OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

GNOME 2.15.1 Released

Submitted by Philipp Esselbach 2006-04-27 Gnome 13 Comments

GNOME 2.15.1 has been released. As with the Linux kernel, odd-numbered releases are developmental releases; meaning that 2.15 is the developmental branch for 2.16. You can compile it using these jhbuild modulesets (or use GARNOME). Detailed notes on the release can be found here: platform, desktop, admin, and bindings. On a related note, Dropline GNOME 2.14.1 has been released as well.

Has Firefox Met Its Match?

Submitted by Dhanesh 2006-04-27 Rumors 56 Comments

InformationWeek compares the latest IE7 beta to Firefox 1.5, and concludes: "On a straight, feature-for-feature comparison, IE7 stacks up well against Firefox. If its improved security model lives up to its design specs, malware distributors will find it much more difficult to make a dishonest living, and the tabbed browsing features in the new release should make it much easier to deal with multiple pages."

NTP Dispute Resolved

Submitted by Morten Bentsen 2006-04-27 Legal 8 Comments

"D-Link and Poul-Henning Kamp announced today that they have amicably resolved their dispute regarding access to Mr Kamp's GPS.Dix.dk NTP Time Server site. D-Link's existing products will have authorized access to Mr Kamp's server, but all new D-Link products will not use the GPS.Dix.dk NTP time server. D-Link is dedicated to remaining a good corporate and network citizen."

Netcraft: Apache Now the Leader in SSL Servers

Submitted by liquidat 2006-04-27 Internet 3 Comments

Apache has overtaken Microsoft as the leading developer of secure web servers. Apache now runs on 44.0% of secure web sites, compared to 43.8% for Microsoft. As the original developers of the SSL protocol, Netscape started out with a lead in the SSL server market. But they were soon overtaken by Microsoft's Internet Information Server, which within a few years held a steady 40-50% of the SSL server market.

Microsoft Targets Windows Pirates with Pop-Ups

Thom Holwerda 2006-04-26 Microsoft 69 Comments

Microsoft is to enhance the product-activation programme in its Office software to make it more like that in Windows. And it will extend its 'Windows Genuine Advantage' programme to send alerts directly to users of pirate software, the company said yesterday.

The Diffusion and Adoption of Desktop Linux in Government

Submitted by editingwhiz 2006-04-26 Linux 31 Comments

"This research report by a third-year graduate student examines the growing use of desktop Linux among governments in the US and globally. Drawing on published research and comments from industry analysts, the author hypothesizes that desktop Linux may be nearing a tipping point within government settings, after which adoption can be expected to accelerate."

Will Schwartz Add More Windows to Sun?

Submitted by Jane Walker 2006-04-26 Oracle and SUN 18 Comments

"Perhaps the changing of the guard at Sun Microsystems was no shock to some. Now pundits can dish over whether or not it will be the start of a new era at Sun - and one that might mean more collaboration with Microsoft."

Submitted by Punktyras 2006-04-26 Legal 109 Comments

For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now US Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright law seen by CNET News.com would expand the DMCA's restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers.

Interview: John Baldwin on FreeBSD

Submitted by Nix_User 2006-04-26 FreeBSD 9 Comments

"One of the main reasons that I'm so involved with open source is that I've always been fascinated by figuring out how things work. In this interview, John Baldwin of the FreeBSD project gives some insight on what it is like to be a FreeBSD developer and some of the things that happen behind the scenes of a large open source project."

Submitted by sean batten 2006-04-26 Hardware 64 Comments

"A Chinese company called YellowSheepRiver wants to make affordable budget computing a reality with its new $150 Linux Municator, a highly compact and innovative PC built with inexpensive Chinese hardware components. Although MIT's much touted $100 Linux laptop has yet to transcend its status as vaporware, YellowSheepRiver already has a working product which could potentially be available for purchase within the next three months." It runs on a custom 64 bit processor, derived from the MIPS processor, and as a result won't run Windows.

Submitted by fsmdave 2006-04-26 Linux 23 Comments

"With a bit of C and microprocessors knowledge, this article shows it's possible to write your own device drivers in Linux. It might not be the easiest thing to do, but it's great to see that writing device drivers doesn't require black magic - it's just a matter of talking to the Linux kernel!" And a matter of praying that Linux's driver interface doesn't change while writing your driver, of course.

VMware Creates Virtual Desktop Alliance

Submitted by Jason Cray 2006-04-26 OS News 5 Comments

VMware has unveiled a technology consortium of hardware, software and service providers, with the aim to jointly-develop virtual desktop products. Called the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Alliance, the new consortium counts several technology vendors as members including Altiris, Atos Origin, Check Point Software Technologies, Citrix, ClearCube Technology, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hitachi, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sun Microsystems and Wyse Technology.

Syncing Websites From a Linux System to a Palm

Submitted by Falko Timme 2006-04-26 Wireless 1 Comment

"This is a brief tutorial on how to sync websites to your Palm for offline reading. The websites are stored in Plucker format. You will need to install the Plucker viewer for palm which can be found at the Plucker website. The software you will use to grab the websites and convert them into Plucker format is called Sunrise. To transfer the Plucker files to a Palm you will need pilot-link."

Vista Firewall Shackled Due to Customer Demand

Submitted by george 2006-04-26 Windows 60 Comments

The firewall in Windows Vista will, by default, have half its protection turned off because that is what enterprise customers have requested, according to the software giant.

Submitted by andymc 2006-04-25 OS News 13 Comments

Version 0.62 of Visopsys was released today, including Qemu support, initial USB support, and some little games and bits of flair, in addition to the usual tweaks and bug fixes. Meanwhile, the offshoot project, "Partition Logic" continues to gain converts in the market for free partitioning tools. Detailed change log and downloads.

Data Center Dos and Don’ts: Virtualization

Submitted by Jane Walker 2006-04-25 OS News 1 Comment

Wade Reynolds and David Marshall offer handy security tips and advice on how and where to use virtualization in the data center. Also, this article briefly examines the current state of affairs for multiple server deployment, with an emphasis on modern advancements in virtual servers and workstations.

Microsoft Steps up Piracy Check

Submitted by Mel Bayers 2006-04-25 Windows 57 Comments

Starting Tuesday, the Microsoft will push out a test tool that checks whether the copy of Windows a PC is using is properly licensed. It will be sent to millions of people in the United States, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.

Submitted by chrishaney 2006-04-25 Linspire 12 Comments

LinuxPlanet reports - Once known as a community-supported alternative to the Linspire distribution, the Freespire name is about to rise again from the ashes of obscurity--only this time as a distro completely sponsored and endorsed by Linspire itself... Freespire will be a Debian-based, community-driven and -supported project tied to the commercial Linspire distribution, Carmony outlined, in much the same way as Fedora Core and openSUSE relate to their parent commercial distros, Red Hat Linux and SUSE Linux, respectively. OSDir has some screenshots of Freespire in the Freespire 5.0 Screenshot Tour.

Easier Way to Store, Find, and Access XML Data

Eugenia Loli 2006-04-25 General Development No Comments

BPEL Repository is an Eclipse based framework for storing XML data and retrieving through an object-oriented querying mechanism. This technology has two parts: an Eclipse plug-in tool for administering the repository through a visual interface and a Java API that enables applications to access the repository.

A Switcher’s Guide to Windows / OS X

Submitted by Jeremy 2006-04-25 Rumors 14 Comments

Thanks to Apple's Boot Camp beta, long-time Mac users are trying out Windows XP, and Windows users are starting to pick up Macs. Trying out the "other side" can be confusing at first. ExtremeTech has a simple little guide that makes this trasition an easy one. Some things discussed are what programs are great for each OS, as well as how to get around your new environment.