Monthly Archive:: October 2007

Apple Publishes Leopard Guided Tour

Submitted by PowerMacX 2007-10-21 macOS 71 Comments

Apple posted a Leopard guided tour video, in the same format as the earlier iPhone and iPod Touch guided tours. It mentions the new Finder, stacks, Time Machine, Quick Look, Spaces, and so on. In Quicktime, of course.

DOS Lives: Secrets of the Windows Command Prompt

Submitted by Inkslinger77 2007-10-21 Windows 52 Comments

"Buried deep within Windows' bosom is a carbon-crusted fossil from the ancient days of computing. This aged wart on Windows' soul harkens back to a more primitive time, when computers lacked the oomph to go graphical and mice were nothing but rodents. I speak of the command prompt, whose roots lie in DOS, that antique operating system of the 1980s. DOS is gone now. Yet despite Windows' glorious graphical goodness, a wispy memory of text-based computer life still exists. It's a program called CMD.EXE, and it appears in Windows as the command prompt window. Believe it or not, the command prompt to this day still serves as a useful alternative way to control your computer. Indeed, there are some things you can do in the command prompt window that in Windows' graphical interface are tedious, slow or darn near impossible. Come with me as we discover how an old warhorse like DOS can once again find purpose."

Ubuntu 7.10 with WINE vs. Windows XP

Submitted by Michael 2007-10-21 Benchmarks 71 Comments

"This week's release of Ubuntu 7.10 is a significant win for the free software community. Not only does this release incorporate an updated package set - most notably with the Linux 2.6.22 kernel and GNOME 2.20, but it also delivers on new desktop innovations from BulletProofX and displayconfig-gtk to Compiz Fusion being enabled by default on supported systems. However, for those business professionals and gamers that remain dependent on some Windows-only binary applications, the WINE project has been making some excellent headway into supporting Windows applications on the Linux desktop. With Ubuntu 7.10 and WINE 0.9.46 in hand, we had set out to compare the performance between Windows XP and Gutsy Gibbon with WINE on two popular DirectX benchmarks."

xmonad 0.4 Released

Thom Holwerda 2007-10-19 Desktop environments 13 Comments

xmonad 0.4 has been released. "xmonad is a tiling window manager for X. Windows are arranged automatically to tile the screen without gaps or overlap, maximising screen use. Window manager features are accessible from the keyboard: a mouse is optional. xmonad is written, configured and extensible in Haskell. Custom layout algorithms, key bindings and other extensions may be written by the user in Haskell, in config files. Window layouts are applied dynamically, and different layouts may be used on each workspace. Xinerama is fully supported, allowing windows to be tiled across several physical screens."

States Ask for Microsoft Oversight Until 2012

Submitted by D. Suse 2007-10-19 Legal 72 Comments

A group of state attorneys general urged a federal judge on Tuesday to hold Microsoft to a 2002 antitrust settlement another five years so that the company can't stymie embryonic Web 2.0 rivals of its Windows operating system. According to six states - California, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota and Massachusetts - and the District of Columbia, Microsoft could use its Internet Explorer browser as a 'chokepoint' to block moves that might unseat Windows dominant position on the desktop.

Submitted by irbis 2007-10-19 BSD & Darwin 13 Comments

"10 Years ago - on October 3rd 1997 - the pkgsrc software management system was created by Alistair Crooks and Hubert Feyrer. pkgsrc, the NetBSD Packages Collection, was intended primarily as a packaging system for NetBSD. Derived from the FreeBSD Ports system, pkgsrc became a success story. Today, pkgsrc is a cross-platform framework, running on the BSDs, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, many Unix derivatives, and even on QNX and Windows. Ports- and pkgsrc-like software build frameworks are today standard on the BSDs and quite popular on some newer Linux distributions. In 2005 pkgsrc was adopted as the package management system for DragonFly BSD. Presently, pkgsrc provides more than 7300 stable packages. We continue the anniversary celebrations with a series of interviews: developers and users of pkgsrc and of related systems give insights into the history, the concepts, the problems and the future directions of packaging systems."

Linux Assemblers: Comparison of GAS, NASM

Submitted by LinucksGirl 2007-10-19 Linux 11 Comments

"This article explains some of the more important syntactic and semantic differences between two of the most popular assemblers for Linux, GNU Assembler and Netwide Assembler, including differences in basic syntax, variables and memory access, macro handling, functions and external routines, stack handling, and techniques for easily repeating blocks of code."

GNOME 2.20.1 Released

Thom Holwerda 2007-10-18 Gnome 22 Comments

GNOME 2.20.1 has been released. "This is the first update to GNOME 2.20.0. The update fixes all known and unknown crashers, even for those modules which haven't released a new version (gnome-terminal)."

Review: Inspiron 1420n with Ubuntu

Thom Holwerda 2007-10-18 Hardware 16 Comments

Ars reviews a Dell Ubuntu laptop, and concludes: "The Dell Inspiron Notebook 1420n with Ubuntu preinstalled delivers software freedom and solid value. For serious Linux enthusiasts who are already comfortable handling the various idiosyncrasies of the platform, Dell's preloaded Ubuntu laptop is a practical and cost-effective choice that eliminates the need to perform a manual installation and provides Linux users with a means of dodging the odious Windows tax. Although I consider this product a strong buy for experienced Linux users, I don't recommend it (yet) for users who aren't already familiar with the operating system. Ubuntu's prodigious ease of use is diminished by a litany of frustrating minor hardware support problems that many average computer users will not be inclined to resolve."

Firefox 3 To Go Native in Appearance

Thom Holwerda 2007-10-18 Mozilla, Gecko 64 Comments

"What do you get when you cross a Firefox with a chameleon? An open-source Web browser whose user interface is adapted to the look of the operating system it's running on. One change planned for the upcoming Firefox version 3, code-named Gran Paradiso, is this more native appearance."

Submitted by DigitalDame 2007-10-18 Windows 22 Comments

PCMag takes a look at the Windows XP SP3 beta. "There's very little new here, but SP3 increases security and collects all those hundreds of hotfixes you might have been too busy (or cautious) to keep downloading. But make sure you understand the compatibility issues before applying SP3."

The House of the Future

David Adams 2007-10-18 Office 31 Comments

Remember those great "home of the future" demonstrations from days past? If you're not old enough to remember them from world fairs, Disneyland, or movie newsreels, you've probably seen the cartoons parodying them: Robotic maids, self-cleaning kitchens, futuristic-looking plastic furniture, dehydrated food; everything white, round, and sparkling. Well, it's the future now, and it didn't exactly turn out the way they thought it would, but thanks to ubiquitous computer technology, today's home can have capabilities that futurists 50 years ago would never have imagined.

Ubuntu 7.10 Released

Submitted by Witek Wasilewski 2007-10-18 Ubuntu 96 Comments

Ubuntu 7.10 has been released. "Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop Edition adds an enhanced user interface, improved hardware support, multiple monitor support and integrated desktop search. Ubuntu 7.10 Server Edition features improved functionality, manageability, pro-active security and hardware compatibility and delivers a rapid deployment platform for developers and businesses. New versions of Kubuntu and Edubuntu, derivatives of Ubuntu aimed at KDE enthusiasts and the education community respectively, are also being released at the same time." And a review. Update: One more review.

Submitted by diegocg 2007-10-17 KDE 81 Comments

The KDE Projects is announcing the third beta of its future KDE 4.0 platform. "This Beta has mostly been focussing on finalizing the design of the libraries in preparation for the release of the KDE Development Platform. Yet, many user-visible changes have gotten in as well. While new features and usability improvements were added, bugs were found and fixed in KDE and the stability of Beta 3 has improved much compared to the previous Betas. With the third Beta, the KDE project has begun to finalize KDE 4.0."

‘Linspire 6: Two Steps Back’

Thom Holwerda 2007-10-17 Linspire 32 Comments

"Former Linspire CEO Kevin Carmony was pretty gung-ho about the company's upcoming release back in June. He said it would 'fill some key holes in our current offering'. Unfortunately Linspire 6, released last week, lacks the refinements you'd expect in a distro you pay USD 50 to download. It drops some key distinguishing features, and in return gains only some Microsoft technology as spelled out in the Microsoft patent covenants Linspire agreed to. This release seems to be about deferring to Microsoft."

Submitted by meianoite 2007-10-17 Apple 57 Comments

Steve Jobs announced today that Apple will release an SDK for native apps next February, but it will take measures similar to Nokia's for Symbian 60 regarding digital signatures on these apps.

Nokia Announces the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet

Eugenia Loli 2007-10-17 Wireless 30 Comments

Nokia today introduced the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, signifying a new phase in portable internet communication. Sporting Bluetooth 2.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g connectivity, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a full-fledged web browser, there's only one thing missing: WiMAX. However, a WiMAX version of the N810 will be coming next year. In the meantime, the N810's Wi-Fi connectivity will provide Internet access through hotspots as well as home and office networks, including via Boingo Mobile. Applications compiled for the previous two Internet Tablet models will not be compatible with this one. This hurt the N800 a lot too, because most developers didn't care to re-compile their apps as they kept their N770. Hopefully this is the last time Nokia breaks compatibility.

KDE 3.5.8 Released

Thom Holwerda 2007-10-16 KDE 71 Comments

The KDE team has released KDE 3.5.8, a maintenance release. New stuff: "Improvements in Konqueror and its web browsing component KHTML. Bugs in handling HTTP connections have been fixed, KHTML has improved support of some CSS features for more standards compliance. In the kdegraphics package, lots of fixes in KDE's PDF viewer and Kolourpaint, a painting application, went into this release. The KDE PIM suite has, as usual, seen numerous stability fixes, covering KDE's email client KMail, the organizer application KOrganizer and various other bits and pieces."

Submitted by Valour 2007-10-16 Mandriva, Mandrake, Lycoris 19 Comments

"Mandriva Linux has a history of inconsistency; one release will be superb, and the next one will be so bug-ridden and feature-weak that it's unusable. The only commonality among all releases are the excellent system configuration tools, which have continued to evolve over the years to match an increasing level of complexity in the desktop software stack. True to form, Mandriva 2008.0 is an excellent release, following the terrible 2007.1, and the just as excellent 2007.0. Some of the important things that were dropped from the previous release (Cedega, LinDVD) are back, and some of the problems (huge K menu button, cluttered menus) have been mitigated."

Submitted by Rahul 2007-10-16 Open Source 91 Comments

"Acting on the advice of the License Approval Chair, the OSI Board today approved the Microsoft Public License and the Microsoft Reciprocal License. The decision to approve was informed by the overwhelming (though not unanimous) consensus from the open source community that these licenses satisfied the 10 criteria of the Open Source definition, and should therefore be approved."