Internet Archive

"Is Microsoft out to get HTTP? That was the implication of a news article that appeared a couple months ago, but the story overstated matters a bit. As Microsoft XML Web services architect Don Box said in a conversation with me, HTTP is way too pervasive not to dominate Web services for some time now. But it's still a less-than-ideal protocol for much of what's planned for Web services." Editorial at ZDNews.

Apache 2.0 offers numerous enhancements, improvements and performance boosts over the 1.3 codebase. The most visible and noteworthy addition is the ability to run Apache in a hybrid thread/process mode on any platform that supports both threads and processes. This has shown to improve the scalability of the Apache HTTP Server significantly in our testing. Apache 2.0 also includes support for filtered I/O. This allows modules to modify the output of other modules before it is sent to the client. There is also support for IPv6 on any platform that supports IPv6. This version of Apache is known to work on many versions of Unix, BeOS, OS/2, Windows, and Netware.

"Anyone made leery by the unfulfilled promises of the dot-com era may feel skeptical, or at least confused, about Web services, the latest wave of innovation on the Internet. Sky-high expectations and reams of hype are too often the death knell for emerging technologies. Will this one be any different?" Read the rest of the story at C|Net News.com.

"Whether you're an administrator or a developer, you must understand what's in store for you when you start using Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0, which ships as part of the Windows .NET Server product line. The key interests of developers and administrators alike include security, stability, scalability, and programmability. Here's how IIS addresses those needs". Read the interesting review at .NETMag, while you can also similar explore interesting articles like "Evaluate Windows .NET Server" and "Internet Information Services 6.0 Overview - Beta 3".

Macintosh has iCab, Windows has OffByOne, Linux has Dillo and BeOS has NetOptimist. These are home brewed, coded-from-scratch web browsers. NetOptimist was created to replace NetPositive (a Netscape 2+ compliant browser which is still the default BeOS web browser) and add more capabilities like Javascript and CSS. There is still lots of work to be done, so the main developer, Stephane Fritsch, asks for more developers to join him. Stephane has also made a preliminary port of the browser to Solaris/X11. Check out the screenshots at the SourceForge NetOptimist web site and download version Preview 14 from BeBits.

BeServed is a native network file system for BeOS. It allows you to share files between computers running BeOS. You can connect to (i.e., mount) folders from remote computers and access files just as if those files were local to your computer. Unlike NFS and CIFS, BeServed supports all the unique benefits of the Be File System (BFS), such as attributes, MIME-based typing, indexes, querying etc. (BFS features are only available on the BeOS platform; foreign versions of the file server do no yet support attributes, indexing, etc.) BeServed includes a network browsing application called 'My Network', which lists the available computers on your network in much the same way as Microsoft's Network Neighborhood. The company now ported their product to Solaris, following releases of Linux & Windows.

"We've discussed sharing filesystems via SMB a few times. SMB lets you access files shared by a Windows system after jumping through only half a dozen loops. Sharing files with another Unix system is much, much simpler. FreeBSD supports the Unix standard Network File System out of the box. NFS intimidates many junior system administrators, but it's really quite simple once you know what's going on." Read the rest of the article at O'Reilly's BSD column.

Irish asks: "As the arguement over wireless LAN standards continue, The New York Times ran an article announcing Palm's release of its Bluetooth Software Developer Kit and vowed to release hardware in the fall. On a similar note, alphaWorks released a Bluetooth Protocol Stack for Linux, BlueDrekar. My question is, "is anyone using Bluetooth with their Linux system?".

Galeon 1.0, the browser that utilizes the Mozilla engine but in a lightweight fashion, was released recently and the LinuxLaboratory feature a quick review of the application. In related news, Opera Software announced the Opera 6 TechPreview version for Linux.

Covalent Technologies will release its long-awaited version 2.0 of the Apache Web server software Monday--ahead of software from the larger Apache project itself. Apache 2.0 initially was expected by the end of 2000 but only entered beta testing in April 2001. Covalent decided version 2.0 was ready for prime time, said Jim Zemlin, vice president of marketing.

John Everitt writes: "This is an opinion page, it is riddled with minor inconsistencies and represents nobody's opinion other than my own. Some of it is not based on hard evidence, but observation and wit. If you don't like that stop reading here. Freenet is a realisation of many concepts that have been floated in the charged ether of the Internet. It is a distributed, survivable, efficient, secure publishing and storage system. In practice this has proven largely true, with minor caveats (documented in the FAQ), and I believe that Freenet should be a discussion point for everyone."

The cable industry is almost ready to certify DOCSIS 2.0 (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification). The new specification, which uses A-TDMA and S-CDMA technology, promises to increase cable modem bandwidth by as much as 300%, particularly upstream bandwidth. Unfortunately, the hardware to support it is a year away.