David Adams Archive

U.K. government staff suggested replacing Microsoft Corp. operating systems on computers with free alternatives in response to a call for ideas for Prime Minister David Cameron's cost-cutting drive.

There's an article today at abc.com that looks at recent trends around net-based pay-for services and the smattering of paywalls from News Corp to the NYT that are up or threatening to be put up, and speculating that this could be the beginning of a trend. Of course, a YouTube video rental site and a few large publishers putting up paywalls will make zero difference to the "free internet" on their own. But if they're successful, it could spark emulation. But could this be a trend that could snowball enough to change the nature of the net?

Embattled Linux vendor Mandriva released version 2010 Spring, after a delay that only underscored the uncertainty around the distro's future.

Kernel News reviews SuSe Linux Enterprise Desktop 11, SP1. In addition to fixing a lot of problems that plagued the initial SLED 11 release, SP1 includes major software updates. For instance, SLED11 SP1 includes GNOME 2.28 and KDE 4.3.5.

A Forbes article notices that while the iPad's reception from the public and the mainstream press has been overwhelmingly positive, the prevailing sentiment among some alpha geeks has been negative to the extreme. The conclusion, of course, is that these people aren't reacting to what the iPad is, but rather what it represents: a violation of the ethos of the personal computer. The author of the Forbes article concludes that much of the anti-iPad vitriol is hyperbole, and doesn't help advance the cause. It's a thought-provoking question.

In an ill omen for Symbian fans, the publisher of Symbian-Guru is abandoning the platform: "As of today, I will no longer be updating Symbian-Guru.com, and will be purchasing an Android-powered smartphone - my new Nexus One should arrive tomorrow. I've been a Nokia fanboy since 1999, and a Symbian fanboy since I got my Nokia 6620 in summer of 2004. Since then, I've personally owned 10+ different Symbian-powered smartphones, and have reviewed nearly every Symbian-powered smartphone that's been released in the past 3 years or so. I've tried to use all of Nokia's various products and services to the best of my ability, and I just can't do it anymore." His post continues with an exploration of the sorry state of Symbian and Nokia that only a once-true-believer could have written.

Bob Sutor, Vice President of Open Source and Linux at IBM confirmed on his blog that the entire IBM company is moving to Firefox as its default browser. Though it seems like various users in the company have been able to use Firefox for quite some time, it looks like now they're going to be encouraging everyone to use it, and all new computers will be provisioned with Firefox as the default. Sutor has plenty of glowing praise for the open source browser in his blog post.

Internet Explorer has reversed a years-long slide in browser usage, at least for the month of June, reclaiming share at the expense of Firefox. The change in fortunes was significant enough that Microsoft couldn't resist crowing about IE's progress in a blog post on Thursday.

After having the Netbook UX of MeeGo out for quite a while, the MeeGo project released the first preview of Handset UX for public scrutiny. This is, finally, the Qt based heir of Maemo. There is also a youtube video available, with someone running the release on Moorestown-based Aava reference phone. While this can be flashed on your N900, that is only recommended for platform developers; this release is not productized to be useful for consumers. Pics after the jump

The story was first reported by The New York Times, which stated that Dell employees were aware that the approximately 11.8 million affected computers might break or cause fires, but were instructed to downplay the problems when talking to customers.

Microsoft has killed the Kin after only six weeks on the market. The first Windows Phone 7-ish phone apparently didn't sell, likely thanks to its too-high-for-the-demographic $30 data fee from Verizon.

We don't cover the development platform wars as much as we should. But wherever you fall in the epic battle between .NET, Java, and LAMP, you'll probably enjoy the video after the jump.

Archivers rejoice! Seagate introduces the world's first 3TB external HDD. One can fit up to 120 HD movies or 1,500 video games on this 3.5 inch thick external hard drive.

Cisco has announced plans for the Cisco Cius, an Android based tablet. However, it seems to be mainly targeted at business users. It will be packed with features like one-click video conferencing and will be able connect to the Internet via WiFi or a 3G cellular network.