After working with unix for years, we noticed it is difficult to get a very uniform approach to unix management.

Often different Linux distributions share very little, configuration is different every time. Worst, some good unix tools (like cron, syslog, etc) can be used in a distributed environment, but are very difficult to configure, very user unfriendly and so on.

OpenPKG is a very clever stuff, because enable you to  install multiple copies of the same software with minimal effort.

CFEngine is  “an automated suite of programs for configuring and maintaining Unix-like computers.”

One of the strong ideas, is the cfengine ability to “self-repair” configuration, which brings with it the idea of “live” system.

On the FAQ we also read:

Cfengine does not inflict a model on you like most other tools for configuration. But it does inflict a security principle on you. Computers running cfengine never have to give up their autonomy to be part of a configuration collective. Pushing information to cfengine is strictly disallowed. Most users agree that this has kept cfengine users secure over the years.

Looking at “Automating UNIX and Linux Administration” you can find a deep description of these tools.

An older tool is kanif.

One day, we have the need to create a fast cluster of linux machine, specialized and easy to segragate in different networks (for better security). We need web servers, integration servers (running java hudson), huge developer machines (running for instance eclispe) and so on.

It was not easy to find a good environment. This research lead us also to consider a very huge set of different and complex management software. In this series of article, we will show what we discovered.

Or final goal is to have a way to define a set of linux virutal machines, connect them and manage all using open source software. We also want tools easy to understand. We do not want super-optimized stuff, we have the “just it works well” approach.

We thinked about these types of virtual machine: super light LAMP servers, medim sized java tomcat servers (or udson servers), big database machines and super big development machines.

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NEW YORK – La News Corp., gigante delle comunicazioni che fa capo a Rupert Murdoch, potrebbe far pagare l’accesso alle notizie online a partire dalla metà del prossimo anno, ribadendo un’idea che lo stesso Murdoch aveva già annunciato lo scors0 8 maggio. Inoltre News Corp. potrebbe rompere l’alleanza con Amazon sul lettore digitale Kindle, se non si arriverà a una rinegoziazione degli accordi. Lo fa sapere Murdoch, il quale si è detto scontento delle relazioni tra Kindle e i lettori online dei suoi giornali, lasciando anche trapelare la possibilità di un accordo tra News Corp e Sony.

via Murdoch: faremo pagare le notizie online – Corriere della Sera.

Prendiamo spunto da questa notizia e facciamo qualche riflessione.All’inizio del web, i giornali hanno tentato di creare siti web in parte gratuiti ed in parte a pagamento.

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We are happy to publish the following  Chief Editor Direct Note (CEDìN):

I am here to announce the roll out of the new UniCredit Holding  Site.

UniCredit is a worldwide bank with over 40 millions customers.
I had an active part on the story, being on the TLO (Technical Leaders Office) of the project. The project was scattered on different sites: on Italy we have two offices (Milan & Treviso), and one major site on Poland (Lodz).
I have been  the Team Leaders at the Milan office.
It was a very pleasant experience, also because I have the opportunity to work for an international project.
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Gioorgi.com aims to built a professional site, highly focused on business-applied research, and on economic forces driving IT.

Altrougth Gioorgi.com seems simple, it is carefully designed.

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Soundsnap.com: Find and Share Free Sound Effects and Loops

SoundSnap is a very nice site, you can use to download free sounds to build podcasts and so on. Quality is good, and the interface is fast.

This is our Friday relaxing news! Short stories for the weekend!
To get the complete list, please look at the relax tag.

At Gioorgi.com, after working with a lot with software for over twenty years,  we have envisioned a clear idea about open source. This is the first article of a series tagged “opensource”: let’s start!

Richard Stallman Vision, based on GNU open source idea, is too radical from our point of view.

Stallman GNU License is based on a “copyleft” idea, which gives everyone the freedom to look at others’work, without taking credits for it. The license vision is very strict, so consulting is the natural option for an IT business based on GNU software, which is drived by Univestities, because of its basic freedom statement.
Closed and paid software is still widely used, but open source is the key for the next revolution; let’see why.

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Per un importante cliente di ValueTeam, ho sviluppato per un’applicazione chiamata “PDF Generator”, che è stata pacchettizzata come un vero e proprio prodotto.
PDFGenerator nasce in una situazione caratterizzata da un alta variabilità dei requisiti utente.

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