Thom Holwerda Archive

Windows Server 2003 R2 and Beyond

Thom Holwerda 2006-01-26 Windows 7 Comments

"Shobana Balakrishnan, a program manager on the Windows Longhorn Server team, takes us through the server roadmap and demonstrates Windows Server 2003 R2. Think you know everything about Windows Server? You might be surprised by the innovations this team has shipped and is planning on shipping in Longhorn Server."

Red Hat Plans Linux Distro for MacBook Pro

Submitted by Macino 2006-01-26 Red Hat 39 Comments

Imagine a world where you could run both Linux and Apple operating systems on the same high-performance Mac laptop. That day may be coming sooner than Mac fans think. Red Hat has confirmed it is pursuing the development of a Linux distribution for the new Intel-based Macs. Red Hat is no stranger to Macintosh - Fedora and other Linux distributions support the PowerPC architecture once used by Apple - but there are challenges to bringing Linux to the MacBook Pro. It appears the opportunities outweigh the challenges, though, with potential repercussions for Microsoft if the market clamors for Red Hat Linux-enabled MacBook Pros.

Building a PC to Defeat IBM’s Chess Supercomputer

Submitted by Jeremy 2006-01-26 IBM 14 Comments

"In the 1990s, world chess champion Gary Kasparov played two historic matches against IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer. He won the first match but lost the second by just a single point. As a graduate student at Stanford writing a thesis on artificial intelligence at that time, I was fascinated by the match. I'd been a computer hobbyist since the 1980s as well as a chess buff. Over the years I've tried practically every commercially available chess program on every platform, including Sargon, Socrates, Chessmaster, and others. I used TRS 80 and Apple II computers, and then IBM PCs running DOS, followed by Macintosh and Windows systems. Since that time I've wanted a chess computer as powerful as Deep Blue - my own world-champion-level sparring partner."

Quick & Dirty Caching Fix for Java Memory Leaks

Submitted by anonymous 2006-01-26 Java 11 Comments

"While programs in the Java language are theoretically immune from memory leaks, there are situations in which objects are not garbage collected even though they are no longer part of the program's logical state. This article shows you how Soft references, like weak references, can help applications prevent object loitering by enlisting the aid of the garbage collector in making cache eviction decisions."

ReactOS Suspending Development

Submitted by Sebastian Schildt 2006-01-26 ReactOS 46 Comments

People visiting the ReactOS website today were in for a shock. "Accusations have been made by some of ReactOS' own developers about certain parts of ReactOS code. The project is suspending development pending legal council. The project will resume once the issue has been rectified." I could not find any more information, as the links to the mailinglist archives are dead.

iMac Sales Not Sluggish; Bounty for Windows XP on Intel Macs

Submitted by Nehemoth 2006-01-26 Apple 28 Comments

Some more news on Apple's Intel Macs. First off, contrary to what OSNews reported on yesterday, a research and investment firm says that sales of the Intel iMac and MacBook Pro are good. Secondly, a contest has been set up to get Windows XP to boot on the Intel Macs.

NetBSD Status Report Q3/Q4 2005

Submitted by Mike M. Volokhov 2006-01-26 NetBSD No Comments

"This is the first quarterly status report of 2006. However, since there was no status report for the last quarter of 2005, this report summarizes the changes within NetBSD over the last six months, which includes the release of both NetBSD 2.1 and 3.0, a summary of the NetBSD Project's participation in Google's Summer of Code and the release of two stable pkgsrc branches, among many other things."

The State of Play on ODF in Massachusetts

Submitted by Andy Updegrove 2006-01-26 Office 2 Comments

"I've been gathering information from a variety of knowledgeable sources on the critical issues and milestones affecting the continuing implementation by the Massachusetts IT Division of its OpenDocument Format policy. Here are the issues and milestones that I'll be watching, the state of play of each on as I understand it, and the approximate date to look for an announcement on each."

Firefox Myths

Submitted by Varg Vikernes 2006-01-25 Mozilla, Gecko 121 Comments

Here is a page discussing various myths surrounding Firefox. "We have all seen these banners before or heard people say 'Firefox is faster, Firefox has lower requirements, Firefox is secure, Firefox defends me from all spyware, etc.' How misleading is it? Read on." Flame away. And be gentle. That's an order. And here's a rebuttal.

Apple Set to Begin Testing Mac OS X 10.4.5 Update

Submitted by bababooie 2006-01-25 macOS 32 Comments

Okay, Mac users like myself just barely finished rebooting after the 10.4.4 update, and here comes the first information on 10.4.5: "Apple Computer this week is expected to begin widespread testing of Mac OS X 10.4.5 Update, the next in a series of maintenance updates to its Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger operating system and the first update to address bugs lingering the company's initial release of Mac OS X 10.4.4 for Intel-based Macs."

Sun Challenges Dell to a Benchmark Brawl

Submitted by Nehemoth 2006-01-25 Rumors 22 Comments

"Customers demanded it and now it's here. Sun is challenging Dell to a Benchmark Brawl. Up for contention are the titles for the server side Java benchmark. Floating point intensive calculation. Power consumption. And the jewel in the crown, price-performance. If Dell accepts, benchmarks will be conducted by a neutral, third-party lab running agreed upon industry-standard benchmarks. Dell has until January 31, 2006 to accept the challenge. Testing to be done using Sun Fire x4100 and X4200 servers and the corresponding Dell Xeon servers that are commercially shipping in volume."

Novell Linux Survey: What Software Do You Want on Linux?

Submitted by beandog 2006-01-25 Novell and Ximian 37 Comments

Novell is running a survey on which applications people are most interested in getting ported to Linux. With enough votes, they'll take the highest ranked ones and present the results to the companies, hopefully in persuading them to consider that there is a market. You can read a preliminary report, or take the survey yourself.

Google Kowtows to China

Thom Holwerda 2006-01-25 Google 29 Comments

Google has been basking in good publicity from refusing US government demands to hand over search results but in China it is happy to create a search engine based on government specifications. Google will offer a censored version of its search engine running on servers in China. It will remove results on 'sensitive' topics like human rights and Tibet. The decision would not seem so bad coming from another company but Google used to pride itself on the morality of its business strategy and devotion to free speech.

Debian Scrutinizes GPL3

Thom Holwerda 2006-01-25 Debian No Comments

At last week's launch of the first draft for the revised GNU General Public Licence, the Debian project was out in force. Besides Branden Robinson, the Debian Project Leader, Debian members at the meeting included Don Armstrong, Benjamin Mako Hill, Bruce Perens, and several Debian members from the Boston area. In the aftermath of the meeting, a consensus is still emerging, but Debian members seem to regard GPL3 generally favorably, although some have concerns about exact wording and the implications of some parts of the draft.

GNU Is Developing an Open Source Flash Implementation

Thom Holwerda 2006-01-25 Open Source 37 Comments

GNU is actively developing Gnash, an open source Flash movie player distributed under the GPL license. Based on GameSWF, Gnash will eventually provide complete support for SWF version 7 compliant Flash movies. Implemented with OpenGL and libxml2, Gnash will be avilable as a standalone Flash player, and as a Firefox plug-in. In order to avoid any potential intellectual property conflicts, the Gnash developers are not using any Macromedia tools to facilitate faster development. Instead of reverse engineering Macromedia technologies, the Gnash developers are basing their implementation on the SWF specification.

Dell Gets Serious About Mobile

Thom Holwerda 2006-01-25 Hardware 1 Comment

Laptops with fully integrated mobile phone connectivity will soon take off in the UK, a senior Dell executive said on Wednesday. According to Eric Greffier, director of client marketing for Dell in Europe, Dell has ambitious plans for mobile phone-enabled laptops. "The difference is that these will be fully integrated within the laptop and they will support all the standards for mobile communications," he told ZDNet UK.

Genesi: Order Period Open for HDB Evaluation Systems

Thom Holwerda 2006-01-25 Morphos 5 Comments

Genesi is pleased to announce the order period for evaluation systems for the High Density Blade and HDB Chassis is now open. The HDB can be deployed in a variety of configurations. The HDB features one or paired Freescale MPC7447, MPC7447A or MPC7448 PowerPC processor(s) and the Tundra Tsi109 host bridge.

Review: Microsoft Windows Vista Build 5270

Submitted by Shah Jahan 2006-01-25 Windows 32 Comments

"A while back, when Microsoft announced its decision to no longer release a monthly CTP for Vista, we were a bit worried, since we wanted to follow-up on the latest developments of Microsoft's next-generation operating system (though Microsoft promised to update current versions via critical updates). To Microsoft's credit, it has kept its word and has released an update sooner than we had anticipated, and needless to say, the changes in this release are substantial."

Intel Shows Test Chips Made on Future Processes

Thom Holwerda 2006-01-25 Intel 3 Comments

The 45-nanometer process is right on time, according to Intel. The chip giant has created test chips made on the 45-nanometer process and will likely begin shipping processors, flash, and other chips based on that process in the second half of 2007, according to Mark Bohr, director of process architecture and integration at Intel.

Microsoft Opens Windows for EC Compliance

Submitted by James Ralston 2006-01-25 Windows 8 Comments

Microsoft is to open up the source code behind its server communication protocols, in an attempt to get the European Commission off its back. The announcement covers the source code behind the communication protocols for Windows Workgroup Server and Windows Desktop. Microsoft already offers 12000 pages of technical documents and 500 hours of free technical support to anyone applying for a license. Companies making software which interacts with Microsoft servers use those licences to make their products work properly with Microsoft ones. Such license-holders will now also get to look at the source code, but will not have the right to publish the code or include it in their own products.