Monthly Archive:: August 2007

SkyOS beta 6762 has been released. "SkyOS Beta 6762 is now available to download directly from the Beta Center. This build features the new Viewer, a huge performance increase, 36 additional API Classes, updated libraries, a new font alpha blending method, 280+ fixed bugs including critical boot bug fixes."

Continuing their historical series looking at the early Linux kernels, KernelTrap is discussing the 0.02 and 0.03 kernels released in late 1991. Though the actual source code has been lost to time, the article offers an interesting collection of emails by Linux creator Linus Torvalds about his new operating system, 'for hackers by a hacker.' Version 0.02 was the first usable release, gaining the ability to run programs such as gcc if compiled on Minix. Version 0.03 fixed buffer-cache issues that made it possible to compile gcc from Linux. Interestingly enough, at this point Linus thought of Linux as a short-lived project saying, "wait for Hurd if you want something real. It's fun hacking it, though (but I'm biased)."

"The advent of Vista and Mac OS X, along with the ascension of Linux, add new dimensions to a long-time controversy. Now more than ever before, the Mac OS is the most cost effective operating system of all."

"At the Blackhat conference, Window Snyder and Mike Shaver of Mozilla released new tools for testing their browser - Firefox - and other popular browsers, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Apple Safari and Opera. The tools include a protocol fuzzer by Michael Eddington and a Javascript fuzzer by Jesse Ruderman. Fuzzing is a method by which researchers randomly simulate common conditions under which most browsers fail.

A free Gnome-based Linux distribution for mobile devices such as smartphones and PDAs has achieved a major release. OpenedHand's Poky Linux 3.0 ("Blinky") is based on X11, GTK+, and the Matchbox window manager, much like the Nokia-sponsored Maemo.org project. However, in place of the proprietary Hildon GUI layer, it includes a new "Sato 0.1" plain GTK+ component.

"In all the excitement about Vista Service Pack 1 betas that were imminent and then not so imminent, the company continues to release patches to select groups of testers. Most recently a group of patches appeared on Windows Connect, the online downloading service Microsoft provides for a select group of beta testers. Only testers of Windows Server 2008 beta were allowed to download the patches, but they are aimed at Vista as well."

The commonwealth of Massachusetts has officially thrown its weight behind Microsoft's Office Open XML format along with the OASIS Open Document Format. In July, the commonwealth added Microsoft's format, also known as Ecma-376 or Open XML, to the list of approved standards in a draft of the Massachusetts ETRM, an architectural framework used to identify the standards, specifications and technologies that support Massachusetts' computing environment.

Acer is planning to sell Linux-based PCs to the UK market, the company told ZDNet.co.uk. On Thursday Acer contacted ZDNet.co.uk with the following statement: "At this moment in time Acer UK does not have a PC available with Linux pre-loaded, but we are looking at introducing one in the future." This appears to represent a reversal of Acer's previous statements on the matter, which suggested that the manufacturer had no plans to sell PCs here with a pre-installed open-source operating system.

Google has developed a prototype cell phone that could reach markets within a year, and plans to offer consumers free subscriptions by bundling advertisements with its search engine, e-mail and Web browser software applications, according to a story of The Wall Street Journal. More info here and here.

Five weeks later than planned, the KDE project has released KDE 4.0 Beta 1. "The KDE Community is happy to announce the immediate availability of the first Beta release for KDE 4.0. This release marks the beginning of the integration process which will bring the powerful new technologies included in the now frozen KDE 4 libraries to the applications." Update: Screenshots.

Microsoft says it will be forced to delay Office 2008 for Mac, the next version of its productivity suite for Apple Inc. computers, until early next year. The company had been planning to release the product this year. But a recent development review showed that "the quality just wasn't where we wanted it to be," said Craig Eisler, who became general manager of Microsoft's Mac Business Unit in June.

Let's back up for a moment. It's 2007. Most geeks like you and me already use dual monitor setups with their multi-purpose desktop machines. However, have you ever asked yourself if that second monitor should be that old XGA LCD monitor from your previous PC, or a big, impressive flat panel television? Geeks.com sent us in an iLO 32" HDTV and we review it exactly as such: a computer monitor!

Some of the concerns expressed about CFS were reports that it might not handle 3D games as well as the SD scheduler. In a recent thread, Ingo Molnar noted, "people are regularly testing 3D smoothness, and they find CFS good enough and that matches my experience as well (as limited as it may be). In general my impression is that CFS and SD are roughly on par when it comes to 3D smoothness." He noted that all known regressions were reported against earlier versions of CFS that had long since been fixed, and that he was very interested in any new reports of regressions against the current version of the code, "there are no open 3D related regressions for CFS at the moment." Ingo then offered benchmarks illustrating the improved 3D performance of CFS, with numbers showing it to perform as well and in some cases considerably better than the SD scheduler.

"Is it game over for OpenDocument? Probably. We've been expecting Massachusetts ITD to publicly revise its open formats mandate to include Office Open XML ever since Louis Gutierrez resigned as CIO in early October 2006. That was as clear a signal that ODF had failed in Massachusetts as needed by anyone in the know."