OSnews - Exploring the Future of Computing

Microsoft Takes Office Live Out of Beta

Submitted by John 2006-11-16 Microsoft 6 Comments

After a nine-month long beta run, Microsoft on Wednesday announced the final version of Office Live, which provides a first outline of the firm's Internet services vision. Other than the name may suggest, Office Live is not an extension of Word and Excel, but a service hosting package that makes it easier for small businesses to establish their presence on the Internet.

Submitted by falko 2006-11-16 OS News 4 Comments

"BixData is a system, application, and network monitoring tool which allows you to easily monitor nearly every aspect of your servers. The newly released version 2.6 is the only application that has the ability to control both Xen and VMware virtual machines. You can control both VM Hosts (the computer that's running the VM software) and VM Guests (the virtual machines running on the hosts).

Microsoft May Indemnify Some Red Hat Linux Users

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-15 Red Hat 65 Comments

While Microsoft is hoping to enter into a patent deal with Red Hat similar to the one it has with Novell, the software giant has not ruled out going it alone and providing some sort of indemnification for its customers who use Red Hat Linux. Bill Hilf, Microsoft's general manager of platform strategy, acknowledged that it is an awkward situation having Microsoft's customers who use Novell's SUSE Linux covered by the covenant not to sue, while those Windows users running Red Hat Linux are not.

Vista Released to VL Customers; EU Sets Ultimatum

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-15 Microsoft 57 Comments

It seems Microsoft has released the long awaited Windows Vista to a selection of its larger customers. If you're a Microsoft Volume License customer, you can now download Vista from the MVLS Volume Licensing site. Since around 10am (GMT) this morning, Vista has been properly released into the wild via MVLS - but no news yet as to when it will be available to the developer-centric MSDN community. The Inq also gives a rundown of what Aero-capable video cards you can buy if you have a machine that lacks AGP or PCIe slots. Meanwhile, the EU is threatening to fine Microsoft again.

Details Revealed On Longhorn Server; PowerShell Launched

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-15 Windows 44 Comments

Fresh from an almost missable US launch of Zune, Microsoft was back on familiar ground Tuesday touting server, security and admin software to reassure shareholders the company's future is bright. Bob Muglia, Microsoft's senior vice president for server and tools opened the company's IT Forum in Barcelona, Spain, by promising a third, and final, beta of Windows Longhorn Server during the first-half of 2007 with full product availability by years' end. Microsoft also officially launched its PowerShell.

Submitted by Governa 2006-11-15 Benchmarks 32 Comments

"We might be ahead of Apple's product release cycle, and we've probably violated our Mac Pro's warranty, but we just had to see what the Apple Mac Pro could do when populated with a pair of Intel's brand-new quad-core Xeon 5355 processors," Daniel A. Begun reports for CNET. They conclude: "Unless you do work normally relegated to high-end workstations, perform massively multitasking workloads, or just want the bragging rights, eight cores is definitely overkill - at least for now."

Submitted by fireball 2006-11-15 ReactOS 27 Comments

ReactOS, the open source implementation of a Windows XP/2003 compatible operating system, is announcing a start of a series of interviews with ReactOS developers. The first published interview features the project coordinator Aleksey Bragin. The ReactOS team plans to publish interviews on a weekly basis.

Monitor your Linux Computer with Machine-Generated Music

Submitted by BlueVoodoo 2006-11-15 Linux 10 Comments

"Use Perl and FluidSynth to create a real-time musical composition of your system status. Learn how to integrate various system monitoring data into a harmony-producing, MIDI-controlled audio synthesis. Explore audible information methodsconfigurations monitor and manage your computer."

Submitted by Eugenia Loli 2006-11-15 Apple 19 Comments

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd has secured contracts from Apple Computer for 12 million mobile handsets that also function as music players, the Commercial Times quoted industry sources as saying. Apple will launch the mobile handsets in the first half of next year, the newspaper said, without providing financial details of the contract.

Submitted by ahmetaa 2006-11-15 Java 27 Comments

There is a new scripting language in development called F3 from Sun, specifically designed for GUI programming. It allows designing Flash-like GUIs with ease and can call Java libraries directly. You can launch demos and get more information from the related blog.

First International Workshop on Plan 9 and Inferno

Submitted by 9fan 2006-11-15 OS News 9 Comments

The first international workshop on Plan 9 aims at bringing together researchers and developers working on Plan 9 from Bell Labs and Inferno, or working on related ideas and projects. Workshop topics will include system architecture, system services, file systems and servers, applications, projects for other platforms related to Plan 9, security issues, and others. The workshop will take place on December 4th and 5th at the University Rey Juan Carlos of Madrid in Spain.

Stardock Outlines Object Desktop Vista Plans

Submitted by Brad Wardell 2006-11-15 Graphics 46 Comments

Software developer Stardock has unveiled its first-wave Windows Vista plans for its desktop enhancement suite, Object Desktop. Amongst the Vista-specific software it is working on is a Windows Sidebar gadget creation extention for DesktopX (which will support WPF/.NET creations too) and a Windows Vista specific version of WindowBlinds.

Debian Etch loves the Slug

Submitted by anonymous 2006-11-15 Debian 12 Comments

The 'Slug' has gained much-improved Linux support, thanks to a new Debian installer that targets the device. The first release candidate of the debian-installer for Debian's forthcoming 'Etch' distribution was released yesterday, offering nearly complete support to the Linksys USD 99 NSLU2 NAS gadget.

Sun Eyeing GPL for OpenSolaris

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-14 Solaris 61 Comments

Will Sun look to use the GPL for offerings it has already open-sourced, such as the OpenSolaris version of its operating system? That was the topic of discussion in this exchange between Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's president and CEO, and Rich Green, the company's senior VP of software at an event to formally open-source Java. "We will take a close look at it," Green said, adding that it was possible that the familiarity and comfort level developers have with the GPL may result in Sun adopting it for OpenSolaris.

D-Bus 1.0 Released

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-14 General Development 35 Comments

"D-Bus 1.0 was officially released last week. Developed by FreeDesktop.org, D-Bus is an open source interprocess communication system created to promote interoperability between various Linux desktop environments by providing a cohesive common platform for internal system and application messaging. D-Bus, which has been under active development for four years, is already used extensively in the GNOME environment and will eventually replace DCOP in KDE."

What Really Happened to Ubuntu’s Edgy Artwork

Thom Holwerda 2006-11-14 Ubuntu 33 Comments

"Casual Ubuntu users may have registered surprise when they first booted the distribution's Edgy Eft release this past October. Back at the beginning of the Edgy development cycle, much was made of the formation of a new, dedicated Art Team to develop a fresh look for the backgrounds and splash screens of the startup process. But when Edgy hit the shelves, the artwork was scarcely different from that of its predecessor, Dapper Drake."

OpenSSH Server Ported to Windows CE

Submitted by anonymous 2006-11-14 Wireless 11 Comments

The OpenSSH server has been ported to Windows CE, enabling secure remote access to a Windows CE device using the SSH protocol. The software is currently released at version 0.0.1, under a BSD-style license, and is available in binary and source form.

Submitted by koki 2006-11-14 Haiku 44 Comments

The Haiku Project recently introduced a new and more efficient scalable vector-based icon format, the Haiku Vector Icon Format, or HVIF for short. HVIF uses a special vector storage format specifically designed to store icons that is so efficient, that icons in Haiku take a meager 500 - 700 bytes on average. Following the introduction of this new icon format, the Haiku developer behind this new icon format, Stephan Assmus (Stippi), has published two articles, one introducing some interesting facts about HVIF, and another giving some details of why Haiku vector icons are so small.

Sun Exec Explains Open Source Java

Submitted by Jane Walker 2006-11-14 Java 22 Comments

Monday, Sun did what many pundits, media personalities, developers and IT managers wanted done months ago - it opened up Java so that it could be freely distributed under the General Public License. In this interview with SearchOpenSource.com, Laurie Tolson, the vice president of Java developer products and programs, discussed this milestone for Java and what it meant for Sun, developers, IT managers.

OLPC Nears Low-Cost Linux Laptop Production

Submitted by anonymous 2006-11-14 Hardware 6 Comments

The One Laptop Per Child project's onsite supervisor, Mark Foster, reported from Shanghai on Sunday that the first 10 prototypes of the Linux-powered OLPC XO-1 are up and running. This marks a key milestone toward an upcoming build of 900 units.