OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Microsoft Releases Fifth Beta Version of IE 6.0 SP1 To Testers

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-10 Internet Explorer 18 Comments

Microsoft yesterday released a new beta build 2800.1067 of Internet Explorer 6.0 Service Pack 1 to its set of external testers. The email sent to testers states that this new beta build includes all IE 6 security patches up to and including the security patch released on May 15th which addresses Microsoft Security Bulletin MS02-023. The report was found at ActiveWin.

Lindows Says OEMs are Responding to “Builder Program”

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-10 Linspire 14 Comments

Larry Kettler, the new director of Builder sales at Lindows, says the response to last month's announcement of the Builder Program "has been overwhelming." In an email letter, he says that many OEMs are preparing to launch LindowOS on "a number of computer system SKUs." Read the rest of the report at NewsForge.

The Desktop Beyond GNOME and KDE

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-10 Wayland 24 Comments

Nicholas Petreley explores desktop Linux beyond GNOME and KDE. In this column, he examines and compares several window-managers, detailing which of these applications is best for different types of users. The article is at LinuxWorld.

Replace Your Mouse With Your Eye

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-10 Geek stuff 18 Comments

Computers of the future could be controlled by eye movements, rather than a mouse or keyboard. Scientists at Imperial College, London, are working on eye-tracking technology that analyses the way we look at things. The team are trying to gain an insight into visual knowledge - the way we see objects and translate that information into actions. Read the report at BBC News.

Flat Panel iMac Gets Super-Sized

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-10 Apple 80 Comments

"Apple Computer plans to serve up a new iMac model with a larger flat-panel display during next week's Macworld Expo trade show, according to sources. The upgrade to a 17-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) comes as sales have all but stalled on existing 15-inch flat-panel iMacs." Read the report at ZDNews.

IBM WebSphere SDK for Web Services on Linux

Submitted by Frank 2002-07-10 IBM No Comments

The initial release of the IBM WebSphere SDK for Web Services on Linux is now available. Developers can easily create Java-based applications for Web service providers and consumers. This offering contains everything developers need in a single convenient package, including a IBM SDK for Java technology, a runtime environment, a private UDDI registry, tools, samples, and documentation. It's based on open specifications for Web services such as SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI and runs on both Linux and Windows operating systems. The IBM WebSphere SDK for Web Services includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation and is being offered at this time for free.

Lindows Operating System Review at HiTechMods

Submitted by Prognathous 2002-07-09 Linspire 38 Comments

"Lindows OS - Is this OS the second coming or just another Linux distribution that will fall by the wayside. Since Lindows.com has released its Insiders from the initial Non Disclosure Agreement which was a confidentiality agreement that prevented us from discussing the OS anywhere outside of the Insiders Forum I am now able to give some insight to this mysterious OS." Review is at HiTechMods.

Hacker Cracks Apple Downloads

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-09 Privacy, Security 9 Comments

"A security mailing list has alerted Apple's OSX users to a program that could let a hacker piggyback malicious code on downloads from the company's SoftwareUpdate service." Read the report at ZDNews.

Microsoft Delays Windows 2000 SP3

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-09 Windows 18 Comments

"Microsoft has delayed the third service pack for Windows 2000- Service Pack 3 —for an indefinite period of time, according to internal documents I viewed over the weekend. Win2K was originally due July 17, but Microsoft recently discovered several major bugs in its Microsoft Installer (MSI) 2.0 code, which was to have been bundled with the update. So now the company will remove MS 2.0 from SP3 and include the older version, MSI 1.1, instead, unless feedback from its beta testers and partners indicates that MSI 2.0 must be included. This indecision, obviously, will adversely affect the release schedule for SP3." Read the report at WinInformant. Update: MSI 2.0 to be Included in Windows 2000 SP3.

Poll: Your Opinion on an Ad-Sponsored OS or Desktop

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-09 In the News 106 Comments

What would you say if there was a way to support your favorite OS or X11 Desktop Environment by agreeing to use an ad-sponsored version? The ad would show *only once*, during the load of the OS or graphics desktop environment, something like a splash screen, and then it would go away after 5 or 10 seconds or if you manually close its window or after you have clicked to the actual ad. This way, you could be helping financially open source projects, like Gnome, KDE, FreeBSD, Gentoo and others.

Palm was Considering Linux for its Next-Gen OS

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-08 Wireless 32 Comments

"Palm Inc was considering Linux as the foundation of the next-generation PalmOS as recently as last spring, sources tell us. Palm eventually acquired Be Inc's development team last August, but internal discussions on the viability of a Linux-based handheld OS were taking place as recently as fifteen months ago. These were squashed by the lawyers, who concluded that Palm couldn't reconcile the GPL with the in house view of intellectual property. Palm is not using the cut-down embedded version BeOS, BeIA, which was targetted at the NatSemi x86 system on a chip, but a ground-up OS for ARM." Read the report at TheRegister.

The Itchy Open Source Problem

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-08 KDE 20 Comments

"In Dennis Powell's 'The view from the desktop' column last week, he noted a problem with the development of KDE (and other Open Source projects). Generally speaking, KDE developers work on KDE for fun, and while interested, they are not necessarily concerned about the needs of end users. Obviously hobbyist developers should not be required to do anything for those using their code, but this situation often causes features that users want and need to be overlooked." Editorial at LinuxAndMain.

Sites Genuflect to Browser King

Submitted by JBQ 2002-07-08 Internet Explorer 50 Comments

Standards mean little to developers looking for the biggest audience online: Internet Explorer users.
Our Take: OSNews serves more pages to Internet Explorer users than to all the rest, however, being faithful to the multi-platform nature of OSNews, our site is hand-coded and compatible with all mainstream browsers. We include support for WAP and Unix text-mode browsers, AvantGO and other, older (and sometimes... obscure), browsers. More info, in our recent discussion here.

FreeBSD 4.6.1 and CURRENT DP2 Scheduled for Release in July

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-08 FreeBSD 2 Comments

From DaemonNews.org: FreeBSD 4.6.1 is scheduled for release July 17, 2002 in order to update SSH, BIND, incorporate a partial ATA fix, and other changes from the RELENG_4_6 release branch. On a side note, FreeBSD 5.0 developer preview 2, a full release for the i386, Alpha, and sparc64 architectures is scheduled for release July 25.

Windows Advanced Server 1.2 For Itanium 2 Ships to Manufacturers

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-08 Windows 4 Comments

Support for Intel's Itanium 2 CPU continues with 64-Bit Windows .NET servers; WindowsXP 64-Bit Edition Ver. 2003 to be available in early 2003. Read the press release at Microsoft.com. In the meantime, Windows 2000 has been given nine months to live, as far as OEMs are concerned, and Microsoft is pressuring the PC companies to stop offering dual install Win2K/XP systems immediately.

Microsoft: Palladium Not Just for Windows

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-08 Privacy, Security 37 Comments

Following widespread skepticism of Microsoft's motives for developing its trusted computing platform, the software giant this week moved to reassure the software community that Palladium will not be limited to Microsoft's platforms. Read the report at ZDNews.

Microsoft, Sun Battle Over Indian Programmers

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-08 In the News 13 Comments

Cheap hardware, free trips to the United States and all the popcorn you can eat--life's a junket if you're a computer programmer in India. Read the report at ZDNews.

Inside Jaguar: A Sneak-Peek at New Updates, Part I and II

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-07 macOS 32 Comments

ThinkSecret covers the new MacOSX version, codenamed Jaguar, by publishing an article on what is new and on the kind of updates are to be expected at the end of this summer. There are also a bunch of screenshots included in the article. Part I and Part II.

XFree 4.2 Makes it to CygWin – Garnome Builds Both Gnome and KDE

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-07 Wayland 15 Comments

Cygwin/XFree86 is a port of XFree86 to the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems. It runs on all recent consumer and business versions of Windows and is now installed via Cygwin's setup.exe install. In the meantime, Garnome now is able to build both GNOME 2.0.0 and KDE 3.0.2. Garnome is a tool which automates the process of building GNOME 2 and KDE 3. It keeps track of all the dependencies and standard configuration work. Make sure you export some GCC optimization flags as described here before starting building the software though.

Microsoft Updates Internet Explorer for OS X, Classic

Eugenia Loli 2002-07-07 Internet Explorer No Comments

Microsoft posted updates the Internet Explorer for Mac. Two separate downloads are available from Microsoft's Web site, one for the Classic Mac OS and one specifically for Mac OS X. IE 5.2.1 provides all the latest security and performance enhancements for IE 5 for Mac OS X, according to information posted on Microsoft's Web site. IE 5.1.5 for Mac OS 8.1 to 9.x provides enhanced support for HTTP and resolves all security vulnerabilities in previous versions of IE 5.