Monthly Archive:: January 2009

F-Script 2.0, now in beta, provides a handy syntax for dynamically creating Cocoa classes on the fly. This is useful for quickly experimenting, prototyping and using Cocoa interactively, as well as for developing sophisticated programs. You can type a class definition in the F-script console, hit return and immediately start playing with your new class. This article provides a quick introduction to this feature.

The Georgia Electronic Design Center recently produced a working wireless chip that transmits data at 60 GHz signals. Scientists at the center achieved speeds of 15Gbps at a distance of one meter, 10 Gbps at two meters, and 5 Gbps at five meters-- and if those aren't blazing speeds even for a relatively small area, then I'm Mickey Mouse. The applications for the 60 GHz chip are endless for both consumer and IT markets, to add to our already vastly wireless lives. The ISO standard will be published later this year, and this new technology is predicted to be on the market in just a few years afterwards.

In a blog post, Microsoft has announced it is extending the general availability of the Windows 7 beta from January 24th, to February 10th. People who have already started the download can finish the download as late as February 12th. Product keys will remain available even after the cut-off dates. OBviously, this only goes for the public beta; MSDN and TechNet subscribers will have access to the beta download all throughout the beta phase.

The Register has posted a hands-on video review of the Sony Vaio P, Sony's take on the netbook lifestyle PC. There's not much more to say, so just watch the video and tell us how you feel about it.

POSIX file capabilities split root user powers into smaller privileges, such as the ability to read files or to trace processes owned by another user. By assigning capabilities to a file, you can enable an unprivileged user to execute the file with those specified privileges. In this article, learn how programs can make use of POSIX capabilities, how to investigate which capabilities are needed by a program, and how to assign those capabilities to the program.

This week, 25 years ago, a company aired an advertisement that would cement that company's name into the minds of many. It was an advertisement about individuality versus conformism, about light versus dark, about new versus established. It was the most expensive advertisement of its time, and yet, it didn't even show the product it was trying to sell. After the ad was over, all we knew was that something called "Macintosh" was going to show us how 1984 wouldn't be like 1984.

With every major online digital music vendor slowly but surely abolishing digital rights management, you might wonder how much sense it makes to launch a music service that locks tracks to the devices they're downloaded to. Still, this is exactly what Microsoft has done with its recent launch of its UK Mobile Music store. To make matters worse, there's a whole boatload of other weird decisions regarding this new service that makes you wonder if Microsoft UK has been in contact with anyone outside of its own main office building for, say, the past 5 years.

One of the most successful netbooks around is the Acer Aspire One. The Aspire One is a rather surprise hit for Acer, and probably has something to do with the aggressive pricing policies of the company, and the fact that you actually get a very sturdy and decent netbook for the money. Acer formally took the wraps off the Aspire One's successor, the 10" variant.

In an editorial previously on OSNews, there was some amount of detail about the upcoming US digital television switch, coming (now somewhat tentatively) on February 17th. Apparently, some 21 million Americans are still waiting for the $40 coupons the government promised but could eventually not deliver seeing as how the well went dry. These millions of Americans, assumed to not have gone out and bought a digital converter despite being coupon-less, will now be at a loss of "news, information, and emergency alerts" come the official switcheroo (but we all secretly know they mean "soaps, game shows, and sitcoms"). For this reason, some of those political fellows are vying to delay the transition to June 12th; a good idea, or will this just cause more confusion and problems with the already fuzzy topic? A great deal of money has been spent on telling the public "January 17th, 2009, folks!" for years now. Is it really worth it to delay?

For the last quarter of 2008, Google followed the example of Apple and IBM, not Microsoft and Intel, reporting financial results above financial estimates amid a grim economic environment. "Google performed well in the fourth quarter, despite an increasingly difficult economic environment. Search query growth was strong, revenues were up in most verticals, and we successfully contained costs," Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said in a statement. "It's unclear how long the global downturn will last, but our focus remains on the long term, and we'll continue to invest in Google's core search and ads business as well as in strategic growth areas such as display, mobile, and enterprise."

The Ubuntu team has released the second maintenance release for Ubuntu 8.04. "The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the release of Ubuntu 8.04.2 LTS, the second maintenance update to Ubuntu's 8.04 LTS release. This release includes updated server, desktop, and alternate installation CDs for the i386 and amd64 architectures. In all, over 200 updates have been integrated, and updated installation media has been provided so that fewer updates will need to be downloaded after installation. These include security updates and corrections for other high-impact bugs, with a focus on maintaining stability and compatibility with Ubuntu 8.04 LTS." Get it from their download page.

Four months after Mesa 7.2 was released, Mesa 7.3 has now officially surfaced. Mesa 7.3 has been in testing since earlier this month with it having gone through three release candidates. The new features found in this latest version of the standard Open-Source OpenGL stack is proper support for GLSL 1.20 and the Intel DRI driver now supports the Graphics Execution Manager and Direct Rendering Infrastructure 2.

"Intego has discovered a new Trojan horse, OSX.Trojan.iServices.A, which is currently circulating in copies of Apple's iWork 09 found on BitTorrent trackers and other sites containing links to pirated software. The version of iWork 09, Apple's productivity suite, are complete and functional, but the installer contains an additional package called iWorkServices.pkg." Update: A new variant has been discovered in a pirated version of Adobe Photoshop CS4, also information about one target of a DDOS attack coming from the trojan.

Guile isn't just another extension language: it's the official extension language of the GNU project. Guile makes Scheme embeddable, which makes the interpreter ideal for embedded scripting and more. The days of building and delivering static software and products are over. Today, users expect their products to be dynamic and easily customizable. Learn how, with Guile, you can interpret Scheme scripts, dynamically bind scheme scripts into compiled C programs, and even integrate compiled C functions into Scheme scripts.