Keep OSNews alive by becoming a Patreon, by donating through Ko-Fi, or by buying merch!

Monthly Archive:: October 2008

Snow Leopard Gets Cocoa Finder, ImageBoot?

  Submitted by Joe macOS 29 Comments
Even though Snow Leopard is supposed to be all about tweaking and performance, AppleInsider claims to have some information regarding new features coming in Snow Leopard. They claim Apple is working on bringing Exchange support to iCal, Address Book, and Mail, a feature called ImageBoot, and - insert drum roll - a new Finder written in Cocoa. Testers also claim that other bundled applications are written in Cocoa. This isn't all that weird seeing Carbon doesn't come in a 64bit flavour.
Read More

MikeOS 2.0 Released

  Submitted by M-Saunders OS News 1 Comment
A new version of MikeOS, a simple 16-bit assembly operating system designed to teach basic OS design and implementation, is now available. It features FAT12 file writing, a new mouse driver, a C library and other changes. As always, the Handbook provides copious info on the OS and how to start OS development yourself.
Read More

Krusader: One File Manager to Rule Them All

  Submitted by fsmag KDE 19 Comments
"Krusader is a massively powerful and feature-packed twin panel file manager. If you dislike bloat and prefer minimalist windows managers like XFCE or Fluxbox, the good news is that Krusader will run without KDE, provided you have the necessary libraries installed. If Dolphin isn't cutting the mustard Krusader might just be what you've been looking for." Here is the download page for Krusader, give it a spin and share your comments.
Read More

Almost Human: A Review of Google’s Android G1 Phone

  Submitted by Hakime Wireless 20 Comments
"The T-Mobile G1 Google smartphone, designed by Google and made by HTC, remains firmly in the shadow of the iPhone-for now. The phone, which goes on sale next week in the US and next month in Britain, was released too early. The HTC hardware and Android OS that powers it lack the polish and depth of even the iPhone 1.0 in most respects. It's not a bad phone, but the software and hardware needed more time in the oven to bring them to a golden brown crispness." Full review at Arstechnica.
Read More

Linux: Reboot Like a Racecar with kexec

  Submitted by diegocg Linux 29 Comments
Kexec is a feature that allows to boot kernels from a working kernel. It was originally intended for use by kernel and system developers who had to reboot several times a day. Soon, system administrators for high-availability servers found use for it as well. As systems get more and more advanced, and boot times get longer, end users can now benefit from it.
Read More

Clarification: Apple’s Dual GPU Setup

Apple 18 Comments
In our coverage on the Apple press event earlier this week, where Steve Jobs introduced a revamp of all the company's notebooks (as well as a new Cinema Display), an error leaked into our story. We said that the new dual-GPU MacBook Pros used Hybrid SLI so you could use both graphics chips at the same time for better performance, but as it turns out, this isn't the case. This was my fault since Jobs didn't actually claim any Hybrid SLI being used. To detail the matter further, Apple has released a support document explaining the features of the dual GPU architecture.
Read More

Interview with Horde Lead Developer Jan Schneider

Internet 5 Comments
Are you looking for an open source, Web-based e-mail and groupware suite with its own development framework, Ajax interface, more than 50 applications, an active developer community, and millions of end users all over the world? The Horde communication and collaboration suite may not be as well known as the big name commercial offerings, but according to lead developer and release manager Jan Schneider it has just as much to offer, and more.
Read More

10 Forces Guiding the Future of Scripting

General Development 11 Comments
Peter Wayner examines the platforms and passions underlying today's popular dynamic languages, and though JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Groovy, and other scripting tools are fast achieving the critical mass necessary to flourish into the future, 10 forces in particular appear to be driving the evolution of this development domain. From the co-optation of successful ideas across languages, to the infusion of application development into applications that are fast evolving beyond their traditional purpose, to the rise of frameworks, the cloud, and amateur code enablers, each will have a profound effect on the future of today's dynamic development tools.
Read More

Windows 7 Officially Named… Windows 7

Windows 73 Comments
According to the official Windows Vista Blog, Microsoft has decided that, in order to keep things simple, the OS code-named "Windows 7" will officially be called "Windows 7." Sayeth the poster: "since we began development of the next version of the Windows client operating system we have been referring to it by a codename, "Windows 7." But now is a good time to announce that we've decided to officially call the next version of Windows, "Windows 7."" Of course, this introduces a major issue - if the version number of Windows 7 is, in fact, 6.1 or 6.2, as many expect, how can you call it Windows 7? And if the kernel version is updated to version 7, how many apps and drivers might fail due to poor version checking? I'm sure the upcoming PDC and WinHEC events will shed some light on this.
Read More

New Software Packs for Syllable

  Submitted by Kaj de Vos Syllable, AtheOS 3 Comments
New software packs were released in comparable versions for both Syllable Desktop and Syllable Server. Shell Essentials is a new collection pack with tools for the command line. Network Necessities with networking programs, Developer's Delight with developer tools and The Perl Pit with Perl and its modules were released in new versions with updated package collections. Also, Syllable was accepted for listing on DistroWatch.
Read More

Microsoft Releases Silverlight 2

  Submitted by Remy Chi Jian Suen Microsoft 23 Comments
Microsoft announces new rich Internet applications development and streaming media features; company outlines plans for supporting Windows, Mac and Linux tools for developing Silverlight applications. Microsoft also announced further support of open source communities by funding advanced Silverlight development capabilities with the Eclipse Foundation's integrated development environment (IDE) and by providing new controls to developers with the Silverlight Control Pack (SCP) under the Microsoft Permissive License.
Read More