http://www.osnews.com/ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams OSNews version 4 donotreply@osnews.com (Adam Scheinberg) donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:52:09 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com/ 120 http://www.osnews.com/story/21378/The_iPhone_Is_Not_a_Netbook_I_Can_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21378/The_iPhone_Is_Not_a_Netbook_I_Can_/ Last week, Apple again repeated its claim that the iPhone and iPod Touch are capable of filling the netbook niche. They also claimed that netbooks can barely be called personal computers. Both of these statements are complete and utter nonsense, but instead of writing down some high-level definition of what a netbook is, I decided to simply write down all the things I do with my netbook that the iPhone/iPod Touch cannot do to make the difference between the two that much more tangible. Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:07:14 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Editorial 84 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/21002/Resorting_to_FUD_Hurts_the_Alternatives_to_Microsoft/ http://www.osnews.com/story/21002/Resorting_to_FUD_Hurts_the_Alternatives_to_Microsoft/ Does Windows 7 contain more DRM than Windows Vista? Does Windows 7 limit you from running cracked applications, and will it open the firewall specifically for applications that want to check if they're cracked or not? Does it limit the audio recording capabilities? According to a skimp and badly written post on Slashdot, it does. The Slashdot crowd tore the front page item apart - and rightfully so. Wed, 18 Feb 2009 23:28:44 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Editorial 98 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/20987/Consistency_Isn_t_Skin_Deep/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20987/Consistency_Isn_t_Skin_Deep/ Late last week we ran a story on how the Google Chrome team had decided to use Gtk+ as the graphical toolkit for the Linux version of the Chrome web browser. It was a story that caused some serious debate on a variety of aspects, but in this short editorial, I want to focus on one aspect that came forward: the longing for consistency. Several people in the thread stated they were happy with Google's choice for purely selfish reasons: they use only Gtk+ applications on their GNOME desktops. Several people chimed in to say that Qt integrates nicely in a Gtk+ environment. While that may be true from a graphical point of view, that really isn't my problem with mixing toolkits. The issue goes a lot deeper than that. Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:07:45 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Editorial 92 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/20862/Don_t_Blame_Windows_and_KDE_for_Your_Own_Aversion_to_Change/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20862/Don_t_Blame_Windows_and_KDE_for_Your_Own_Aversion_to_Change/ With Windows 7 having made its grand debut, and with KDE4's vision making leaps and bounds forward with every release, we have two major software projects that have decided to implement some fairly drastic interface changes. Such changes are bound to receive some harsh criticisms - but the funny thing is, these criticisms usually come from people you least expect it from. Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:46:07 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Editorial 68 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/20801/In_Praise_of_the_Print_Media/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20801/In_Praise_of_the_Print_Media/ There's been a lot of talk lately about the imminent demise of the print media. With the economy in the toilet, subscriber bases shrinking, advertising rates declining, and demographic shift moving many publications' readers ever-older with no younger readers to replace them, it's looking grim. Some cities will be losing their only daily newspaper. Even the New York Times is in danger of going bankrupt. Even with advertising rates putting pressure on net-based publications, online publishing is here to stay. Is there room in this world for printed tech publications? Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:06:18 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Editorial 16 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/20719/DTV_Transition_Facts_and_Fallacies/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20719/DTV_Transition_Facts_and_Fallacies/ If you live in the United States, then it's almost certain you've heard about this big digital switch that public television is making due to a new US law. If you live outside of the US, I bet you've heard of it anyway since we like to let people know what we're up to. The big day that's coming up -- February 17th, 2009 -- that magical date when all television stations will historically abandon the infamous analog broadcasting for greener, digital pastures -- didn't strike fear into the hearts at my household. We rarely utilize the antenna, and then only two to four times a year for a special program. Nonetheless, we got our hands on one of those nifty coupons anyway and went out to purchase a digital converter for the sake of those few intrinsic public broadcats. Read on for the whole story. Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:28:34 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Editorial 31 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial weildish http://www.osnews.com/story/20648/Does_Windows_Need_a_Linux_Package_Manager_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20648/Does_Windows_Need_a_Linux_Package_Manager_/ InternetNews.com states: "Microsoft (or a really smart ISV) should build a full application manager for Windows, similar to what most Linux distributions do today." Most Windows applications come with their own distinctive updating mechanism (much like Mac OS X), instead of having a centralised updating location like most Linux distributions offer. While it certainly wouldn't be harmful for Windows to gain such a feature - the question remains: isn't it time we rethink program installation and management altogether? Mon, 15 Dec 2008 15:10:14 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Editorial 107 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/20607/One_Flew_Over_the_Songbird_s_Nest/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20607/One_Flew_Over_the_Songbird_s_Nest/ Songbird is a new open-source music player that has this week landed at 1.0. Songbird is described as a "web player"- a music player for this modern, connected era. It blends the web-rendering core of Firefox (Gecko), with the media capabilities of GStreamer- a cross-platform, open-source media playback engine. Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:20:52 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kroc Camen) Editorial 59 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/20527/Unmasked_by_Counting_Threads_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20527/Unmasked_by_Counting_Threads_/ Yesterday, a story made its rounds across the internet. It was picked up by many large news websites, and I'm sure it will be quoted by people until eternity. It was published by a large website, looked all fancy, it had multiple pages - it looked like it was really something. However, anyone with even the remotest bit of knowledge knows that the article was a collection of complete and utter bogus. Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:55:38 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Editorial 56 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/20207/The_Challenge_the_Manageable_Computer/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20207/The_Challenge_the_Manageable_Computer/ Earlier this week, we ran a story on GoboLinux, and the distribution's effort to replace the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard with a more pleasant, human-readable, and logical design. A lot of people liked the idea of modernising/replacing the FHS, but just as many people were against doing so. Valid arguments were presented both ways, but in this article, I would like to focus on a common sentiment that came forward in that discussion: normal users shouldn't see the FHS, and advanced users are smart enough to figure out how the FHS works. Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Editorial 110 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/20195/GoboLinux_and_Replacing_the_FHS/ http://www.osnews.com/story/20195/GoboLinux_and_Replacing_the_FHS/ GoboLinux is a distribution which sports a different file system structure than 'ordinary' Linux distributions. In order to remain compatible with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, symbolic links are used to map the GoboLinux tree to standard UNIX directories. A post in the GoboLinux forums suggested that it might be better to turn the concept around: retain the FHS, and then use symbolic links to map the GoboLinux tree on top of it. This sparked some interesting discussion. Read on for more details. Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:33:09 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Editorial 118 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial Charles Wilson http://www.osnews.com/story/19508/From_GNOME_to_KDE_and_Back_Computing_Habits_Hard_to_Break/ http://www.osnews.com/story/19508/From_GNOME_to_KDE_and_Back_Computing_Habits_Hard_to_Break/ "I used KDE as my primary desktop from 1996 through 2006, when I installed the GNOME version of Ubuntu and found that I liked it better than the KDE desktop I'd faced every morning for so many years. Last January, I got a new Dell Latitude D630 laptop and decided to install Kubuntu on it, but within a few weeks, I went back to GNOME. Does this mean GNOME is now a better desktop than KDE, or just that I have become so accustomed to GNOME that it's hard for me to give it up?" Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:49:44 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Editorial 126 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 News http://www.osnews.com/story/18988/_Leopard_Is_the_New_Vista_and_It_s_Pissing_Me_Off_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/18988/_Leopard_Is_the_New_Vista_and_It_s_Pissing_Me_Off_/ In a PC Magazine opinion piece, Oliver Rist makes note of some deficiencies in Apple's new OS, declaring, "Before Apple makes any more smug OS-related attacks on Microsoft, it ought to take a good look in the mirror." Fri, 30 Nov 2007 19:26:08 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Editorial 91 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 News netpython http://www.osnews.com/story/18963/What_s_Your_Killer_App_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/18963/What_s_Your_Killer_App_/ This day-after-Thanksgiving, when many Americans are enjoying a day off and several others are at work goofing around on OSNews, we decided to ask you: what's your "killer app?" What's the one app you can't live without? Sound off in the comments - one app only! Fri, 23 Nov 2007 16:11:28 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Adam S) Editorial 336 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Feature http://www.osnews.com/story/18610/Open_Source_Risks_and_Responsibilities/ http://www.osnews.com/story/18610/Open_Source_Risks_and_Responsibilities/ The widespread acceptance of open source continues to grow as a cost-effective alternative to traditional network deployments. Well-known projects such as Linux have proven themselves to be in the enterprise environment, helping to dispel the fear, uncertainty and doubt preceding open source implementations. In the past two years, the industry has begun to shift from a total dependence on proprietary applications to a desire for more cost-effective, scalable and collaborative solutions. Thu, 13 Sep 2007 08:14:29 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Editorial 22 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial Mark Tolliver