Canonical launched today an U.S.-based on-line shop for Ubuntu-branded merchandise and software. With a new fulfillment house in St. Louis, Missouri, shipments are faster and less expensive for Ubuntu users and enthusiasts in the U.S.

The U.S. Ubuntu Shop (shop.ubuntu.com) carries a wide range of Ubuntu-branded items, from best sellers like organic cotton t-shirts to CDs and DVDs of the latest Ubuntu software, and will soon include Kubuntu merchandise for the first time.

Canonical's international shop, on-line since August 2007, also carries commercial software, support and training.

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Ubuntu Security Notice USN-674-1 November 19, 2008 hplip vulnerabilities CVE-2008-2940, CVE-2008-2941 ===========================================================

A security issue affects the following Ubuntu releases: Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Ubuntu 7.10 Ubuntu 8.04 LTS This advisory also applies to the corresponding versions of Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu.

The problem can be corrected by upgrading your system to the following package versions: Ubuntu 6.06 LTS: hplip 0.9.7-4ubuntu1.1 Ubuntu 7.10: hplip 2.7.7.dfsg.1-0ubuntu5.1 Ubuntu 8.04 LTS: hplip 2.8.2-0ubuntu8.1 In general, a standard system upgrade is sufficient to effect the necessary changes.

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Ubuntu Security Notice USN-673-1 November 19, 2008 libxml2 vulnerabilities CVE-2008-4225, CVE-2008-4226 ===========================================================

A security issue affects the following Ubuntu releases: Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Ubuntu 7.10 Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Ubuntu 8.10 This advisory also applies to the corresponding versions of Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu.

The problem can be corrected by upgrading your system to the following package versions: Ubuntu 6.06 LTS: libxml2 2.6.24.dfsg-1ubuntu1.4 Ubuntu 7.10: libxml2 2.6.30.dfsg-2ubuntu1.4 Ubuntu 8.04 LTS: libxml2 2.6.31.dfsg-2ubuntu1.3 Ubuntu 8.10: libxml2 2.6.32.dfsg-4ubuntu1.1 After a standard system upgrade you need to restart your sessions to effect the necessary changes.

Seeing as there's a lot of topics flying around the forum, I'll make a howto based on my own research. This will tell you how to enable mp3 encoding (i.e. enabling you to rip CDs as .mp3 files), and then overcome the cursed CBR 128kbps that is imposed on you.

If you open Sound Juicer (called Audio CD Extractor in [i]Accessories>Sound & Video{/i]) and select Edit>Preferences the output format box will have a few options, by default none of them MP3. If you hit edit profiles, however, you will see an mp3 option, yet if you select it, you find it cannot be used to encode your mp3s yet (by default).

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Ubuntu Security Notice USN-672-1 November 17, 2008 clamav vulnerability CVE-2008-5050 ===========================================================

A security issue affects the following Ubuntu releases: Ubuntu 8.10 This advisory also applies to the corresponding versions of Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu. The problem can be corrected by upgrading your system to the following package versions: Ubuntu 8.10: libclamav5 0.94.dfsg.1-1ubuntu0.1 In general, a standard system upgrade is sufficient to effect the necessary changes.

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Ubuntu Security Notice USN-671-1 November 17, 2008 mysql-dfsg-5.0 vulnerabilities CVE-2008-2079, CVE-2008-3963, CVE-2008-4097, CVE-2008-4098 ===========================================================

A security issue affects the following Ubuntu releases: Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Ubuntu 7.10 Ubuntu 8.04 LTS This advisory also applies to the corresponding versions of Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu. The problem can be corrected by upgrading your system to the following package versions: Ubuntu 6.06 LTS: mysql-server-5.0 5.0.22-0ubuntu6.06.11 Ubuntu 7.10: mysql-server-5.0 5.0.45-1ubuntu3.4 Ubuntu 8.04 LTS: mysql-server-5.0 5.0.51a-3ubuntu5.4 In general, a standard system upgrade is sufficient to effect the necessary changes.

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Ubuntu Security Notice USN-667-1 November 17, 2008 firefox, firefox-3.0, xulrunner-1.9 vulnerabilities CVE-2008-0017, CVE-2008-4582, CVE-2008-5012, CVE-2008-5013, CVE-2008-5014, CVE-2008-5015, CVE-2008-5016, CVE-2008-5017, CVE-2008-5018, CVE-2008-5019, CVE-2008-5021, CVE-2008-5022, CVE-2008-5023, CVE-2008-5024 ===========================================================

A security issue affects the following Ubuntu releases: Ubuntu 6.06 LTS Ubuntu 7.10 Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Ubuntu 8.10 This advisory also applies to the corresponding versions of Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu.

The KOffice Team has announced the release of KOffice version 2.0 Beta 3, the third beta version of the upcoming version 2.0. The goal for the third beta is to show progress made since beta 2, as well as to gather feedback from both users and developers on the new UI and underlying infrastructure. This will allow the team to release a basically usable 2.0 release, demonstrating our vision for the future of the digital office to a larger audience and attract new contributions both in terms of code and ideas for improvements.

Wiki evolution

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed a toolbar in the screenshots. This is the wikia evolution extension which adds a toolbar to the browser (it works in both Firefox and Netscape Navigator). This is a really, really useful addon because it means you can still help Wikia to build the web index and the search engine even when you are not searching directly from the Wikia search page.

The toolbar gives you the main features you have when working directly from Wikia itself. So, I opened a page from one of my bookmarks about adding repositories to the Asus EeePC and clicked on the “Add URL to Keyword”. A dialogue box opens and you are prompted to submit a search term under which the URL will be submitted to the Wikia search index. You will know that your URL has been added because an entry will have added to the toolbar.

Mention Jimmy Wales and you automatically think Wikipedia; however, that is not his only love child. The Wikia search engine is his latest offspring — or least it was when it was launched in January 2008. Wikia has been devised as a free software and open source alternative to Google and othersNow.

In an article in June I speculated about how the internet might change the way we think.; I mentioned in passing the Wikia search engine. Enough time has passed to see how this attempt to democratise a web search engine has come.