OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Statistical programming with R

Eugenia Loli 2004-09-23 General Development 28 Comments

This series introduces you to R, a rich statistical environment, released as free software. It includes a programming language, an interactive shell, and extensive graphing capability. What's more, R comes with a spectacular collection of functions for mathematical and statistical manipulations -- with still more capabilities available in optional packages.

A Response to the Paradox of Choice

Guest post by Kevin Russo 2004-09-22 Open Source 96 Comments

This is a reaction to the Article "The Paradox of Choice" by Adam Scheinberg: I've held the position that choice is a paradox since my early childhood, and that it is not necessarily a good thing. Remove choice of religion and think of all the wars throughout history that might not have existed.

Mono 1.0.2, 1.1.1 Released

Eugenia Loli 2004-09-22 Mono 27 Comments

Along with the stable maintanance release of Mono 1.0.2, Novell released the first beta of the upcoming Mono 1.2: The Mono JIT has been ported to a new architectures: AMD64, SPARC v9, and S390. In the runtime detection, support for side-by-side execution of applications that require different runtime versions was implemented. Mono now will detect the runtime version that an application requires, and will load the appropriate mscorlib.dll and machine.config.

Review: Firefox Preview Release

Eugenia Loli 2004-09-22 Mozilla, Gecko 47 Comments

"Firefox just had its preview release last week and already has been downloaded more than a million times. I reviewed the new version, and found Firefox's simple interface gets you the information you want without distracting you with options." Read the review at NewsForge.

Create Java agents with Eclipse for Lotus Notes

Eugenia Loli 2004-09-22 Java 2 Comments

For a Notes developer who has to deliver well-written applications that provide solid Java code, Eclipse delivers debugging, refactoring, and source control. This article shows you how to take advantage of the Eclipse IDE to develop Java agents for Lotus Notes/Domino.

I, Bugzilla

Guest post by Dennis Heuer 2004-09-22 Bugs & Viruses 105 Comments

Ever used BugZilla? I'm sure you have. Frustrated? Dropped support for ever? Oh yes, I understand.

Free 96-page report details benefits of Open Source software

Submitted by do-18 2004-09-22 Open Source 32 Comments

Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC) has published a 96-page report on Open Source software and its potential benefits to business and government. This whitepaper provides an introduction to the report and its findings.

Xandros PowerTerm Edition Provides Legacy Mainframe Access

Eugenia Loli 2004-09-22 Oracle and SUN 12 Comments

Xandros, today announced the release of the Xandros Desktop Operating System (OS) PowerTerm Edition to provide secure access to mission critical applications running on legacy enterprise systems.

OpenOffice: A legal Trojan horse–but for whom?

Eugenia Loli 2004-09-22 Office 37 Comments

The Internet went all abuzz last week when a report by Todd Bishop of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer posited that Microsoft was keeping open its legal options against licensees of OpenOffice.org. Commonly known as OpenOffice, the software is a freely downloadable open source productivity suite that constitutes a significant portion of Sun's commercially offered StarOffice. It also exemplifies the threat that the open-source movement poses to Microsoft.

Q&A: Microsoft’s Linux strategist Martin Taylor, Part 2

Eugenia Loli 2004-09-21 Microsoft 49 Comments

Martin Taylor recently marked his one-year anniversary as Microsoft Corp.'s chief Linux strategist. Taylor, whose official title is general manager of platform strategy, recently spoke with Computerworld about his first year in that job. This is Part 2 of the interview. Part 1 is also available online.

Humble Pie for Sun

Eugenia Loli 2004-09-21 Oracle and SUN 32 Comments

Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's president, says the company has mended its ways since the days when "we didn't listen" to customers. Can the Silicon Valley luminary brighten up its prospects?

Xbox team joins Virtual PC development

Eugenia Loli 2004-09-21 Microsoft 27 Comments

Microsoft's Xbox team has been assigned to the development of Virtual PC's native graphics card support, sources tell AppleInsider.

Intel C++ Compiler 8.1 Released

Eugenia Loli 2004-09-21 Intel 10 Comments

The Intel C++ Compiler is a full fledged C/ C++ compiler and debugger suite. This 8.1 release features support for the new Intel Extended Memory 64 technology and integration with Eclipse IDE.

GCC Symbol Visibility Patch

Submitted by Wouter van Kleunen 2004-09-21 General Development 17 Comments

This patch hides most of the ELF symbols which would have previously (and unnecessarily) been public.

Fink 0.7.1 Released

Submitted by David Höhn 2004-09-21 macOS 12 Comments

This release has 1650 binary packages available now. This includes binaries for KDE 3.1.4 and GNOME 2.4. The package manager has been improved and now includes a versatile system for handling variants. More documentation has been added featuring translations into Japanese, French, and Simpl. Chinese.

Novell Turns Up the Volume for Mono 2

Submitted by spank_da_monkey 2004-09-21 Mono 43 Comments

"Novell has lifted the lid on enhancements integrated into the next major release of Mono, its development platform for enabling Microsoft .Net applications to run unchanged on Linux. The forthcoming version, due to ship next March, will implement a native Visual Basic (VB.Net) compiler and Windows Forms (WinForms)." Read more at vnunet.com.

Backing up your Linux Desktop with rsync

Eugenia Loli 2004-09-21 Linux 30 Comments

Rsync is a command line utility traditionally used in synchronizing files between two computers, but rsync can also be used as an effective backup tool. This article explain how to use rsync to backup your computer to a drive attached to your system. You can use a removable drive, such as an external USB hard drive, so that you can store the backups in a safe place away from your working environment.

Preview: Fedora Core 3 Test 2

Guest post by Jeremy LaCroix 2004-09-21 Fedora Core 66 Comments

Fedora Core 3 Test2 was released today, and so here's a chance to preview the software. I've been eager to try out Gnome 2.8 and KDE 3.3, so I tried to install them on my Core 2 box, which resulted in a severe package dependency crisis, so since Test 2 was released today I figured I would just reformat and install it for kicks, and to get my KDE 3.3. Screenshots from FC3-T2 can be found here.

Microsoft Research: User Interface Prototypes

Eugenia Loli 2004-09-21 Microsoft 16 Comments

From ActiveWin: Daniel C. Robbins is a 3D User Interface Designer working at Microsoft Research. His current projects include visual presentation of large information spaces and scenarios for intelligent environments. View and experience research prototypes that span back to the 1990s, yet may give a glimpse of what's in store for future Microsoft products.

Sun Begins pay-as-you-go Supercomputing; Sun to buy MontaVista?

Eugenia Loli 2004-09-21 Oracle and SUN 13 Comments

Sun Microsystems plans to announce a plan Tuesday to let customers rent supercomputing power from the company's data centers, paying for exactly as much muscle as they need. Also, Sun is in talks to purchase a profitable Linux distributor, sources have told internetnews.com. Sources close to the discussions said they expected that company to be embedded Linux player MontaVista, but cautioned that the deal wasn't finalized and talks could still break down.