OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Why Windows 7’s Default UAC Is Insecure

Submitted by Georgi Petrov 2009-05-15 Windows 56 Comments

Whenever we talk about Windows 7 on OSNews, you'll always hear me advise you to change the UAC settings by setting it to its highest level, since Windows 7's default simply isn't secure. You might wonder why you should deal with additional prompts - what is the security risk actually like? Well, it's pretty big.

GP2x Wiz Finally Hits the Shelves

Thom Holwerda 2009-05-14 Games 19 Comments

Korean company GamePark Holdings have finally released the GP2x Wiz portable games console, the successor to the popular, but abruptly end-of-life'd, GP2x. What makes these portable devices special is that they run Linux, and are more or less aimed at the enthusiast and homebrew markets.

Standard Widget Toolkit Trees

Thom Holwerda 2009-05-14 Java 41 Comments

This article explains how to develop and implement trees in the Standard Widget Toolkit. Learn how an SWT tree is created and populated with data, how columns can be used to categorize data, how a tree can be extended to support row sorting, and how the tree's content can be searched.

Dell Changes Linux Netbook Policy

Thom Holwerda 2009-05-14 Hardware 33 Comments

Good news for plurality advocates in general, and Linux fans in particular: during a press event, Dell has announced a shift in its Linux strategy, one that seems to contradict recent moves by competitors who are de-emphasizing Linux models: Windows and Linux models will be made available simultaniously.

Chrome Extension Framework Coming Together

Thom Holwerda 2009-05-14 Google 9 Comments

Some serious progress is being made with Chrome, Google's foray into the web browsing business. Not only is the plugin framework coming together, the Chromium project also started offering regular builds of the browser for Mac OS X (regular Linux builds have been available since March).

Microsoft’s Axum Parallel Programming Language Advances

Thom Holwerda 2009-05-14 General Development 25 Comments

Microsoft has come one step closer to delivering a parallel programming language to developers. On May 8, Microsoft made Axum, the company's foray into parallel programming, available on its MSDN DevLabs portal. Axum is a .NET language for building parallel applications. According to a Microsoft description, Axum "is a language that builds upon the architecture of the Web and principles of isolation, actors and message-passing to increase application safety, responsiveness, scalability and developer productivity."

Atom Sales Drop, Netbook Share Increases: What’s Going on?

Thom Holwerda 2009-05-13 Hardware 23 Comments

It seems like we're getting even more signs that netbooks haven't been doing very well lately. Research figures by IDC on the processor market seem to paint a not-so-rosy picture of sales of Intel's Atom processor, and then figures coming in from DisplaySearch seem to paint a different picture. What's going on here?

Submitted by poundsmack 2009-05-13 KDE 71 Comments

The KDE team has pushed out the first beta release of KDE 4.3. The highlights of this release are the integration of many new technologies, such as PolicyKit and Geolocation services, new window animation effects, a more usable run command popup, many new and improved addons in Plasma, Many bugfixes and improvements across all applications, and more integration of features coming with the KDE 4 platform.

Submitted by linuxmag 2009-05-13 Linux 19 Comments

"Following up on our introductory article on Btrfs, Jeff Layton talked with Chris Mason, Director of Linux Kernel Engineering at Oracle and the founder and lead developer of Btrfs."

Submitted by rlem6983 2009-05-13 NetBSD 22 Comments

The NetBSD Project recently released NetBSD 5.0, the 13th major release of its Unix operating system. If you are not familiar with the BSD mentality, it's a back-to-basics approach. In this gallery we go from install to running a GNOME desktop in a virtualised VMware instance. This process is console-based.

Build Your First Android Application

Thom Holwerda 2009-05-13 Wireless 6 Comments

Android, a complete operating environment based upon the Linux V2.6 kernel, promises to be a market-moving open source platform that will be useful well beyond cell phones. In this article, learn about the Android platform and how it can be used for mobile and nonmobile applications, then build your first Android application. This simple first app you build will get you started quickly, but beleive me, you'll want to do more after that.

Latest Apple Ad Target ‘Laptop Hunters’ Campaign

Thom Holwerda 2009-05-13 Apple 28 Comments

Apple's latest Get a Mac commercial targets the recent laptop hunters ads coming from Microsoft. It shows a number of PC characters and Mac, with a woman in between who wants to buy a computer. She mentions a number of features she wants, and the number of PCs becomes ever smaller. Then she says she wants a computer without "viruses, crashes or headaches", which makes all the remaining PCs leave, with only the Mac left standing.

EU Fines Intel for 1.06 Billion EUR

Thom Holwerda 2009-05-13 Intel 57 Comments

As was already revealed by eWeek earlier this week, the EU has imposed a massive fine on Intel for abusing its monopoly position. The fine is larger than the one given to Microsoft: 1.06 billion EUR, or 1.44 billion USD, opposed to the 899 million EUR fine imposed upon Microsoft.

Judge Sides with Apple, Orders Psystar to Produce Documents

Thom Holwerda 2009-05-13 Legal 50 Comments

Two weekends ago, Apple accused Psystar of withholding information in the ongoing lawsuit between the two companies, and the Cupertino company asked the judge to order Psystar to reveal said information. Psystar replied, explaining that some documents simply did not exist, and some were lost during a move of offices. Apparently, judge Alsup wasn't impressed with the defence, and sided with Apple.

Adblock Developer: An Approach to Fair Ad Blocking

Thom Holwerda 2009-05-13 Internet 45 Comments

As we happened to be talking about advertisements on OSNews yesterday, and the use of Adblock, I stumbled upon a blog entry by Adblock Plus' developer, who is trying to improve Adblock in such a way that it is less harmful to webmasters. His suggestion is surely intriguing, but will it fly wth Adblock users?

Guest post by fsmag 2009-05-13 Wayland 39 Comments

"Over time, many people have complained about the X Window system; the X Window system, or Xorg in its current most popular implementation, is the layer between applications and the graphics adapter. It has some fantastic features (like the ability to run application over the network) and some shortcoming. One thing is sure: it has evolved over the last year or so, immensely, especially as far as 3D and hardware acceleration."

Compare and Contrast: Ubuntu 9.04, Mac OS X 10.5.6

weildish 2009-05-13 Benchmarks 68 Comments

Phoronix, known for their various speed tests and reviews, compared the latest in Ubuntu and what, until recently, used to be the lastest in Mac OS X with 29 different benchmarking tests. Some of the results were rather interesting.

Guest post by snydeq 2009-05-12 Linux 12 Comments

InfoWorld's Neil McAllister looks ahead at the impending netbook revolution, one sure to be fueled by the introduction of machines based on ARM processors. As McAllister sees it, the move to ARM-based netbooks will have implications beyond cost and performance; it will also mean a new OS, opening the door for Linux, most notably Xandros and Ubuntu Netbook Remix. The emergence of ARM-based netbooks running Linux will represent a subtle shift in messaging on the part of netbook vendors. "Expect to see increased emphasis on netbooks as secondary machines or 'companion devices,' designed to be paired with a more traditional, full-featured notebook or PC, rather than standing on their own."

Windows 7 To RTM August 2009

Thom Holwerda 2009-05-12 Windows 14 Comments

Steven Sinofsky has said that Windows 7 will enter the "release to manufacturing" stage in about three months from now, meaning August '09. This means that the actual Windows 7 release would be well in time for the holiday season. " If the feedback and telemetry on Windows 7 match our expectations then we will enter the final phases of the RTM process in about 3 months. If we are successful in that, then we tracking to our shared goal of having PCs with Windows 7 available this Holiday season."

MontaVista Linux Rebuilds Around Top SoCs

Thom Holwerda 2009-05-12 Linux No Comments

"MontaVista announced a new version of its embedded Linux development platform, now offered in separate packages for major system-on-chips. In addition to providing "Market Specific Distributions" for Intel, Freescale, and Texas Instruments SoCs, MontaVista Linux 6 adds a new build engine and content server, plus an upgraded DevRocket IDE."