Monthly Archive:: January 2008

"A new version of WinAROS is available. The virtual Harddisk is contains two partitions. A 20MB Partition with Fast File System (FFS), that contains only the Boot Files. And a 480MB Partition with Smart File System (SFS) that contains a fresh AROS setup. WinAros comes with a Windows typical setup program, that creates shortcuts on the desktop and in the start menu. It also comes with an uninstaller." WinAROS is a virtualised AROS installation executable which you can install and run on Windows.

"Using VNC to remotely access your desktop, applications, and documents sounds like a great solution when you are out and about, but it has a few significant drawbacks: you have to leave your machine turned on, the VNC protocol is not secure, and often you need a dedicated VNC client to access your desktop. Ulteo, the company started by Gael Duval of Mandriva fame, is set to offer an alternative solution. Ulteo gives you access to a full-fledged KDE desktop hosted on the company's own servers while taking care of the behind-the-scenes stuff. While the service is still in beta and by invitation only, I had a chance to take it for a spin, and I found it promising."

He doesn't own a mobile phone and he is proud of it. And he thinks virtualization is over-hyped. Find out what else we prize from Linux guru Linus Torvalds. "Linux has done what I wanted it to do for the last fifteen years, literally. So since very early on my motivation actually came from the outside: my motivation came from problems that other people see. I don't see the problems, my usage model is actually fairly simple and it's still the same development model that I tend to concentrate on. So I am actually motivated by other people's issues, and sometimes they make me go 'those people are just crazy, that's just insane', but sometimes the crazy people have some of the most interesting problems too."

"C# has been a language with a mixed history but precise goals. Although the C# language definition is for some time an ISO standard, only a part of the Base Class Library, which contains the fundamental functions that are used by all C# programs (IO, User Interface, Web services, etc) is also standardized. Parts of the BCL have been patented by Microsoft, but that has not deterred developers from attempts at implementing the components that are standardized, in various forms (Mono and affiliated projects). What happens when you go beyond that? What happens when outside the language, you start to implement not a mere application platform, but an entire operating system around it? Brace yourselves, because there is not only Microsoft Research who has done this with Singularity, but at least two other projects doing the same; and they are doing this under opensource terms. A system based around a C# Kernel. In this article, we are looking at one of the two, Cosmos by asking Scott Balmos and Chad Hower about the project they are involved in."

"Tabs. Mouse gestures. User-agent switcher. Dedicated transfer window. Pop-up blocking and javascript abuse filtering. Integrated search box. Page zoom. Session saver. Chew on those features. We'll be coming back to them."

Comic: "Janitor".

"My first brush with mouse gestures on the Opera browser was an accident, but the ability to quickly move backward or forward in the browser history, open new windows, close tabs, and more without using the menus or moving the mouse toward the navigation toolbar won me over immediately. Nowadays, this feature is available in Firefox and Konqueror too, and you can even configure mouse gestures for GNOME and KDE desktop environments." More here.

"There are two major players in the Amiga emulation arena, UAE and E-UAE and two major players in the pre-configured Workbench arena, AIAB and AmiSYS. If I was to give a preference as to which two of those four one should use I would need to be honest and say E-UAE and AmiSYS make for a better Amiga/Workbench experience. That said, all four could very easily be interchanged." More here.

Microsoft will have to put up with another two years of court antitrust oversight, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. In her ruling, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly cited the length of time it has taken Microsoft to get its protocol licensing program up and running as the primary reason she is extending the consent decree, which was due to expire at the end of last year.

Loyal OSNews readers, I 'd like to thank you for your patience as we've made a bumpy transition to a new back-end and an even bumpier rollout of the OSNews' new design, aka OSNews 4.1. We hope you like it. We'll be making many minor interface changes over the next weeks, and we'll read the comments of this posting in case you have any bug reports or suggestions. One feature that we've eliminated from the v4 beta was themes. For now, we are focusing on perfecting one unified theme, and hope to revisit that feature in the future. I'd like to thank OSNews' intrepid code slinger Adam Scheinberg for all his hard work on this project and also thank the many readers who helped us troubleshoot the v4 backend.

"This site is about Arc, a new dialect of Lisp. It's unfinished, but usable, so we decided to release what we have so far. The current version compiles into MzScheme and structurally is as much a skin on MzScheme as a separate language. For example, Arc's read is MzScheme's, and so are Arc's numbers and math operations. But from the average programmer's point of view, Arc is no more similar to Scheme than any two Lisp dialects are to one another. Arc is designed above all for exploratory programming: the kind where you decide what to write by writing it. A good medium for exploratory programming is one that makes programs brief and malleable, so that's what we've aimed for. This is a medium for sketching software."

"There's been quite a bit of buzz recently after it was announced that OpenOffice 3 was due in September. It seems, however, most people still aren't aware of what's in store. The Openpoffice.org website is a rather scary place. We managed to find this conference presentation lurking in the shadows before running away in fear of mid 90’s web design. Here's the best bits."

"Back in November we started sharing some of the exciting features planned for the GNOME 2.22 and 2.24 releases, and now that the first GNOME 2.22.0 Beta release is planned for later this week, we have taken another look at the packages set for inclusion and the changes that have actually been made. While nothing groundbreaking will be introduced in GNOME 2.22, this desktop environment does have some moderate changes worth noting. In this article are eight interesting packages that either have noticeable changes since GNOME 2.20 or are new to GNOME. This list isn't all-inclusive or ordered in any particular fashion, but just eight changes that had caught our attention."

A review of the new TimeVault program, a backup utility for Linux similar to Apple's Time Machine. Covers installation, configuration, usage, and discuses some of the advantages and limitations of its backup abilities. "TimeVault finally offers a complete, easy-to-use, intuitive backup system for Linux. While advanced and experienced users have been able to schedule backups using rsync, cron, and other tools, new users will find Timevault a comfort; knowing that their files can be easily and safely backed up, and reverted to an older state if necessary. The interface is relatively intuitive, and although the configuration could be a bit simpler, beginners should have no problem setting up TimeVault to keep their files safe."