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Red Hat Summit Keynotes

Submitted by Eugenia Loli 2006-06-17 Red Hat 3 Comments

Red Hat has published some of the keynotes from the Red Hat Summit. "We've barely had time to unpack our suitcases, but we did manage to bring back a few party favors from this month's Red Hat Summit. Watch the keynote speeches, get updates on our announcements, and take a taste of Music City, open source style."

The Interchange File Format

Submitted by anonymous 2006-06-17 General Development 9 Comments

"The Interchange File Format (IFF) standard is widely regarded as long dead, and indeed, no one uses it anymore, except that nearly everyone uses it sometimes. Many believe the IFF standard is an Amiga graphics standard, and certainly, there have been a great many graphics files saved in the IFF format. However, IFF is not just a graphics format. It has been used for graphics, audio, text, saved games, and more. Electronic Arts actually developed the standard, back when it was a software company and not just a video game company."

Cream for Vim – Making Vim More User Friendly

Submitted by anonymous 2006-06-17 Office 20 Comments

"Learning to use Vi editor could be a real pain for most people as it has a relatively steep learning curve. But once the most common commands are mastered, one gets to enjoy the sheer power of this editor made available at ones finger tips. One project which has gained a lot of popularity in the Vim community is Cream. Cream consists of a collection of scripts and plug-ins which aims to make it much easier for a new user to cut his teeth in Vim and the user can easily use most of the features of Vim which has made it the popular editor it is by just navigating the menu."

Submitted by ganges master 2006-06-17 General Development 20 Comments

The High Level Virtual Machine aims to build a common infrastructure for the development of dynamic languages (Ruby, Python, Haskell, etc.) targeting the Low Level Virtual Machine. It provides a platform agnostic virtual machine runtime, on top of LLVM, which is able to interpret, jit- or static- compile any supported language. Since all language use the same underlying VM, it's easy to achieve code and data interoperability between different languages. Version 0.1 was released June 13.

Submitted by chr1skearney 2006-06-17 Apple 128 Comments

Many people who have called Apple to complain about excessive heat coming from their newly purchased computers have been told that the MacBook and the MacBook Pro are in fact Notebook computers and not Laptop computers. This article details why they are totally full of it.

Announcing The OSNews Alternative OS Contest

Adam Scheinberg 2006-06-16 ReactOS 64 Comments

At its core, OSNews is a site driven by interesting content about alternative Operating Systems. As such, we're introducing "OSNews Alternative OS Contest," a contest aimed at getting back to our roots and generating interest and publicity in alternative Operating Systems. Read on for the rules & prizes.

Will Microsoft Be the Same?; Interviews with Gates’s Successors

Thom Holwerda 2006-06-16 Microsoft 26 Comments

A lot of news on Bill Gates's stepping back. Mary Jo Foley wonders if Microsoft will still be the same after Gates has left, while also compiling a list of his 10 biggest Microsoft flops. Elsewhere, Bill Gates's successor, Craig Mundie, talks to eWeek. In addition, Cnet features an interview with both Mundie as well as Ray Ozzie: "Bill Gates leaves some pretty big shoes to fill. Think of Ray Ozzie as the left shoe and Craig Mundie as the right one."

MacOS X 10.4.7 To Deliver Audio Fixes, More

Thom Holwerda 2006-06-16 macOS 4 Comments

An update to Apple's Mac OS X Tiger due within a matter of days will deliver audio enhancements for several of the company's applications, AppleInsider has learned. Specifically, people who claim to have tested the latest pre-release builds of Mac OS X 10.4.7 say the update will offer fixes for audio playback in iTunes, Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack and QuickTime. It will also improve Bluetooth file transfers, mobile phone synching and mouse pairings, these people have said.

Vista May Require ‘Unproven’ Drive Technology

Thom Holwerda 2006-06-16 Windows 16 Comments

Details have emerged this week that Microsoft may be planning to make it mandatory for laptop manufacturers who want to support its operating system to install hybrid flash drives. A Microsoft document specifying requirements for flash storage led to speculation that hybrid storage would be mandatory for all Vista laptops, from June 2007, but this has been denied by Microsoft.

GNOME 2.15.3 Released, Needs More Girls

Thom Holwerda 2006-06-16 Gnome 64 Comments

GNOME 2.15.3 has been released. This is a development release, en route to GNOME 2.16, scheduled for September 2006. Release notes and download instructions are listed in the release anouncement. In the meantime, GNOME needs girls.

Leading Mobile Phone Players Converge on Linux

Thom Holwerda 2006-06-16 Wireless 3 Comments

Four large mobile phone vendors, together with two major wireless operators, will create an open Linux implementation for mobile phones. Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic, Samsung, and Vodafone say their Linux implementation will provide a global standard, and prevent the 'fragmentation' of mobile phone Linux.

UNIX Warning System for Disk Space Shortage

Submitted by anonymous 2006-06-16 Unix 6 Comments

Monitoring your file systems and ensuring they don't fill up is a vital process in the day-to-day management of your UNIX systems. This article looks at methods for keeping an eye on disk space, discovering which files, users, or applications are using up the most space, and how to make use of quotas and other solutions to find the information you need.

Ubuntu 6.06 Server for Sun SPARC 64 Released

Thom Holwerda 2006-06-16 Ubuntu 12 Comments

"The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the release of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS server for SUN Sparc 64bit architecture. This release is an Ubuntu distribution for your servers, with a fast and easy install, regular releases, and a tight selection of excellent packages installed by default. Other packages and applications are available from a global network of mirrors, and professional, commercial technical support from Canonical Ltd and hundreds of other companies around the world."

Is Gates’ Retirement Linux’s Chance?

Submitted by sjvn 2006-06-16 Linux 86 Comments

"On June 15, Bill Gates announced that he would be retiring from Microsoft in July 2008, and everything changed. It may be two years away, but when a giant the size of Gates moves, the world moves with him. And, in that movement, in this period of change, Linux may have its best chance ever to seize the marketplace momentum from Microsoft."

Submitted by Charles A Landemaine 2006-06-16 PC-BSD 10 Comments

PC-BSD has just released their roadmap en route to PC-BSD 2.0. They want to focus on making the PC-BSD specific tools integrate better with the rest of KDE, while also doing a lot fo work on the installer. The team also released a list of open volunteer positions for those willing to help.

The GNOME Journal, June Edition

Submitted by Lucas Rocha 2006-06-16 Gnome 1 Comment

The latest issue of the GNOME Journal has just been published. Itfeatures insights into the role of end-users in the GNOME community, and an interview with Emmanuele Bassi, gnome-utils maintainer and GTK+ developer. Writers in this edition are Vincent Untz, and Lucas Rocha, respectively.

The Spread of the IPR Non-Assertion Covenant

Submitted by Andy Updegrove 2006-06-16 Office No Comments

An hour or so ago Sun Microsystems made good on an earlier pledge to issue further 'non-assertion covenants' in support of open standards. This type of IPR tool facilitates easy implementation of new standards, and also makes open source implementations possible. The new NACs relate to the OASIS Security Assertion Markup Language v2.0 standard and two 'single sign-on' specifications co-developed with Microsoft.

Submitted by Eugenia Loli 2006-06-16 Windows 91 Comments

Microsoft senior vice president Bob Muglia opened up TechEd 2006 in Boston Sunday evening by proclaiming that Windows Vista was the most secure operating system in the industry. But a bold statement can only go so far, and much of this week's conference has been spent reinforcing that point.

Submitted by DigitalDame 2006-06-15 Microsoft 55 Comments

Bill Gates is transitioning out of his full-time role at Microsoft, the software giant that's been under pressure due to a sagging stock price, competition from Google and nagging delays in the Vista operating system. In a press conference held Thursday after the stock markets had closed for regular trading, Gates announced that over the next two years he will gradually step away from his daily responsibilities at the company he co-founded some 30 years ago.

Vista, MacOS: Who’s Copying Whom?

Thom Holwerda 2006-06-15 Rumors 140 Comments

A lot of people seem to have this idea that Windows Vista looks an awful lot like the MacOS. LifeHacker.com sets some screenshots side-by-side for comparison, and even though they refrain from judgement ("We're just saying"), I do wish to make a few sidenotes about this issue. Read more for a mini-article on the issue.