David Adams Archive

Debunking High Tech Urban Legends

David Adams 2004-06-28 Humor 57 Comments

Will magnets zap your data? Will turning off your PC without shutting down Windows hurt anything? Can hackers really hose your data? Do you really need one of those static wrist straps? PC World answers all of these questions and more. Are there any other myths that you've always wondered about? Post them in the comments!

Is Java Cooling Off?

David Adams 2004-06-28 Java 39 Comments

A ZDNet article notes that Sun's JavaOne conference, starting today, will likely have a more somber mood than the one in 2000, when Java was seemingly ruling the world. Sun is facing a two-front assault by Microsoft and Open Source, and though its Java platform is a bright spot in its business plan, many users are clamoring for Sun to cede more control over its direction or even free the source code. Some major Java vendors like BEA and IBM are bypassing Sun's "Java Community Process" and releasing Java extensions on their own.

EU: Microsoft Will Not Have to Make Windows Changes

David Adams 2004-06-28 Legal 13 Comments

The antitrust penalties that the EU laid down on Microsoft a few months ago will not be implemented until an appeals court has a chance to decide whether the penalties should be suspended for the entire length of the appeal, which is expected to be several years. Had this step not been taken, the penalties would have gone into effect today.

Bill Gates: More Firewalls, Faster Fixes, Auto Update

David Adams 2004-06-28 Privacy, Security 34 Comments

Speaking in Australia, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates stressed that more widespread use of firewalls would solve some of the Internet's security problems. He also stressed that his company needs to reduce the frequency with which major security updates are released. He also noted that while most OSes can turn around a security fix in 60-90 days, "we have it down to less than 48 hours." He stressed the importance of using the Window auto-update feature and noted that SP2 defaults the auto-update and firewall to on.

Real Announces Red Hat and SUSE/Novell Deals

Submitted by JiB 2004-06-28 Multimedia, AV 15 Comments

Real will be distributing its RealPlayer 10 for Linux with both Red Hat and Novell/SuSE desktop Linux distributions. In other news, RealPlayer 10 for Mac OS X will be out this week.

DragonFly BSD 1.0 Release Candidate 1 Released

Submitted by Jeroen R van der Werven 2004-06-28 BSD & Darwin 12 Comments

Matt Dillon has announced the availability of DragonFly BSD's 1.0 Release Candidate #1. Changes and features include: variant symbolic links, UDF support, lightweight kernel threads, message passing, GCC 3.4 in the tree, binutils 2.14, Kernighan's awk 2004-02-07, BIND 9.2.4 rc4, CVS 1.12.8, libpcap 0.8.3, tcpdump 3.8.3, less 381, MMX/XMM kernel optimizations are now on by default, greatly improving bcopy/bzero/copyin/copyout performance for large (>4K) buffers, XIO, acpica5, new AC'97 codec support, network stack revamping, long standing bug fixes for wide variety of support and stability issues, and more. A final is expected in two weeks.

Microsoft Eases “Shared Source” Restrictions

David Adams 2004-06-28 Microsoft 4 Comments

Microsoft is eliminating many restrictions on the use of the "shared source" license for its Windows CE operating system. Significantly, ror the first time, any developer, anywhere in the world will be allowed to include modified Windows CE code within commercial products without having to sublicense the modifications back to Microsoft. The change, which accompanies the impending full release of Windows CE 5.0, will counter competition from Linux and is likely to expand Microsoft's slice of the roughly $1B embedded OS market pie.

Building a Wired Home, Part 2

David Adams 2004-06-17 Office 14 Comments

The second in an ongoing series of articles about expanding the realm of your computing environment to encompass your whole home, this article covers my experience becoming a certified Home Technology Integrator. Though the internet is a great source of information for nearly every aspect of home automation, there's no substitute for a little formal education.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Announcing GnomeFiles.org

David Adams 2004-06-16 Gnome 44 Comments

Two months ago, Gnome took its software repository offline in order to bolster internal security, and since then there has not been a focal point on the internet for GNOME software. We're happy to announce Gnomefiles.org, a resource for Gnome/GTK+ developers and users to post and find software. Read for more info and the prizes we offer to the first devs that will submit an app.

An Interview with Matt Asay of Novell

Submitted by Chuck Talk 2004-05-28 Novell and Ximian 30 Comments

OrangeCrate has an interview with Matt Asay, Director of Novell's Linux Business Office. He talks about Linux strategy, the GPL, partnerships, and Linux on the desktop.

OSNews Pricegrabber Updated

David Adams 2004-05-28 OS News 14 Comments

We've made some updates to the Pricegrabber menu (at the lower left hand side of the site). For your convenience, we've updated some of the products there, and added some new gadgets. It's a great way to compare prices, and if you use osnews.pricegrabber.com when you buy (or even just research), you support OSNews. Bookmark it! If anyone has any ideas for products or categories that should be added to the list, let us know.

Contiki Brings the Web to the Apple ][

Submitted by Adam Dunkels 2004-05-28 Apple 20 Comments

The Contiki operating system is an open source, Internet-enabled, operating system designed for tiny systems and runs on a variety systems ranging from the Commodore 64 and the Atari Jaguar to small embedded micro-controllers. Oliver Schmidt and Glenn Jones now bring the Internet and the web to the classic Apple ][e surfing the web is available (9 megabytes, DivX encoded).

Kurumin 3.0 Released

Submitted by William da Rocha 2004-05-28 Linux 32 Comments

The Brazilian Linux distribution Kurumin has just released version 3.0 final. I don't know much more, because my Portuguese isn't so good. Download locations, ChangeLog, and plenty of other information is available here, along with plenty of other useful information, I'm certain.

Directfb 3D Window Management

David Adams 2004-05-28 3D 37 Comments

There's a new screenshot over at directfb.org that shows the new TextureTriangles() method using existing windows as the texture. Every change in the original window is immediately visible in the transformed presentation.

The Python Enterprise Application Kit

David Adams 2004-05-28 General Development 5 Comments

PEAK is a Python framework for rapidly developing and reusing application components. While Python itself is already a very high-level language, PEAK provides even higher abstractions, largely through the clever use of metaclasses and other advanced Python techniques. In many ways, PEAK does for Python what J2EE does for the Java™ language.

Novell Australia: Ready for Desktop Linux

Submitted by Saverio 2004-05-28 Novell and Ximian 47 Comments

Novell is embarking on an "eat your own dog food" project in which it will eventually migrate all of its 6000 employees worldwide to SuSE Linux (and drop MS Office for OpenOffice). The company's Australian employees will be the advance guard. Many of them have already been using OpenOffice for some time, and the transition has been relatively smooth. According to the article, "Using a custom set of technologies which read Windows users preferences into SuSE after a dual-boot installation, the average desktop can be migrated in less than an hour."

Better Way to FindBugs

Submitted by Frank 2004-05-28 Java 12 Comments

Interesting tool for Java developers:Static analysis tools promise to find existing bugs in your code without requiring much effort on the part of the developer. Of course, if you've been programming for long, you know those promises don't always pan out. Even so, good static analysis tools are a valuable addition to your toolbox. In this first of a two-part series, Senior Software Engineer Chris Grindstaff looks at how FindBugs can help improve the quality of your code and eliminate bugs lying in wait.

Read More

Linux-Powered “Emotional Lamp”

David Adams 2004-05-28 Humor 15 Comments

The Emotional Lamp is a WiFi-connected device that can be programmed to respond to real-world events by emanating sequences of gentle color. It can be programmed to respond to various data, such as the health of your stock portfolio or the business of the morning commute. Cost: 790 Euro (about $937). "It's very cool to do a telnet to a lamp!" according to the article.

Read More

Collaborative Development: Software and Drugs

Submitted by Wilbur Pan 2004-05-28 Editorial 28 Comments

Open source licensing has been known to be controversial here at OSNews. Simplistic characterizations (Communism, Virus, Utopia) abound which do nothing to argue the philosophy on its merits. A medical researcher notes that there is a parallel with open source development in one of our most important (and most capitalistic) industries: pharmaceutical research.

Read More

Is the Netscape Browser Being Reborn or Just Stabilized?

Submitted by Tudy Parghel 2004-05-28 Mozilla, Gecko 35 Comments

AOL is planning to release an updated Netscape Navigator as early as June, but whether one of the Web's original browsers will make a comeback remains uncertain.

Read More