computerworld.com: AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) is a cross-operating system runtime that lets you use rich Internet applications that combine HTML, Ajax, Adobe Flash, and Adobe Flex technologies. What that means to you and me is that it's lets us run another kind of application on our Internet-connected Windows PCs, Macs, and just this month, Linux desktop computers.

linuxloop.com: In case you forgot to put the Linux community on your list or in case you just couldn’t find anything for them, you’re in luck. There’s a last minute gift opportunity:

kmandla.wordpress: I’m appalled. No, I’m worse than appalled. I’m horrified, shocked, amazed, disgusted, insulted and flummoxed. Apparently — and as always, please tell me if I am wrong — but there is no blogging software for Linux that does not have ties to the Gnome horde.

loupgaroublond.blogspot: One editor of the LWN commented recently on his yearly predictions for the ecosystem and how well they performed. Perhaps the grumpy editor was a bit too grumpy this year. There hasn't even been enough coal to go around in people's stockings.

Aaron Seigo: I do have to say that it's a little embarrassing that Mark's blog got picked up by places like Slashdot. I really hope it was a slow news day or something, but I suspect a bit of star worship at play.

lxer.com: The Debian project has packaged and produced some really great software and the latest project, code named "Lenny" has resulted in a couple of really outstanding derivatives, AntiX and its parent SimplyMEPIS. In addition, the Debian project "Sid", has led to the creation of an awesome cutting edge system called sidux. Any of the three would make a great Christmas gift for the Linux geek in your life.

earthweb.com: Pundits and business executives alike are predicting gloomy economic times for 2009. But when the talk turns to free and open source software (FOSS), suddenly the mood brightens. Whether their concern is the business opportunities in open source or the promotion of free software idealism, experts see FOSS as starting from a strong base and actually benefiting from the hard times expected next year.

teknostatik.co.uk: While I’m off for Christmas, I thought I’d spend a little time getting to know KDE4. To stop me cheating, I installed the latest KDE version of Mandriva One, which means I’m without a fair few other things I’m very reliant on.

Also: Little kchristmas present

internetnews.com: Linux creator Linus Torvalds is expected to soon release the final Linux kernel of 2008, loaded full of stocking stuffers for users of the open source operating system.

toolbox.com/blogs: I have noticed a fellow wooden spoon brandishing compatriot mention several times that commercialisation will destroy the Linux dream. That when the smell of money starts effusing from Linux then the sharks will come and trample all over the Linux utopia.

commandline.org.uk: I had a browse through my shell history (history | less), and there are some interesting commands that I have used recently. The really experienced command line warriors among you will probably know them already, but it never hurts to have a reminder.

itbusinessedge.com: As we begin to close the books on 2008 and look into the proverbial crystal ball for open source in the new year, I thought the Linux Foundation was a logical place to start. So I asked LF Marketing what the top five open source predictions would be.

This article explains how to move a full profile (addons, themes, cookies, browsing history, passwords and so on) from Firefox 3.0.x to Firefox 3.1.x beta or any other version, but it also works for synchronizing Firefox on 2 different computers or backing up a full profile of Firefox.

Read about moving a FF 3.0 profile to FF 3.1x here.

Well, just as I posted the "all is well" blog entry, we suffered a power outage here.

A chroot on Red Hat / CentOS / Fedora Linux operating changes the apparent disk root directory for the Apache process and its children. Once this is done attacker or other php / perl / python scripts cannot access or name files outside that directory. This is called a "chroot jail" for Apache. You should never ever run a web server without jail. There should be privilege separation between web server and rest of the system.

infoworld.com: The Mac's been on a roll, both due to its highly regarded Mac OS X Leopard operating system and to an unhappy reception for Microsoft's Windows Vista. The result: For the first time in memory, the Mac's market share has hit 9.1 percent, and Windows' market share has dipped below 90 percent. (Linux distributions make up the rest.)

thevarguy.com: What’s the biggest secret to Red Hat’s success in a down economy? Plenty of pundits think it’s Linux and JBoss open source middleware. But The VAR Guy has another theory:

computerworlduk.com: In the beginning, free software was an activity conducted on the margins - using spare time on a university's computers, or the result of lonely bedroom hacking. One of the key moments in the evolution of free software was when hackers began to get jobs.

infoworld.com: There's no question that the open source community is a passionate one -- and one with significant influence on technology directions and options. We're way past the days when people asked if Linux or Apache was safe to depend on in business. Open source is now a mainstream part of the technology fabric. 11 leaders outline the challenges and opportunities ahead.

smspillaz.wordpress: Ladies and Gentlemen what you are seeing here may well be the future of compiz as we know it, in a new compiz branch called compiz++ which allows for really neat things like: