OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Building The Next Generation, Part 4: Usability

Guest post by Nicholas Blachford 2004-08-11 Editorial 47 Comments

Computers are complex systems but it's a mistake to assume they need to be complex to use. However, usability is not as easy as it may first seem. It is a different discipline from software development lacking the strict logic or having a "right way". There are only differing requirements and differing collections of guidelines. Making things easy is difficult.

X.Org begins beta testing for X11R6.8 release

Submitted by Alan Coopersmith 2004-08-11 Wayland 55 Comments

The X.Org Foundation announced today that it has begun tagging pre-release builds for the X11R6.8 release of the Xorg server & X Window System and asked for volunteers to start building and testing them. The Release Plan and Status web page lists the new features and changes included in this release, and updates on bugs found in testing so far.

Analyst: Microsoft Rules Another Market With Small Biz Server

Submitted by OSNews Witness 2004-08-11 Windows 37 Comments

Microsoft's Small Business Server is a remarkable hit, said a research firm Monday as it released the results of a survey that claimed an astounding 86 percent of small- and mid-sized businesses either use the server bundle or are planning to deploy it.

Getting On-line Anywhere with Bluetooth and GPRS

Eugenia Loli 2004-08-10 Wireless 18 Comments

Networking Sure, you can get on-line from a hot-spot Internet cafe or conference center. But when you're in a cold spot and want your mail anyway, try making a connection through your GSM mobile phone—no cables required.

OpenBSD-current Goes 3.6-beta

Eugenia Loli 2004-08-10 OpenBSD 25 Comments

UnDeadly notes that the CVS' log message now reads: "move to 3.6-beta".

Mono Project 1.0.1 Released

Eugenia Loli 2004-08-10 Mono 48 Comments

Mono Project is an Open Source implementation of the various ECMA and .NET framework technologies for Unix, MacOS X, and Windows. This version, 1.0.1, is a bugfix release.

Review of How Not to Program in C++

Guest post by Corey Holcomb-Hockin 2004-08-10 General Development 37 Comments

I first started programming C in high school. Most of what I learned was from a book I bought myself. The class itself wasn't very good. The book I had on C didn't teach me everything a beginning programmer needs to know.

OpenGL 2.0 launched with built-in shader language

Eugenia Loli 2004-08-10 3D 13 Comments

OpenGL 2.0 was formally launched today and with it the completion of the graphics API's Shading Language specification for vertex- and pixel-shader programming. OpenGL Shading Language was approved by the OpenGL Architecture Review Board (ARB) in June 2003 as an extension to OpenGL 1.4, which has since been updated to version 1.5.

Review: UnixWare 7.1.4 is suitable for basic server duty

Eugenia Loli 2004-08-10 SCO 27 Comments

UnixWare 7.1.4 is the latest in a long line of Unix releases from The SCO Group. It is a stable and mature Unix, with a variety of basic servers included, such as the Apache Web server and Squid, and is available in both single-user desktop-oriented versions and server versions. It has reasonable support for hardware, good documentation, and a nice integrated management utility that offers unified administration of the OS, hardware, and servers. Performance as a server platform is good, supporting a number of TCP sessions and Web server users, and file transfer performance is competitive with Linux and Windows platforms.

PostgreSQL 8.0.0 Officially Goes Beta

Submitted by Rick Morris 2004-08-10 Databases 36 Comments

With the Beta release of version 8, PostgreSQL has just taken three giant steps into Enterprise DBMS territory, with the addition of point-in-time recovery (PITR), transaction savepoints (the equivalent of nested transactions), and tablespaces, as well as various other improvements. Also, PostgreSQL will now run as a native Windows application, which should make it a more attractive choice for many medium and small businesses. LWN has more.

Microsoft sings a new tune on Linux

Submitted by JB 2004-08-10 Microsoft 19 Comments

Microsoft executive Martin Taylor's schedule is packed with meetings like the one in June when he met with representatives from French drugmaker Aventis in his Redmond, Wash. office. Aventis has tied together groups of computers running not Microsoft's operating system but the freely available Linux. These high-performance clusters can analyze proteins at blazing speeds. "That's great for Linux," Taylor said cheerily, at the time.

Slipstreaming Windows XP SP2 and Bootable CD Guide

Submitted by gogo 2004-08-10 Windows 14 Comments

This guide will describe the easiest way possible to slipstream (also known as 'Integrate') a Service Pack into Windows 2000, XP or 2003. To do this, we will only need one program - MSFN's very own popular nLite created by one of our members nuhi. While nLite is primarily aimed to remove components to slim down a Windows CD, it has the required tools to do just an automated Service Pack slipstream as well as create a CD image.Slipstreaming Windows XP SP2 and Bootable CD Guide

A look at DParser for Python

Eugenia Loli 2004-08-10 General Development 5 Comments

Get an introduction to DParser, a simple but powerful tool for parsing. Then learn about DParser for Python, which gives Python programmers a seamless interface to DParser, and see how it compares to other parsers covered in previous installments. In a manner similar to Spark or PLY, grammar rules are input to DParser using Python function documentation strings.

Book Mini-Review: A Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux

Eugenia Loli 2004-08-10 Red Hat 4 Comments

Mark G. Sobell wrote a lengthy book about Red Hat Linux and Fedora, A Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux, and we are taking a look at its draft copy (second edition released end of July).

PHP-GTK 1.0.1 released

Submitted by adel 2004-08-10 GTK+ 21 Comments

PHP-GTK 1.0.1 is seeing the light of day. Vote for it here. Check in for the changelog.

KDE 3.3 RC2 is Out

Eugenia Loli 2004-08-10 KDE 39 Comments

The second release candidate for KDE 3.3 is already available from the mirrors.

Basics for SUSE Linux

Eugenia Loli 2004-08-10 SuSE, openSUSE 14 Comments

This is a very basic guide to help configure and secure a SUSE Linux system.

Mac OS X 10.3.5 released; Apple releases new security update

Submitted by joey 2004-08-10 macOS 31 Comments

Apple today released Mac OS X 10.3.5 via the Software Update preference pane. In addition to Mac OS X 10.3.5, Apple today released Security Update 2004-08-09 via the Mac OS X Software Update preference pane. The update (recommended for all Mac users) delivers several security enhancements and includes an updated version of the libpng. Update: Apple seeds Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger build 8A171.

IBM provides RIB tool for Swing and Eclipse GUIs

Submitted by gham 2004-08-10 Java 22 Comments

The IBM Reflexive User Interface Builder (RIB) is an application that constructs and renders graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for Java Swing and Eclipse Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) based upon a descriptive XML document. Arranged in this way, RIB can create and render GUIs based solely upon the information in an XML document. See new developer article on RIB that shows you how to Build Java GUIs simply and quickly.

Review: Debian-Installer Release Candidate 1

Eugenia Loli 2004-08-09 Debian 48 Comments

After four years of development, the first release candidate of the new Debian installer is here. If you're familiar with other install programs, this one may surprise you. It introduces Debian's strengths right at the start, and it goes a long way toward burying Debian's reputation for being difficult to install.