Thom Holwerda Archive

The Nexenta project, which builds a distribution combining the OpenSolaris kernel with applications from Ubuntu, has announced a new alpha release of NexentaOS: "This release provides a fully integrated Ubuntu Dapper Drake userland, OpenSolaris core (build #40), and contains overall 11800 packages. In addition, Alpha 5 contains: Sun's Java SE 5.0 Java Development Kit (via NexentaOS APT); live upgrade; and OpenOffice.org 2.0, natively compiled on Nexenta OS."

The 2006 Windows Hardware Engineering conference presentations have been posted. They include a vast number of topics ranging from the devices, drivers, storage and servers. There are details on Microsoft's new hypervisor and virtualization architecture, as well as a lot of details on optimizing hardware for Vista.

"Network attached storage has been known to Unix users for a very long time with NFS. NFS is reliable, performs well on the performance front, but it is infamous for its security. The biggest problem with NFS is that the client is responsible for controlling user file access. The NFS server just accepts file system operations on behalf of a given UID and enforces nearly no control. NFS require you trust your clients, something that may not be adequate. Andrew File System is an alternative network file system. In this interview, I ask Ty Sarna about his experience with AFS. Ty Sarna has been an AFS user since 1992 and is a NetBSD developer since 1998."

In in Part 1 of this series, you'll learn how to use the LDAP Tools for Eclipse to configure Geronimo's built-in Apache Directory LDAP server. In Part 2 you'll query the LDAP server and update the Web page using Ajax. You'll also get familiar with some of the techniques to build LDAP-centric applications using the toolsets available in the Java platform and Ajax.

"Apple extended the courtesy of meeting with me one day after my column on the closing of the OS X x86 kernel source code was published online. To sum up Apple's objections, they felt I had given a year-old story a fresh coat of paint and sensationalized it for an audience that wasn't affected by it. Yet no story is more timely, or more broadly relevant, than this one." Tom Yager, who raised concerns over the closed-source Intel half of the MacOS, details why he was so concerned. "The kernel will open up again, this tempest will fade away, and I'll be glad for it. What will continue to concern me so deeply is that Apple thought it would be OK, that nobody would notice or care." Note: The 2nd link was incorrect, it is fixed now. Excusez-moi.

This paper tries to compare Linux vs. Solaris. Its author comes to many conclusions, among which this is one of the more interesting: "All-in-all Solaris is a powerful, stable, conformant-to-standards OS that can run many open source applications as well as Linux, and some (mainly multithreaded applications) better than Linux. Like in the cases of Red Hat and Suse, the cost of support is extra, but it is more reasonably priced. Security patches are free which makes Solaris similar to Windows."

Kevin Carmony is the president and CEO of Linspire. Kevin kindly agreed to answer a few questions, and talk about his new project: Freespire. "Starting with the Freespire release, yes, anyone can use APT to pull from all our repositories. However, Ubuntu and Debian users would also need to be careful doing that, just like Linspire users need to use caution when pulling from non-Linspire repositories ."

"F-Script is a lightweight open-source scripting layer specifically designed for the Mac OS X object system (i.e. Cocoa). F-Script provides scripting and interactive access to Cocoa frameworks and custom Objective-C objects. It aims to be a useful and fun tool for both beginners and experts, allowing interactively exploring, testing and using Cocoa-based objects and frameworks."

It's time for the Windows and Linux communities to drop the religious war and get together in a hurry to put the strengths of each operating system to best use, according to a nationally recognized authority on Windows Server. At the same time, Microsoft has been reaching out to the open-source community to try to find ways to overcome the incompatibilities between software distributed under the GNU General Public License and its own commercial software.

Microsoft's Windows Vista has a date with some of the world's smartest hackers. The software maker will use the spotlight of the Black Hat security conference in August to show off some of the key security features and functionality being fitted into Vista. Microsoft's appearance on the Black Hat stage is a first on many fronts. Microsoft will be the first software vendor to present an entire Black Hat Briefing track on a pre-release product. It is also the first time a representative from Redmond will make an official presentation at the controversial hacker confab. Meanwhile, a patch Tuesay passed by.

"Each release of Mac OS X has brought increased support of 'Universal Access' for users with disabilities. Universal Access is Apple's collective name for the Mac OS X technologies, features, and components that provide users with disabilities with access to Macintosh computers. For Mac developers, making applications accessible to this audience is the smart thing to do, and it's easier now than ever before. This article will teach you how to fully implement support for accessibility through the VoiceOver interface in your Carbon application."

"Not that long ago, a significant portion of desktop GNU/Linux enthusiasts were actively advocating GNU/Linux among Windows users. I even remember doing it myself at one point, though now I really don't care what you use on your computer as long as I don't have to use it too. I thought that sentiment was isolated to me, but lately I've seen an abrupt decline in GNU/Linux evangelism on online forums. Here are some possible reasons for this change in community thinking and behavior."

Google has released a beta version of Google Earth 4, which runs on all the three major platforms. "We got so excited around here about the first anniversary of Google Earth that we decided to celebrate a bit early. Beginning today, you can download a brand new version, Google Earth 4. Running on OS X? Feel the love. Prefer Linux? Ditto. Yes, we're releasing simultaneously for PC, Mac (universal binary for full performance on both Intel and PowerPC based Macs) and for the first time ever, native support for popular Linux distributions." They have also seriously increased the amount of high-res images, so that now about 20% of the world's landmass is in high-res. Including my hometown, Warmenhuizen .

More than 60 percent of compromised Windows PCs scanned by Microsoft's Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool between January 2005 and March 2006 were found to be running malicious bot software, the company said. The tool removed at least one version of the remote-control software from about 3.5 million PCs, it added. That's compared with an overall 5.7 million machines with infections overall. "Backdoor Trojans are a significant and tangible threat to Windows users," Microsoft said in the report.