Thom Holwerda Archive

"In conclusion, let me say that Martin's book is not an easy read, but then few things worth doing are easy to do. You will be challenged by Martin's book, unless you are a wizard like Martin. But after you have toiled through the intellectually taxing tasks of examining, weighing, lifting, turning and tweaking the multitudinous creatures that inhabit the Debian forest, you will come out with a far, far greater appreciation for the beauty of the Debian System."

"Microsoft will move the graphics for its next version of Windows outside of the operating system's kernel to improve reliability, the software giant has told Techworld. Vista's graphics subsystem, codenamed Avalon and formally known as the Windows Presentation Foundation, will be pulled out the kernel because many lock-ups are the result of the GUI freezing, Microsoft infrastructure architect Giovanni Marchetti told us exclusively yesterday."

"I am not a cynic by nature, but years of experience in the IT world have compelled me to make sure that everything passes the smell test. As a result, I can often tell beforehand whether I am hearing marketspeak or the real deal. For instance, 5 minutes after I figured out what Larry Ellison's network computer was, I knew it would never be successful. And so did Larry Ellison, given that Oracle never actually built any of them. So with that in mind, let's revisit the top 10 overhyped, overmarketed, overbsed (if there is such a word) computer industry events of 2005."

"ActiveState has announced the end of engineering support for Visual Perl, Visual Python, and Visual XSLT, effective immediately. The plug-ins will not be updated for Visual Studio 2005, and there will be no further maintenance on the Visual Studio 2003- and 2002-compatible versions. Due to the necessary inclusion of Visual Studio integration code in Visual Perl, Visual Python, and Visual XSLT, the plug-ins will not be open-sourced."

The Open Source Development Labs has voiced cautious optimism that its latest initiative could finally herald a mass-market for Linux on the desktop. OSDL is pushing ahead with Project Portland, to develop a common set of core technical requirements for Linux and open source software on the desktop, following a meeting of 47 companies and organizations it hosted earlier this month. Portland has identified a core set of areas, spanning the interface, plug-and-play, drivers and the kernel, that OSDL members will flesh out.

A new study on the major players in the Unix server market has declared IBM the clear customer favorite and brought to light some serious issues with Sun Microsystems' product line. Most alarmingly for Sun, the company appears to have lost its cachet as the dominant Unix player and done so while alienating customers. Sun finished last in almost every one of the Gabriel Consulting Group survey's categories, spanning technology performance, customer satisfaction and software tools.

Microsoft has decided which icon it will use for RSS feeds in Internet Explorer 7. Now, I hear you say, so what? Well, the funny thing is, Microsoft teamed up with the Mozilla team on this one. They decided that it's in the user's best interest that both browsers use the same icon for RSS. And so it happened that Microsoft chose Firefox's icon.

The Amanith Framework is a cross-platform (Linux, Win32, MacOS X, FreeBSD and IRIX) open source C++ framework for vector graphics. The new 0.2 release adds support for MacOS X Tiger (XCode 2.2) and implements a new drawboard in OpenVG/SVG style, built on top of OpenGL. Version 0.2 has been released today.

Microsoft on Wednesday clinched Common Criteria security certification from the US government's National Information Assurance Partnership for six versions of its flagship Windows OS. At the Security Summit East here, Microsoft announced that all the products earned the EAL 4 + (Evaluation Assurance Level), which is the highest level granted to a commercial product.

The first version of the Mozilla Foundation's Thunderbird was a serviceable e-mail client; the latest version may be a great one. At first, Thunderbird Version 1.0 made a good impression. On a longer acquaintance, however, problems such as poor search functionality and memory leaks tarnished its reputation. Now, with Thunderbird 1.5 Release Candidate Two in hand, the program stands poised to regain its good name and far, far more.

GNOME 2.13.3 has been released. As with the Linux kernel, odd-numbered releases are developmental releases; meaning that 2.13 is the developmental branch for 2.14. You can compile it using these jhbuild modulesets. Detailed notes on the release can be found here: platform, desktop, and bindings.

The gospel according to LUA (least-privileged user account) took center stage at Microsoft's Security Summit East here with a pair of Redmond consultants pitching the idea of a well-funded security deployment repository to help developers create applications for non-admin users. The LUA principle, which promotes the use of accounts with fewer access rights than Administrator accounts, has been largely ignored by end users, but if Aaron Margosis and Shelly Bird have their way, code writers will have a central place to get tools and training to create least-privilege applications.

"As the release of KDE 3.5 draws near , work is already underway at the Appeal project to integrate 3.5's major changes into the 4.0 series. Subprojects beneath Appeal's umbrella target simplified usability and progressive adjustments to the graphical user interface: The Tenor and Plasma projects will add functionality, while Oxygen and Coolness will enhance visual freshness."

"Charles recently caught up with seasoned Niner, Larry Osterman, an SDE and 20 year Microsoft veteran, and Elliot H Omiya, a Software Architect and audio guru, to dig into the innerworkings of Vista's updated Audio Stack and new user mode API. Much of the guts of Windows audio have been moved up into the land of the user and this has consequences for both Windows audio developers at the API level and for Windows at the general programmability, reliability and stability levels."