Creating a high-quality chart for the Web can be a challenging task, but open source software like Open Flash Chart (OFC) makes it a cinch. As you might guess from its name, the core engine of OFC is written in Adobe Flash. Although this means that users need a Flash browser plugin to view charts created with OFC, this approach has a significant advantage: it allows you to produce professional-quality graphs with minimum effort, because the core engine does all the heavy lifting, and all you need to do is to specify configuration options for your chart and feed data into it.

Slackware Linux today features a powerful and easy-to-use package management system, but making Slackware packages has not always been straightforward. Now Slackware application developers have a tool for easily making Slackware packages from source code and precompiled binaries. Src2pkg, now in version 1.6, very nearly lives up to its author’s tag of being Slackware’s "magic package maker."

For many average users, GNU/Linux support for PDF files may seem reasonably advanced. They can create PDF files in programs like OpenOffice.org, read them with programs like Kpdf, and edit them in programs like pdftk or PDFedit. But that’s not the whole story, says José Marchesi, founder of the recently created GNU PDF project. "Unfortunately, there are a lot of missing features in the existing free implementations," he says. That’s the main reason why the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has declared GNU PDF a high priority project, and is actively seeking donations to speed its progress.

poMMo, the "post modern mass mailer" with the not-quite-right acronym, is a powerful Web server-based mass mailing program firmly rooted on a Linux+Apache+MySQL+PHP (LAMP) base. poMMo has been developed with the end user in mind, which shows in its quick Web-based installation, in its powerful yet simple way of creating and sending mailings, and in its intuitive usage.

Try to describe Hotwire, and you’ll eventually wind up saying something that sounds like an oxymoron, like "command-line GUI," "graphical shell" or "GUI xterm." Well, that’s pretty much what Hotwire is: something halfway between a text-based shell and a modern graphical user interface.

Compellent has been shipping its SAN appliances to small to medium-sized companies for three years, growing from $4 million in annual sales to more than $23 million last year. Part of the reason for that growth, says cofounder John Guider, is that Compellent executives have recognized the value of making an open source operating system one of the building blocks of the company’s SAN offerings.

Legend has it that a Moleskine notebook and a pen were the tools of choice for Chatwin and Hemingway — but that’s because they didn’t have Writer’s Café. Designed specifically for writing professionals, this application suite includes a few clever features that make it a must-have tool, whether you write for a living or for fun. Although the Writer’s Café developers state that it’s most suited for writing fiction, novels, and short stories, you can easily use it for all kinds of writing activities.

In theory, GDB, the GNU debugger, can ease the chore of debugging applications running on a Linux-based embedded system. In practice, setting up GDB for this task is a bit of a challenge; it takes some work, and there are some technical hurdles to overcome. However, the benefits of having a way to methodically debug a program instead of guessing what’s wrong with it far outweigh the effort involved. Here are some tips for easing the difficulties.

I have used X10 modules on assorted lights and devices for home automation for several years, and although the remote control facet has always worked well, tying the system into my Linux boxes has never been easy. Numerous small, typically one-person X10 controller projects have come and gone. But one application has survived: Heyu. It runs on desktop Linux machines without requiring the overhead of a Web or database server, and it enables direct X10 control, event scheduling, and more.

Linux is an excellent platform for network administration. If you want to monitor your network traffic, you can find many tools — some accessible from a Web interface, others using a graphical interface — but nothing beats the speed of the command line. Command-line tools are also useful in shell scripts, where they can help you perform complex tasks. Here’s a handful of my favorites for monitoring network traffic.