I discovered a workaround for the bug in Amarok that was preventing me from adopting it as my primary music player.  Full details are in the bug, executive summary follows:

• I disallow outgoing connections from all PCs on my home LAN as a security measure to guard against spyware and spam bots.
• Amarok uses two different proxy settings - one for streaming data and one for submitting last.fm track info.  The former is configured in Amarok and the latter in the KDE control panel (kcontrol).
• When no proxy is defined for track sumission, my firewall denies the outbound connection from Amarok, and it hangs (this is the real bug)....
  

I just ran into Bug #122976 when installing a new system on Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn).  It occurred when trying to install an OpenOffice.org upgrade, but appears to really be related to ttf-opensymbol.  There's a simple workaround which i noted in the bug log.

Introduction

I've recently started my own company and commenced the search for an accounting package suitable for recording expenses, generating invoices, and assisting me with my BAS.  There seem to be many options - but few good ones - for the Linux nerd.

The Contenders 

Free Software, Linux-based 

• SQL Ledger: web-based; seems to be fairly capable and comprehensive (e.g. supports GST out of the box); complex (non-intuitive) interface; no documentation without a support contract.
• Ledger SMB: fork of SQL ledger aimed at correcting SQL ledger's faults.  The .debs won't install on my machine, but i haven't tried very hard.
• opentaps/OFBiz: web-based; seems extremely comprehensive.  Seems even more complicated than SQL Ledger, but better laid-out.  Documentation is provided, and the development community seems active.
• GNUcash: v2.0 looks to have added the basic business features i need, but seems to be unreliable.  I've had nothing but trouble with it on my machine (Debian etch amd64) - i've had 2 application lockups that required killing the process in 3 starts.
• Grisbi: Seems quite simple and reliable, but doesn't do invoicing, customer management, etc. - just seems to be for personal finance.

Free Software, Windows-based

• I'd rather not use Windows, but i need to for my work, so i keep a VMware virtual machine handy.  There is one well-known Free Software package for Windows: Turbocash.  When i tried to run it in VMware, it segfaulted.
  

No cost, Windows-based

• Ledgertec: so archaic it makes me want to run around screaming just looking at it.
• The ATO provides a package for Windows and Mac called e-Record.

Non-free, costly, Windows-based

There is a vast array of contenders.  The ATO's tax software database lists 334 entries, most of which are likely in this section.  This is a last resort for me, especially MYOB, which seems to have become the Microsoft of finance software.  Our family already owns a copy of MS Money, which may be an option, although it's very much targeted at home rather than business use.

Shoregen is my Shorewall rule generator.  It's a way of maintaining multiple firewalls from a single set of rules.  The release linked below is my initial release made for Shorewall 2.x.  Soon i'll be putting the finishing touches on a version for Shorewall 3.2 which ties in nicely with shorewall-lite, but for now you'll have to get it from the Shorewall subversion repository.

Over at the Shoreline Firewall project, hot topics at the moment include multi-ISP support and clustering. To that end, i've started a wiki topic at Wikispaces to allow people to collaborate on documenting their clustering solutions.