One copy job is good. Three copy jobs is much better!

I have more RAM, how will this affect things?

Backups have been going to disk. Now it's time to copy those backups to tape.

Usually, this is only for Client or Director. We go the extra distance here...

Got tape? Got drive? Got errors?

Tapes without labels in a library should not happen

Out with the old, in with the new!

The existing drive is dead, let's replace it.

This is the desciption

Using tools for parsing log files

Ubuntu Studio bills itself as the "multimedia creation flavor of Ubuntu," an official Ubuntu project "aimed at the GNU/Linux audio, video, and graphic enthusiast as well as professional." It is certainly flashy on the outside -- even if it is mostly the same Ubuntu Linux distro under the hood.

Portable applications can come in handy when you are on the move, but there are situations when using them is not an option. For instance, before you connect an external hard disk or a USB stick to a public computer, you have to ask permission. More importantly, even if you get permission, you can never be sure what kind of nasty viruses and malware you will be getting on your storage device. But why bother with portable applications at all when you can have your very own Web-based operating system bundled with a few essential applications? That's the promise of eyeOS -- an impressive and surprisingly useful open source Web-based OS.

According to a message posted over the weekend on the Full-Disclosure mailing list, the latest version of Firefox, 2.0.0.5, contains a password management vulnerability that can allow malicious Web sites to steal user passwords. If you have JavaScript enabled and allow Firefox to remember your passwords, you are at risk from this flaw.

In our house, the refrigerator door is where we post the family calendar, showing our family and friends' birthdays, school terms, and important events, along with public holidays. We create the calendar using a nifty command-line program called PCAL, which produces a standard one-month-per-page calendar with each day in a separate box. It resembles those mall-stall calendars, but the important dates in our family's life are highlighted. Visit Linux.com to see all of our great content.

Supergamer is a unique Linux distribution whose primary focus is on fun -- specifically, gaming. Supergamer VL, now based on VectorLinux, is all new, with additional games, new code base, and new look and feel. Let the games begin. Visit Linux.com to see all of our great content.

In the last two months I've been traveling a lot. During the same period my main desktop computer went belly up. I would have been in trouble without rsync at my disposal -- but thanks to my regular use of this utility, my data (or most of it, anyway) was already copied offsite just waiting to be used. It takes a little time to become familiar with rsync, but once you are, you should be able to handle most of your backup needs with just a short script.

Knowledge of a secondary language has long been a coveted skill, whether it be for academics, business, or travel, but learning another language can be a challenging task. While many Western languages at least offer a level of familiarity by sharing the Roman alphabet, Japanese and other Eastern languages offer no such comfort. Here are three applications that can help you overcome some learning roadblocks.

I stumbled across an interesting and useful tool recently called dzen, a "general purpose messaging and notification program" written by Rob Manea. Basically, dzen provides an instant-on/instant-off pop-up terminal window, along with a multitude of options that allow you to run just about any command.

Synfig is a 2-D animation program that uses vector graphics. Although it has only just released version 0.61.06-1, it is already approaching early maturity, with enough tools and innovations that professionals might seriously consider using it. The only real question about its future is the minor one of whether the developers can learn the difference between practical and merely arbitrary changes in standard interfaces and tools.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is scheduled to mark the official release of the third version of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3) today at noon with a ceremony in its Boston office that features a lunch for local free software activists and the announcement of several GNU projects switching to the new license. Richard M. Stallman, FSF's president and founder, plans to repeat remarks about why developers should move to GPLv3. Video coverage of the ceremony is slated to be available from the FSF Web site.