OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Review: Mac Mini Core Solo

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-06 Apple 40 Comments

Ars reviews the Mac Mini Core Solo, and concludes: "Because this machine maintains the same great form factor and adds a ton of new, standard features in addition to having substantially better performance with only a price increase of $100 on each model, I'm giving the Mac Mini Solo a score of 8. The integrated graphics issue is an issue to be sure, but the impacted population is so small and the cure so easily fixed, that I don't feel that knocking the score down any further is warranted. From nearly all other perspectives, this is a great entry level machine with a great footprint and the ability to utilize peripherals most people already have." On a related note, the new Mini's processor is upgradable.

Middleton Battles ‘Misinformation’

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-06 RISC OS 4 Comments

Following rumour and speculation over the future of RISC OS 4, RISCOS Ltd's managing director today poured scorn on 'every rumour and piece of misinformation that comes up on the Internet'. In a frank email he told Select subscribers today: "Some people have a habit of starting rumours that can upset many other people's views of how the market is progressing. Negative rumours, especially when they are unfounded, can have a tremendous effect on the market, so please treat anything you hear or read with caution unless it is fully verified."

Submitted by netpython 2006-03-06 macOS 75 Comments

Gaining root access to a Mac is 'easy pickings', according to an individual who won an OS X hacking challenge last month by gaining root control of a machine using an unpublished security vulnerability. On February 22, a Sweden-based Mac enthusiast set his Mac Mini as a server and invited hackers to break through the computer's security and gain root control, which would allow the attacker to take charge of the computer and delete files and folders or install applications. Within hours of going live, the 'rm-my-mac' competition was over. The challenger posted this message on his Web site: "This sucks. Six hours later this poor little Mac was owned and this page got defaced".

C++ Modularity with Namespaces and Exception Handling

Eugenia Loli 2006-03-06 General Development 14 Comments

Did you know that there are three different C++ namespace types? Namespaces, which are simple to learn and apply, offer a clever means of packaging your code and can assist when symbol conflicts occur. And how well does your code handle exceptions? Inserting exception-handling code can make your code more ready for packaging as external functions. Stephen Morris contends that just as namespaces offer an efficient way to package code, the skillful use of exception handling can quickly simplify that code.

The Role of Architectural Risk Analysis in Software Security

Eugenia Loli 2006-03-06 Privacy, Security 3 Comments

Design flaws account for 50% of security problems. You can’t find design defects by staring at code—a higher-level understanding is required. That’s why architectural risk analysis plays an essential role in any solid software security program. Find out more about architectural risk analysis in this sample chapter. Also, Matthew Heusser and Sean McMillan are convinced that it takes smart people to develop good software that makes money. Where do you find smart people? You don't find them; you make them! Matt and Sean provide some fundamental rules for doing just that.

Presenting Data with the DataGridView Control in .NET 2.0

Eugenia Loli 2006-03-06 .NET 20 Comments

In .NET 1.0, the DataGrid control was the primary Windows Forms control for presenting tabular data. Even though that control had a lot of capability and could present basic tabular data well, it was fairly difficult to customize many aspects of the control. Additionally, the DataGrid control didn’t expose enough information to the programmer about the user interactions with the grid and changes occurring in the grid due to programmatic modifications of the data or formatting. Due to these factors and a large number of new features that customers requested, the Windows Client team at Microsoft decided to introduce a replacement control for the DataGrid in .NET 2.0. That new control, the DataGridView control, is the focus of this chapter.

Price Differences Between Europe, US

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-05 Apple 116 Comments

This week saw the introduction of various new Apple products. Everybody has their own opinions on these new products, and websites all over the world saw enough discussions about the integrated video card of the Mini, the 'HiFi-ness' of the iPod HiFi, and more. Another issue, however, which got considerable less attention, was that of pricing. And no, I'm not talking about expensive-or-not (God, no). I'm talking about price differences between the US and Europe. And quite frankly, it's pissing me off. Note: This is this week's Sunday Eve Column.

Build Your Linux on Demand with Your Web Browser

Submitted by Alexandre GUY 2006-03-05 Debian 20 Comments

Euronode released a web site which allows users to build pre-configured Debian GNU/Linux servers, tailor-made for their exact needs. Users can follow a simple web-based wizard to choose services (web, mail, database, samba, etc.), and options. Once done, the web site will generate a bootable .iso image, with all configuration and server parameters already set up.

Review: Apple MacBook Pro

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-05 Apple 32 Comments

PCMag reviews the MacBook Pro, and concludes: "For typical users running the iLife '06 suite, iTunes, and even nonuniversal applications such as Microsoft Office and Adobe products, the Apple MacBook Pro is a solid notebook. It's a sweet upgrade from the PowerBook G4, and Windows users switching over will like it just the same. But for sophisticated media enthusiasts or professionals, we suggest you wait a couple of months, or at least until the software can catch up with the Intel components, before diving in." They did some benchmarks too (the MacBook Pro beats the PowerBook G4 in every area, at the cost of 7 minutes of battery life), and they made a slideshow with photos of the device.

People Behind KDE: Boudewijn Rempt

Thom Holwerda 2006-03-05 KDE 12 Comments

"Tonight's People Behind KDE interview is with the author of the most active program in KDE, Krita. Not only has he made the premier free software painting application he has also added the vital vertical-maximise feature to KWin. Find out what the most inspirational thing is for a hacker fixing his bugs in our interview with Boudewijn Rempt."

Submitted by netpython 2006-03-05 Intel 17 Comments

"Intel warned on Friday that its revenue for the first quarter would come in at between $8.7 billion and $9.1 billion , roughly $500 million lower than estimates the company issued in January. The chipmaker cited a weak market and a 'slight' market share loss. Analysts generally agree about the market, but are putting more emphasis on the loss of share. Some have pointed to the momentum shown by AMD, which has been far more aggressive over the past 18 months. The rival chipmaker has been strengthening its ties to PC makers, most prominently with HP, and keeping prices low."

Better Linux Sales Aren’t Enough to Halt Novell’s Slide

Submitted by Moule 2006-03-05 Novell and Ximian 46 Comments

"It was not the best of quarters for Linux vendor Novell. When Novell announced its financial results for its first fiscal quarter, which ended Jan. 31, 2006, it reported revenue of $274 million , compared to revenue of $290 million for the first fiscal quarter 2005. This was a decline from the previous quarter in which Novell had reported $320 million of revenue."

Tomcat5, Apache2 with Virtual Hosts Using mod_jk

Submitted by Falko Timme 2006-03-05 Internet 3 Comments

"This tutorial explains how I was able to setup a web server in order to support Java Server Pages and Servlets using virtually hosted websites. I have spent a lot of time gathering several resources in order to get this to work. Many portions of these resources have been deprecated and required a few workarounds. It is my intention that this tutorial will help anyone that has attempted to install such a system without success."

Wine 0.9.9 Released

Submitted by Dylan 2006-03-05 Windows 26 Comments

This is release 0.9.9 of Wine, a free implementation of Windows on UNIX. New features include better web browser support, recursive directory change notifications, debugger improvements, and lots of other bug fixes and under-the-hood improvements.

Submitted by misha 2006-03-04 Oracle and SUN 72 Comments

Sun's CEO Scott McNealy has published an open letter to HP, proposing a merger of their respective UNIX platforms. In the past, Sun's top execs have been highly critical of HP-UX's future. Sun's president Jonathan Schwartz has repeatedly referred to the 'demise' and its troubled commitment to Intel's Itanium chip. Now, it seems, they've hit on a new idea. "We propose an alternative," writes McNealy in the letter, "that Sun and HP commit to converge HP-UX with Sun's flagship volume UNIX, Solaris 10.'

Submitted by Tyr. 2006-03-04 Windows 119 Comments

A Microsoft developer and cryptographer responded in his blog to a news story by the BBC about the problems strong encryption built into Vista might cause for law enforcement. "Over my dead body," he said, regarding the possibilty of including a law-enforced backdoor in Vista.

FUDcon 2006 Presentations Online

Submitted by anonymous 2006-03-04 Fedora Core 5 Comments

The presentations and reports from the Fedora users and developers conference, FUDCon, are available. Christopher Blizzard, Red Hat desktop team leader, talked about the future of the Linux desktop and current gaps and Greg Dek, Fedora community relationships manager, and several others talked about Fedora in India.

RISC OS Roadshow Goes East

Submitted by Harry Decker 2006-03-04 RISC OS 4 Comments

Christmas last year saw RISCOS Ltd embark on a road show tour of the UK to bring one day shows to Manchester, London, and Birmingham. The fun continues with the RISC OS Roadshow going Dutch at the Hotel Mercure in Nieuwegein, Netherlands. The date is Saturday 17th June, 10:00-17:00 local time.

Get to Know Firebird in 2 Minutes

Submitted by Carlos H. Cantu 2006-03-04 Databases 7 Comments

"If you are reading this paper, this is probably your first encounter with the Firebird RDBMS. This paper will present to you the main features of the Firebird database. At the end, I am sure you will be anxious to download its lightweight installer and try it out yourself."

Better Networking with SCTP

Submitted by anonymous 2006-03-04 Internet 6 Comments

"SCTP is a reliable, general-purpose transport layer protocol for use on IP networks. While the protocol was originally designed for telephony signaling, SCTP provided an added bonus - it solved some of the limitations of TCP while borrowing beneficial features of UDP. SCTP provides features for high availability, increased reliability, and improved security for socket initiation. This article discusses the key features of SCTP in the Linux 2.6 kernel and takes a look at the server and client source code that shows the protocol's ability to deliver multi-streaming."