OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

An Open Letter To The Open Source Community

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-04 Open Source 61 Comments

The variety of open source offerings - from application servers and databases to security and content management - illustrate the community's commitment to meet business needs. We're ready to take the next step. But, first, there are a few things we'd like to see from you, the open source community, before free software takes on a higher profile in big IT departments.

Longhorn Beta 1: Late July

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-04 Windows 29 Comments

NeoWin reports that Longhorn Beta 1, after missing the internal date of June 30th, now is scheduled to be released late July. Most Longhorn product groups have already delivered their beta 1 code.

Lycoris: Looking Forward, Looking Back

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-04 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 22 Comments

While none of this appears to be revolutionary now, the fact remains that Lycoris was the first to perfect the "desktop Linux" formula. Mandrakesoft, SUSE, Caldera and even please-use-windows Red Hat helped Linux greatly on its journey toward the consumer desktop, but it was Lycoris who perfected the formula for the first time."

Gates: Internet Needs Improvements

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-04 Internet 29 Comments

Web services standards and the emergence of service-oriented architectures are showing us the direction the Internet needs to move in, according to the Microsoft chairman.

Photoshop: A History In Pictures

Submitted by Bernt 2005-07-04 Graphics 35 Comments

GUIdebook has an interesting set of screenshots and information about Photoshop. It lists screenshots of various windows and dialogs of all the versions released in the past, for Mac and Windows. Definitely worth a look.

Laptop Theft: An Insider’s Guide To Prevention

Submitted by LogError 2005-07-04 Privacy, Security 8 Comments

Protecting against laptop and data theft would appear to be relatively easy, but, in a business sense, is rarely so. This article provides some basic steps for employees to follow in order to protect laptops.

Cleaning Up With AJAX

Submitted by Fatankles 2005-07-04 General Development 16 Comments

AJAX or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML seems to be all the rage at the moment. Builder has published a handy primer to get started using AJAX today.

Easy File Save And File Load Mechanism To Your C++ Program

Submitted by Eugenia 2005-07-04 General Development 20 Comments

Why waste your time figuring out an algorithm for storing things in a file? And why spend time debugging the code? Let the Boost library do it for you. Saving your data to your own custom-made file formats is easy with the help of the Boost serialization templates. Jeff Cogswell shows you how to save the data and read it back in with ease.

Anatomy Of A Hack—The Rise And Fall Of Your Network

Submitted by Eugenia 2005-07-04 Internet 15 Comments

There are myriad ways that a network can be compromised, and an administrator needs to be aware of them all (and anticipate new ways coming around the corner). This chapter will not to show how to attack something, but show how attackers take advantage of your mistakes. This will enable you to protect your network by avoiding the pitfalls attackers use.

Harvesting and Reusing Idle Compute Cycles

Eugenia Loli 2005-07-03 Hardware 11 Comments

More on the University of Texas grid project's mission to integrate numerous, diverse resources into a comprehensive campus cyber-infrastructure for research and education. This article examines the idea of harvesting unused cycles from compute resources to provide this aggregate power for compute-intensive work.

Dual Core Linux Performance: Two Penguins Are Better Than One

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-03 Linux 29 Comments

With all of the attention on dual core processors lately, it has been real easy to overlook the one application that might benefit more from multiple cores than any other; Linux. OK, so technically Linux isn't an application, but the kernel has supported SMP for nine years almost to the date. But does any of this translate to great desktop performance for dual core processors?

Pegasos I G3 To Pegasos II G4 Upgrade Program

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-03 Morphos 28 Comments

The Pegasos I G3 to Pegasos II G4 Upgrade Program is now active. Original purchasers of Pegasos I motherboards can now trade-in for the Pegasos II with G4 processor for a low price of €200 - or opt to keep their original system for €300.

Introduction to the Spring Framework

Submitted by anonymous 2005-07-02 General Development 18 Comments

This article gives an introduction to the Spring framework, including Spring aspect-oriented programming (AOP) and the Inversion of Control (IOC) container. It provides an example to inject dependencies, or services, into a working credit card account application rather than having to build them in from the ground up.

The Linux Desktop Distribution Of The Future

Thom Holwerda 2005-07-02 Linux 183 Comments

Despite the constant predictions of "This year will be the year of the Linux desktop", such predictions have yet to become reality. While the reasons for this are numerous, they all tend to boil down to Linux being built as a server and workstation OS rather than a home system. This article will focus on how a distribution might be designed to not only make Linux a competitive desktop solution, but to propel it into a leader in the Desktop market.

Sweden Bans File-Sharing

Andrew Youll 2005-07-02 Legal 92 Comments

Sweden has outlawed the downloading of copyrighted movies, games and music in an attempt to curb rampant piracy. About 10% of Swedes freely swap music, games and films on their computers, one of the highest rates in the world.With no law banning file-sharing, Sweden had become a hotbed of piracy where films, music and software were readily swapped.

Sun Opens Door To Windows

Andrew Youll 2005-07-02 Oracle and SUN 53 Comments

Sun Microsystems may be warming up to the idea of selling Microsoft's Windows operating system on its servers. Tom Goguen, vice president of operating platform marketing for Sun, said this week that while Sun currently has no definite plan to strike a deal with Microsoft to sell Windows, the vendor will consider it if customers and partners think it's a good idea.