Thom Holwerda Archive

Windows Server System brings together several existing products and comes with three copies of the Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, a copy of Exchange Server 2003 Standard Edition and a copy of Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 Workgroup Edition. Elsewhere, MS released a fix to a major IE hole confirmed last week, while some eyebrows are raised as MS downgrades its Claria detections.

Delta Debugging is an automatic and systematic technique that deals with isolation of the source of the failure -- often the developer's longest, most demotivating, and most repetitive activity when carried out manually. Read more...

Two interesting articles on OS X today. This one summarizes some of the less-obvious new features of Apple's Tiger. The other one theorizes that Apple's shift to Intel is an incentive for Windows developers to port their software due to the lack of the endian problem.

Bink.nu has some interesting information on Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Edition. It is 64bit only, and consists of 2 CD's. They also posted a set of screenshots.

After a decade of admiring Linux from afar, Claus Futtrup finally takes the plunge, choosing to dual-boot his Windows 98 system with Minislack. In this interesting guest column at DesktopLinux.com, Futtrup explains why he selected Minislack, and relates his experiences with installing, configuring, and using it as a newcomer to Linux.

De Raadt's team makes OpenBSD, an operating system, and OpenSSH, for secure communications. Here, he talks about why he does it, about industry use of open-source software, and about dedication to quality paying off.

Embedded Linux tools vendor Trolltech has announced a strategic partnership with web browser software vendor Opera through which the two companies will develop Linux products for the mobile communications and home entertainment markets. Elsewhere, Opera gets BitTorrent support.

The European Parliament today decided by a large majority to reject the software patents directive. This rejection was the logical answer to the Commission's refusal to restart the legislative process in February and the Council's unwillingness to engage in any kind of dialogue with the Parliament. Update: Sun and Red Hat made a joint statement today.

Rapido is a visual profiler for Linux-x86. The program helps in visualizing and describing what's going on in the heart of the program. It helps developers in finding and analyzing bottlenecks in their applications.

Sun may have streamlined its Java development process and intensified its marketing around the openess of the programming language and platform, but some smaller partners are still not happy.

Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985, founded NeXT, developed a powerful object oriented operating system, and saw it become Apple's modern OS. That's the short version. The long version can be found here.

Matthew Dillon has made significant progress on DragonFly's journaling code, which can now mirror partitions. Essentially all that remains now is for the "reverse journaling" work to be completed (allowing for filesystem rollback), and for stability to be increased. More information here and here

By itself, the release of OpenOffice.org for Scots Gaelic is a small event within the communities of FOSS. However, the release shows a potential for FOSS that is often overlooked, particularly by those for whom English is their native language. Specifically, FOSS has the potential to help resuscitate a declining language and thereby aid in revitalizing a disintegrating culture.

Microsoft released details on a number of projects today. One of those is Microsoft Student 2006, a suite that helps parents and students with their homework and assignments. Secondly, MS released Microsft Money 2006. In addition, MS unveiled more details on the November launch of Visual Studio, SQL Server and BizTalk Server, while also previewing the long awaited CRM update.