Submitted by Guide for New Notebook Technologies in 2006
Submitted by
"In this article, I'm going to be dealing in hard facts, coupled with a little bit of conjecture and speculation as to the future of mobile computing in 2006. When we look back on 2005 we can see it as primarily a year of transition. Since the debut of Intel's Centrino platform, coupled with ATI's release of the Mobility Radeon 9600, notebooks have been maturing as a competitive computing platform at an alarming rate. While I don't really think 2005 will be remembered necessarily as a banner year in new technologies, I think it was a strong transitional period. Mobile technology is maturing at an alarming rate; in 2006, we're going to see some major milestones."
Video of iMac Core Duo vs. iMac G5 Booting
In this video two iMacs with equal 512 MB RAM are booted at the same time. One is a 2.1 Ghz G5, one is a 2.0Ghz Intel Core Duo. The Intel is on the left, the G5 is on the right. Some users said that the G5 iMac might have a problem for booting so slowly but others say that it's a normal "first time" boot.
Ubuntu Dapper Drake Flight CD3 Released
Ubuntu Dapper Drake Flight CD3 has been released. I haven't received the email on ubuntu-devel yet, but the .iso files appear to be up (Ubuntu | Kubuntu). Improvements in this release include an updated installer CD boot splash, X11R7, GNOME 2.13.4, improved and simplified menus, new default desktop panel configuration, some new applications such as XChat-GNOME, a faster live CD, live CD persistence, and more. In addition to software improvements, Launchpad is now officially open for business for all bug tracking.
GPL 3: First Draft Available
The Free Software Foundation has published the first draft of the GPL v3, the successor to the most popular open source license. The rationale behind some of the changes are here, while comments are here. Danese Cooper of OSI has posted her comments too. Update: Stallman: "We've partly removed the inconveniences of preventing a user from combining code from various free software packages." More here.
Fedora Core 5 Test 2 Released
Fedora Core 5 Test 2 has been released. "The Fedora Project announces the second release of the Fedora Core 5 development cycle, available for the i386, x86_64, and PPC/PPC64 architectures." Release notes are here, downloads here. MadPenguin has a first look. Update: Screenshots.
UWIN – Unix for Windows
"UWIN or Unix for WINdows, is developed and released by AT&T Laboratories and David Korn - the creator of Korn shell. UWin basically consists of a set of tools and libraries which helps application developers compile and run Unix applications natively on windows. The tools include a complete shell (Korn Shell) for Windows which is bundled with all the command line tools you find in Linux/Unix."
Patch for WMF Flaw in Vista Released
Submitted by
Microsoft has shipped the first critical security update for Windows Vista, the next version of its flagship operating system. Over the weekend, the company released patches for beta testers running the Windows Vista December CTP and Windows Vista Beta 1, and warned that the new operating system was vulnerable to a remote code execution flaw in the Graphics Rendering Engine.
Interview: Mark Spencer of Asterisk
"Six years ago, Mark Spencer started his own Linux technical support business. Unlike other tech startups at the time, he spent his money frugally. Spencer had to; he didn't even have enough to pay for an office PBX system, which can cost up to several thousands of dollars. 'I had about $4000 to start it out with, and I wasn't about to buy a phone system, so I figured I'd just make one,' he says."
Quantities/Units Support for Java (JSR-275)
The latest units/quantities packages (for the upcoming JScience 3.0) has been submitted to the JSR-275 expert group for review. It provides compile time check of quantities consistency through class parameterization. You can browse the proposed API here (two new packages javax.quantities and javax.units). The JScience pre-release implementation is available here: sources, binaries.
Taiwanese Parliament Votes Against Microsoft
Taiwan's parliament has voted to end its dependence on Microsoft software, demanding that the government reduce purchases from the software giant by 25 percent this year. The resolution, passed on Friday, is an attempt by the island's law-making body to end the near monopoly Microsoft has with local government offices, a legislative aide said.
Jobs Suggests Dell Should Eat His Words
When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, Micheal Dell was asked what he would do to fix Apple. Dell replied: "What would I do? I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." Following Friday's news that Apple had surpassed Dell's value of $71.97 billion, Jobs wrote an email to his staff: "Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today." Who said capitalism is humourless?
MS Working With Apple on Future of VPC
Following this week's five-year commitment to the Mac platform, Microsoft said it is working with Apple to bring Virtual PC to the new Intel-architecture, although it didn't provide details about the release date. The company, however, said that it would not run under Rosetta, Apple's emulation environment that allows older PowerPC programs to run on Intel-based Macs. The company said that it would wait on receipt of the new shipping machines to better evaluate Virtual PC for Intel-Macs as well the final release date of Mac Office and Messenger for Intel-Macs; however, the company this week said it has dropped all development of Windows Media Player for the Mac.
GNU Classpath 0.20 Released
GNU Classpath 0.20 has been released. "New StAX pull parser and SAX-over-StAX driver. Full XMLEncoder implementation. The packages javax.sound.sampled, javax.print.attribute and javax.print.event have been implemented. Lots of new datatransfer, print, swing and swing.text work. Performance improvements in the painting/layout mechanism. Additional 1.5 support, including (separate) generic branch release. SecurityManager cleanups and start of review of all Permission checks. Buildable on cygwin. Fully buildable as 'in-workspace' library-plus-vm inside (native) Eclipse. Real world Free Swing and CORBA example added." There is also a Roadmap paper available.
Firefox for Intel Macs Planned for March
The Mozilla Corporation has set a March launch date for a version of its Firefox Web browser that will run on Apple's Intel version of Mac OS X. "We are targeting the official release of Firefox for Intel Mac OS X in late March with the Firefox 1.5.0.2 update," Mozilla software engineer Josh Aas told ZDNet. Demand for the browser on Apple's new CPU platform is expected to rocket as the PC vendor last week started selling the first Macs based on CPUs from Intel. However, an unofficial build can be found here.
Nokia 770 Linux Internet Tablet Review
I just published a review of the Nokia 770 Linux-based internet tablet over at TuxTops.com. For the past week I got to fully test the hardware and software supplied and then evaluate the strongs and weak points of the product.
Howto: Booting From USB
"Booting a computer from your USB flash drive may seem like a daunting task, but it is actually quite easy. With the right equipment and some basic knowledge this very useful technique can be taken advantage of in all sorts of different circumstances. This article goes over booting your Windows or Linux system from USB as well as booting directly into Linux and a few other details of the process."
Newton on the Sharp Zaurus
As reported by Engadget, Apple Newton enthusiasts have the Einstein core running on a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 PDA. The port is still slow but the developers are hopeful to fully optimize it soon.
Desktop Linux: If We Build It, Will They Come?
"Linux has made major inroads on servers and in data centers running both open-source and proprietary applications on millions of computers worldwide. We've recently seen the rise of Linux on mobile devices. But the Linux desktop remains elusive. We know it's out there, but it only now seems to be approaching the tipping point."
Become Your Own Web Host in 75 Steps
"One of the biggest issues involved with becoming a web publisher is the question of hosting. With an internet clogged with false hosting review sites, hosting companies trying to rip you off, and hosting companies run by 14 year olds, the majority of web publishers are at the mercy of random chance when it comes to finding a quality host. To solve this huge problem and to grant freedom to all, we have come up with 75 extremely specific steps that will get you up and running with a *nix box (running FreeBSD), along with the most recent versions of Apache, Perl, PHP, and MySQL."