http://www.osnews.com/ Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2008, David Adams OSNews version 4 donotreply@osnews.com (Adam Scheinberg) donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Sat, 17 May 2008 05:00:32 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com/ 120 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_Its_Pissing_Me_Off/ http://www.osnews.com/story/18988/Leopard_Is_the_New_Vista_and_Its_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/Whats_Your_Killer_App_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/18963/Whats_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 http://www.osnews.com/story/18546/Competition_Is_Actually_Good/ http://www.osnews.com/story/18546/Competition_Is_Actually_Good/ This article is an answer to "Competition Is Not Good" by Kroc and reading it wouldn't be comfortable without switching to and from the original article. I wrote it just because I do strongly disagree with Kroc and I believe I can prove that he is not as close to truth as it may seem from the first glance. Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:54:25 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Editorial 61 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial Dmitrij D. Czarkoff http://www.osnews.com/story/18538/Competition_Is_Not_Good/ http://www.osnews.com/story/18538/Competition_Is_Not_Good/ I hear often that when something new appears that "competition is good". The primary reasons competition is seen as good, are: it drives down prices; it gives consumers more choice; it pushes technology forward, quicker. Competition is not good because: competition is why consumers have to choose between HD-DVD and BluRay; competition is why DRM exists; and more. In this article, each of the supposed benefits of competition will be looked at in more detail. Thu, 30 Aug 2007 13:03:53 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Editorial 126 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial Kroc http://www.osnews.com/story/18180/What_Are_the_Usability_Experts_Doing_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/18180/What_Are_the_Usability_Experts_Doing_/ Sometimes, Apple's (or any other software maker's) complete lack of respect for usability never ceases to amaze me. Take today for example. Apart from the close, minimise, and "maximise" widgets Apple places on window decors, there is also a fourth widget programmers on the Apple platform can use. This widget resembles a sort of dash, and is placed on the top right corner of the window decor. This widget is used in many applications, both from Apple as well as from various third parties. It has one function: toggle the visibility of the window's toolbar. Sun, 01 Jul 2007 15:21:33 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Editorial 108 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/17716/The_Workaround_Trap/ http://www.osnews.com/story/17716/The_Workaround_Trap/ Let me begin by telling you a little story. Some time ago I needed to run a script at work once a day. We had tons of machines ranging from big Unix servers to Linux desktops. Due to various reasons the script could only be run on a desktop machine. However using cron was disabled on desktops. All other machines allowed cron. Tue, 17 Apr 2007 18:20:13 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Editorial 77 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial Jussi Pakkanen http://www.osnews.com/story/16944/Why_Solaris_and_Mac_OS_X_Should_Unite/ http://www.osnews.com/story/16944/Why_Solaris_and_Mac_OS_X_Should_Unite/ "There are dozens of articles like this one on the net. Over and over people suggested solutions like this for different reasons and although I know that such thing probably won't happen any time soon, from my point of view now it is the best moment ever in the history of both operating systems to merge in a one powerful alliance. And the hell has already frozen over, hasn't it? First I will give short description of both OSes, so we can see the strong and the weak sides of them and see if the combination should eliminate the shortcomings and make the good points even better." Update: Sun is giving out free Solaris 10 DVD sets. Sun, 14 Jan 2007 23:36:40 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Editorial 64 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 News kloty http://www.osnews.com/story/16760/Are_We_Being_Served_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/16760/Are_We_Being_Served_/ Web 2.0 throws a lot of buzzwords at us. New technology has given us new terms to describe a particular design process. One of these is "user-centric" design. An example of a website that isn't user-centric would be microsoft.com. A static site where the users have no control over the content of the site, nor any choice in what they see. The company displays the information they deem important. This is considered web 1.0. (Note by AS: a new microsoft.com site has gone live since this submission). YouTube and Digg are examples of Web 2.0, user-centric sites whereby the users of the site contribute not only the content that the other users consume, but each user helps decide what content is promoted. Today, I'm going to coin a new term: self-centric design. To define this new term, I will compare OSNews to one of the leading web 2.0 sites: Digg. Tue, 19 Dec 2006 13:39:53 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (OSNews Staff) Editorial 76 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial Kroc http://www.osnews.com/story/16410/Who_Dictates_The_Future_of_XML_/ http://www.osnews.com/story/16410/Who_Dictates_The_Future_of_XML_/ We are on the brink of a very exciting time. The buzzword-friendly "Web 2.0" is here, and it's most punctuated by three terms: social networking, AJAX, and RSS. Nothing about these things is inherently new - AJAX existed as an ActiveX control present in Microsoft's Outlook Web Access long ago, social networking has existed for some time via sites like Friendster, and RSS is just a style of XML, which has been floating around in mainstream tech circles for about 10 years. But Web 2.0 is here, like it or not. The question is, as use of these technologies begins to become more widespread, how are we going to shape these technologies, and who is going to make those decisions? Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:58:21 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Adam S) Editorial 24 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/15266/On_Politics_GNOME_and_Mono/ http://www.osnews.com/story/15266/On_Politics_GNOME_and_Mono/ Politicians. They are a certain type of people. I do not like them. Many do not like them. I think if there's one thing all of man has in common, whether he be Christian or Muslim, black or white, young or old, American or European, is a dislike of politicians. But then-- why on earth do we allow politics to complicate software? Note: Sunday Eve Column. Sun, 23 Jul 2006 21:48:23 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Editorial 129 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/14699/Computers:_Too_Easy_to_Use/ http://www.osnews.com/story/14699/Computers:_Too_Easy_to_Use/ It's conventional wisdom that computers need to be "easier to use." But do they? More reliable, yes. Easier to troubleshoot, yes. But now that so many people use computers so much, I think there's something to be said for making them less easy-to-use and less intuitive. Wed, 24 May 2006 04:08:11 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (David Adams) Editorial 44 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial http://www.osnews.com/story/12979/Superior_Linux_Technology_Not_Stopping_Microsoft/ http://www.osnews.com/story/12979/Superior_Linux_Technology_Not_Stopping_Microsoft/ Today, we cannot know if people would still buy Microsoft products because the government protects the monopoly. What percentage of the market would Microsoft have in a fair market? The only way we can answer that last question is to stop manufacturers from preloading Windows. Until then, we do not have a free market. Microsoft has no way to prove itself otherwise, says LXer. Wed, 14 Dec 2005 23:30:19 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Eugenia Loli-Queru) Editorial 116 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 News LinuxFanBoy http://www.osnews.com/story/11085/Editorial:_Why_New_Operating_Systems_Wont_Stand_A_Chance/ http://www.osnews.com/story/11085/Editorial:_Why_New_Operating_Systems_Wont_Stand_A_Chance/ There are many 'really alternative' operating systems currently in existence. Most of them are purely for research, personal enjoyment or as a coding sandbox. Some of them, however, want to achieve wider acceptance. Is that goal obtainable, in the current OS climate? Mon, 04 Jul 2005 19:15:17 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom Holwerda) Editorial 0 http://www.osnews.com/topics/5 Editorial