Monthly Archive:: January 2009

Palm’s Card-Based Interface Paradigm

Thom Holwerda 2009-01-09 Graphics 41 Comments

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is filled to the brim with product announcements and new useful (and useless) gadgets, but some stand out more than others. One item that topped the headlines the past few days is Palm's announcement of its brand new operating system.

Submitted by amjith 2009-01-09 Google 56 Comments

Google has barely released Chrome 1.0, but the company is already hard at work on version 2.0 of its web browser. They released a pre-beta for Chrome 2.0, which comes with a lot of new features, including ones that should've already been in Chrome 1.0. In addition, it seems as if the Mac and Linux versions of Chrome are getting closer.

Guest post by weildish 2009-01-09 Humor 4 Comments

A recent YouTube video by Sun's Fishworks Lab's Brendan Gregg proves that vibrations (including shouting) will cause hard drives' latency to spike. But then, he only shouted at it angrily. Who's to say that perhaps blasting Mozart in your server room will cause the latency to drop? Perhaps telling each hard drive that he or she is special may even make their capacities grow!

Palm Announces iPhone, Android Competitor

Eugenia Loli 2009-01-08 Wireless 27 Comments

Palm announced today the Palm Pre, the company's next generation Linux-based web tech-enabled operating system. It has a fast CPU, Wifi, Bluetooth with A2DP support, removable battery, 3.1" touchscreen 480x320 LCD, gesture-enabled UI at the bottom half of the phone's body, 3 MP camera with LED flash, multi-touch, accelerometer, slide-out keyboard, GPS, EVDO, and an impressive, fresh UI. Sprint will be the first carrier to sell the smartphone, at the first half of 2009. ArsTechnica has a nice write-up too.

Eeebuntu 2.0 SD Card Installation on the Aspire One

Guest post by Gary Rennie 2009-01-08 Ubuntu 22 Comments

To supplement storage space with the initial purchase of the Aspire One (8 GB SSD version), I bought a 16 GB Transcend TS16GBSDHC6 card that integrates nicely into the left card slot. The pre-installed Linux Linpus just wasn't what I needed since I use many networking tools at work and at home. I initially ran Ubuntu 8.041 with the /home partition on the 16 GB SDHC card. I discovered Eeebuntu while searching for information on how to boot and run Linux off a SDHC card. The goal was of multi-boot installations of Ubuntu, with one install specifically loaded with the tools I use at work. The Acer Aspire One BIOS does not 'see' the card, so you can't boot from it using the startup key (More on the SDHC boot up further in this article).

From Parallel SCSI to Serial SCSI

Thom Holwerda 2009-01-08 Hardware 5 Comments

SCSI (Small Computer System Interface), often called parallel SCSI, is almost 30 years old and can hardly keep up with the demands of today's IT environment. Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) was developed to address the limitations inherent in SCSI. This article highlights the differences between these two interfaces and points out the attributes that account for the increasing popularity of SAS.

Windows 7 Beta Released

Thom Holwerda 2009-01-08 Windows 47 Comments

Even though the Windows 7 beta had been available on piracy networks for a while now, it still hadn't been officially released. During his pre-show keynote at CES, Steve Ballmer officially launched the Windows 7 beta onto the world via TechNet, MSDN, and Connect. It will become available to the general public this Friday.

FSF, SGI Cooperated to Resolve Licensing Issue in X.org, Mesa

Thom Holwerda 2009-01-08 Open Source 81 Comments

Thanks to SGI, a potential disaster for Free software purists has been averted. Back in January 2008, it was discovered by the OpenBSD guys that some of the contributions to X.org and the Mesa 3D Graphics Library made by SGI were covered under permissive open source licenses that didn't fall within FSF's definition of Free software. The FSF Compliance Lab worked with SGI to resolve the issue, and they succeeded.

OLPC Downsizes Half of Its Staff, Cuts Sugar Development

Thom Holwerda 2009-01-07 Hardware 7 Comments

The One Laptop Per Child project announced Wednesday that it plans to downsize half of its staff and reduce the salary of the remaining employees. OLPC will also halt its development of the open source Sugar environment and focus on building its next-generation hardware device. These plans are part of a major restructuring effort that has been necessitated by the financial downturn and the organization's dwindling resources.

Trends Are Cyclical: the Asus Eee Keyboard

Thom Holwerda 2009-01-07 Hardware 33 Comments

Asus' success with its Eee line of netbooks might have come as a surprise, but the company is now determined to expand the Eee brand into every possible niche and form factor. Case in point: the insanely cool Eee Keyboard, which will surely bring a smile on the faces of those who remember the glory days of the home computer.

Where Is Snow Leopard?

Thom Holwerda 2009-01-07 macOS 31 Comments

At ladt night's MacWorld keynote, Apple's last, one product in particular shone in absense: Mac OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard. Many had expected Apple to give out more details regarding its new operating system, maybe even a release date or a developer preview. Instead, all they got was nothing. Some say it's a mistake not to show off Snow Leopard now that Windows 7 is stealing all the thunder. Or is it?

Guest post by weildish 2009-01-07 Apple 4 Comments

At MacWorld, Apple announced its new iWork.com beta, a Google-Docs-esque online collaboration application to work closely with the original iWork program to share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with others. When beta testing is over, it will be a paid service (though the monthly price as of yet hasn't been released), much unlike Google Docs, which is free.

The Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade Program

Thom Holwerda 2009-01-06 Windows 37 Comments

Tech ARP has a collection of dates regarding Microsoft's update program. The upgrade program concerns upgrade paths from Windows Vista to Windows 7, and basically entails that when you buy a Windows Vista machine after July 1 2009, you will get a free upgrade to Windows 7 once it's released. The data also confirm a number of versions for Windows 7.

Guest post by Moochman 2009-01-06 Wireless 6 Comments

Amidst the hubbub over MacWorld 2009, El Reg quietly noted that the company UIQ, the joint venture of Sony Ericsson and Motorola and eponymous creator of the UIQ interface layer for the Symbian smartphone OS, has filed for bankruptcy in the Swedish courts.

Submitted by jptros 2009-01-06 macOS 10 Comments

At the MacWorld Expo today in San Fransisco, Apple announced new versions of iWork and iLife, as well as an updated 17" MacBook Pro, which promises a battery life of 7-8 hours. More interesting, however, is the fact that yesterday was Mac OS X Server's 10th birthday.

Guest post by weildish 2009-01-06 Editorial 31 Comments

If you live in the United States, then it's almost certain you've heard about this big digital switch that public television is making due to a new US law. If you live outside of the US, I bet you've heard of it anyway since we like to let people know what we're up to. The big day that's coming up -- February 17th, 2009 -- that magical date when all television stations will historically abandon the infamous analog broadcasting for greener, digital pastures -- didn't strike fear into the hearts at my household. We rarely utilize the antenna, and then only two to four times a year for a special program. Nonetheless, we got our hands on one of those nifty coupons anyway and went out to purchase a digital converter for the sake of those few intrinsic public broadcats. Read on for the whole story.

Whitix 0.2 Released

Submitted by Matthew Whitworth 2009-01-06 OS News 30 Comments

Despite what the project name's suffix might imply, Whitix is in fact not a Linux distribution. Whitix is a new operating system, written from scratch, and aims to combine the stability of UNIX with the user friendliness of other platforms. "It will offer a consistent, clear interface and a new way to navigate the desktop while basing the fundamentals on proven system technology updated for the twenty-first century." The project released version 0.2 today.

Microsoft Moves Macs Closer to PC Parity

Thom Holwerda 2009-01-06 Microsoft 5 Comments

Microsoft has announced two products designed to provide users of Office 2008 for Mac with improved access to existing server-based Microsoft services. The first of the two, Microsoft Entourage for Exchange Web Services, will be a free upgrade to Entourage 2008 for Mac that will enable that email, contacts, and calendaring client to more fully benefit from the Exchange Web Services built into Exchange Server 2007. The second, Microsoft Document Collaboration Companion for Mac, will be a free Cocoa-based companion app to Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac that's designed to improve document-management control for Mac users of Microsoft's SharePoint Server document-sharing technology. The app will work whether document sharing is provided by enterprise SharePoint Servers, third-party leased or subscription-based SharePoint services, or Microsoft's free (for now, at least) consumer and small-business oriented Office Live Workspace.

Debian 5 Release Approaches… Binary Blobs Included

Thom Holwerda 2009-01-06 Debian 16 Comments

"The developers behind the Debian Linux distribution are preparing for the upcoming release of Debian 5, which is codenamed Lenny. The decision to move forward with the release follows a contentious vote over whether to permit the inclusion of binary blobs in the new version of the distribution. Consensus coalesced around a controversial proposal to "assume blobs comply with the GPL unless proven otherwise."

Freescale To Take on Intel’s Atom in Netbook Market

Submitted by caffeine deprived 2009-01-06 Hardware 48 Comments

It seems that after Intel, just about every chip maker wants a piece of the netbook pie. AMD is an obvious competitor, but VIA is also eyeing the little notebooks. However, more exotic options like the Chinese Loongson chips and ARM's Cortex A-8 and A-9 chips are also among the contenders. We can now add a new contender: Freescale.