Thom Holwerda Archive

Even as Microsoft's low-cost version of Windows reaches more corners of the globe, some analysts are wondering whether it is hitting the mark. Especially the fact that this version can only open three windows at a time, amazes analysts. Elsewhere, MS has quietly released its Desktop Search APIs.

Following yesterday's article, in what will become a long string of articles on this subject, Tom Adelstein has uncovered a plethora of new information on the trail between Microsoft and government officials.

For the past several weeks, I've been running my home office LAN exclusively on SUSE 9.3 Professional. I found this latest version, released in March, to be an excellent implementation of the Linux operating system. It brings Linux's levels of ease of use and configurability to an all-time high.

There are increasing rumors that Alpha might be brought back to life. The Inq sets the big 'if' aside and explores the possiblities: "What if there really is a will to get Alpha back into the changed market? What sort of chip would it have to be to have that good chance of success, if any?"

WalterCon 2005, the second annual North American conference for Haiku developers, users, and enthusiasts will be taking place Saturday, August 6, and Sunday, August 7, 2005.

Looking forward to getting your hands on a Cell workstation? We were too -- until we talked to Linux for Cell kernel maintainer Arnd Bergmann. Learn about programming for Cell in general and for Linux for Cell in particular, and why the "workstation" that has been described in the press is more of a prototype Blade board, and a bit of a misunderstanding, in this Q & A session.

Microsoft Corp. is taking a new tact with its Windows XP Starter Edition campaign. On Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled in Mexico City the newest member of its Starter Edition family: Windows XP Starter Edition in Spanish.

Novell Inc. announced Tuesday open beta availability of the latest version of its groupware program, Novell GroupWise 7. The new edition of GroupWise comes with an integrated e-mail and instant messaging interface, enhanced Outlook XP and 2003 support, and a bundled copy of SLES 9 (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server) to run it on.

Richard Stallman explains why the European parliament should vote to keep software patents invalid: "Microsoft will be one of thousands of foreign software patent holders that will bring their patents over to Europe to sue the software developers and computer users there. Of the 50,000-odd putatively invalid software patents issued by the European Patent Office, around 80% do not belong to Europeans."

I have been using Open Office for about 8 months now for my word processing needs. In a nutshell I am satisfied. Last week the version 2.0 was released, I downloaded it as soon as it was made available, on first view, even though the key functionality in version 2.0 Beta remains largely intact, it promises dozens, possibly hundreds, of changes.

"We've all had this nightmare. You turn on your functioning Windows/Linux PC, and all you get is a blank screen, or a message telling you that certain files are missing, or the kernel has panicked for some obscure reason. Nothing works, and you need the data on your machine." A Linux rescue-cd is the solution.

A review of PC-BSD: "Now and then a new wind comes along in the ebb and flow of Linux distributions. OK, so I know PC-BSD is not Linux, but it's close enough. It's fair to say without going into technicalities and politics that BSD and Linux are cousins in the operating system world."

FUDCon 2, the second gathering of Fedora Users and Developers, has been held at LinuxTag, on the 24th and 25th of June in Karlsruhe, Germany. FUDCon 2 features presentations from prominent members of the Fedora Project, both from Red Hat and from the Fedora community. LinuxTag also has a nice write-up of FUDCon 2. The presentations are expected to be made available on the FUDcon pages soon.

With just two days to go before the expiration of mainstream support for Microsoft's Windows 2000 operating system, the software giant has provided an update rollup with more than 50 security patches and system reliability fixes. The Microsoft knowledgebase article provides more info.