Monthly Archive:: April 2006

VMware has unveiled a technology consortium of hardware, software and service providers, with the aim to jointly-develop virtual desktop products. Called the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Alliance, the new consortium counts several technology vendors as members including Altiris, Atos Origin, Check Point Software Technologies, Citrix, ClearCube Technology, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hitachi, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sun Microsystems and Wyse Technology.

"This is a brief tutorial on how to sync websites to your Palm for offline reading. The websites are stored in Plucker format. You will need to install the Plucker viewer for palm which can be found at the Plucker website. The software you will use to grab the websites and convert them into Plucker format is called Sunrise. To transfer the Plucker files to a Palm you will need pilot-link."

Version 0.62 of Visopsys was released today, including Qemu support, initial USB support, and some little games and bits of flair, in addition to the usual tweaks and bug fixes. Meanwhile, the offshoot project, "Partition Logic" continues to gain converts in the market for free partitioning tools. Detailed change log and downloads.

Wade Reynolds and David Marshall offer handy security tips and advice on how and where to use virtualization in the data center. Also, this article briefly examines the current state of affairs for multiple server deployment, with an emphasis on modern advancements in virtual servers and workstations.

LinuxPlanet reports - Once known as a community-supported alternative to the Linspire distribution, the Freespire name is about to rise again from the ashes of obscurity--only this time as a distro completely sponsored and endorsed by Linspire itself... Freespire will be a Debian-based, community-driven and -supported project tied to the commercial Linspire distribution, Carmony outlined, in much the same way as Fedora Core and openSUSE relate to their parent commercial distros, Red Hat Linux and SUSE Linux, respectively. OSDir has some screenshots of Freespire in the Freespire 5.0 Screenshot Tour.

BPEL Repository is an Eclipse based framework for storing XML data and retrieving through an object-oriented querying mechanism. This technology has two parts: an Eclipse plug-in tool for administering the repository through a visual interface and a Java API that enables applications to access the repository.

"Mac OS X includes many open source projects that contribute to the stability and robustness of the system. While Apple provides working versions of these for both PowerPC and Intel architectures, sometimes you want to build your own to tune performance or enable custom features. Plus, distributing a single binary is often preferable to keeping track of separate, architecture-specific binaries. These objectives can be accomplished by building the project as a Universal Binary, a file that contains code for both the PowerPC and Intel architectures." This article shows how to use Xcode (using Xcode 2.2.1) to construct a make-based project that builds OpenSSL as a Universal Binary."

Authors David Marshall and Wade Reynolds offer IT professionals a bird's eye view of VMware's management tools and hardware requirements, as well as how it compares to Microsoft Virtual Server.

Many people responded to the call for OpenBSD and OpenSSH donations by purchasing an OpenBSD CD set. Those CDs are beginning to arrive in the mail, and when they do, how are you going to use them? If you're a software enthusiast who has never used OpenBSD before, you might enjoy installing it by yourself and figuring it out as you go. If, however, you're looking for a more practical approach to using OpenBSD as a desktop or server operating system, here's a guide to get you started.

Sun Microsystems announced Monday that its longtime chief executive Scott McNealy is stepping down from the helm and will be succeeded by the struggling computer and software company's No. 2 executive, Jonathan Schwartz. McNealy, 51, a Silicon Valley luminary for years, will continue as chairman of the company he co-founded in 1982. Schwartz, 40, will keep the title of president.

Microsoft on Monday detailed innovations coming in Windows Vista that the company believes makes the operating system superior in the delivery of multimedia. This would include several enhancements to Windows Media itself as well as expanded functionality within Windows Media Center, now standard in Vista. The company is promoting the new features of its upcoming operating system at the National Association of Broadcasters convention being held this week in Las Vegas. With online multimedia becoming more prevalent, traditional broadcasters are increasingly interesting in utilizing the Internet as a method for delivery.

The ECB_AT91 is a new Colombian SBC with a 180 MHz ARM9 processor that runs Linux. It supports up to 64MBytes of SDRAM, has a SD/MMC slot, a 10/100 Ethernet port and an USB 2.0 interface. It was inspired by Darrell Harmon's and Flavio Ribeiro's SBCs. Debian runs on this board without problems. More information and pictures can be found at the ECB_AT91 website.

Is the world ready for another community Linux distro? That's the question being asked and answered today at the 4th Annual Desktop Linux Summit. Once known as a community-supported alternative to the Linspire distribution, the Freespire name is about to rise again from the ashes of obscurity -- only this time as a distro completely sponsored and endorsed by Linspire itself. Editor's Note: The Freespire website is online now as well.

After the Why I like microkernels article, I thought it'd be useful to have a view from the "other side" of this endless war. While some of the reasons given by microkernel fans are true, the big picture is somewhat different and it's what I think it keeps traditional-style kernels in the top. Note: please take note that the author is not a native English speaker, so forgive any grammar or spelling mistakes.