OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Interview: Bill Gates on Google

Submitted by Blackhouse 2005-09-14 Microsoft 31 Comments

Google has emerged as the poster child for a new wave of applications assembled from the piece-parts of several Web sites. No Windows necessary. Microsoft has its own ideas, of course. Gates sat down with CNET to talk about competitors old and new, why software hasn't fulfilled promises and the mixed blessing of controlling 90 percent of the world's PCs.

Interview with Rickford Grant, Author of “Linux Made Easy”

Submitted by Swank1 2005-09-14 Linux 17 Comments

An interview was recently done with Rickford Grant, the author of "Linux for Non-Geeks" and the new "Linux Made Easy". Grant is outspoken in his opinions and offers a number of unique views on topics as diverse as Windows Vista, desktop Linux, GNOME vs. KDE, and lots more. Part of the interview is spent talking about his new book but the bulk of the interview is a discussion of his views on pertinent topics and news.

Submitted by kellym 2005-09-14 Legal 30 Comments

The Electronic Frontier Foundation last week won the right to unseal court documents related to Apple's efforts to subpoena the sources of online journalists. The documents, previously sealed by the Court and unavailable to the journalists and their attorneys, show that Apple moved to subpoena the reporters' sources before conducting a thorough investigation within the company.

The ATX Case and Power Supply

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-14 Hardware 12 Comments

The recent Blade.org announcement heralds that IBM and Intel are looking to standardize blade hardware designs, allowing blade systems from multiple vendors to work together. It's no surprise that Intel is interested in this -- its own ATX standard has been a massive success. This article looks at the history of ATX and some of the lessons learned about power supply and chassis standardization.

Nemerle 0.9.0 released

Submitted by Michał Moskal 2005-09-14 .NET 50 Comments

A new major version of Nemerle language was released. Nemerle features a very high level .NET language with functional programming support. This version brings full support to .NET 2.0 generics and a bunch of other things. After the release of C# 3.0 spec preview it might be interesting to see how could next generation of .NET languages look like.

Sun’s Sense of Humor

Adam Scheinberg 2005-09-14 Humor 54 Comments

Never let it be said that Sun Microsystems, who are promoting their new Opteron-based "Galaxy" server line, are subtle. A recent post to the Sun website displays several "rejected" ads. Says the website, "At Sun, we're the radical engineers that build 'ass-whoopin' technology - we're not Miss Manners and we never want to be." Ads that did make the cut were revealed as well.

SkyOS Gets System-Wide Mouse Gestures

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-14 SkyOS 33 Comments

Support for mouse gesture recognition has been implemented. By using the System Manager "Gesture" plugin you can add, remove and configure your own mouse gestures. Whenever SkyOS recognizes a conigured mouse gesture, the desired action is performed. You can select from many pre-configured actions like: maximize/minimize window, close application, launch application, etc. The entire gesture recognition is fully intergrated into SkyOS/SkyGI as a service application which can easily be enabled/disabled. The obligatory screenshot.

Apple Bolsters Mac OS X for Intel Development Efforts

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-14 macOS 16 Comments

The new Developer Transition Resource Center is targeted at developers who have been tasked with moving their applications to Apple's forthcoming Intel-based Macs, scheduled for release in 2006. The site ties together topics, resources and tutorials, some of which were previously available on other parts of Apple's site, including QuickTime archives of WWDC sessions. In addition, Apple today updated its Xserve RAID storage system, a 3U high-availability, rack storage system to deliver a massive 7 terabytes of storage capacity at an aggressive price of just $1.86 per GB.

Avalon for Mac But Not Yet for Linux

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-14 Microsoft 56 Comments

"Another interesting announcement here at PDC is that Microsoft is creating a subset of their cool, fancy pants UI layer (formerly code-named Avalon, now WPF) on other platforms, including the Mac! In fact, one of the demos involved showing vector graphics rendered in Safari using a Microsoft plug-in."

Submitted by Saad 2005-09-14 Apple 6 Comments

Andy Hertzfeld is responsible for much of the development for the Macintosh in the early eighties. Since then, he's worked at several technology start ups, including General Magic and Eazell. Most recently, he signed on with Google. Read an interview with Andy about the future of the personal computer and network here.

Submitted by DigitalDame 2005-09-13 Windows 89 Comments

This week, Microsoft is handing out Vista build 5219 at its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles. PC Magazine was able to get their hands on it, trying out a number of new features and observing some slick-looking interface enhancements, such as true 3D windows views (with properly skewed video), thumbnail views for desktop apps, and a semi-transparent Taskbar. Take the guided tour to witness some of these new features in build 5219.

Vista’s Sidebar, Gadgets Unveiled; MS Releases Max, Monad Beta 2

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-13 Windows 73 Comments

Lots of news from the first few hours of the PDC. First off, in the first CTP of Vista, the sidebar has been revived. "The Sidebar will be populated with "gadgets" and will feature an open platform for developers to create their own mini-applications. Sidebar gadgets can be dragged onto the desktop, and interact with standard Windows applications." Also, "Microsoft Max lets you make lists of your photos and turn them into beautiful slide shows to share with your family and friends. Max is the codename for Microsoft's flagship application based on WinFX and Microsoft's new user experience." Images from the PDC here, and you can watch Bill Gates' keynote here. Also, MS released beta 2 of Monad.

Microsoft Expands Vista Testing, Releases CTP

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-13 Windows 19 Comments

The company is launching a "community technology preview" program for Vista, offering interim updates of the operating system in between its official beta releases. Microsoft has increasingly been using such previews as a way to offer more frequent test builds to developers. The first CTP was released today at the PDC. Elsewhere, ActiveWin has obtained screenshots of this latest Vista pre-release.

Screenshots of Office 12

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-13 Office 126 Comments

Screenshots of Office 12 have been published. You'll be amazed (for better or worse, your call). "As you can see, Microsoft is trying to do away with the 'legacy' menu bar. In newer Vista builds the menu bar is turned off by default (although it can be reactivated temporarily by pressing alt). In Office 12, the menus have been replaced with tab-like buttons. The only 'legacy' menu item that remains is the file menu, but it has completely been redesigned. The file menu now looks like the Windows XP start menu and can be customized as well." You can find more information and shots on Microsoft's website.

Genesi Announces PowerPC-Based Workstation for Blastware

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-13 Solaris 19 Comments

After providing Blastwave many of its PPC-based Open Desktop Workstations to speed up the port of OpenSolaris to PPC, Genesi has announced to donate $50 to Blastwave for each ODW sold, in order to keep the Blastwave community from shutting down.

Interview: Hans Reiser

Submitted by Martin McGreal 2005-09-13 General Development 45 Comments

In this interview, Hans discusses his background and how he came to create Namesys and Reiserfs. He looks back at Reiser3, describing the advantages it had over other filesystems when it was released and its current state. He then explores the many improvements in Reiser4, describing the plugin architecture and its exciting potential for future semantic enhancements.

Mac: Expensive or Cheap?

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-13 Apple 195 Comments

Some people say Macs are too expensive. Some say they aren't. I say they've got it all wrong. Read on to understand how I came to this conclusion.

PC-BSD 0.8 Beta Released

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-13 PC-BSD 27 Comments

"PC-BSD version 0.8 is now available! A lot of effort went into improving this version, and many thanks is due to all the people who have tested and provided valuable feedback on our support forum. This version now adds the Online Update Manager, along with many other fixes and enhancements. For a complete list of changes, please refer to the changelog." Release notes are here, download locations here. The various documents disagree with one another on whether or not this is the final or beta release.

Microsoft Taps Canon to Bring Vista Into color

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-13 Windows 12 Comments

Microsoft is expected to announce Tuesday that it has partnered with Canon to include an all-new color matching system as part of the new operating system. The Windows Color System is designed, among other things, to help make digital photo prints that better match the images that appear on the screen.

The Curse of Xanadu

Thom Holwerda 2005-09-13 Office 12 Comments

"It was the most radical computer dream of the hacker era. Ted Nelson's Xanadu project was supposed to be the universal, democratic hypertext library that would help human life evolve into an entirely new form. Instead, it sucked Nelson and his intrepid band of true believers into what became the longest-running vaporware project in the history of computing - a 30-year saga of rabid prototyping and heart-slashing despair. The amazing epic tragedy." Please note that this is an older article, from 1995, and that it is 27 pages long.