Bakhshali Scroll is the Oldest use of Number Zero
The origin of zero is still a mystery. The Egyptians used it, and so did Babylonians. However, it was never as a numeral rather more like a place holder. Quite recently, a team of Scientists at University of Oxford Bodleian Libraries, carbon dated one of the famous ancient Bakhshali scroll. The dates come out to third and fourth century A.D. making it one of the oldest recorded use of the number zero.
The scroll has been with Bodleian library since 1902. However, it was excavated from field in 1881 in Bakhshali town (current day Pakistan). It has always been recognized as one of the oldest mathematical text with use of zero several times. But it’s exact date had remained a mystery since its excavation.
Popular Self Driving Cars – Open Source Projects
The number of open source “self driving cars” projects are growing and all are commendable efforts but also highly ambitious. Over time, the hope is that they will mature enough for us to use them effectively on our roads without risking lives.
As of today, the majority of the commercial projects rely on simulating driving conditions of the North American market. Most importantly, California, where laws are favorable for self driving cars. However, there is a huge potential for such vehicles in Asia and Africa with completely different and at times impossible driving conditions. Those markets may not be ideal for Tesla and Google cars, but open source enthusiast can tinker around and customize it for local conditions.
E-rozgaar – Preparing Youth for Gig Economy
Innovative ideas create amazing results. Punjab IT Board’s bold initiative of investing into the future of youth through skill enhancement has brought wonders. A total of 100 students graduated in the first batch this week from Chief Minister’s e-rozgaar programme. Off those a little over 50% were females.
Saad Hamid and I were invited for a “Fireside Chat” during their graduation ceremony. The focus of our chat was “How to Monetize using Open Source”. We not only discussed open source but also shared insights on how to transition from freelancers into becoming successful entrepreneurs. The questions probed by students were really thoughtful and the session was thoroughly enjoyable. I am also part of the steering committee of the programme and therefore I do get a chance to get more deeply involved.
How-to setup a simple UFW firewall on Ubuntu
We all need to install some form of firewall to secure our systems from any malicious activity. Not just our servers and VPS machines, but also our laptops which we access on public networks. UFW (Uncomplicated FireWall) is an ideal solution for setting up a firewall on your system.
UFW firewall is completely open source and is actually built on top of the iptables making it easier for us to manage and run the firewall.
This is the third article in the series on “Systems Security”. Here we discuss UFW firewall implementation on your system. The articles in the System Security series are listed below.
- How to setup SSH keys based authentication
- How to disable password based authentication
- How to setup UFW Firewall (current article)
Zorin OS 12.2 Linux Released
This week, Zorin OS released the latest upgrade to its popular Linux OS. The Zorin OS 12.2 is designed specifically for Windows users in mind who can migrate to Linux without any learning curve. The look and feel and even the user experience is eerily similar to Windows XP and that has been one of its biggest appeals since its launch.
Zorin OS has been reviewed by us before and it seems to only get better with time. Since its release nearly 9 years ago, it has grown in popularity and has been downloaded well over 17 million times.
How-to Disable Password Authentication on Linux
This how-to will explain how to disable password based authentication on Linux based systems. It is in continuation of our series on System Security. With the first one published on SSH keys based authentication. We wrote this as a lot of you sent us messages, on social media, to add tutorials on how to secure the server by disabling the password based authentication.
We recommend that the administrator should not attempt to disable password based authentication unless SSH keys are correctly setup and users can easily login using that method.
This is the second article in the series on “Systems Security”. The articles in the System Security series are listed below.
- How to setup SSH keys based authentication
- How to disable password based authentication (current article)
- How to setup UFW Firewall
Book of the Month Review – Content Inc by Joe Pulizzi
In the first of the series on “Book of the Month” we are reviewing author Joe Pulizzi’s best selling book “Content Inc” .
From September 2017, we are starting a new “Book of the Month” column. Each month, our editorial staff will review an interesting book or two and recommend it to our readers. The book will not necessarily be of technical nature but something that our audience will love to read and share.
The idea came about from reading IEEE Spectrum monthly section on book reviews. Over the course of many years, we found many interesting and sometimes, obscure titles, that we loved and shared with our friends. We want to bring that love to XenStreet and therefore are going to feature books each month that we think our readers would also love. The books may not be the newest and the greatest. At times, they would originally be published decades ago but we still find them interesting.
Howto Login to servers using SSH keys authentication
Using public key authentication is far more secure and smart way to manage server authentication. And it is quite easy to implement and use. Fortunately, unix/linux terminals allow users to create public/private SSH keys combination that can be used to authenticate and login to servers without any hassle.
The traditional SSH authentication using the combination of username/password is good but really not that secure anymore. The passwords can be guessed or even broken using brute force attack. At times even a compromised terminal can give away the passwords to hackers.
This is the first article in the series on “Systems Security”. The complete list of articles in the System Security series are listed below.
- How to setup SSH keys based authentication (current article)
- How to disable password based authentication
- How to setup UFW Firewall
Open Source skills are most sought after – Linux Foundation Jobs Report
Linux Foundation has just come out with its annual jobs report for the year 2017. This year Open Source skills seem to be the most sought after among the 300 employers surveyed.
The trend has been turning in favor of Open source for the past many years, and this year, it seems that majority of the companies want talent that is proficient in some Open Source technology.
4 Git Version Control Alternatives
In recent years, Git has become the defacto standard for code management, especially among open source developers. Developed by Linus Trovalds himself, the maker of Linux, it has found a lot of following among Linux kernal developers. Recently BOSS Index ranked it among the top 5 most popular open source projects of 2017. So what other alternatives exist for Git?
Here is a list of some of the Git alternatives that are extremely popular among developers. Incidentally, most of them are open source like Git, except for the one from Microsoft of course.
