Adam Scheinberg Archive

Mozilla's big plan on Tuesday to set a world record for downloads with the newly released Firefox 3 browser hit a snag when its Web site would not work properly. The Mozilla Dev Blog reports that the site, when restored, was receiving over 13 gigabits per second of traffic! In addition, PCWorld is offering a brief Firefox 3 FAQ for new and existing users.

The launch of Microsoft's new interoperability principles have been both cautiously welcomed and sceptically scrutinised as the company goes about convincing the IT industry that it is genuine in its pursuit to provide interoperability with rival products, more consumer choice, less vendor lock-in and greater collaboration with the open source community. Here, Microsoft Australia CTO Greg Stones gives some obviously polished PR-approved responses to questions from Computerworld regarding the motivations behind support for ODF and PDF, what the software giant is really gaining by providing support to rival formats, and the ambiguities in its Open Specification Promise. He also gives a painfully polished response to CNN's senior editor's claims that the company is trying to eliminate free software.Typical Microsoft PR response to tough questions, but interesting nonetheless....

Nexenta developers announced the availability of NexentaCore 2.0 Alpha1, a Debian Native OpenSolaris environment and platform, based on an Ubuntu "Hardy Heron" base. NexentaCore 2.0 Alpha1 includes almost 3400 packages ported over during the two week "Hardy Hackathon Fest."

Mandriva has released the planned schedule and technical specifications for its next release, Mandriva Linux 2009. These can be found on the Mandriva Wiki. The schedule calls for a first alpha release on June 25th, with the final release set for early October. Planned features include KDE 4, Firefox 3, OpenOffice.org 3, a new design for the installer, a live distribution upgrade mode for MandrivaUpdate, and improvements to many of the Mandriva tools. Take a look and see what you may find on your system when the final Mandriva Linux 2009 release is available.

Remember back in January when Sun engineer Adam Leventhal shared that Apple had "crippled" DTrace? Well, it appears that the latest point release of Leopard silently restored DTrace to full function. According to Levanthal, on 10.5.3, the output of DTrace is "exactly what one would expect". DTrace can be used right now on your updated Leopard install.

"We are proud to announce that the next version of SkyOS will ship with a new Mail client. In contrast to the already available Mozilla Thunderbird mail client, the new Mail application completely integrates with SkyOS. For instance, all mails are stored as separate files with various attributes attach to it. So you can easily and quickly find every mail using the SkyOS Viewer and its query system."

The 2008 Apple Worldwide Developer's Conference keynote is just over an hour away. The Apple Store is down. What do you think Steve Jobs is going to unveil? Will it be the much rumored 3G iPhone? Or the newest rumor, the Mac Fusion? Perhaps Jobs will unveil the codename of OS X 10.6? Feel free to discuss in the comments or chat about the it live at OSNews Talk.

Crunchgear has posted pics that they believe are a real ad for the upcoming 3G iPhone, revealing the much discussed video conferencing feature many have been anticipating. Recent patents filed by Apple corroborate this evidence. In addition to showcasing a Product (RED) version, the ads also suggest the release of iChat for Windows. It also appears that the new firmware will support UMTS/HSDPA, as expected.

Last week, IBM unveiled the first version of their OpenOffice.org offshoot, Lotus Symphony. Symphony is aimed at professional users in a corporate environment, but brings to OpenOffice.org many UI enhancements in an attractive, single tabbed interface. Symphony 1.0 runs on Windows and Linux; while the site used to suggest a Mac version was forthcoming, there is currently no reference to a Mac native version of Symphony. The Lotus Symphony website has been updated to reflect the recent release, however, downloads are very slow at the moment "due to high demand."

According to BetaNews, Microsoft has announced that they will support OpenDocument (ODF) and PDF in Office 2007 SP2. This comes as a major victory not only for OpenOffice.org and its offshoots, but also for open source in general. Microsoft is planning on making Office 2007 SP2 available in the first half of 2009.

Today, after much feedback and evaluation, we implemented some changes to the way OSNews "moderation" works. Previously, we had a dual-purposed feedback system - an "up" vote was based on agreement, but a "down" vote was based on specific rules. We've changed the way things work around here, read more for the details.

Today, Apple has released the much anticipated Mac OS X 10.5.2. The hefty combo update weighs in at almost 350MB, but it can also be downloaded via Software Update. The updates includes general operating system improvements that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, as well as imrpoved Back to My Mac support, new view for Dock based folders, and much more.

From all of us at OSNews, we'd like to wish you a happy and healthy new year. In honor of the new year, we'd like to ask you: what headlines do you expect to read in the tech world in 2008? Are you expecting iPhone rev2? Or maybe Vista SP1's success? Perhaps Hardy Heron's world domination? Will Google's Android swallow the cellphone market? Can Facebook continue to rule the roost in social networking? Tell us what you expect in the comments!

This day-after-Thanksgiving, when many Americans are enjoying a day off and several others are at work goofing around on OSNews, we decided to ask you: what's your "killer app?" What's the one app you can't live without? Sound off in the comments - one app only!