David Adams Archive

TiVo Strikes Deal with Comcast

David Adams 2005-03-16 Multimedia, AV 14 Comments

TiVo, a much-beloved technology with a precarious business position, may have a new lease on life, thanks to a new deal with the US' #1 cable TV operator, Comcast. Under the deal, TiVo technology will power Comcast DVRs. Comcast and other cable firms have heretofore used shoddy TiVo knock-offs for their DVR offerings, so this new partnership should be of great benefit to both TiVo and Comcast customers.

CeBit Cool Stuff Roundup

David Adams 2005-03-16 In the News 1 Comment

The AP and BBC have short roundups of cool finds from CeBit: AP BBC. A silly diamond-studded mp3 player (who wants diamonds encrusted on their junk drawer obsolete tech?), GPS for motorcycles, a "palm vein" ID checker, a Bluetooth robotic camera, ultra-compact memory from IBM, an almost exact iPod Shuffle knock-off, a pen-sized text scanner, an eye-directed camera, and a cell phone with a HD inside.

IBM and Novell Launch ISV Program

David Adams 2005-03-16 SuSE, openSUSE 4 Comments

Novell and IBM are launching a program "designed to accelerate the development and certification of ISV applications for SuSE Linux on the IBM eServer and middleware platforms." "As part of this initiative, Novell Inc. will provide those ISVs interested in the program with copies of SuSE Linux Enterprise Server and supporting documentation. The company will also facilitate onsite registration for Novell's Technology Partner Program to help ISVs certify their applications on SuSE Linux for both IBM hardware and middleware. "

Linspire Five-0 Released

Submitted by Ivo Anjo 2005-03-16 Linspire 57 Comments

For some reason I have a groovy musical surfing intro playing in my head. Linspire 5, known as Five-0 has been released. It has "enhancements in every core application" and "a completely revised and streamlined graphical interface, improved laptop and hardware support, significant Internet optimization."

KDE 3.4 Coming Out Today

Submitted by Luca Botti 2005-03-16 KDE 38 Comments

Updated Announcement: We kind of jumped the gun this morning, but it looks like KDE 3.4 will be made available today. Keep an eye on kde.org. Updated Update: It's official.

The Riddle Of The Sphinx: An Editorial On OSS

Submitted by Thom Holwerda 2005-03-11 Editorial 121 Comments

Thom Holwerda has written a reply to Eugenia's editorial yesterday: "Yesterday, Eugenia, editor-in-chief of OSNews.com, published an editorial that angered the open-source software community. Even though I believe Eugenia can manage on her own just fine, I do want to support the editorial, with the use of some elaborations and clarifications."

Gaming on Linux

Submitted by Kombatant 2005-03-11 Games 46 Comments

Linux has so far failed to establish itself as a gamer's operating system of choice. Attempts to create multi-OS compatible games and current attempts to build a bridge between Windows-based games and Linux have yet to bear much fruit. How might things change in future?

Mozilla Suite is dead: Long live Seamonkey

Submitted by Tudy 2005-03-11 Mozilla, Gecko 32 Comments

Following up on our earlier mention that the Mozilla foundation was discussing the discontinuation of the Mozilla suite, they announced today that development of the project (code-name: Seamonkey) will be taken up by a community group that is being formed to pick up the baton.

Novell to ship Xen in next version of Suse

Submitted by Dave 2005-03-11 SuSE, openSUSE 6 Comments

The next version of SuSE, to be shipped in mid-April, will ship with the Xen virtualization software, letting users run multiple versions of the operating system simultaneously, the company said on Thursday. The article says that Red Hat has also begun adding Xen support to Fedora.

Securing Removable Media

Submitted by Danny 2005-03-11 Privacy, Security No Comments

Removable media devices are here to stay. Their ease of use and low cost have made them ubiquitous in the work environment – but at what price? In this article we look at the pro’s and con’s of removable media, and the steps IT managers can take to mitigate the security risks associated with them.

Multi-core CPUs on the Horizon at Apple?

Submitted by Alexandros Roussos 2005-03-11 Apple 26 Comments

An Apple developer noticed a cryptic mention of the PowerPC 970MP processor while using Apple's MONster utility. Update: Everything Apple has even more evidence.

Gnome 2.10 Released

Submitted by Mark Dillavou 2005-03-09 Gnome 87 Comments

Gnome 2.10 has been released. "It includes a number of interesting new features and hundreds of bug fixes" along with a video player and a CD-ripping utility.

Interview: Jim Curtin, CEO of Win4Lin

Submitted by Chuck Talk 2005-03-09 Original OSNews Interviews 6 Comments

Orange Crate has an interview with Jim Curtin, CEO of Win4Lin, a company that makes software that allows users to run Windows from within Linux. The company recently restructured, and they have big plans to "play a lead role in un-coupling applications from operating systems and hardware dependencies" and "make end user computing as cost-efficient, stable and secure as possible."

Puppy: A Linux Live-CD that Saves Back to CD

Submitted by Barry Kauler 2005-03-09 Linux 17 Comments

As far as I am aware, this is a world first, a live-CD that saves back to the CD at the end of the session. So how does it work? "Boot the PC with the multi-session CD inserted in the CD-burner drive -- thus, Puppy automatically knows which drive is the CD-burner, in case you have more than one CD/DVD drive. Then you use Puppy in the normal way. At shutdown, all the changed files in your home directory are saved back to CD. That's it. Next time you boot, all the personal files are restored."

Hardware-based Acceleration for Physics Simulations – the Future?

Submitted by Kaya Memisoglu 2005-03-09 Games 32 Comments

A company called AGEIA is working on Physics Processing Unit, a chip similar to the GPUs found on graphics card but with its sole purpose to offload phyiscs calculations found in most modern games from the CPU onto their new PPU. Read more for some thoughts on this development from Kaya Memisoglu.

SuSE 9.3 Today

Submitted by Matthias Toth 2005-03-09 SuSE, openSUSE 53 Comments

Novell is releasing SuSE Linux Professional 9.3 today. It includes the new desktop search utilty Beagle, and support for the iPod.

The Least Privilege Model in the Solaris 10 OS

Submitted by fintanr 2005-03-09 Privacy, Security 14 Comments

The Least Privilege Model in Solaris 10 allows for finegrained management of process and user privileges within Solaris 10. Amy Rich has written a nice introduction for Sun's bigadmin website.

Microsoft MVPs Revolt

Submitted by Ad Killer 2005-03-09 General Development 62 Comments

Over 100 Microsoft MVPs (Most Valuable Professionals) have signed an online petition that demands Redmond resume development and support of "classic" Visual Basic, a-k-a VB6. The MVPs are calling for all VB developers and IT leaders to review and consider signing the petition.

Linus Torvalds Switches to a Mac

Submitted by Joey 2005-03-09 Apple 39 Comments

Now that we've got your attention, no, Linus has not quit using Linux. He had an opportunity to get a free Dual G5 Apple, and he decided that, after all his years working on x86, the PowerPC architecture has a future, and deserves some attention. Torvalds' added justification for his switch is that he's a "technology whore."

Cobalt Makes Meager Progress

David Adams 2005-03-07 Wireless 16 Comments

An eWeek article reports that "more than a year after PalmSource Inc. released its Palm OS Cobalt operating system, only one handset manufacturer has announced plans to bring a Cobalt-based device to market." This is despite the fact that version six of the PalmOS has been in developers' hands for more than a year. But even PalmSource's corporate sibling, PalmOne, has no Cobalt-based devices in sight.