Thom Holwerda Archive

"As you might expect of such complex and successful software, Lotus Notes and Domino share a long and rich history. In some respects, this history mirrors the evolution of the computing industry itself-the development and widespread adoption of PCs, networks, graphical user interfaces, communication and collaboration software, and the Web. Notes and Domino have been there nearly every step of the way, influencing (and being influenced by) all these critical developments. This article briefly retraces the history of Notes and Domino, starting with the earliest conceptual and development stages and continuing through major feature releases."

"Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel, outlined plans to bring a wide range of content, from sports to first-run movies, to anyone with a broadband Internet connection and a remote control using its new Viiv PC platform, during a Thursday night keynote at the 2006 CES. While it incorporates new hardware and software, including Intel's latest Core Duo and Pentium D 900 series chips, Viiv represents the company's larger effort to bring together a variety of content and display it on a range of devices, including televisions and handhelds." In addition, Intel teamed up with Google to provide video content for the Viiv platform.

"This is a guide to create or restore images of your partitions using the great open source tool Partimage. It provides information on how to do this locally or across the network, by setting up a Partimaged Server. I guess this info is non distribution specific, since we will work from a Rescue environment. Partimage is a command line tool with a basic ncurses user interface. For information about the supported filesystems, you can check its homepage."

"Palm this week introduced a Treo model that uses the latest version of Microsoft's Windows Mobile software (formerly known as Pocket PC). On the outside, the new Treo 700w looks very much like the current Palm-based model, the Treo 650, which will remain on sale and will continue to be developed on a parallel track. On the inside, though, the new Treo's key software functions - phone, email, Web, multimedia - are all different."

"As every network manager knows, you should never run your computer as administrator, especially if it has access to the Internet. Malware often depends on admin rights to disable firewalls, delete registry entries and download or create files. Without those rights, malicious code must find another path to your destruction. That bit of insight led Microsoft Security Engineering's Michael Howard to create DropMyRights for Windows XP and up. Once DMR is added to a web application's shortcut, the app starts with Normal User Rights instead of Admin rights. Users get the freedom of movement they've always enjoyed, with a little extra protection." In related news, there's now another unofficial patch for the WMF flaw.

Just as the discussion surrounding the Pegasos II and AmigaOS4 is settling down, a new possibility for hardware for AmigaOS4 has arisen. PPCNux reports about an Amiga-branded G5 board- which is basically the motherboard of the iMac G5 without the AirPort slot, but with an Amiga sticker slapped on. Another reason why this is a fake is that the board lacks legacy ports, heresy for Amiga fans. PPCNux speculates that with the switch to x86, Apple might be left with excess stock on PPC hardware, and will be licensing them as Amiga hardware. This is supported by Hyperion's statement that they "are working with several hardware companies that want to provide hardware for AmigaOS4.0." Another possible indication is that Hyperion states that AmigaOS4 runs on the PPC 9xx series-- the G5 is the 970. Speculation, and probably a prank at best, but an interesting idea nonetheless.