"Ruby on Rails is just one facet of what makes Ruby great, just like EJB is only part of the Java enterprise platform. Andrew Glover
digs beneath the hype for a look at what Java developers can do with Ruby, all by itself. Ruby's syntax is quite different from that of the Java language, but it's amazingly easy to pick up. Moreover, some things are just plain easier to do in Ruby than they are in the Java language."
Submitted by anonymous
2005-12-24
GTK+
"
This article, the first in a three-part series, introduces you to the world of GTK+. It explains what GTK+ is, why you should consider using it, and the benefits it provides. Together with the rest of the series, this installment provides enough introductory information that, if you decide to use GTK+ in your own projects, you'll know where to look for further materials."
As here in Europe Christmas eve has already begun, we, the OSNews team, both editors and site maintainers, would like to wish all of our readers a very merry Christmas. May everyone be with the ones they love-- no matter one's nationality, religion, favourite operating system, favourite desktop environment, or whatever. Let us also hope the victims of the tsunami, the earthquake in Pakistan, and Gulf Coast hurricane, and all others who have suffered this year, have found comfort. Let's have a moment of silence on the 26th for them. Merry Christmas, people (and anyone who dares to sing "Last Christmas" in the comments gets banned for a week) !
Fans of the classic computer game Ultima V (from the c64/Apple][e era) have re-created the game, using modern game tech, thanks to the Dungeon Siege engine. The Ultima re-make, called Lazarus, is free for download, runs on Windows or Mac, but needs the Dungeon Siege engine (commercial software) to run. More details at the
Ultima5 Lazarus site. Update: URL fixed.
MSDN has posted a
video interview with Rob Short, the MIcrosoft VP in charge of the team that "architects the foundation of Windows Vista," and members of his team. The interview goes deep into kernel development, and they even ask the question that's on everyone's mind: "do you ever wish the registry had never been developed?"
As reported in the latest free edition of
LWN the Bluetooth Qualification Administrator has demanded that the
Linux BlueZ project take down the
Bluetooth hardware compatibility list for Linux, claiming that 'As neither of these products have been qualified using Linux it is illegal to make them available for public use'. This was apparently done at the request of a registered member of the Bluetooth SIG.
Submitted by Matthias Mauch
2005-12-23
Internet
"Welcome to the MultiOS Browser Test Website. Here you will find capabilities to test your browser. You can test CSS, Document Object Model, Graphics file formats, iFrames, JavaScript, Browser plugins, SVG-Graphic, XML and XSLT." You can do these tests in
English or in
German.
Submitted by Scott
2005-12-23
Linux
"In
this paper I will try to explain the philosophy behind the Security Enhanced Linux (SE Linux). I will however try to explain the concept with an example but to keep the length readable I will restrain myself to go into much of implementation details for e.g. commands and similar stuff."
Submitted by Christofer Popoff
2005-12-23
Linux
"
Progression Desktop allows you to transfer files and settings from Windows desktops to Linux desktops in an automated fashion. Desktop "personalities" and data are quickly moved across operating systems and applications to ensure a seamless transition to Linux. Progression Desktop moves critical data, application settings, network shares, desktop settings, directory structures and more in a predictable and repeatable fashion. Migrate Microsoft Outlook/Outlook Express to Novell Evolution, KMail, Mozilla or Thunderbird, Microsoft Internet Explorer to Mozilla, Firefox or Konqueror, Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org and more."
Submitted by Gopal Verma
2005-12-23
Opera
CoolTechZone
claims that Microsoft has bought Opera.
"In a recent conversation with one of our insiders at Microsoft, the source revealed that Microsoft has acquired Opera Software, makers of the Opera browser. The insider reported that both Microsoft and Google were trying to bid on Opera, but in the end, the software maker took the lead. At the moment, the deal is almost through with Microsoft and Opera planning on locations for the browser’s research and development centers throughout the world." Update: Opera has
officially denied the rumours (thanks to
Nemesis11).
Some five months after Google announced plans to open a product research and development center in China, and said it was appointing former Microsoft vice president Kai-Fu Lee to head the operation, the parties have
settled the matter. In a brief statement released late Thursday, Microsoft spokesman Jack Evans said the parties had entered into a private agreement that resolved all issues to their mutual satisfaction.
The Fluendo people have
fully licensed the mp3 audio codec with
redistribution rights in place, meaning that future versions of Fedora or Ubuntu will be able to support mp3 out of the box.
"In order to improve the GNU/Linux and Unix multimedia experience Fluendo announced today the immediate availability of their MP3 plug-in for the GStreamer multimedia framework. The MP3 decoder is available free of charge both for individual end users and GNU/Linux and Unix distribution makers. In addition to making their licensed binary plug-in available to the public Fluendo also released the source code to this MP3 plug-in under the very permissive MIT license allowing all kind of developers and companies access to it."
"I have already
written about configuring my FreeBSD IPsec gateway and workstations. In
this article I will show how I configured my Windows XP box to use the same gateway. You might ask why I'm writing about Windows XP on a website about FreeBSD? My terse answer is because I can. My realistic answer is because it will help people. It's something I did, with my FreeBSD gateway. I use XP on a regular basis. Use the right tool for the job. Sometimes that's XP. Sometimes it's FreeBSD."
The SCO Group's revenue
continued to fall in the fourth quarter and during fiscal 2005, as Unix sales slumped. Management, however, tried to put a positive spin on the results, released after Thursday's market close, saying that cost-cutting measures have made SCO's Unix business profitable again and adding that plenty of cash remains to continue a legal battle against IBM.
Xcode Build Settings allow you to customize your build process in an intuitive way, giving you greater control managing complex project settings.
This article shows you how.
Windows Vista will improve search functionality on a PC by letting users tag files with metadata, but those tags could cause
unwanted and embarrassing information disclosure, Gartner analysts warned.
Submitted by Ged Murphy
2005-12-22
ReactOS
"The
ReactOS Team is pleased to
announce version 0.2.9 of its operating system, designed to be binary compatible with Windows drivers and applications. This release brings improvements to the network model allowing applications such as firefox to run, significant improvements in Plug and Play support now provide a basic working model able to detect and load drivers, plus many other feature additions and bug fixes. We also now provide vmware player images on our download page. The full changelog can be found
here, and screenshots are available
here."
AnandTech has published
part II (part I discussed
here on OSNews) of their performance preview of Intel's upcoming Yonah.
"We've updated the benchmark suite considerably, including modern day games and a few professional-level applications hopefully to get a better perspective on Yonah's performance. We've also included an Athlon 64 X2 running at 2.0GHz, but with each core having a full 1MB L2 cache, making the Yonah vs. X2 comparison as close to even as possible (not mentioning the fact that AMD has twice the advantage in this round, with both a larger L1 cache and an on-die memory controller, but it should make things interesting)."
Submitted by 
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