OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Berners-Lee Talks About W3C Reform and Reinventing HTML

Thom Holwerda 2006-10-30 Internet 31 Comments

"An old adage states that a frog will jump out of boiling water, but can be boiled alive if placed in cold water that is heated at a slow pace. Apparently, the process of making amphibian soup is not entirely unlike the process of cooking up a new web standard. Citing limited adoption of XHTML, Internet innovator and World Wide Web Consortium ringleader Tim Berners-Lee says HTML must be reinvented through a process of incremental change that will build on the existing standard."

Intel Gains Server Share, AMD Gets Notebook Boost

Thom Holwerda 2006-10-30 In the News 12 Comments

Intel and Advanced Micro Devices swapped roles in a third quarter that wasn't as bad for shipments as some had initially feared, according to new data from Mercury Research. AMD had been making strides in the server market for several quarters, while Intel dominated the notebook market. But momentum swung the other way in the third quarter, with Intel regaining market share in server processors while AMD's notebook processor shipments surged, said Dean McCarron, an analyst with Mercury Research.

Submitted by tux68 2006-10-30 Windows 122 Comments

"The next version of Windows is just around the corner, so the next time we discuss software licensing in my course, the EULA for Vista will be front and center. You can read the Microsoft Vista EULA yourself by going to the official Software License page from Microsoft page and searching for Vista. I know many of you have never bothered to read the EULA - who really wants to, after all? - but take a few minutes and get yourself a copy and read it. I'll wait. Back? It's bad, ain't it? Real bad. I mean, previous EULAs weren't anything great - but the Vista EULA is horrendous."

Submitted by Charles A Landemaine 2006-10-30 PC-BSD 69 Comments

After the flood of Fedora Core 6 and Ubuntu 6.10 reviews, here is a review of PC-BSD 1.3 Beta. "PC-BSD has improved quite a bit and the use of its open-source PBI packaging system is a great idea. Although it obviously means there might be a minor delay in newly released products being ported over to the PBI package system, novice users will rejoice because the wait is well worth it. PC-BSD is a well oiled machine with its quick response times, even if you don't have that much memory in your system. Its implementation of a clean interface is welcomed by me and not having a 3D enabled desktop is not something I really would worry about unless you are an eye-candy lover."

Submitted by decuser 2006-10-30 Windows 34 Comments

Microsoft last week said that it is pushing back the next major service pack for Windows XP until the first half of 2008. The news came just ahead of reports that Vista’s RTM is being pushed back once again, from late October to early November, complicating matters for PC makers. The latest delay has some wondering whether the upgrade will ever see the light of day. "The fear is Service Pack 3 will just get killed off," said Jeff Centimano, an IT consultant at Levi, Ray & Shoup.

GUI Championships 2006

Thom Holwerda 2006-10-29 Graphics 21 Comments

"The GUI's is an inter-website contest in which top graphics designers from around the world compete for USD 15000 in cash and prizes. This year's contest focuses on WindowBlinds visual styles, IconPackager Icons, and Wallpapers. Anyone can participate as an individual or part of a team." The winners in the two icon categories are already announced (most original | most usable), and the finalists in the most prestigious category, that of visual styles, are also announced.

ZETA Gets Samba; Status Update on Haiku’s Networking Stack

Thom Holwerda 2006-10-29 Zeta 18 Comments

"Quite a few new things are now in an alpha/beta stage for the next update of ZETA; one of them is the implementation of the latest stable version of SAMBA, v3.0.23. As you can see from the screenshot, ZETA is now 'dancing' beautifully with Linux servers." Also, Axl has posted a status update concerning networking in Haiku: "Work on the networking stack is making slow but steady progress. UDP and IPv4 protocols are mostly done, TCP can send out data, but receiving is not yet implemented."

The Background on Backgrounds in Vista

Thom Holwerda 2006-10-29 Windows 75 Comments

"There has been a lot of attention in the last few weeks about the discrepancy in the desktop background appearance between the control panel and Windows Photo Gallery. This is something that we have been tracking internally for quite a while, so I thought I would clue in everyone on the issue here and how we are addressing it for RTM.

Open Server Workstation on Sale Next Week

Thom Holwerda 2006-10-29 Morphos 38 Comments

Genesi has announced its Open Server Workstation: "The Open Server Workstation is a six layer board with two 970MP processors, the CPC945 and Broadcom's HT-1000 and 2000 chips. Excepting those parts, the board and component cost is below USD 200. Here is the Business Plan we wrote for the board."

AMD Intros ATI Vista Ready Chips

Thom Holwerda 2006-10-29 AMD 18 Comments

At an event in Mumbai, soon after the completion of the acquisition of ATI, AMD announced a line of latest Vista-ready ATI Radeon graphic processors. According to Chris Jones, corporate vice president - Windows Core OS Division, "Microsoft will deliver a series of graphics innovations with Windows Vista that provide a customer experience that is second to none. We could not have achieved this without our partnership with ATI. From day one, ATI has played a key role in helping us design and validate the new driver model at the heart of Windows Vista, and ATI has since developed robust and performant drivers that highlight the capabilities of our new operating system."

Ubuntu 6.10 Reviews

Submitted by Christian Pfeiffer Jensen 2006-10-29 Ubuntu 28 Comments

For you review freaks out there: "All the Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) reviews you can dream of. So far reviews from Linux.com, Arsgeek, Lunapark6, Element14, mo79online, sencer.de, Manufactured Enviroments, first impressions at Technical Itch and the Ubuntu forums and screenshot tours at TheCodingStudio and several blog entries."

Submitted by gonzo 2006-10-29 General Development 13 Comments

NetBeans 5.5 has been released. "NetBeans IDE 5.5 builds on the success of NetBeans 5.0 and adds support for Java EE 5 and Sun Java System Application Server PE 9. Got Web 2.0? Of course! NetBeans 5.5 generates JAX-WS 2.0 artifacts for Java SE 6 and Java EE 5 projects. We included Java Persistence support and support for Enterprise Java Beans 3. Additionally, there is the new Subversion support module and an updated module for the GUI builder, both available on the 5.5 Update Center." A new preview build of NetBeans 6 has also been released.

Report: OpenSUSE 10.2 Beta 1

Thom Holwerda 2006-10-29 SuSE, openSUSE 10 Comments

"As you know OpenSUSE released the first beta in the 10.2 dev cycle on the 26th and Tuxmachines has been checking it out in preparation for our report. This feature and version freeze release came with quite a few annoying bugs, but most didn't apply to my testing. I did encounter a coupla problems of my own and little or no new eye candy was found. But how did the system perform overall?"

Submitted by poohgee 2006-10-29 Red Hat 81 Comments

"Oracle's offer of free support for Red Hat Linux was designed to inflict maximum pain on Red Hat. So it did. One day after the announcement, Red Hat shares lost 24 percent of their value. After watching his stock take a tumble, Red Hat's CEO Matthew Szulik is in a bind. He has just absorbed the equivalent of a cyber-kick in the groin from a bigger, badder bully."

Submitted by falko 2006-10-29 Ubuntu 7 Comments

"This is a detailed description about how to set up a Ubuntu 6.10 (Edgy Eft) based server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH and TLS, DNS server, FTP server, MySQL server, POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc."

Java EE Isolation Levels with the Spring Framework

Submitted by anonymous 2006-10-29 Java No Comments

The Spring framework allows you to design web and enterprise applications that use custom isolation levels in global transactions. This article shows you how you can use Spring to specify custom isolation levels in global transactions. The article walks you through the process in seven detailed steps.

DirectX 10 Preview

Eugenia Loli 2006-10-29 3D 53 Comments

"Microsoft's DirectX application programming interface (API) was first introduced in 1995. DirectX was designed to make life easier for software developers by providing a standard platform developers could use to easily make multimedia software and game programming for the Windows Platform." More here.

Fedora Core 6 (Zod) in Parallels

Eugenia Loli 2006-10-29 Fedora Core 2 Comments

"I got to install Fedora Core 6 twice yesterday, in very different contexts, and I'm so far rather pleased with the outcome of my stay in Zod-land. This, despite minor setbacks which were very much due to my requirements, and some not truly Fedora related." More here.

The Solaris UFS File System

Eugenia Loli 2006-10-29 Solaris 1 Comment

The UFS file system is the general-purpose, disk-based file system that is shipped with Solaris today and has been the default file system since early versions of SunOS 4.x. This sample chapter covers its history, architecture, and some basic administrative concepts.

The Future of CPUs: What’s After Multi-Core?

Eugenia Loli 2006-10-29 Hardware 18 Comments

As Moore's Law continues to hold, IC designers are finding that they have more and more silicon real estate to play with. David Chisnall hazards some guesses as to what they might do with it.