Thom Holwerda Archive

Sun and Oracle have established a new strategic partnership in an attempt to challenge Microsoft with what Oracle CEO Larry Ellison calls 'standards-based systems.' According to Ellison and McNealy, their mutual goal is the production of a complete Java-centric enterprise datacenter architecture that leverages Solaris 10 and Oracle's Fusion middleware. Designed specifically as an alternative to Microsoft's .NET technology stack, the new platform is competitively priced and based on robust frameworks.

"This tutorial describes how to set up database replication in MySQL. MySQL replication allows you to have an exact copy of a database from a master server on another server (slave), and all updates to the database on the master server are immediately replicated to the database on the slave server so that both databases are in sync. This is not a backup policy because an accidentally issued DELETE command will also be carried out on the slave; but replication can help protect against hardware failures though."

"Over the years, RISC OS 4 and 5 have continued to move forward, however separate their paths. Despite reams of column inches covering on-going developments, it would appear that there is no up to date list of all the RISC OS features for either stream; instead details of new releases are strewn across various months old web pages and articles, some of which written in fairly technical and programmer oriented language. Here, we present our best attempt at summing up all the main features for both RISC OS 4.39 and RISC OS 5.09 under one friendly roof, so to speak, for both current users, those new to the platform and those curiously peeking in."

Apple's television ads for its new Macs boast that for years, Intel's chips have been "trapped inside PCs - dull little boxes, dutifully performing dull little tasks." Now, the voiceover proclaims, the Intel processor will finally be set free. Of course, that's not exactly the way Intel would put it. "Never would we characterize our customers that way."

"While the press brouhaha happily follows Apple about and co-conspirator Intel looks on, smugly hoping its tie-up with the much-loved computer maker will bring it some added kudos in its assault on the consumer electronics market, IBM, the giant ousted from the party, is getting on with business. Big Blue may have been dumped by Apple but its compensation is plentiful. Its Power chips form the heart of upcoming console offerings from Sony and Nintendo as well as the XBox from Microsoft. And let's face it, the press might like Apple and the kids might dig iTunes but sales of a million or so computers annually is pretty small beer in the grand scheme of things."

GNOME 2.12 has been released for AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3. You can get both the binaries as well as the source in .rpm format here. The maintainers have dropped support for AIX 4.3.3 and for GNOME 2.2.1 through 2.8. On a related note, GTK+ 2.8.10 has been released.

REAL Software announced today that REALbasic 2006 Release 1 is shipping. This new product features enhanced compatibility with Visual Basic, simplified localization and improved reliability and stability.

Apple's Steve Jobs has announced several new products today during his keynote at MacWorld (photos). After the usual chit-chat about the success of the retail stores and iTunes, Jobs got to the meat of the matter. He announced an FM-tuner with remote-control for the Nano/Video iPod. Read more for the really interesting stuff!

"On Tuesday, Novell announced the creation of the AppArmor project, a new GPL open-source project dedicated to advancing Linux application security. Novell's AppArmor is an intrusion-prevention system that protects Linux and its applications from the effects of attacks, viruses and malicious applications. AppArmor is based on technology that Novell acquired from Immunix, a leading provider of Linux host-based application security solutions, when it purchased the company in May 2005."

"LIRC is basically a small server which can decode or transmit infra-red signals. This is a tutorial about how to set up the LIRC server and how to use it in order to control your system or specific LIRC-enabled applications with a remote control. Examples of simple or more complicated setups are also provided."

"The new version 5 of WindowBlinds adds features like per-pixel alpha blending, as well as the ability to change toolbar icons, progress animations, and the hue and saturation of the Windows interface. WindowBlinds runs as a Windows XP extension to the Themes feature, so it doesn't require any additional program to run on your PC to work. It also takes advantage of your graphics processor to display its interface eye candy, so that your CPU won't slow down. In fact, the company claims that repainting, resizing, and moving windows will be noticeably quicker as a result of this use of video acceleration for the UI. The Hyperpaint feature even lets you adjust the degree of hardware acceleration. Hyperpaint uses the extra video RAM on your video card to buffer windows, which makes moving them faster."

"According to George Cook of WVNET this cluster has been up for over 10 years. WVNET is the West Virginia Network, a dynamic service organization providing telecommunications and computing services within West Virginia. WVNET was created in 1975 to provide central computing facilities and wide-area network communications linking its 'central site' computing resources in Morgantown with the campus computing systems at most of the colleges and universities throughout the state. The cluster consists of an Alpha 4100 (with four 533Mhz CPUs) running VMS 7.3-2; a VAX 6000-630 running VMS 7.3; and four DEC 3000 workstations running VMS 7.3-2."

"More than five years ago the launch of Microsoft Windows XP - and its considerably improved features and reliability compared with Windows 98 and 2000 - made a comprehensive desktop rollout a no-brainer for companies. The other options were all far from desirable. Now, as the world gears up for the launch of Windows Vista, the conclusion may not be so cut and dry. Certainly, Vista is set to be feature-packed and reliable, and many companies will move to the new platform as a matter of course. However, Linux has come a long way in five years, with the concerted effort of hobbyists around the world supplemented by the resources of tech heavyweights to push its desktop features to near-parity with Windows XP."

"This time of year, even the most hard-core geek thinks thoughts of festive cheer. And there's nothing like, oh, say, a beer, to enhance the mood of seasonal glee. And after a few beers comes the song. '99 bottles of beer on the wall, 99 bottles of beer'... Oh - sorry - where was I? What, you ask, does such a scurrilous ditty have to do with serious developers? Well, nothing - except that it was the vector for an entertaining and informative experiment in programming."