Thom Holwerda Archive

"The GRand Unified Boot loader, or GRUB, has all but replaced the default boot loader on many GNU/Linux distributions. It includes some conveniences over LILO, the LInux LOader. One advantage is not having to remember to run /sbin/lilo every time you make a configuration change. It also can function as a boot loader for removable media such as floppies, CD-R/W and USB flash memory keys. It is short-sided to view GRUB only as a boot loader to be installed on a hard drive of a GNU/Linux system. Combined with a few other utilities, GRUB can be a powerful and good-looking tool for your home, organization or workplace."

"Apple became a household name in the third quarter of SuperBowl XVIII when it aired the enormously popular 1984 ad promoting the upcoming release of the Macintosh. Apple's PR firm, Chiat/Day, had pitched a similar ad in 1982 to promote the Apple II. The basic premise was that the Apple II would only enable people, and not hinder them with inane commands and hard to understand interfaces. No executives were particularly enamored with the spot, and it was filed away for possible later use."

The second beta of OpenSUSE Linux 10.1 has been released today. Main changes: "Fixes for a number of bugs - but note that most of the bugs reported against beta1 are not fixed yet; further integration and fixing of NetworkManager; SUSE Linux 10.1 Beta1 comes with the Intrusion Prevention framework; AppArmor 2.0 which is started by default in beta2; updated to KDE 3.5.1 release packages." Downloads locations are in the release announcement.

"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."

"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."

"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."

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.

"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."

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.

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."

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 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.

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.

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.