OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Ohio LinuxFest 2005: A Whole Lot of Linux in One Day

Submitted by SilentBob4 2005-10-11 Linux 2 Comments

"The third annual LinuxFest was held on Saturday, October 1 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. It's the first time I attended this one day conference so I didn't know what to expect. Overall, I found it to be an interesting and generally well-planned affair with a good balance of informative presentations, relevant vendor displays, and some general Linux geek fun."

Understanding Xcode Projects

Submitted by Hakime Seddik 2005-10-11 macOS 5 Comments

"Xcode is a powerful professional tool that allows you to perform the most common software development tasks simply, quickly, and in a way that should be familiar. Its capabilities, however, are much more powerful than what is needed to build just a single type of application. Xcode is designed to let you build any kind of software product you can dream of. From Cocoa and Carbon applications to kernel extensions and Spotlight importers, Xcode is up to the task."

Java Mustang Aesthetics Preview

Submitted by Frank Schoep 2005-10-11 Java 37 Comments

Frank Schoep recently wrote this article on the rendering improvements of Swing applications in the upcoming Mustang version of Java.

Sharp Zaurus SL-C3100 Review

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-10 Wireless 21 Comments

Mobile-review reviews a great product, the Sharp Zaurus SL-C3100, which only comes short on its lack of integrated WiFi & Bluetooth. Update: Another Zaurus review.

Google Sun (Office) Not a Threat, Says MS

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-10 Microsoft 96 Comments

The Microsoft exec in charge of Office has dismissed last week's tie-up between Sun and Google as allusion rather than substance. "That announcement didn't have anything," Chris Capossela, corporate vice president Information Worker Product Management Group of Microsoft told a crowd of reporters last week. "It had something about a toolbar and Java Runtime, and it alluded to a potential thing some time in the future. OpenOffice isn’t hard to get, just go to their website and download the software."

Quad-Processor Intel Mac?

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-10 Apple 65 Comments

You decide over the realness of this: "Without giving much details, those captures shows MacOSX x86 running on a 4 physical CPU-based MacIntel with Hyperthreading enable. One can clearly see 4 physical processors recognized while 8 logical processors are recorded by the CPU monitor."

Consortium Launched To Support OpenDocument

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-10 Office 22 Comments

The Open Document Fellowship was launched to add momentum to what appears to be a growing movement to support the open standard for the production, storage and dissemination of documents.

GNOME To Fish in Embedded Linux Pond

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-10 Gnome 54 Comments

GNOME developers are making various changes to the open source desktop environment that should make it more suitable for embedded environments. Future versions of GNOME will include improved compatibility with styluses and performance enhancements, according to GNOME Foundation director Murray Cumming on Friday. This will include a focus on the GTK+, a toolkit used by GNOME to create graphical user interfaces.

Will VB 9 Win Over the VB 6 Faithful?

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-10 Microsoft 37 Comments

Microsoft's phase-out of Visual Basic 6 and move to Visual Basic .Net set up an uproar in the ranks of some of Microsoft's most loyal developers. Earlier this year, several thousand developers, including many Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals), signed a petition calling for Microsoft to continue to support VB6. However, enhancements in the VB platform stand to bring some of those people back.

Red Hat CEO Unmoved by Linux Consolidation

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-10 Red Hat 15 Comments

There are over 300 distributions listed on DistroWatch.com, but Red Hat's CEO, Matthew Szulik, maintained that choice and specialization outweighed any advantage that might be gained by focusing customer attention on a smaller number of offerings.

Overview of XML in Firefox 1.5

Submitted by anonymous 2005-10-10 Mozilla, Gecko 7 Comments

Firefox is a relatively new Web browser and currently the most popular browser built on the Mozilla platform. Users like the security and convenience features it offers. Developers like the Firefox attention to standards compliance, inherited from its Mozilla roots. The most recent version, Firefox 1.5 (currently in beta), comes with many features for XML developers.

Tango-Project and BetterDesktop Announced

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-10 Wayland 124 Comments

Tango is a project to create a new icon theme for all f.d.o-compatible DEs, using a standard style guide. Regarding the BetterDesktop, there are over 200 usability test videos in ogg and mpeg format.

Microsoft Takes Stand on ‘Virtual’ Licensing

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-10 Microsoft 20 Comments

Microsoft is taking a stand on an emerging tech that threatens to reshape software pricing models.

When C is the Best?

Submitted by Shlomi Fish 2005-10-10 General Development 66 Comments

Shlomi Fish has written a new essay titled "When C is the Best? (Tool for the Job)". Its theme is giving several reasons (besides high speed and low memory consumption) why some code should still be written in C.

Sony Ericsson Announces P990 Smartphone

Eugenia Loli 2005-10-10 Wireless 35 Comments

This phone could be placed by some as the most advanced smartphone to date (only some new, unreleased yet, PocketPC-phones come close in terms of features): Sony Ericsson announced the P990, based on Symbian 9.1. It supports UMTS, GSM/GPRS/3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, IrDA and it has an FM radio. It sports a 2.8" QVGA touchscreen, 80 MBs free storage, a 64 MB MemoryStickPRODuo (expandable to 4 GB), Blackberry Push Email, a QWERTY keyboard, and two cameras: a 2 MP on the back and a VGA on the front. For web browser it uses Opera 8.x.

Mass. Plan to Dump MS Office for OpenDocument a ‘Matter of Control’

Submitted by Mark Brunelli 2005-10-10 Office 25 Comments

Massachusetts' plan to standardize desktop applications on OpenDocument, an open standard not supported by Microsoft Office, essentially comes down to a matter of control, according Stephen O'Grady. O'Grady has been following the story closely and explains that as a sovereign entity, Massachusetts feels the need to be in complete control of its desktop technology, rather than relying on a single company for its office productivity needs.

Review: Windows Vista Build 5219; New Vista Build Leaked

Submitted by Sujhata Shah 2005-10-10 Windows 47 Comments

"Vista Beta 2 is scheduled to launch sometime in November. While that might be a fair bit ahead in time, there are a number of new features that have already been added to Windows Vista since the Beta 1 build. In this article, we will briefly discuss the integration in Windows Vista and where Microsoft is headed in its journey towards releasing its much-delayed OS." In the meantime, a new Vista build has been leaked to the internet. Screenshots included.

Mercury Announces Dual-Cell Blade Server

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-10 Hardware 10 Comments

STI (Sony-IBM-Toshiba) has said all along that they plan to see Cell commercialized far beyond the upcoming PS3, so it was no surprise when Mercury Computer Systems announced back in June that they planned to use the Cell in unspecified aerospace, defense, and medical imaging applications. Today, Mercury unveiled the first fruits of those plans, in the form of a dual-Cell blade server.

CLI Magic: CheckInstall

Thom Holwerda 2005-10-10 Linux 19 Comments

"The magic in CheckInstall is that it learns everything your new app or package will add to your system, and then creates a binary installable package geared to the package manager you use, whether that be Slackware, RPM, or Debian. Optionally, it will also install the newly created package. But whether you install then or later, when the time comes that you want to remove the package from your system, all you need to do is run the appropriate command for your package manager."

Core Data as a Cheap Database

Submitted by Hakime Seddik 2005-10-10 macOS 5 Comments

"Is there any trivial way to use Core Data? What is the most lightweight way to have a database on a Mac? If I wanted to write an application that needed db capabilities, what options do I have that don't require the user to install mysql and set it up on their own? Core Data is easy enough for non-programmers to handle a basic database with."