Monthly Archive:: August 2003

Opera Software today released Opera 7.20 for Windows Beta. Opera's engineers have fine-tuned version 7's development branch for maximum performance.

On the 25th IBM released beta compilers for Mac OSX, there is both a c/c++ and a fortran compiler, these compilers is for use with the G5/PPC970 processor. Elsewhere, on a TechNewsWorld review it is stated that "while decidedly Apple, Xserve puts to shame many of the Linux distributions available by tying together the diverse number of applications that are needed to administer an equivalent Linux server into a simple, GUI-driven interface."

The new Glib/GTK+ 2.2.3 and Pango 1.2.5 were released yesterday.

Ch is a superset of C language. It parses and executes C code directly without intermediate code or byte code. It does not distinguish interpreted code from compiled C/C++ code. The new Ch 4.0 is the most complete C interpreter in existence and is embeddable in other programs and hardware.

The XFce project is pleased to announce the third release candidate of the XFce 4.0 Desktop Environment and Development Platform.

Today, Mozilla 1.5 Beta, the next version from the Mozilla Team was released. As per usual; Linux, MacOSX and Windows packages are available. A spellchecker for Messenger and Composer in addition to many bugfixes are just some of the updates in this beta. For more info, read the release Notes.

The first meeting of the New York City Pegasos Users Group is scheduled to occured in September. Read on for more information.

Red Hat is making no secret of the fact that it's trying to focus on revenue-generating enterprise customers, even if that means losing throngs of small users who provide little to no revenue. Many of the largest hosting companies use Red Hat Linux, but as the company changes its focus, that may change, especially if Red Hat is slow to release important patches for non-paying customers, says a Netcraft report.

Popular Intel-PC emulation software VirtualPC will not run on the G5 Powermacs. Microsoft, the new VirtualPC owner, says that compatability will have to wait until the next full version of the software, a year away. In other news, FWB, the makers of once VirtualPC-rival RealPC, will not be porting their product to Mac OS X. The current management decries the former management's hyping "vaporware" by promising a new version of RealPC.

This column explains how to write secure applications; it focuses on the Linux operating system, but many of the principles apply to any system. In today's networked world, software developers must know how to write secure programs, yet this information isn't widely known or taught. This first installment of the Secure programmer column introduces the basic ideas of how to write secure applications and discusses how to identify the security requirements for your specific application. Future installments will focus on different common vulnerabilities and how to prevent them.

The latest beta version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, has some useful updates and is significantly more polished than the last beta, according to this review. The review has lots of screenshots.

For an alternative OS to be a viable desktop contender, it must have a good web browser. Mac OS X's biggest stumbling block at its introduction was its limited selection of (slow) web browsers. Things have changed. Now there are more than 9 to choose from. Ars Technica has a head-to-head comparison. Gecko-based browsers stand out in speed and functionality, but look like ports, while Safari earns the top spot for just being well put together. In a similar vein Mac P2P outlines the various P2P options for Mac users.

As we all anxiously await the release of Linux 2.6, we hear speculations on the final date ranging from early September to late December. A fellow optimist from comhem.se has posted this graph showing predictions based on the kernel's current rate of progress. It was composed using the compile statistics from John Sherry of OSDL. This chart suggests a release date of the 12th of October.

SCO's own Chris Sontag responds to the recent remarks about SCO's presentation of "stolen code." My Take: Is there an IT professional left in America who would ever consider buying SCO software again? Update: It never ends. Novell has joined the fray.