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Monthly Archive:: April 2007

Firefox ‘Gran Paradiso’ Alpha 4 Available for Testing

"Gran Paradiso Alpha 4 is now available for testing. New features in this development milestone of Mozilla Firefox 3 include the FUEL JavaScript library for extension developers, a redesigned Page Info window, improvements to offline application support and Gecko 1.9 bug fixes. Several Mac OS X additions have also been made, including support for Growl notifications, improvements to the Cocoa user interface and an initial version of the Breakpad crash reporting tool."

Ask OSNews: What’s Your Favorite Movie?

From time to time, we like take a break from technology news to query our readers to find out details about our community. Previously, we asked you to show us your desktop. This time, we ask "What's your favorite movie?" Is it sci-fi or comedy? Action or maybe drama? Share your favorites so we can check them out! I'll start: while I'm tempted to say The Red Violin, I'm not sure there's a better screenplay than The Usual Suspects.

Yet Another Review of Ubuntu Feisty Fawn

"Another six months, another release from the Ubuntu folks. The Ubuntu 7.04 release, better known as Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, is another cutting-edge, but not bleeding-edge, release that shows what Linux is capable of on the desktop. I've been running it since the early betas, and have found that it's the best Ubuntu release yet." Read more at Newsforge. And another article, Vista vs. Ubuntu and its rebuttal.

Microsoft: ‘Malware Will Thrive, Even with Vista’s UAC’

Despite all the anti-malware roadblocks built into Windows Vista, a senior Microsoft official is lowering the security expectations, warning that viruses, password-stealing Trojans and rootkits will continue to thrive as malware authors adapt to the new operating system. "There is no guarantee that malware can't hijack the elevation process or compromise an elevated application," Russinovich said after providing a blow-by-blow description of how UAC works in tandem with Internet Explorer (with Protected Mode) to limit the damage from malicious files. Even in a standard user world, he stressed that malware can still read all the user's data; can still hide with user-mode rootkits; and can still control which applications (anti-virus scanners) the user can access.

How Did We All End up with Windows?

"It's amazing how many people who have Microsoft Windows everywhere look flummoxed when asked whether Windows is their "standard" for desktop computing. The reason they are thrown by this question is typically because they haven't thought about it that way before. In all likelihood, they never actually made a proactive decision to select Windows, in the sense of looking at alternatives and making a conscious objective choice. So how did they end up with it?"

How to Install VMware Server on Debian 4.0

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions about how to install the free VMware Server (version 1.0.2) on a Debian Etch system. With VMware Server you can create and run guest operating systems (virtual machines) such as Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, etc. under a host operating system. This has the benefit that you can run multiple operating systems on the same hardware which saves a lot of money, and you can move virtual machines from one VMware Server to the next one (or to a system that has the VMware Player which is also free). Also, VMware acquired the VDI provider Propero.

Oracle Linux Gets Backing From EMC, Others

It was another small step forward for Oracle Enterprise Linux this week as a handful of ISVs pledged support, but it's still a long road ahead for the Red Hat clone. Says searchenterpriselinux, "The news came a day after Oracle announced that a handful of other hardware ISVs had also pledged to support its brand of Linux. For Tony Iams, a senior analyst with Rye Brooke, N.Y.-based Ideas International Ltd., the news was indicative of an upward trend for the company's Linux distribution, which was launched in October."

Mandriva Linux 2007.1 PowerPack, Discovery/LX review

"After making a lot of progress with Mandriva Linux 2007, I thought perhaps Mandriva had turned over a new leaf, and was using that release as a starting point for an overall better quality operating environment. I was totally wrong. Both the PowerPack Edition and Discovery/LX have slid so far back with version 2007.1 that I have serious doubts as to the future of Mandriva's viability as a commercial desktop operating system." Read more at SoftwareInReview.