Monthly Archive:: September 2007

LXer interviews Benedikt Meurer, a developer of the Xfce project. "One of advantages over KDE and GNOME is the simplicity. You can still get to know the code base in less than a week and you are able to understand the basic design decisions. This way, Xfce 4.x has still a lot of potential, while the major desktop environments are in need for a rewrite (KDE already started the rewrite, a lot of GNOME contributors/maintainers are voting for a 3.0 rewrite)."

GNOME 2.20 has been released. "The improvements in GNOME 2.20 include: Improved support for right-to-left languages; desktop search integrated into the file chooser dialog; convenient new features in the Evolution email and calendar client; enhanced browsing of image collections; simplified system preferences; efficient power management and incredibly accurate laptop battery monitoring. Developers receive more help with application development thanks to a new version of the GTK+ toolkit, improved tools, and a great new documentation web site."

"The next step in the silicon industry's steadfast pursuit of ever smaller and faster chips has been unveiled. Intel has shown off what it says are the world's first working chips which contain transistors with features just 32 billionths of a metre wide. Their production means the industry axiom that has underpinned all chip development for the last 40 years, known as Moore's Law, remains intact. Speaking to BBC News, Dr Gordon Moore said that he expected the proposition that bears his name should continue 'for at least another decade'."

"Slackintosh was a little-known PPC port of Slackware Linux which after some years of development was put on indefinite hiatus. Adrian Ulrich has recently restarted the project and is again providing (together with Marco Bonetti) a Slackware distribution for Apple (and non-Apple) RISC-powered hardware. We contacted him for a short interview to ask him what happened, what is his role and what is the distribution’s status."

Intel and others plan to release a new version of the ubiquitous Universal Serial Bus technology in the first half of 2008, a revamp the chip maker said will make data transfer rates more than 10 times as fast by adding fiber-optic links alongside the traditional copper wires. Intel is working with fellow USB 3.0 Promoters Group members Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, NEC and NXP Semiconductors to release the USB 3.0 specification in the first half of 2008, said Pat Gelsinger, general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, in a speech here at the Intel Developer Forum.

Microsoft is making the third service pack for Office 2003 available for free download Sept. 18, which the company says strengthens the product's defenses against malicious software. "While SP3 will be available as a free download on Sept. 18, customers will also begin to get notified of its availability via Microsoft's AutoUpdate over the next few weeks," a Microsoft spokesperson told eWEEK.

"Before I launch into my tirade, I need to make a confession. I like Vista. I use it daily, but I also use it with the full knowledge that it's a pre-service pack 1 OS from the boys in Redmond. That necessarily means it will have glitches, bugs, and annoyances. That's a given. I'm willing to put up with all those headaches. But there were several things I was really looking forward to in Vista that are simply missing in action or broken. These are features I'd really hope would improve my productivity and make life a little easier."

IBM plans to mount its most ambitious challenge in years to Microsoft's dominance of personal computer software, by offering free programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. Steven A. Mills, senior vice president of IBM's software group, said the programs promote an open-source document format. The company is announcing the desktop software, called IBM Lotus Symphony, at an event today in New York. The programs will be available as free downloads from the IBM Web site.

AMD announced plans to introduce a desktop PC processor with three cores in the first quarter of 2008. The three-core chip will carry the same Phenom brand name that AMD plans to attach to its quad-core desktop chips due to ship to PC companies by the end of this year.

OpenOffice.org 2.3 has been released. "Available for download now, OpenOffice.org 2.3 incorporates an extensive array of new features and enhancements to all its core components, and protects users from newly discovered security vulnerabilities. It is a major release and all users should download it."

At OSNews, we have kept you updated about the Amiga hardware announced by ACK controls. Supposedly ready for shipping in May, we are now in the second half of September, and still no hardware. Interestingly, nor ACK Controls, nor Amiga, Inc., will be present at the upcoming Amiga show Pianeta Amiga - leading to the inevitable conclusion that like so many other announcements in the Amiga world, this one was yet another big puff of air. All hope is not lost, though: ACube Systems has announced the SAM440ep, a PowerPC board, of which industrial versions are already available (according to ACube). The consumer version is supposedly ready to ship starting 22nd September 2007, and interestingly, Hyperion will be present at the ACube booth at Pianeta Amiga. Finally, new Amiga hardware? Seeing is believing, many will say.

"Sun announced Niagara 2 the other day, an evolution of the older Niagara 1, now called the UltraSPARC T1. From the 10000-foot view, it all looks quite familiar, but once you delve into the details, it quickly becomes apparent that almost everything has changed."

Microsoft suffered a stunning defeat on Monday when a European Union court backed a European Commission ruling that the US software giant illegally abused its market power to crush competitors. The European Union's second-highest court dismissed the company's appeal on all substantive points of the 2004 antitrustruling. The court said Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, was unjustified in tying new applications to its Windows operating system in a way that harmed consumer choice. The verdict, which may be appealed only on points of law and not of fact, could force Microsoft to change its business practices.

As some of you may have noticed by now, OSNews has started using icons from the Tango Project to replace many of our old icons. You can spot the new icons conveniently on the topic page. In the Tango icon library we have found numerous icons we could use, but understandably, Tango was not made for OSNews: we cannot replace all the icons we want with Tango icons - yet. And this is where you come into play. So, read on for the rationale behind choosing the Tango icon set, and how you can help us - and win a subscription to our ad-free version!