Built on grid computing and due to debut at Oracle World, Oracle 10G marks the company's biggest technology release in a decade. Can Oracle tackle the grid & PeopleSoft, too? Read it at eWEEK.
The Desktop Linux Consortium (DLC) announced their first conference today, hosted at Boston University's Corporate Training Center (BUTrain) located just outside of Boston, Massachusetts in Tyngsboro on November 10, 2003. The conference marks the group's first event that brings together industry leaders to share their insights and discuss the trends, technologies, and solutions that are driving the next generation of desktops based on Linux.
Tinyminds.org sits down with Linux International Director, Jon "Maddog" Hall. Jon has been in the computer industry since 1969, using Unix since 1977, and Linux since 1994. He has been a software engineer, systems administrator, product manager, marketing manager and professional educator. Jon has been the Executive Director of Linux International since 1995, the first four years as a volunteer. Jon has been employed by VA Linux systems, Compaq Computer Corporation in the Digital UNIX Marketing group and Bell Laboratories among other companies. Read the full interview at Tinyminds.org.
"Back in the 1980s, the folks at Digital Equipment had a problem. While their VAX systems were selling like hotcakes, the systems still couldn't deliver the kind of scale found on mainframes. Digital, which had no plans to build big iron, set out to find a way to use existing equipment to increase capacity--a search that led to the development of the VAX cluster and the concept of horizontal scaling."Read the editorial at ZDNews.
The Java platform has traditionally prided itself on its platform independence. While that independence has many benefits, it makes the process of writing Java applications that interact with hardware quite tricky. In this article, a research scientist examines two projects that are making the process easier by providing APIs through which Java applications can make use of USB devices. While both projects are still in embryo form, both show promise and are already serving as the foundations of some real-world applications.
SkyEye is a simulator for typical embedded computer systems. It can simulate Atmel AT91 based on the ARM7TDMI, EP7312 based on ARM720T, StrongARM SA1100/SA1110, and 8019as NIC, etc. Some operating systems, such as ARM Linux, uClinux, and uc/OS-II(ucos-ii), can run and be debugged and analyzed at the source level. This Skyeyesnapshot version it can simulate the Xscale PXA 250 Lubbock developboard.
Session 18 of the Fortnightly Q&A's with Fleecy Moss is available here. This one has some important Q&A's (rootless X server, self-hosted IDE, 32 or 64-bit platform, OpenGL support) and even a clue about the biggest question of
all concerning Amiga OS 4: when will it be released.
BIOS maker Phoenix Technologies said it is currently shopping a digital-rights-enabled BIOS system to top PC OEMs, the most aggressive use of DRM technology to date. On other DRM news, Microsoft has made available for download the first of several components of its forthcoming stable of rights-management software.
I wrote an article a while ago on Linux packaging and Autopackage. There seemed to be quite a lot of interest in it so we got version 0.3 released today.
Momentum Computer, a developer specializing in quick turnaround of high-performance board-level solutions, has announced that all of their PowerPC-based single-board computers will now be available with the complete Yellow Dog Linux (YDL) operating system package from Terra Soft Solutions, Inc. Additionally, HackInTheBox recently posted a review of YDL for Macs.
"We all know dependencies are one thing we hated about installing application on the Linux boxes. If you worry about wiggling with those dependencies, Libranet is coming to rescue you from the apps installation nightmare." Read the short review at OSForge.
Microsoft has just released a downloadable version of the "evaluation edition" of Windows XP Embedded with Service Pack 1. Previously, the evaluation edition was available in CD/DVD format only, and had to be ordered from Microsoft for a nominal charge. The first downloadable evaluation version of Windows CE was made available earlier this year.
This article revisits the working of metaclasses and their relation to other OOP concepts. It contrasts class instantiation with inheritance, distinguishes classmethods and metamethods, and explains and solves metaclass conflicts.
Just as access can be granted based on a fingerprint or retina scan, biometrical analysis of the keyboard typing style can produce a unique pattern. A project to produce an authentication scheme based on hardware that every computer has already (unlike a retina scanner) was started in 1999 for BeOS but now is available on MacOS X, in a beta release.
HP will be establishing a laboratory at its Beijing facility for Red Flag Linux developers to work with HP engineers, and will be putting together packages of HP hardware running Red Flag for the Chinese market, and perhaps other markets in the future.
Debian is not quite like any other distro out there. If bigger is better, then Debian wins hands down. Aside from having the largest collection of free software packages, Debian also runs on 11 platforms. But there is more to Debian than just size. Travel writer and recent Debian convert Robert Storey tackles the whole installation procedure head on and gives his report.
It is not fashionable nowadays to speak of the merits of the command line, in an age where things like streaming video and Aqua are an integral part of our daily life. However, I do not think that typed-in commands must necessarily be consigned to the dustbin of computer history. Of course, I am not suggesting that we all drop X and Windows and pretend like we are living in the early eighties. The command line interface still has much to offer us, and many of its benefits simply cannot physically be emulated or even replaced by graphical ones.
