OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

A Talk about Qt 3.3

Submitted by Timothy R. Butler 2004-02-13 Qt 11 Comments

With the third major release of the Qt 3 series last Wednesday, Trolltech CEO Haavard Nord graciously took some time to talk with OfB about Qt, the Linux desktop, Mac OS X 64-bit computing and more. Read the interview at OfB.biz. Ours is here.

Programming: A Conversation with Sun’s Victoria Livschitz

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-13 General Development 18 Comments

Is there something fundamentally misguided about the way we write programs today? Why is it so difficult, if not impossible, to write bug-free programs that contain more than 20 to 30 million lines of code? Do we need a radical new paradigm shift in programming? If so, what might it look like? One response came from Sun's Victoria Livschitz, a senior IT architect and Java Evangelist who has an interesting history.

Torque Turbo Gets Blender Support for Multiplatform Game Creation

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-13 Games 16 Comments

GarageGames announced the availability of an exporter tool that allows Blender, the Open Source 3D content creation suite, to be used with GarageGames' flagship Torque Game Engine technology (the power behind Tribes2). The Blender exporter and Torque runs on the Mac OS X, Linux and Windows platforms. The Torque Game Engine (TGE) is a fully featured AAA game engine with a multi-player network code, seamless indoor/outdoor rendering engines, skeletal animation, DnD GUI creation, a built-in world editor, and a C-like scripting language. Unlike most commercial game engines, as part of the low cost license ($100), you receive all C++ source code to the multi-platform gaming engine.

GEOS Available for Download

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-13 OS News 21 Comments

Slashdot reports in the release of the GEOS to the public. Check also our search page for links to the AppleII version and a past interview with an ex-GeoWorks employee.

Windows Source Code Leaked?

Guest post by Anders Østergård Jensen 2004-02-12 Windows 171 Comments

According to Neowin, the source code for Microsoft Windows NT 4 and 2000 has been leaked. A number of universities and institutes already have legal access to the source code, distributed by Microsoft. It is still not confirmed by the software giant of Redmond - but in the wrong hands, this could result in a major security catastrophe and a huge threat against Microsoft's 32-bit operating system. Update 11:37 PM EST by AS: danjr lets us know, it's official.

Lindows 4.5 Developer Edition Review

Guest post by Michael Valentine 2004-02-12 Linspire 45 Comments

I received LindowsOS 4.5 for free when Lindows offered it through OSNews.com. I decided to break the review into five scored sections: Installation, First Impression, Usability, Support and Long Term Use.

Fedora Core 2 Test 1 Released

Submitted by Brad Griffith 2004-02-12 Fedora Core 63 Comments

A test release of Fedora Core 2 is now available from Red Hat and at distinguished mirror sites near you, and is also available in the torrent. Fedora Core has expanded in this release to four binary ISO images and four source ISO images. This test release is specifically designed for testing the 2.6 kernel, GNOME 2.5, and KDE 3.2. Please file bugs via Bugzilla, Product Fedora Core, Version test1, Architecture i386 so that they are noticed and appropriately classified.

Mandrake 10 beta 2: A Personal Account

Submitted by Olivier Magere 2004-02-12 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 13 Comments

Cooker is a test distro and Mandrake has come up with the idea of using testzilla to formalize hardware testing. What it does is register your hardware configuration with mandrake's bugzilla. Read the full review of Mandrake Linux 10b2 at GUILinux.

Cubicleware: Sun’s JDS vs. Ximian XD2

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-12 Rumors 14 Comments

"Sun's Java Desktop System joins Novell's Ximian XD2 as a tailored GNOME desktop that's aimed at cubicle workers in large enterprise settings, such as government offices and big educational institutions. In the future, Linux will be the desktop used by the most, and the least, computer-literate folks on the planet" says the shootout review at NewsForge.

Companies are Facing a Cannibalizing Dilemma

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-12 Open Source 17 Comments

Once every three months, Alan Nugent, chief technology officer of billion-dollar software company Novell, sits down with a small group of colleagues to decide what software the company will give away for free.

Five Reasons to Choose UNIX Instead of Linux

Submitted by William Bolk 2004-02-12 SCO 48 Comments

SCO is giving us their ten cents why customers should use Unixware instead of Linux.

Scientists: The Latest Mac Converts

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-12 Apple 42 Comments

"For our landing site work, we always get the highest-end desktop Mac we can find, so we just got one of the G5s with dual 2 GHz processors and 8 GB of RAM," Matt Golombek, a planetary geologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told the E-Commerce Times.

How Microsoft Develops and Releases Software Patches

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-12 Microsoft 11 Comments

"When we launched our first security newsletter in December, I asked you to send me your comments and feedback so that I could be your advocate at Microsoft for security issues—and you delivered! I appreciate the many e-mail messages with comments and questions, and we will begin answering them this month." Read the rest here by Jeffrey R. Jones, Senior Director, Microsoft Security Business Unit.

Dave Milici on Porting SciTech SNAP on OnTime RTOS-32

Guest post by staff 2004-02-12 Original OSNews Interviews 8 Comments

On Time specializes in providing software development tools for real-time embedded systems on Intel x86 compatible CPUs. Founded in 1989, On Time has offices in Massachusetts and Hamburg, Germany. On Time offers a complete range of real-time operating systems and development tools for 32-bit flat address protected-mode and 16-bit real-mode environments. Recently the company got a port of SciTech's SNAP graphics suite. Here is an Interview with SciTech's Dave Milici, who was responsible for porting SciTech SNAP to On Time RTOS-32.

Intel Reports a Research Leap to a Faster Chip

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-12 Intel 30 Comments

Intel scientists will announce on Thursday that they have built a prototype of a silicon chip that can switch light on and off like electricity, blurring the line between computing and communications and bringing sweeping changes to the way digital information and entertainment are delivered.

Thirteen Reasons To Use Firefox Over IE

Submitted by Gsurface 2004-02-12 Mozilla, Gecko 114 Comments

With the current release of Mozilla Firefox 0.8, and in the excitement to try out something new, FlexBeta decided to compile 13 Reasons To Use Firefox Over IE.

IBM releases free Q104 Software Evaluation Kit — new 2-DVD set

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-12 General Development 14 Comments

Get the latest DB2, Lotus, Rational, Tivoli, and WebSphere Linux code from IBM on DVD, for free. This is the fastest way to get access to all of IBM middleware that has been ported to Linux. The package contains almost 8 GB of IBM tools and products at no charge, including Rational Rose and PurifyPlus, WebSphere Studio Site Developer, WebSphere SDK for Web services, WebSphere Application Server, DB2 Universal Database, Tivoli Access Manager, and Lotus Domino Server.

The Future of Computing Part 3: Death of the PC

Guest post by Nicholas Blachford 2004-02-11 Editorial 90 Comments

At the end of Part 2 (Part 1 is here) I asserted that a new force would enter the world of computing completely changing the landscape. I stated that Microsoft will lose this battle. I lied, there is more than one force, but one way or another there will be one result.

Palm: No More Mac Support; Palm OS Cobalt and Garnet

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-11 Wireless 41 Comments

Macslash reports that handheld maker Palm announced today that they were no longer going to develop Palm Desktop for the Mac platform, freezing the current version as their final. UPDATE: PalmSource today introduced Palm OS Cobalt & Garnet, previously know as Palm OS 6.

New Automation Opportunities in .NET

Eugenia Loli 2004-02-11 .NET 12 Comments

Whether you are developing at the enterprise level or for the smallest venues, IT is all about automation, finding ways to allow these infernal machines to do things better, faster, or in many cases, "at all" than the human alternatives.