The pleasures and perils of less popular distributions

Linux 29 Comments
Like many OSNews readers, I use Ubuntu. I also use several less popular distros. What is it like to use these lesser-known distros compared to the dominant systems? How does running, say, VectorLinux or Puppy or PC-BSD, differ from using Ubuntu or Fedora? This article offers a few ideas. Obviously, it broadly generalizes about distros for the purpose of discussion.
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The DDoS that almost broke the internet

  Submitted by MOS6510 Internet 39 Comments
"The New York Times this morning published a story about the Spamhaus DDoS attack and how CloudFlare helped mitigate it and keep the site online. The Times calls the attack the largest known DDoS attack ever on the Internet. We wrote about the attack last week. At the time, it was a large attack, sending 85Gbps of traffic. Since then, the attack got much worse. Here are some of the technical details of what we've seen."
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Where are Windows Phones outselling iPhones?

Windows 42 Comments
"According to Kevin Restivo, an analyst at IDC, the countries where Windows Phone shipments exceeded those of iPhone during the fourth quarter were: Argentina, India, Poland, Russia, South Africa and Ukraine. A seventh 'country' where Windows Phone shipments beat iPhone is actually a group of smaller countries, including Croatia, that IDC lumps together in a category called 'rest of central and eastern Europe'." Not bad. Unsurprisingly, these are Nokia countries.
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Apple’s broken promise: why doesn’t iCloud ‘just work’?

Apple 3 Comments
Via The Verge: "iCloud, perhaps more than any Apple software product, is meant to 'just work'. When Apple introduced iCloud, it made clear its hopes to eradicate settings menus and file systems in favor of automation. Steve Jobs pledged to do a better job than he did on MobileMe, Apple's notoriously horrible stab at web services a few years ago. With iCloud, changes you make to documents on your computer show up instantly on your iPhone and vice versa. 'It just works,' Jobs exclaimed when he first demoed the service in 2011, 'Everything happens automatically'." Except, it doesn't. Not for non-trivial data requirements where you want to use Core Data.
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21 nested callbacks

General Development 43 Comments
"Programming is hard. Don't ever feel bad because you aren't as good at 'just googling it' as the person next to you. Don't ever let hackathon snobs talk you out of creating the next Twitter for cats or Yelp for public washrooms. Even the dumbest ideas (like trying to make animated polygons disappear and reappear) will help you improve as a programmer. Learning to program is largely about learning to learn - and the best way to learn is to do." For some reason, I love this short story.
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Sweden axes new word after Google intervenes

Google 38 Comments
The Swedish Language Council wanted to list 'ungoogleable' as a new word. Google didn't like it. "The word was to be used to describe something 'that you can't find on the web with the use of a search engine', according to the Language Council. However, Google was less than thrilled that a word based on its name had been highlighted by Sweden's 'official language cultivation body'. Google wanted the council to specify that the word's definition only covered searches performed using Google, and not searches involving other search engines." Sadly, the Council decided to scrap the word altogether. Google, get your filthy paws off our languages. It seems like large corporations love to exert pressure on language - Apple tried something similar a few years ago with the abbreviation 'app', something which I exposed for the idiocy that it was. I will use whatever words I damn well please, and so should everyone else. The Swedish Language Council shouldn't even have acknowledged Google's ridiculous request with a response.
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Quicksilver moves out of beta

macOS 4 Comments
Via Ars Technica: "After almost 10 years of testing, Quicksilver lays the beta tag to rest (if the lack of an eszett brings a tear to your eye, you can always reminisce by hitting option+S on your keyboard). What does this release mean? It means more than just a change in the version numbering system - it signifies a maturity of Quicksilver and a sign of what's to come." Quicksilver is fantastic for those of us for whom command+space and the dock combined is not enough. While I personally don't use Quicksilver (I use Spotlight through command+space to launch applications), I know of quite a few Mac users who swear by it.
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Nokia’s VP8 patent claims: we’ve been here before

Legal 177 Comments
Late last week, Nokia dropped what many consider to be a bomb on the WebM project: a list of patents that VP8 supposedly infringes in the form of an IETF IPR declaration. The list has made the rounds around the web, often reported as proof that VP8 infringes upon Nokia's patents. All this stuff rang a bell. Haven't we been here before? Yup, we have, with another open source codec called Opus. Qualcomm and Huawei made the same claims as Nokia did, but they turned out to be complete bogus. As it turns out, this is standard practice in the dirty business of the patent licensing industry.
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Windows 8 built-in application updates due Tuesday

Windows 5 Comments
Tom Warren at The Verge details that, yes, we're getting a major update to the communication applications in Windows 8 tonight or tomorrow, and there's some definitively good stuff in there, such as much-needed performance improvements, lots of new functionality for the currently abysmal Mail application, and more. Sadly, the update does not include support for CalDAV and CardDAV, and it actually removes Google sync support for Calendar. Google is already moving to its Google Calendar API, though, so maybe Microsoft will just skip CalDAV altogether. Seems like a solid set of updates, to hit your Windows 8 machine any moment now.
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Concern about privacy partial cause for Reader shutdown

Google 9 Comments
Liz Gannes at AllThingsD has an interesting perspective on the Google Reader shutdown. According to her sources, the shutdown was motivated by concerns over compliance - especially privacy. She explains how every product team needs compliance officers, and that Google was unwilling to create such an infrastructure for Google Reader. "The context for this concern about compliance is Google's repeated public failures on privacy due to lack of oversight and coordination. It's pretty clear why Page is trying to run a tighter ship."
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BlackBerry to run ads that hijack your entire display

Wireless 32 Comments
"Android and iPhone users will also experience BlackBerry's ad content in the form of mobile takeovers starting the week of March 25. Those mobile takeovers will fill your screen with what looks like a BlackBerry 10's, demoing a specific feature like its photo 'Time Shift' capability that allows you to scroll through several captured options for each face in a picture." Yes. BlackBerry is going to run ads that hijack your entire smartphone's display. Sigh.
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Windows Blue leaks online

Windows 59 Comments
"An early build of Windows Blue, the next version of Windows, has leaked online. Build 9364 has been made available on file sharing sites and includes some of the new changes that Microsoft is building into its significant Windows 8 update. Leaked screenshots show that the company is bringing smaller Live Tile arrangements to its Start Screen, along with greater control over the color personalization options. Other improvements include a number of new options in the Windows 8-style settings screen. SkyDrive options are present, which appear to show greater integration and control over device back ups and files. There's also an app settings section that surfaces options to change default apps and information on app sizes." Very welcome improvements - but unless there's significant speed and performance improvements, this is all for naught. Update: Woah, a 50:50 split view! They are listening! Update 2: Steve Troughton-Smith details that the split can be any size, and that you can also split three and four applications.
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Core Windows 8 applications set for update?

Windows 47 Comments
Paul Thurrot: "Tipped off by a reader, I checked my System log in Event Viewer today and what did I find but a stack of pending updates for all of the core apps in Windows 8. I'm not 100 percent sure this is what I think it is. But if we're right, it looks like 18 of the core apps in Windows 8 are about to get updated. Or, almost all of them." Foley confirms it. By far Windows 8's weakest link, so I'm hoping this is true. Especially the Mail application is dreadful.
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