Thom Holwerda Archive

The cooperation between the XGL and AIGLX projects to bring better interfaces for the Linux desktop continues as David Reveman (Novell) of XGL has agreed to adopt many changes from the AIGLX project sent in by Kristian Hogsberg (Red Hat).

Apple on Wednesday released Security Update 2006-001, available for download through Software Update system preference pane and from Apple's Downloads Web page. The update addresses a recently reported exploit that left Safari users vulnerable to malicious shell scripts, corrects a vulnerability in Apple's Mail software, and also changes the way iChat handles file transfers to help prevent the Leap-A malware.

Ars has published review of a Macbook Pro in which they feature benchmarks contrasting the performance of the Macbook Pro, a G4 PowerBook, and an Inspiron 9100 with a hacked version of OS X. Interestingly, one of the benchmarks, Cinebench, also features the same Inspiron running Windows, in which the Inspiron/Windows combination does better overall. Of course an unfair comparison (hacked OSX vs. normal XP), but interesting nonetheless. Ars concludes: "All in all, the MacBook Pro is an extremely solid machine that makes me happy to be back in the Apple Pro notebook world after a six month hiatus in 12" iBook-land."

Alerts went out Tuesday from several security companies warning users of an in-the-wild Trojan horse able to infect nearly any cell phone. The Trojan, named Redbrowser.a by McAfee, F-Secure, and the discovering vendor Kaspersky Labs, can attack any device - smart phone, PDA, or cell phone - that runs Java 2 Micro Edition, Sun Microsystem's version for consumer electronics devices.

The Open Graphics Project is dedicated to producing open-architecture graphics hardware that is friendly to free and open source operating systems like Linux and BSD. Yesterday morning, they released schematics for OGD1 for public review and critique. OGD1 is an FPGA-based development and prototyping platform that they decided to turn into a commercial product to raise funds. Check out an article on KernelTrap. The release of these schematics was accompanied by a discussion about how to price the OGD1 to maximize fund-raising while keeping it accessible to hobbyists; KernelTrap has another article about that as well.

Origami cought some attention this week and now you would expect to see the real thing. Wrong. If you haven't seen the video on Digital Kitchen , you're out of the picture here. The new flash on the Origami Project site further hints on the mobility of this thing, but that's it. We'll have to wait until the 9th of March for the third flash, and maybe, just maybe, some real Microsoft data on the device.

GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection, version 4.1 has been released. The list of changes details the improvements. The Fedora team has already incorporated it and Fedora Core 5 will have 4.1 as the system compiler with GCC 3.2 provided as an alternative for compatibility reasons.

"On January 26th, 2005, the Itanium Solutions Alliance (Intel, Hewlett-Packard, SGI, NEC, Hitachi, Bull SA, Fujitsu, and Unisys) proudly announced that its members had banded together to invest $10 billion over the next four years to improve Itanium's features and functions and strengthen its market position. This huge investment in this architecture at this time forces us to ask a lot of tough questions about the wisdom of this action... "

Microsoft doesn't believe hands are the only vehicle for driving computers. Feet are equally valid for scrolling and cataloging e-mail and photos, among other tasks, according to researchers working in Microsoft's main Redmond research lab. In fact, for those for whom hands are less of an option, as a result of disabilities or injuries, feet might be the optimal solution. Microsoft Research's StepUI, or Step User Interface, is custom-made for these individuals.

"As a Linux user, there are times when you have to play nicely with users of Windows or Mac OS - such as when they send you Microsoft Word files. When you receive a Word file, you can either follow Richard Stallman's advice and refuse it, or bite the bullet and work with it. Modern Linux word processors - such as OpenOffice.org Writer, AbiWord, KWord, and TextMaker - can deal with most Word files. But if you don't want to fire up a word processor in order to read or print the document, you can turn to the command line. A handful of small but powerful Linux command line utilities make viewing, printing, and even converting Word files to another format, a breeze."

Mandriva subsidiary Edge-IT has been selected to participate in an EU-backed project that aims to create a next-generation computing approach known as the 'Social Semantic Desktop'. The goal is to transform the PC into a collaborative environment that supports both personal computing and information sharing via social and organizational channels.

Ultimate++ 602 has been released. Ultimate++ is a C++ platform. U++ competes with popular scripting languages while preserving C/C++ runtime characteristics. New features of the 602 release include a new report package, otimization of C++ refactoring and assistance (Assist++), and improvements in project organization and building.

While testers have been all over the newest Windows Vista CTP build, the new Longhorn Server test build, which Microsoft also delivered at the end of February, has gotten far less attention. Testers confirmed that Microsoft has posted on the Connect beta-download site the Longhorn Server Build 5308 bits for download.

A free application environment for Linux-based handheld and mobile devices may support lots more devices in the future, including Linux mobile phones. The GPE (GPE palmtop environment) project is planning a "device abstraction" layer aimed at simplying new device ports, according to maintainer Florian Boor.