The Pirate Bay Tracker Shuts Down forever

Today marks the end of an era, as The Pirate Bay team announces that the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker is shutting down for good. Although the site will remain operational for now, millions of BitTorrent users will lose the use of its tracker and will instead have to rely on DHT and alternative trackers to continue downloading.

Now that the decentralized system for finding peers is so well developed, TPB has decided that there is no need to run a tracker anymore, so it will remain down! It's the end of an era, but the era is no longer up2date. We have put a server in a museum already, and now the tracking can be put there as well.

By moving to a more decentralized system of handling tracking (DHT+PEX) and distributions of torrent files (Magnet Links), BitTorrent will become less vulnerable to downtime and outages:

• With decentralized peer acquisition, there is no central tracker that can be down.
• With decentralized fetching of metadata (torrents) we don't need to rely on a single server that stores and distributes torrent files.

Reference link on Piratebay site is h3r3

How to setup WIFI networking extending 300KM

If you need to extend internet/network connection for looong distance up to 300KM and you do not have the budget for WiMAX, you can use the experience of guys at WirelessU

they succeeded to lay internet using standrard WIFI routers over 300Km reaching bandwidth of 40Mbps using 1.2meter antenna

details could be found and documented on Wirelessu site

Reporting from IGF - Egypt extending International Fiber cables -

Presentation by Egypt Telecom CEO (Mohamed Nawawy) shows that Egypt is taking the International fiber cable cut that happened on 2008 , very seriously as they are now extending many International Fiber cables for internet traffic. One of those cables is really unique with a capacity of 1.28Tbps (Tera Bit per Second) which is considered one of the biggest cables to secure un-interrupted to Egypt. These serious efforts will make bandwidth in Egypt even cheaper and will help a lot in breaking the digital divide.

Being at Internet Governance Forum

Attending First day of Internet Governance Forum , details on FOSSFA Site

link is h3r3

GPS POI Search Engine

I have been through this site www.whereinem.com which I consider a search engine for a POI (Point of Interests ) with huge number of categories like Resturants, Gaz Station, Shopping Mall, Car Services , Hotels ,......
Whereinme has GPS Point of Interests in Egypt, Qatar , Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates.
With where in Middle East Services you can find all restaurants near you and User ratings for each one of them, which makes you sure where to go and enjoy your stay.

Meanwhile it is an Open Ended system that allows users to add their own Point of interests of any country even this country is not created in whereinme , Admins of the site will add it for you, nevertheless the Community added POI go through extensive Quality assurance and revision from site Admins.

I see this Site as a must know for expats in Egypt , United Arab Emirates , Qatar

Link is h3r3

Open Source Alternate to Matlab

Below are two great projects that work as Open Source FOSS alternate to the Commercial Software Matlab.
1) Octave Link (http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/)

Amazon Adds Database-MySQL- in it's cloud

Amazon is hitting hard in it's cloud offering , now they are offering DB cloud hosting using MySQL database nevertheless the extra large Memory models cloud computers

the strange thing for me that we did not hear from SUN, although

1) they have their own cloud

2) they are the owner of the Enterprise Version of MySQL ?!

This is the announcement from Amazon , quoted "

We are excited to announce the public beta of Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS), a new web service that makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale relational databases in the cloud. Amazon RDS gives you all the features and capabilities of a MySQL database, while managing time-consuming database administration tasks and providing the cost-efficiency of running in the AWS cloud. We're also excited to announce lower prices for Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances and a new family of Amazon EC2 High-Memory Instances, tailored for customers wanting to run their own large databases and other memory intensive applications. To get started using Amazon RDS, High-Memory Instances for Amazon EC2, and other Amazon Web Services, visit http://aws.amazon.com.

Amazon RDS provides a fully featured MySQL database, so the code, applications, and tools that you use today with your existing MySQL databases work in Amazon RDS without modification. The service automatically handles common database administration tasks, such as setup and provisioning, patch management, and backup. You also have the flexibility to scale the compute and storage resources associated with your database instance through a simple API call. Like all AWS infrastructure services, Amazon RDS is easy to deploy and simple to manage. Here are some highlights for Amazon RDS:

• Simple to Deploy - Quickly create a new production-ready relational database with a simple API call.
• Managed - Amazon RDS handles generic, time-consuming database management tasks, such as patch management and backup.
• Compatible - All of your existing MySQL database tools, applications, and drivers will still work.
• Scalable - With a simple API call you can scale the compute and storage resources available to your database to meet your business needs and application load.
• Reliable - Amazon RDS runs on the same highly reliable infrastructure used by other Amazon Web Services. Amazon RDS also gives you additional peace of mind by providing an automated database backup facility.
• Inexpensive - You pay very low rates and only for the resources you actually consume. There are no long-term contracts or up-front commitments to use Amazon RDS.

For more information on Amazon RDS pricing and features, please visit http://aws.amazon.com/rds.

We are also pleased to introduce a new family of High-Memory Instances for Amazon EC2. This new instance family further expands the available selection of computing configurations for Amazon EC2, helping you choose the CPU capacity, memory resources, and networking throughput that your applications require. High-Memory Instances are designed to be used with memory-intensive workloads such as databases, caching, and rendering, and are optimized for low-latency, high-throughput performance. The instance specifications are:

• Double Extra Large: 34.2 GB memory, 13 ECU (4 virtual cores with 3.25 ECU each), 850 GB storage, 64-bit platform
• Quadruple Extra Large: 68.4 GB memory, 26 ECU (8 virtual cores with 3.25 ECU each), 1690 GB storage, 64-bit platform.

Ubuntu 9.10 Release Candidate is out

The Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala) Release Candidate is now available to download. Please use Torrent when Applicable
Link is h3r3

Ubuntu Linux Adds Cloud to Ubuntu 9.10 Server

Canonical the business arm beyond Ubuntu Linux us hitting private cloud capabilities in an upgrade to its Ubuntu Linux OS being announced.

Available for free download by October 29 2009, Ubuntu 9.10 Server Edition introduces UEC (Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud), an open source cloud computing environment based on the same APIs as Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud). Businesses can take advantage of private clouds, Canonical said. Ubuntu 9.10 BETA is available h3r3

"Essentially, what this release is doing is targeting cloud computing, in particular," said Steve George, director of support and services for Canonical. With version 9.10, users can take core ideas of cloud computing, including agility, resource pooling, and actualization, in deploying clouds on their own hardware, George said.

Users can set up 10 to 15 private servers and use the same APIs as in Amazon EC2, thus leveraging the same capabilities they would use with Amazon, George said. Applications can be taken off the Amazon cloud and put into the user's own cloud, or vice versa. I'm seeing this will boost Cloud usages and application by making it available on your own lab and network

UEC is an umbrella name for a set of cloud technologies including the Eucalyptus project, which provides an open source system for implementation of on-premise and hybrid clouds using hardware and software already in place. UEC, Canonical said, makes it easy to deploy and manage a cloud environment. Eucalyptus link is h3r3

Eucalyptus backing piqued the interest of analyst Stephen O'Grady, of RedMonk.

Previously codenamed "Karmic Koala," Ubuntu 9.10 also will be available on the Amazon EC2 environment as an Amazon Machine Image. UEC images are identical to Ubuntu AMI; work done in one environment can be uploaded to the other, Canonical said.

A store capability is being prepared in UEC to provide users with access to ready-to-deploy applications in the UEC environment.

Also featured in version 9.10 is the addition of the MySQL 5.1 database. The directory stack and single sign-on tools add improved directory integration and Django now ships as a supported framework to enhance Web server options. We all know that Ubuntu and Canonical are in love with Python this is MAY BE why Ubuntu integrated Django !

Some of the improvements in Ubuntu 9.10 are :
1) Kernel improvements better support Xen and KVM virtualization and improve caching performance.
2) Support for the USB 3.0 protocol enables "super speed transfer rates" when devices become available, Canonical said.
3) OpenLDAP integration is featured for mixing Ubuntu into an existing LDAP network, providing for centralized authentication and authorization.
4) GRUB 2 by default
5) ext4 by default
6) Ubuntu One

System management support is featured for WBEM (Web-based enterprise management) protocols. This enables support of the Ubuntu environment via popular system management tools.

Reference link on Infoworld is h3r3

Openwrt 2.4 ipkg problem

If you have an Openwrt brcm 2.4 installed on your router and you are not able to install any application and getting 404 error using ipkg install xyz. That is because OpenWRT guys changed the URL of the snapshot
Please use src snapshots http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/brcm-2.4/packages/
INSTEAD of src snapshots http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/brcm-2.4/packages
this is could be done by editing /etc/ipkg.conf file and add the link http://downloads.openwrt.org/snapshots/trunk/brcm-2.4/packages/