Monthly Archive:: April 2006

Karmencita: Object Query Language for .NET

Submitted by marius 2006-04-04 .NET 3 Comments

"Karmencita is a high level object query language for .NET. It's purpose is to allow easy querying from in memory structured data. Features: easy, SQL like language; common, slim API used for querying data; supports any IEnumerable data source, DataTables and XmlDataDocuments; extensible implementation; and much more."

Software Update Patent Might Affect OS Updates

Submitted by anonymous 2006-04-04 Legal 57 Comments

A company called eSoft was recently granted a patent for "systems and methods for selecting, ordering, installing, managing, updating, and if necessary, uninstalling software applications." Their first step has been to sue their major competitors, but it appears that online software update systems of all kinds could be covered by this patent, which would mean that Windows Update, OS X Software Update, Redhat's up2date, and YUM, among others, would be infringing.

Quest for a Linux Audio Player

Eugenia Loli 2006-04-04 Multimedia, AV 87 Comments

"Nowadays I collect, store, and listen to music mostly on digital media, so I thought I'd find myself a Linux audio player that does all the things I need it to do. Little did I know how many options I had! After evaluating more than a dozen applications, I've found three that I feel provide the best mix of features and performance." Read more at Linux.com.

How Much Better Can OSX Get?

Eugenia Loli 2006-04-04 macOS 36 Comments

" This database stuff is clearly the next frontier. If we are ever going to have natural speech interfaces and virtual assistants that collect and display our information in more useful ways, the computer is going to need to know much more about how our files relate to each other and remember what we’ve done to them and who’s done it. Moving all this organization to the system level instead of locking it up in separate applications that are then duplicated in a search index seems like the best way to get there."

VMware Opens Disk Format

Eugenia Loli 2006-04-04 OS News 35 Comments

VMware is taking another step to try to maintain its market dominance. VMware announced today that it is opening its virtual machine disk format specification to allow other vendors to use it in their products.

MacOS 10.4.6 Released

Submitted by meianoite 2006-04-03 macOS 48 Comments

"The 10.4.6 Update is recommended for all users and includes general operating system fixes, as well as specific fixes for the following applications and technologies: login and authentication in a variety of network environments; file access and byte range locking with AFP file sharing; network access when using proxy server automatic configuration files; searching iWork '06 and Microsoft Office documents with Spotlight; creating Automator workflows for iPhoto 6; synchronizing contacts and calendars to .Mac and mobile phones; and much more." There's a delta update for 10.4.5, and a combo update for 10.4.0-10.4.5. Easiest method is to just use Software Update.

Review: HP iPaq h2210 as an Affordable VoIP Mobile Solution

Eugenia Loli 2006-04-03 Wireless 7 Comments

Geeks.com is selling the HP iPAQ h2210 for less than $220 this week, with a... 3600 mAh extra battery and a 128 MB SD card. While this model is pretty old now it is still very capable with its 400 Mhz processor and so we thought that we could review it from the point of view of an affordable SIP phone (Ekiga, Gizmo, Stanaphone, FreeWorldDialup, Skype). Read more for our findings and a quick rundown of its amazing battery life times!

SkyOS: GUI Changes, Desktop Composing

Thom Holwerda 2006-04-03 SkyOS 46 Comments

SkyOS has seen improvements in its rendering engine. "The main difference is that the window content is now buffered. The drawing operations don't draw on the screen anymore, but they draw into a application window private layer." This has some advantages, in the area of speed, special effects, and the fact that applications can now access each other's window contents.

Review: Alienware Sentia m3200

Thom Holwerda 2006-04-03 Hardware 8 Comments

Ars reviews the Alienware Sentia m3200, a 12" laptop which is not unlike Apple's iBook in case of features. Ars concludes: "The Sentia m3200 is small, light and fast enough to be a very good machine for many tasks. It's not built to handle the latest 3-D games, as it uses onboard graphics, but it makes up for that by being a well-rounded multimedia machine and the fact that it runs cool is a nice plus. When the kinks are ironed out of PowerCinema, the Instant-On feature will make more sense."

Microsoft to Make Virtual Server Free

Thom Holwerda 2006-04-03 Microsoft 48 Comments

Microsoft has a big surprise planned for not just those of its own customers using virtualization, but for those in the open-source community as well. On April 3, the software giant will use the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in Boston to announce that it is making its Virtual Server 2005 R2 Enterprise Edition product available as a free download from the Microsoft Web site. On a related note, "XenSource has prepped its first major charge at Microsoft Windows customers with a new package that includes the open source Xen hypervisor along with some management software."

Review: BLAG

Submitted by Mark 2006-04-03 Linux 16 Comments

LinuxForums gives a short review of BLAG Linux and concludes: "BLAG is not just a distribution for the Free Software elitist, it may not include non-free software, but it is a fully functioning operating system. You can surf the web, write your essays, and listen to your music, just as you would do with any other operating system. BLAG is a distribution which will install with ease, and be low on hassle."

Case Study: a National Archive Moves to ODF

Submitted by Andy Updegrove 2006-04-03 Office 3 Comments

"The National Archives of Australia has announced that it will move its digital archives program to software that supports the ODF. The significance of this example is that the NAA gathers in materials from multiple sources, in many different formats, which will need to be converted to ODF compliance for long term archival storage. The NAA's decision provides a new and distinct case study for those considering a move to ODF. Unlike Mass. or Bristol, the NAA will deal almost exclusively with documents created elsewhere. As a result, it provides a 'worst possible case' to test whether operating an ODF environment in a world that uses multiple non-ODF compliant formats is practical."

The ATX Case and Power Supply

Submitted by anonymous 2006-04-03 Hardware 6 Comments

"The ATX standard allows power supplies and cases to be commodity parts, dramatically reducing the cost of computer design. Lessons learned from the success of this standard show why standardizing parts is important. The BTX standard builds on this, and the blade.org standards work should do likewise."

Five Things About OS X That Annoy Me

Adam Scheinberg 2006-04-03 macOS 107 Comments

In my house today, all of the computers are Macs. This is a long way away from three and a half year ago, when I said that Jaguar could not replace my PC. We're chugging along happily running Tiger, just as productive as before, and enjoying every bit of eye candy. But OS X isn't always cherry pie, it's got its own set of faults, and some can be downright annoying. UPDATED

Followup: Tuttle Times Covers the Jerry A. Taylor Debacle

Adam Scheinberg 2006-04-03 Linux 76 Comments

Abraham Lincoln once said "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." Apparently, Tuttle, OK city manager Jerry Taylor never got the memo. Barely a week after his humiliating brush with celebrity after the CentOS fiasco, Taylor has definitively proven that arrogance and ignorance make a humorous combo. The Tuttle Times covers the embarassing incident, along with Taylor's gotta-see-it-to-believe-it response.

Microsoft to ‘Host’ Linux Virtually

Eugenia Loli 2006-04-03 Windows 34 Comments

Microsoft will support customers who chose to run Linux with Microsoft's Virtual Server 2005 R2, software for running multiple operating systems on one machine.

The Need for Virtualization and Xen

Eugenia Loli 2006-04-03 OS News 20 Comments

Modern machines have far more power than what you need, which can lead to CPU problems. What do you do? David Chisnall suggests virtualization and paravirtualization applications such as Xen, which is discussed in this article.

Rexx: What You Need to Know

Eugenia Loli 2006-04-03 General Development 25 Comments

Combining power with ease of use, the Rexx scripting language is enjoying a surge in popularity. Howard Fosdick introduces this free language and explores some of the basics you need to know before getting started. Elsewhere on that site, this chapter describes Python's built-in operators as well as the precedence rules used in the evaluation of expressions.

Why Sony Should’ve Put Its Weight Behind Hi-MD

Thom Holwerda 2006-04-02 Multimedia, AV 94 Comments

Currently, .mp3 players are all the hype. Everyone has one, and if you don't, you're old-fashioned. I do not have an .mp3 player. I tried to have one, but for various reasons it did not please me. I'm a MiniDisc guy. I've always been. MiniDisc has some serious advantages over .mp3 players, whether they be flash or HDD based. Note: Sunday Eve Column.

Apple’s Intel Move Still Riling Mac Developers

Thom Holwerda 2006-04-02 macOS 39 Comments

As Apple moves from IBM's and Freescale's PowerPC RISC architecture to Intel processors, developers must rebuild their products to support both platforms, into what Apple calls a UB (Universal Binary). And while Apple lists over 1000 UB applications currently available, this process is challenging developers, especially those of some of the largest and most critical applications for the platform.