Nokia N810 Internet Tablet Code Unit Testing

General Development 1 Comment
Part 1 of this three-part series laid the foundation for building an application targeted at the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, including choosing a target language (Python), selecting and configuring a development environment (Eclipse with Pluthon), and building a small sample application to make sure everything worked as advertised. Part 2 looks at different options for helper libraries, coding with unit testing in mind, and user interface choices.
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Instant-on Technology to Take Netbooks?

Hardware 9 Comments
Nobody ever liked looking at a boot screen, especially when in a hurry for quick access to a bit of needed information. Quick-boot technology has been around for ages, it seems, going seemingly nowhere, as if taunting. However, a number of new products displayed recently at CES by companies such as Sony, Lenovo, Phoenix, and Qualcomm, gives one the idea that the quick-boot technology will soon be implemented into netbooks, and all for the better (quicker, at least).
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Das Keyboard Professional, a Review

Hardware 7 Comments
In the future people may interact with computers via a touchscreen or voice commands, but presently, keyboards are still one of the major ways to interact with a computer. The Tech Report has acquired a modern buckling spring keyboard, the Das Keyboard Professional, for review. Being a hardware review site, they have to compare the Das Keyboard Professional against something, so Cyril pits it against his personal Model M.
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Ubuntu 8.10 UMPC for the Asus EeePC?

  Submitted by fsmag Ubuntu 2 Comments
"I discovered recently the truth of the old saying that necessity is the mother of invention. Yes, I finally did it. I bricked my beloved EeePc. I had just installed the Smart package manager and a subsequent reboot saw me stuck in, well, an eternal boot loop. Impulsive mixing of repositories always ends in tears - but not being able to boot? Argh! To rub salt into the wound I had mislaid the Xandros DVD to do a reinstall and I didn't even have an external CD/DVD drive anyway. Organised or what?" Read the full story at Freesoftware Magazine.
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Windows 7 Beta Reviews Pop up

Windows 7 Comments
Several reviews of the Windows 7 beta popping up. El Reg concludes: "All told, this will likely be a strong release, as it needs to be after the Windows Vista experience, just do not expect miracles. This is Windows Vista with a new face, not a major new version of Windows." Ars reviewed the beta as well, and concludes: "All in all, Windows 7 is shaping up well. It's a far more modest release than Vista was, but it's no worse for that. The new OS introduces a compelling combination of welcome innovations and much-needed polish, and that's exactly what Microsoft needs right now. Vista's foundation was solid, and Windows 7 just makes it better."
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Via’s Nano Plans: Too Little, Too Late?

Hardware 19 Comments
At the end of 2008, the OSNews team made a short list of the tech-related things they would like to see in 2009. On my list was the hope that we'd see more competition in the netbook market, which is now dominated by Intel's Atom platform, resulting in manufacturers all releasing essentially the same machine, but with a different badge and case colour. Where are Intel's competitors? We know AMD is on its way, we know that the Chinese are producing some noteworthy chips, and that the ARM chip is jumping up and down screaming for attention - but where is Via's Nano platform? Shouldn't it be here already?
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Should Microsoft Open Source Windows?

Windows 76 Comments
Every now and then, some blogger working for a big website will write a story about how company Abc should make radical move Xyz in order to better, eh, well, that's usually left in the dark. These are generally more akin to said bloggers hoping for radical move Xyz rather than there being a well-argumented reasoning. Radical moves in the technology business don't happen very often, but when they do, there's generally a good reason for them.
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Mozilla’s Ubiquity Logo Contest

  Submitted by Sebastiaan Mozilla, Gecko 11 Comments
You may have thought Mozilla could not open up beyond its current state, but you may be wrong: Aza Raskin, Mozilla Labs' UX Lead and Sebastiaan de With, a freelance icon designer, have completely opened up the process of designing a new logo for Mozilla Ubiquity. The second round of conceptual exploration has just started, and the popular vote is very welcome on the blog or in the comments. What's your favorite concept, and why?
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KDE 4.2 Progress, New NetworkManager Plasmoid Coming

KDE 78 Comments
When KDE 4.0 was first released, it was met with quite some criticism. Even though people saw the huge potential, the lack of functionality and stability, as well as quite a few bugs detracted from the experience. The KDE developers continued to work on implementing their relatively radical vision, and with the release of KDE 4.2 creeping ever closer, it seems they're well on their way.
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Btrfs 0.17 Released

  Submitted by diegocg Linux 13 Comments
Versin 0.17 of the Linux filesystem btrfs has been released. The main news on this release is that it has been included in the Linus' tree. The changes include support of transparent compression, seed devices, improved block sharing while moving extents, improved block allocation and many bug fixes and performance improvements. Also, the disk format is not expected to change unless a critical bug is found.
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Windows 7 SDK Beta Released

Windows No Comments
Microsoft has released the Windows 7 SDK beta. "The Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 3.5 SP1: BETA provides the documentation, samples, header files, libraries, and tools (including C++ compilers) that you need to develop applications to run on Windows 7 BETA and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. To build and run .NET Framework applications, you must have the corresponding version of the .NET Framework installed. This SDK is compatible with Visual Studio 2008, including Visual Studio Express Editions, which are available free of charge." Note that the SDK will most definitely change before Windows 7 goes final.
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Create High-Resolution Displays for OS X

macOS No Comments
"In essence, CoreUI is a low-level framework that - ultimately - will be responsible for drawing all the user interface widgets in OS X. Among other things, CoreUI will define the look and feel of the Aqua interface. I say 'will' and 'ultimately' because at the time of writing CoreUI is still something of a work in progress. Some folks have reported that CoreUI isn't used at all in Leopard, unless you change the scale factor from its default value of 1.0, but this is simplistic. By default, CoreUI is used for drawing a number of user interface elements in Leopard."
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MacWorld, Windows 7, Palm

OS News 16 Comments
This week, we start with a new regular occurence on OSNews: the imaginatively named Week in Review, where we do a quick rundown of the preceding week's most important news, and maybe add in a few new items that didn't make the cut earlier in the week. We will close off each of them with My Take, a short random musing about whatever subject we please. This week, the news was dominated by MacWorld, Windows 7, and Palm.
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