OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Review: HP TouchSmart IQ770

Thom Holwerda 2007-07-13 Hardware 9 Comments

El Reg reviews the HP Touchsmart IQ770 computer, a sort of all-in-one computer with a touchscreen. "Either you're excited by the prospect of an all-in-one PC with a touchscreen or you're not. Judging by our experiences, adults will be thoroughly confused by the split personality of the HP, shocked by the enormous weight and unimpressed by the price - a pound less than GBP 1300. But the kids are gonna love it."

Submitted by rughalt 2007-07-13 Linux 11 Comments

"The problem is, for me, and many other developers, administrators or just normal users, that if you want to use applications from a different OS, you have to reboot and boot into the other OS. Sometimes, when you, for example, just want to do a quick test of a newly compiled application, and go back to work, it is very inconvenient and time consuming. Standard ways of dealing with these problems is either creating virtual machine for Linux, setting up two PCs (one with Windows, second with Linux) or using Cygwin/SFU (Services for Unix). But there is also another way, which allows you to run Linux on Windows natively - coLinux."

Interview with Jeroen van der Zijp of FOX

Submitted by Sander Jansen 2007-07-13 General Development 18 Comments

Jeroen van der Zijp, the author of Fox Toolkit, has kindly given kerkythea.net an interview. The Fox Toolkit is a platform independent GUI that has matured over the last years to become one of the fastest and well structured APIs.

Take Charge of Your Architecture

Submitted by IdaAshley 2007-07-13 Java 16 Comments

The architecture you think you have is often different than what you actually have. It's time to take charge of your architecture and learn how you can discover deviations by writing tests using JUnit, JDepend, and Ant to discover problems proactively instead of long after the fact.

Submitted by netpython 2007-07-12 3D 169 Comments

"DirectX 10 would not work with XP, and that was fine and dandy. It was an honest technical reason why you could not backport DX10 to XP without a major rip and replace operation. Microsoft wasn't going to bend on this one at all." More here.

Submitted by sharkscott 2007-07-12 KDE 6 Comments

A look inside what makes KDE tick and a glimpse of what the future holds and more in the LXer interview of Sebastian Kügler.

Submitted by HansJMicheelsen 2007-07-12 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 5 Comments

The PowerPack edition of Mandriva 2007 Spring is now available as a set of CDs. The files are available for immediate download for Standard members and above from the downloads section, either through BitTorrent (recommended) or through HTTP. Elsewhere, Ars Technica took a look at the Intel classmate PC running Mandriva Linux at aKademy 2007.

Sun OpenSolaris To Become More ‘Linux-like’

Submitted by Jack 2007-07-12 Solaris 67 Comments

Analysts familiar with Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Project Indiana say that as early as this week the company could reveal plans to revamp the OpenSolaris operating system by incorporating key pieces of Linux software.

Optimizing AIX 5L Performance Through Disk I/O

Submitted by BlueVoodoo 2007-07-12 IBM 1 Comment

While disk tuning is arguably less exciting than CPU or memory tuning, it is a crucial component in optimizing server performance. Learn more about direct I/O, concurrent I/O, asynchronous I/O, and best practices for each method of I/O implementation.

What’s Cooking for FreeBSD 7?

Submitted by mark 2007-07-12 FreeBSD 31 Comments

The next major release of FreeBSD, version 7, is one of the most significant so far, with amount of new technologies and improvement largest since introduction of 5.0. Since constantly searching the mailing lists for important changes can be a bit tedious, this page lists some of the more interesting new things in one place.

Submitted by wibbit 2007-07-12 Apple 138 Comments

Apple has bought the CUPS code base, and has hired it's lead developer. "CUPS was written by Michael R Sweet, an owner of Easy Software Products. In February of 2007 Apple Inc. hired Michael and acquired ownership the CUPS source code. While Michael is primarily working on non-CUPS projects, he will continue to develop and support CUPS, which is still being released under the existing GPL2/LGPL2 licensing terms."

Microsoft Reiterates Its Commitment to the Desktop

Thom Holwerda 2007-07-11 Microsoft 71 Comments

Microsoft has reiterated its commitment to the desktop. Building on its co-founder Bill Gates' vision of a PC on every desk in every home, Microsoft will continue to focus on delivering desktop products. And in this context, nothing will change when it comes down to the development of the company's main cash cows. Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System will be followed by Windows Seven and Office 14. Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer, present at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2007 in Denver on July 10 emphasized the fact that Windows Vista will neither be the last of its kind, nor the last big operating system release from the Redmond company. The same strategy is valid for the Office 2007 System.

Mac OS X with 100 Bugs: Still Safer Than Windows?

Thom Holwerda 2007-07-11 macOS 54 Comments

"So far this year, Apple users have been exposed to the kind of vulnerabilities that are more commonly associated with Windows. The Mac maker has plugged security flaws that could have resulted in OS X customers being 'owned' by basic actions such as visiting a malicious website, watching a video file or opening an email attachment. However, despite all these vulnerabilities, the Mac's resilient platform, its advanced automatic software update tools and the apparent lack of attention from malware authors means Apple users are far safer from attack than users of Windows." On a related note, Apple has released updates to iTunes and QuickTime. The QuickTime update eliminates the need to buy QuickTime Pro in order to play videos full screen.

Openbox Window Manager Grows up

Thom Holwerda 2007-07-11 Desktop environments 11 Comments

"If you want an adaptable window manager that doesn't drain your resources, try Openbox. Its latest version, 3.4.2, released this month, has several visual improvements and dozens of new usable features. Since it's easy to customize, many people replace their stock window managers with Openbox. It can run inside both GNOME and KDE (but not Xfce), replacing their native window managers. It can also be used as a lightweight desktop environment on its own."

Quick Look: KDE 4.0 Alpha 2

Submitted by Johan Thelin 2007-07-11 KDE 62 Comments

A quick look at the state of KDE 4, including screenshots. "Over all, KDE 4 alpha 2, was a pleasant experience. Not much worked on a user level, but large parts of the underlaying infrastructure seems to be in place. I'm looking forward to the more releases and the final version due in October."

AIX 6 Beta Program Opens

Submitted by BlueVoodoo 2007-07-11 IBM 17 Comments

IBM has opened the AIX 6 beta program. "AIX 6 Open Beta participants will be able to download the AIX 6 beta code, Mozilla Firefox, and updates to enable previously purchased IBM compilers to run on AIX 6."

Five Leopard GUI Gripes

Thom Holwerda 2007-07-11 macOS 119 Comments

"The current beta build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, released to developers at WWDC ‚'07, is not as polished as what people have come to expect of Apple's design team - users are still left with at best several disagreeable changes, and at worst a hideous hodgepodge of HIG contradictions. I have broken down 5 onscreen blunders that detract from the user experience and make Leopard the ugliest and most uncharacteristically 'Apple' OS to date." Thanks to MacWereld for pointing this article out.

Microsoft Slates Windows Server 2008 for February 2008 Launch

Thom Holwerda 2007-07-10 Windows 42 Comments

"Today at the Worldwide Partner Conference in San Francisco, Microsoft's chief operating officer, Kevin Turner, announced that Windows Server 2008 (previously known as Longhorn), Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008 will be officially launched on February 27, 2008. This may come as a surprise to those following the Windows 2008 Server news closely, since most sources at Microsoft have been insisting that the next version of its server operating system will released at the very end of 2007. Apparently in Redmond there is a difference between releasing the OS and the extravagant product launches, which are more of a pep rally for the product then a technical presentation."

‘Siag Office Is Far From Pathetic’

Thom Holwerda 2007-07-10 Office 50 Comments

"'Siag, it sucks less!' This is the slogan for Siag Office. This and the self-effacing name for the Siag Office Word Processor, Pathetic Writer, might leave you thinking that this office suite is a mere plaything, a university student's cobbled-together programming assignment. But don't be fooled by first impressions. Siag Office is a lightweight suite of applications which might be just the right set of office tools for you, especially if you have older hardware."

Canonical Begins Opening up Launchpad

Thom Holwerda 2007-07-10 Ubuntu 22 Comments

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, has often been criticised for keeping their bug reporting and collaboration tool, Launchpad, closed-source. Today, Canonical has started opening up Launchpad by releasing its first open-source component, Storm. "Storm is an ORM that simplifies the development of database-backed applications in Python, especially for projects that use very large databases or multiple databases with a seamless web front-end", said Gustavo Niemeyer, lead developer of Storm at Canonical. "Storm is particularly designed to feel very natural to Python programmers, and exposes multiple databases as /stores/ in a clean and easy to use fashion."