Thom Holwerda Archive

In last week's article, we discussed virtualization and its role in reducing server sprawl. We included VMware server as one of the products used to virtualize a data center. VMware also sells a workstation with a well-established reputation. This week we take a look at VMware Workstation 5.0.

FUDCon 2, the second gathering of Fedora Users and Developers, has been held at LinuxTag, on the 24th and 25th of June in Karlsruhe, Germany. FUDCon 2 features presentations from prominent members of the Fedora Project, both from Red Hat and from the Fedora community. LinuxTag also has a nice write-up of FUDCon 2. The presentations are expected to be made available on the FUDcon pages soon.

Apple has refreshed it's line of iPods today. All iPods now boast a color screen similar to the iPod Photo. Also, iTunes 4.9 has been released with support for podcasting. Mac users can use Software Update, Windows users can download it here. And the new iTunes release is riddled with references to the iTunes phone, says AppleInsider.

After downplaying the importance of the emerging Ajax programming model, Microsoft Corp. has decided to jump with booth feet into the Ajax fray. On Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled "Atlas," a Web client framework that is designed to support multiple DHTML controls with JavaScript code.

Qt 4.0 release is on the wire. Among other things, that means the long awaited GPL-licensed Windows version is now available for download, and Qt4 is officially dual-licensed across the board. Also of note in Trolltech's announcement: integration with Visual Studio .NET; great strides in graphics, threading, footprint, and performance; and separation into Desktop, Desktop Light, and (non-GUI) Console versions.

"Today, we are open-sourcing Sun's server side implementation of Java," Schwartz told an audience of about 10,000 software developers and Sun partners. "This is the first step in open-sourcing all of Sun's Java software assets." It will be released under Sun's CDDL.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has confessed the software giant's .Net strategy has come to a standstill, says he's accepted SQL Server's shortcomings and vowed to keep fighting search giant Google.

Rexx is a scripting language that was invented at IBM years ago. The Linux community has largely ignored Rexx, but I believe it could play an important role in Linux's challenge to the Windows desktop. How can a language many in the Linux community have never even heard of be valuable in Linux's fight for the desktop?

In a joint press conference with Toshiba today, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has again pledged his support for the Tablet PC. It's a pet project of his and despite lacklustre sales so far - it might break through a million sales in this, its third year - he's keen to see it succeed.

Gary Benson (Red Hat) has made available Jonas in the Fedora Java development list (screenshot). Along with the large number of free and open source Java packages made available in Fedora Core 4 already, more are being added to rawhide compiled with GCJ. These include Lucene, additional Jakarta components, and more. You can read the rawhide reports in Fedora Test to track the rolling development updates.

AMD has filed an antitrust complaint against Intel. On a 48-page complaint AMD explains how the company thinks Intel has maintained its monopoly in the x86 microprocessor market by engaging in worldwide coercion of customers from dealing with AMD. It identifies 38 companies that have been victims of coercion by Intel. AMD claims that Intel's share of this critical market currently counts for about 80 percent of worldwide sales by unit volume and 90 percent by revenue, giving it entrenched monopoly ownership and super-dominant market power.

Irrespective of the language programmers choose for expressing solutions, their wants and needs are similar. They need to be productive and efficient, with technologies that do not get in the way but rather help them produce high-quality software. In this article, we share our top ten list of programmers' common wants and needs.

Now that there are a number of independent projects seeking to create BeOS compatible systems, BeUnited has launched an effort to share and promote the open standards for these Open Standards BeOS-compatible Operating System (OSBOS). Read about it at BeUnited.org

We've had a couple of conversations with the very affable Greg Estes, SGI's VP of Corporate Marketing, over the past couple of months. Here they are patched together. Greg talks to us about SGI, Hollywood, tough financial times, Linux, and everything. On related news, SGI now owns a... world record.