Monthly Archive:: September 2006

IBM has finally, finally, started shipping computers based on the Cell architecture it co-developed with Sony and Toshiba. In fact, the company claims, a number of high profile clients such as the University of Manchester and the Fraunhofer Institute are already running the much ballyhooed devices. Cnet has more.

Sun Microsystems has upgraded its low-end UltraSparc-based servers with faster 1.5GHz UltraSparc IIIi processors, the company said Wednesday. The move has been expected since August, when Sun said it scrapped its UltraSparc IIIi+ 'Serrano' processor and planned to upgrade the IIIi instead. The new chips are a notch faster than their 1.35GHz predecessors.

BrandZ, which, quoting from the OpenSolaris BrandZ Community webpage, is a framework that extends the Solaris Zones infrastructure to create Branded Zones, which are zones that contain non-native operating environments, integrated into the OpenSolaris mainline OpenSolaris mainline kernel last night.

This article is about KDE's memory usage, but there are comparisons with other solutions for your desktop. Lubos Lunak concludes there is still work to do and there is some lowhanging fruit, but KDE does already a nice job on keeping its memory usage low.

The August Community Technology Preview build of Longhorn Server is available for download. It's still not an RC1, but it does include performance, reliability and UI changes, according to Microsoft. On a related note, The Inq reviewed Vista RC1, and concludes "Vista's still a mess." And that's not all: Microsoft is worried that the EU might interfere with Vista's security plans.

"One of the less well known Mac clones, the MaxxBoxx was released in Germany in July 1997 to fill the needs of users with very demanding applications. In a stunning enclosure, the MaxxBoxx was easy to open and upgrade. The machine was built into a cube that was twice as wide as an ordinary mini tower with room for up to ten drives." There's more on old Macs: Sonnet has announced new CPU upgrades for G4 PowerMacs and Xserves.

Part 1 of this series discussed a mashup application, which begins to draw data from several services and combines it. Now we will discuss how to save mashup request results to a DB2 9 database, plus take some of the load off of those external services and improve performance dramatically with pureXML.

Apple held a special event for the press today. Most of the event was about iPods; prettier colours, bigger capacities, you know the drill. For the really interesting stuff, you had to sit out the whole thing: Apple gave us a sneak peek of a product coming in 2007. In Q1 2007, Apple will release a settop box, half the size of the Mac Mini, to which you can stream content. It has a built-in power supply, USB, ethernet, 802.11 'wireless component video', optical audio, HDMI ports, and old RCA stereo audio ports. It sports a Front Row-like interface, and can be controlled using the Apple remote. Its codename is 'iTV'; a different name will be chosen. It will work with iTunes on Macs and PCs, and it will cost USD 299. Update: Eugenia and I both blogged about the product announcements. Eugenia loves the gapless playback, and I miss adherence to industry standards.

You must remember the period where various electronic devices, from phones to radios, were available in transparent cases. You may have found them utterly cool. Yet the simple fact that you can't find these things on the shelves anymore (except for do-it-yourself PC cases) means the crowd doesn't find them nearly that cool. While you may not see the link yet, this is exactly why the Linux desktop will never be popular.

"The difficulties in developing Vista stemmed from its monolithic structure and the need for 'backwards compatibility', ie ensuring that software used by customers on older versions of Windows will work under Vista. This vast accumulation of legacy applications acts like an anchor on innovation. The Vista trauma has convinced some Microsoft engineers that they will have to adopt a radically different approach." I said something similar months ago.

Microsoft today brought three of its Internet services out of beta: Live.com, Windows Live Local, and Windows Live Search. Live.com lets you add persistent search results to your own Live.com homepage, and the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds from search results. Windows Live Local provides an expansion of bird's-eye imagery and you can now send content or links to mobile devices using your device's phone number as the address. Windows Live Search has a fresh user interface and adds a revamped search with subcategories like image and local search.

The endless stream of Ubuntu derivatives just refuses to end. "Fluxbuntu is a Ubuntu-based derivative that uses FluxBox as the desktop environment. It is lightweight, swift and efficient compared to Gnome or KDE. These features makes Fluxbuntu suitable for vast range of computers, from low-end to high-end." There's a screenshot gallery as well. Laugh at me all you want, but I want a ROXbuntu. I'm not kidding. Anyone?

Brian May, the guitarist of the legendary rock group Queen, recently got a MacBook Pro for his audio work, upgrading from his G4 laptop. Brian argues about some software problems (e.g. not getting a low battery warning from the system anymore) and the fact that the laptop runs very hot.

DesktopBSD is a version of FreeBSD customized for the desktop. Building upon FreeBSD 5.5-PRE, ver1.0 comes packed with desktop-oriented features such as KDE 3.5.1 and the DesktopBSD Tools, which include a graphical interface to the FreeBSD ports system. Read the rest here.