Mono 0.12 Released

Mono 78 Comments
Mono is an open source implementation of the Microsoft.NET Framework, and ships with a C# compiler, a runtime engine (with a JIT on x86) and a set of class libraries. Mono is known to work on a number of platforms: x86/Linux, x86/Windows, x86/FreeBSD; sparc/solaris; linuxppc/linux; strongarm/linux. Download version 0.12, or read its release notes.
Read More

Handheld Plans: Danger Ahead?

Wireless 20 Comments
C|Net News.com hosts two interesting articles about Danger, the company behind the HipTop handheld device which is a combination of wireless web-aware applications, PDA and a phone. The operating system for the device has been written from scratch (the kernel is the work of a team of ex-Be engineers, including Travis Geiselbrecht, who also brought us NewOS) while it also runs a Java VM. First article can be found here, and interview with Danger's Rubin and Britt is here.
Read More

Four New Windows XP Patches

Windows 19 Comments
Microsoft has released four new patches for Windows XP, some important security ones and other basic support items: NET Framework ASP.NET Session State Security Hotfix. Windows Management Instrumentation Cannot Register Permanent Event Consumer with Dynamic Classes: Windows XP Patch. WMI AccessCheck Receives Local Administrator's SID Platform SDK Redistributable COM+ Java Runtime Support. Get their download links at ActiveWin.
Read More

OpenBFS Development Completed

  Submitted by BGA Haiku 77 Comments
Axel, Bruno and the rest of the company in the OpenBFS team, have completed the development of OpenBFS, the open source equivelant of Be's popular 64-bit journaling file system. OpenBFS currently runs on BeOS 5, awaiting the further evolution of the OpenBeOS/NewOS kernel in order to start a back port. The team reports that while the filesystem clone is not very well tested yet, it is already seems pretty stable and it beats in performance the original BFS.
Read More

Sun Feels Heat Over x86 Solaris

Solaris 38 Comments
"Disgruntled Solaris users are pushing Sun Microsystems Inc. to decide on the fate of the operating environment on Intel Corp. processors. Sun officials in Palo Alto, Calif., have been going back and forth with the Solaris Intel user base since January, when the company said Version 9 for the x86 architecture was being "deferred" in favor of projects that were more profitable. Now the process seems stuck, and users are getting restless, according to sources familiar with the negotiations between the user community and Anil Gadre, Sun's vice president of Solaris software." Read the report at ExtremeTech.
Read More

Palm Launching Palm OS 5

  Submitted by Yves R. Crevecoeur Wireless 20 Comments
"A year ago, investors were losing faith in Palm Inc. The once high-flying company itself admitted to frailty and mistakes. But Palm never gave up, and launches Monday a new operating system -- a crucial weapon in its battle to remain dominant in the competitive handheld market. Palm OS 5, analysts say, is a much-needed major upgrade from the pioneer of personal digital assistants' earlier operating systems." Read the report at Yahoo!. Update: Palm pins hopes on beefed-up OS.
Read More

Digital Research and the GEM OS- The Other “Windows”

Editorial 33 Comments
One of the early GUI operating systems for the PC, that is still being developed today, is GEM, an operating system that was originally created by Digital Research in the early 1980s. GEM was described as providing a Mac like GUI for the PC – long before Microsoft Windows 3.1 or 95. Today GEM continues to be developed as FreeGEM and old and new versions of the GEM OS and GEM applications can be downloaded for free (see links below). The history of Digital Research and GEM is quite interesting, as GEM had the potential to become the "Windows" (or Mac) of the PC world.
Read More

CYC May One Day Provide Common-sense Computing

Geek stuff 8 Comments
"Day after day since 1984, teams of programmers, linguists, theologians, mathematicians and philosophers have plugged away at a $60 million project they hope will transform human existence: teaching a computer common sense. They have been feeding a database named Cyc 1.4 million truths and generalities about daily life so it can automatically make assumptions humans make: Creatures that die stay dead. Dogs have spines. Scaling a cliff requires intense physical effort." Read the interesting article over at CNN.
Read More

May 2002 Updated Windows Platform SDK

Windows No Comments
ActiveWin reports that Microsoft has updated the Windows Platform SDK to include documentation, header files, and libraries for new APIs in Windows XP SP1 and Windows .NET Server. This edition of the SDK supports development for the following platforms: Windows .NET Server family and Advanced Server, Limited Edition, Windows XP, Windows XP 64-bit Edition, Windows 2000, Windows NT versions 3.51 and 4.0, Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 95/98/98SE, .NET Enterprise Servers.
Read More

New FreeBSD IPFW Beta Code Available

  Submitted by Dan FreeBSD 3 Comments
Luigi Rizzo, has done an extensive rewrite of the FreeBSD IPFW firewall code (userland and kernel) in an attempt to make it faster and more flexible. His announcement is available over at BSDForums.org. IPFW, the software supplied with FreeBSD, is a packet filtering and accounting system which resides in the kernel, and has a user-land control utility, called ipfw(8).
Read More

Writing Your Own Toy OS, PART II

  Submitted by Wezza General Development 16 Comments
"The next thing that any one should know after learning to make a boot sector and before switching to protected mode is, how to use the BIOS interrupts. BIOS interrupts are the low level routines provided by the BIOS to make the work of the Operating System creator easy. This part of the article would deal with BIOS interrupts." This is the second part of the series of articles on how to write your own toy OS.
Read More