Monthly Archive:: February 2004

European antitrust regulators are considering a requirement that Microsoft sell two versions of Windows in Europe--one with the music- and video-playing software stripped out--should they find the company to be an abusive monopoly, according to people close to the case.

Genesi announced today that the Pegasos II G4 using the recently announced 7447A will be shipping as soon as the CPU is commercially released by Motorola. Until then the 7447 will be shipped with the Pegasos II G4. Also, the Crux Linux PPC distro arrives on the PegasosII through the new 1.3.1 version. CRUX is a lightweight, optimized Linux distribution targeted at experienced Linux users.

The OpenPKG project released version 2.0 of their unique RPM-based cross-platform Unix software packaging facility.

RSA Security Inc. joined Microsoft to deliver stronger security for Microsoft environments by replacing static passwords with strong, two-factor authentication.

For the past year, there has been a slow and steady stream of news events regarding XFree86, X11, or new X server implementations. To those not paying close attention (and even those who are), the meaning of some of these events may not be clear. In this brief article, I attempt to share my impression on what the changes mean for users of free software on the desktop. It appears that XFree86 is in some turmoil, and it may leave some to infer that free desktop systems will suffer.

Sun Microsystems Inc. will continue to offer the Trusted Solaris version of its operating system as a separate product, a company official said Tuesday, trying to clear up any confusion that Sun may have caused in the marketplace. Sun executives have said several times recently that security features from Trusted Solaris, a hardened version of Sun's OS used by the military, governments and some enterprises, will be added to its standard Solaris distribution. But the two product lines will continue to exist separately, said Ravi Iyer, Sun's group manager of systems security marketing.

The next release of Debian will not be accompanied by a non-free section; there will be no more stable releases of the non-free section. The Debian project will cease active support of the non-free section. Clause 5 of the social contract is repealed. Since this modifies the Social Contract, this requires a 3:1 vote majority to pass.

These videos show how Longhorn can be used in different industries while more Concept Videos will be coming soon. The videos require Windows Media Player.

The voice, the man, the... machine. That's George Hoffman for you. According to people who have worked with him (including my husband) he is one of the brightest Be, Inc. engineers ever. These days, George works at PalmSource, Inc. as the Director of Applications and Services. In his free time he sings with an (a cappella) vocal band of 4, Hookslide (check out their .wmv promo video clip)! In this interview we talk about PalmOS 6, aka Cobalt. We discuss the architecture of the OS, its capabilities, its market targets and more. Screenshots of Cobalt are included.

An application model is analogous to a construction project blueprint, and is an important ingredient in application development. This article shows the steps for developing a Java application based on a Rational Rose class diagram using the Eclipse Modeling Framework, and also shows how to develop the same Java application using the Universal Modeling Language visualization tool.

Microsoft on Tuesday showed off a forthcoming update to Windows designed to make the OS more secure and proposed a caller ID-like system for e-mail that could help curtail the growing spam problem.

Lycoris Desktop/LX Update 3, released last September, is a Linux distro aimed primarily at home user desktops. Lycoris has been widely heralded for its user-friendliness. If newbies can handle some manual configuration, they may be happy with it, but it won't satisfy more experienced users, says Linux.com.

One of the features geeks really miss on OSX's Unix environment are the virtual screens. Apple tried to address this need with the introduction of the excellent Expose, but all things fair, Expose doesn't do the same thing. CodeTek is the main company which has addressed this need on Mac OS X for two years now. Recently, they released their third major version of VirtualDesktop in two flavors, Pro & Lite.

Version 8.0 of the Symbian OS now has real-time capabilities, allowing phone vendors to build one-chip phones. At present, the most popular smart phone platforms, such as Texas Instruments' OMAP, typically feature two processors: one to handle the radio communications and one to handle the data operating system that the user sees.