Love-him-hate-him Paul Thurrot has released a four part in-depth review of Vista's December CTP.
"I think people are going to be surprised by how good the Windows Vista December 2005 Community Technical Preview (CTP, or build 5270) really is. After years of painful delays and an uncertain couple of months since the last CTP, Microsoft shipped a near-feature-complete Vista build to testers this week, and the prognosis is extremely positive. From what I can see, Vista has turned the corner. The December CTP is an exciting release, stable and full of new features. In this review, I'll examine those new features, and the features that have changed since the previous CTP, build 5231" Part
1 |
2 |
3 |
4.
Representatives at browser maker Opera denied that the company is in the process of being sold to either Google or Microsoft, and said the Norwegian firm has no other acquisition plans in the works. Opera markets an eponymous desktop Web browser as well as several mobile browser technologies. A number of published reports appeared early Friday that implied that industry giants
Microsoft and Google could be engaged in a bidding war over Opera. The company called those stories
mere rumors.
"It's finally
arrived - the first Mac Mini clone. Our review system was supplied by Evesham, but the barebone chassis is manufactured by AOpen and has been known as the 'Pandora'. Sadly this catchy name is gone - AOpen has re-named it the Mini PC, which is just plain boring. Anyhow, name aside, this is a really cool-looking little machine - it arguably looks even better than the Mac Mini, mainly due to its aluminium case."
"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.
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