The release of Transgaming's newest version of WineX, renamed Cedega, was met with considerable enthusiasm and interest in the Linux community last week. So much so that their server was inaccessible the day of release. Cedega is claimed to be much improved, offering the ability to play recent games released for Windows "seamlessly and transparently" under Linux. They provided me with a copy, and I was curious to see if it lived up to the hype.

OK. I have been a Vmware Workstation user for quite a while now. As always each new Vmware Workstation release offers new features and fixes bugs that plagued its predecessor. I use the hell out of this software and it has rarely let me down. Whether you use it for network administration, help desk, development, or just for fun you will definitely get your moneys worth!

My latest entree into the world of virtualized environments is the VMware GSX server. For someone who doesn't spend much time running multiple iterations of a particular application, I viewed this application as a solution looking for a problem. What I've learned in this exercise is that making a low-end server into a distributed application environment is quick and reliable using the GSX server.

Several weeks ago I signed up as a subscriber to TransGaming's Wine implementation called WineX. Their goal is to produce wine libraries capable of running Microsoft Windows games within Linux without a Windows library.

RAV AntiVirus v8.5 for Linux Mail Servers, Servers, and Workstations is flexible and scalable, allowing independent configuration of the scanning module, fully independent from the Mail Server.

This release of Vmware's x86 virtual machine represents a major upgrade. The previous release was reviewed last year. This version adds several major improvements over the 2.x release:

In preparation for the transition from windows to a Linux based workstation, the main focus is that of peripheral compatibility. Sure Linux is rock solid stable, and has an almost totally customizable GUI, but dammit, if my hardware won't work, what's the point?

I have been using StarOffice for quite a few years now. It just keeps getting better. I think that the product is actually getting better ever since Sun Microsystems has grabbed it. I personally have even considered deploying at my place of employment. This Beta version has some great improvements. I find Beta 6 to be very stable (so far that is) and I am actually using it as my default Application suite.

Ok, so I'm not really a gung ho DBA. However, I'm enough of one to warrant a look at GreatBridge PostgreSQL. All I have to say is WOW! To date this has been the best database I have worked with yet. It was extremely easy to install, and easy to work with too. I'd have to say that it can rival even the very expensive commercial database software.

I'll admit it, I don't like to write web pages. In fact I have a major dislike of the entire process. I love to write in PERL, C, shell scripts, etc but not HTML or anything web-related. Recently I discovered the need to re-publish my old website and after reviewing and comparing it with other "amateur" sites I came to the realization that mine didn't just suck, but it sucked with a vengeance.

Most web browsers on the market today for Linux seem to be lacking. There doesn't seem to be any browsers that have good features, support, standards, and stability. When Netscape released it's version 6 it claim to have:

In today's world of Information Technology it is almost impossible to to work exclusively with only one operating system. That being the case the folks at VMware, Inc. dove in and developed VMware; a friendly, robust, and affordable Virtual Machine.

When I first started using Linux it had many impressive, if not attractive, features. For the price of a blank CD-R, I could turn my home computer into a production quality, web/SQL/email/news/chat/proxy/younameit server. On the desktop side I could check email, surf the net, chat with geeks, word process, program anything under the sun, and do just about anything that could be done with a computer. I had it all. Or so I thought.

Anyone who has ever administered a webserver recognizes the importance of having a powerful and robust log analyzer. The purpose of a log analyzer is to breakdown and produce reports of statistics from the logs that your webserver produces, and present them in a useful and well organized fashion.