is built around Avalue’s 3.5-inch ECM-CFS SBC, joins other 9th Gen-ready products including Kontron’s COMe-cWL6 (E2S) and Congatec’s Conga-TS370 COM Express modules.

• RTL-SDR: Seven Years Later

  When I wrote that article in 2012, the RTL-SDR project and its community were still in their infancy. It took some real digging to find out which TV tuners based on the Realtek RTL2832U were supported, what adapters you needed to connect more capable antennas, and how to compile all the software necessary to get them listening outside of their advertised frequency range. It wasn’t exactly the most user-friendly experience, and when it was all said and done, you were left largely to your own devices. If you didn’t know how to create your own receivers in GNU Radio, there wasn’t a whole lot you could do other than eavesdrop on hams or tune into local FM broadcasts.

  Nearly a decade later, things have changed dramatically. The RTL-SDR hardware and software has itself improved enormously, but perhaps more importantly, the success of the project has kicked off something of a revolution in the software defined radio (SDR) world. Prior to 2012, SDRs were certainly not unobtainable, but they were considerably more expensive. Back then, the most comparable device on the market would have been the FUNcube dongle, a nearly $200 USD receiver that was actually designed for receiving data from CubeSats. Anything cheaper than that was likely to be a kit, and often operated within a narrower range of frequencies.

Looking for a program like Microsoft Paint but for the Linux desktop? Check out the aptly named ‘Drawing‘, a new GTK app that ably fills the gap.

This simple image editor for Linux desktops is made in the mould of the Microsoft Paint. That mean it isn’t trying to out-do The GIMP, pitch itself as an alternative to Photoshop, or pick up where Pinta left off.

What Drawing can’t do is almost as important as what it can do; that’s to say, it’s a simply designed app designed for simple use-cases.

Think meme making, screenshot annotations, wobbly sketched moustaches on selfies, and that sort of thing.