jasonmanley writes "I currently use DesktopBSD. The other day I gave some thought to donating money to the project, but then I got to thinking — to whom would I donate the money? DesktopBSD benefits from FreeBSD and KDE among other projects. What about software with a smaller focus, such as OpenSSH? In fact, there are heaps of other projects' software embedded in FOSS packages, and I would like to know who the community thinks should get the donations."

pottercw writes "Trucking may not seem like a high-tech industry to the casual observer, but major carriers are starting to adopt an array of emerging technologies to combat rising fuel costs, tighter regulation and fierce competition. The technologies include systems that monitor and communicate vehicle conditions and performance, enhanced GPSs that keep tabs on tractors and trailers, and safety systems which issue warnings or even take action to help drivers avoid an accident — all working in real time. Computerworld has a cool mouseover diagram highlighting some of the gadgets we're beginning to see on high-tech trucks."

lgmac brings us a story about how NASA will bring information from the Phoenix Mars lander to the internet in the coming days. CIO Magazine speaks with JPL's chief knowledge architect and others about how they'll provide massive amounts of data from the lander to suit the needs of an audience ranging from professors to 8-year-olds. We've been discussing the Phoenix mission for quite a while now. The landing is on schedule for Sunday at roughly 5PM PDT. "'In previous missions, a system like this didn't exist and people were sharing images via external drives,' Bitter says. Some of the images are put up immediately and captioned, or sent to museum audiences, while others are made part of huge mosaic pictures that display the majesty of what the NASA spacecraft encounters, she says. In addition to the sheer volume of data that must be sifted through, challenges included the large, dispersed team, Holm says. 'The content management system has to be easy to use and agnostic,' she says, 'It's all about speed and accuracy of data.' Video on the Web represents one of the biggest changes for modern-day missions for the public, Holm says. 'There's a visceral response we get from people. They feel like they're really there.'"